If you are religious, you are entitled to discriminate against people who don’t measure up to your religion’s standards. Religious people get to opt out of many of the human rights fought for by minorities over decades. The funny thing about religious folk is that it is not enough for them to be concerned with their own lives, they want to control other people’s lives as well. The dominant Christian religion has had centuries of telling people what to do in Europe and the New World. Similarly, Islam has had the whip hand in countries across the globe in the east. The religious discrimination bill seeks to legislate these powers to discriminate against individuals involved in same sex relationships and who identify as LBGQTI. This is outrageous and a disgrace to the enlightenment inherent within western democracies.
Religions Want to Be Free to Discriminate
I am reminded of whinging older white males complaining about the presence of different types of people in their communities. The brittle, hypersensitive concerns of this dominant cohort amazes me. Why are these people threatened by the mere presence of diversity within their community? Similarly, the precious attitude of religious people overly concerned with excluding diversity from their schools and institutions strikes me as profoundly unlike the loving philosophy they purport to follow. Is their god so thin skinned as to fear the presence of diversity within the flock?
Diversity vs Religious Limitations
Different sorts of people have always walked this earth. There have always been human beings born with different abilities and predilections. In previous eras many of these people have been savagely treated by populations identifying with a particular religion. There have been pogroms, holocausts, and ethnic cleansings. These vile massacres continue to this day in places around the globe like the Balkans, Africa, and parts of Asia. Forcing people to do and say things on the basis of religious belief is a backward and primitive practice. Religions are Bronze Age phenomena, which have survived as anachronisms in the 21C.
No More Dissimilatory Practices on the Basis of Religion
It is time for western democracies to grow up and to stand up to the barbaric practices inherent within some religions. We, as a community, cannot go on making exceptions for discriminatory behaviour based on religious belief. Human rights are human rights, we do not live under a theocracy. Diversity is a sign of the flowering of human consciousness. We are all beautiful parts of the big picture. We do not need to all look alike. We do not need to all think and act the same. We do need to all love alike. We can celebrate the diversity of the human story.
©House Therapy