Bashing Organized Religion
As a confirmed atheist, this is not hard for me to do, but I love it when the Catholic Church makes it so simple. In Wednesday’s New York Times there was an article, Vatican Bidding to Get Anglicans to Join Fold that told how “In an extraordinary bid to lure traditionalist Anglicans en masse, the Vatican said Tuesday that it would make it easier for Anglicans uncomfortable with their church’s acceptance of female priests and openly gay bishops to join the Roman Catholic Church while retaining many of their traditions.”
History does love to repeat itself. Think about the Republican Party back in the 60’s during the civil rights movement and its evolved form today. They hate gays, and the words “States Rights” really meant let us discriminate against blacks. It pulled in all those southern Democrats who were concerned about this equal rights stuff whether for gays, women, or people of color. The Catholic Church is taking a page out of their playbook. Come into the fold where it is still okay to hate gays and think women are second-class citizens and you can do it under the guise of religion
Oh, I can hear you now. “Wait a minute. Shouldn’t religious belief be protected and if these beliefs are their holy dogma, shouldn’t we respect it?” In a word, that answer is no. One has to truly wonder about a religion that treats some people as second-class citizens and discriminates against others. One has to wonder why in a world where our understanding of the human condition continually evolves, some organized religion’s views do not. It makes you question their and their God’s ethics, much less their morality. A god who tells me women are second-class citizens and that gays should not have equal rights is a god I would have no use for.
What I find so interesting in our society is that we feel we should be tolerant of this intolerance because of their religious status. Whether it is the Muslim burka, or the Catholic denial of women in the priesthood, it is one and the same thing. Women in their religion are less human than men. We have countries such as France outlawing the wearing of the burka or even headscarves and many think this is a discrimination against the Muslim religion. We even have worse misunderstandings of tolerance in some countries in Europe where beatings of wives or genital mutilation are ignored because it is part of their “culture and religion”. It is the promotion of intolerance by being tolerant of intolerance.
I have no problem with people who distain gays or believe that women should be in a subservient role as long as they are not in a position to propagate their discrimination or to act out their discrimination. If you don’t approve of gay marriage, don’t marry a gay. If you don’t believe in abortion, don’t get one. If you believe that women are subservient to men, well good luck in this society. But if you attempt to promulgate these ideas to enslave others through our tolerance of your religious beliefs, we should show no tolerance.
So here we have the Catholic Church, like the Republican Party saying “bring me your huddled masses of intolerant people. We will shelter you and embrace you. We will reinforce and protect your misguided and damaging intolerance through religious camouflage and the rest of the world’s misunderstanding of tolerance.” Isn’t religion great? Where can we get some more of it?