It's Not About Discrimination- It's About the Dignity of the Human Person

There's recently been a huge trend in the world of politics to amend and/or create legislation regarding religious freedom both on the state and federal level. It's been all over the news and most of the time it is portrayed as a same-sex attraction discrimination issue.

This is not about restricting people based on their sexual orientation. This is about preserving the liberty to love each person, who- since created in the image and likeness of God- is meant to live forever in union with Him in heaven. These institutions that are fighting for religious freedom, Catholic Schools, Catholic hospitals, etc- they are not fighting for the ability to discriminate against women (by refusing to provide them with contraception) or for the ability to discriminate against gay people (by not hiring them simply because of their sexual orientation). They are fighting to protect their freedom and as Pope St John Paul the Great- the man who spearheaded the victory over communism in Europe- reminds us "Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought."

We ought to love each other enough to help one another to fulfill our purpose, to become the people we were created to be.

We ought to love each other enough to help one another get to heaven. 

That is why these institutions are fighting for religious freedom, because they are convicted about upholding their role to help their employees get to heaven. The Catholic Church believes that people with same-sex attraction, because they have been created in the image and likeness of God, have such profound, inherent dignity that they are worth more than the barren romantic relationships that some decide to pursue. 

In that same vein, the Catholic Church also believes that God's plan for human sexuality- specifically human fertility and a human person's capacity to be a co-creator with God- is a sacred gift, not merely something that must be suppressed when inconvenient. Pregnancy is not a disease that needs to be prevented. Rather, human fertility is something that must be understood and cherished and treated with great respect.

The institutions fighting for religious liberty are merely asking for this worldview to be accepted- not agreed with- but accepted and respected.

Not everyone agrees with this worldview, but that does not give the government the authority to discard it as garbage. 

Tolerance is, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary, "the ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with"