Religion As Excuse For Inequality

Jimmy Carter is a fundamentalist christian, but he is also an intelligent man and not afraid to speak the truth. He knows that religion has been used as an excuse to justify inequality in this country, and is still being used that way. In the past, it has been used to justify slavery and then segregation. Now it is being used to keep women (and gays/lesbians) as second class citizens -- lacking the same rights that other Americans, especially white men, have in this society.

That is fine within a church, if that's what those believers want. But it is not fine, or even moral, in the rest of our society (schools, work, government, etc.). The rest of our society is governed by the Constitution, not the Bible (or Koran or any other religious book), and that Constitution guarantees all citizens equal rights -- no matter their sex, sexual preference, age, color, ethnicity, race, or any other reason a human can dream up to discriminate against someone else.

Believe what you want, but don't try to use that belief as a justification to discriminate against any of your fellow citizens.