My parents called this morning to talk to me about the blog entry I posted yesterday. They pointed out something that I hadn’t been aware of, but which I now find troubling. Looking back I should have realised, but there was a major religious component to the protest yesterday. I had assumed the people opposing assisted suicide were doing so out of a well founded concern that it could lead to far more dark consequences, but my parents pointed out that many people were there for religious reasons.

Thinking about this while out on my trundle this afternoon, it should have been obvious really. Along with many disabled people, there were quite a few overtly religious people at yesterday’s protest. When they started to play religious music out of a loud speaker, I naturally took issue, assuming that they were trying to hijack the action for their own means. Later on in the afternoon, I also got into quite a heated debate with a couple of people over whether you need to believe in god to have a sense of morality, ethics and right and wrong.

The problem I have now, however, is that I really, really object to the notion that the political action I attended yesterday had any kind of religious basis. I was there in an effort to make sure that the lives of disabled people remain as long and as full as anyone else’s, and that there is no chance that people will start being coerced into ending them prematurely. My stance had nothing to do with any religion or belief system. Frankly, I find the idea that some people were only there because they saw the issue at hand in terms of their soul or relationship with god rather disturbing, as it completely distorts the genuine, well founded concerns of most of the people who were there.