Thread by @dcpetterson

The Challenge:

Show me where in the Bible there's a passage forbidding an employer to pay for employee health insurance that includes contraceptives.

Or show me where it describes the stone tablet that says, "Thou shalt not bake wedding cakes for same-sex couples."

1/5

Failing that, tell me where the Bible says life begins at conception. (Hint: It doesn't. But it does say, three times, that the soul enters the body when a newborn takes his or her first breath.)

I could have missed the passages I'm asking about, but I doubt it.

2/5

Because if those passages existed, the so-called "religious right" would have been screaming them at us for decades.

These are not "religious" stances. No one believes these things because of "religious conviction." They don't exist anywhere in Christian scripture.

3/5

These are not even political beliefs.

They are simple bigotries--homophobia and misogyny. Nothing more. People pretend these are "religious convictions" in an effort to defend their bigotry.

Just as, for hundreds of years, bigots have used religion to defend racism.

4/5

Now, bigots are using this ridiculous religious pretense as a ruse to get around laws that protect the rights of others.

If there is a god, He, She, It or Them is not happy.

The lesson here: Bigots give religion a bad name.

5/5

PS. If your "religion" tells you to hurt other people, you've got a stupid and ugly religion, and other folks shouldn't respect it. Or you.