And I ask you to judge:
People should not be denied any personal rights. Part of the reason children are denied the right to sign contracts and to run for office is that they are not considered rational. Religion too, is in many respects, a rejection of reason. I think if necessary I can prove this: religion rejects reason. I think Islam and Christianity would agree that there is no rational proof of God, and I think most would agree that you can only grasp God with the heart, so to speak, rather than with the mind.
Only consider what I mean as if the religious were receiving their privilege from each of US, rather than from our distant parents. Would we be wrong to ask: That if the religious will not be governed by us, and can pick and choose which laws to obey or not, to ask that they govern themselves, and to publish their own laws and live by them? If they will not be governed by us, by any majority of this country of which they are a part, then we should not be governed by them.
If they chose to be a nation within a nation, and a country unto themselves let them not go lawless among us. We have written laws that they reject out of hand. They will do as they please and will only follow our law where they chose. Why should we submit to their political opinion when they refuse ours, and when the privilege we grant to them comes out of our own rights. They say the majority is unfit to govern- which we have no right to say to the religious in power, and which we cannot say because we are underprivileged.
So; will we extend this Civil Privilege of religious freedom knowing this is the destruction of equal civil rights?
We are not wrong to ask for the religious to follow their own reasonable law, and to enforce it, and punish their sinners. If they think it a sin to obey our law, then sin must be lawlessness which no law can make legal. Most people would agree that a sin like murder is also a crime. They hold their sins to be crimes. They say of abortion that you cannot make legal what is a sin, and a sin because it is a crime. This is the law they want; so why not give it to them?
Let them call all of their sins crimes and decide which one are misdemeanors and which are breaches of the peace. Why should we try to enforce law among such people who think they are above the law. The enforcement of law is a major cost to society. It does not help to enforce it against a resistant population. If the religious resist our law let them have their own. If we are willing to make our own law we can make it and enforce it for ourselves at a reduced rate if we do not enforce a minority morality upon the majority.
In the granting of privilege, as it may seem necessary at times to do, the people are right to demand conditions in return. Look at how much people have had to spend in money alone to over come the power of the churches to affect politics -just to have their personal rights, which can never be considered secure while the churches threaten.
If the denominations want their freedom from us, from our democratic power on the basis of sin being as crime; then they should have no part in making our law, for the defense of our rights that they as a matter of principal deny. Their principal is that sin is crime, and should be given no official protection.
I agree that the world would be a better place if people did not in general, sin. Most crimes are sins just because it is universally and culturally resisted bad behavior. If injury results it is certainly a crime or should be; and that is exactly the point. We can afford to prosecute crimes that result in a public injury. We cannot afford to prosecute every sin the religious want to consider as crime. Since they ask a privilege of us which amounts to civil inequality in the making of our laws, and a real injury to this people, The people can say; stay out of our government, and we will stay out of yours, and govern your selves as you see fit, punishing every sin as if a crime, and paying a price in mass Resistance.
I am sure we have much in common, and can live at peace. If we were to divide the land between us, how many would actually want to live in the area of religious control, with every sin a crime? I think most religious people would give up any religious privilege, for religion as a person right. I am certain most people would be happy to pay taxes equally and to follow our laws to avoid religious tyranny. If we declare ourselves free we will have the company of all good and moral people. If we can protect right which very much IS right and IS justice, then our laws will be minimum.
We must have government as a home of reason, of knowledge and foresight. We should never hope to pray ourselves out of problems reason might have prevented. We should never allow God as an excuse to amass wealth untaxed and political power; but we should not stop others inclined to that end from going forth.
This is a free country, and people should be personally free to have a government of their own choice; us and them. We can easier treat with them on trade and commerce if we are in our respective camps. The cure to our social divide which is so costly and bitter- is to divide in fact. Follow your laws as an impossible version of our own where ever you go. And we will follow our laws in our land, and yours in your lands.
Any one can believe as they wish. Religion like so many rights is purely personal. It is based on the fact that no person not free in their own person- is free. Freedom has a lower limit, and that is body of the person. Free people cannot be less free than in complete charge of their own selves. What part of this freedom will we agree to surrender to have religion as a civilly protected privilege? I offer none.
The privileges of church and wealth are paid for out of my rights, and I should see some return on it, or it is a bum deal. People fight and die for these privilege that they most likely will never enjoy, that make their lives worse and harder to come by. Is justice only a dream? There is a good reason these privilege were once granted? Can we not have religion and property as personal rights no better than any one else's right to their peace and property, privacy and happiness?
They ask for a privilege and I set you up as judge. Have these privileges In the past worked good for the American people or are they held antagonistic to this people? These privileges are an enforced political inequality, and we have no reason to grant such privilege.
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