Chris Monahan 4, 14, 2014 Comm 1270 Final proposition paper The Death of Religious Freedom Intro

The sad day in this great country when peoples freedoms and free will gets stripped. This country has come to stand still between controversies and there is many ways and Issues I could use to write a paper on religious freedoms. The route and Issue I am going to use to drive my paper is gay marriage. The reason I am going to use gay marriage is because the toll it has taken on this country positively and negatively. When we look at gay marriage we see two sides fighting this argument but the question I ask is why does one group have to lose rights while another gains rights. In this paper I am going to use values, toulmin model and many more little things to show why I argue that gay marriage is taking away the rights of many more people who have strong religious views and beliefs. The fallacy I am going to take into the body is Argument from ignorance. Body The first problem and the biggest I see is the fact that gay marriage is going to happen but it should not force itself on people to accept or even like it. The more you watch the news and read the paper you realize whats going on in the world; you have people being forced to resign from their jobs and businesses being sued because they dont agree or belief in

the marriage between gays. These people are getting attacked for the views and beliefs and the worst part is its the gay community thats attacking them. When they are the ones claiming to be the victims but Ill tell you what you dont see is straight Americans protesting for gays to lose their jobs or rights. They just protest for what they believe in and how they feel about their religious freedom. Freedom and difference has always been something that this country has prided its self on hell this country was built on freedom, diversity and religion. So why are forcing people to throw their freedom away that our fore fathers fought for? The Controversies This country has been built on a claim of freedom and the right to believe in what you want. So as I was doing this paper I came across the CEO of Mozilla that was fired because of his beliefs and donation to traditional marriage political view. The gay community and others opposed and boycotted him because of his views on traditional marriage and he ended up losing his job, in a statement I found on Pennlive.com it states It is a shame that our country has come to this point and display reverse discrimination and bigotry against Christians and conservatives. If certain people want their rights respected and held fast then they need to respect the rights of others that might be different then their own(Pennlive pg3). This comment really speaks to me because the gay community claims they want equal rights but is it really equal when we are taking rights away from one group and giving them to another? I just cant see any kind of warrant or backing when you are taking somebodys freedom of choice and speech and using it to make them lose their job because they dont agree with you.

There have been a few other cases. I want to focus on the latest one in Arizona involving Governor Jan Brewer. This case was simple it was bill to give the businesses of Arizona the right

to decline business to people that had views that opposed their religious freedoms or views. This bill traveled up to governor and it seemed like it was set to pass and the governor had a supposedly change of heart because it was right thing to do for Arizona as she stated but come to find out The Super Bowl was going to pull out of Arizona and a lot of businesses were threating to pull out and take business to other states. In this article I found called Arizona Governor vetoes RLFB it claims that No one's going to really hear anything else. When there are threats that the state's economy is going to be taken down right after, you know, a historic recession, that's all anyone's really going to hear. So in that sense the business community and their voices really were heard (RLFB pg 3). So after reading this article I came to a semi conclusion that it doesnt matter what evidence you have or how great youre values seem because money talks and so does popularity and the conservatives have fallen a long way down the popularity chain.

Values The values in religious freedom are huge and they focus some on instrumental values such as Ambitious (hard-working, aspiring) Capable (competent, effective) Cheerful (lighthearted, joyful) Clean (neat, tidy) Courageous (standing up for your beliefs) Forgiving (willing to pardon others) Honest (sincere, truthful) Helpful (working for the welfare of others) Independent (self-reliant, self-sufficient) Logical (consistent, rational) Obedient (dutiful, respectful) Responsible (dependable, reliable) Self-Controlled (restrained, self-disciplined). These instrumental values I listed are huge but the biggest ones I see is honest and logic. The reason I chose logic is because there not trying to get the government to ban gay people and make them lose their jobs their just trying to what they think is right for them and their families and beliefs.

The other value system is Terminal Values these consist of A comfortable life (a prosperous life) A sense of accomplishment (lasting contribution) A world at peace (free of war and conflict) Equality (brotherhood, equal opportunity for all) Family security (taking care of loved ones) Freedom (independence, free choice) Happiness (contentedness) Inner harmony (freedom from inner conflict) National security (protection from attack) Pleasure (an enjoyable, leisurely life) Salvation (saved, eternal life) Self-respect (self-esteem) Social recognition (respect, admiration) True friendship (close companionship) Wisdom (a mature understanding of life). These ones are the best for religious freedom because when you look at freedom all its saying is go ahead and get married because you believe in it but we believe we have the religious freedom to do as we please. The other big ones are family security, freedom, self-respect and wisdom. I tied these ones all together because they all pretty much say the same thing and that is to what you believe in and what makes you happy.

Conclusion

To conclude this position paper I feel I provided strong argument for religious freedom, while not attacking the views and rights of gay marriage. The overall is that I feel like states should have the right to pass gay marriage if they see fit but as American citizens we should also have the right to invoke religious freedom and if we have a strong principal or view on the matter then deny are services and support are views in which ever manor we choose too. The closing line from me is if you want equality then have it but equal is equal and no one deserves special rights because of how popular an issue may be or what kind of money or deals might be involved.

Works Cited

"Arizona Governor Vetoes." N.p., n.d. Web. <http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/02/27/arizonagay-veto>. Michael, Daveena. "Mozilla CEO Should Not Have to Leave for Opposing Gay Marriage." Pennlive. N.p., n.d. Web.

Rieke, Richard, Malcom Sillars, Tarla Peterson. Argumentation and Critical Decision Making. Boston: 2013. Print.