Religion shouldn’t limit personal views

As a child, I was always told to think for myself. My parents, teachers, books I read, music I listened to, the idea was always: “Be your own person with your own individual thoughts and ideas.”  And that’s how I’ve tried to live my life. I’ve always tried to stay away from institutions that want to shape my thoughts into what they want. And in my 17 years of living, I’ve done a pretty good job of staying true to my own beliefs.

However, I was raised a Roman Catholic.

Not easy to reconcile.

    Now, Roman-Catholics, they’re a very traditional group of people. Church every Sunday, family dinners, the whole nine yards. And for as long as I can remember — before I grew too cynical for the stained glass windows and wooden pews — I went to church on Sundays. I prayed the prayers, sang the songs. I worshiped the loving and forgiving God I read about in the Bible. And that God is a God that I still believe in. Even today, when my faith is only a mere flicker of what it used to be, I still have faith in the God I knew when I was just a child, because that God cherishes every single person that populates this earth. But I’ve noticed something in the last few years. This recognition could just be my age and growing pessimism, but I think it’s because it’s been happening more. And it’s been happening on a larger scale than I’ve ever seen.

Think of the upcoming election. We have two presidential candidates, whose policies are as different as could be. But there are three social issues that come up repeatedly, and these three issues are what many people are basing their vote on. Not the candidate’s policy on fixing the economy, or their take on foreign relations.

Homosexuality, birth control, abortion.

Three issues, that in a way, have very little to do with the larger American community, and these three issues are polarizing the votes. And there is one very specific reason these three issues are so important to the public. Based on my experience, the church has very strict opinions on all three of these issues. They are as follows: don’t be it, don’t use it, don’t do it. And the church wouldn’t change their opinions on these issues for the world. And hey, more power to them. It takes a lot to be as decisive as the Catholic church is. My real problem, though, is the church is forcing its opinions on its congregation. And I don’t think that’s right. We have the right to think for ourselves, and when a very powerful institution tries to take that power from us, that’s when I take insult. Not just for myself, but for every person in the congregation who has their own opinions about something.

First off, we have homosexuality. The church has blatantly said that it does not approve of homosexuality, gay marriage, or gay rights in general. While this is not the church in its entirety, the people who oppose gay rights are a lot louder than those who don’t. There is a quote in Leviticus 18:22 – “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination,” – that people always use as their backing for hating the gay community. And well, what I have to say to that is: because we weren’t there when the Bible was written, we don’t really know what was being said. But still. People have always and will always twist the writings of their religion to support their resentment. And there is nothing anyone can do to change this. What I don’t get though, is how this institution that is supposed to support love and trust and acceptance, can simply tell 2.1 billion people to hate this minority because there are a few lines in the Bible that imply homophobia. And I am not saying that every Christian person is homophobic, I’m not. And there are plenty of others who aren’t. But the fact that there are people who are homophobic simply because their church told them to be is bothersome.

The same goes for both birth control and abortion. The church adamantly opposes any use of birth control and they vehemently oppose abortions. For any reason. The shocking case that only showed the church to be more firmly rooted in their beliefs than previously thought involved the rape of a 9 year old girl who had an abortion because carrying a child at that age could be dangerous. After her abortion, the church excommunicated her, her parents, as well as the doctor who performed the abortion. But not the man who raped her. This is the church that people blindly follow. And sure, there are people who follow like sheep in plenty of other religions too. This just happens to be the one relevant to me, as well as the one that I’m the most familiar with. And plenty of the population around Stockton.

The issue I’m trying to shed light on is not that religion is a bad thing, or that people shouldn’t have faith or share the same opinions as their church. I just feel that people should exercise their right to think what they want instead of letting their church exercise that right for them. In the upcoming election, I would rather people vote based on who they believe will do the most good for the American people, not who supports abortion.