Imagine someone choosing to be on a diet but insisting you can’t have chocolate cake; this is similar to the mindset many religions have when it comes to how the government operates.
I believe that everyone has the right to practice their religion and beliefs. However, I don’t think it’s fair for religious groups to change laws to adhere to their faith.
While I respect all faiths, no majority religious group should have the power to dictate, for example, what women can and cannot do with their bodies. If you don’t believe women should get abortions, then you personally should not get an abortion. Your belief system does not give you the power to dictate what all other women do with their bodies.
This is where the line between personal beliefs and public policy becomes dangerously blurred. When different religions try to impose their views on all of society, they risk marginalizing groups that don’t share the same beliefs. If you’re a Christian, how would you feel if laws were made in the US according to the Islamic religion? How would you feel being forced to follow a faith you don’t believe in? This is the case for many non-religious Americans.
Our country was built on the idea that individuals are free to worship as they choose, it’s in the first amendment, but it was also built on the separation of church and state, so that no one religion could sway the laws that govern all citizens.
Take the ongoing debates over issues like LGBTQ+ rights, contraception, and access to abortion, these are not just religious issues, they are human rights issues. Using religious beliefs as justification for the restriction of these rights creates a dangerous precedent where one religious group’s moral code rules all.
Religion is personal but the government exists to protect the rights of all citizens. When we legislate based on religious doctrine we are denying millions of Americans the freedom that allows us to live in a diverse society.
The question isn’t whether religious beliefs are valid, they absolutely are to the individuals that believe in them, but the question is whether those beliefs should govern the actions of individuals who don’t share them, which they shouldn’t.
