Religious Freedom in America
The world is home to billions of people with a vast amount of differing religious beliefs, values, identities, communities, and cultures. America is no exception to this. In the States, Christianity reigns most popular, followed by atheism. In 2010, the USA was made up of roughly 78% Christian beliefs and 16% atheistic beliefs. [1] By 2012, the split shifted to about 73% Christian and 19.6% atheistic. [2] This could have a correlation with the increasing number of Americans identifying as liberals [3], but this is trend-based speculation.
I love the idea of a diverse country; race, gender, religion, age, cultures, personalities, political affiliations... One thing I love about this country is the freedom of coexistence. This is nothing America celebrates exclusively. Freedom is enjoyed around the world by many countries, and I'm damn lucky and proud to be in one of them. But while religious persecution is a rarity, there still looms a Christian hand over our governments and corporations that exhibits unfair powers and privileges unavailable to non-Christians, as well as many types of discrimination. Despite attempts to advertise religious discrimination as religious freedom or restoration, this is entirely unconstitutional. Let me combat a popular response to this statement.
As reiterated today by Renew America writer Bryan Fischer [4], defenders of religious discrimination will claim that this is how it was meant to be. As Fischer states, “...the purpose of the First Amendment...was only to protect the free exercise of the Christian faith and to prevent the selection and designation of one Christian denomination as the official church of the United States.” In other words, the claim suggests that the Amendment aimed to keep the Catholic and Protestant churches (as well as all Christian churches, technically) from reigning official and supreme over all denominations of the religion, ignoring non-Christian religions completely.
This is untrue. While I'm sure the claim rested in the backs of the minds of many founding fathers, the First Amendment did indeed aim to protect ALL religions from manning the helms of government, at least according to Thomas Jefferson. He wrote on the First Amendment in his autobiography in 1821 [5]:
“...an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word "Jesus Christ," so that it should read, "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination.”
While I'd accept this as evidence enough for the true intent of the First Amendment, there are many social conservatives constantly fighting the fact. In the face of the historian rummaging through scraps of archaic literature to prove the original intents of the Bill of Rights, I have this to ask:
Who cares?
Even if the First Amendment was written in order to allow Christianity to dominate government, that is not what is states. The Religion Clauses only state “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. That's it. Jefferson clearly stated that these clauses are to be taken literally. Even if we learn in the future that this wasn't the original intent, tradition and archaic discrimination deserve no power in government. We don't continue to do things simply because we've done them in the past, lest we never learn from history and advance the future. True religious freedom is true separation of church and state.
Everyone deserves to believe whatever they wish to believe. Nobody deserves to force beliefs onto another person. The same people promoting the First Amendment as a Christian safety are the same people calling marriage “unconstitutional” unless it's between someone with a penis and another person with a vagina. They're the same people immediately dismissing activism the moment feminism is mentioned. Stubborn people who value tradition over equality. I understand that I just made a generalization of social conservatives, but I am not speculating. Republicans and other social conservatives retain Christian-based civil views and aim to rob people of privileges otherwise allowed.
You may oppose birth control and contraceptives because you believe they allow a feeling of freedom to exhibit immoral behavior. You may feel that teenagers will have sex if they feel there is no consequence. While this is correct, only part of the sentence is largely important: teenagers will have sex. It's going to happen, and the notion of universally altering the behavior of America's youth to fit the Christian morality is unrealistic and results in children with poor quality of life, contributing to overpopulation and accelerating poverty. Alternatively, women can reserve 3 seconds a day to take a pill and not worry about ruining their lives or the lives of their children.
You may oppose non-heterosexual marriage because it is clearly spoken against in the Bible. Or perhaps your anti-equality views have nothing to do with religion, but you feel hatred or discomfort toward the idea. The truth is that you are not personally affected by Americans getting married. Everyone deserves the freedom to marry. Does it seem unnatural? Immoral? Maybe even disgusting?
Then don't do it. However, you do not get to limit the freedoms of other Americans.
It is entirely possible to be religious without hurting other citizens outside of your religion. When voting on an issue or discussing it with other people, there's really only one question to ask: “Does this negatively impact my life personally?”
References:
[1] : http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/04/u-s-doesnt-rank-high-in-religious-diversity/
[2] : http://www.pewforum.org/2012/10/09/nones-on-the-rise/
[3] : http://www.liberalamerica.org/2014/01/13/sliding-left-liberalism-growing-america/
[4] : http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/fischer/141119
[5] : http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions45.html













