As an agnostic, a secular person, someone who finds inspiration, grace, comfort, and reassurance in nature, I watch as you wield your religion as a sword. I see how rather than using your religion’s tenets to guide your own life and decisions, how you use it as a weapon against others. How you use your faith to demonize people who make different choices than you, live their lives differently from you. How you stand in false morality shouting about the unborn, but look away in silence while children are ripped from the arms of their families at the border. Look away in silence from the black mothers who die in childbirth at much higher rates than their white counterparts. Look away in silence at the children who go unfed and unhoused right here in our own country. How you rail against the Affordable Care Act and the birth control it provides, how you rail against other public health interventions that reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies, how you shame women for the very human act of sex.

I watch while you turn your noses at LGBTQ folks for their “lifestyle”. If you didn’t make a conscious choice to be cis-het, how did they make a conscious choice to be gay or lesbian, to be trans? But even if that were a choice, what business is it of yours? How is two women or two men getting married any of your concern? How is the baker refusing to make a cake for the gay couple any different from the soda fountains of the 1950s not serving black people? Are you not called to love everyone? Didn’t god make us all in his image?

I grew up going to church in my tiny midwestern town. I attended Sunday School most every week, and my family attended services most but not all weekends, usually arriving a few minutes late when we did much to my eternal horror. My parents weren’t content to slide quietly into a back pew, we had to march our tall, noisy selves to the front of the sanctuary which made me want to melt into the floor every single time. My heart races just thinking about it. As a high schooler, I watched the young kids during the service, escaping to the basement after the youth sermon. We were active in our little church, my parents serving in leadership roles and us kids volunteering to help at church events on a regular basis. I enjoyed it. Later, my mom would say that she wanted us to attend church as kids in the hopes that it would make us less likely to join a cult as adults. She was probably half joking, but perhaps not. We belonged to the Congregational Church, which became a point of pride many years later, long after I stopped attending services, when they were one of the first denominations to actively invite and welcome LGBTQ folks to worship.

Eventually, when I was in college I believe, there was a falling out of sorts and my parents left their leadership positions. The pastor was updating the organizational chart and budget of the church. My dad thought god should be at the top, the paster felt he himself should be at the top. The pastor also wanted more money. Our church was tiny and had very little money. I don’t know details beyond that, but it ended with my parents walking away. They left their leadership roles and never attended services regularly after that, although I believe my dad remained a deeply faithful person until he passed last year.

One of my sisters takes after my dad in that respect. She took religion seriously, even as a younger child. She and her first husband were very active in their church, most of her friends were from their congregation. When she left the marriage, a decision she did not make lightly or without every attempt to save the marriage, she lost many of those friends. I watched my sister lose her support system in the time she needed it the most. When I think back to the teachings of my youth, what I remember most comes down to “love thy neighbor”. Not “love thy neighbor unless they want an abortion”. Not “love thy neighbor unless they are gay or trans”. Not “love thy neighbor unless they get a divorce”. Not “love thy neighbor unless, unless, unless…”.

Earlier this year when the pandemic hit, Governor Pritzker here in Illinois was one of the first to issue shut down orders. These orders included any place where people gather, including churches. Many local churches pivoted quickly to online or call-in services, as good internet continues to be a huge challenge in rural areas (side note – this would be a wonderful actual problem for government officials to focus on). Several churches even did drive-in services, where folks stayed in their cars but tuned into the service through a radio station and still worshipped together, which I thought was brilliant. It didn’t take long for some people to claim that the shut down infringed upon their first amendment rights, even as the governor never asked people to stop worshipping. He asked them to stop worshiping in person, a request a great many churches complied with as they recognized the dangers that congregating together posed to their parishioners. People in my timeline made all sorts of ridiculous statements about their rights and their freedoms.

Those same folks in many cases raged against the mask orders. Public health folks universally recommend masks to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. Masks, social distancing, and regular hand washing are our best defense against this virus. And yet these same folks, including many in public office, persistently stomp their feet about their rights and their freedoms, to not only gather together, but to not wear masks when they do. I cannot reconcile how this same group of people shouts about the sanctity of life when it comes to the decisions women make about their own bodies, decisions that affect no one but the women herself, but persistently and vocally shun all public health measures when it comes to combatting a deadly and highly contagious virus, decisions that affect great many people not just themselves. The intersection of freedom and responsibility is not something we discuss, particularly as relates to religion. People shout “I HAVE FREEDOM. I HAVE RIGHTS.” and the conversation ends.

When it comes to the hand-wringing about abortion and gay marriage, including a significant number of letters to the editor in our local paper and what I see from people online, it is all based in personal religious beliefs. I have yet to see one argument against either of these that isn’t based in someone’s religion. I also have yet to hear an argument of how or why it is appropriate to apply those religious beliefs to the whole of the country. How is that not the establishment of a religion? What about my religious beliefs? What about the religious beliefs of the woman getting the abortion? The couple getting married?

With white religious folks supporting Donald Trump in large numbers, especially white protestants and evangelicals (black people are generally the most religious folks in the country and they overwhelmingly support democrats on the whole), those of us who sit on the sidelines of formal religion see stunning hypocrisy. Trump is a man who goes against everything I learned as a kid when I attended church. He is a bully, a white supremacist, a man who treats women with great disrespect, who behaves as though rules and laws do not apply to him. He is not a man of faith. I don’t think a president’s religious beliefs – or lack of belief – matters at all when electing who will lead our country. But if a group of people seeks to apply their version of morality to an entire country, but throws their energetic support behind the most immoral of men, it reveals the whole mess of it to be a house of cards. White christians revealed deep tolerance for white supremacy and misogyny, a deep tolerance for a man who lies with abandon. They are not the moral compass for the nation.

There are many people of faith who do not share these sentiments, of course. “Not all religious people” applies here. And yet. A vocal and powerful subset of that group do and currently they drive the narrative. Many of us agnostic, atheist, and folks of other religions are held hostage by this minority. Rather than talking about public health measures that can reduce unplanned pregnancies, therefore making the question of abortion a rare occurrence, we debate whether or not women have the right to bodily autonomy. Rather than ensuring everyone has equal rights under the law, in many states LGBTQ folks can still be denied employment and/or housing, we debate whether or not they have the right to exist and to marry. This isn’t freedom of religion. We need to have a conversation about what is “moral” and why it matters. When it comes to public policy, morality as defined by religion – any religion – doesn’t matter at all. Even so, attending church every Sunday doesn’t make you moral. Praying every night doesn’t make you moral. Telling others how to live their lives doesn’t make you moral. Ignoring public health guidelines, thereby endangering the health and lives of others, in a pandemic is not moral.

A great number of religious folks need to realize the difference between my business, your business, and everybody’s business. They are awfully concerned about what amounts to my business. I’d prefer they spend their time minding their own store. I don’t need their input on how I live my life. My friends don’t need their input on who they should marry. I do need them to wear a mask, however. That’s everybody’s business.