Religion and bigotry

Gonna talk about religion today, an not in glowing terms for the moment, sorry.

Kim Davis, the clerk from Kentucky who has been refusing to do her job because the gays freak her out, was held in contempt of court and the judge, who took note of the unreasonable amount of people offering her financial support, chose to jail her instead, figuring that would actually be a punishment, she gets out if she agrees to do her job.

Davis claims that her religious beliefs prevent her from putting her name on a marriage certificate that allows a gay couple to wed, she claims to not hate homosexuals, but to be acting from a place of faith that won't let her put her name to something she disagrees with, this is actually a lie, and she is a massive shitheel and there are a couple reasons for this.

First, the judge said she could permit her deputies to do it for her, she declined, so that puts the lie to her only objection being putting her name to something. Second, and this is where I go after religion a bit, the bible and all the books based on it, or that it was based on, are large, massively outdated texts with dozens of authors, it contains stories and lessons about how to live a good life, and many rules for behavior, many of them mutually exclusive, depending on the translation and interpretation you chose, homosexuality may not even be mentioned in a negative light at all, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt and say it is for the sake of argument.

Leviticus, the book of the bible commonly cited for the anti-gay stuff, also contains rules against grazing multiple types of cattle in the same pasture, wearing clothing of more than one type of cloth, and that you shouldn't cut your hair, among many other rules that seem strange or arbitrary, yet no one ever seems to be going out of their way to condemn cattle ranchers, or picketing clothing stores, or stoning hairstylists to death, so why aren't Christians in uproar about all that? More people get haircuts than have gay sex after all.

Because that would be silly, and hard, probably impossible of course, yet this one law, mentioned in this one place, suddenly becomes the highest priority possible to obey. This is of course because homosexuality is yucky.

People say"I'm not a bigot! I am just following what my book says! I like gay people!" No, you don't, because if you really were that concerned with following your book, your life would be a lot harder due to the rules that would apply to you personally, you have chosen a rule that takes away rights from other people to be the hill you die on, and you deserve every ounce of shame and recrimination that comes your way, you are in fact, a bad person, and should feel bad.

When confronted with the silly laws, many Christians and others will say either that the New Testament over-rules them, or that of course some of those laws aren't meant to be followed, they are there to teach a lesson or some bullshit, again, you don't get to hide behind your book to cover your bigotry, if this one rule from the Old Testament is the one you feel like enforcing, and not the others, none of your arguments hold up, none of them.

Of course, I have been ignoring the other more important point.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IS NOT A CHRISTIAN NATION

Like, it specifically isn't, the founding fathers were quite clear on that, if you take a job with the government, you may have to confront the fact that your religious beliefs will not be addressed when laws are made that you now have to follow. This woman and those who support her are quite literally supporting unAmerican ideas.

So often, religion is cited as a shield for bigotry, often by the same people who will tell you "god is love", you don't get to have it both ways people, if god is love, and what you are doing is based on hate (it is) then you have failed both at being American, and at being Christian.

A patriot would do their job, a true Christian would either do their job or gracefully quit, Kim Davis is neither and deserves to be exactly where she is.