There was a common, if discordant theme in three letters published on Sunday, Peter Sherwood warns of the very real dangers of criticising religion: ”It can get you killed.” It has caused the deaths of untold innocent individuals and continues to kill today. Stephen Anderson advocates a strange paradox: “It is wrong to brand organised religion as bigoted. We must protect freedom of speech.” An illogical argument, especially so given organised religions historical and ongoing persecution of free speech over the last two thousand years. Whilst Gordon Truscott exercises his freedom of speech with another of his frequent and religiously motivated arguments against homosexuality.
I have no issue with Mr. Sherwood, who offers a logical and precise argument. Mr. Anderson is obviously confused and seems to forget that indoctrination of children hardly inculcates the ability to think rationally, denying them the freedom to think that is so necessary for logical freedom of speech. Belief， as we all know is a matter of faith, and faith must eliminate logic.
Truscott merely proves the point, a religiously indoctrinated individual with a self-motivated desire to cure homosexuals by denying them freedom of choice. This indoctrination is so very obvious from his many previously published letters branding homosexuality as unnatural. On this point only, I can agree with him, homosexuality is not natural, but only because in nature, procreation is the norm; our bodies were designed for reproduction. However, it is the beauty of our evolutionary free will that we can choose to confront and challenge the norms, exercise our human identity and choose to be what we want to be.
Religion is a tool used by men, and it is mostly men, to manipulate other men; it remains a tragedy that so many individuals today remain blinded from an early age by their manipulations at the hands of religious bodies and that we continue to allow prejudice to masquerade as principle.