The Road To H... Is Paved With Religious Exemptions:" How Anti - religious Crusaders Exploit Religious People and Religious Rights - To Decimate Both (Opinion)
/by Binyomin Feinberg feinbergbinyomin@gmail.com
13 Menachem Av, 5781 °° Parshas Vo'Eschanon °° July 22, '21
One of the primary slogans employed by Orthodox Jewish activists to combat the De-definition of Marriage in N.Y. State a decade ago was: "The Road To H... Is Paved With Religious Exemptions." What that meant was that religious New Yorkers collectively had the ability to stop the legislation that celebrated the cardinal sin of Sodomy as the foundation of legitimate matrimony - as long as we would avoid compromising.
By compromising on fraudulent Marriage - spiked with puffy religious exemptions for the faithful fickle - we would enable the initial instalment of the anti-G-d legislation to pass. Thereby, we would enable the next mutation to follow, whenever "Civilization" would be ready for the next variant.
On the other hand, if we would have all stood together on principle, who knows how long we could have staved off the Post-Philistine legislation, legislation that (apparently channelling Orwell 2.0) was predictably mass-marketed under the appealing descriptive of its polar opposite: "Marriage Equality."
Unfortunately, in June 2011, as more often than not, money won out over religion. Some lobbyists, who claimed to promote the interests of religious communities, played a symbolically important - if quantitatively minor - role here, by opting to do their small part in allowing same-sex Marriage to pass. The most vibrant opposition to this type of law - the Orthodox Jewish public - although generally aware of the issue, was, overall, kept in the dark about the very real prospects for success, if we would only protest intelligently and unrelentingly, and avidly urge others to follow suit.
Furthermore, to deflect potent religious opposition, some feeble "religious exemptions" were included in the legislation. That fig-leaf of "religious exemptions" eliminated vital leverage needed to stop passage. It did so by allowing the anti-G-d forces to masquerade their Bible-baiting bill as Faith-friendly, deflecting a primary objection many New Yorkers raised to the de-definition of Marriage. Thus, the religious compromisers betrayed their own religious communities.
In this manner, those "Stockholm Syndrome" political activists helped - along with many others - grace the antireligious pro-LGBT Haters [who unrelentingly seek to implicitly brand adherents of Leviticus 18:22 as bigots] with yet another win.
And, thereby, said lobbying interests ensured continued intake of government largesse - trafficked by their allied pro-LGBT elected officials. That tainted funding was vital - not for their communities (we survived quite well before the LGBT Lobby took over N.Y.S. politics) - but to perpetuate their own image as community liaisons/ gatekeepers.
Thus, in short, religious exemptions were exploited to pass fundamentally antireligious legislation. "Antireligious" is an accurate description here, inasmuch as bills that sanctify same-sex unions as legitimate essentially brand adherents of Torah morality as backwards haters, even while temporarily tolerating our existence (akin to Voltaire's infamous concession "... But we ought not burn them" (the Jews)).
True, there may be instances when insertion of religious exemptions is necessary, due to ingrained existing legislation, or legislation that has no chance of being stopped. But don't believe the claim without clear evidence. It's usually a matter of the "prosperity consciousness" of some advocacy organization which prioritizes money and power over principle - and over the pragmatic long term interests of those they purportedly represent.
Furthermore, even just framing the moral issues as purely Religious Liberty concerns is so often counterproductive. In contrast, generally, by standing on principle, we gain more respect of many of those predisposed against our viewpoint.
On the other hand, by branding the moral issue at hand as merely one of religious liberty ALONE - empty of inherent value - we often implicitly concede the principle involved (in this case, the principle that sexual "abomination" (Lev 18:22, 20:13) cannot be sanctioned, and all the more so cannot serve as basis for matrimony).
Additionally, by confining the issue to Religious Liberty, we also often paint ourselves as "tribal regressives" - who need to be tolerated only until such time when the fully-indoctrinated youth have graduated to seize the centers of power.
At that time, the "DEquality" Bigots will feel safe unleashing their antireligious Hate, as they're doing in recent years - under pretext of "law" enforcement. As we see, they do so pursuant to previously legislated/enacted legal "protections" bequeathed to the "offended and wronged" classes of flagrant Vice-advocates -- Sodomesque laws enacted while we were communally sleepwalking, trusting self-service "leaders" to warn and protect us from their own pro-LGBT patrons in government.
The Turnaround:
Ke'bol'oh kach pol'toh;" repentance isn't all that difficult. Firstly, we must undo the errors that led us into this mess. Primarily, the turnaround process is akin to what could be seen as alluded to in the Torah expression "Yeshu'as HaShem ke'heref ayin;" we need to adjust our vision.
When we start seeing straight, we'll know to whom we can look for guidance, and whom we rely on at our moral (and material) peril. Integral to the process of (re-)gaining political consciousness is the recognition that most media venues seeking to influence religious communities don't report news nearly as much as they advance agendas, usually counter-Torah agendas.
And it's not so hard to pick up on that. Remember, it doesn't cost money to stop being gullible, or to stop believing pretenders and their propaganda. For example, if someone makes their money by lobbying N.Y. politicians for support, how believable are his claims that it's not important to rally the community against any particular LGBT legislation? Even if he's seemingly sincere, his biases are most likely blinding him to things that would be very uncomfortable for him to acknowledge, even to himself.
Above all, a healthy Torah-true perspective will enable one to develop a cognitive frame of reference - against which to compare the plethora of claims to which we're regularly asked to succumb, in ads, media, by elected officials, self-esteemed "activists," associates, etc.
Secondly we need to undo the damage done, to the extent feasible. However, repairing the legislative and judicial damage perpetrated while we were being led astray is a monumental task. Nevertheless, it is a task in which small accomplishments are valuable. Thirdly, preventing further damage is crucial, although often difficult in jurisdictions in which we've seen the pro-LGBT terrorist community gain ascendancy, while community misleaders kept the people in the dark.
All of these needs render the imperative of identifying unreliable and "alternatively-focused" (severely biased) public "servants" all the more incumbent on us now. G-d willing, we'll succeed beyond our expectations, if we truly repent of our erroneous ways. Our Sages exhort us that "He extends His Wrath," but He ultimately collects His dues. If we sincerely stand for Torah values, despite the multitude of temporary seatbacks, we are truly on the winning side.
