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.
The more they bring sexuality into every. damn. thing. their social desirability score will continue to drop. It’s just so unwarranted and so obnoxious.
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.
Everybody needs to familiarize themselves with "The Paradox of Tolerance" by Karl Popper.
He states: If a tolerant society tolerates the intolerant, the tolerant society will be destroyed. Therefore, to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.
And what we are seeing today is EXACTLY what he warned about in 1945. And today it is better to assume a Christian group is pushing hate rather than to assume otherwise.
Heck, you can see it in microcosm all the time on internet communities and forums and pretty much anything with a comments section. Back in the day I was active on LiveJournal and multiple forums, and boy did I see my fair share of flamewars. One forum in particular did nothing to crack down on trolling and other bad behaviour other than the odd warning with nothing to back it up. I watched in real time as the culture became insanely hostile with members constantly bullying each other. The place inevitably went down in flames after all the good members deleted their accounts (with myself one of the first to abandon the sinking ship). Nowadays I have a moderator position at a small internet community and the first thing I did on being put in charge was make it plain that there is ZERO tolerance for bad behaviour. People whined about how OMG FASCIST it was, but to no avail. Two strikes and you're permanently banned. Today that community is so healthy that it's attracted a lot of queer and disabled members who recognise it as a safe space, and it's because we did not tolerate the intolerant. Or jerks in general.
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.
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.
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.
They goofed, they admitted the goof, they fixed the goof. Doesn't need to be any more complicated than that- next time, hopefully, they'll be a little more wary. In honor of this most sensible decision to chuck a pack of bigots out on their asses, here's The Muppets covering Queen.
Projecting Christians who falsely accuse others (especially LGBTQs, drag queens and atheists) of grooming children just can't stop trying to actually groom children.
Creative communities (the arts) tend to be more open minded and accepting, which is appealing to LGBTQ people.
Because much of xtian society is not accepting, like the society of christian pedophile puppeteers, welcoming creative communities tend attract a large proportion of LGBTQ people who feel unwelcome elsewhere due to "christian love".
A very devote but reasonably liberal Christian I used to know told me this some years ago.
When someone identifies himself as “a Christian”, as opposed to his denomination— I’m a Lutheran, I’m a Catholic— it is very likely that they are going to be a fundamentalist, of the excluding and judgy variety. Liberal Christians tend to identify themselves by the denomination.
That being said, I have mixed feelings about this, as much as I despise this kind of Christian. It plays right into their persecution complex— you hate us because we’re such good christians. Jesus said blah blessed persecution so blah blah.
A far more effective approach would be the statement plus people getting up and walking out en masse.
On the other hand, the irony is way sharp when The Puppets of Jesus complain about how mistreated they are.
I don't know this for a fact, but my guess is that it is a variation of the "true Christian" fantasy/fallacy. We call ourselves Christians because we are true Christians, just like in the biblical days. You people are not
Absolutely true. My late BFF was a liberal Lutheran and managed to have LGBTQ+ friends and ones of all different or no religion. Her funeral was preached by a Black woman pastor, and all the heathens/Wiccans/atheists/etc. were properly reverent, and the congregation barely batted an eye. There were, of course, no fundies.
My mom's church had a music director who showed up at the parties with his boyfriend. She'd grown up surrounded by Southern Baptists (which is where most of the fundie ideas come from) and hated them long before any of us were born. Most of the people in the city she and dad retired to are Catholic.
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.
The more they bring sexuality into every. damn. thing. their social desirability score will continue to drop. It’s just so unwarranted and so obnoxious.
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.
Exactly. In a way, that’s worse behavior in my opinion. So many folks have exposed themselves and I’m thankful for that.
Well said here if you can open:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSI5gp6D1hn/?igsh=MXBmbGxqYXVqdm85
👆🎯
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!
This is how you elect Nazis.
Fellowship of Christian Puppeteers. Once again, xtians make an inferior copy of something not even faintly religious.
Everybody needs to familiarize themselves with "The Paradox of Tolerance" by Karl Popper.
He states: If a tolerant society tolerates the intolerant, the tolerant society will be destroyed. Therefore, to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.
And what we are seeing today is EXACTLY what he warned about in 1945. And today it is better to assume a Christian group is pushing hate rather than to assume otherwise.
I know it as "Popper's Paradox". And yes.
Heck, you can see it in microcosm all the time on internet communities and forums and pretty much anything with a comments section. Back in the day I was active on LiveJournal and multiple forums, and boy did I see my fair share of flamewars. One forum in particular did nothing to crack down on trolling and other bad behaviour other than the odd warning with nothing to back it up. I watched in real time as the culture became insanely hostile with members constantly bullying each other. The place inevitably went down in flames after all the good members deleted their accounts (with myself one of the first to abandon the sinking ship). Nowadays I have a moderator position at a small internet community and the first thing I did on being put in charge was make it plain that there is ZERO tolerance for bad behaviour. People whined about how OMG FASCIST it was, but to no avail. Two strikes and you're permanently banned. Today that community is so healthy that it's attracted a lot of queer and disabled members who recognise it as a safe space, and it's because we did not tolerate the intolerant. Or jerks in general.
"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.
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.
If all Christians were like him, no one would have a problem.
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.
👆🎯Yes, they are only for "parents rights" when the fanatics are the parents, no one else gets that advantage.
Look shall we consider the positives of the story, some Christian had his hand in something and it wasn't a minor. Victories are victories.
How do you know how old the puppets are?
Gives a new meaning to the phrase: JUST SHOVE IT! Or the phrase: UP YOURS!
Gives new meaning to the phrase “felt up”.
I don’t remember who or where but some blogger invented a Vatican spokesman, Father Kinderfelt.
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!
They goofed, they admitted the goof, they fixed the goof. Doesn't need to be any more complicated than that- next time, hopefully, they'll be a little more wary. In honor of this most sensible decision to chuck a pack of bigots out on their asses, here's The Muppets covering Queen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgbNymZ7vqY
You’re only making puppetry worse and you’re not making Christianity any better.
Hank Hill knew. Bobby is such a sheep.
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.
I don’t want to even think what they do with those puppets in their closets! 🤢
You have to wonder.
Projecting Christians who falsely accuse others (especially LGBTQs, drag queens and atheists) of grooming children just can't stop trying to actually groom children.
That is why they are so obsessed with talking about it. It is all they have on their mind.
Creative communities (the arts) tend to be more open minded and accepting, which is appealing to LGBTQ people.
Because much of xtian society is not accepting, like the society of christian pedophile puppeteers, welcoming creative communities tend attract a large proportion of LGBTQ people who feel unwelcome elsewhere due to "christian love".
FCP=Fucking Christain Predators.
A very devote but reasonably liberal Christian I used to know told me this some years ago.
When someone identifies himself as “a Christian”, as opposed to his denomination— I’m a Lutheran, I’m a Catholic— it is very likely that they are going to be a fundamentalist, of the excluding and judgy variety. Liberal Christians tend to identify themselves by the denomination.
That being said, I have mixed feelings about this, as much as I despise this kind of Christian. It plays right into their persecution complex— you hate us because we’re such good christians. Jesus said blah blessed persecution so blah blah.
A far more effective approach would be the statement plus people getting up and walking out en masse.
On the other hand, the irony is way sharp when The Puppets of Jesus complain about how mistreated they are.
A lightbulb just turned on above my head. I've seen this! Exactly. Even in NZ.
I don't know this for a fact, but my guess is that it is a variation of the "true Christian" fantasy/fallacy. We call ourselves Christians because we are true Christians, just like in the biblical days. You people are not
Absolutely true. My late BFF was a liberal Lutheran and managed to have LGBTQ+ friends and ones of all different or no religion. Her funeral was preached by a Black woman pastor, and all the heathens/Wiccans/atheists/etc. were properly reverent, and the congregation barely batted an eye. There were, of course, no fundies.
My mom's church had a music director who showed up at the parties with his boyfriend. She'd grown up surrounded by Southern Baptists (which is where most of the fundie ideas come from) and hated them long before any of us were born. Most of the people in the city she and dad retired to are Catholic.
RuPaul's on, better go see who wins.