LGBTQ+ Rights and Religion

I sincerely regret that so many people have had such a negative experience with conservative sex-ed. I truly do.

But I don't back off my statement.

I am not the one who has suggested or ever suggested that conservative sex-ed has not had some really unfortunate side effects. Nor have I ever suggested that it hasn't been perverted to dark ends. So really, all the indignation and highlighted instances is irrelevant to the larger point. The article did not make the point that abstinence-only education can be sometimes used to do far more harm than good, the article suggests it's endemic to absitinence-only ed overall; and further compounded it's fallacy by suggesting the view of non-virgin women as "spoiled goods" is the sole province of the religious. Hence it is a strawman and I will call it such. If someone can show me where this is incorrect, I'll gladly retract.

Secondly, I think, as is often the case with religious belief, one can conflate their conclusions with the actual words in the Scripture. While understandable, that doesn't make it accurate.

Does the Bible greatly promote no sexual activity outside of marriage? Yes. Does the Bible suggest a person who has had sex, either willingly or unwillingly, outside of marriage, is worthless? Show me the verse. Now, if someone wants to say that perhaps religious teachers should do a better job of making that distinction; I wholeheartedly agree.

And I want to make it clear that I did not say Elizabeth Smart was a liar. As far as I know she's got more courage than me by a factor of 4, at least. My issue is with the Think Progress spin.

This is not said to bash her, or even Think Progress; but simply to say that perhaps just as their are assumptions about, say, LGBTQ's that, once examined closer aren't so; perhaps what we think we know about Christian belief also bears some examination.

Footnote? What foot...*reads* dammit HP!

Meh...I was trying for humor with that fake quote anyways. And as the note points out, Dolan is kind of in charge of the whole operation in New York. If Donahue was acting without his approval in getting the police involved, all he has to do is say so.

I'd ask if you were serious, but something tells me I don't really want that answer.

God help us all.

edited 7th May '13 9:26:00 AM by TheStarshipMaxima

Deadly serious. It's a common belief amongst right-wingers and extremists of any colour or background in the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa.

And, it's very real in Uganda. >_< You've got major incentive to hide the fact you're gay from yourself anyway you can, there. And, that is one way. The more Evangelical the area, the more you find that ugly sucker raising its head. <_<

Oh... and gay sex doesn't count as "sex", too, you know. It's not real sex, so... you haven't messed up your virginity. Just in case you take the "wrapped package" very seriously. -_- And, you're not sinning if you're "teaching" them to change their ways, right?

edited 7th May '13 9:28:16 AM by Euodiachloris

"If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then turns against her, 14 and charges her with shameful deeds and publicly defames her, and says, ‘I took this woman, but when I came near her, I did not find her a virgin,’ 15 then the girl’s father and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of the girl’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate. 16 "And the girl’s father shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man for a wife, but he turned against her; 17 and behold, he has charged her with shameful deeds, saying, "I did not find your daughter a virgin." But this is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city. 18 "So the elders of that city shall take the man and chastise him, 19 and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give it to the girl’s father, because he publicly defamed a virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he cannot divorce her all his days. 20 "But if this charge is true, that the girl was not found a virgin, 21 then they shall bring out the girl to the doorway of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death because she has committed an act of folly in Israel, by playing the harlot in her father’s house; thus you shall purge the evil from among you," (Deut. 22:13-21).

How's that one?

Re: LGBTQ protesters at St. Patrick's

I'm confused. They weren't denied entry into the Church, they wanted to use the Mass to protest. And they told to wash their hands. They refused.

And now....their victims???

Did I miss something? Am I reading this wrong?

edited 7th May '13 9:31:52 AM by TheStarshipMaxima

Same mentality of prison rape really. As long as you're on top, and calling the shots, it's not gay.

Anyhow, I think abstinence only is damaging across the board, as it tends to promote Soiled Dove mentalities, and an "all or nothing" menality when it comes to sex. Either you're an evil whore who sells her body out, or you're a pure and chaste saint. If you're the former, there's a segment of self-loathing, and a "well, if I get diseases, it's because I deserve. I'm evil, thus I shouldn't/can't say no."

I've met people like that. It's not pretty.

I hate to make this a big sexist/feminist thing, but this is one of those things that tends to cut far more at girls than men. Not that men don't have their own problems. (We do)

Abstinence can be taught, but it should always, always be taught alongside other methods.

Also, the whole technical virgin phenomenon...*sigh*

I really hate sex-negativity.

edited 7th May '13 9:30:48 AM by DrTentacles

Not sure about what the article suggests. But what it flat out says is that abstinence only programs have a history of giving harmful messages to kids. As demonstrated by the previous indignant irrelevant comments. So...sorry, still not a strawman.

The harmful messages are not endemic to abstinence-only education and I see no indication that the majority of people who receive that kind of education come away with that message. Thereofore, yes, strawman. Ignoring it doesn't make it less so.

Meanwhile, this is what God actually thinks about those who have sex outside marriage. " If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." - 1 John 1:9

Therefore if any man [be] in Christ, [he is] a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.- 2 Corinthians 5:17-18

edited 7th May '13 9:47:39 AM by TheStarshipMaxima

First, you're skipping the part about stoning the woman if she's not a virgin. Second, it's IN the Bible. It's kind of hard not to have anything to do with the scripture when it's actually part of the scripture.

Meanwhile, in the New Testament...

Or know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men. [1Corinthians 6:9]

DG - We've done this before (not you and I, but proverbial we). You can snatch a verse out of context anywhere in the Bible get crazy shit like the Bible okays rape, the Bible says if you're gay you're automatically damned to hell, if you're black you should stay a slave, and on and on.

But if we take the Bible in total, it's literally rife with passage after passage after passage that no one is completely clean in God's eyes.

It's not that being a non-virgin, gay, a slut, a wife-beater, a Nazi makes you unworthy. We're ALL unworthy. Mother Teresa would be damned to hell, but not for Christ's sacrifice. And because Christ loves and forgive us, we have hope. Additionally, we have a duty to let it be known that NOBODY is worthless. That is almost literally Christianity, verbatim.

Well yeah, the harm that abstinence-only education does kinda is endemic to the vast majority of abstinent-only education. You're assuming that cases such as this are the exception to the rule for abstinence only education in the US, might it be worth considering the possibility that experiences like yours as actually the exception?

As for the article blaming religion entirely for the idea of non-virgins being spoiled good, I'm not seeing it. I am see it blaming "conservative cultures that push abstinence-only education and emphasize sexual purity" as being responsible for the majority of such cases in the US, but it does acknowledge other sources, note the "particularly" at the start of the sentence I quoted.

Also you're the one talking about region as an idea, the article talks about conservative religious culture, not about the word of god. It doesn't claim that religious ideals are what's doing the damage, it claims that conservative religious culture is what's doing the damage, which it is.

Someone want to do some Googling and prove Starship wrong on this one?

edited 7th May '13 9:59:55 AM by Silasw

So it's okay to ignore the bad parts in favor for the good ones?

I reckon the guy who wrote the bible was a schizo.

edited 7th May '13 10:05:04 AM by kay4today

The Bible isn't one book, it's several books that were chosen by a group of people (non of whom wrote any of the books) and stuck together. So in a way you're right. As for ignoring the good bits, I think Starship's idea is that you ignore (or push aside) those bits that go against the greater ethos of the Bible, which is the whole "love thy neighbour" bit.

edited 7th May '13 10:12:03 AM by Silasw

God wrote it, you pleb!

@Starship: Look, all I'm doing is illustrating what I was taught in church about this stuff. I'm not pulling these out of context, I'm pulling them out of sermons I attended, conclusion and all.

You're also skipping the part where Christ's sacrifice only covers the forgiveness angle. My church made it perfectly clear that just because you were forgiven doesn't mean that you're exempt from punishment. They used the example of Jesus refusing to stone the adulterous woman. He explicitly said and sin no more, which, as I learned it, was a warning that she wouldn't get off easy next time. Jesus even said that speaking against the Holy Spirit is an unforgivable sin, and I was taught that continued disobedience is a form of speaking against the Holy Spirit. Yes, you can be forgiven, but if you keep messing up, eventually God will stop forgiving you.

Again, from sermons I was given, the verse about a woman marrying her rapist was a symbol of God's mercy, because the punishment for adultery is (and always has been) death. They made it perfectly clear that if you fuck around outside of marriage (regardless of whether or not it's consensual) your choices are A: Marry the person you slept with, or B: Die.

That's the sort of Christianity I grew up with.

edited 7th May '13 10:12:08 AM by DrunkGirlfriend

Starship, even though you disagree with the kind of people who give the sermons that DG is talking about, you need to realise that these are the people teaching the abstinence only classes (or mandating what will be taught in them). So no matter how loudly you shout about how that's not the way it's meant to be taught, it is the way it's taught.

You forgot Ai) "marry the person you slept with, repent of your sin before God and sin no more". And, there's C) even if you marry, but do not repent of your harlotry, you die and go to hell, regardless, as you have not lived up to the deal.

edited 7th May '13 10:20:15 AM by Euodiachloris

Well, I thought that was a given.

Apparently not. <shrugs> It's a given to us. We sat through those sermons how many times?

A lot of Brits I know really cannot grok what I was taught as a kid, as it's that alien to them and they do not join the dots in the ways I rather take for granted. Lucky things. <sighs>

edited 7th May '13 10:25:06 AM by Euodiachloris

.

edited 7th May '13 10:28:08 AM by Haldo

True enough.

They were already victims. Hence the reason they were protesting in the first place. As for the right or wrong of doing it during the Mass, since when have protestors gone out of their way to make things convenient for the organization they were protesting against?

Nobody said otherwise...

Maybe I'm mistaken somehow. You see, I didn't realize a certain number of people had to hold an opinion before it could be recognized as an actually held opinion that real people actually hold instead of a strawman argument to persecute Christians. My apologies.

@Starship

Have you ever considered that your upbringing and teaching are in the minority of Christians? And that wide spread Christianity is exactly what we have experienced and seen it to be? What these stories and images and actions claim it to be? Hell what it's own leaders say it is?

edited 7th May '13 11:10:10 AM by LMage

I can't think of any harm that can come to from "Sex is going to happen. It's natural, and nothing to feel guilty about-what's important is that you know about consent, feel good about what you're doing, and practice safe sex."

I can think of a hell of a lot of harm that abstinence only campaigns have perpetuated.

If you can think of a reason to teach the latter over the former, or any reason why abstinence only is equal or superior to "safe, sane, consensual" sex ed, I'd like to hear it.