Religion and Marriage Equality

This was my response to comments in another blog about marriage equality. After posting it I thought it was worth republishing here. It's long for a blog response, but there were others that were much more verbose.
As you can imagine, a debate began on that other blog that started with someone quoting the bible and someone else quoting other passages that are ridiculously outdated to illustrate that we can not be expected to live our lives to the letter of the bible. I'm sure you have all seen these arguments played out over and over with little difference from one site to another.  My response goes into my personal beliefs, ( have they're gong to share theirs I'm gong to share mine) but most importantly what I believe to be the only valid argument in this debate and you either believe in these freedoms or you don't. Plain and simple.

I have many Christian and very devout Catholic friends. I am neither. I have made it very clear to them that I believe in secular salvation through a philosophy of Love. We agree to respect each other’s beliefs and move on. They also understand that my issue is not with Christianity. It is with those so tied to the dogma of their religion (any religion) that they are determination to try and make me live by a set of codes that belong to a religion I do not believe in and a text I refuse to see as more worthy than any other work written by prophets and philosophers. And since those books are being quoted here I feel I can share my opinion of them. I believe that they were written by human beings and are dated and flawed. The Old Testament was written as a social code by men and proclaimed to be of God (with the best intentions, I'm sure). The New Testament was written by the followers of a man I believe to have been a great spiritual teacher and social activist who was martyred because he preached the ideal of economic equality and to show love, respect, and forgiveness to all regardless of their place in society. Another great prophet of recent times was murdered for preaching the same things, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

I do not need a religion or bible to make me behave, and live a good life. I try to live a good life because I love my fellow human beings and because I want to leave a legacy of love for my child and his children to pass down. I do have a religious doctrine I live by. It is the doctrine of the Unitarian Universalist church. Their main doctrine is to love and respect all human beings. In this country I am guaranteed the right to live by those principles without limit of opportunity, without discrimination, and without the limiting of my religious practice. When another faith tries to limit my freedoms by their religious beliefs because they think theirs is the only right religion it is unconstitutional and un-American. As society evolves, our freedoms must evolve with it. Our society is more accepting of same sex marriage because a large number of people have come to accept that love is love even if some may still be a little uncomfortable with the public display of same sex affection due to a lifetime of social programing. I know men ( and some women too) who do believe in marriage equality on principle, but still can't bring themselves to watch Brokeback Mountain or look uncomfortable when they see same sex couples kiss in public. It's okay. I get it. They are try to evolve beyond their programing and I give them a lot of credit for stepping out of their comfort zone for what is right. So as our society evolves so must our law of the land that governs our freedoms. 

To those who are upset by this, you can kick and scream all you want if your religion says it’s wrong, but mine says it’s okay and no one is forcing you to marry or live against your beliefs. Keep your own house (soul) in order and worry not about mine. We all need to learn to peacefully live our own lives by our own truths in a nation that recognizes our right to do so.