Reading Time: 11 minutes I was recently reminded of just how self-serving and short right-wing Christians’ memories are, and it happened right when we’ve been talking about the nature of power in broken social systems.
religious right
Posted inLGBTQ, Religion
Idaho Lawmakers’ Bigotry Has Cost Their State $715,000. (Now What?)
Reading Time: 8 minutes My even broke earlier today. I can’t even. Be sure you brace yours before you read this, because this is just bizarre. The Religious Right has made yet another misstep in its self-created, self-maintained war on gay people–but in a weird kind of way, though, this story makes the perfect Sunday Happy Thought.
Posted inLGBTQ, Religion
Leopards Don’t Change Their Spots: Kim Davis Edition.
Reading Time: 10 minutes Kim Davis is from a family of super-duper-fervent Christians in a super-duper-religious town, but she claims that her new birth only happened a few years ago for the very first time. As a result of her new birth, she is totally changed and a whole different person, and all her transgressions are forgotten. Indeed, it bothers her that people think she’s a total hypocrite. She’s indignant about it–and hates that while “God” has forgotten her past, people keep bringing it up. And I wonder who is fooled by this blatantly self-serving assertion of hers. Fundagelical Christians like her like to say that the second they are converted, anything that happened previously is off-limits. They are “born again,” in a very real sense: new creations, totally different people. Today I want to talk about how wrong this idea is, and why it only serves to further fundagelical interests and promote abuse. I’ll start by discussing Fireproof, that awful Christian movie I reviewed recently.
Posted inReligion
What Kim Davis Thinks She Won. (And What She Really Lost.)
Reading Time: 9 minutes Watching her, reading her words, I get the sense that she at least thinks she has genuinely and truly won something big–and her supporters largely seem to agree. She does not have the tight, smug tone of someone who is insisting she won even though she knows she’s been handed a crushing loss. I heard people talking exactly like this all the time in church, and I hear Christians talking like this every single day nowadays. I think she sincerely thinks she won something. But what does she believe she won?
Posted inLGBTQ News, Religion
The Cult of Before Stories: Heather Barwick, Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth
Reading Time: 14 minutes I wish it could shock me anymore, seeing a family ripped apart by religion. It happens constantly in this modern age–and will probably get worse, really. But this story touched me particularly today because it hit a few all-too-familiar notes in that discordant jangle that is the Cult of Before Stories.
Posted inReligion
“Billy Did It Too” is Not An Adequate Reason to Misbehave
Reading Time: 14 minutes Sexism is over. Rand Paul said so, so we can all just relax.