Right wing government and conservative religion are natural allies. It is a symbiotic relationship that has dealt humanity nothing but grief. Evangelical Christians, it seems, have more rights than anyone else, and public officials falling under that heading are free to ignore their oaths of office when it suits their religious ends. The last thing this woman is, is a victim.
I think the ONLY way that Evangelical, White, American Christian Nationalists and conservative, Opus Dei Catholics are going to "get it" regarding legalized discrimination is if WE start openly discriminating against Evangelical, White, American Christian Nationalists and conservative, Opus Dei Catholics.
That means deliberately and openly excluding Evangelical, White, American Christian Nationalists and conservative, Opus Dei Catholics, and letting them know that we are exercising our "sincerely held religious beliefs" that they are not welcome at gatherings where we are present; and as such we will not serve them or allow them to speak.
They expect us to roll over on our backs and say, "Please, sir, don't hurt me anymore!" Well, I am done rolling over; I am done accommodating those people; and I have run out of good cheeks to turn. The only way bullies GET IT (and let's be honest: Evangelical, White, American Christian Nationalists and conservative, Opus Dei Catholics are BULLIES) is if we hit them with a bigger stick.
This includes NOT keeping silent when they sound off on topics political, religious, or social. Counter, rebut, confront them with FACTS, and don't blink.
Absolutely. And when they attack liberal Christians, agnostics, atheists, LGBTs, etc. we research them, find every peccadillo, sin or scandal we can on our attackers, and publicize their misdoings in front of the largest crowds of people we can gather.
You may want to consider using the Roys Report in addition to The Friendly Atheist for material. This site is run by evangelicals but serves the purpose of highlighting failures on the part of religious people with the hope that shining the light on wrong will lead to cleaning it up. The link is https://roysreport.com/.
I suspect that they'll try to get our current Supreme Court to then go against precedent and to declare that atheism and agnosticism are NO LONGER treated as equivalent to a religion to ensure that atheists are NO LONGER granted the exact same Constitutional protections as religious believers.
Aron Ra said it a long time ago: Religion REVERSES Everything. Up is Down; Black is White, and bigotry is perfectly permissable because Christianity. It is also unsurprising that Ken Paxton has his filthy fist in this foofaraw.
Makes me wonder how she would behave in a court case with a gay defendant.
Jesus said at himself: the last Shallbe first. Even his mother got in on the act: he has put down the mighty from their seats, he is exalted the humble and meek.
We really are going to need a constitution that explicitly states that freedom of religion means that you are free to believe whatever you want, but you are not free to do whatever you want. Purely theological concerns have absolutely no place in the civil law of governance all of us.
Horrible. Anyone in a position serving the public takes an oath. They do not have the option of which public they want to serve. If that is a problem, they should never do that kind of work, or resign from their position. They should never be rewarded for their bigotry.
If you are still a member of this cult in the 21st century, you can see why many of us who are non-believers find you to be insensitive, callous, uncaring and gullible rubes.
The sheer cruelty of the cult is unforgivable in my opinion. But as we know, they will not be asking those they have harmed for forgiveness anyway. How convenient.
They will claim NALT and still remain in the cult, despite the daily harm this cult, based on zombies and virgin births and talking snakes, inflicts on others.
They never ask themselves (or dare to) why their all-powerful god can't beat his archnemesis. Or why that god treats that archnemesis with deference and values his opinion (see the Job story).
People keen on discrimination are convinced that they will never be at the receiving end of such treatment!
I wrote a couple of days ago, that we should be keen, really really keen that people we don't like have civil rights protections, because it's the only way we can guarantee that we will have civil rights protections.
As someone who has married scores of couples, I can not imagine weddings as a profit source. In the Unted Methodist Church, we were discouraged from taking payment for weddings or funerals. It was just a part of the job description:
You should talk to the Catholics. They have a sliding scale for the price of the wedding ceremony depending on whether both, one, or neither person belongs to that parish.
Let an atheist justice of the peace refuse to marry an xtian couple and see what happens THEN.
They'll just claim it's not religious bigotry, it's just bigotry.
Uh-huh ... Just like "ceremonial deism" is anything other than CHRISTIAN ceremonial deism. 😝
Right wing government and conservative religion are natural allies. It is a symbiotic relationship that has dealt humanity nothing but grief. Evangelical Christians, it seems, have more rights than anyone else, and public officials falling under that heading are free to ignore their oaths of office when it suits their religious ends. The last thing this woman is, is a victim.
Leave it to xtians to profit from a non-existent "Christian persecution" in the US.
I think the ONLY way that Evangelical, White, American Christian Nationalists and conservative, Opus Dei Catholics are going to "get it" regarding legalized discrimination is if WE start openly discriminating against Evangelical, White, American Christian Nationalists and conservative, Opus Dei Catholics.
That means deliberately and openly excluding Evangelical, White, American Christian Nationalists and conservative, Opus Dei Catholics, and letting them know that we are exercising our "sincerely held religious beliefs" that they are not welcome at gatherings where we are present; and as such we will not serve them or allow them to speak.
They expect us to roll over on our backs and say, "Please, sir, don't hurt me anymore!" Well, I am done rolling over; I am done accommodating those people; and I have run out of good cheeks to turn. The only way bullies GET IT (and let's be honest: Evangelical, White, American Christian Nationalists and conservative, Opus Dei Catholics are BULLIES) is if we hit them with a bigger stick.
This includes NOT keeping silent when they sound off on topics political, religious, or social. Counter, rebut, confront them with FACTS, and don't blink.
Absolutely. And when they attack liberal Christians, agnostics, atheists, LGBTs, etc. we research them, find every peccadillo, sin or scandal we can on our attackers, and publicize their misdoings in front of the largest crowds of people we can gather.
YOU BETCHA!
You may want to consider using the Roys Report in addition to The Friendly Atheist for material. This site is run by evangelicals but serves the purpose of highlighting failures on the part of religious people with the hope that shining the light on wrong will lead to cleaning it up. The link is https://roysreport.com/.
I suspect that they'll try to get our current Supreme Court to then go against precedent and to declare that atheism and agnosticism are NO LONGER treated as equivalent to a religion to ensure that atheists are NO LONGER granted the exact same Constitutional protections as religious believers.
Aron Ra said it a long time ago: Religion REVERSES Everything. Up is Down; Black is White, and bigotry is perfectly permissable because Christianity. It is also unsurprising that Ken Paxton has his filthy fist in this foofaraw.
Makes me wonder how she would behave in a court case with a gay defendant.
Edit: Cited wrong Texan asshat.
Do you mean Ken Paxton?
Drat. Wrong asshat! 😝 Corrected.
Easy mistake to make. Both in Tex-ass, both asshats.
All asshat, no cattle.
Jesus said at himself: the last Shallbe first. Even his mother got in on the act: he has put down the mighty from their seats, he is exalted the humble and meek.
We really are going to need a constitution that explicitly states that freedom of religion means that you are free to believe whatever you want, but you are not free to do whatever you want. Purely theological concerns have absolutely no place in the civil law of governance all of us.
I think we also need to throw in a more formal version of: "Your right to wave your beliefs about ENDS AT MY NOSE!"
"If we allow officials like her to pick and choose which rules to follow, it would throw the government into chaos."
Um, we sailed well past chaos a while ago.
She's only following the example being set from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Industrial level preposterousness.
Did she ever officiate a wedding where the man or the woman (or both) were divorced straight Christians? Or is that "different" somehow?
Of course it's different. For...for...reasons. No, I don't have to tell you the reasons!
“𝐼𝑡’𝑠 𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑤𝑒𝑑𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑠 — 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦’𝑟𝑒 𝑗𝑢𝑑𝑔𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑙𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦 — 𝑡𝑜 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑏𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑐, 𝑎𝑠 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑠 𝑖𝑡’𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑒, 𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑛 𝑜𝑟 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑤𝑒𝑑𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑜𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑒.”
OK. What happens when a wedding officiant decides to do only gay weddings for men? After all, they are allowed to discriminate based on sex.
Horrible. Anyone in a position serving the public takes an oath. They do not have the option of which public they want to serve. If that is a problem, they should never do that kind of work, or resign from their position. They should never be rewarded for their bigotry.
I'm sure that Hensley, being a good Christian, will give all that money to the poor.
*snort* *giggle* *guffaw*
When the Greeks tell time by the kalends.
You been reading Heinlein again? 😉
Doesn’t everyone?
Share water, brother, and never thirst.
Thou art God.
A giant snowflake in Texas in late June. Miracle, perhaps?
So when she issues rulings based upon her religion rather than the law, she'll get another payout for religious discrimination when she's disciplined.
Clearly, no Christians belong on the bench in Texas.
Unfortunately, to all appearances, SCOTUS is doing the exact same thing.
Courts across the land are infested with christian nationalists.
OT: Freethought of the Day.
“I threw out the bath water, and there was no baby there.”
-Dan Barker
Funny thing, that! 😁
It melted like the witch?
Ssh, you”ll ruin the surprise 😮
Once you're through marinating it you throw it on the grill.
And then use a sweet and smoky BBQ sauce.
If you are still a member of this cult in the 21st century, you can see why many of us who are non-believers find you to be insensitive, callous, uncaring and gullible rubes.
The sheer cruelty of the cult is unforgivable in my opinion. But as we know, they will not be asking those they have harmed for forgiveness anyway. How convenient.
Their claim that they only need forgiveness from their imaginary fiend is utterly contemptible.
An imaginary friend that told them not to sin anymore. He didn’t say “Go ahead and sin, ya crazy kids.” I got your backs.”
Peter also says that anyone who accepts Jesus and then falls back into sin is worse off than before.
They will claim NALT and still remain in the cult, despite the daily harm this cult, based on zombies and virgin births and talking snakes, inflicts on others.
"Talking snakes" is also a perfect description of these cultists.
Obligatory…
CHRISTIANS: “Why do they hate us so?”
SO many reasons.
They don't really see it that way though... instead it's:
"We're doing God's holy work and of course those minions of Satan hate us."
It's like "owning the libs". The more we hate them and their ways, the more they feel as if they are beating Satan so they double down.
They never ask themselves (or dare to) why their all-powerful god can't beat his archnemesis. Or why that god treats that archnemesis with deference and values his opinion (see the Job story).
They might see ... IF their god-glasses are out of adjustment just a bit.
People keen on discrimination are convinced that they will never be at the receiving end of such treatment!
I wrote a couple of days ago, that we should be keen, really really keen that people we don't like have civil rights protections, because it's the only way we can guarantee that we will have civil rights protections.
As someone who has married scores of couples, I can not imagine weddings as a profit source. In the Unted Methodist Church, we were discouraged from taking payment for weddings or funerals. It was just a part of the job description:
You should talk to the Catholics. They have a sliding scale for the price of the wedding ceremony depending on whether both, one, or neither person belongs to that parish.