Religious freedom, religious discrimination, religious bullshit!

I’m getting a little ticked-off by all the bitching the religious right is doing about their supposed loss of religious freedoms by Obama and others. We had the Catholic bishops (yeah, a real standard of morality) complaining that “Obamacare” was violating their religious freedoms by having contraceptives made available to their employees through the health care law. They seemed to forget that their employees are the ones who decide whether or not to abide by the Vatican’s edict against contraceptives and not the health care provider. Polls indicate that over 90% of Catholics practice birth control.

Then of course is the on going complaint about taking God out of the Pledge of Allegiance or removing God from our currency or our motto. You just have to feel sorry for these folks who in a country where the majority claim to be Christian are now complaining their rights are impinged by those godless heathens, who ever they are.

Don Baker has a good article over at Atheist Experience web site. Writing about the recently vetoed bill in Arizona he says -

“The bill reminds me of other Christian initiatives in recent years. Christians have pushed for the “right” of pharmacists to not fill prescriptions for which they have a religious objection. Trans-vaginal probes lie in store for women seeking abortion in many states, thanks to the efforts of Christians. Gays in schools are more likely to be the victims of bullies, thanks again to Christianity. Of course, Christians have bullied gays for money for decades. These modern initiatives echo past Christian efforts to murder Jews, Muslims, Cathars, and infidels, the Inquisitions, the justification of slavery, and the subjugation of women.”

This whole thing boils down to the fact that the religious want to push their desire to discriminate if it somehow offends their beliefs. If they have a customer come into their shop that they suspect as being gay, they want to right to throw them out of their store. Or if a pharmacist has a religious issue with dispensing birth control meds, they want to not pass the package across the counter.

And then there are the issues this time of the year about nativity scenes on town and city property. The Bill O’Reillys’ scream that those atheists are denying them their right to have Jesus in front of the town hall. They conveniently forget that governments can’t promote any religion over another and that’s what the nativity scene is really doing. It’s promoting Christianity over all other religions.

It’s apparent that religion has too much influence in government and politics and no politician has the balls to stand up to religion. And they don’t seem to realize that entrenching religion into government will only hurt religion in the long run.