ITT: My Catholic faith is being persecuted in America.
Is the government or anyone else actively preventing you from practicing your beliefs? Are you actively singled out and harassed because of your beliefs? (And I'm not talking about "hurrdurr he disagrees with my view and called me stupid, I mean ACTUAL harassment.) As a whole, have people of your religion been targeted and physically harmed because of their religion in this county? No? Then what double standard? Your religion oppresses marginalized persons in the name of their beliefs and because the government wants to help those said people reach a better standard of living and acceptance, your "religious" rights are being violated?
Absolutely wonderful for the government for putting down my horrific Hell Church, then.
But please, don't make me pay for it. They can do whatever they want, but I see no reason why I should be forced to pay for something I actively disagree with.
However, it's been made clear, and abundantly so, that I honestly need to sit down and shut up because I have, and I mean personally so, oppressed millions of people and probably run their dogs over as well.
I understand. I have no room to protest, and I have no room to argue my beliefs. If I do, I'm probably arguing in support of widespread death and hatred everywhere.
Of course, I don't know how I could've been so blinded. I merely assumed that, because several other threads here concern people being offended that their beliefs were being attacked, that I had the right to voice my opinion.
I see that I am in error, and I will stop trying to stand up for what I believe in. After all, I'm merely getting in the way of everyone else doing the same.
EDIT: Actually, no. Not [/Thread]. I have had one too many Hannibal Lecture this week. One on why I'm a worthless human being, one on how I'm little more than a nuisance to everyone around me, and one on why I need to be quiet about what I believe in. And it's time to make a fool of myself once again, to show everyone why I'm little more than a raving idiot who's a waste of space, just one more time. Because even though I've been told for years that I'm worthless, that I'm stupid, that I'm whatever the hell you want to say, I'm still a human, and I still have a voice. I may stutter, I may stammer, I may be completely and totally unintelligible all of the time, but I still have a voice, even if I can only express it in text.
I know that what I believe in is unpopular. I know that there are many, many horrible things in my religion's history, and that, currently, my politics are unpopular because of who's in office right now.
However, I find it totally ironic that, in the same breath people use to tell me that I oppress the downtrodden and minorities, they also tell me to silence myself, to hide what I believe in, to not take a stand. I find it funny that people who can so blindly spew hatred and bile can also accuse me of bigotry and ignorance.
It's ironic, it's so horribly ironic, that the same people who denounce those that hate and blame are the ones who blame me for everything done in the past two thousand years that was even tangentially related to my beliefs.
Friends, let me make one thing clear. I am not a Bible-thumping fire-and-brimstone preacher, I am not a skinhead with a shotgun who beats up the neighbor kids, and I am not a cross burning zealot.
I'm just a guy, just
one man, who's trying to make his way through life the best he can. Personally, I think that the doctrine of "be good to others" isn't a bad one, and I think that actually taking a stand, actually
having a spine, is something to be valued. I deeply apologize for not bringing an army to back me up, for not waiting to state my views until they were wildly popular with guaranteed support. I apologize for bringing controversy, for bringing in a topic that isn't the usual "CONSERVATIVES RAPE AND MURDER TWENTY SEVEN BABIES". I dearly, dearly apologize for that.
Now, with that out of the way, I hope we can resume the topic, keeping in mind that I have never tortured a Moor, nor have I even been to Spain. Neither have I colonized the New World, or wiped out Indians.
...
What is the topic, you ask?
Why, it's simple!
The topic is, "Is it acceptable for the government to require someone to pay for something that they fundamentally disagree with?"
Pay for.
Those two words right there would have saved half this topic.
Not use, not see, not look at...
Pay for.
If I need to elaborate further, let me know.
(See?
That's jumping down people's throats.)