Religions shouldn't get special rights, but they do

In the District of Columbia it is illegal to disrupt a worship service. Why single out a religious service for protection, over say, a meeting of your friendly local humanist group. Good question, why indeed. Is there a lot of people disrupting worship services? Probably not. See, this is the government taking a position on religion. The government should and must be neutral when it comes to religion, and not take a position either way.

If a group of people are being distrubed, they should be treated equally under the law, not given special treatment because they happen to be a religious group. What if there is a protest against an anti-gay church, should the protestors be automatically arrested?

Also, pornography stores or strip clubs are often banned if they are so many feet away from a church. Again, why? The Constitution of the U.S. gives absolutely no preference of religion over non-religion. Yes, churches are much more politically correct (in the truest sense of that term) than these adult type businesses, but that shouldn't be a factor when it comes to the law.

Now, for those who might think I am unfairly harsh towards religion, I vehemently oppose efforts to strip the rights of Christian conservatives to advocate and preach their belief in Dearborn, MI, a site of an annual Muslim/ Arabic festival. Indeed, at one time some of them were forced to move 5 blocks away from the festival to hand out literature.

Of course, a cop who didn't want to be filmed abusing the constitutional rights of the group ordered illegally, that filming of this encounter to be stopped. Now, as a humanist, I don't agree with a darn thing about what they were advocating. I don't believe in a god and I sure don't believe in Christianity. I do believe in freedom of speech though. Whenever someon's rights are violated, I will be there in support, even if I don't agree with their particular speech.