By Blair Donald
Round Table editor

In the constitution of the United States of America, a separation of church and state is clearly established. The colonists were used to seeing the church take away the rights of citizens, so in their country they gave religious freedom to prevent this from happening again. So why is it that the church is so influential in government? Freedom of speech and expression of opinion is fantastic, and should not be prevented unless it is slander or libel, also as stated in law.

Religious groups, no matter what their opinion is, should be allowed to protest as are groups from the other side of whatever issue it is. However, when their influence extends to the actual law, it becomes unlawful by the constitution and yet is accepted by society. I’m talking of course about issues like gay marriage.

Marriage in the Bible is defined as a covenant between a man and a woman, and religious groups have every right to see it as such. However, though marriage is a religious ceremony, it is also a lawful contract. This is a sticky area where the law and religion overlap, but the actual law should be impartial and focus on human rights, rather than being influenced by religious groups.

However, there is another religious ceremony that overlaps religion with law: funerals. The Westboro Baptist Church is an extremist religious group that protests funerals with signs like “God Hates Fags” and “America is Doomed”, occasionally with easily mockable misspellings and grammatical errors, but their primitive level of intelligence isn’t the issue here. The issue is that they have been allowed in a Supreme Court ruling to continue to interrupt these ceremonies as it is an expression of free speech, and is therefore constitutionally protected. Middletown had a personal experience with this group, as they showed up to protest after the tragic Billotti-Wood murder.

Here’s my point: we’re protecting the constitutional rights of church groups to protest at funerals with signs that sometimes don’t even relate to the person who is dead, but we aren’t letting people who are in love get the same rights and ceremonial recognition as “biblically acceptable” couples. A compromise is possible; perhaps an added clause in the law that states that any pastor who feels uncomfortable with the ceremony does not have to perform it, but the church could be rented out and a different person could marry the couple.

It’s the 21^st century, and we’re still lagging behind in human rights and acceptance, equality and maturity about other people’s views and opinions. This is the future, let’s act like it.