What religious freedom *isn't*
Dec. 6th, 2019 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kengrReading an article conuly linked to:
The future of sex ed has arrived. Is America ready?
Several bits got me thinking about the many problems with people and the concept of religious freedom. the quote below will do.
Meanwhile, many parents say CHYA violates their parental rights. “This law doesn’t respect our beliefs and rights as parents to teach our children how they should behave and live,” one mom, Ofelia Garcia, tells me.
No, law doesn't do a *thing* to that right. What it *does* do, and the state has every right to do is teach their children that their parents beliefs aren't the only ones out there
So what they are *actually* complaining about is that the state won't let them keep their kids ignorant of different beliefs.
IMHSHO, the way freedom of religion *should* be taken is this:
You can have any religious beliefs you care to. You can *not* impose those beliefs on others. Nor may you require them to act in accordance with your beliefs.
And that's where almost the protests of "religious freedom" from Christians and conservatives come from. They want other people to live their lives in accordance with the *protester's* beliefs.
It doesn't help that many of those folks not only think that you have to follow their "moral code", but in fact believe that it's not possible to be against things like murder, rape and theft *without* invoking a moral code set by some higher power.
Sorry folks, it's possible to derive all the necessary laws from first principles. Things like personal autonomy, preventing harm to others, and the idea of personal property.
conuly linked to:The future of sex ed has arrived. Is America ready?
Several bits got me thinking about the many problems with people and the concept of religious freedom. the quote below will do.
Meanwhile, many parents say CHYA violates their parental rights. “This law doesn’t respect our beliefs and rights as parents to teach our children how they should behave and live,” one mom, Ofelia Garcia, tells me.
No, law doesn't do a *thing* to that right. What it *does* do, and the state has every right to do is teach their children that their parents beliefs aren't the only ones out there
So what they are *actually* complaining about is that the state won't let them keep their kids ignorant of different beliefs.
IMHSHO, the way freedom of religion *should* be taken is this:
You can have any religious beliefs you care to. You can *not* impose those beliefs on others. Nor may you require them to act in accordance with your beliefs.
And that's where almost the protests of "religious freedom" from Christians and conservatives come from. They want other people to live their lives in accordance with the *protester's* beliefs.
It doesn't help that many of those folks not only think that you have to follow their "moral code", but in fact believe that it's not possible to be against things like murder, rape and theft *without* invoking a moral code set by some higher power.
Sorry folks, it's possible to derive all the necessary laws from first principles. Things like personal autonomy, preventing harm to others, and the idea of personal property.
Sigh
Date: 2019-12-07 07:23 am (UTC)I distinctly remember reviewing the materials for my older son's first "sex ed" type talk in fourth grade. I read it all. In the end, I decided that he would get an hour a day for five days to sit and read whatever he liked in the library, instead of putting up with the narrow, limited, and heavily biased information. The HIV/AIDS mention was downright horrifying-- pure scaremongering. I lost a good friend to AIDS, and there's no way I was going to let the school teach information debunked five years before.
Parents are arguing against those things not because they want their children to be ignorant, but because they seem to believe that if their kids don't know about these ideas, then the "problems" won't happen. For the same reason, parents did not allow the word "cigarette" or anything in media which showed someone smoking, or use the same kind of intense censorship to blot out references to alcohol.
I had plenty of unprofitable, frustrating discussions with parents on the topics, and was assured that my "horrible parenting" would endanger THEIR children, using pretzel logic that still makes me scratch my head.
It's not about sex ed; it's about the right to dictate One True Way, and anyone who thinks that they have the right to make me or my children conform to their... preferred mythology... can take a very long walk off a very short pier.
Re: Sigh
Date: 2019-12-07 08:02 am (UTC)Also, remember that for them *they* have The Truth and *you* are pushing a "preferred mythology".
That's why I phrased some of my arguments the way I did.
It *should* be a "render unto Caesar" situation.
You can teach your kids anything you want, but they still have to learn what the school teaches. And if your teaches come up short after the kids think about them, that's not the *school's* fault.
Re: Sigh
Date: 2019-12-07 08:09 am (UTC)Re: Sigh
Date: 2019-12-07 08:23 am (UTC)Re: Sigh
Date: 2019-12-07 02:16 pm (UTC)Re: Sigh
Date: 2019-12-07 11:20 pm (UTC)Re: Sigh
Date: 2019-12-07 02:15 pm (UTC)Re: Sigh
Date: 2019-12-07 04:40 pm (UTC)Locutus would NOT want my distictiveness- the hive would collapse under my questions!
Re: Sigh
Date: 2019-12-07 11:26 pm (UTC)Re: Sigh
Date: 2019-12-07 11:48 pm (UTC)But I'm not blonde...
ROFLMAO
Re: Sigh
Date: 2019-12-08 12:39 am (UTC)Re: Sigh
Date: 2019-12-07 10:18 pm (UTC)...
Now I think about it, it's part of the reason I left a certain organization along with a myriad of other reasons.
...
I am much more tolerant because of it, though, and I regret nothing.
-Trausio~
Re: Sigh
Date: 2019-12-07 10:21 pm (UTC)