Religious Discrimination is OK?

Usually religious groups don't argue that religious discrimination is OK and that religion isn't a part of civil rights, but that is just what some are doing, at least by implication. The context is the debate over how to treat gays and the story is about efforts by schools to ban discrimination against and harassment of gay students.

Pete LaBarbera of the Culture and Family Institute wrote that homosexuality doesn’t belong with things like race in the category of civil rights:

We oppose true discrimination. But you cannot equate homosexual behavior with traditional civil rights. Civil rights are about things that are unchangeable: black people, Hispanics, etcetera. There is no such thing as an ex-black but there are many, many former homosexuals. And so, you can’t put homosexual behavior in with other civil rights categories. That is what they are trying to do and we are very [concerned] that the effect will be the persecution of people based on their speech that opposes homosexuality.

We must remember that evangelical Christians typically define homosexuality by behavior, not one’s attraction to members of the same sex. However, what is important in the above is the reason why homosexuality is not a part of civil rights: it something that can be changed (a behavior, remember) and left behind, unlike race. Therefore, it should not be protected.

And what else can be changed and left behind? Why, religion of course. There many ex-Christians and many former Evangelicals in America. Therefore, according to LaBarbera’s reasoning, religion (or at least religious behavior) can’t be a part of civil rights. So, discrimination against and harassment of students based upon religion is OK?

 

Read More:

• Gay Rights, Gay Marriage
• Evangelical Christianity & Homosexuality
• Catholicism & Homosexuality