"Since the redefinition of marriage a decade ago..."
Stop right there. Christians did not invent marriage and do not own it They don't get to decide on the definition of marriage, which far predates their religion.
I'm not going to mention who I was, to protect the anonymity of others; but I was one of the Fabulous Ladies of Landover two decades ago.
My motto was: "Except that your righteousness exceed that of the Pharisees, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. My righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees; and I am the Lean, Mean, Scripture-Quoting Machine!"
My pleasure. Mrs. Betty Bowers, "America's BEST Christian™" is the creation of one Andrew Bradley and realized by Ms. Devin Green. The two of them have been at it, skewering both religion and American politics, for over a decade now. They are VERY good at it and a lot of fun to watch.
Well yes... but if someone makes a claim, it is up to them to prove it. It is not up to challengers to prove him wrong. Some priests - a substantial proportion, probably - have been convicted of offences against children. It is also possible that some people who work as drag queens have been convicted of similar offences. The man behind the table must provide evidence.
Good old "onus probandi," the burden of proof, WHICH IS ON THEM, and which they haven't done much about. It's rather related to their attitude about their faith. All they feel as though they have to do is point to the bible, as though it were an unimpeachable authority, and say, "You see? It's true!" When of course it isn't.
As for priests, I keep coming back to that line from Spotlight: "Six percent is 90." Ninety priests in the archdiocese of Boston who acted out sexually. The kicker? That proved to be an underestimate!
He did ... and he got his ass handed to him a good few times, for what I understand. I would have given good money to see a discussion / debate between him and someone like Matt Dillahunty or Aron Ra.
THAT would have been interesting, to put it at its mildest.
The original meme had Steven Crowder, a known Christian “comedian” that loves to dress up as women to mock LGBTQ people and women and recently publicly was divorced by his wife as video evidence of him emotionally abusing her while she was pregnant with twins. Folks from all walks use the meme without changing the person behind the table all the time for their pet ideas. Sometimes they do photoshop over Steven, but they generally don’t. The original comment on the sign was also changed so much, I can’t come up with his actual argument. I do know it was just rage baiting.
If you download the national Sex Offender Registry in .csv format and sort by person and offense, you'll see about 98 percent of the people on the registry are heterosexual; and a whole bunch of those heterosexuals like little kids.
Legal marriage is a civil, not a religious, institution. It doesn't require religious affiliation or sanction. What makes marriages legal [including those conducted in churches, synagogues or mosques] is recognition by the states in which they occur, after being conducted by state-authorized agents and witnessed by the requisite number of authorized persons. It's why we don't go back to church to get 'unmarried'; we go to the state for a divorce.
Right wingers have been trying to equate marriage with religion for decades and have been [mis]using their religions as a smoke screen for their bigotry and hatred. Remember that these same groups used children as human shields for their campaigns of LGBTQ hate over removing books from school and public libraries and trying to outlaw drag shows and story hours. There's no doubt that these groups are serious about ending legal same-sex marriage. But when you see somebody like Tony Perkins, former employer of Josh Duggar who's serving time for CSAM downloads, there's also no doubt that these groups don't give a damn about 'protecting children.'
"Traditionally"– And they love their tradition of course – many people couldn't actually afford a religious wedding and simply made do with a civil or traditional ceremony without getting the blessing of the church. And that's just in Christian societies – it's not as if Christians actually own marriage.
ℑ𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔟𝔢𝔤𝔦𝔫𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤 couples just up and declared themselves married without the benefit of clergy. Or their parents declared them married, again without the benefit of clergy.
I don’t remember in the that book of crap that Adam and Eve were actually joined in a marriage ceremony. So does that mean that Adam and Eve children are bastards for having children out of wedlock, just like that good for nothing fucker Jesus!
Honestly, the parts of “Christian marriage” like the father giving away the bride (as property) has always creeped me out. Father/daughter dance etc. I did not take my husband’s last name either because I am my own person.
Prove it. Demonstrate exactly how the methodology is poor. Demonstrate that every child with same sex parents has actually suffered the loss of a parent. Demonstrate how, exactly, children are harmed by having same sex parents. Use specific examples, show the statistics, and demonstrate exactly how those outcomes are worse than for children with opposite sex parents, divorced parents, and single parents. You can't rely on the YEC tactic of making a claim and pretending that data showing the opposite is either badly flawed or nonexistent.
These kinds of Christian attacks or LGBTQ+ parenting are almost totally invariant: make claims and assertions and treat them as they were both fact and proof, without supplying any form of verification. Rather reminds me of something:
I suggest that if you ask any orphan child in the world what they want most, 99% would say, 'a family.' Whom their adoptive parents choose to share their lives with, who they share a bedroom with, has no relevance whatsoever to their ability to parent well. We are all of us dedicated to our children, but I also suggest it takes an extra layer of dedication to have children - whether by surrogacy, adoption or IVF - if you are LGBTQTIA. You will have to protect them from the hatred and bigotry of xtians as you give them love and care and you cherish them as every child should be loved and cherished.
Bigots are constantly asserting that gay marriages don't last as long as straight marriages do- that they're less stable, and therefore worse for any children in the household- disingenuously ignoring the fact that gay couples 𝘤𝘢𝘯'𝘵 have been legally married for 20, 30, 40, 50 years like some straight couples, since their marriages have only been legal at the national level for a decade. It's a neat little trick, using a history of oppression to justify more oppression... and it's just as wrong as every other argument they make.
So. They’re bringing up the whole failed package of distortions, half-truths, and out light lies.. yet again. And to what point? An exercise in cruelty, to be sure. But all for power, money, and religious dominion.
This is what I have always said, and it hasn’t changed. You think a woman makes a lousy father? There is no evidence for that at all. But even more so, So do a lot of fathers.
There is nothing in being heterosexual that makes anyone a fit parent. The gangs, jails, terrorists organizations, J6ers, ICE, rehab clinics, cartels, mullahs of Iran, pastors of Southern Baptists and AOG, and catholic priesthood are just full of the products of heterosexual parenting.
And this figure hasn’t changed much in 50 years: fully half of all child molesting occurs within theholy heterosexual family, with Daddy being the main culprit.
Did anybody notice that ALL the people in this article, who are working so hard to take away the rights for LGBT people to marry, are ALL WHITE, AMERICAN CHRISTIAN NATIONALISTS?
That should tell us all something, right there. White, American Christian Nationalists are trying to take us back to a halcyonic yesteryear, when "all was right in America". Except everything WASN'T "all right in America": women could not get credit in their name, could not take out loans in their name, and were typically paid about half what men earned for doing the same work. Blacks attended segregated schools and lived in segregated neighborhoods -- IF they were allowed to live in the same towns and cities as white people.
My school had black kids in it: the white kids were taught on one side of the school; the black kids were taught on the other side and the two sides were divided by a steel door which could not be opened except by the principal. The black kids started school and hour earlier than we did and left and hour earlier; their lunch hour was an hour earlier; and their textbooks were about 20 years older than ours. Think about this, for a second: who wants to start school at 7:00 am, even if you're getting out at 2:00 pm; and who wants lunch at 10:30 in the morning? That's what the black kids got.
Our city was not a "sundown town", but blacks were relegated to a neighborhood on the northwest side of the city, and were red-lined out of owning homes in the rest of the city.
Those halcyon days of the 1950s? When there were polio outbreaks during the summer? When diseases like meningitis, most types of cancer, and some types of pneumonia were death sentences? When women had back alley abortions? When parents could beat up their kids, and nobody said a thing because "those things were family problems which were not talked about"? When there were active lynchings occurring? We REALLY want to go back there?
I realized I was gay when I was eight, back in 1963 when dinosaurs roamed the earth, oil was being created and the Beatles had just become popular. It was "the love that dare not say its name" and I saw what happened to older kids who were "out". I came out in 1970, in high school, and became an instant pariah (except on the Academic Interscholastic League, where I excelled; and also in music and theater).
The people in this article want kids to have a mother and a father. My mother was addicted to benzodiazepines and was, for all intents and practical purposes, completely zoned out so that my sister and I had to take control of the day-to-day running of the house, including the buying and preparation of food; cooking the meals; doing the laundry; cleaning the house; and forging our parents' names on the checks to make sure the utilities and rent got paid -- and we did this the day our father got paid so we knew the money was still in the bank. (Our father was a binge drinker who got REALLY UGLY when he drank.)
My parents fought like George and Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" After they figured out I was gay, I became the "designated family problem" which took the focus off my mother's benzodiazepine addiction (she ran four doctors and four pharmacies to maintain the source of her supply of Valium, Librium and Miltown) and my father's alcoholism. By the time I reached eighth grade, I had worked out a plan to run away to my aunt's house in Chicago, with the intention of asking her if I could stay with her. We took a trip to Chicago to visit her, and it was there I asked her if I could please stay with her. She asked my father what was going on, and did I EVER get it when we left. (I was hospitalized for injuries I received after that beating.)
When I was 17 -- after having been formally disfellowshipped, excommunicated, and formally shunned from the Reformed Baptist church we attended (somehow it was OK for my mother to be addicted to benzos and my father to binge drink, and for him to beat the crap out of me whenever he felt like it, but "being gay" was a *SIN* -- go figure!), I realized I would never be able to "pray the gay away" so I placed a plastic bag over my head, tied a rope around my neck, and kicked the chair out from under me -- and the only reason I'm here, writing this, is because the rope broke.
I would have HAPPILY opted to be fostered to a same-sex family, rather than what I grew up in.
I don't even HAVE good words to describe how much I *LOATHE* Christian Nationalism, and everything it stands for. I have cut off contact with relatives, as well as friends I had known since childhood, who have become Christian Nationalists.
I am glad you are here, your story needs to be told to show the cruelty that religions can foster. It takes a brave person to overcome the traumas of one’s life, and to grow into one true self and to find happiness!
I know of a church family that my younger brother was friends with who are both MAGA nuts, creationists, and White Christian Nationalists who homeschooled their younger son while the older daughter attended a Christian school. I visited with them several times, borrow their creationist slop from time to time, even spent the night at their house a few times just to get ready for a road trip my father was taking me on to see the dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History and the Stature of Liberty in New York City. And every time I was bombarded with creationist slop, faux patriotism, and Fundie Christian mumbo-jumbo toiletries. And yet I found solstice in surfing the internet for sites I want to visit and playing video games on TV and the PC. But that was over 30 years ago.
Today, I refuse to have anything to do with them no matter how many times they offer me a ride in their vehicle due to them embracing the cult of that Stupid Idiot Dump in the WH to where they bleat out every propaganda word and phrase they get from the likes of Fox News and Newsmax about how "great" he is as if they are throwing away the Christian Fundamentalist God they worshiped for many years in favor of worshiping a horrible, lying, dirty, stinking god.
Mostly anti-any-family-that-doesn't-look-like-THEIR-family. Which makes me wonder. Divorces. Infidelity? A bit of the pot calling the silverware black here?
Accusations and confessions, yet again, very possibly.
Grew up in a supposedly Christian family who ended up divorced right around 1980. My father was a bad father who went after my older brother and mom to the point where he, according to my mom, were threatening to kill them both with a pistol. Mom got custody of me and my brothers when she divorced him. And my dad went to marry a supposed Christian who, after 13 years of marriage (I think), divorced him for the same reason Mom divorced him. The supposed Christian, Verna, who swears and smokes cigarettes and had a bratty daughter named Crissy, went to marry herself away while dad married another person, a perky one, who had a son named John, borrowed a ton of money from the bank to add to his insurmountable debt. Divorced her, too, and never married again. Dad passed away from cancer on October 15th, 2000.
Now tell me again how Christian marriages are much more happier than non-Christian marriages?
My brother was married for 40 years before he finally screwed up the courage to divorce his wife. Another Christian marriage that was miserable for decades (they should have given up 25 years ago).
I told him, you're miserable, she's miserable, you barely talk to each other and when you do, it's sniping and passive aggressive and embarrassing.
They get along better now that they don't have to lie to each other.
In their push to prohibit same sex marriage on the premise that children need to be raised by opposite sex parents, they fail to address the biggest objection to their narrative. What about married couples who either do not want or cannot have children? Prohibiting same sex marriage to prevent same sex couples from raising children must also prohibit opposite sex couples who from getting married. Two widowed pensioners? They have to live in sin! A young child free couple? Force them to make babies. Their goal isn't just the oppression of LGBTQ+ people, but to fully implement Gilead.
Oh no, all of that is allowed. This 'we're totally about the children and not at all bigoted against gays' policy only applies to gays because...look! Squirrel!
💯 I’m married and child-free. The amount of shit I’ve had to take for it is unbelievable even from strangers. Selfish they say. Hates children they say. You’ll change your mind they say. You still have time they say. Who’s going to take care of you when you’re old?
Thankfully all of that stopped now that I’m in my 40’s because gOd forbid an OLDER woman is having children. That’s selfish too!
It's insulting to assume that men cannot be loving and nurturing. And it's insulting to women to assume that they cannot be strong and instill discipline.
We do not fit into stereotypes just because we have a penis or a vagina.
To be a conservative to be utterly convinced that everyone fits into this hierarchy they've made in their heads. It is to deny human individuality. It is the mindset of a particularly dull child who when he fails to make the square piece fit into the triangular hole, takes a knife and sandpaper to the square piece to try and MAKE it fit.
This sounds like a classic case of beginning with their desired conclusions then working backward to find arguments to support them. This is the essence of theology. I have seen plenty of Christian families I would want no part of, and I’ve seen those families turn out some massively screwed up kids. I’ve seen Christian schools turn out massively screwed up kids as well.
Katy Faust and her flunkies at Greater Than seem to be treating gay marriage and gay parenting the same way they treat their faith: they make broad, accusatory claims, in this case, of child endangerment, yet provide exactly NO justification for why they hold them.
Meanwhile, I'm reminded of the CNN article about the "Gayby Boom" of several years ago, wherein the reporter asserted that children of gay parents were actually STRONGER than those of their straight neighbors, and proceeded to cite examples thereof:
They will try to counter by finding one kid who was raised by gay parents who hated it. Of course, when you look deeper, you will find that the child of the gay couple hated it due to all the bullying by their Christian neighbors. Anecdotes, while illustrative, are not evidence on their own. If they want to demonstrate that children are worse off with same sex parents then they have to do the actual research, compile the data, writ the report, and (here's the biggest hurdle for them) pass peer review.
[Snort] Find just about any kid in the 14-16 year age range and they will complain about how unfair, unreasonable, how non-understanding their parents are. I expect this is as true for gay couple parents as straight couple parents as single parents.
You can have the biggest, gaudiest wedding spectacle inside any church of your choice, BUT...If you do not have all the legal paperwork in your possession BEFORE that ceremony, your marriage will not be considered valid and you will not receive any of the benefits of marriage,
Be very clear on this: Marriage licences are a strictly civil, secular function performed by government authorities and cannot be issued by religions. Got that? They MUST be obtained from the state, which is secular. Want a definition of marriage, do you? There it is.
Every child I know who was raised by a parent or both parents who are LGBTQ, are loved and treated like a child should. They are cherished even more because their parents know how special their situation is. It is a fairly new thing that they can safely and bravely live their lives in the open and be a parent. Organized religion needs to concentrate on the predators in their employ if they really care.
“The coalition lays out a three-part strategy to overturn Obergefell and same-sex marriage:”
Oh great, here we go.
“returning marriage policy to focus on the parent-child relationship;”
What does marriage have to do with children? A marriage is a contract between two adults. Just because a marriage can result in children does not mean that marriage policy needs to be solely focused on a parent-child relationship, that’s covered under other policies and laws. Many, many, many marriages have no children to be focused on, and there should be more focus on any power dynamics between the couple and eliminating them. Allowing both spouses to have autonomy over themselves is something we are only barely working for opposite sex marriages. Hell, marital rape was condoned until the year I graduated from high school, okay, officially not condoned but not illegal in all states. And the regime, the right, and Heritage Foundation especially, are reversing. This is clearly a confession that they are looking to further roll back women’s rights alongside the LGBTQ rights. Because, in the end, they want all marriages to be between a man and his property, with a lot of children to exploit and molest.
“changing public opinion by emphasizing how same-sex marriage and other forms of family breakdown harm children;”
Show me, pretend I’m from Missouri and show me. They keep talking about how clear this danger is and how it’s been a whole decade, but they can’t show there is a danger. Every complaint they have is rooted in their beliefs and how their beliefs are not accepted by everyone. If your beliefs are so strong, then you don’t need to legislate them into everyone else. And yes, as Hemant mentions, your beliefs have not ever protected a single child from actual harm. Not from abusive parents who use Train Up A Child to torture their children from birth into obedience. Not from their weird uncles who are far too handsy. Not from clergy members who use their sermons as window shopping for their next victims. And while I believe a decade isn’t long enough to make any firm judgments regarding the benefits or dangers of same sex marriage, it is clear that it isn’t the world ending decision these fuckers claimed it would be. So, it is beginning to show that same sex marriage is a net positive for society and even children, since they cannot cite a single credible source for their stance.
“and mobilizing Christian churches to take a stand for protecting children.”
Perhaps when Christian churches start protecting children from their own clergy and workers, then we can talk. I’m even willing to go so far to say the Christian churches just make a statement condemning Trump and his involvement in the Epstein case. They might have some credibility toward protecting children. As of now, they are the fucking child rapists destroying children and their safety. Deflection or projection are the calls today.
"Since the redefinition of marriage a decade ago..."
Stop right there. Christians did not invent marriage and do not own it They don't get to decide on the definition of marriage, which far predates their religion.
They redefined marriage first, when they insisted it was for one man and only one woman. How many wives did Solomon have?
YOOHOO! Mrs. Betty Bowers! You wanna remind us again about biblical marriage? SURE!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFkeKKszXTw
Mrs. Betty Bowers is a national treasure. In addition to being America's Best Christian.™️
Thanks. Didn’t have time to get around to posting this one.
Hey, you gots to know I'm always glad to help!
I'm not going to mention who I was, to protect the anonymity of others; but I was one of the Fabulous Ladies of Landover two decades ago.
My motto was: "Except that your righteousness exceed that of the Pharisees, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. My righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees; and I am the Lean, Mean, Scripture-Quoting Machine!"
Landover Baptist sure rocks.
ALLLLLLLLL Righty, then! 🤣🤣🤣
Thanks for that link. I didn't know her/him at all. Delicious!
https://www.landoverbaptist.org/thestaff/ladies/bowers.html
My pleasure. Mrs. Betty Bowers, "America's BEST Christian™" is the creation of one Andrew Bradley and realized by Ms. Devin Green. The two of them have been at it, skewering both religion and American politics, for over a decade now. They are VERY good at it and a lot of fun to watch.
Do enjoy!
America’s Best Christian is portrayed by a Canadian atheist, :)
And ain't THAT a hoot?!? Yes, it is!
I have that video in my favorites, it never gets old.
Wasn't even them. It was Greek and Roman culture influencing Judea.
And you still see those influences in the church where the husband is married to a wife, but has a mistress or abuses children.
Oliver Queen to the rescue of marriages!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5cc0fe046dddddc62f552d28480440253da27088e63e9a0b259155ab9b95c12f.jpg
Cue wingnuts losing their minds about superhero fiction "going woke" when it's been progressive pretty much from the start.
Is that recent?
Haven’t you heard? According to DG a few years back, Christians invented civilisation!
Yeah, I’m not gonna let him forget THAT!
Gay parents don't molest children. That's Christian clergy.
Not that long ago, someone posted a pic of a man sitting behind a table with a sign:
DRAG QUEENS DON'T MOLEST KIDS. PRIESTS DO. PROVE ME WRONG.
I don't think he got a lot of challengers.
Well yes... but if someone makes a claim, it is up to them to prove it. It is not up to challengers to prove him wrong. Some priests - a substantial proportion, probably - have been convicted of offences against children. It is also possible that some people who work as drag queens have been convicted of similar offences. The man behind the table must provide evidence.
Good old "onus probandi," the burden of proof, WHICH IS ON THEM, and which they haven't done much about. It's rather related to their attitude about their faith. All they feel as though they have to do is point to the bible, as though it were an unimpeachable authority, and say, "You see? It's true!" When of course it isn't.
As for priests, I keep coming back to that line from Spotlight: "Six percent is 90." Ninety priests in the archdiocese of Boston who acted out sexually. The kicker? That proved to be an underestimate!
Yes. Didn't Charlie Kirk use the same false method of 'prove me wrong'?
He did ... and he got his ass handed to him a good few times, for what I understand. I would have given good money to see a discussion / debate between him and someone like Matt Dillahunty or Aron Ra.
THAT would have been interesting, to put it at its mildest.
Charlie ended providing a sacrifice - himself - at the Altar of Guns.
What's good for goose, so is for gander.
The original meme had Steven Crowder, a known Christian “comedian” that loves to dress up as women to mock LGBTQ people and women and recently publicly was divorced by his wife as video evidence of him emotionally abusing her while she was pregnant with twins. Folks from all walks use the meme without changing the person behind the table all the time for their pet ideas. Sometimes they do photoshop over Steven, but they generally don’t. The original comment on the sign was also changed so much, I can’t come up with his actual argument. I do know it was just rage baiting.
And apparently, a whole lot of conservative Republicans and Christian Nationalists.
https://www.dailykos.com/history/user/CajsaLilliehook
If you download the national Sex Offender Registry in .csv format and sort by person and offense, you'll see about 98 percent of the people on the registry are heterosexual; and a whole bunch of those heterosexuals like little kids.
Legal marriage is a civil, not a religious, institution. It doesn't require religious affiliation or sanction. What makes marriages legal [including those conducted in churches, synagogues or mosques] is recognition by the states in which they occur, after being conducted by state-authorized agents and witnessed by the requisite number of authorized persons. It's why we don't go back to church to get 'unmarried'; we go to the state for a divorce.
Right wingers have been trying to equate marriage with religion for decades and have been [mis]using their religions as a smoke screen for their bigotry and hatred. Remember that these same groups used children as human shields for their campaigns of LGBTQ hate over removing books from school and public libraries and trying to outlaw drag shows and story hours. There's no doubt that these groups are serious about ending legal same-sex marriage. But when you see somebody like Tony Perkins, former employer of Josh Duggar who's serving time for CSAM downloads, there's also no doubt that these groups don't give a damn about 'protecting children.'
"Traditionally"– And they love their tradition of course – many people couldn't actually afford a religious wedding and simply made do with a civil or traditional ceremony without getting the blessing of the church. And that's just in Christian societies – it's not as if Christians actually own marriage.
ℑ𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔟𝔢𝔤𝔦𝔫𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤 couples just up and declared themselves married without the benefit of clergy. Or their parents declared them married, again without the benefit of clergy.
𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑝𝑒𝑒𝑟 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑝𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒.
-- Eliot Schrefer
I don’t remember in the that book of crap that Adam and Eve were actually joined in a marriage ceremony. So does that mean that Adam and Eve children are bastards for having children out of wedlock, just like that good for nothing fucker Jesus!
Honestly, the parts of “Christian marriage” like the father giving away the bride (as property) has always creeped me out. Father/daughter dance etc. I did not take my husband’s last name either because I am my own person.
𝑆𝑡𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑒-𝑠𝑒𝑥-ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑑 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑒ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑑𝑠 — 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑙𝑤𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎 𝑏𝑖𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑜𝑟 𝑝𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑠𝑢𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑠 — 𝑙𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑠𝑢𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑟 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑝𝑜𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑑𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑦.
Prove it. Demonstrate exactly how the methodology is poor. Demonstrate that every child with same sex parents has actually suffered the loss of a parent. Demonstrate how, exactly, children are harmed by having same sex parents. Use specific examples, show the statistics, and demonstrate exactly how those outcomes are worse than for children with opposite sex parents, divorced parents, and single parents. You can't rely on the YEC tactic of making a claim and pretending that data showing the opposite is either badly flawed or nonexistent.
These kinds of Christian attacks or LGBTQ+ parenting are almost totally invariant: make claims and assertions and treat them as they were both fact and proof, without supplying any form of verification. Rather reminds me of something:
𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒.
-- Christopher Hitchens, “Hitchens’ Razor”
I suggest that if you ask any orphan child in the world what they want most, 99% would say, 'a family.' Whom their adoptive parents choose to share their lives with, who they share a bedroom with, has no relevance whatsoever to their ability to parent well. We are all of us dedicated to our children, but I also suggest it takes an extra layer of dedication to have children - whether by surrogacy, adoption or IVF - if you are LGBTQTIA. You will have to protect them from the hatred and bigotry of xtians as you give them love and care and you cherish them as every child should be loved and cherished.
Bigots are constantly asserting that gay marriages don't last as long as straight marriages do- that they're less stable, and therefore worse for any children in the household- disingenuously ignoring the fact that gay couples 𝘤𝘢𝘯'𝘵 have been legally married for 20, 30, 40, 50 years like some straight couples, since their marriages have only been legal at the national level for a decade. It's a neat little trick, using a history of oppression to justify more oppression... and it's just as wrong as every other argument they make.
You just have to make believe what they are saying is true. Have some faith ;)
So. They’re bringing up the whole failed package of distortions, half-truths, and out light lies.. yet again. And to what point? An exercise in cruelty, to be sure. But all for power, money, and religious dominion.
This is what I have always said, and it hasn’t changed. You think a woman makes a lousy father? There is no evidence for that at all. But even more so, So do a lot of fathers.
There is nothing in being heterosexual that makes anyone a fit parent. The gangs, jails, terrorists organizations, J6ers, ICE, rehab clinics, cartels, mullahs of Iran, pastors of Southern Baptists and AOG, and catholic priesthood are just full of the products of heterosexual parenting.
And this figure hasn’t changed much in 50 years: fully half of all child molesting occurs within theholy heterosexual family, with Daddy being the main culprit.
These people are sick.
Did anybody notice that ALL the people in this article, who are working so hard to take away the rights for LGBT people to marry, are ALL WHITE, AMERICAN CHRISTIAN NATIONALISTS?
That should tell us all something, right there. White, American Christian Nationalists are trying to take us back to a halcyonic yesteryear, when "all was right in America". Except everything WASN'T "all right in America": women could not get credit in their name, could not take out loans in their name, and were typically paid about half what men earned for doing the same work. Blacks attended segregated schools and lived in segregated neighborhoods -- IF they were allowed to live in the same towns and cities as white people.
My school had black kids in it: the white kids were taught on one side of the school; the black kids were taught on the other side and the two sides were divided by a steel door which could not be opened except by the principal. The black kids started school and hour earlier than we did and left and hour earlier; their lunch hour was an hour earlier; and their textbooks were about 20 years older than ours. Think about this, for a second: who wants to start school at 7:00 am, even if you're getting out at 2:00 pm; and who wants lunch at 10:30 in the morning? That's what the black kids got.
Our city was not a "sundown town", but blacks were relegated to a neighborhood on the northwest side of the city, and were red-lined out of owning homes in the rest of the city.
Those halcyon days of the 1950s? When there were polio outbreaks during the summer? When diseases like meningitis, most types of cancer, and some types of pneumonia were death sentences? When women had back alley abortions? When parents could beat up their kids, and nobody said a thing because "those things were family problems which were not talked about"? When there were active lynchings occurring? We REALLY want to go back there?
I realized I was gay when I was eight, back in 1963 when dinosaurs roamed the earth, oil was being created and the Beatles had just become popular. It was "the love that dare not say its name" and I saw what happened to older kids who were "out". I came out in 1970, in high school, and became an instant pariah (except on the Academic Interscholastic League, where I excelled; and also in music and theater).
The people in this article want kids to have a mother and a father. My mother was addicted to benzodiazepines and was, for all intents and practical purposes, completely zoned out so that my sister and I had to take control of the day-to-day running of the house, including the buying and preparation of food; cooking the meals; doing the laundry; cleaning the house; and forging our parents' names on the checks to make sure the utilities and rent got paid -- and we did this the day our father got paid so we knew the money was still in the bank. (Our father was a binge drinker who got REALLY UGLY when he drank.)
My parents fought like George and Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" After they figured out I was gay, I became the "designated family problem" which took the focus off my mother's benzodiazepine addiction (she ran four doctors and four pharmacies to maintain the source of her supply of Valium, Librium and Miltown) and my father's alcoholism. By the time I reached eighth grade, I had worked out a plan to run away to my aunt's house in Chicago, with the intention of asking her if I could stay with her. We took a trip to Chicago to visit her, and it was there I asked her if I could please stay with her. She asked my father what was going on, and did I EVER get it when we left. (I was hospitalized for injuries I received after that beating.)
When I was 17 -- after having been formally disfellowshipped, excommunicated, and formally shunned from the Reformed Baptist church we attended (somehow it was OK for my mother to be addicted to benzos and my father to binge drink, and for him to beat the crap out of me whenever he felt like it, but "being gay" was a *SIN* -- go figure!), I realized I would never be able to "pray the gay away" so I placed a plastic bag over my head, tied a rope around my neck, and kicked the chair out from under me -- and the only reason I'm here, writing this, is because the rope broke.
I would have HAPPILY opted to be fostered to a same-sex family, rather than what I grew up in.
I don't even HAVE good words to describe how much I *LOATHE* Christian Nationalism, and everything it stands for. I have cut off contact with relatives, as well as friends I had known since childhood, who have become Christian Nationalists.
I am glad you are here, your story needs to be told to show the cruelty that religions can foster. It takes a brave person to overcome the traumas of one’s life, and to grow into one true self and to find happiness!
Hell of a deal, and I for one am glad you made it, Mark. It's damned good to have you here!
I know of a church family that my younger brother was friends with who are both MAGA nuts, creationists, and White Christian Nationalists who homeschooled their younger son while the older daughter attended a Christian school. I visited with them several times, borrow their creationist slop from time to time, even spent the night at their house a few times just to get ready for a road trip my father was taking me on to see the dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History and the Stature of Liberty in New York City. And every time I was bombarded with creationist slop, faux patriotism, and Fundie Christian mumbo-jumbo toiletries. And yet I found solstice in surfing the internet for sites I want to visit and playing video games on TV and the PC. But that was over 30 years ago.
Today, I refuse to have anything to do with them no matter how many times they offer me a ride in their vehicle due to them embracing the cult of that Stupid Idiot Dump in the WH to where they bleat out every propaganda word and phrase they get from the likes of Fox News and Newsmax about how "great" he is as if they are throwing away the Christian Fundamentalist God they worshiped for many years in favor of worshiping a horrible, lying, dirty, stinking god.
💔
So….they are anti-family.
Mostly anti-any-family-that-doesn't-look-like-THEIR-family. Which makes me wonder. Divorces. Infidelity? A bit of the pot calling the silverware black here?
Accusations and confessions, yet again, very possibly.
I grew up in a hetero family. My parents divorced when I was 6. My mother was an alcoholic and I deal daily with the fallout from that life.
I have a gay friend, married 12 years, 2 daughters, who have plenty of wonderful women in their life and adore their dads.
Just to contrast two different "lifestyles"...
Grew up in a supposedly Christian family who ended up divorced right around 1980. My father was a bad father who went after my older brother and mom to the point where he, according to my mom, were threatening to kill them both with a pistol. Mom got custody of me and my brothers when she divorced him. And my dad went to marry a supposed Christian who, after 13 years of marriage (I think), divorced him for the same reason Mom divorced him. The supposed Christian, Verna, who swears and smokes cigarettes and had a bratty daughter named Crissy, went to marry herself away while dad married another person, a perky one, who had a son named John, borrowed a ton of money from the bank to add to his insurmountable debt. Divorced her, too, and never married again. Dad passed away from cancer on October 15th, 2000.
Now tell me again how Christian marriages are much more happier than non-Christian marriages?
My brother was married for 40 years before he finally screwed up the courage to divorce his wife. Another Christian marriage that was miserable for decades (they should have given up 25 years ago).
I told him, you're miserable, she's miserable, you barely talk to each other and when you do, it's sniping and passive aggressive and embarrassing.
They get along better now that they don't have to lie to each other.
All this is one of the reasons why I won't marry anyone for any reason at all.
Worked for me- 69, no kids, single my whole life!
"All generalizations are false." [wry chuckle]
In their push to prohibit same sex marriage on the premise that children need to be raised by opposite sex parents, they fail to address the biggest objection to their narrative. What about married couples who either do not want or cannot have children? Prohibiting same sex marriage to prevent same sex couples from raising children must also prohibit opposite sex couples who from getting married. Two widowed pensioners? They have to live in sin! A young child free couple? Force them to make babies. Their goal isn't just the oppression of LGBTQ+ people, but to fully implement Gilead.
Oh no, all of that is allowed. This 'we're totally about the children and not at all bigoted against gays' policy only applies to gays because...look! Squirrel!
💯 I’m married and child-free. The amount of shit I’ve had to take for it is unbelievable even from strangers. Selfish they say. Hates children they say. You’ll change your mind they say. You still have time they say. Who’s going to take care of you when you’re old?
Thankfully all of that stopped now that I’m in my 40’s because gOd forbid an OLDER woman is having children. That’s selfish too!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUCcs2uAFt3/?igsh=MWVlbm42amc3enVqcg==
😂
It's insulting to assume that men cannot be loving and nurturing. And it's insulting to women to assume that they cannot be strong and instill discipline.
We do not fit into stereotypes just because we have a penis or a vagina.
To be a conservative to be utterly convinced that everyone fits into this hierarchy they've made in their heads. It is to deny human individuality. It is the mindset of a particularly dull child who when he fails to make the square piece fit into the triangular hole, takes a knife and sandpaper to the square piece to try and MAKE it fit.
This sounds like a classic case of beginning with their desired conclusions then working backward to find arguments to support them. This is the essence of theology. I have seen plenty of Christian families I would want no part of, and I’ve seen those families turn out some massively screwed up kids. I’ve seen Christian schools turn out massively screwed up kids as well.
That’s the evangelical way. Draw your conclusion and find a Bible verse to support it; it’s called proof texting.
Katy Faust and her flunkies at Greater Than seem to be treating gay marriage and gay parenting the same way they treat their faith: they make broad, accusatory claims, in this case, of child endangerment, yet provide exactly NO justification for why they hold them.
Meanwhile, I'm reminded of the CNN article about the "Gayby Boom" of several years ago, wherein the reporter asserted that children of gay parents were actually STRONGER than those of their straight neighbors, and proceeded to cite examples thereof:
https://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/06/24/gayby/?iref=nextin
So the pattern continues: make BIG assertions, but utterly FAIL to back them up. Seems like SSDD to me.
They will try to counter by finding one kid who was raised by gay parents who hated it. Of course, when you look deeper, you will find that the child of the gay couple hated it due to all the bullying by their Christian neighbors. Anecdotes, while illustrative, are not evidence on their own. If they want to demonstrate that children are worse off with same sex parents then they have to do the actual research, compile the data, writ the report, and (here's the biggest hurdle for them) pass peer review.
𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑡𝑜 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑏𝑦 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑘𝑖𝑑 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑔𝑎𝑦 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑡.
[Snort] Find just about any kid in the 14-16 year age range and they will complain about how unfair, unreasonable, how non-understanding their parents are. I expect this is as true for gay couple parents as straight couple parents as single parents.
"evidence-free campaign" - Religion in a nutshell.
Let me spell it out for you, Christians...
You can have the biggest, gaudiest wedding spectacle inside any church of your choice, BUT...If you do not have all the legal paperwork in your possession BEFORE that ceremony, your marriage will not be considered valid and you will not receive any of the benefits of marriage,
Be very clear on this: Marriage licences are a strictly civil, secular function performed by government authorities and cannot be issued by religions. Got that? They MUST be obtained from the state, which is secular. Want a definition of marriage, do you? There it is.
Some time back, I opined that marriage is a legal institution with an optional religious component. I stand by that.
Cuz that's what it is. It's a contract, not a sacrament. You can "consecrate" a marriage all you want in a church. Means nothing to the law.
So much for being "pro-life." They can bury that claim and hold services for it.
They are pro-life-that-we-can-control-and-force-into-the-narrow-boxes-we-want. Every other life doesn't count.
Every child I know who was raised by a parent or both parents who are LGBTQ, are loved and treated like a child should. They are cherished even more because their parents know how special their situation is. It is a fairly new thing that they can safely and bravely live their lives in the open and be a parent. Organized religion needs to concentrate on the predators in their employ if they really care.
Most organized religion of the type Greater Than comes from would far rather find a scapegoat to kick than an actual problem to solve.
“The coalition lays out a three-part strategy to overturn Obergefell and same-sex marriage:”
Oh great, here we go.
“returning marriage policy to focus on the parent-child relationship;”
What does marriage have to do with children? A marriage is a contract between two adults. Just because a marriage can result in children does not mean that marriage policy needs to be solely focused on a parent-child relationship, that’s covered under other policies and laws. Many, many, many marriages have no children to be focused on, and there should be more focus on any power dynamics between the couple and eliminating them. Allowing both spouses to have autonomy over themselves is something we are only barely working for opposite sex marriages. Hell, marital rape was condoned until the year I graduated from high school, okay, officially not condoned but not illegal in all states. And the regime, the right, and Heritage Foundation especially, are reversing. This is clearly a confession that they are looking to further roll back women’s rights alongside the LGBTQ rights. Because, in the end, they want all marriages to be between a man and his property, with a lot of children to exploit and molest.
“changing public opinion by emphasizing how same-sex marriage and other forms of family breakdown harm children;”
Show me, pretend I’m from Missouri and show me. They keep talking about how clear this danger is and how it’s been a whole decade, but they can’t show there is a danger. Every complaint they have is rooted in their beliefs and how their beliefs are not accepted by everyone. If your beliefs are so strong, then you don’t need to legislate them into everyone else. And yes, as Hemant mentions, your beliefs have not ever protected a single child from actual harm. Not from abusive parents who use Train Up A Child to torture their children from birth into obedience. Not from their weird uncles who are far too handsy. Not from clergy members who use their sermons as window shopping for their next victims. And while I believe a decade isn’t long enough to make any firm judgments regarding the benefits or dangers of same sex marriage, it is clear that it isn’t the world ending decision these fuckers claimed it would be. So, it is beginning to show that same sex marriage is a net positive for society and even children, since they cannot cite a single credible source for their stance.
“and mobilizing Christian churches to take a stand for protecting children.”
Perhaps when Christian churches start protecting children from their own clergy and workers, then we can talk. I’m even willing to go so far to say the Christian churches just make a statement condemning Trump and his involvement in the Epstein case. They might have some credibility toward protecting children. As of now, they are the fucking child rapists destroying children and their safety. Deflection or projection are the calls today.
Another excellent Val rant! Hear, hear!
> "Not from their weird uncles who are far too handsy."
You know I had to do it:
I'm your wicked Uncle Ernie
I'm glad you won't see or hear me
As I fiddle about
Fiddle about
Fiddle about!
Your mother left me here to mind you
Now I'm doing what I want to
Fiddling about
Fiddling about
Fiddle about!
Down with the bedclothes
Up with your nightshirt!
Fiddle about
Fiddle about...
https://streamable.com/em01q