Religion being used to justify prejudices

Blake Hinton / Columnist

As shown in last week’s column, “Bush’s views about gay marriage unfounded,” controversial issues such as gay marriage are being pushed to the forefront of the American consciousness.

With this new surge, it is not surprising there has been a severe conservative backlash, most notably led by Christian fundamentalists. It is, of course, their right to oppose things such as gay marriage. After all, this country is founded on the right to free speech and debate.

Yet it is disheartening and scary to see leading fundamentalists such as Jerry Falwell and Tim LaHaye use religion not for debate, but to instead push their own bigoted personal agendas.

The worst offender is easily Falwell. As the founder of the Moral Majority, a religious right-wing watchdog group, he has been in countless protests against gays and lesbians and has openly voiced his disgust for them, among other groups. The funny thing is that he takes a defensive stance to any accusation thrown against him. Like any clever person, he cites the right to free speech.

He is right in one respect. Falwell has every right to disapprove of everything from gays to liberals. But isn’t there a difference between disagreeing and hate? Falwell does not disagree with gay people, for example. He hates them and makes it clear. What’s even worse is that his hate inspires other fundamentalists to do things like create signs with horrible sayings like “Fags burn in hell.”

Tim Le Haye, while equally as bad, is more well-known for his best-selling “Left Behind” book series. Le Haye helped Falwell create the Moral Majority, and also created his own group in 1979 called Californians For Biblical Morality. Recently, it has been rumored that he garnered the president’s attention. This is scary when taking into consideration Le Haye’s comments in a recent Rolling Stone article. In the article, Le Haye compared Saddam Hussein to the anti-Christ and suggested that the world is coming to an end.

Of course, when asked to explain any of this, Falwell, Le Haye and many of the other Christian fundamentalists must drag God into the picture. The messages these people spread are not of civil debate or disagreement but of hate and intolerance.

On top of that, it seems like every week there are new demonstrations with placards that say things like “God hates gay people.” What is with this recent trend of stuffing words into God’s mouth? If we went by them, it would seem all fundamentalists have met God personally. None of this makes any sense. Yet nobody seems bothered by it.

It should be noted that this writer isn’t bashing religion. Religion can be a great thing that brings people together and brings a purpose to life.

Yet religion can be a bad thing if people use it to justify their hate and intolerance. Falwell and LeHaye don’t just disagree. Their messages are filled with hate and bigotry – something completely contradictory to the religion they practice.

This country was founded on the idea of free speech and religion, among other things. Now the question is, why would someone want to use these two things to spread hate and discrimination in the world?