Our president was right when he said, “we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation”. We are a country of many religions and people without any religion. The first amendment in the bill of rights states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” Which means they shall make no law that is based on one groups religious beliefs. Christians argue that they own the word marriage and that they are protecting the sanctity of marriage. If marriage is a religious institution the Government should stay out of it. Therefore, I think that the Government should not recognize any marriage. Instead they should recognize the union of a couple to share property, responsibility, and rights granted to, what we now call, married couples. They should grant these rights to any consenting adult couple and call it anything but marriage. Couples could then have a ceremony recognized by their religion or customs. This way everyone will have equal rights, there will be a separation between church and state and marriage will be a personal commitment.
Even though this sounds like a good compromise, I think that this will not resolve the argument. That is because I don’t believe this argument is about the sanctity of a word. I believe it is about one group of people forcing there religious views on the rest of us, in order to deny another group of people from having equal rights. That is exactly what the first part of the first amendment is trying to protect us from.
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I would have to completely agree with you. I also wrote about the seperation of church and state based on the marriage issue. This is just ludicrus that because the majority of americans are christian in one way or another, the politics of it all get caught up with the topic. Just because the christian groups can drum up alot of money in a short amount of time to take on any battle that they choose, why would they lobby in politics. It is sad that there are so many topics that should be addressed when this is an ongoing issue, especially during election years. I grew up Baptist and after I gave up on religion all together I went back and studied different religions and I often wonder what ever happened to the christian belief of forgiveness and accepting people for who they are. To tell you the truth, it never was there. I think that you did a really good job of tying in all the points of equallity from the Bill of Rights and explaining the obvious gaps in coverage.
ReplyDeleteSorry, Soapboxing, but I respectfully disagree.
ReplyDeleteGovernment and society before monotheism was wrought with corruption. Ancient polytheistic civilizations that once ruled the world, such as Greece and Rome, rotted from the inside because of the lack of government and law based on monotheistic morals and values.
Monotheism and "the book (Torah/Bible/Quran)" give an absolute, end-all-be-all moral structure and guide to life. Before this, morals were subject to human error and whims as opposed to divine ordinance. Therefore, since man-(young) boy love was considered more "correct," and desirable than love between a man and wife. In addition, human life had no value. There were bull fights and mass arenas where people fought to the death. Greed and corruption were rampant since morals were not based in any one objective, divine truth, and these societies suffered the consequences by dying.
On the other hand, post-monotheism, government, laws and morals were based on judeo-christian values. Killing, stealing, and cheating were outlawed because they are divinely prohibited. Once there was an objective truth upon which to base a moral, sound, and sustainable government, society began to acculturate to Judeo-Christian values. Since these values are so deeply incorporated into our day to day lives, it is impossible to have government with out religion. Religious law is woven into secular law, and serves as the foundation for temporary morality.
Although there should never be a state religion and explicit religious beliefs should never be imposed on anyone, religion and state are inherently intertwined.