“I do not believe you can be born gay, and I do not believe homosexuality is right, though the law of this land has made it legal doesn’t mean it’s right,” Omooba wrote in the post. “I do believe that everyone sins and falls into temptation but it’s by the asking of forgiveness, repentance and the grace of God that we overcome and live how God ordained us to, which is that a man should leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh.”
Hmm, being homophobic and trying to have a career in theater. Thats a bold move, lets see how it pays off.
After hearing testimony in 2021 that Omooba had previously told her agents that she refused to play gay roles and had not bothered to read the script for the musical version of The Color Purple before accepting the role, an employment tribunal dismissed the actor’s religious discrimination claim, The Telegraph reported.
How can you not even read the script, the book its based on, or even at the least watch the Hollywood movie for a part you’re trying to land in an acting performance?
“I have long forgiven all those who have sought to ruin my theatre career,” Omooba said in a statement following the ruling, “but the theatre world needs to be told, loud and clear, that canceling people for their Christian beliefs is illegal and wrong.”
That’s what I have trouble understanding - not even reading the script. Apparently she counted on her agents to “filter” things for her. Sounds highly unprofessional.
In the case of a good, reputable agent who makes you their top priority, it can be. In other cases, if the agent sees a role for a black woman in her 30s(?) who can sing, that’s good enough. Unusual, specific demands/requirements could slip through the cracks. They pass the script along, expecting her to at least skim the damn thing, and leave the final decision up to her.
How can you not even read the script, the book its based on, or even at the least watch the Hollywood movie for a part you’re trying to land in an acting performance?
More curious how she got hired on those terms. It seems like a simple line reading might have clued everyone involved in on what this story was about.
As someone of color, I wonder if she would agree with the KKK discriminating against her, as they also consider themselves “Christians” spreading hate against people over things they do not control.
Yeap, a lot of slavery in America was perpetuated and validated by religious beliefs. Plantation owners believed that black people were cursed by the mark of ham, and thus were entitled by an act of God to enslave people.
Yeap, a lot of slavery in America was perpetuated and validated by religious beliefs
Goes even beyond that. Christianity - specifically, the New Testament verses that extolled the virtue of earthly toil on behalf of a secular lord in exchange for heavenly reward - was leveraged to convince the slaves themselves that their lot in life was justified. And for a great long period of time, it was successful. Even after the Confederacy’s back was broken, mobilizing a population that had been wiped into submission for centuries was legitimately difficult. The Freedman’s Bureau had a herculean effort put at its feet - to engage, re-educate, and empower millions of newly emancipated black men and women after a lifetime of debasement and degradation.
When you get into why Reconstruction failed, a big part of it was like looking at a spouse in an abusive relationship trying to get out from under a hyper-domineering partner and scaling that sociological problem up to the scale of whole cities and states.
When you get into why Reconstruction failed, a big part of it was like looking at a spouse in an abusive relationship trying to get out from under a hyper-domineering partner and scaling that sociological problem up to the scale of whole cities and states.
I mean that, but also Andrew Johnson was a horrible person and even a worse president
Also, the Bible literally says: “but I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence” 1 Timothy 2:12
So according to Christian dogma, SHE wouldn’t be allowed to speak up against men, even if they are breaking some other rules, or try to teach the theatre world anything.
But it’s a fair bet saying she’s never opened a bible in her life, seeing she can’t be bothered to even check out what the story is about when applying for roles.
Edit I realised this might read quite neutral, so I’m adding a fuck monotheism here just to make my view on the matter clear
Eh, fuck all religions, not just monotheism. Religions are the worst, the amount of gods doesn’t matter much. They’re abusive and a detriment to society and progress.
Dogma makes religions bad, but not all religions have dogma. Also when does faith become religion?
I get your point and I don’t mind saying fuck all religions, but historically, polytheistic societies were more tolerant and usually pretty progressive. Much less (if any) dogma.
The intolerance of narrow monotheism is written in letters of blood across the history of man from the time when first the tribes of Israel burst into the land of Canaan. The worshippers of the one jealous God are egged on to aggressive wars against people of alien [beliefs and cultures]. They invoke divine sanction for the cruelties inflicted on the conquered. The spirit of old Israel is inherited by Christianity and Islam, and it might not be unreasonable to suggest that it would have been better for Western civilization if Greece had moulded it on this question rather than Palestine.
get your point and I don’t mind saying fuck all religions, but historically, polytheistic societies were more tolerant and usually pretty progressive. Much less (if any) dogma.
Idk, I think that’s a pretty hard claim to make. One that’s mainly dependent on the fact that the majority of written history happened after the advent of monotheism, especially in the west.
If we examine the body of evidence of polytheistic cultures outside western influence, things get a bit more complicated. Especially considering that terms like progressive and tolerant are subjective concepts entrenched in the eurocentric cross-examination of cultures.
In ancient Mesopotamia, people were more able to accept the concept of dualism and polytheism, however they were also much more likely to participate in the destruction of entire cultures to capture the idol of a rival god. How do you weigh that with the modern understanding of concepts like progressiveness or tolerance?
In ancient Mesopotamia, people were more able to accept the concept of dualism and polytheism, however they were also much more likely to participate in the destruction of entire cultures to capture the idol of a rival god
“RIVAL” god.
a person or thing competing with another for the same objective or for superiority in the same field of activity.
That’s the proto-version of dogmatic monotheism. That’s the origin of the first commandment. That’s THE reason monotheism is so unaccepting and violent.
I’m not going to write a several page essay detailing why this is so. Do you know why Jesus was accepted as a deity to the Roman and Greek pantheons at the time, instead of being seen as a rival god? How the same thing happened later in the North of Europe as well with norse polytheism?
Polytheism by its very nature has more explanatory power, as not every explanation is “God works in mysterious ways” as one god is considered omnipotent and infallible, whereasin polytheism gods are often more humane, fickle, and fallible, despite being very powerful.
terms like progressive and tolerant are subjective concepts entrenched in the eurocentric cross-examination of cultures.
Not really. Do you kill everything different from you? Then you’re not too tolerant. “Progressive” is also not too subjective. Before the Christianisation of the Nordics, for instance, “Viking” rape laws were far more progressive than their so-called “civilized” European counterparts. On the continent, women were considered property and so rape was a property crime – there was no “victim,” but the father or husband, whose property had been damaged.
That’s not really subjective of a take, is it? To think that an attitude of “women are people” is more progressive than “women are things”?
I beg to differ. I think you’re making some assumptions about the innate qualities of polytheistic societies.
Just because deities within certain polytheistic religions were rivals, doesn’t imply the advent of monotheism. Most polytheistic religions had sects or cults that conflicted with other sects within the same pantheon.
Not really. Do you kill everything different from you? Then you’re not too tolerant.
Okay, then explain the Mongol empire? They were polytheistic, and more liberal with religious freedoms than nearly any other empire in history… Does their use of violence negate their tolerance?
We can look at branches of the Mongolian empire 200 years later that would transition from polytheism to monotheistic islamist. Did they become more violent after the transition? Nope, they assimilated into the culture and became the local government for generations.
“Progressive” is also not too subjective. Before the Christianisation of the Nordics, for instance, “Viking” rape laws were far more progressive than their so-called “civilized” European counterparts. On the continent, women were considered property and so rape was a property crime – there was no “victim,” but the father or husband, whose property had been damaged.
We have no written record of any laws of the Viking. We have second hand information from the perspective of Christian priest, but I’d hardly claim that gives us any information about the actual practice and context of “Viking rape laws”.
For all we know these laws could have been based on the same proprietary motivation of monotheistic societies who recorded it. And if you are interpreting secondary sources as your primary sources, then we must assume their other observations of the same culture to be true. That the Viking culture was based on the rape and pillage of Christianity, not exactly a progressive perspective…
That’s not really subjective of a take, is it? To think that an attitude of “women are people” is more progressive than “women are things”?
First of all, that argument is entirely dependent on assuming that Viking in Viking culture women were thought of as equals…which is doubtful. Just because they aren’t labeled as property, doesn’t mean they weren’t second class citizens. More than likely Viking cultures just didn’t have the same cultural understanding of property as their monotheistic counterparts.
Secondly, yes with added context that statement is entirely subjective. If a society treats their own women as people, but is perfectly fine with raping and enslaving women in other cultures, are they truly progressive? Or do they just understand that what’s good for the cow is good for the farmer?
I do find it funny that one of my primary complaints with this historical interpretation is that it is too dependent on a eurocentric representation of history, and your rebuttals have only been composed of European examples.
Whenever there is a belief in something supernatural, it will be abused, it will end badly, because we’re already talking about people believing things without any proof. Sooner or later, a leader will pop up and it’s it’s rather easy to make these people do your bidding by inventing new wonders or dogma or whatever works for said leader(s)
People need to grow up. Yeah, maybe there is a mighty system operator that manages our simulation, or maybe I’m a Boltzmann brain or whatever. Thinking about it, these two ideas are more plausible than any religion out there, yet we don’t have the great Boltzmann church.
Science is finding out reality, maybe we should focus more on that
Religious philosophy is fine. Not everything needs to be crammed into the framework of hard sciences. And the social aspects of religious organizing are no more good or bad than the individuals who take part in it.
You can just as easily find religiously motivated abolitionists as slavers. You can just as easily find religiously motivated homeless shelters as pedophile priests. The spiritualist language used to describe our social bonds is no less legitimate than some Evo-Devo prattle about brain chemicals, at least from the perspective of setting useful policy.
They’re abusive and a detriment to society and progress.
You can just as easily find abusive and detrimental habits in business economics and the hard sciences. Rationalization of a perverse or destructive behavior often follows the decision to embark on it. And you don’t need religious beliefs to rationalize bad behaviors.
Yeah, no. How many wars were fought over atheism? None. How many over religions? Too many to count.
The average Catholic is a fine person, I’m sure, but the Catholic church is a horror show. How many people have suffered because of that organization? More than I could count. How many wars has it started? More than I’d like to know.
Want to try a different religion? Any religion? Any cult? Scientology, maybe? No? How about Jim Jones temple of what was it called again?
Individual spiritualism then? In on itself harmless, maybe, but it’s still pure nonsense in the level of believing in unicorns and Santa Claus, and it still will end in either groups starting to form, that makes cults that either die out or become organised religion. And in its entire trajectory, it WILL cause suffering and abuse.
Yes, abuse is possible in any organization, but no organization will allow and tolerate abuse as religious organizations do. Give us your money, old grandpa with cancer, god will cure your cancer and return you your money double, I swear! Climate change isn’t real, god would not allow it! All our thousands, millions of followers should just continue to pollute the hell out of this world because God will fix it, people! Hurricanes are caused by gay wickedness and women won’t get pregnant from rape, god will stop that unless they like it.
I see no positive point in any religion or spirituality that could not be made without it.
So yes, fuck all religions, they’re a detriment to the growth of humanity.
But what about the charities then? Charities don’t require religion, you can do one perfectly fine without the other, and that ignores that charities only exist due to governments not fixing issues.
Not just theater but musical theater the absolute stronghold of the LGBTQIA+… Yeah let’s just talk openly about how I believe the vast majority of my coworkers and peers (who probably have backgrounds of religious trauma) are morally defunct and how their ability to feel loved and supported shouldn’t be considered protected by society!
I want to grab her by the shoulders and say : For fuck sake honey. No one in your field wanting to touch you with a 9 ft pole isn’t their fault. Having someone openly homophobic in a role where getting the gold star of casting has been for the past several years meant actually choosing someone who has actual experience in a similar identity to what they are potraying… It would be suicide for a production. People are going to look to a queer character to project themselves in those situations. Knowing you’re just a bigot doing it for self agrandizement, accolades and cash is going to cause fucking boycotts from the very target audience of the show!
Spilling your theocratic dirty laundry on twatter because you can’t hold it in can be a “career limiting move” and that’s just normal in a pluralistic society.
I’m not sure that I agree that a queer character can only be played by a queer actor. That is called acting, the entire idea is to be someone you’re not. If wr put that rule, then you can also say that straight characters cannot be played by queer or gay actors, not something we want, I’d say.
Imo it’s the same idea as having black people play black characters instead of white people with black makeup. If everyone was treated as equal then it wouldn’t be an issue. However, that’s not reality. People are treated differently based on gender, sex, race, age and so forth. Wanting queer characters to be played by queer actors is a way of making sure they have a space to demonstrate their skill, talent, and potentially make a living off it. Same thing with black people playing black characters, or women playing female characters.
There’s another element, however, in which good acting can’t fully replace personal experience. A queer actor playing a queer character will likely be able to identify with said character much better than a straight actor could, and as such, they would be able to harness their personal experiences and channel them through the character they’re playing.
While my latter point doesn’t refute your point about straight characters being played by queer actors, the former hopefully explains why it isn’t universally applied. I do believe though, that in a just and equal world, things like sex, race, gender and so forth shouldn’t be (dis)qualifiers for any given character, it’s just that we don’t live in that kind of world.
To be fair I never said “can only be played by” just that the gold standard has become preferred casting of actors who can apply their personal experiences to the role be it people who come from a specific place or culture (like a queer culture) , have a specific racial background or a disability those roles particularly are earmarked with a growing cultural preference for people because there’s some wider cultural issues of stereotyping, typecasting or framing out people who can tell you is something the playwright put in is full of shit. More people are becoming wise to media literacy and can spot things off with an uninformed take on a performance.
There is a silver and bronze standard that are still acceptable. Sometimes you cast someone outside the gold standard for a bunch of reasons. Availability, overwhelming directorial notions that it was an audition above and beyond… but in leftist spaces particularly - like audio drama podcasts as an example the gold standard of preferred applicants is explicitly listed on audition sides.
No, the entire thing about acting is that people can play people other than themselves. If you can’t play outside your own experiences, you’re not the “gold standard”, as you randomly claim, you’re a bad actor.
Well you can cast your creative projects as you like.
You do seem to be missing the point and leaving most of my point untouched however. It isn’t that a person without the experience can’t play the part. It’s that when you are not accostomed to seeing people like yourself lifted up it is far more thrilling to see it happen. It’s not about the actor. It’s about the audience.
I think its more a push toward making space for people who have marginalized identites to act. For a long time being openly queer was career suicide. So now that those stories are finally being told, people also want actors writers and producers of those identities involved in the process.
I think its less that straight actors cant play queer characters and more so that there are already plenty of roles for them. Maybe in a more equal future that pressure wont be there but right now it is.
I also think it depends on the role. A side character that happens to be gay? Yeah a straight actor can definetly play that. A lead role in a comming of age tale about discovering your gender identity? Probably best played by someone who has lived experience.
Oh they live in reality. When reality bites them they feel it. For the most part I respect belief. These people legitimately believe that there is a power which will inevitably maliciously destroy us and that to save other people they must be discouraged in any earthly way possible. They believe that to be a noble thing because the foundation comes from a rock solid belief in the divine and honestly there’s not much you can do to shake that belief so what they are doing makes sense from that perspective.
The issue with that being around people with that belief who act on it as though it’s their job to dissuade people from what they perceive as that particular danger is miserable. Like okay, you believe that we’re gunna burn do so quietly because LGBTQIA folk aren’t going to change because even if you believe in God with those tenants it’s really hard to believe he is actually benevolent. Most of the LGBTQIA Christians who believe that God hates the only terms under which they can be happy end up killing themselves. That’s part of why conversion therapy is considered a human rights issue.
Alright, so what? What good does treating them petulantly do? If you cannot treat them in a way where they feel understood and cared for they don’t change. If you treat someone poorly or like you are superior they are more likely to double down on their belief and spit in your face. Unless your aim is to bash their faces in and straight up use force you have to see the human in them to get started reversing the programing because a lot of religions preach that unbelievers are evil and the first step in any questioning of the whole is to show that no… You aren’t evil. You are moral and kind actually.
What’s the end goal of disrespect? To be rude to them for fun?
You don’t have to. Only if you want to try and stop them from being religious nuts that’s where you start.
It’s not your job to interact with them so don’t. If they are actively causing you pain where you are you have a right to defend yourself to get them to stop but like any violence there is a line where you cross from self defence to just taking out your anger and trauma on someone else to make yourself feel better. People who do that make the job harder for those of us who want to stop religious trauma from perpetuating.
Respecting religious belief is part of the healing process of religious trauma. It doesn’t mean subscribing to belief in religion. It means seeing the actual human beings inside the system that hurt you.
Respecting religious belief is part of the healing process of religious trauma. It doesn’t mean subscribing to belief in religion.
Not if I’m moderating an atheist site and they come to provoke me and to flaunt their ignorance. Whey they come to my place, they will eat shit if they don’t behave.
It means seeing the actual human beings inside the system that hurt you.
If “the actual human beings” are indoctrinated beyond any chance of redemption, who says I need to keep trying?
If “the actual human beings” are indoctrinated beyond any chance of redemption, who says I need to keep trying?
Honestly, you probably shouldn’t try. You seem like you are in a bad place at present to attempt to do so. If you do attempt your first motive should not be to change someone else but to do so for yourself.
Harboring an active grudge can be embittering. The brain is plastic. You can over many iterations of leaving the emotion and stimuli connection unchecked can reinforce it and strengthen the connection beyond what logic can undo. It can be unhealthy. A lot of traumatized atheists, or those who continually allow themselves to reinforce that religious people are inferior humans in a meaningful way, can be quite harmful in pluralistic spaces because they become blinded to the line between religious people existing and religious oppression in the exact same way a lot of religious people do. When you allow that to happen it means that religion is still controlling you. If it can hammer your emotional buttons whenever it’s present and make you feel attacked just for being around it that is power that owns you. The further down that path you travel the harder it is to undo.
The ability to gain distance and a level of neutrality is actual freedom. It makes dealing with religion feel less personal and gives more space to react in a wider range of ways. The righteousness of perceiving yourself as justified in an overreaction is seductive. You want to bite back harder than you were bit…But every time you do you lose a little bit more of your objectivity. There is a freedom in letting go.
The freedom you’re advocating is the freedom to continue letting religious people to cause damage without obstacles and without feeling complicit about it.
No. It’s the freedom to engage with them without acting like you’re an abused dog reacting at every man in a hat.
I am trans. My advocacy has involved engaging with people who hate that I exist and who are primed to think that I am mentally ill, a logistical problem or that I am a moral threat. I have minor religious trauma myself though I know a lot of my fellows who suffer aggregious mental health problems because of religious trauma due to their parents. Some queer people still believe in that Christian God and detangling that trauma takes a lot of gentle work. I have been learning how to engage debate and advocate with religious people on different levels to de-escalate the harm being done as a matter of long term survival plans. Every person requires different tactics. Being scornful or rough can be used as a goad in the tool kit because some people need to be approached in ways they recognize as authoritative but more often then not it’s the tool likeliest to lose ground rather than gain it.
Recognizing the values they have is the first step to getting them to recognize you which is the first step to them re-evaluating what they believe. They have to feel understood and seen before there is a chance they will offer that to you. And sometimes they will snap as a fear response to their veiws being changed but will feel bad for that response later when they don’t have their back up against the wall. It’s a process and some of that processing happens when you aren’t around. If you leave on a note where their take away is “fuck that person is an asshole” they aren’t going to spend that time reflecting on their own bad actions. They are going to reflect on yours.
See that’s where we differ. I don’t give a fuck whatever they believe. I care how they act on it. I care about mitigating the actual damage they do because I have battles that I care about more than attacking them on whether or not they subscribe to belief in supernatural stuff. If their beliefs are actually doing nothing but giving them comfort that’s fine. Being right and being good sometimes require you to pick one or the other. Stripping people of the harmless things that give them comfort isn’t exactly a bro move… And “Just stop believing” is an incredibly patronizing way to deal with people. It’s just not how it works.
Not to mention if you want to stop someone from actively bad aspects of a religion trying to attack their belief directly is where the armor is thickest . They are trained to reject that out of hand. You can batter that shit all day and go no where. I attack the joints. I use whatever nessisary - I quote their scriptures and philosophies back at them, learn the historic timelines of the politics inside their movements, I approach them with kindness, I approach them using their own language because I don’t have fucking time to give a shit whether they in their heart of hearts believe in their superstitions because I don’t have time. All that really needs doing is they stop hurting us because all the rest doesn’t actually mean anything. Like if they are kind and awesome folk who totally stay in their lane but they believe in Sky daddy or crystals … Okay whatever. No skin off my nose.
People don’t actually choose what they believe. They do weigh their evidence and values but at some level it’s out of their control. Sometimes it’s because somebody else pops it in your brain at a formative time and that’s just part of your conception of the world or some other sense of personal evidence draws you to a conclusion. Did you choose to be an atheist or did you arrive at it independently ? Could you just CHOOSE to believe in Zeus or something as a matter of absolute choice? Probably not. Your beliefs formed because of your personal body of evidence drew you to to that conclusion. That’s also how some religiois people arrive at their beliefs . This doesn’t always cycle in one direction with religious people always becoming atheists. I know people who were atheists who stopped being atheists and started believing in something else. At some point a certain amount of humility is beneficial. The notion that yeah, we’re not completely rational creatures and that other people are allowed to believe stuff that you personally don’t agree… They just aren’t entitled to cause harm because of it and that also includes you does make the world a better place. If your bar is that you cannot be happy or care about people unless they agree entirely with your stance about the supernatural you are essentially gunna be holding your breath until you turn blue. Like - you can…But having zero chill isn’t exactly the most attractive social behaviour.
I found this to be a very well-written article about a concept I wasn’t previously aware of. Here follow some interesting choice quotes - but I recommend reading the actual article:
When activist Jess Piper heard Alabama Republican senator Katie Britt deliver the GOP response to the State of the Union, she had a visceral reaction. The senator spoke in a breathy voice with a soft and sweet quality ― even as she described horrific acts of sexual violence and murder and painted a dystopian picture of the United States.
For Piper, there was no mistaking that sound, which permeated her childhood in the Bible Belt. Britt was using “fundie baby voice.”
Then more context - conveying submission to male authority:
“I would describe ‘fundie baby voice’ as a woman’s voice that is higher than average in both pitch and breathiness,” said Kathryn Cunningham, a vocologist and assistant professor of theatre and head of acting at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. “While the average woman’s voice is higher-pitched than the average man’s due to a combination of anatomical and social factors, some women who speak this way seem to be intentionally placing their voices higher than their natural pitch range in order to convey submission to male authority and childlike innocence.”
These changes in voice are deliberate:
Deliberate voice changes are very much a reality for women in fundamentalist Christian communities, noted Tia Levings, author of the upcoming memoir “A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy.”
“From a young age, we were taught over and over again to modulate our voices,” she said. “It was all about sounding sweet, soft, and childlike. There were very strict gender roles, and women were supposed to never sound angry but keep sweet, obey, dress modestly, speak softly, be very feminine.”
Interesting roots:
This sort of Christian vocal training has roots in Helen Andelin’s 1963 book “Fascinating Womanhood.”
“This book encourages fundamentalist Christian women to sound ‘childlike’ in order to convey submission to male figures,” Cunningham said, noting that there are “references to an idealized voice that a compliant, Christian woman should have.”
I found this quote referenced in the article very remarkable:
“It is important to emphasize in this discussion that women’s voices are always scrutinized and policed. The truth is that we can’t win, no matter how we speak.” - Kathryn Cunningham, vocologist and assistant professor
Of such women in power who use the fundie baby voice, the article goes on to quote the following:
“What they produce is a lot of abuse and subjugation,” Levings added. “And it always stings more when a woman is used as a tool of the patriarchy to promote it. They’re the Aunt Lydias and Serena Joys of the program ― brought in and given power when it suits men, but they will be discarded when it’s no longer useful to those men.”
Toward the end of the article, the very valid warning:
Piper urged those who are interested in the fundie baby voice phenomenon to educate themselves on the Christian nationalist movement in U.S. politics and the Project 2025 agenda. Directing ire toward those in power is more useful than tearing down everyday women for the way they were trained to speak.
I do agree, but my experience with fundie women (Christian women who “know their role”) is that yes, there is point where they are victims of this system of belief, but they will NOT think twice about using their proximity to power to victimize/bully/subjugate others, whether it’s people of color, lgbtq or anyone not in their bubble.
In the loyalist worldview, there is nothing but hierarchy. That’s why these people are stereotypically awful to waitstaff: those employees are beneath them. Anything short of subservience is a personal attack.
I need folks to understand that people in this tribalist mindset do not evaluate information. They only accept or reject claims based on interpersonal loyalty. Reality itself is defined by whatever the people above them say, today. Their betters must be smarter and richer and more handsome, or else they wouldn’t be above them. ‘Where’s your Bugatti?’
Reasoned argument is a learned behavior. It’s visibly not what these people are using their brains for. They’re still just shuffling cards. So yes, many individuals above them are now wrong and ugly and poor, and condemning them will involve a lot of familiar terms that outgroup critics told them in vain. But they’re not fixed. They didn’t suddenly recognize the system. They just passed their excusable limit on bad things happening to them, personally.
And they’re still liable to waltz back in, even if it gets worse. All they need are better excuses to raise the limit.
It’s like if you change it up and let the kids who never get picked first be the team captains, the very first people they pick will be the people who never picked them. Everyone just wants to be winners.
Exactly. One of the most complicating factors in feminism has always been that there have always been means for women to use proximity to men to gain power over others in accordance with the power of those men. For example in the era shortly following the abolition of slavery in the United States women had practically no rights that did not come from their husbands or fathers, but could still get a black man killed by claiming he hit on her.
Some women prefer it that way. In exchange for autonomy they receive a form of alternative authority and are able to abdicate responsibility for the power exerted in their names. If you already wanted what they demand of you, then you have little reason to question the morality involved here and they sell a life that for some is very nice. And it’s not like you’ll need an abortion to save your life or will find your husband getting violent or will have a queer kid. That happens to other people, less holy people, sinners. They’re the ones who are why your life is difficult.
And there’s also the hypocrites. The Phillis Schlafely types. They believe they belong in their place but don’t want to do it so they try to make it mandatory.
It’s really disgusting how we still have these ridiculous “norms” to deal with. In opposition to the baby voice we have women who need to modulate their voice to be deeper if they want to be taken more seriously in “professional” settings. It’s all very stupid…
I’d heard that voice, but didn’t know it was actively taught. What the actual fuck‽ Also why the fuck do these people want their wives to sound childlike‽ Maybe it’s just the lesbian in me talking but as I get older (not even 30 yet) I increasingly want my women more womanly. Give me an opinionated 40 year old over an insecure 19 year old every time. Every time I learn about fundamentalists pushing unnatural youth onto women I’m reminded of how I’ve heard that child molestation is more often about power than desire. And they act as though it’s all just nature, but if it was what was natural they wouldn’t have to put so much effort into reinforcing these hierarchies and forcing dominant women into servile roles and punishing men who are insufficiently dominant.
Sounds like you were better off never interacting with those nutjobs. Good for your mom protecting you from their crazy, because that is the sort of thing that would leave a scar on an impressionable young mind.
My wife’s mom was left handed but forced to use her right hand to write.
Anyway, she died of a degeneratieve nerve disorder which slowly took away her ability to control her muscles, while her brain reminded intact. Really terrible. Her right hand was among the last part of her body to lose control, so she was able to write after she lost the ability to speak.
So by pure chance at least one person benefitted from these crazy anti-leftie ideas. (She could just as easily have lost her ability to use her right hand first, which would have been a horrible twist of fate.)
And this, folks, is why we should tax religious organizations…. Like every other country I know of. (edit, apparently I knew less than I thought I did. I think what I did was conflate a ‘church tax’ with churches paying income tax. apparently that’s a thing where the state collects your tithe for you… if you attend or whatever.)
It seems I made a mistake in that assertion, or missremembering the last time I looked into it. regardless i was wrong about other (western) countries not including religious orgs as tax exempt.
Historically, the church was the source of social safety nets in society. in the modern era, that’s changed to government-ran safety nets (well fare, social security, etc).
there was also some even older precedence of the church running some of the government, so that was payment for that.
A long time ago, it was so that they could use the additional resources for helping the needy and less fortunate instead of the government. The idea being a Church was a community organization and would know better than the government what the community needed.
In order to get the tax credit, the church agreed to never get involved politically with anything.
Fast forward to now, and churches are violating that agreement in a big way
There is actually more history behind it. Back in the days when the local king would collect taxes from his subjects, churches wouldn’t have to pay. This was because taking money from the church was considered a sin. Whilst donating to the church was a way to absolve yourself from sins. The church would take care of your immortal soul, if you’d just continue to pay them. This lead to a well funded church and no taxes being paid by the church.
How anybody ever agreed to this I don’t know. We’ve invented something called an immortal soul, which is what you actually are instead of your body. We’ve also invented something called hell, which is endless suffering for your immortal soul. If you don’t follow the rules, which we’ve invented btw, your soul will end up in this hell. One of the rules is give us money.
But then people would just simply say, I’ve never followed your rules, guess I’m fucked, no point in following the rules now. But wait, we’ve got a special deal if you call within 30 minutes and give us money. We can fix your soul so it isn’t fucked and you can try again to follow the rules. We would also like you to tell us what you did wrong, so we can use it to blackmail you, I mean so we know what part of the soul to fix.
they can deduct actual charitable contributions, for things like running a soup kitchen, and stuff. but that’s subject to auditing, and not at all allowed to go into ‘charitable funds’ that dish out to the board members.
Why is it always so hard to just leave people alone? How empty is her life that she actually went to court over this, spent money, time, and resources on hate.
If you examine the tenets of Christianity and the Bible, spreading homophobic beliefs can be seen as a duty:
Firstly, let’s explore why it a Christian responsibility to share God’s message. Leviticus 19:16-18 says: “Do not go about spreading slander among your people. Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor’s life. I am the LORD.” This passage encourages us to be truthful in our communication with others, as well as to avoid causing harm to those around us. By sharing the Biblical perspective on various issues, including sexual morality, they fulfill this commandment.
Additionally, Matthew 28:19-20 emphasizes the importance of spreading the Gospel in all parts of the world: “Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of time.” This verse illustrates the mandate from Jesus himself to preach his gospel and instruct new converts in His ways.
Now, when we turn to the subject of homosexuality, there are multiple verses in both Old and New Testaments that categorize homosexual acts as sinful and an abomination. For instance, Leviticus 18:22 declares: “You must not lie down with a man as with a woman; that is detestable.” The concept of homosexual behavior being considered an abomination or detestable act appears several times throughout the Bible (e.g., Leviticus 20:13). In Romans 1:24-27, Paul speaks about how certain people exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones, which resulted in God’s wrath.
In summary, it is crucial for Christians to spread the Word of God, because the Bible serves as the guide for living a virtuous life. Homosexuality stands out as one of the practices contrary to Biblical teachings, described as an abomination. Therefore, by sharing their beliefs, these Christian individuals aren’t merely promoting homophobia but rather, they are adhering to the principles set forth by God in the Bible.
You may not agree, but it’s at least consistent with their faith.
I don’t mean to be that guy, but I’m not gonna read all that. You replied to me assuming I don’t know anything about Christianity, which isn’t true. My comment was kind of rhetorical.
I grew up in a household that was Christian, my partners household was catholic, and I’ve read pretty good chunks of the Bible.
I appreciate the sentiment, but your time is really better spent elsewhere.
I mean, don’t you think it’s a little presumptuous on your part to give someone what amounts to a lecture on the tenants of christianity in a lemmy comment?
We’re clearly not getting anywhere with this. I’m gonna go do literally anything else. This is exactly why I don’t browse atheist communities. There’s always a know-it-all that’s willing to dole out all of their clearly very much more correct than yours opinions.
Because everyone is more important than anyone else & they all not only deserve to be heard, but if you disagree, you’re the asshole… it’s internal justification for ignorance
Not everyone deserves to be heard. That’s ridiculous. Being heard means someone is listening. We don’t have sufficient time or ears for everyone to be heard.
I agree that everyone deserves the chance to speak. But not everyone deserves a platform to be heard.
If someone wants to be a bigot, they can go shout about it in their backyard. But don’t put the burden of hearing it on the rest of us. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
I think you two are on the same page, the words they emphasized point to a ‘this is from their point of view, look how selfish they are’ kinda message.
I noticed this with the universe: somehow resources and time find their way into the pockets of those who use it cause harm on somebody else. But for us folks who wanna just put food on the table or pay debt we are always at the verge of drowning.
Cause preachers can talk about Jihads against atheists on talk shows, but somebody says god isn’t real and everything they are connected to gets examined for not complying with the first amendment.
Yup. Even ‘tolerant’ religions go batshit when they encounter unbelievers. It’s like you can root for any team, but if you decline the entire sportsball thing, YOU GOTTA FUCKIN DIE
It’s more like “you and everything you stand for is unbound by morality, and you pose a threat to my entire worldview through your thoughts and ideas alone.”
True lol, talking to my Christian friends about hell is wild. The worst people imaginable can go to eternal paradise if they believe in God, but queer agnostic atheists like me get eternal torture for thought crimes.
And they’ll openly admit that they don’t think I deserve hell, but they still call it just and moral if I get sent there. Which is incredible, because it seems like they feel like it’s wrong, yet won’t call it wrong because the morals created by the men who came before them are objectively right and can’t be questioned.
The other baffling thing is that they’ll say owning slaves is wrong now because those parts of the Bible are outdated, yet still say it’s just to torture homosexuals for eternity and cite those same “outdated” books of the Bible.
their morality is hilarious - and that they view it as intrinsic to their religion and would go murderhappy without it’s constraints, or if the right imaginary friend told them to - illustrates my fear that out atheists in many places are at risk.
A few examples:
christian fascists insist we’ll have freedom of religion, but not freedom from religion. even though the supreme court has long held “no religion” is a religion.
Haha. You joke but that is theist belief in a nutshell. Rather believe in anything to save one’s soul in the afterlife than nothing at all and not to go to heaven or some paradise.
Circling back to this - a thought occurred to me: if you buy into the grift on any side, you’re much more likely to convert to the ‘correct’ religion - whatever that is lol
“The ostracizing looks I get while patrolling drag brunches with my AR-15 make me feel like a second-class citizen.”
“They’re always rubbing the silence of an indifferent universe into our faces.”
“They mind their own business, which is super passive-aggressive.”
“Sometimes I just want to walk up to these counterprotesters and say, ‘Let people live their lives.’”
“They won’t even let us burn all their books!”
“They cynically use basic logic and rational thought to make me question my deeply held beliefs, knowing full well I don’t want to do that.”
“Atheists have oppressed us to the point where I can only practice my religion at home, at church, at city council meetings, with my family, at work, in my car, with friends, at the mall, and in public parks.”
“Anyone existing in a different way is harmful to me somehow.”
The Onion is getting lazy. They’re supposed to be writing satire, but they are just getting quotes from actual Christians.
Despite the controversies and the write-in campaign, the district’s heavy Republican tilt, created by Wisconsin’s strong Republican gerrymander, allowed Schmidt to easily prevail in the general election with 55% of the vote.
State Rep. Brad Sherman, a Republican, even released a newsletter saying that the principle of church/state separation didn’t apply to this display because the state was inherently Christian. After all, he claimed, the Iowa Constitution refers to a “Supreme Being.”
<span style="color:#323232;">According to these opening lines of our Constitution, the foundation for laws and continued blessing and success in Iowa is based on these points:
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> There is One Supreme God.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> Blessings over this state come from the One Supreme God
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> We must depend upon the One Supreme God if we want to enjoy continued blessings.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">It is a tortured and twisted interpretation of law that affords Satan, who is universally understood to be the enemy of God, religious expression equal to God in an institution of government that depends upon God for continued blessings. Such a legal view not only violates the very foundation of our State Constitution, but it offends the God upon whom we depend and undermines our wellbeing.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">…
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Therefore, based on the laws of God and the Constitution of the State of Iowa, and for the purpose of securing the blessings of God upon our state:
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> I am calling for our governor to have this blasphemous display removed immediately based on the grounds that it is unconstitutional and *offends God upon whom the State of Iowa depends for blessings.*
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> I am calling for clarifying legislation to be adopted in accordance with our State Constitution that prohibits satanic displays in our Capitol building and on all state owned property.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> I am calling for legislation to be adopted that makes it legal to display the Ten Commandments in our Capitol, in all buildings owned by the state, and in our public schools.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">If we want the blessings of God upon our state, we must demonstrate by our laws and actions that we are indeed depending upon Him and that we are opposed to Satan.
</span>
I’m curious about this one. I was amused when it was first done - I think I even donated to the cause, but it’s been awhile and I don’t remember. I don’t know if they ever got any of their signs posted, but I do remember people claiming that the law stated the schools had to post donated signs.
Obviously it’s a great loophole in a stupid law, and should equally cover Hindi, Chinese, or any other scary language. The law, as originally written, did not specify a language.
My question is whether it would similarly apply to a sign in English that read “In Allah we Trust.” Since Allah is literally the Arabic word for “god,” it’s semantically equivalent. If so, the same should hold true for similar words from other languages. You might argue that naming a specific god like Vishnu might not pass muster (although I think an argument could be made), but I think that “In Allah we trust” would be almost as defensible as having the entire text in Arabic.
Working in a rather large school district and eventually getting to point where I have somewhat more understanding and information about the inner workings of public ed, I can tell you exactly what a lot of Texas schools decided to do after that law passed and then people started donating signs: we immediately put up any sign that met the requirements and then threw them all away at the end of that same day. We have better things to worry about than trollish legislation and the trolls who troll the trolls. At the end of every single day, our main questions are “did we keep the children safe and the parents informed,” and “is our children learning?”
Thank you for your genuine curiosity. And if you can, support your local public ed. There are lots of ways to help out that don’t even require spending a dime! Send your kids to public school, volunteer at book fairs, register as a substitute, go to your local town hall and ask hard-hitting questions about transparency and accountability (seriously, ask your local district for the wages of every employee classification, and then go to a town hall meeting and ask why there are so many people working at central office, why people like me who work there away from the children are getting paid more than some teachers, and ask how new positions they keep adding to an already top-heavy district are helping with employee satisfaction and retention), or even run for school board (except that last one is practically an unpaid job).
Depending on the school district, you may or may not. Texas has recently started allowing districts to identify themselves as a “District of Innovation,” which means allowing for alternative degrees when hiring specific types of teachers. That being said, substitutes are not teachers and are not subject to the same requirements; same goes for Instructional Assistants (IAs). Both are woefully underpaid servants for the type of work they do.
Thanks very much for this! It’s fantastic advice and I really appreciate it.
My mother was a teacher (and later a union leader) for her entire career, as was my partner’s mother, and as is our best friend. I even taught for a bit (university though - I’m really not a kids kind of person).
Still, I could not begin to imagine the job you folks do. I couldn’t teach in the kind of environments that some states are creating - hence my intentionally snarky but unintentionally insensitive question.
I could certainly do more to support education, though. I live in a fairly well off area with pretty solid public education (my property taxes are about $25k per year and if I’m reading the tables correctly our teachers’ salaries run from about $90k to start (BA + 30 credits) to about $160k (BA + 45 after 12 years)). It’s also a very liberal area - there is a negative probability of a moms for liberty type being elected dog catcher, much less to the school board. I don’t think I’m bringing very much to the table there.
However, I’m going to look into seeing if I can take some of your advice and apply it to other communities in my area. Again, thanks for the eye-opener!
Why the /s? I ran into my sister a couple of times already. First time she recognised my nick, second she didn’t and quoted my own comment back to me in real life because it was funny. I just told her to check the username when I recognised it.
I’ve always thought this, not about Christian nationalists, but about boomers in general. Such a selfish generation where they can’t imagine a world without themselves, so they want to make sure it ends for everyone else too.
They’re literally praying the world ends while they’re still around, since something like 10 generations of their ilk have been excitingly promising and threatening each other with that. Oh my gosh! This is it for sure this time. Jesus is coming. The unfortunate thing is working and living with people who literally think what they do today doesn’t matter because the world is ending really soon. Obviously, that encourages very short term thinking, and these people are too indoctrinated to notice “the rapture” didn’t happen the last 155 times someone predicted it. Even worse, the more dire the news, the more excited they are because it means Jesus can’t be far now.
The rapture in 2011 didn’t happen because a few days before it began, we lost Randy Savage. The Macho Man stopped fighting and ascended to heaven. But he didn’t stop fighting out of weakness. Obviously not. The Macho Madness transcended this plane of existence to stop the rapture. His last words should be carved into Mt Everest. No Rapture On My Watch Jesus! I’m Coming For You! He hit Jesus with a flying elbow and saved us all!
Obviously, that encourages very short term thinking, and these people are too indoctrinated to notice “the rapture” didn’t happen the last 155 times someone predicted it.
One of my most politically frightening moments was when I (from Europe) was watching a “documentary” about the US. They showed a senator who firmly believed the rapture would come very soon.
If a person believes that, how are they in a position to make thoughtful long-term decisions? Which often not only affect their own country, but countries around the world, for decades to come?
It was a lasting moment of scare and despair. God bless you (smirk), drive out these demons.
Yes, a fair number of US politicians have an evangelical belief that conflict in Israel will bring about the second coming of Jesus and thus the rapture, Armageddon etc. It’s why they support Israel, other than the anti-Muslim/Arab racist sentiments, despite some being anti-Semitic. It’s scary, sad and disturbing that people with power not only believe these bizarre archaic fairy tales, but also are actively courting the end of the world.
this story is from the guardian, probably the most mainstream progressive news organization in the world. "republican propaganda"! go back to bed steph
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