The churches and the Republican candidates that represent their views see government enforcement of a woman’s right to choose contraception and equal rights for gays as attacks on their religious freedom. They are not. They are attacks on the churches’ attempts to force their practices and beliefs down the throats of the whole population. Not only do the church clergy demand that their own parishioner employees follow the archaic rules written in their manifestoes, they demand that insurance-paid contraception be denied to Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, atheists and members of their own religions who choose not to follow their medieval dictates. And Taliban-like, they demand that any minority excluded by their Bible from God’s love be also excluded from civil rights.
They demand legislation to drag us backward into an inquisitorial dark age against our will and they want us to fund it through the additional taxes we pay that support their tax-free status. If the churches want to get involved in politics, let them forfeit their tax-exempt status and pay taxes on their properties and collections as the law requires. Let’s keep religion out of the workplace and the state. Let’s return to the sanity of the Constitution with all citizens free from the nightmare of fanatical religious rule.
Joel Littauer
Vancouver
