The Hypocrisy of Throat Shoveling

(note:  I started this post a few days ago and now that the all important decision on same sex marriage has been delivered by the SCOTUS today,  I figure there is no better time to publish this)

"I'm so sick of the gay agenda being shoved down my throat!" Ignoring the obvious juvenile comeback to that one, this is one of the most common hypocritical statements coming from conservatives these days (and for the past decade).  The truth is, it is conservatives that wish to shove their agenda down other people's throats.  Let's examine...

Have you ever heard a homosexual person come out of a Nicholas Sparks' romance movie and exclaim anything along the lines of "What a sweet movie, except I'm really tired of straight people shoving their agenda down my throat!".  No? Of course not.  How about say... a movie like The Wolf of Wall Street - ever heard someone leave there saying "I'm so sick of rich corporate bastards shoving their agenda down our throats!" ?  No? I didn't think so.  If you're straight, have you ever been confronted in public by a GLBT person, who takes offense because you are holding hands with or kissed your partner, with something like "That's disgusting! There are kids here! Stop shoving your heterosexuality down my throat!"  Or if you're gay, do you have any straight friends who have a story like that? No?  Nah, I didn't think so.  What the neo conservative movement calls "shoving the gay agenda down my throat" is actually more accurately described as "people living their lives in a way I don't accept, and worse,  they don't try to hide it from me or pretend, just to make me feel better". The truth is, it is the conservatives that want to shove their agenda and their views down everyone else's throats.

When a Christianist (this is what I call a person who pretends to be a Christian, to distinguish from actual good Christians) complains about gay marriage and whines about the gay agenda, what they're really upset about is that their religious agenda is failing.  What really bothers them is that more and more the far right nut jobs are unable to enforce their views and beliefs on everyone else. What is touted as Freedom of Religion is actually "the lack of my ability to force my religion on others".  Let's examine that...

Amendment I to the Constitution says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Pretty simple. Is there anything about Christianity being more important than Buddhism, Nihilism, Atheism or anything else?  There is not.  But Christianists seem to think there is, and this is one of the main reasons we hear the constant whining and bitching about things being shoved down their throats.

Here's the the most important thing about Freedom of Religion: Yours ends where mine begins, and vice versa.  What I mean by that is you are free to exercise your religious beliefs, as long as they do not prohibit me from exercising mine. Freedom of Religion, like Freedom of Speech, is not absolute. You cannot do whatever you want, especially if that includes breaking the law, just because you claim your religion demands it. Think of it in the most extreme terms. If I started a religion and said "There is only one rule in my religion, to go to heaven you must kill at least one person every year for 5 years in a row. After the 5th year, you will get your ticket to heaven stamped and you're good to go."  Would someone subscribing to that faith be shielded from legal action if they killed someone? Would they be able to just throw up their hands and yell "Religious Immunity!!!" similar to that South African prick at the end of Lethal Weapon 2....

...of course not! And that just drives home the point that the Constitution is the highest law of the land, not someone's (anyone's) religious beliefs. And, if Congress cannot make any laws establishing a religion (in this example, Christianity), then what possible legal power does a Christianist have to impose their religion on someone else?  None. Zero. Zilch.  And yet, that is exactly what they seek to do when they seek to deny gays and lesbians from marrying.  

What is the reason Christianists give for being against the freedom to marry whomever you choose? The Bible. But that's religion, not law. Furthermore, it's their religion.  If I can't subscribe to a religion that says I have to shoot someone to get into heaven, and if that exercising of my "Freedom of Religion" doesn't take precedence over your right to not be murdered, then your religion doesn't take precedence over my life, either. It really is not a complicated matter.  You do whatever you want to do, and let other people do whatever they want to do. 

When Christianists seek to prevent gay marriage what they really are doing is saying "MY religious beliefs say that you cannot marry whom you choose, if they are the same gender" and what they're also saying is "YOUR religious beliefs, or lack thereof, are irrelevant here, all that matter is what I want you to do and what I want you to do is to follow MY religious beliefs, regardless of what your religious beliefs are".  And to continue this path of progression... what that means is what they're saying is "I have Freedom of Religion but you do not,  I wish to impose my religious beliefs on you, and FUCK your Freedom of Religion!".  Which of course leads us, finally,  to this: "I want to shove my religion down your throat". Make no mistake,  that is what is really what is being said when Christianists tell you that same sex couples should not be allowed to marry.  

If I sound angry, it's because I am.  This is an obscene violation of citizen's rights, and the Constitution.  Sarah Palin loves to throw around the terms "un-Patriotic" and "un-American" to anyone that disagrees with the crap that flows from her hole she calls a mouth.  But the truth is, there aren't many things more un-American than trying to force your religion on others.  That's Iran or Saudi Arabia, that's not America. The irony is, Christianists don't see how similar they are to groups like ISIS.  They think ISIS is the opposite of what Christianists are, but actually they're just two sides of the same oppressive coin. 

But back to why Christianists are against the freedom to marry whomever you choose. As I've discussed, they have no reason other than their religion.  Every other lame excuse I've ever heard has been destroyed by LFR (Logic, Facts and Reality). Let's look at a few examples: 

1. "If Homosexuality is natural, why aren't there gay animals"?   There are   NEXT!
2. "Gay people choose to be gay"  Oh really?  Tell me the exact date and time you chose to be straight,  along with specific thought processes you went through weighing whether you should be gay or straight and how you finally chose one over the other.   NEXT! 
3. "It's unnatural".  See #1.   NEXT! 
4. "It's gross".   So is that shit stuck in your teeth.  NEXT!
5. "Marriage is for procreation ONLY".   O.M.G.  This is one of my favorites. So incredibly ignorant. So every straight couple should have to submit proof of fertility before receiving a marriage license, right? And if any member of a straight married couple loses the ability to procreate (menopause,  anyone?) that couple's marriage should immediately be dissolved at that point,  right? And any post-menopausal female should automatically be precluded from ever marrying again,  right? Wrong. NEXT! 
6. "If we allow a man to marry a man what's next?  What about if a man wants to marry a dog".  Ugh.  Well for starters,  I could say the exact same thing about straight marriage.  "If we allow a man to marry a woman,  what's next, a man marrying his dog?". It works illogically just as well either way.   Oh and also,  slippery slope theories are bullshit. A slippery slope argument is basically this: " If we let this thing happen, what's next, some other thing that has nothing to do with the first thing?" Um... well that's simple.  We'll talk about that other thing when someone brings it up, until then we're talking about this,  not that.  NEXT!
7. "A child needs both a mother and a father".  Ok so then any pregnant woman who isn't married and refuses to be married before giving birth should be forced to abort, right?  And any couple that divorces should either be forced to still live together with their kids,  or if they refuse to live together then the kids should be taken from the split couple and adopted by a couple that is married,  right?   But here's the best one:  Say a woman is married to a Marine in Iraq...they have 3 kids.... he gets killed in battle... immediately we should remove the kids from her home and give them to a married couple instead,  right?  Yeah,  I didn't think so.  NEXT! 
8. "If gays are allowed to marry it will weaken my marriage".  Only if you're a closeted homosexual.  NEXT! 

The interesting thing is many of those claims have the same logic fail. They are things that when turned around to apply to heterosexual people, they are immediately exposed as being completely asinine.  I've never heard anyone suggest that people who can't have kids should not be allowed to marry, have you?  That tells me anyone using procreation as an "excuse" is just making shit up because they don't really have an argument and probably are only against marriage equality because "it's icky". 

What this brings us back to is the one valid complaint conservatives have about gay marriage: it's against their religious beliefs.  Yes, it is. But your religion does not trump the Constitution and thus, if gay marriage is a violation of your religious beliefs then I suggest you avoid getting gay married.

Marriage is a right,  and denying the right based on gender is a violation of the 14th Amendment...

...and as of today,  Friday June 26, 2015,  The Supreme Court of the United States agrees.  Let's end with this wonderful news:

Held: The Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-State.