I really need to stop reading the opinion pieces in the local paper. This gem was written over the weekend. Haven't we learned anything? For those of you that only hear the sunny side of the Bible on Sundays, it does in fact clearly say that women are inferior to men. It also not only advocates slavery but goes so far as to tell us how to treat our slaves. My point in bringing up this fact is that no matter what the religion, people pick and choose what they want to follow. Since that is the case, we're all just expected to follow the parts that you have chosen? We can do better than that.
The Letter:
It is unfathomable to me how the religious right can continue to claim some kind of moral superiority over those who do not see things the way they do. Haven’t we seen this act before? Today’s issue is gay marriage , but you can step through history to see the previous battles.
Five hundred years ago astromoners were imprisoned for saying that the Earth was not the center of the universe because the Bible said it was so. Two hundred years ago people argued that slavery was okay because the Bible said it was so. One hundred years ago people argued that women were not equal to men because the Bible said it was so. It never ceases to amaze me that women and black Americans use the very text that limited their ancestor's freedoms to limit the freedoms of another group.
History does not look well upon those who fought on the wrong side of those battles , yet the same groups fight similar battles today. Exactly what point in history would these groups like to go back to? Pope Benedict regularly lectures the flock against the dangers of “godlessness” yet the vast majority of atrocities committed in human history were committed in the name of religion. If reason, compassion and love are the wrong headings for a moral compass , then I will happily consider myself lost.