There is a lot in this world I never understood, such as calculus, personal finance and the inexplicable appeal of Nip / Tuck.

However, above all else, nothing leaves me as perplexed as continually denying marriage of same-sex couples based on religious principles.

On Boston University’s campus, where the student population is compromised of people of all races, religions and sexual orientations, it is not a constant issue. However, a look at the national political landscape reveals it is most certainly a hot topic.

In the recent election, eight states, including religiously conservative states such as South Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee, overwhelmingly approved bills that would ban gay marriage. Voters turned out in record numbers to make sure they would be safe from couples with the same genitalia settling into a lifetime of commitment and monogamy.

This seems close-minded for citizens of a country that was founded by middle-aged white men who routinely dressed in wigs and stockings.

And yet, America’s religious sect continues to rally against gay marriage.

To clarify, I am no religious expert. I am a non-believing half-Catholic and non-practicing half-Jew (unless you count self-loathing). My closest religious experience involves trying a batch of what I suspected was stale Communion wafers. However, one need not be an expert on the flavor of holy desserts to discuss religion’s hypocrisy, close-mindedness and lack of compassion toward gay marriage.

Rather than criticize, however, I want to explore why people deny fellow citizens basic human rights based on religion — and also why people who do so are stupid, fat and oftentimes smelly.

Religious groups such as the New Life Church and Jerry Falwell’s The Thomas Road Baptist Church spread the message that God and the Bible condemn gay marriage. They lead people to believe that gay marriage is the most important problem facing America today. That it is bigger than global warming, nuclear war and recently disposed Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert’s third chin.

Of all the reasons given, the one that seems most prevalent is morality. Religious groups say God intended marriage to be a union between a man and a woman and anything else is wrong and therefore immoral.

In a 2000 Frontline interview, Falwell, the man who single-handedly ended the threat of gays marrying teletubbies, discussed the “moral and physical repercussions of gay marriage.”

Where does the morality issue exist? How does loving and feeling connected to another human being, regardless of their sex, make you immoral?

Another popular argument against gay marriage is that it endangers children. In 2004, New Life Church pastor Ted Haggard, a father of five who buys his crystal meth from gay prostitutes, said studies show that a mother-father household is best environment for a child to grow up in.

You know a home with normal, loving heterosexual parents such as Scott and Laci Peterson and Peter and Lois Griffin.

What about a home where a father and father or mother and mother shower their child with love, compassion, intelligence, stability and understanding? Are you kidding? Would you really want to endanger a child like that?

And yet, despite all the evidence to the contrary, evangelists like Pat Robertson and Haggard go on television to tell their followers that God is against gay marriage. They yell loudly. They wear expensive suits. They wave the Bible. In fact, they do and say just about everything except quote actual Bible scripture that says God is anti-gay marriage. And as this past election indicated, it is not just the extreme religious right that feels this way.

But how do people know God did not support gay marriage? They certainly do not point to the Bible to make such a claim. Hell, for all they know God himself was gay.

Sure, God had a wife and child, but so did Haggard. While I am not saying God was buying meth from gay prostitutes, it is entirely possible he knew where to get the best stuff.

At the very least, God could have been pro gay marriage because he loved and supported his gay son.

Let’s think about Jesus for a second. Jesus was approaching his mid-30’s, he was single and thin and enjoyed open-toed sandals, wood working and traveling. Not exactly a poster boy for the modern perceived norms of heterosexuality.

And maybe that is why I just do not understand the religious reasons for denouncing gay marriage. How can two people deeply in love present a moral threat? Did God not want all of us to love everyone the same? At a time when religious differences have the world on the edge of nuclear war, it seems like Hank and Steve wanting to get married would be low on God’s list of priorities.

You know what though; maybe the anti-gay marriage proponents have a point. If gay couples are allowed to marry, where will it end? The next thing you know, they will to be able to adopt or join the military to fight for their country. Then we would be forced to make room for the blacks, Jews and Nip / Tuck. I guess for religion, the moral dilemmas just never end.