Pitt and Spielberg donate for gay marriage


24 Sep, 2008
 None    Philosophy

great new trend


Pitt SpielbrgRael and the 70,000 members of the Raelian Movement sent support this week to Brad Pitt for contributing $100,000 to support Gay Marriage. Brad and wife, Angelina Jolie, are well known for their adopting children from third world countries and other acts of philanthropy maybe even more than for their fun movies.

Stephen Spielberg and wife, Kate Capshaw just matched the donation. J

On the topic of marriage, Raelians do not believe in the institution of marriage. A contract between people can only facilitate destroying the love and freedom which brought them together in the first place. What we support, however, is the right to equality. Mr. Pitt summed it up quite nicely when he said “Because no one has the right to deny another their life, even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn't harm another and because discrimination has no place in America, my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8.”

Well put, Brad. Well put!

Spielberg had similar comments when he said “By writing discrimination into our state constitution, Proposition 8 seeks to eliminate the right of each and every citizen in our state to marry regardless of sexual orientation," the statement said. "Such discrimination has NO place in California's constitution, or any other.”

Once again, well put…

If successful, the California (USA) ballot would overturn the state Supreme Court’s decision which legalized same-sex marriage. This vote, only weeks away, is a very important vote because in that it will likely set a trend toward – or away – from equality in the US which is known more and more for its intolerance of Gay rights. It is also the first time in which voters will be asked to overturn the right which has already been granted by the state court system.

The battle in the US has been heated for several years and the US courts recognize that it unconstitutional to ban same-sex marriage in that is sets out equal rights for all people. All people. So why a battle of something that is clearly in harmony with a country’s constitution?

Americans are rather known for their Puritanical views on sex in general. The fact that same-sex marriage revolts most Americans can be directly linked to the Bible. More interestingly, the issue is no different than two other such equality fights which took too long to win.

Can you guessed what they are?

Slavery and women having the right to vote. Yes, Christians of the day justified slavery because it says in the Bible that a person can own slaves as well as that women should be subservient to men. When we look back to those issues from today’s eyes, we wonder how it could ever have taken so long to abolish those things which are obviously morally reprehensible. In the future, after Gays and Lesbians have won this right, we will look back with embarrassment.

If society bases its laws on scripture, then we would be killing even more people than we already do. This is why we need LESS religious influence in governments around the world. The Bible is clear. Adultery and other things like touching the skin of a pig are to be severely punished. Thankfully, reason and compassion has won out. (Several countries like the US and some Middle Eastern countries are careening toward a theocracy but that’s for another article)

Something very interesting here is that the more devout Christians justify that Christianity is a more loving religion than Islam because Christianity does not treat women badly. To that, we would say “not AS badly, but not good”. As pointed out above, Christians and Jews indeed treated women badly. In the above examples, it was only through long debate (even war in the case of slavery) that reason and compassion eventually won out over scripture. As they say “the battle is not over yet” and Raelians are very happy to support this fight for equality – in a nonviolent way of course. ;-) Massachusetts has also made over the hump (sorry for the play on words…hehe) and we’re hoping the same for California.

Have Brad and Stephen started a trend?! We hope so!
Ricky Roehr, leader of the North American Raelian Movement