Kim Davis Davis,divorced three times,the county clerk from Rowan County,Kentucky;is being hailed by the religious right in the USA as a hero for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.After serving five days in jail for contempt of court,former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and US Senator Ted Cruz met her after she was released on Tuesday,September 8.Is Kim Davis really being
discriminated for her religion? She went to jail not for her religious beliefs,but for refusing to follow a court order.
Is this religious freedom or is religious freedom just a facade for bigotry?
Bigotry has taken many forms throughout US history.The Irish,Catholics,Italians,
African Americans,Native Americans and homosexuals are just a few of the groups that have felt the sting of bigotry in America.And sadly,that is not even close to being an all-inclusive list.
Those who hate have no problem spreading it out to anyone they see as different. Thousands of years ago Aristotle said that most people when perceiving unfamiliarity will usually identify the unknown in the negative.
People are not born bigots they are taught.There is a three year old girl who lives next door to me.Do you know what she hates-naps,end of the list.
One constant ideal throughout history has been the use of religion to justify bigotry.Religion was used to justify slavery:
In 1835,at the end of two long articles about religion and slavery in the "Charleston Mercury",it was said that both the Old and New Testament give permission to hold others as slaves.In the Old Testament,God and the Patriarchs approved.As for the New Testament,Jesus and the Apostles show that slavery is permissible.
Therefore,slavery,to those who wrote the article,was not an anti-Christian institution.It was just the opposite.Furthermore,they added,it is impious to say slavery is anti-Christian because such a conclusion contradicted God.
Religion has also been used to justify segregation:
For hundreds of years,the so-called curse of Ham was frequently taught by religious leaders as the source for racial differences,and in more recent times was seized on as a Biblical excuse for segregation and slavery.But really,bigotry knows no color and religion was used to justify hatred toward Catholics from Ireland and Germans immigrating to the United States in the mid-19th century:Some believed that the Catholic Church was the Whore of Babylon in the Book of Revelation.In his best-selling book of fiction "A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court",author Mark Twain indicates his hostility to the Catholic Church.He admitted that he had "...been educated to enmity toward everything that is Catholic."
This is what happens when people cloak their bigotry with the Bible. One would think that by this point in US history,society as a whole would see through this facade of religion covering for bigotry,but time and time again it continues to happen like with Kim Davis.
As homosexuality becomes more accepted in society,the religious right has gone back to their usual playbook:religious freedom.Not only in Kentucky,but in Colorado there has been a case where a baker refused to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple based on the baker's religious convictions.The courts found for the happy couple.This,of course,brought about cries that constitutional rights had been trampled on.
Of course,it could not just end there. Another bigot in Colorado climbed out of the primordial ooze and approached another Colorado baker and requested ...
... two cakes, both in the shape of Bibles.That wasn't a problem for Marjorie Silva, the bakery's owner.It was what Jack wanted her to write on the cake:Anti-gay phrases including "God hates gays" and an image of two men holding hands,covered in a big, red "X."
The baker is now facing a civil rights complaint for refusing to decorate the cake with the customer's hateful message.Bigots can cloak themselves in the Bible as much as they want, but sooner or later people will catch on to their ruse.
As for as Kim Davis goes. Suppose someone named Mohammed worked at the DMV and he refused to photograph women not wearing head scarfs.Would Mike Huckabee or Ted Cruz be hollering about religious freedom being under attack?
