There is a serious court case where a man says no contraceptives should be sold to anyone because his daughter might use them to become sexually active which is against his “religious beliefs”. A band of native Americans are suing to stop people going to the moon because they consider it a “sacred object”. And much more.
Religious belief has always involved conflict because what is crystal truth to one person or tribe is foggy nonsense to another. America tried to solve this with individual right to freedom of religion, with no state enforcement of one or another as there used to be in medieval Europe. America has always been home to all kinds of imported, homegrown, or personal religions – each mutually crazy to one another.
But the right to one’s own religion should never extend to control over others. Such rights stop at the boundary of your skin. “’Your religion” may say all short people should have their hearts ripped out. The state is not defiling your right to religious freedom by stopping you.
In the “normal curve” of people’s personalities there are always a certain number of blindly driven fanatics. The various laws try to keep them from hurting others. Even their own children, who also possess rights.
Most people have a spiritual component, and need the right to express it as they see fit. But never the right to take away anyone else’s similar right because -well- those others are also absolutely certain they are cosmically right
HuntingtonHarborThoughts 