I must be a racist since I don’t agree with Obama’s policies, right?

I must hate gays since I don’t believe their civic unions should be legalized, right?

According to the generalizations made by the “Marriage Equality for All?” article in the April issue of this paper, the above statements must be true because I’m not a “half decent member of society” due to my religious convictions. I find this ironic since the very same article tells me that it is “by no means” acceptable for another person to judge me “based on his or her own closed-mindedness.”

The “close-mindedness” present in this article is plainly and simply reverse discrimination. It seems that the writer has chosen to lump people such as myself into the “judgemental right-wing” group, which is a broad generalization about both right-wing members of society and religious followers. Don’t say “love thy neighbor” while bashing the beliefs of your “conservative Catholic who lives next door.”

“Is it not oppressive to demean and belittle due to religious beliefs?” said junior Brycen Holland, founder of the Young Americans for Freedom Club. “How is generalizing a people as ‘immature’ for holding a belief in God better than not supporting a different belief?”

Why does the writer get to decide that “religious” people are judgmental and damning? Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church (which has a following of  1.2 billion members), has recently called for Catholics to accept and try to aid those of different sexualities.

“If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” PopeFrancis said.

The one thing in this article with which I agree is the fact that the true judgement of all is “for a ‘forgiving’ God to conclude in Heaven.” However, Catholics believe that God has revealed he will judge mankind, and those who believe in this faith act in accordance with these rules. Yes, it is impossible to know how God will judge at the end, but believing in the rules is a step the faithful take to prepare for God’s final judgement.

I would also like to address the commentaries on both the Constitution and the Bible. Firstly, the Bible does not “approve of slavery.”  The Bible simply addresses slavery because it existed at the time, and in a very different capacity than it did in the Americas. Which other important text takes the same action? The Constitution (Article I Section 2), which the writer of  “Marriage Equality for All?” uses as the basis of her argument:

“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”

According to the logic presented in the article, the original Constitution (drafted by Madison, not Jefferson) should not “be taken seriously and literally” when debating marriage equality.  Another contradiction.  I understand that “we aren’t in [ancient] Jerusalem during 0 C.E.,” but we aren’t in 1790 America, either.

So how does one apply old texts to new issues? Through interpretation and amendment. The Catholic Church, especially through the new Pope, has begun to foster forward-thinking and acceptance while still trying to help people and recognize God’s grace.

The Constitution has also seen its share of updates that have established more

liberties. Yet, some of these liberties have had a more profound impact on history,  and a  comparison can not be fairly made (as it was in the original article) between the Black Civil Rights and Marriage Equality Movements.

In 2012, the U.S. Census estimated that approximately 13.1 percent of the United States population was African-American. That’s around 40 million Americans. According to a 2013 Gallup Poll, around 3.5 percent of American adults identified as LGBT. In 2012, the FBI released statistics showing that 48 percent of hate crimes were still based on race, while only about 20 percent were based on sexual orientation.

The scale of the Civil Rights Movement was drastically more substantial and influenced more lives in a greater capacity than the Marriage Equality Movement could, so no, we can not “remember the debate on legalizing gay marriage just the same as we look back on granting African Americans civil rights.” Oppression of an entire people based on skin color for centuries is not equivalent to the denial of equal marriage rights.

Finally, the discussion of the separation of church and state in “Marriage Equality for All?” leaves one key concept out of its argument. It does cite the fact that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” but the writer has conveniently chosen to leave out that Congress may also not make laws “prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

If the Constitution works both ways in this manner, then who should get to say who is right and who is “judgmental?” I am not here to stand on a soapbox, but I feel that those speaking out against people opposed to same-sex civil unions should realize that mass generalizations about a conservative or “religious individual” should and will be met with fierce opposition. If you truly are going to “love thy neighbor,” you cannot do so selectively.