Hate nothing at all except hatred.

I'm sure you've all about had enough of the discussion about 'values' after the presidential election in the US, but I read an interesting article over at Impact Press written by Morris Sullivan. In it, he talks about the good and the bad things that might come from the election results. I don't know if any of you are familiar with Impact Press, but as I understand it's a Chicago-based bi-monthly paper, covering news from a different, and I'm sure most would agree, somewhat left-leaning point of view. Despite some things that, in my opinion, they exaggerate, it's still an interesting read that offers some good food for thought. Anyway, he talks about the whole values debate a little, since the Democratic Party thought they lost a lot of votes by not appearing as having the right values. Without further ado, here's the quote that struck me:

Meanwhile, we need to counteract the notion that a person with "moral values" equals an antiabortion, anti-gay-marriage religious nut. The term "moral values" includes concepts like tolerance, equality, and truthfulness...

I do realize that his portrayal of the 'moral' voter is not all that tolerance-oriented either, but that's not what I want to talk about (you think I should ramble irrelevantly some more?). What I found interesting is the way we define someone that is concerned with morals, and how 'liberals' are seen as not having morals.
I think it is not unfair to say that during the election campaigns, 'morals' came to be associated with the things that religious people most care about, i.e. abortion, rights for homosexuals and such. The conservative and traditional views on these things. At least from my point of view (don't even get me started on how I think conservatism is against human nature). While everyone else, especially liberals (some of whom support peace, tolerance and openness), was seen as lacking morals. To me it seems that we don't have people with or without morals, but people with different concepts of moral behavior.
Okay, I had a whole long thing written that I just erased (on purpose) because it was way too long and not even finished. I was trying to convey, that being religious does not equal being a moral person. Just like the quote says. But instead of rambling on and on and trying to take into consideration the 'multiplexities of life' (Thank you, Aaron McGruder) I will try to simplify it for brevity's sake. So here's why I think religious people are not the model for moral behavior. And stuff.
This is how the online dictionary of Merriam-Webster defines moral:

of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior

So it's about how you behave. Another definition includes ethics, which again is concerned with good or bad. For me it also has to do with compassion and concern for other people. But let's not ramble again by showing off with out lacking knowledge of psychology and such. And just like Mr. Sullivan said, right behavior should include tolerance, openness, respect for one another. Religion on the other hand requires just the opposite (at least Christianity does): You are supposed to accept the religion's teachings as the only valid truth, and all others will burn in hell. I, however, think that there is a pretty good chance that religion is just made up. Still I'm not an atheist, I'm just trying to be realistic about it.
Alright, I give up. I hope what I wrote made you think about how moral behavior is being defined in the current political debate in the US, and the notion that within that discourse, liberal has been equalled with anmoral.
I have a good example to conclude this with, that will illustrate, in my eyes, the intolerance of some religious people. The issue is abortion. While personally, I would try to do anything to avoid the abortion of a fetus that I helped conceive, I also realize that there ARE situations in which ending this potential human life is not wrong. Rape victims for example. No doubt in my mind. But then there are some that come up and say that they were raped and had the child and couldn't be happier with their decision. I have the deepest admiration for such strength, but not everybody could carry such a heavy burden, because everybody's personal history is different. And to me it seems, that religious arguments do not allow for the infinite amount of difference in people. If one lady can do it, why can't the other? Because they are not the same person. You don't know what the other lady had gone through before, or what the rape was like. If she feels she can't have the child, she shouldn't have to.
Okay, I will stop it here. Don't even think about not leaving a comment. It was hard enough for me to put this down at all.