Religious Bigotry

After reading countless articles and blogs, and hearing enough religious debates to satisfy me for two lifetimes, I have been left in awe over the lengths that some people will go to completely destroy the sense of inner peace in another human being.  Many of these people don’t even realize how destructive their actions are, or that the people whom they impose their higher power (or lack thereof) upon take what they are saying about what they choose to believe as a personal attack.  On a moral level, how is being intolerant of another person’s religious beliefs any different from being intolerant of the color of their skin?  We are all entitled to our own opinions, and have the freedom to voice them, but when we start to belittle the religious views of others, our opinions become religious bigotry.

It seems very ironic that abortion, stem cell research, and gay mariage have any place in American politics at all, considering that the United States is a country founded in large part on religious freedom.  Should a person’s religious views conflict with any of these things, it is their right to not take part in them. The next question is, now that we have religion biasing the way that our nation is goverened, where does it stop? Religious profiling maybe?  It may sound far fetched to some, but ask yourself how many people you heard speak of President Obama’s religion as an issue during the 2008 election.  A Muslim as the President of the United States?  He must be plotting with the terrorists, he’s a Muslim! Sarcastic, I know, but there are actually people who think this way.  Sounds like religious profiling to me.

Now that we’ve established that our political system has been compromised by religious bigotry, what about our own social lives.  Too often I hear of families in turmoil over inter-religious dating and marriage.  I’ve always heard the saying “love knows no bounds”.  This pretty much covers religion as best as I can tell.  The sad part, is that it doesn’t stop there.  This kind of intolerance is being passed on to children by parents who teach them to only associate with other children from church.  What kind of social skills is this teaching the leaders of tomorrow, other than how to be the bigots of tomorrow.

To summarize, we have made many great advances as a nation, but we are still primitive in our religious prejudices.  We have allowed them to corrupt our government, our families, and to take from us the freedom the founders of this country fought so hard to gain.  If we as a free nation do not rid our selves of all bigotry, then we are not free at all.