I’ve been away for awhile and wanted to apologize for the lack of posts. I hope to change that over the next few weeks. When faced with ignorance, bigotry and religious idiocy, there is only so long one can remain silent.

The article to which I owe my current ridicule is found at NARLA’s Religious Liberty site (here). And it pushed me over the edge because in it, author Alan Reinach takes the time to assert the ludicrous idea that same sex marriage actually threatens religious liberty!

Despite his organization’s usual attempt to strengthen the hand of the persecuted minority which would, in turn, strengthen his own hand (he is, after all, a minority too), Reinach appears to have let his jealousy in seeing the small successes of a group he secretly opposes get the best of him. Hell hath no fury like a bigot scorned.

We’re already off to a bad start when he begins his piece with the usual platitudes of “hate the sin, love the sinner” and “I’m not attacking gays as people because Jesus died for them too, [but boy have they got a surprise in store when Jesus comes again]”. But really, when it comes down to it, what do you say to someone who feels morally smug in his own sexual fantasies but still demonizes those whose urges are different from his own? I had to look at my calendar three times while reading his article and remind myself that it wasn’t 1950.

Reinarch makes his point by pointing to a few examples and asking us to take pity on those “persecuted” religious groups like the Catholic adoption agencies that were forced to extend the same rights to homosexual couples wishing to adopt children that they extended to heterosexual couples wishing to adopt after Massachusetts passed a law enabling equal standing for homosexual couples more than a year ago. Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, Vatincan head of the Pontifical Council for the Family was quoted by the Fides news service at the time as saying that allowing homosexuals to adopt children, “would destroy the child’s future, it would be an act of moral violence against the child.”

Notwithstanding his wish that this were so (hint: it isn't), how does any of this qualify as "persecution"? Why don’t we ask him where he got this information? What statistics did he present? What case studies was he referring to? The answers may shock you: it doesn't, nowhere, none, and none--he is simply pulling this opinion out of his ass which was, in turn, brought about because he believes the words of a book that tell him homosexuality is an abomination to the supernatural Being who makes universes.

Reinarch asks us to ponder the question of why this case had to be a zero-sum game. Couldn’t the state have made homosexual-friendly adoption agencies available to the public while allowing private religious groups their right to deny the children in their care access to homes owned by gays? Aside from the absurdity of the idea (a foster care home that doesn’t put its kids into homes), another dimension of the anti-gay argumentation comes to light: if this had been another protected class denied access to services (even privately) because of their gender, race, etc., it would be relatively easy to find the agency withholding the service guilty of discrimination.

For example, could we forgive a Catholic adoption service that refuses to serve blacks? Hell no! How about a Pizza Hut that refuses to serve women? Get outta here! Though farfetched given what homosexuals have had to go through, we may one day even see a situation where a heterosexual couple is denied services on account of their heterosexuality. And, if so, the couple should rightfully win. Why? Because sexuality, whether homo or hetero, is and should be a protected class.

So when Reinach proceeds to tell us that it is wrong to equate the moral position of religious groups with racial segregation in the 1950s, we know he is talking out of his ass. Anyone who has even remotely read speeches and sermons by religious leaders surrounding the “separate but equal” days knows well that many, many Christians felt very comfortable with the ideas presented to them in their Bibles regarding ownership of slaves and the subjugation of races. Indeed, the Bible is rife with such examples and only a modern eye used to having his dogma spoon-fed and interpreted for him could claim otherwise. The analogy of Christian-sponsored segregation/subjugation of 60 years past is a good one because it shows us that religious ideas change in response to public pressures. The pro-racial segregation pushers of yesterday have become the pro-homosexual segregation folk of today. Eventually, even these will migrate to another forum where they can sell their wares of bigotry.

Eventually, Reinach comes clean, albeit through the cloak of religious sentiment. He reveals to us his intentions for homosexuality to not be granted certain fundamental rights. He prefers the practice of private faith to trump the rights of humans wishing to love and be loved. He even smugly hopes that, “Californians will have the opportunity to reaffirm that marriage consists of a man and a woman,” when it comes to the ballot in November.

But why? Why can’t he disagree with homosexuality as a moral position and yet extend to them the same rights that he himself enjoys? If pushed, I have no doubt that he would admit that we live in a secular nation with a secular constitution. And because of that, he would agree that many various activities should be legal even though he wouldn’t do them himself. So why is it so hard for him to empathize and do unto his fellow man what he would wish to be done to himself?

Christianity is indeed bankrupt.