Shirley says she has always voted for #lgbt rights but is feels that marriage is a religious sacrament. #sldconfIt all sounds so reasonable doesn't it? I don't think LGBT people deserve liberty because marriage is a religious invention. Well it sounds reasonable if you lack the imagination to think outside of your tiny little cultural box.
— Caron Lindsay (@caronmlindsay) September 14, 2013
The word "religion" is often used in society as a shorthand for whatever flavour of religion dominates in your country. Here we tend to use it to mean "Christianity" (itself a word that means different things to different people). But religion, as a word and concept, is far too wide-ranging to be used for a limited concept. The diversity of religious thought and belief, just in my small little town, makes a mockery of any attempt to present a "religious sacrament" as some sort of monolithic thing.
Religions have a wildly differing views of sexuality, sex and gender. Some religions, I kid you not, have been founded by gay people! Yes, religions are pretty diverse.
And LGBT people are pretty diverse too. Some actually believe that Jesus was the Son of God. Mad, I know.
So what could Williams mean? Could it be that she meant to say "marriage is a Catholic sacrament"? Because that is the only possible thing that makes sense in the light of the fact she, as a Catholic, is unlikely to describe it as a "Mormon Sacrament" (which would actually be communion because sacrament is also a word with lots of meanings) and Catholicism (ooo.... another open word I accept, I mean the Roman variety) is very much opposed to LGBT freedom. And what does that really boil down to? She didn't vote for same-sex marriage because she believes that her God doesn't approve of it.
Of course if she said that, she'd sound pretty disturbing in our secular world. Instead she implies LGBT people aren't religious, and that some religions don't consider same-sex marriage just as much of a "sacrament" as opposite-sex marriage. Sigh. Failing at religious freedom 101.
