I find it funny how religious people can point out all the inaccuracies and bullshit in other religions except their own
(Source: cooliesturl)
There are a lot of religious beliefs that are worthy of respect, but a lot that are not, and I generally agree with this …
(Source: classywoman, via cooliesturl)
When I say I’m pro-life…
It doesn’t mean I’m religious.
Because I’m not.
It doesn’t mean I hate LGBT community.
Because I am a supporter.
It doesn’t mean I force women to give birth.
Because I never will.
Take what you want from my blog, but never assume I’m just your stereotypical pro-lifer. It is VERY possible to ask questions, state your opinions in a civil manner on this blog. I am respectful and I enjoy answering all questions received!
Thanks for following! :)
-speakfortheweakLet me tell you some things.
I used to investigate child abuse and neglect. I can tell you how to stop the vast majority of abortion in the world.
First, make knowledge and access to contraception widely available. Start teaching kids before they hit puberty. Teach them about domestic violence and coercion, and teach them not to coerce and rape. Create a strong, loving community where women and girls feel safe and supported in times of need. Because guess what? They aren’t. You know what happens to babies born under such circumstances? They get hurt, unnecessarily. They get sick, unnecessarily. They get removed from parents who love them but who are unprepared for the burden of a child. Resources? Honey, we try. There aren’t enough resources anywhere. There are waiting lists, and promises, and maybes. If the government itself can’t hook people up, what makes you think an impoverished single mom can handle it?
Abolish poverty. Do you have any idea how much childcare costs? Daycare can cost as much or more than monthly rent. They may be inadequately staffed. Getting a private nanny is a nice idea, but they don’t come cheap either. Relatives? Do they own a car? Does the bus run at the right times? Do they have jobs of their own they need to work just to keep the lights on? Are they going to stick around until you get off you convenience store shift at 4 AM? Do they have criminal histories that will make them unsuitable as caregivers when CPS pokes around? You gonna pay for that? Who’s going to pay for that?
End rape. I know your type errs on the side of blaming the woman, but I’ve seen little girls who’ve barely gotten their periods pregnant because somebody thought raping preteens was an awesome idea. You want to put a child through that? Or someone with a mental or physical inability for whom pregnancy would be frightening, painful or even life-threatening? I’ve seen nonverbal kids who had their feet sliced up by caregivers for no fucking reason at all, you think sexual abuse doesn’t happen either?
You say there’s lots of couples who want to adopt. Kiddo, what they want to adopt are healthy white babies, preferably untainted by the wombs and genetics of women with alcohol or drug dependencies. I’ve seen the kids they don’t want, who almost no one wants. You people focus only on the happy pink babies, the gigglers, the ones who grow and grow with no trouble. Those are not the kids who linger in foster care. Those are certainly not the older kids and teenagers who age out of foster care and then are thrown out in the streets, usually with an array of medical and mental health issues. Are they too old to count?
And yeah, I’ve seen the babies, little hand-sized things barely clinging to life. There’s no glory, no wonder there. There is no wonder in a pregnant woman with five dollars to her name, so deep in depression you wonder if she’ll be alive in a week. Therapy costs money. Medicine costs money. Food, clothes, electricity cost money. Government assistance is a pittance; poverty drives women and girls into situations where they are forced to rely on people who abuse them to survive. (I’ve been up in more hospitals than I can count.)
In each and every dark pit of desperation, I have never seen a pro-lifer. I ain’t never seen them babysitting, scrubbing floors, bringing over goods, handing mom $50 bucks a month or driving her to the pediatrician. I ain’t never seen them sitting up for hours with an autistic child who screams and rages so his mother can get some sleep while she rests up from working 14-hour days. I don’t see them fixing leaks in rundown houses or playing with a kid while the police prepare to interview her about her sexual abuse. They’re not paying for the funerals of babies and children who died after birth, when they truly do become independent organisms. And the crazy thing is they think they’ve already done their job, because the child was born!
Aphids give birth, girl. It’s no miracle. You want to speak for the weak? Get off your high horse and get your hands dirty helping the poor, the isolated, the ill and mentally ill women and mothers and their children who already breathe the dirty air. You are doing nothing, absolutely nothing, for children. You don’t have a flea’s comprehension of injustice. You are not doing shit for life until you get in there and fight that darkness. Until you understand that abortion is salvation in a world like ours. Does that sound too hard? Do you really think suffering post-birth is more permissible, less worthy of outrage?
“Pro-life” is simply a philosophy in which the only life worth saving is the one that can be saved by punishing a woman.
Christian Rock Band Preaches Hate Of LGBT Community During School Assembly, Tells Girls To Be Submissive To Husbands.
Holy shit this is surprising
When Dunkerton High School in Iowa invited a Christian rock band called Junkyard Prophet to perform during a school assembly this past Thursday, they never expected to get a hate filled sermon as part of the deal. But that’s exactly what happened.
According to the Lacrosse Tribune, the message was supposed “to be about bullying and making good choices,” such as being non-violent and against drugs and alcohol. “Instead, junior and senior high students at Dunkerton High School and faculty members said they were assaulted by the group’s extreme opinions on homosexuality and images of aborted fetuses,” along with messages against strong independent women.
After the band performed their music, they separated the boys, girls, and faculty in the building, which should have been an immediate red flag. According to witnesses, the band talked to the boys about the band’s Ten Commandments and talked about musicians that have died of drug overdose. The discussion with the girls was much different. The band told them “to save themselves for their husbands and assume a submissive role in the household. The leader in that effort also forced the young ladies to chant a manta of sorts about remaining pure” and would not allow any of them to leave the room.
One parent, Jennifer Littlefield, told the Tribune about a phone call she received from her daughter after the assembly. “They told my daughter, the girls, that they were going to have mud on their wedding dresses if they weren’t virgins. I couldn’t even understand her, she was crying so hard. They told these kids that anyone who was gay was going to die at the age of 42. It just blows me away that no one stopped this.”
According to LGBTQ Nation,”the band is part of the “You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International” Christian youth ministry founded by Bradlee Dean. Dean has advocated for imprisonment of gays and lesbians, and has said that gay men molest an average of 117 children “before they get caught,” and that Muslim nations that execute gays are more moral than American Christians.”
At the end of the day, Superintendent Jim Stanton told the students that the band doesn’t represent the beliefs of the administration and that the school is tolerant of those who are different and that diversity is celebrated in the school. But that doesn’t excuse the inaction of the school staff. They never should have allowed the students to be separated into groups and away from faculty members in the first place. It shows a complete lack of responsibility. And the very fact that they allowed a Christian band with dubious ties to a hate group to perform in front of students is disturbing. The problem is that the damage has already been done. Undoubtedly there are students that completely agree with what the band had to say, and now feel inspired to begin bullying others who don’t believe as they do. What this band did, is indoctrinate students with a message of hate. Clearly, this band holds the same beliefs as many in the Republican Party.
This is precisely why religion should remain outside of school. Though school officials expected a general message of ’don’t do drugs and don’t be violent,’ the current wave of hatred spreading throughout the Christian organizations should have prompted school administrators to research the band’s associations. The school paid $1,500 for the band to perform. That’s tax payer dollars, folks. Tax dollars paid to a religiously affiliated group. That sounds very much like a violation of the religious freedom of students to me. The school didn’t have to invite this band. They could have hired a non-religious band to perform and stress the positive anti-drugs, anti-violence message the school had intended in the first place. Heck, they could have just delivered the message themselves. But they didn’t. They chose a religiously affiliated band with ties to a Christian hate group. This is why parents should bring lawsuits to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future. This kind of hate speech should not be tolerated in our schools.
(via feistyfeminist)
The FACTS about the cost of birth control
Religious mandates against birth control are:
- A violation of equal rights for males and females (treating pregnancy like a special condition is treating females unequally, as the vast majority of females have a reproductive system for pregnancy)
- A violation of the mandates disallowing the government to endorse any particular religion (anti-birth control attitudes are religious)
- Terribly burdensome and viciously punishing to those who have done nothing but have ovaries and uteruses
- Oral contraceptives, or “the pill,” can cost $1,210 per year without health insurance.
- Women of reproductive age spend 68 percent more on out-of-pocket health care costs than do men, in part because of contraceptive costs.
- Surveys show that nearly one in four women with household incomes of less than $75,000 have put off a doctor’s visit for birth control to save money in the past year.
- Twenty-nine percent of women report that they have tried to save money by using their method inconsistently.
- More than half of young adult women say they have not used their method as directed because it was cost-prohibitive.
- Nearly half of women ages 18–34 with household incomes less than $75,000 report they need to delay or limit their childbearing because of economic hardships they’ve experienced in recent years.
(Source: americanprogress.org, via propaganda-for-life)
“We cannot legislate medicine, we cannot legislate morality, we cannot legislate religion. And when we try, we make mistakes.”
— Virginia Del. Jennifer McClellan (D-71) in a debate on the mandatory pre-abortion ultrasound bill passed there yesterday (watch the clip on The Rachel Maddow Show here).
(Source: coffeewithants, via captainfailboat)
The ‘biblical view’ that’s younger than the Happy Meal.
In 1979, McDonald’s introduced the Happy Meal.
Sometime after that, it was decided that the Bible teaches that human life begins at conception.
Ask any American evangelical, today, what the Bible says about abortion and they will insist that this is what it says. (Many don’t actually believe this, but they know it is the only answer that won’t get them in trouble.) They’ll be a little fuzzy on where, exactly, the Bible says this, but they’ll insist that it does.
That’s new. If you had asked American evangelicals that same question the year I was born you would not have gotten the same answer.
That year, Christianity Today — edited by Harold Lindsell, champion of “inerrancy” and author of The Battle for the Bible — published a special issue devoted to the topics of contraception and abortion. That issue included many articles that today would get their authors, editors — probably even their readers — fired from almost any evangelical institution. For example, one article by a professor from Dallas Theological Seminary criticized the Roman Catholic position on abortion as unbiblical. Jonathan Dudley quotes from the article in his book Broken Words: The Abuse of Science and Faith in American Politics. Keep in mind that this is from a conservative evangelical seminary professor, writing in Billy Graham’s magazine for editor Harold Lindsell:
God does not regard the fetus as a soul, no matter how far gestation has progressed. The Law plainly exacts: “If a man kills any human life he will be put to death” (Lev. 24:17). But according to Exodus 21:22-24, the destruction of the fetus is not a capital offense. … Clearly, then, in contrast to the mother, the fetus is not reckoned as a soul.Christianity Today would not publish that article in 2012. They might not even let you write that in comments on their website. If you applied for a job in 2012 with Christianity Today or Dallas Theological Seminary and they found out that you had written something like that, ever, you would not be hired.
At some point between 1968 and 2012, the Bible began to say something different. That’s interesting.
It’s par for the course, actually. People have always been reinterpreting the bible to suit their own ends. This is one of the (many) reasons I decided long ago that it’s all bullshit anyway.
(Source: kohenari)
TENNESSEE: Christianists Push Bill To Legalize Bullying Based On Religion
Here we go again, just like we saw in Michigan. Tennessee’s WSMV reports on a new bill that is a “top priority” of the Family Action Council.
A proposal by some state lawmakers is already under fire, even before the legislative session begins. They’re considering making a change in the law to allow students to speak out against homosexuality, if that’s what their religious beliefs call for. Supporters have said this is about protecting the free-speech rights of students who want to express their views on homosexuality. But gay rights groups are calling the idea a “license to bully.” Kelly Fussman is the founder of the No Hate Club at Hendersonville High School.She says she sees examples of bullying every single day. “I’ve had a lot of friends bullied for just being who they are, whether it’s for their sexuality, their gender identity, their religion,” she said. Fussman says she is worried about the bill in the legislature that she believes could make the verbal abuse worse. The proposal would alter the state’s anti-bullying laws to allow students to speak their religious and political views against homosexuality without punishment as long as the student isn’t threatening harm or damaging property.http://joemygod.blogspot.com/So, what these knuckle draggers are basically saying, is that expressing your “opinion” about your religion is more important than the quality of life for homosexual students.
That expressing their hatred and bigotry is more important than other people’s emotional well being and safety.
That’s completely fucked.
What if it was part of a religion to punch old ladies in the face? Really, what if that was in the bible, would we say “fuck the old ladies, god says to punch old ladies in the face.”
This is total bullshit.
(via brashblacknonbeliever)
You’re an atheist? Ah, good for you, now please, respect my religion.
A little thing that bothers me about those who are or call themselves atheists.
Sorry I’m bringing another rant in your dashboards. I just have to take this out of my head. I might probably delete it later, I don’t know, I might regret it, maybe not.
No. With all due respect, I will not respect your religion.
I will, however, respect you, as a person. I will respect the fact that you have the right to believe what you wish to believe. I will respect you by default, giving you the same respect that everyone is due, unless you somehow prove to me that you are not worthy of that respect.
But your religion? No. Your religion has been around for almost 2000 years. It has a bad track record, and has repeatedly proven itself to be unworthy of respect.
So, while I will respect you as a person and as a human being, and I will respect the right for you to believe what your wish, I do not have to respect those beliefs. I won’t criticize those beliefs unless you try to push them on me. But if you do, you can expect me to respond.
(via feurety)
Excuses
Identifying as religious does not entitle one to infringe on the rights of others. Religious beliefs do not have priority over basic human rights. You have the right to be religious, but you do not have the right to abuse others. Your superstitions do not trump facts. Religion is a poor excuse for feeling hatred for human beings.
Video game where Jews and Atheists must be killed or converted due for Christmas.
A video game about a Christian militia slaughtering Jewish and atheist New Yorkers who won’t be converted in the name of a particular brand of Christianity will be on the shelves of more than 10,000 American retailers in time for the Christmas season.
