Religion is a bad excuse

I suspect this is not particularly controversial to most of you who read me regularly, nor is it a particularly unique thought, but it's on my mind so this is what we get tonight.

I was thinking about people like Kim Davis and other conservative Christians, when they use religion as an excuse for bigotry, specifically against homosexuals but it doesn't have to be. Most of them are quick to tell us that they don't hate gay people, they are just following the rules god gave them, they even have gay friends!
The implication they would like us to make from this statement is that they are simply following orders, and don't personally agree with them. They would totally stop attempting to strip rights from people if they could, but the decision just isn't in their hands you know?

We all know that is a lie, and these people are bigots, but even if we accept the statement at face value it doesn't really hold up too well.

Let's replace "God" with "My boss" in that scenario, it suddenly becomes kind of horrible, why would you work for a boss who is forcing you to do things against your personal morality? It's worse if we replace it with "parent", or "friend". Anybody giving decent relationship advice would probably tell you to limit contact a friend or family member who tells you to treat other human beings worse because of who they love. But apparently it is impossible to ignore if God says it.

Well okay I guess you gotta do what you gotta do, but don't act like it is coming from a place of love, you have chosen to treat other people as less than equal because you want to appease a spiteful baby who you have chosen to live with for all eternity. If your god wants to you treat people like that, then that is what you are choosing, don't try to tell me it is for anything other than selfish reasons.

It's justifiable really, that same spiteful baby will torture you for eternity if you don't, so you better stay on his good side.

Now I know most religious folks aren't like that, I also know that most of those who are like that aren't really putting a lot of thought into why they are being bigots, it's just that they are holding honest beliefs and following the rules, even if they are right and God really does want them to do that, they are still assholes for taking arbitrary marching orders from a small minded bigot, I don't care if he did create the world, that is no excuse for having the morality of a two year old.