Right now everyone’s talking about beliefs—beliefs that prompt unreasonable acts and laws, and the politicians who do, have, and will uphold them.
Many of them are laws and bills aimed at limiting or taking away rights.
It’s supposedly all about beliefs. A conversation that has echoes of the not too distant past. Beliefs that are being recycled but not repurposed. A hand me down with historical context.
Beliefs are being held up and declared all while clutched in sweaty, angry fists. Beliefs are being trotted out like a prize pig at a State Fair.
So much talk of beliefs. And we all know that talk is the cheapest currency.
All of this talk is treading on some sacred ground. Beliefs (especially the religious kind) are for most of us a taboo subject. We don’t discuss them, we don’t engage in debate about them. Just try to bring it up on FaceBook and watch the insults fly and the defriending begin. No, we prefer to leave others to their beliefs and quietly go about living our lives guided by our own.
Most of us, that is.
Others? Well, they like to scream their beliefs in the faces of those who dare stand up to bigotry. Spittle forming in their taut mouth as they spout their reasons for the taking away of rights from others.
So what’s a respectful equality loving person to do when we see beliefs being molded into a vehicle for injustice and discrimination? What do we do when we see someone using their beliefs to leave people out, to treat them differently? When it’s affecting people’s rights to rent an apartment or a home? People’s rights to access to anything and everything that most of us take for granted. People’s rights to patronize a business? Sound familiar?
Do we sit quietly out of politeness and deference to said beliefs?
I have been struggling with this. I don’t want to step on anyone’s faith or beliefs. It’s not my way. But this conversation needs to happen and it doesn’t have to turn into debates over beliefs.
I don’t care about your beliefs.
I’m not here to trample your beliefs. I’m not here to comment on anyone’s beliefs.
I don’t feel like your beliefs are any of my business.
I don’t feel the need to say that I respect your beliefs.
It’s not my place to evaluate or determine whether your beliefs are worthy of respect.
Because I don’t care about your beliefs.
I care about your actions.
I care about how you treat the people you come in contact with every day.
I care about how you treat people you may not agree with.
Your beliefs? Who am I to judge them? They are for you to wrestle with and to determine.
If you are my neighbor, my friend, my boss, my congressman? I don’t care if you’re Christian or Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist or Atheist. Your beliefs are not my business nor my concern.
Beliefs are something that may guide you to live life with integrity and compassion. Or beliefs can be something you can carry around in your back pocket and pull out at any moment to justify actions. The difference boils down to character.
I’m interested in the fairness and compassion and empathy you do or do not express to your brothers and sisters of all faiths, all sexes, all races, all sexual orientations.
If you have to justify your behavior with your beliefs? That I can’t respect. Your beliefs are inconsequential. Your actions are the mark of your character. Making excuses or justification is just a lazy way to explain bad behavior. To pat yourself on the back as you step on the backs of others. If that’s your standard operating procedure, then I don’t respect you.
If you think you are better than others because of your beliefs? Then I can’t respect you. If you judge the lifestyle of other good people just trying to make it in this harsh world? Then I can’t respect you. If you cloak your compassion in judgmental pity? Then I can’t respect you. If you only lend a helping hand to others under the condition that they have to listen to your beliefs and subscribe to them? Then I can’t respect you.
If you are using beliefs to justify inequality? Then maybe you should check your beliefs. Because this is an old song and most of us are tired of hearing the tune. There was a time when beliefs were used as justification for unequal and in-humane and degrading treatment of black people in our country. Looking back I think we can all agree that it was a perversion of the beliefs that were held up as testimony. I think we can all agree that the beliefs that were co-opted and intertwined with vitriol were being abused and used as a cover for fear and hate.
Using beliefs to take away rights? Using beliefs to make a group of people less than? That’s ideology cloaked in fear and hate’s clothing. And it has the faint smell of disingenuousness. Don’t hide behind the safe and untouchable veil of your beliefs. Own your actions. Don’t pass the buck or the blame on to something you claim you hold sacred.
Here’s a little of what I believe.
I believe that equality is equality is equality.
No prerequisites. No conditions. No parameters.
I believe that compassion and caring and empathy for people who are not like you is one of the most important elements of our character.
I believe that actions speak louder than beliefs.
Equality.
It’s really not that complicated.
I believe the loving people in this world far outnumber the fearful and hateful people.
I think most of us want to live peacefully and harmoniously with our brothers and sisters who are just trying to make it in this harsh world.
I do not buy into the politicization of beliefs. The co-opting and the twisting of ideals. The cult of fear and judgement.
If you look upon everyone who is different from you with contempt and fear and condemnation? Then you are going to be spending a lot more time in a dark place my friend. Because our world is becoming smaller. We are connected and exposed in ways never before possible. Thanks to our digital age, we hear from and see and meet people from all over.
Along with this connectedness comes lots of new. New ideas, new lifestyles, new perspectives, new experiences. There’s no turning back from the world we now inhabit, one that is becoming increasingly… one. So maybe now is a good time to open our minds and open our hearts. To accept all the differences that come with living amongst other people.
Maybe now is a good time to embrace the differences and learn to adapt to our changing world. Maybe now is a good time to operate with an open mind. To realize that your way may not always be the best way. That change is not always bad.
Maybe now is the time to stop using your beliefs as a shield against all that you fear. Maybe now is the time to realize that your beliefs belong to you. No one can take them from you. The lifestyle of others does not impact or change your beliefs. If someone else’s way of living affects your beliefs? Maybe now is the time to check the shaky ground upon which your beliefs are tenuously perched.
Maybe you will find that your beliefs shouldn’t cause you to mistreat or discriminate.
Maybe you will come to the conclusion that no good ever comes from taking away rights.
Maybe you’ll see that it’s not even about your beliefs.
It’s about your actions.
Maybe you’ll realize that it’s time to leave beliefs out of the equation.
Maybe we’ll all be better off for it.
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Photo:Cliff/Flickr
This essay originally appeared on Gretchen’s Blog, Drifting Through My Open Mind.
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Gretchen – I like your premise but you spent twice as much time saying it as you needed to. Repetitive. Do you have an editor?
Despite the noble & grandiose sentiments underlying this, there’s also something incredibly circular & callow about this article: “I don’t care about your beliefs. I’m not here to trample your beliefs. I’m not here to comment on anyone’s beliefs. I don’t feel like your beliefs are any of my business. I don’t feel the need to say that I respect your beliefs. It’s not my place to evaluate or determine whether your beliefs are worthy of respect. Because I don’t care about your beliefs. I care about your actions… If you have to justify your behavior with your beliefs? That… Read more »
Sometimes I blow right past the articles in order to read your comments.
@ Mostly_123 Good point about beliefs impacting actions in general, but as you’ve pointed out actions can be constrained regardless of beliefs for example when something is against the law. Thar’s also true if beliefs act in contradiction. For example, a lawyer might be biased against gay people, but he believes that his profession and professional ethics require him to represent his client to the best of his ability. Social pressure can also impact a person’s actions regardless of their beliefs. When we talk about beliefs and the masses, we talk about a range of beliefs. Very few at this… Read more »
I agree with most of what you say. I believe that law trump’s religious belief. I believe that if you need to accommodate a religious belief then there is an insufficient reason to have the law. It shouldn’t be OK for ten people to do it, but not a thousand just because they don’t believe it’s a requirement. I look at infant male circumcision for religious beliefs. It’s a victim group that “progressives” tend to not care about and perpetrators who “progressives” tend to want to protect. Reasonableness has always been in the eye of the beholder, but in what… Read more »
I look at infant male circumcision for religious beliefs. It’s a victim group that “progressives” tend to not care about and perpetrators who “progressives” tend to want to protect. Reasonableness has always been in the eye of the beholder, but in what other circumstance can you cut off a portion of someone else body and make a permanent alteration without their consent and causing them tremendous pain and distress and have it not a crime? Especially when performing that same procedure on a female child is rightly considered a serious human rights violation. I know you know better John but… Read more »
You are absolutely right, Gretchen. It’s not about people’s beliefs. It’s about their actions. And that is just as true for people’s political beliefs as it is for people’s religious beliefs. Look at what just happened at Middlebury College in Vermont last week. Prog idiot children trying to silence academic Charles Murray, because they don’t like his scientific ideas. They reacted with verbal and even physical violence. The same thing has happened, and keeps happening, at other prog colleges. Bill Maher, in particular, has been sounding the alarm on this prog based fascism. So here’s my question for you: Are… Read more »
Wonder how a Pro-Life person writing this kind of an article derying someone’s support for or advocacy for abortion would be received?
Don’t people always dehumanize those who they want to oppress? They’re fetuses. It’s not like they’re killing people, right?
“When is it Okay Not to Respect Someone’s Beliefs?”
OP: When they don’t match your own. If you don’t believe the same way I do about equality and fairness, I can’t respect you.
Unless this is meant as irony, it’s just sad.
you are right…! thanks for posting!