Prop 8 and religious freedom

SocraticGadfly examines an excellent Dallas Morning News OpEd 'Why Prop 8 victory was Pyrrhic for conservatives'. DMN's Rod Dreher is afraid religious leaders have picked a fight that will cost them their religious freedom. SG says maybe so with respect to 'outside the church' enterprises. I think it isn't anti-discrimination laws certain religious leaders need to fear: It's the ugly underbelly of their faith that is in the process of being exposed.

Leonard Pitts wrote a column about pro Prop 8 voters who, themselves, have been victims of discrimination. Pitts notes that religion was used successfully against blacks' civil rights.

When, for instance, they use an obscure passage from the Bible to claim God has ordained the mistreatment of gays, don't they hear an echo of white people using that Bible to claim God ordained the mistreatment of blacks?

But, black civil rights only embarrassed bigoted religious leaders. Though their churches might have been, their religions were not built on the backs of slaves. Unfortunately, many of todays' popular religions are based on the subjugation of women. The burqua is an extreme. Burquas try to erase even the hint of a woman's existence. The Southern Baptists call for a woman to submit to her husband. Conservative religions are all about promoting gender roles - stay at home moms and bread winning dads.

Dreher hints at the gender role point.

The concept of marriage has largely been severed from established norms in the popular understanding and is now seen as a contract formalizing the love a couple (for now) has for each other. Today, marriage has no intrinsic meaning that people are meant to serve; rather, it can be shaped to support people's desires.

Their whole argument against gay marriage is based on the absence of 'approved' gender roles. If gays can marry, women and men can define their own relationships. Marriage will have 'no intrinsic', i. e. defined by religion, gender roles. This is the reason abortion and gay marriage are on the top of the religious right's hit list.

The religious right will not lose the freedom to hate. They may lose much, much more than that.