For some unknown reason, religions have been receiving special treatment, usually through exemptions from laws everyone else must follow. They are exempt from paying taxes while still enjoying the things the taxes pay for, such as police and fire protection, paramedics (even for the faith-healing religions), roads, water, etc. They are also exempt from child neglect and homicide laws in cases of withholding needed medical care from children if it's withheld due to a sincerely held religious belief, even when the children die. In addition, there are exemptions from animal cruelty laws, which allows for the kosher (Jewish) and halal (Muslim) methods of animal slaughter.
In 1993 in the case of Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, the court ruled in favor of religions, in this case the religion was Santeria, being exempt from animal sacrifice. For their ruling the US Supreme Court relied on the exemptions for kosher and halal cruel slaughtering methods.
In January of this year, the Michigan city of Hamtramck, which has a city council that is 100% Muslim, and which has a Muslim mayor, made animal sacrifice on residential property legal. As the linked-to article states, "Muslims often slaughter animals during the holiday of Eid al-Adha..." Since Islam, like Christianity, is an Abrahamic "revealed" religion that sprang out of the original bad idea of Judaism, it's not surprising that the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha is the celebration of the ungodly and repulsive story in the Hebrew Bible/Christian Old Testament at Genesis 22:1-13 of God allegedly commanding Abraham to kill his son as a sacrifice. Many people believe the "reason" for this was because God was testing Abraham's faith. However, verse 13 makes clear that fear was the reason God commanded Abraham to kill his son. It states, "...now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me." As the story goes, Abraham saw a ram that was stuck in a thicket, so Abraham took that ram and sacrificed it to his god, instead of killing his son. People who are under the influence of an Abrahamic "revealed" religion assume the ram was put there by God, hence the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha in which Muslims sacrifice animals to their Abrahamic God. (This disgusting Bible story and offensive portrayal of God caused a Christian Bible-believing mother in Texas to kill her two little boys and to permanently and severely handicap her third son. I've also heard a former Christian state that when he was a child, he heard this Bible story in church and was terrified that God would tell his father to kill him. It's very important that we take the advice of the Deist Thomas Paine who wrote in The Age of Reason that we need a revolution in religion based on our innate God-given reason and Deism!)
The Muslim city officials of Hamtramck, Michigan also recently banned all flags, other than the American flag and the POW/MIA flag, from city property. Many people believe this was done to prevent the gay pride flag from being displayed on city property. Many gay people feel betrayed by the Muslim city council members and the mayor due to the fact that gay people were instrumental in getting people to accept Muslims in Hamtramck. Now the Muslim city council and mayor are turning on gay people.
All of the Abrahamic "revealed" religions are strongly anti-gay, so it should not be a surprise to anyone that when Muslims, or any followers of an Abrahamic "revealed" religion, have the power to attack gay people, they will do it based on their twisted "revealed" religion. Leviticus 20:13 goes far beyond banning gay pride flags; the ancient Jewish clergymen who wrote it actually claim that God commanded that gay men should be killed. It reads, "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."
The vitally important Jeffersonian wall of separation of religion from government has taken a beating over the last decade. Everything from giving tax dollars to religious schools via school voucher plans, to tax dollars being used to refurbish playgrounds at religious schools, to legalizing discrimination against gay people if done based on a religious belief, the list goes on and on.
It is a clear sign that something is wrong, that in the 21st century society is stuck in ancient superstitions to the point of allowing animals to be sacrificed and allowing a whole class of people to be discriminated against. It is a sign that something is wrong and needs to be corrected. The only antidote to this harmful nonsense is reason. And in particular, reason openly and honestly applied to the "revealed" religions, which are the cause of these problems. The more people we reach with reason-based Deism, the further away from these religious-borne problems we will move ourselves and society, until they finally disappear. It will take an extended herculean effort, but it can be done!
