Are We Fussing About Freedom?

In reading today's news, or any other days news, there are some constants that make it hard for me to believe how little effort is given to portraying the events and people in the news with the same old prejudices and black and white thinking that has been part of journalism since I started keeping up with events in the 1960's. I would like to think that others are as tired of this angry, and prejudicial reporting. Today I looked at an article in the Huffington Post that was criticizing , not so much for what they had done as for who they were as human beings, and in particular that Sara Palin is a born again Christian and one of her lawyers and his wife are Scientologist.

These comments didn't have any other reason for being mentioned except to build basis, assuming that the reader would see all of them as less than creditable if it were mentioned that they have spiritual beliefs outside of the writer's accepted norm... in other words, if they didn't fit the religious mold of what the writer felt was acceptable for all "decent" people. He felt that his argument was strengthened by showing that they are not part of mainstream religious thought... defined by his prejudice, of course.

There is a famous quote that reads something like this: "There is enough bad in the best of us and enough good int he worst of us that it behooves none of us to talk about the rest of use."

Implicit in the writer's comments was the idea that there is some ideal religion that helps one pass as being worthy of public acceptance. How is this any different that deciding that only one skin color can use the public facilities? Or, carried to extreme, that only the Arian race is worthy of life?

There is no room for this ignorant and hate-filled writing in our discourse about politics or, in this case gossip. I contend that the writer knows very little about any religion, and much less about these two types of spiritual thought. He goes on to quote Time Magazine for its criticism of Scientology..taken from the time twenty years ago, when Time was sued by the Church of Scientology for the same type of bigoted reporting. This is the periodical that chose Hitler as "Man of the Year" in the 1930's. Any religion is better than no religion and it is fundamentally one of the rights that we, as American's, established our Constitution and founded this country, but because we have free speech, the writer feels that he can use this public platform to ridicule certain types of religion.

It would have been much more enlightened to have not mentioned it all and if it was really an important part of the article, then mention that the people in question are religious and nothing more. I have had the blessing of being raised by very religious parents and my brother has just retired from the ministry, after dedicating his life to helping bring understanding and love to our world.

Isn't it high time that we criticize things that we know are facts and deserve criticism and let the world worship as they see fit. Needless to say, our forefathers knew that government and public opinion can't bring out our better natures and they therefore saw that a civilized country must have freedom of religious thought. I have studied the writings of L. Ron Hubbard and I know what the Church of Scientology stands for and that bar is not very different than most other religions. It is based on love of your fellow man, ethics and dedication to life and care for others.

What I got from his article is that Sara Palin is obviously more tolerant than she is being made out to be.

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