Religion Doesn't Require Belief In Inequality

One of the biggest debates in our society these days is whether to grant all citizens equal rights, or whether to deny equal rights to certain groups -- such as homosexuals having the same right to marry the one they love just like heterosexuals (with all the legal rights and privileges that come with marriage). Many fundamentalists claim that although they believe in the Constitution, their Bible (and their god) requires them to deny equal rights to the LGBT community.

But is that really true? Does their religion really demand they believe in inequality? Or are they just using that religion to mask their own bigotry? Or maybe they've stopped thinking for themselves and just accepted the barely-hidden bigotry of a preacher or priest. I believe they are wrong. I don't believe the Bible demands a belief in inequality.

I am an atheist, and I've never tried to hide that. But I grew up in a fundamentalist church, got my degree from a religious university, and have read the Bible. I know that Jesus only laid down two rules -- to love god, and to love your neighbor as yourself. I also know that choosing to hate (i.e., deny another person equal rights) is a violation of one of those rules.

One of the best discussions of religion and whether it demands a belief in inequality is found on the excellent blog Unreasonable Faith. Here is a part of that discussion:

. . religions are variegated things that allow the individual more control than most folks acknowledge. We’re fond of treating religion as something you’re born into and stuck with barring deconversion. We don’t often talk about the streams of tradition within the religion that an individual must accept or reject.


Look around you: in our culture the chances are you’re going to see someone who is a Christian but holds to different interpretations of what Christianity means. Every sect has a tradition that explains how they’ve come to understand their religion the way they do. Every permutation has an argument as to why their tradition is legitimate. And this is fractal: every community has within it different streams of tradition that emphasis and interpret the components differently.


Perhaps you’re an evangelical who places high importance on the words of the Bible. But why do you take this passage at face value, while interpreting that passage in its historical context? Why is this verse intended only for that time and place while thatverse is immortal and internal? Why do you interpret this passage in light of thatpassage instead of the other way around?


More ink has been spilled writing biblical commentaries than writing Bibles. Many of these interpretations are reasonable and the arguments sensible. How do you decide which is the “right” interpretation? Different members of your community have honestly looked and yet come to differing conclusions.


Kohen offers one way out of this mess: certain principles are non-negotiable. With Kohen, one of these principles is that all humans are equal. If you’re thinking leads you to the conclusion that some people have rights that others do not have, then it’s time to think again.


This is an old, old method. Rabbi Hillel is supposed to have said that the golden rule is the core of the law, and that all the rest is commentary. If your interpretation of the law leads you towards treating someone in a way that you would find hateful if the situation were reversed, then your interpretation is wrong. Supposedly his followers expanded this to say that the love of one’s neighbor is the core of the law, and any interpretation that leads you away from that love is flawed.


This should be natural for Christians, since Jesus spelled out the two most important commandments in Matthew 22:36-41, one of which was to love your neighbor as yourself. If your interpretation of the Bible leads you towards treating your neighbor as if their love, vows and relationships are less real than your own, then – as we say on the interwebs – “ur doin’ it wrong.”


And, as Kohen concluded, if your only guiding principle seems to be that gays are icky and less than equal with heterosexuals, then we have to conclude that your principles are bigoted. No matter how prayerfully and deeply you hold to a bigoted principle, it does not stop being bigoted, nor do you.