Religious Hatred

There is no doubt that religion has pierced every society on earth and effected every human who's felt its influence. To many (including myself) it has been uplifting, inspiring, and extremely useful in their day to day lives. Historically, religion has led to tens of millions of deaths but has also forced reformation and change in almost all societies. Furthermore religion inspires hundreds of millions of people to donate and take initiative to save the lives of people they have never and probably will never meet in their lives.

However, religion (all religions) have been infamously slow to push for progress, keep up with a ever-modernizing world, and especially accommodate to science. Yes there are those examples of religious men and women pushing for change like Gandhi, the 14th Dalai Lama, and Dr. King but they have not been representative of religion as a whole. Most Christians today don't realize that the Bible supports slavery, and was used to justify it across the world. Why? Because as abolitionist Christians moved to help eliminate it, they ignored the passages that supported it and looked for passages that supported their cause (and I don't doubt that their are). Likewise, Jews in Israel (and many Christians in the West)are justifying more and more (and have done so) their unequal treatment of Palestinians because they are "The Chosen People" and are therefore "superior." I certainly need not explain the hatred that Islam has inspired against people of other faiths. 

Many like to argue that these are only the extremes of each religion who advocate for these things, but there is a key defining issue that united them all in their hatred: homosexuality. As I know it, Hinduism is the only religion in the world that openly accepts Hinduism as a mainstream belief. All others accept it as a small denomination of a larger faith, but never as mainstream as Hindus do. The largest denomination of any faith that now accepts gays is the Anglican Church. The question I'm trying to pose is this: Why is this kind of hatred tolerated when we would never accept secular hatred? We know that secular hatred for the Jews by the Nazis was irrational, and would never accept it today, however, we seem to accept the hatred of a people ONLY because it is based on religion. Why can the irrational hatred of people be accepted when advocated by different gods but not accepted by irrational human thinking. 

We can't remain hypocritical. If we reject irrational, emotionally driven hatred, we must reject it from all sources. As science progresses and more evidence shows that homosexuality is beyond the control of those who identify with it, religion will do what it has done time and time again: adapt its teachings and ignore older texts.

Gay Iranians being hanged.

Admittedly, the area of study in science about homosexuality is relatively new, but I have no doubt that it will end up showing that gays do not choose to be gay, rather, they just choose to acknowledge their sexual orientation. I refuse to believe that so many people would choose to identify as people who are hated so much in the world. People don't choose to be gay when they know gays are killed in different parts of the world; in other parts they are sent to jail. If people could choose their orientation, they would choose to be straight so that their lives could be A MILLION times easier. Furthermore, most gays first identify with their homosexuality at an early age, usually around 11 years old, and some much younger at 7 and 8 years old. These kids don't know anything about the world around them, or the discrimination and hatred they will have to deal with in the future, but they just go with what comes naturally to them. They have no agenda. They aren't sexually driven beings looked to quench their sexuality. They are kids and they struggle with this their entire lives; hatred only makes it worse.

 A common argument against acceptance of gays is the preservation of the "family." This argument never really holds because the "family" is constantly changing; the argument echoes claims throughout history that interracial couples shouldn't be allowed to "preserve" the family. Others made were that black couples shouldn't have been allowed to adopt white children. The fact is, every time, these arguments fail the test of time because the concept of the family is quickly changing. Today, the nuclear family no longer exists. Millions of families are single parent households, others are have interracial parents, and adoption of children from this country and outside is the new "cool" for most celebrities. The family, culture, and our way of life is constantly changing; opponents seem to believe that there is a stagnant rock where a rushing river exists. History has shown these arguments will fall and progress will win. If history is a sign, you better start getting used to pictures of families like those pictured.

In the face of science, religion has abandoned most of its teachings of about the creation of the universe by explaining it as a metaphor, despite the fact that it was originally written to be believed as literal. Progressives of each religion, will choose to ignore the hate filled texts toward homosexuals in time and preach a message of love. As Karen Armstrong likes to say, the central tenant of all religion is compassion. This "bending" of religion to fit modern times in ways it wasn't originally meant to be bent shows that most religions don't have much backbone, however, if they want to exist in our world today, they can not continue to preach blind ignorance and hatred as they have done time and time again. Centering a message around compassion is the only way forward.  I would highly recommend watching Karen Armstrong's TED talk.