"the school’s president Linda A. Livingstone filed a formal request with the Department of Education for an exemption from the Title IX rules, arguing that the complaints against them would force the school to violate its religious beliefs."
In other words, "We're bigoted assholes who can't treat people decently, but we're hiding behind our religious beliefs".
Of course, Tex-ass. The blind spot concerning religion, and how the Christian Nationalists insist that following anti-discrimination laws is discrimination against them is insane and should have been considered over with decisions like Piggie Park v Newman, Loving v Virginia, and Brown v Board. Yet here is more Christian Fucking Privilege enshrined into law. Although the Biden administration is light years better than Trump, it is still shit.
How have I gone this long without knowing Baylor is a Christian school? These problems are never going to go away until Christian institutions either leave the secular world or they learn to play by the rules that everyone else plays by. This story is bad enough until you remember the stranglehold that Christians have over healthcare providers and continuously deny basic healthcare like abortions, sterilizations, and contraception. Oh and while we’re at it let’s not forget the Christian adoption agencies that won’t adopt out to LGBTQ+ couples.
There is no horror that cannot be, and has not been, justified in the name of religion. There is no hate quite like Christian love. If you want to see the true face of hate, . . . hand power to the preachers.
There's a difference between putting an Anti-LGBTQ belief in your statement of faith or preaching anti-LGBTQ messages from the pulpit based on your religion or sharing your bigoted faith with an LGBTQ student vs. continually harassing them in this fashion and it's disgusting that the government refuses to see that.
If a student responds, "ENOUGH" to the nonsense, that should be the end of it. They have refused consent and they shouldn't have to endure any more shit from assholes.
"The fact that Baylor needed to ask the government if bullying LGBTQ students could be okay in certain situations..."
So if nonbelievers in a public school went to the government and asked if bullying Christian students "in certain situations" was okay, how do you suppose that request would be received? Yeah. Thought so.
And yet Christians are the first to scream PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS IN AMERICA! when there is none. Oh, but how eager they are to practice that very persecution of others in this country who aren't part of their anthill.
The United States of America, where your humanity is based on where you happen to be standing at the moment.
Abortion is a states rights issue, except women are people and should be afforded bodily autonomy no matter where they live.
LGBTQ+ protections do not spill onto church grounds.
The civil war supposedly ended black slavery according to state, the original states rights claims, only to have civil rights be based on where you lived.
This country is fucked up and getting more fuckery every day.
“The school disagrees with that interpretation. One official told the Texas Tribune that the exemption “was being mischaracterized as a ‘broad-based exception to sexual harassment.’” Okay, it’s not like sexual harassment in all forms is now tolerated on campus.”
It sounds like that isn’t true at all. It sounds like sexual harassment is allowed as long as you can find an argument based in the Bible for the harassment. The decision focuses on LGBTQ+, but it relies too heavily on allowing religious thinking, which has created a culture of sexual harassment for women and any male who does not completely conform to the most extreme version of masculinity (that all LGBTQ+ people fall under one of those categories). And religious thinking gets to be anything the religious person doing the thinking wants it to be, not just because the Bible is so poorly written to support whatever they want it to, but because the government has already decided that there’s no standards for proving the religious thinking is supported by the foundations of the religion, it just needs to be sincere. Whatever that means.
Yes, this decision does give Baylor (and any other institution that chooses to try it) full reign over tolerating all forms of sexual harassment.
Wrong, WRONG, 𝗪𝗥𝗢𝗡𝗚!!! And that applies equally to Baylor University AND the Department of Education. I'm pleased to see that Annie Laurie Gaylor of the Freedom From Religion Foundation has landed on the DoE with both feet, and she and the FFRF should duplicate that action on Baylor as well. Considering that Baylor accepts federal funding, there is no way that any of this should be even remotely happening ... and yet it is.
I honestly feel like revving up my word processor and firing off a note to Joe Biden about this.
Edit: Postscript - Once word of this hits the streets of Waco, Texas, get out of the way ... because I would expect an exodus of LGBTQ+ students from that misguided institution.
Guidelines for LGBTQ+ students considering enrolling at ANY Christian school, college, or university:
1. DON'T!
1A. Even if their published policies and bylaws clearly state that you will be treated with equal respect and fairness, and that you will not face any harassment or bias, THEY'RE LYING.
1B. Their religion is increasingly de-emphasizing precepts and principles of loving everyone, and prioritizing the practice of hate toward target groups, and YOU'RE THE BULLSEYE.
1C. They're never going to "reform." They're just going to get more vicious against you until they go extinct.
1D. Seriously consider abandoning any and all involvement in religion. It's not your friend, it's your deadly enemy.
What we have here is just another great reason to boot religion out of education. I will admit I'm wondering what the dropout rate for the school will look like, considering the Texas laws on abortion; my guess is they'll claim they don't track how many students they lose to unexpected pregnancy.
Quite frankly, the response they should have gotten should have told them they can either have taxpayer funding OR they can behave like the bigoted jerks they claim their Jesus told them to be, not both. They can be perfectly free to practice their faith however they want, but the government must make rules for everyone and can't allow exceptions. Baylor has already shown they cannot be trusted to actually put a stop to things like rape, why should they be allowed any additional privileges at all? I would also note that as a Baptist school, Baylor should be getting some funds from various Baptist organizations (the SBC springs to mind), which makes me wonder why they need government funds in the first place. Let the Baptists pay for this school if it's so important to have a Baptist university around; I'd have already taken their funding if it were up to me.
I'm sick of hearing about Christian institutions, groups, organizations, and who knows what else getting government money to practice their prejudices on everyone else and then coming back and asking for more. Time to end this.
"the school’s president Linda A. Livingstone filed a formal request with the Department of Education for an exemption from the Title IX rules, arguing that the complaints against them would force the school to violate its religious beliefs."
In other words, "We're bigoted assholes who can't treat people decently, but we're hiding behind our religious beliefs".
Of course, Tex-ass. The blind spot concerning religion, and how the Christian Nationalists insist that following anti-discrimination laws is discrimination against them is insane and should have been considered over with decisions like Piggie Park v Newman, Loving v Virginia, and Brown v Board. Yet here is more Christian Fucking Privilege enshrined into law. Although the Biden administration is light years better than Trump, it is still shit.
How do you limit this? Is stoning now OK? Where and how do you draw a line? The bible pretty clearly has no line.
How have I gone this long without knowing Baylor is a Christian school? These problems are never going to go away until Christian institutions either leave the secular world or they learn to play by the rules that everyone else plays by. This story is bad enough until you remember the stranglehold that Christians have over healthcare providers and continuously deny basic healthcare like abortions, sterilizations, and contraception. Oh and while we’re at it let’s not forget the Christian adoption agencies that won’t adopt out to LGBTQ+ couples.
Goes to show how badly Christianity has metastasized throughout our culture, government, and everything else.
This country needs a program like the denazification programs in post WWII Germany, only aimed at Christianity and much more thorough.
There is no horror that cannot be, and has not been, justified in the name of religion. There is no hate quite like Christian love. If you want to see the true face of hate, . . . hand power to the preachers.
There's a difference between putting an Anti-LGBTQ belief in your statement of faith or preaching anti-LGBTQ messages from the pulpit based on your religion or sharing your bigoted faith with an LGBTQ student vs. continually harassing them in this fashion and it's disgusting that the government refuses to see that.
If a student responds, "ENOUGH" to the nonsense, that should be the end of it. They have refused consent and they shouldn't have to endure any more shit from assholes.
RE the screenshot:
"Baylor University. Where it's still 1845."
"The fact that Baylor needed to ask the government if bullying LGBTQ students could be okay in certain situations..."
So if nonbelievers in a public school went to the government and asked if bullying Christian students "in certain situations" was okay, how do you suppose that request would be received? Yeah. Thought so.
And yet Christians are the first to scream PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS IN AMERICA! when there is none. Oh, but how eager they are to practice that very persecution of others in this country who aren't part of their anthill.
The United States of America, where your humanity is based on where you happen to be standing at the moment.
Abortion is a states rights issue, except women are people and should be afforded bodily autonomy no matter where they live.
LGBTQ+ protections do not spill onto church grounds.
The civil war supposedly ended black slavery according to state, the original states rights claims, only to have civil rights be based on where you lived.
This country is fucked up and getting more fuckery every day.
“The school disagrees with that interpretation. One official told the Texas Tribune that the exemption “was being mischaracterized as a ‘broad-based exception to sexual harassment.’” Okay, it’s not like sexual harassment in all forms is now tolerated on campus.”
It sounds like that isn’t true at all. It sounds like sexual harassment is allowed as long as you can find an argument based in the Bible for the harassment. The decision focuses on LGBTQ+, but it relies too heavily on allowing religious thinking, which has created a culture of sexual harassment for women and any male who does not completely conform to the most extreme version of masculinity (that all LGBTQ+ people fall under one of those categories). And religious thinking gets to be anything the religious person doing the thinking wants it to be, not just because the Bible is so poorly written to support whatever they want it to, but because the government has already decided that there’s no standards for proving the religious thinking is supported by the foundations of the religion, it just needs to be sincere. Whatever that means.
Yes, this decision does give Baylor (and any other institution that chooses to try it) full reign over tolerating all forms of sexual harassment.
I find this a really unfathomable move by the Department for Education. What can they possibly be thinking?
Baylor calls itself Christian, but Jesus never said a word about LGBTQs. Religious hypocrites, yes. LGBTQs, no.
Maybe they should call themselves Leviticans.
Wrong, WRONG, 𝗪𝗥𝗢𝗡𝗚!!! And that applies equally to Baylor University AND the Department of Education. I'm pleased to see that Annie Laurie Gaylor of the Freedom From Religion Foundation has landed on the DoE with both feet, and she and the FFRF should duplicate that action on Baylor as well. Considering that Baylor accepts federal funding, there is no way that any of this should be even remotely happening ... and yet it is.
I honestly feel like revving up my word processor and firing off a note to Joe Biden about this.
Edit: Postscript - Once word of this hits the streets of Waco, Texas, get out of the way ... because I would expect an exodus of LGBTQ+ students from that misguided institution.
Guidelines for LGBTQ+ students considering enrolling at ANY Christian school, college, or university:
1. DON'T!
1A. Even if their published policies and bylaws clearly state that you will be treated with equal respect and fairness, and that you will not face any harassment or bias, THEY'RE LYING.
1B. Their religion is increasingly de-emphasizing precepts and principles of loving everyone, and prioritizing the practice of hate toward target groups, and YOU'RE THE BULLSEYE.
1C. They're never going to "reform." They're just going to get more vicious against you until they go extinct.
1D. Seriously consider abandoning any and all involvement in religion. It's not your friend, it's your deadly enemy.
What we have here is just another great reason to boot religion out of education. I will admit I'm wondering what the dropout rate for the school will look like, considering the Texas laws on abortion; my guess is they'll claim they don't track how many students they lose to unexpected pregnancy.
Quite frankly, the response they should have gotten should have told them they can either have taxpayer funding OR they can behave like the bigoted jerks they claim their Jesus told them to be, not both. They can be perfectly free to practice their faith however they want, but the government must make rules for everyone and can't allow exceptions. Baylor has already shown they cannot be trusted to actually put a stop to things like rape, why should they be allowed any additional privileges at all? I would also note that as a Baptist school, Baylor should be getting some funds from various Baptist organizations (the SBC springs to mind), which makes me wonder why they need government funds in the first place. Let the Baptists pay for this school if it's so important to have a Baptist university around; I'd have already taken their funding if it were up to me.
I'm sick of hearing about Christian institutions, groups, organizations, and who knows what else getting government money to practice their prejudices on everyone else and then coming back and asking for more. Time to end this.