Elisabeth Moss wants to keep her personal beliefs personal.
The Handmaid’s Tale star defended her belief in Scientology in a new interview with The Daily Beast, a topic she rarely discusses seeing as how the religion clashes with the feminist and pro-LGBT values the actress also claims to have.
As Moss explains it, she can be a member of the Church of Scientology while not exactly subscribing to all its beliefs. She’s a Diet Scientologist, if you will: one who super supports the LGBT community, despite the church claiming to have techniques to “cure” homosexuality.
Related: Tom Cruise Is ‘A God’ To Scientology Members
When asked about the religion she was raised in since childhood, the actress admitted:
“Listen, it’s a complicated thing because the things that I believe in, I can only speak to my personal experience and my personal beliefs. One of the things I believe in is freedom of speech. I believe we as humans should be able to critique things. I believe in freedom of the press. I believe in people being able to speak their own opinions. I don’t ever want to take that away from anybody, because that actually is very important to me.”
Moss went on to say that she hopes critics “educate themselves” and form their own opinions about the religion like she apparently has. Because, believe it or not, the Emmy winner says her personal beliefs lineup “so perfectly” with the themes of oppression in her Hulu series.
She continued:
“At the same time, I should hope that people educate themselves for themselves and form their own opinion, as I have. The things that I believe in personally, for me, The Handmaid’s Tale, and the ability to do something that is artistically fulfilling but is also personally fulfilling, I’ve never had that. The Handmaid’s Tale lines up so perfectly parallel with my own beliefs in freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the things that this country was actually built on.”
Inneresting that she’s harping on about personal freedoms when Scientology has been heavily criticized for doing the exact opposite to its members — from forcing them to shun non-practicing family members to claims of forced labor in its religious order, the Sea Org.
But, hey… that’s between her and Xenu.
The 36-year-old was much less defensive when it came to the religion’s reported intolerance of homosexuality.
Condemning the anti-LGBT stance of many writings of Scientology creator L. Ron Hubbard, Moss said being anti-gay is “not [her] bag,” explaining:
“Which is not where I stand. It’s like, it’s a lot to get into and unpack that I can’t do. But that is not my bag. I am obviously a huge feminist and huge supporter of the LGBTQ community and believe so strongly – I can’t even tell you – in people being able to do what they want to do, to love who they want to love, to be the person that they want to be – whoever that is. To me, it’s a huge reason why I love doing the show.”
It all keeps coming back to The Handmaid’s Tale, apparently…
Related: Scientology Blames Murder On Leah Remini’s ‘Hate-Filled’ Docuseries
Making it clear that while she wasn’t distancing herself from the church, she sure as heck was distancing herself from some of its oppressive beliefs, Moss concluded:
“That’s all I can say. I can’t speak to what other people believe, I can’t speak to what other people’s experiences have been. That’s where I stand and the only place I can speak from is my own.”
Sounds like she’s taking what she likes about the religion and ignoring the rest — which would be nice… if the rest wasn’t splitting up families and physically shocking the gay out of its members.
Do you, gurl!
[Image via FayesVision/WENN]
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