Friday, March 1, 2019

The Bible is never criminal

The Bible must never be classified as hate speech or any other negative form by my country or my employer. A person's actions may or may not be appropriate in a given situation, but quoting the Bible with even a remotely honest intent to educate or remind people what it says should never, under any circumstance, ever be accepted (tolerated) as criminal.

Sound crazy that quoting the Bible could be responded to this way? It's already happening. Here are some results from a quick Google search (note, I didn't pick the wording in these titles):
I'm fine with protecting people from persecution and related acts of discrimination. (Everyone deserves freedom and protection from persecution.) But telling someone how their choices (or their lifestyle) is characterized in the Bible, must never be outlawed, penalized, reverse discriminated, or otherwise officially condemned.

A person should never be required by law with threat of penalty to do something that is explicitly frowned upon by the official text of a long established world religion they unabashedly claim membership to. Similarly, a person should never be penalized for turning down a business opportunity because it would involve them in ways they don't want to be involved in something their religious text explicitly frowns upon, so long as it's an established world religion (as opposed to a religion we make up as we go to suit our ever-changing needs).

As a reminder, here's what the first amendment to the USA Constitution says:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." (source: archives.gov/founding-docs)
If we say for argument's sake the notion of "separation of church and state" (Wikipedia) was in our founding documents at all, then let's be clear what it would have meant. It would mean the church should not run the government. It would mean the current Pope (or some equivalent) should never be considered a government leader, and should not compete on legal issues with the President. No bishop, imam, priest, or other religious position should be considered a government official unless they go through the same process as everyone else. It would also mean the government shouldn't meddle in the affairs of the church. Neither the President, a congressman, judge, etc. should pretend to have influence over what the church teaches, if and when it teaches, nor what it means to be an honest person of faith. The reason this separation would exist is two-fold:
  1. All too often in human history we have blurred the lines and put religious leaders in seats of political power, or likewise, political leaders claimed religious power (thought police/ political correct police). Separating church and state isn't meant to make either subordinate to the other, it's meant to keep them distinct, and it's absolutely not a pretension that we can have freedom from religion. Everyone has religion, even atheists.
  2. To prevent non-Christians who happen to get in political power (whether executive, legislative, or judicial) from doing exactly what some are attempting to do right now: criminalize Christianity (beginning with but not limited to the Bible).
An extreme example of this would be that the government has the jurisdiction (in the eyes of man, if not the eyes of God) to pass a law that promotes/ protects/ rewards sin. But when there is a separation of church and state, that same government has no jurisdiction to tell Christians (or Jews or Muslims) that they cannot speak against that law and even against that sin, reminding the public (from their homes, over the internet, from the street corner, in their businesses, or from the pulpit) that the law is anti-Biblical, and what God has to say about that as revealed in the Bible. Similarly, in a nation with a separation of church and state, religious people don't have jurisdiction to take matters into their own hands and criminally penalize sinners, that's the government's job. Nothing says the two can't be informed by the other, but the church and state are distinct organizations that aren't supposed to bully each other.

By the way, the reason the provision of free speech was explicitly spelled out in the first amendment in the first place was to protect speech the government and the majority of the populace didn't like. Speech that is deliberately and obviously going to result in imminent physical injury or death, or exposes information that is legitimately confidential, is all we can justify censoring. (Though being justified is different than actually doing it.) This would not include quoting passages of any book that was written a great many years ago. Which ideas you listen to and agree with is up to you, but in a country that has freedom of speech written into its constitution, whether you silence any ideas is not.
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