Religion
In reply to the discussion: I am a liberal Christian [View all]edcantor
(325 posts)you may have.
"Some of my best friends..."
I grew up when there were very few people of the Jewish faith in my town. There were no synagogues, people of that faith had to travel 10 miles to worship.
That town is still much the same, but in the town of the same size which I live in now, just 24 miles away from where I grew up, there are two houses for Jewish worship. There are a dozen or so Christian houses of worship, and one of them holds services in Portuguese, a growing but prosperous minority in my community.
There is also an LGBT support group at my local high school, not there 10 years ago. There are openly gay teachers and students in high school here. Some of them go to Temple, some go to a church, some don't.
My current town in a Northeast state is typical of many towns in America.
Times have changed in the last 40+ years. But the change has more to do with demographics than Christianity nor Judaism, nor any other faith, as far as I know; it has to do with people living amongst us! Wonderful people of all varieties, and all with the very same rights.
Neither religion nor opinions about gay marriage or racial intermarriage by the non-religious need be involved in the current debate. The words of the Constitution and Bill of Rights are clear, as is the Declaration of Independence: it just took almost 250 years for people to hear, read, and understand
"We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men, (verbatim meaning "mankind" which includes women) are created equal, and are endowed. by their creator, (either a spiritual being, a religious being, or simply a mother and a father) with CERTAIN INALIENABLE RIGHTS..."
Religion may have influenced these matters, but the First Amendment and the Declaration of Independence made it all very clear many centuries ago. Religion has nothing to add now.
If your "religious beliefs" are such that they deny people what is in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, then I REALLY think your religion is in opposition to the basics of the United States of America, and might need to just step down from trying to influence any American living here and now. You are welcome to your religious beliefs, but you or your religion never have the right to impose them upon anyone else in America.