This week Rick Perry, the Governor of Texas who ran for President and lost, criticized Madonna’s protest of The Boy Scouts of America at the GLAAD awards. Madonna, never one to shy from controversy and a long-time advocate for gay rights, wearing a Boy Scout uniform, made a beautiful point. “What did Jesus teach? It’s in all the holy books: Love thy neighbor as thy self. We cannot use the name of God or religion to justify acts of violence, to hurt, to hate, to discriminate.”

Madonna was referencing the soon-to-be-announced decision by the Boy Scouts on whether they will allow gay men to participate in their private Christian organization. They have a record of alienating and rejecting gay men from positions of leadership and gay scouts from participation. Perry’s response was to lambaste Madonna for criticizing an organization built on so-called ‘good Christian values’. Perry stated, “It’s fascinating that someone would make that kind of gratuitous shot at an organization that has probably done as much to promote young men to the type of values that the vast majority of the people in this country aspire to.”

This is exactly the kind of clever double-speak that so many politicians, religious leaders, and regular people use to disguise their bigotry. Using labels like ‘belief system’, ‘morality’, and ‘values’ makes these ideas seem sacred and untouchable. Would you dare question someone else’s belief system? Are you bold enough to criticize someone’s morality? Would you mock or ridicule another group’s values? Isn’t that against everything Christianity and America, the land of the free, stands for?

On Wednesday of this week, the Supreme Court will decide on the status of the landmark legislation, the Defense of Marriage Act, passed while President Clinton was in office (ironically enough). The ruling specifically considers the constitutionality of Proposition 8, passed in California in 2008, which specified that the only valid or recognized marriage in California was one between a man and a woman. It has been on its way to the nation’s highest court since that fateful day when, sadly to me, my fellow Californians choose to use their right to vote to deny their neighbors the right to love and honor and cherish the ones that they chose.

Many religious people make the claim that they “love all people” but believe that marriage should be defined as one man plus one woman. They casually make these claims protected by one of America’s greatest gifts to the world–the idea that all people should be allowed the freedom of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, religious freedom above all. This idea is so engrained in us, derived from the very first Amendment of the US Constitution, that it is difficult to differentiate the trees from the forest. Religion is like a shield, protecting virtually any ‘belief’ from criticism, comment, or judgment. But the landscape has changed, and it’s time to call a spade a spade. These beliefs are mere bigotry, plain and simple. And no amount of pretense at “loving all people” can convince me otherwise.

The definition of bigotry is worth revisiting:

Bigotry is the state of mind of a bigot: someone who, as a result of their prejudices, treats other people with hatred, contempt, and intolerance on the basis of a person’s race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, language, socioeconomic status, or other status.

It may be hard to find the courage to disagree with someone’s personally held belief systems. But that time has come. For homosexuals the time is long overdue. It took many good people doing nothing to allow slavery to exist here in the United States before brave people spoke up to challenge and criticize the popular belief system of the day: that Africans were a lesser race, or worse, not fully evolved people at all.

Today, religious people like Rick Perry hold similar beliefs about homosexuals. They believe that homosexuals are doing something wrong in the eyes of God or that they are sinners. Some believe homosexuality is a ‘choice’, while others believe that homosexuals are sick with an illness that can be ‘cured’ with therapy. These beliefs are absurd, unfounded by science, and based in fear and arcane mysticisms from the time of Moses.

Let’s hope that the Supreme Court this Wednesday will affirm a basic fact that is obvious to me when I look at the clock; the year is 2013. It is time we evolve into the vision that this country was founded on; that all people, regardless of creed, race, or sexual preference, are entitled to the pursuit of happiness, with whomever that may be. Even religion should not be allowed to prevent that from happening.