Oh, Those Pesky Religionists.

I know.  I'm breaking my own rule.  I have two rules for this blog, and the main one is that posts have to be about Biscayne Park.  (The other is that authors other than myself have to let me know as soon as they post something, so I can send out the new post announcement.)  This topic is about BP as much as it's about anywhere, but it's not specifically about BP.

On the radio this morning, I heard a spot about a Tennessee law that allows religious adoption agencies not to help same sex couples adopt.  This is in keeping with the religious beliefs of the adoption agency sponsors, but it is contrary to an "Obama era" ruling against this kind of prejudice.

This is, in my opinion, a real problem.  By "real," I don't mean big.  I mean genuine.  There's an actual dilemma and a conflict in this matter, and it has legitimacy on both sides.

The correctness, if you ignore the political incorrectness, of the religion-based adoption agencies is that for whatever are their reasons, and according to however they choose to interpret their religions, they think same sex unions are not in keeping with the tenets of their religions.  Yes, of course there's no such thing as "god," and religionists are commonly inconsistent, arbitrary, and hypocritical.  But within the structure of whatever beliefs they agree to hold, they've just decided they don't approve, or "god" doesn't approve, of same sex unions.  In fact, according to them, "god" doesn't even approve of homosexual people, whether or not they form unions.  So, the glaring question is why should they-- the religionists-- have to elevate to legitimacy people they think aren't legitimate, and who are whatever the religionists mean by the word "sinners?"  (If you want a glimpse of how ridiculous religion-based moralizing about this matter can get, look up the famous letter to Dr Laura Schlessinger.)

But, in any case, it's a fair question: why should a Catholic or Methodist or whatever adoption agency have to get babies placed in families of which Catholics or Methodists don't approve, when the disapproval is in any sense religious tenet-based?  Catholic and Methodist adoption agencies will get babies placed with Baptists, or Jews, or probably atheists.  They just have unique energy about homosexuals.  And if this is how they claim to feel, and they're remotely consistent about it, why can't they restrict in this setting?  As they generously offer, they don't in any way say homosexual couples or people can't adopt babies.  They can use public, non-religious agencies to help them.

And in one way, I don't argue with them.  I think that within the context of their twisted way of looking at things, they're not wrong.

But here's why there's a problem with allowing this matter to be this simple.

We're not just talking about religionists.  We're talking about American religionists.  America, the "free country."  America, where there's "separation of church and state," and this was considered so vitally important that it was mentioned in the Constitution.  And it's in this America that religious outlets and religionists get every benefit that everyone else gets, and they don't even have to pay for it.  If they successfully claim to be religions, no matter how fringy, they don't have to pay taxes.  They're underwritten, and they're entitled about it.  And many of them are plenty rich.  They don't owe the rest of us anything?  How entitled, how childish, are they?  They get all the benefits and all the protections this country has to offer, and they don't pay a nickel for it, and I pay for them instead, even though I think that what's at their core is a pack of primitive and irrational nonsense, but if I'm homosexual, and I want to adopt a child, they can refuse to help me?  As Pete Buttigieg says, if anyone doesn't approve of homosexuality, their beef is not with him.  It's with "god."  That, according to Buttigieg, is what made him homosexual.  But religionists can't bring themselves to recognize the fallacy of their belief system, so they take it out on people.  Homosexual people.  Homosexual people who want to adopt children.  And frankly, I think they're wrong.  I think that if they live in this country, then no, they can't refuse to help Americans adopt children.  I have a funny feeling that as much as religionists would like to refuse to help same sex couples adopt children, or as much as they would like to refuse to sell wedding cakes to same sex couples who get married, if their church or temple or mosque, or their business or personal home, was on fire, they wouldn't concern themselves with the sexual preference of whoever provided the tax money to pay for the public service to extinguish it, or with the sexual preference of the firefighter.  So let's not have it both ways.