The "sinful" and the sinful

I have been reading my sister's blog (everythingisaspoon.blogspot.com) in which she had a good go at some of the backward ass ideas people hold in the states (and sadly here in Canada too) about all the ways that scary homosexuals are attacking their culture and values. She was discussing some very weird reactions to gay teachers (such as removing them from schools for being "pro-homosexual). Up here of course is the ever contested gay marriage debate.

The thing that I just can't understand is why people can't seem to see that this is a human rights issue? Everyone always cries about religion and God and the abomination that is homosexuality. But that's just fear disguising itself as religiosity. It's control, oppression, and hatred hiding behind religious texts that are so vague that they can be used to fit pretty much any cause.

Ugh, you know what, I can't even keep writing this post. This whole issue is so backwards, so prejudicial, so full of hatred and ignorance it just makes me sick. It doesn't matter what your religion says, what your community says, what even you say or what I say. Anti or pro, it really doesn't matter. Whether 50% of Canadians support gay marriage, or 95% or 5%, it doesn't matter. At the end of the day it's a human rights issue. We all have the right to make a living, to exist in peace, to be married and have families. If you substituted words like female, Jewish, Muslim, black or immigrant for the word homosexual, people would be screaming discrimination right left and centre. HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUE. That's all it is.

Freedom of religion means living in a pluralistic society in which we respect each other's religious beliefs rather than - ugh, I'm doing it again. That's it. HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUE.