Religion - The Sole Basis for Anti-Gay Animus

All of the shrieking and whining that's going on in the wake of Friday's historic vote legalizing same sex marriage in New York has made in more starkly obvious that religious based hate and bigotry are the sole basis for Christianist and Catholic Church opposition to same sex marriage. It comes down to these religious extremists wanted the special right to make all citizens live by their belief system. And in making their case, modern knowledge, science and the U. S. Constitution all get flushed down the toilet. It's ALL about them and to Hell with everyone else. To me, it also shows the weakness of their faith system which starts to crumble like a house of cards if others are allowed to live their lives in accordance with differing religious/spiritual beliefs. A column in Huffington Post looks at the arguments against same sex marriage stripped of all the smoke screen and disingenuous blather that opponents utilize to try to hide their theocratic agenda. Here are some highlights:
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Success has a thousand fathers, the old saw goes, but failure is an orphan. Not this time. There is one and only one big loser in the New York's long overdue decision to legalize gay marriage: old-time religion. Rather than retreat in shame the self-anointed defenders of God's law continue to snort and stamp their feet in indignation.
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But, while a new day has dawned in New York, the fight now moves to other states, so it's important to consider the arguments offered against gay marriage. Let's take a look.
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In their desperate effort to block marriage equality, they pulled out all the rhetorical stops. If gay marriage becomes legal, argued Upstate New York Republican pol Sam Trombley, "we are going to have an HIV epidemic." You got that? 'Cause no way gay guys would ever have unprotected sex outside the bounds of holy matrimony.
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In their long march against gay marriage, exponents of old-time religion have lobbed countless rhetorical grenades. They've used the "What next? Marriage with animals?" tactic. They've cried, "No special rights!" (As if legal equality were somehow 'special.') Yet, few outbursts have been as vile or absurd as Archbishop Dolan's frantic attempt to hold Republicans in New York State Senate fast to their opposition to justice. In his official blog Dolan suggested that to grant marriage equality would be to turn America into a totalitarian state
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History shows that every time some blowhard pounds the podium in defense of "natural law," he is in fact defending brute religious bigotry. "Natural law" has been the cry against the abolition of slavery, the end of aristocracy, and equal rights for women. So, welcome, Archbishop, to the wrong side of history.
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The reason for all the bluster should be made plain: old-time religion, be it Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, is authoritarian, and its authority derives from a simple claim: "We have God's Word, and we'll tell you exactly how to obey it, or else." To accept same-sex marriage is to reject that claim. It's not society that's undermined, but these ancient, authoritarian structures.