Your Rights

Rather annoyingly, the moral majority approach the issue of rights as connected to religion, even though these days people see the church and state as separate, which they're not, in Britain at least. It must really be about time to start seperating the two, surely?

A fascinating concept that: The separation of church and state. The concept is credited in its original form to the English philosopher John Locke, and the first to use it as a catchphrase was American Thomas Jefferson, and in practice it's more of an American idea than a British one. In short, all it refers to is a legal wall between the two, based on the idea that the government lacks authority in the realm of individual conscience.

I'm interested in it because black people now have a full set of civil rights, but there was a time when they didn't. Women are another group in the United States that have not always had equal civil rights. In both cases religion taught their inferiority to men, and used this as reason to not treat them as equal.

When LGBT people fight for rights, why do religious institutions get involved? They argue that people are choosing a sinful life style as opposed to being born into an orientation like heterosexuals. Lies and mistruths are told about them in an effort to make them seem less than they are as people, and therefore less deserving of equality under the law.

Another group fighting for civil rights are the Transgender people. They argue that they were born with the wrong bodies, believing that internally their true identity is that of the opposite sex. Religious institutions argue that they are either mentally ill or going against God and nature by changing their bodies to more resemble what they believe their true identity to be.

All of the formerly or currently oppressed groups have some things in common, and their oppression was or is based on religious beliefs and prolonged by weak civil leadership. Most of these groups have discriminated against the other oppressed groups after they received their own equal rights. Women argued against the equality of Black people. The Black community voices some of the strongest opposition to Gay and Lesbian equality. Gay and Lesbian people would rather that Transgender people be left out of their civil rights movement because the public can't wrap their heads around the Transgender struggle.

The oppression of all of these groups is made worse by religious institutions and beliefs, and allowed to continue because of the respectability of religion and the bond between church and state, which the religions argue, gives them the right to offer their opinions where they are the least helpful.

What do the religions have to offer the debate? The fact is that it's impossible, and morally idiotic to fight for sets of rights for one group and not for others, and there should be no confusion about what we are all fighting for as a society. Otherwise, we're inviting endless confusion, hurt and time-wasting each time a somewhat different group appears on the horizon.