“Separation Of Church And State Road Sign” www.patheos.com accessed 6/1/15
Recently people have been having their religion affect their political views. This is the called the separation of church and state. This wouldn’t be a problem if they were helpful and positive views, but instead they are discriminatory and had a large negative effect on real political decisions. Things like same sex marriage, sex education, and how people treat atheists are negatively impacted by some of these views.
Legalizing same sex marriage has been in debate for a very long time, mostly because there is religious reasoning against it. Most people’s reason against gay marriage is either that homosexuality is a sin in the bible or that marriage is suppose to only be between a man and a woman because of how marriage works in the bible. I don’t see how these can be the only reason same sex marriage is illegal. Most arguments I’ve seen against same sex marriage are either based on religion, exaggerated health concerns about the increased spread of STDs in the homosexual population, or just the fact that people find same sex relationships gross. The only semi valid one is about the STDs, but that was only a concern in the past because of how risky it was to be in homosexual relationships and a person couldn’t have a permanent partner very easily or safely, so people would often have many partners and STDs could spread more easily, but that isn’t the case anymore because it is safer to have a permanent partner and there is more awareness in general about stopping the spread of STDs.
Another issue related to separation of church and state is sex education. Most religious schools will teach abstinence only sex education because in most Abrahamic religions, you have to stay a virgin until marriage. This would be perfectly okay, if most students never engaged in sexual activities at all, but when they do, they will be severely uneducated and could end up hurting themselves, and their partner, or have unsafe sex and get stds or have unwanted pregnancies. And sense abortion is greatly stigmatized or even illegal in some places, this could be a serious emotional, physical and financial problem for them. Also they are enforcing this kind of education in non religious public schools, which makes the issue even worse.
I know that a person who runs for most political office positions will have a very hard time getting votes if they identify as atheist or do not recognize some sort of god(s). In fact, there are some older rules in some states that have to have politicians recognize some sort of higher power before they are allowed to run for and office. Another reason for this is that people argue that this person would have no morals because they believe that morals come from a god and if you don’t believe in one you have no morals. Also atheists are given a bad reputation because people who practice religion because they question where their morals derive from. Some children who “come out” as atheist have been punished and harshly judged by their parents and in some extreme cases, kicked out of their homes.
If people separated the church and state in their political decisions, these would not be issues in today’s world, and these subjects would have a positive light socially and politically. Politics need to be separated from religious beliefs in a way that also helps to lessen issues like these from arising.