Religious Freedom | Teen Ink

Religious Freedom

May 19, 2014
By Grant Andler BRONZE, Mount Prospect, Illinois
Grant Andler BRONZE, Mount Prospect, Illinois
2 articles 0 photos 0 comments

Comedian Gabriel Iglesias is a famous comedian who had done a world tour going to many countries in the Middle East and throughout Asia. One of his tours he stopped in Khobar, Saudi Arabia. The prince of Saudi Arabia, Saud bin Addulaziz Al Saud, has requested that he came to perform for him and the people of Khobar. At first Gabriel was hesitant to go but he decided to go do the show for them. He goes and believe it or not, it was the best crowd that he had ever had. The prince was one of the nicest guys and what the prince requested from Gabriel was what changed his mind and outlook on religion. Saud asked, “Please, go spread the world about how great this country is. Please speak up against FOX news because FOX news makes us out to be all terrorists and I want people’s opinion to change about us”. Religious freedom is a controversial topic in the United States today and it is because of the news stations that only report the bad things about other cultures and religions is why even though the Constitution says everyone has the right to religion, it will never be fully true.

Religious freedom should be granted to every single person in the United States. Government leaders should not be able to place restrictions on religious rights to anyone regardless of what religion. People in America fail to see past the horrible stories that are broadcasted on television about this country or this religion but that is all they know because that is all that is played on TV. The news only plays sad and scary stories on the news. Everyone who watches the news does not know what actually happens in these countries. They skip step one and two of what really happened and think that the observation of an American is the real truth. That is why we have stereo types about other religions. The reason people think that all people who follow the religion of Islam are terrorists is because that is all they see on the news. The media created the stereo type of all Islamic people are terrorists. Prince Saud puts it greatly in perspective that because of the media and because of “dead” Americans not thinking critically and believing everything they hear this is why we won’t truly have freedom of religion in this country.

The United States Government is Christian based. In the Constitution it mentions God. On our money if you look on the back it says In God We Trust. When the president is sworn into office the president swears on the bible. This is why our Government wants to put a limit on religious freedom even though on the bill of rights it says FREEDOM of RELIGION. 78.4% of the population in America is Christian. So naturally any other religion that isn’t Christianity is judged to be a “weird” religion.

Just like Gabriel Iglesias learned that religion isn’t what the media makes it out to be, our government should learn the same lesson that religious freedom should be granted to all. All religions should not be judged based on the few extremists they have. Someone could argue that Christianity causes people to be in cults because of what happened with David Koresh and Jim Jones but people don’t because of the superiority of the religion they learn to look past it. Everyone should do this about every religion so that people could truly grant the right of religious freedom.



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