In an interview for an article in the May 6 issue of Sports Illustrated, Jason Collins came out announcing he was gay, it was great moment for the NBA and American sports. And then the usual stupidity followed such a momentous occasion with an ESPN Analyst Chris Broussard saying Collins was “openly living in unrepentant sin.”

Thankfully, this was given the usual eye-rolling by most of the populace and Broussard made a statement regarding his remarks soon afterwards.

This embarrassing comment still caused a shock to some who didn’t realize this prejudice still existed. Thankfully homophobes are a dying breed, but unfortunately the modern day enables them to post their bigotry anywhere and everywhere. One can look at the publicity the Westboro Baptist Church has gotten thanks to the internet for evidence.

This prejudice is a sure-fire way to get noticed nowadays because it’s just so rare. Yet why are there still pockets of bigotry found in the U.S.A?

Our “Bible-thumping” populace. Now hold on, please don’t interpret this as me saying all Christians are homophobes. Far from it, Christianity is much more tolerant compared to other religions in accepting members of the LGBT community. It just so happens that the intolerant sect of Christianity, which is who I mean when I say “Bible-thumping”, happens to attract the most press. This populace has been delightedly diminishing since major progressive movements such as the passing of the 15th and the 24th amendment. They’ve always been against equality for all. They were Bible-thumpers in protest of those reforms as there are now, but now in ever-decreasing numbers.

The arguments now being made against gay marriage are the same as the ones against equal rights and interracial marriage.

Why can’t we have equality?

“It’s against the Bible, You Sinner!”.

To which I often reply

“Who cares?”.

I mean seriously, the Bible is not the final law of the land or even close to it. We do plenty of things against the Bible everyday.

Ever read Leviticus?

Great book, love the ending, that’s the book which originally stated homosexuality as a sin. It also has some other great rules, such as “You shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together” (Leviticus 19.19) My personal favorite is to ask someone against gay-marriage if they eat shrimp. (Leviticus 11:10). I just love the hypocrisy in cherry-picking what rules to follow in the Bible. Also, all the those rules are to be enforced equally and all be punishable by death. Imagine dying for wearing clothes made from 2 different cloths, crazy right?

An alternate reason for my detachment from this argument is because the Bible does not dictate how we govern. America was not founded with an idea of enforcing religion. The early settlers of America came here to escape religious persecution. Not once are the words: “God, Jesus, Divine, Christ, Christianity” mention in the Constitution except when used in the exclusionary sense. In fact “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”(Article 6, section 3).  The founders made sure to separate the United States from Christianity with the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, which states the United States “not in any sense founded on the Christian religion”. The United States is composed of many many religions, not to mention founded by a group of men that was composed of men who didn’t all follow the same religion. Whenever you hear the radical religious right wanting to take the United States back to “its roots”, realize our founding fathers are turning in their graves every time.

So sorry guys and gals, but you can’t use the Bible to justify your fanaticism or try to use the government to enforce your zealotry.

So America, listen up, these pockets of religious dogma are dying out, but they aren’t losing without a fight. Let’s give the final push and make sure gay people will be, well, “Gay” in America.

*By the way, last year we shot some great photos of the Westboro Baptist Church Counter-protest. Be sure to check it out.