Rights, God, and the Godless

Every so often, I’ll trawl WordPress topics for posts that might be interesting. These posts might be ones I agree with, or ones I feel a desire to challenge. I have been fortunate to come across a number of strong voices in the fields of feminism, LGBT rights, and racial equality. I have also stumbled across people who have fundamentally different viewpoints to my own. This little section of this Muse is going to look at a few such individuals.

Firstly, we have this post, by one Caroline Smith. Ms Smith (forgive me, I have no idea if she is married) has a few things to say on abortion and gender:

Think about it. God designed an incredible process of human reproduction that requires very little of the parents apart from the sexual act and harboring and protecting the new life. And we, if we are pro-abortion, say, “Not so fast, God. We oppose your design, your plan, and your purpose for sex and establish our own instead. Women can have as much sex as they want with whomever they want and if reproduction occurs as a result, they can kill and remove the ‘re-product’ if they so desire. Because OUR purpose for sex is pleasure….period. And no matter that women’s bodies are required for propagating the species, we reject that as an unjust imposition on a woman’s bodily autonomy. So, F*** you, God, and anyone else who opposes OUR plan.”

God also designed humans to be either male or female but gender ideologues deny that sex is fixed and binary. They shake their heads and say, “We own our bodies. No one, not even your ‘sky-daddy,’ can tell me I can’t be whatever sex I want to be. We reject and destroy his design when it doesn’t meet our subjective and so superior specifications.”

The presumption here is that defenders of pro-choice ideologies and trans rights believe in God in the first place. You cannot give the middle finger to a being you don’t believe in. You cannot reject that in which you do not have faith in to begin with. I do not know of a single pro-choice person who argues that they oppose God. I do know of several pro-choice activists who argue bodily autonomy is what they fight for – which is what trans rights is about as well – because all-too-often, women are expected to be good little subservient incubators, with no lives of their own, outside of the bubble of pre-defined gender roles, that conservative religious types expect them to live in. Forced-birthers will expect children to proceed with life-threatening pregnancies, which underscores why they aren’t pro-life. Forced-birthers do not care about the future well-being of the baby, or the baby’s mother. It seems that quality of life is irrelevant.

Next up, we have a post by one Rod Halliburton.

A more appropriate name for the Act would be the Disrespect for Marriage Act. The marriage relationship was instituted by God and can only be defined by God. When God first created a mate suitable for Adam, he created a woman. Genesis 2:21-24. Jesus reiterated God’s definition of and design for marriage in Matthew 19:4-6. “And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” From the beginning of time, God has defined marriage as a relationship between MALE and FEMALE. Jesus said for this cause shall a MAN leave father and mother and cleave to his WIFE.

Marriage is not a religious institution. It is not unique to Christianity. It is not reasonable to demand that everyone must conform to the whim of one religion’s definition of marriage. Marriage pre-dates Christianity and like many things, was co-opted by the Church.

Finally, moving away from Christian perspectives, we have a Muslim one, from Aish. Aish titled their post ‘When God has Forbidden Something, Your Opinion doesn’t Matter’.

Male, female, and transgender-these are the only kinds of sexual diversities, something you are born as. Whereas, being gay, or lesbian, or bi- is not something you are born as, it’s not genetic. Some people have developed this misconception that homosexuality is genetic. It’s not! No person is born a homosexual, just like, no one is born a liar, a thief, an alcoholic, a murderer etc. People acquire these sinful conducts due to a lack of proper guidance, and education about the difference between what’s right, and what’s wrong. On top of everything, it is because of the weak connection with Allah, and disobeying His rules and regulations.

Homosexuality is more of something you develop in your mind, or is programmed into you. Like, you know how you are always told, to find the right kind of company to hang out with, well, that’s the reason, because the company you hang out with, can deeply affect your thinking and ethics.

If one does not believe in God, then does it matter that God has forbidden something? All the texts and holy books in the world will not matter, if someone does not believe. They won’t suddenly become relevant.

Meanwhile, we have some acts of false equivalence. Homosexuality is not comparable to murder, nor any form of debauchery. This idea is used to demonise the LGBT community for having the nerve of wanting to exist without prejudice.

In the end, what all three articles are trying to stress, is that our lives, our dreams, our hopes, and our desires, are all secondary to the will of God. It seems that the devout expect compliance, even from non-believers. The LGBT community is taught to believe itself to be evil, to be dirty, and sinful. Wishing to have control over one’s own body is seen as shameful. One of the fundamental human rights – bodily autonomy – is taught as being bad.

Except, the freedom to determine our own destiny is not bad. The right to life includes the right to quality of life. We should not live in a world where children are forced to have babies, or where being gay or bi or lesbian or trans incurs harassment, exile and violence.

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