What this event tells me is the easy presumption that some people come to upon looking at Christianity. They assume it's harmless, they presume it's good. They presume that would be positive. And for that reason, they don't dig as deeply as they might have otherwise.
That said when Puppetry of America discovered what they had missed, they acted immediately, dismissing the offending group and disavowing them publicly. It's a pleasure to see that happen.
I just wish it happened more often.
Side Note: Hey gang! Yes, I'm still online, at least for the moment. I'll touch base as I can.
So long as religion has a high social desirability, it will continue. It seems to be low in Europe, certainly in the UK the number who are religiously active is low, most people could be classed as apatheist.
In the US, religion seems to have a higher social desirability, though with the sheer nastiness of Christian Nationalists, one might hope for an increase in the rate of its decline.
I've said it many times: Christianity continues to have a tremendous amount of social inertia behind it, and so long as that continues, Christian practices and behaviors will be accepted mostly without question.
Thankfully, that's been changing recently. Thing is, it hasn't been changing fast enough.
It baffles me how any group or organization in the USA could see “Christian” and presume that it would be positive, especially since the recent Christian Nationalist takeover. All we have to do is look at the data (data doesn’t lie). Also, too many Christians who don’t consider themselves Christian Nationalist have remained deafeningly silent.
I have a couple of friends who told me that they were going to ignore what was going on after the Orange Asshole got reelected for their own sanity. Funnily enough, both of them have said things since that made me understand that they at least partially agree with the Nationalist Christians. So 2 more cases of people disappointing me by showing that they weren't who I thought they were.
It didn't raise the red flags it should have because 1: most people aren't paying attention to naming conventions among right-wing culture war groups, and 2: Christian Fucking Privilege.
And that is the Christian Fucking Privilege in action. The significant percentage of people who see religious groups as automatically good and can't understand the nuance. Those people have bought into the persecution lies of the far right. They may not cry persecution, but they see exclusion of a specific religious group as being the evil atheists who hate Christians.
I would bet that a different Christian puppeteering group would have been welcomed with open arms if that group were not overtly bigoted.
Everyone makes mistakes. I have no issue with Puppeteers of America taking a nonconfrontational stance and explaining what their mistake was and telling others it won't happen again in the future. The group didn't defend its actions, and it didn't defend the values of the Christian group. In short, it didn't try to dodge accountability, though their oversight can be excused because as I said, everyone makes mistakes. They ought to be commended for recognizing their mistake and owning up to it.
Who? If you're referring to the fascist Donald Trump, there's not a shred of publicly-available evidence so far as I know that he is sexually attracted to prepubescent children. The Epstein files reveal a clique of extremely wealthy men who used their resources to assault teenage girls for which they have unsurprisingly suffered no serious consequences. As studies starting with Kinsey show, most hetero and gay men are attracted to teenagers, so the Epstein 'elite' fall into that normative range.
Except for the evidence in the Trumpstein files that shows they were raping prepubescent children in the 6-10 year old range, also killing infants and then there’s the cannibalism. But go on, tell me more about how hebephelia and ephebophilia is better morally than pedophilia. Especially when none of the children involved were willing participants even if they could legally give consent.
There are still millions of documents that haven’t been released, what has been released is sickening and depraved enough, do you really think the stuff they’re still hiding is going to be better?
Go ahead. Defend the creep who called his daughter "a piece of ass". And whose name is in the Epstein-Trump files thousands of times. Would anybody but a fellow pedophile do that?
In what way could my comment - in which I described Trump as a fascist - be read as defending him? I mean to show that the Epstein criminal men are not unusual in their sexual attractions, but that they had the unearned wealth which enabled them to commit serious crimes against teenagers in pursuit of satisfying those entirely normative (i.e. in the standard range for most men) desires.
Really? Most hetero and gay men are attracted to teenagers?
I hope you have some citations for that. Most of the gay men I have known in my life could look at a very handsome teenage boy and comment that he is very handsome, without being attracted to him. I know I can. As I often say, “it makes me wish I was 18 again.” but that’s as far as it goes.
The apology from PofA was a good apology, they took ownership of the mistake and described the harm while making clear actions for future changes in behaviors to avoid the problem in the future. While they could have named names of who made the decision, it wasn’t totally necessary.
I’m sure there are some folks in the group who didn’t see a problem, they are not likely the folks to be first to be harmed by the policies forwarded by the Christian group. These folks are oblivious to the problems until it affects them directly. I would assume some folks like that are on the PofA board. We talk a lot about the harms conservative Christianity does through these seemingly trivial events, but most folks don’t realize how hostile and toxic the conservatives in Christianity are. They are shocked by Hegseth’s speeches, but we know because we focus on his brand of Christianity. They think their Christianity is baby Jesus and Easter eggs and soup kitchens and mission trips to the poorest of Africa. Not ever realizing that all those rose colored heroic endeavors are problematic in and of themselves. The board probably just tried to acknowledge that there are puppeteers that are Christian and it makes sense to have a group that focuses on using puppetry to engage children in the gospel as part of their group. It doesn’t seem that outrageous to me to include a religious group if the intent is to be welcoming. But I do also understand the pitfalls in welcoming any Christian group without thorough investigation into their policies, practices and beliefs. But then, I am interested in knowing about conservative Christianity to protect myself from its harm, since I’ve been negatively impacted by it. Most folks aren’t exposed to its impact. It is definitely smart to not allow this Christian group into PofA, when wolves and sheep are welcome you will only have wolves. The paradox of tolerance applies here.
I may be rambling, and I think I’ve said what I meant. I’m glad the PofA apologized and found ways to make up for their mistake and has a plan to improve. It’s always terrible when people who rely on certain groups to succeed in their interests are so hateful and bigoted toward those groups, I just do not understand the vitriol focused on the most vulnerable people.
ANY Christian group that targets children for proselytization should immediately be considered as groomers and must stay far, FAR away. Exposing children to religion is the PARENTS' job, not some outside group. Far too many children have been harmed by Christianity and it should never be considered innocent anymore.
I totally agree. But the problem here is a result of most people are not aware of the damage and danger of religious groups who target children. That’s all I am saying. We know because we are focused on that issue, most folks are not.
And that is definitely a problem. We need to do everything we can to expose these charlatans. I will write my next Substack about exactly this and I've been reposting the daily cavalcade of Christian preachers who have been arrested for kiddy diddling or possessing child porn on my Bluesky account.
covenant marriage: the christian puppeteers only accept the mike johnson variant of marriage, where abused women are not allowed to use the escape hatch of divorce.
Kudos to Puppeteers of America for a real apology, one that actually acknowledges their mistake, takes responsibility, and outlines steps to correct the issue.
The Christian Nazionalist organizations and far right politicians who so frequently make public "apologies" should use the Puppeteers' letter as a template. They won't, of course. That would require accountability, which is something they avoid almost as much as equality.
“Fellowship of Christian ̶P̶u̶p̶p̶e̶t̶e̶e̶r̶s̶ Pedophiles.”
As we see day after day, the real groomers and recruiters are xtians who want access to fresh, young victims to rape and then later in life rob of their income.
There is something deeply symbolic about the Christian puppeteers, as they are really just puppets themselves living by rules other people made. Few people disgust me more than those who think their religion entitles them to a say in other people’s choices. Hats off the the Puppeteers of America for recognizing a problem and dealing with it.
What this event tells me is the easy presumption that some people come to upon looking at Christianity. They assume it's harmless, they presume it's good. They presume that would be positive. And for that reason, they don't dig as deeply as they might have otherwise.
That said when Puppetry of America discovered what they had missed, they acted immediately, dismissing the offending group and disavowing them publicly. It's a pleasure to see that happen.
I just wish it happened more often.
Side Note: Hey gang! Yes, I'm still online, at least for the moment. I'll touch base as I can.
"They assume it's harmless, they presume it's good."
There is a thing called a "social desirability scale", which applies to a number of things including religion - https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=social%20desirability%20scale%20religion
So long as religion has a high social desirability, it will continue. It seems to be low in Europe, certainly in the UK the number who are religiously active is low, most people could be classed as apatheist.
In the US, religion seems to have a higher social desirability, though with the sheer nastiness of Christian Nationalists, one might hope for an increase in the rate of its decline.
I've said it many times: Christianity continues to have a tremendous amount of social inertia behind it, and so long as that continues, Christian practices and behaviors will be accepted mostly without question.
Thankfully, that's been changing recently. Thing is, it hasn't been changing fast enough.
It baffles me how any group or organization in the USA could see “Christian” and presume that it would be positive, especially since the recent Christian Nationalist takeover. All we have to do is look at the data (data doesn’t lie). Also, too many Christians who don’t consider themselves Christian Nationalist have remained deafeningly silent.
I have a couple of friends who told me that they were going to ignore what was going on after the Orange Asshole got reelected for their own sanity. Funnily enough, both of them have said things since that made me understand that they at least partially agree with the Nationalist Christians. So 2 more cases of people disappointing me by showing that they weren't who I thought they were.
Well said here if you can open:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSI5gp6D1hn/?igsh=MXBmbGxqYXVqdm85
Exactly. In a way, that’s worse behavior in my opinion. So many folks have exposed themselves and I’m thankful for that.
Fellowship of Christian Puppeteers. Once again, xtians make an inferior copy of something not even faintly religious.
𝐼𝑡 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑚𝑠 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑝’𝑠 𝐵𝑜𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑠𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑦 𝑢𝑛𝑎𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑎 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝑔𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑝 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑠𝑢𝑏𝑐𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑚𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑏𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑐... 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑡𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑙𝑎𝑔𝑠 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒.
It didn't raise the red flags it should have because 1: most people aren't paying attention to naming conventions among right-wing culture war groups, and 2: Christian Fucking Privilege.
𝑂𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑑𝑖𝑑𝑛’𝑡 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑚 𝑤𝑎𝑠, 𝑤𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑙𝑦 𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑑 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑎 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑔𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑝 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑝𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑎𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑙.
And that is the Christian Fucking Privilege in action. The significant percentage of people who see religious groups as automatically good and can't understand the nuance. Those people have bought into the persecution lies of the far right. They may not cry persecution, but they see exclusion of a specific religious group as being the evil atheists who hate Christians.
I would bet that a different Christian puppeteering group would have been welcomed with open arms if that group were not overtly bigoted.
Bang on target!
Honestly, I probably wouldn't have expected a puppet group to have a "NO HOMOS!!!!!" clause in their rules either. Who even does that?
(Christians apparently... in everything... even if it has nothing to do with politics, church, or sex... Jesus, they're really obsessed.)
Obsessed I suspect because they are also scared. Scared of anything that isn't like them.
PA-THE-TIC.
The puppets keep them company in those closets of theirs.
Everyone makes mistakes. I have no issue with Puppeteers of America taking a nonconfrontational stance and explaining what their mistake was and telling others it won't happen again in the future. The group didn't defend its actions, and it didn't defend the values of the Christian group. In short, it didn't try to dodge accountability, though their oversight can be excused because as I said, everyone makes mistakes. They ought to be commended for recognizing their mistake and owning up to it.
Utterly agreed!
Give me "Avenue Q" any day.
AND SESAME STREET!!!
Even the Christian Fred Rogers used puppets to promote inclusion.
Current Christianity could learn a lot from Fred Rogers, never mind those Christian puppeteers.
Now if we could just do something about Putin's demented pedo criminal puppet.
Who? If you're referring to the fascist Donald Trump, there's not a shred of publicly-available evidence so far as I know that he is sexually attracted to prepubescent children. The Epstein files reveal a clique of extremely wealthy men who used their resources to assault teenage girls for which they have unsurprisingly suffered no serious consequences. As studies starting with Kinsey show, most hetero and gay men are attracted to teenagers, so the Epstein 'elite' fall into that normative range.
Except for the evidence in the Trumpstein files that shows they were raping prepubescent children in the 6-10 year old range, also killing infants and then there’s the cannibalism. But go on, tell me more about how hebephelia and ephebophilia is better morally than pedophilia. Especially when none of the children involved were willing participants even if they could legally give consent.
There are still millions of documents that haven’t been released, what has been released is sickening and depraved enough, do you really think the stuff they’re still hiding is going to be better?
Pedo says what?
Do you have a counter-argument or are you reduced to emitting personal abuse?
Go ahead. Defend the creep who called his daughter "a piece of ass". And whose name is in the Epstein-Trump files thousands of times. Would anybody but a fellow pedophile do that?
In what way could my comment - in which I described Trump as a fascist - be read as defending him? I mean to show that the Epstein criminal men are not unusual in their sexual attractions, but that they had the unearned wealth which enabled them to commit serious crimes against teenagers in pursuit of satisfying those entirely normative (i.e. in the standard range for most men) desires.
"As studies starting with Kinsey show, most hetero and gay men are attracted to teenagers, so the Epstein 'elite' fall into that normative range."
That IS a defense of pedophiles. You know that "teenagers" includes 13 to 17 year olds, don't you? Or are you just bad at math?
I'm sorry you think any of Epstein's buddies qualify as human.
Wow.
Really? Most hetero and gay men are attracted to teenagers?
I hope you have some citations for that. Most of the gay men I have known in my life could look at a very handsome teenage boy and comment that he is very handsome, without being attracted to him. I know I can. As I often say, “it makes me wish I was 18 again.” but that’s as far as it goes.
You’re only making puppetry worse and you’re not making Christianity any better.
The apology from PofA was a good apology, they took ownership of the mistake and described the harm while making clear actions for future changes in behaviors to avoid the problem in the future. While they could have named names of who made the decision, it wasn’t totally necessary.
I’m sure there are some folks in the group who didn’t see a problem, they are not likely the folks to be first to be harmed by the policies forwarded by the Christian group. These folks are oblivious to the problems until it affects them directly. I would assume some folks like that are on the PofA board. We talk a lot about the harms conservative Christianity does through these seemingly trivial events, but most folks don’t realize how hostile and toxic the conservatives in Christianity are. They are shocked by Hegseth’s speeches, but we know because we focus on his brand of Christianity. They think their Christianity is baby Jesus and Easter eggs and soup kitchens and mission trips to the poorest of Africa. Not ever realizing that all those rose colored heroic endeavors are problematic in and of themselves. The board probably just tried to acknowledge that there are puppeteers that are Christian and it makes sense to have a group that focuses on using puppetry to engage children in the gospel as part of their group. It doesn’t seem that outrageous to me to include a religious group if the intent is to be welcoming. But I do also understand the pitfalls in welcoming any Christian group without thorough investigation into their policies, practices and beliefs. But then, I am interested in knowing about conservative Christianity to protect myself from its harm, since I’ve been negatively impacted by it. Most folks aren’t exposed to its impact. It is definitely smart to not allow this Christian group into PofA, when wolves and sheep are welcome you will only have wolves. The paradox of tolerance applies here.
I may be rambling, and I think I’ve said what I meant. I’m glad the PofA apologized and found ways to make up for their mistake and has a plan to improve. It’s always terrible when people who rely on certain groups to succeed in their interests are so hateful and bigoted toward those groups, I just do not understand the vitriol focused on the most vulnerable people.
ANY Christian group that targets children for proselytization should immediately be considered as groomers and must stay far, FAR away. Exposing children to religion is the PARENTS' job, not some outside group. Far too many children have been harmed by Christianity and it should never be considered innocent anymore.
I totally agree. But the problem here is a result of most people are not aware of the damage and danger of religious groups who target children. That’s all I am saying. We know because we are focused on that issue, most folks are not.
And that is definitely a problem. We need to do everything we can to expose these charlatans. I will write my next Substack about exactly this and I've been reposting the daily cavalcade of Christian preachers who have been arrested for kiddy diddling or possessing child porn on my Bluesky account.
Because it happens LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE DAY.
"𝐴. 𝑠𝑒𝑥𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑒𝑥𝑐𝑙𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑡𝑜 𝑐𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑡𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑎 𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎 𝑤𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑛;"
covenant marriage: the christian puppeteers only accept the mike johnson variant of marriage, where abused women are not allowed to use the escape hatch of divorce.
FCP=Fucking Christain Predators.
Kudos to Puppeteers of America for a real apology, one that actually acknowledges their mistake, takes responsibility, and outlines steps to correct the issue.
The Christian Nazionalist organizations and far right politicians who so frequently make public "apologies" should use the Puppeteers' letter as a template. They won't, of course. That would require accountability, which is something they avoid almost as much as equality.
Here's what to say when you talk to people like the FCP:
"I don't agree with your lifestyle."
"I hate the hypocricy, not the hypocrite."
"You shouldn't be allowed to get married."
"You wouldn't have to tell people you're Christian if you acted like Christ."
They shouldn't be allowed to adopt children either.
“Fellowship of Christian ̶P̶u̶p̶p̶e̶t̶e̶e̶r̶s̶ Pedophiles.”
As we see day after day, the real groomers and recruiters are xtians who want access to fresh, young victims to rape and then later in life rob of their income.
Anti-LGBTQ? Strange stance for a group who have their hands jammed up puppets asses.
Do they realize they're fisting?
When they masturbate, is it oral or a handjob?
Yes!
There is something deeply symbolic about the Christian puppeteers, as they are really just puppets themselves living by rules other people made. Few people disgust me more than those who think their religion entitles them to a say in other people’s choices. Hats off the the Puppeteers of America for recognizing a problem and dealing with it.