Natalie+S’s+Final+AmEx+2013+Speech

=Title of Speech= Religion

=Text of Speech= Religion is a sensitive subject. When people start discussing it, tensions began to rise. People are poised, ready to defend their religion and its beliefs, to go to **battle** against one another to **prove** something. But… to prove what? That your **religion** is better? That your **lifestyle** trumps theirs because you worship a certain God? That you’re more **spiritual** than them? That, perhaps, you’re **better** than them? Controversies over religion have caused many friendships to end, families to split, and even wars. Why? Because one religion believes they’re right. That’s the problem I see with America, with the world: refusal to accept and live along side others religions and opinions. I’m not asking people to believe in a certain religion or way of life, but merely to accept it and move on. It’s not your business to try and change them and mold them into what you believe to be the “correct” way of life. I’ve never really liked going to Church. When I was little I’d do everything I could to get out of it. I didn’t like sitting in the pews, I didn’t like singing the hymns, I thought the Communion wine/juice was gross and unsanitary since everyone took turns drinking out of the same cup. I didn’t like some of the prominent figures there either. If you guys haven’t noticed, I’m a very independent person, and I think women are just as good as men and they have every right to participate in discussions and ask questions and be **normal** human beings. A man who led many things in the church didn’t believe that. He was the kind of person that believed in the whole, “women speak when they’re spoken to, women are to be seen not heard” type shit. I couldn’t look up to him, but I was supposed to. He pushed his beliefs on me, knowing that I strongly disagreed with him. I think that’s what has turned me away from religion, having had it pushed on me so frequently. So I don’t consider myself religious. When people ask me about my religion, and I say that I’m not religious, sometimes I see shock and disapproval in their eyes. Like they seem to be saying, “she’s not religious? That’s so sad and terrible! She **needs** Jesus and God in her life! I’ll take her to church and I’ll save her. I’ll make her a good *fill in whatever religion you're practicing*”. No. I don’t need that. I don’t **want** that. What people don’t get, is that just because I’m not religious, and I don’t go to church, doesn’t mean I’m not a spiritual person. People think that you can’t be spiritual without being religious, that they go hand in hand. They don’t. I keep my spiritual beliefs to myself, and my relationship to whatever higher-power I believe in to myself, because that’s what I’m comfortable with. That’s what makes me happy. When I’ve tried explaining this to people they don’t get it, and frankly they don’t need to. I won’t try and push my form of worshiping on you. I’m not going to ask you to come and join in me in prayer or anything else, because I like doing that privately. I don’t care if you’re a Christian, a Catholic, an atheist, a monk, a Buddhist, a Muslim, or if you worship the devil. If I like you, I like you. If you’re my friend, you're my friend. It’s not **because** of what religion you practice, or what religion you don’t practice, that’s not who I am But it’s extremely evident to me that a lot of people are not like this. Right now in the Middle East, there are conflicts going on because of religion. Virtually every country in the Middle East wants to destroy Israel. This is because their religion, Islam, is opposed to the Jewish religion of Israel. There are many other examples like this throughout the world and throughout history. Like the Spanish Inquisition, the expelling of Jews from Spain, and the Puritans being driven out of England. It’s not something that just started happening, it’s been a problem for a very long time. Gay Marriage. Conservative Christians are often against it, because the Bible says it’s “wrong”. They believe that love is for a man and a woman to experience, not a man and a man, nor a woman and a woman. Here’s a quote from the song Same Love by Macklemore, “The right wing conservatives think it's a decision, and you can be cured with some treatment and religion”. I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think it’s a choice, I think it’s who you are. I like boys. I didn’t wake up one day and was all “Wow. I’m gonna like boys.” It wasn’t a choice, it’s just how it is for me. That’s just how it is for gay people! What’s wrong with that? In my eyes: nothing. That’s what makes them happy, so that’s great! I don’t think that any amount of church or religion can change them, you can’t pray away the gay, and people shouldn’t feel that they have to. People should be able to accept gays and allow them to get married; it’s not hurting anyone. It’s simply allowing them to choose what they want; the right to marry the person they love. This is not how people see it though. They adamantly and openly protest against it. What shocks me is that you don’t see people protesting against divorce, even though the Bible says that’s wrong as well. Matthew, 5:32 “But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” Not only do you not see Christians protesting against divorce, they are **getting** divorces. Another “rule” they don’t “follow” is clothing. The bible says, Deuteronomy 22:5 “A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.” Or even, Deuteronomy 22:11 “You shall not wear cloth of wool and linen mixed together.” These are rarely followed, I mean please. I don’t even know what my clothes are made of, and I’m sure Christians are wearing wool and linen together, as well as woman are wearing pants. If Christians claim that gay marriage is wrong **because** the Bible says so, then they’re being rather hypocritical. They’re picking and choosing which parts of the Bible to follow, and which parts to ignore. The Bible tells us that God wants us to love all of our brothers equally: man and woman, rich and poor, back and white, tall or short. We are all brothers. We are all humans. 1 John 4:29 “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” This isn’t practiced. Many churches don’t allow gays to be members of the church, they don’t allow them to be married in the church. Gay or straight, we’re all human. In the America I grow old in, I want to see acceptance. I want gay marriage to be legalized. I want to see gays welcomed in any church or space of worship. I want to see the people who protested against gay marriage be thought of the way that we think of those who protested against the blacks Civil Rights Movement. I want all religions to be accepted and acknowledged. I want religion, if anything, to stop wars, not start them. I want people to be proud of their religion, but not push it on others.

=Cite Your Sources=

The Bible