Christians Being Persecuted/discriminated Against In The Usa

[4588686]

Leftists only oppose state power when they're not the ones in power.

 

 

 

 

Right.  So, I actually have worked in Democratic politics since graduating and have only worked in politics while the Democratic party has controlled the executive branch and I have and do advocate substantially curbing executive power (you may even remember back when Bush was in power and you were aggressively defending his administration which aggressively fought to expand executive power and the capacity of the state to kill individuals, although many of these individual were brown skinned Muslims so I understand why that did not raise your ire) and curbing the power of the lethal institutions of the state.   

Edited May 6, 2014 by Hasan

[4588686]

Although, sure.  Many democrats who opposed Bush's expansion of state and executive power have been largely fine with Obama's similar expansions.  Most partisans tend to engage in hackery.  

[blazeingstar]

I think to deny that there is some persecution is very silly.

 

There are people who want to silence Christians and things still get brought up to the Supreme Court that NEVER should of made it past "go".  This lovely gem for instance http://aclj.org/public-prayer/prayer-reaffirmed-at-the-supreme-court-town-of-greece-v.-galloway where pastors in Greece, NY, were told they cannot use the name Jesus when invited to pray publicly but rather had to stick to words that were of a monotheistic nature.

 

Then there's the IRS targeting of religious groups who contributed to the election, while other groups were given a pass.  One could argue that it's not Christianity that's being attacked but conservatism, which is so often tied to Christianity.

 

In the very liberal Northeast and in California life is incredibly different than in the south or even midwest US.  In my office when people found out that my Fiancee and I didn't live together, I was mocked....even by HR who insisted on writing "boyfriend" when I added him as emergency contact, but let my co-worker write "husband" for her live in boyfriend because "she felt she was married" and several gay people have "fiancee" as their emergency contact.   I tried to explain that it was my religious beliefs that made it so my fiancee and I could not live together but she laughed and said that it didn't matter, he would not be classified as anything other than boyfriend until we did.

 

As described in my other thread, the fact that I am conservative is seen as a buzzkill.  Sorry, but I'm just not happy listening to Katy Perry's "Peacock" song.

 

There is real hate against the Catholic church in particular in my area due to the proximity to where some of the sex abuse scandals broke.  Churches are dying here....with some having only 2% of people between 18-35.  At pre-cana 6 of the 8 couples who spoke had lived together before marriage and had contracepted and said they were not ashamed for doing so.  Out of the 2 dozen couples we were one of the only ones who weren't living together....and who attended Mass on a regular basis.  The sad thing is, this was offered as the "more conservative" approach to Marriage Prep.  So churches don't even accept that.  About 45 minutes from me a parish that would be considered vibrant (homeschooling families, young people, families in general) is constantly under fire from both the liberal Catholics and the traditionalists.  Those who are liberal are constantly complaining in the public venue about how horrible it is that the priest opposes abortion, preaches about chastity (in an age appropriate way) and did not allow a gay couple to be godparents, etc.  The traditionalists complain to the dioceses because the priest will only do OF masses and dosn't mandate veiling or use incense (due to the needs of the ill in his parish).  The liberals have called the cops on the homeschool co-op declaring truancy, and the traditionalists had a lawyer write up a threat against the dioceses for not allowing them to bring in their own priest to say EF.  (a bit of history, this church was built 15 years ago consolidating 3 churches with poor attendance, one of those 3 had become strictly an EF only Parish, EF is offered now weekly about 30 mins away and in another dioceses less than 20 mins away)

 

It's a freaking mess.  It makes me very resentful of the entire process.  Especially the people I meet in my local church who attend only because of the happily liberal senior priest who preaches about his dream of women priests and wrote a letter scandalizing Benedict and happy for his retirement and sent it to the local newspaper.
 

Some of the more liberal mainstream Christian churches are socially acceptable, so I wouldn't say it's all of Christianity, but Conservative Christianity and it's practice that's attacked, with those who would be considered "mainstream" conservative being attacked along with the radicals.

[John Ryan]

And I'm not an anarchist either, but comparing providing insurance plans that don't cover contraception to pedophiliac rape in order to justify this trampling of religious liberty is simply ridiculous and insane - and displays the utterly warped and sick moral thinking at the heart of leftism.

 

I am going to ignore everything else you wrote, because I honestly do not care to respond to infantile rants. My comparison there was meant to be hyperbolic. I was using an extreme example to show that the Government does have an interest in overruling religious liberty. I was not comparing the two in any other way. 

 

The reason party-member Catholics cannot see the other side of the issue is because they cannot see anything valuable in contraceptives. A life-changing decision such as having a baby is an extremely important issue to a woman (and the man). I think it is important enough to rival religious liberty.

Edited May 6, 2014 by John Ryan

[blazeingstar]

I am going to ignore everything else you wrote, because I honestly do not care to respond to infantile rants. My comparison there was meant to be hyperbolic. I was using an extreme example to show that the Government does have an interest in overruling religious liberty. I was not comparing the two in any other way. 

 

The reason party-member Catholics cannot see the other side of the issue is because they cannot see anything valuable in contraceptives. A life-changing decision such as having a baby is an extremely important issue to a woman (and the man). I think it is important enough to rival religious liberty.

 

We aren't trying to make contraception illegal, we just don't want to pay for it.

 

When used as contraception it does not add any value to society, as it just contributes to meaningless sex or to selfish sex and unwanted children.  I am a child born from failed hormonal contraception and a condom and when I talked about this in college about half my classmates had been told they were conceived while their parents were using some form of contraception.

 

There is also now evidence that due to it's widespread use it's in the water...potentially preventing those who want children from having them.  We don't know the full affects yet.

 

As a medical substance used to prevent woman's issues, it can be wonderful.  But simply "making big decisions" is not a reason that I should pay for someone else's choice to have sex.

[Lilllabettt]

If you use contraception, you are participating in the objectification of sex. Attention male and female neanderthals: Human beings are not things. Sex is a meeting of people, not objects. You are part of the reason my first graders wanted to diet. You are part of the problem. Don't make me pay for your misogyny. 

[4588686]

If you use contraception, you are participating in the objectification of sex. Attention male and female neanderthals: Human beings are not things. Sex is a meeting of people, not objects. You are part of the reason my first graders wanted to diet. You are part of the problem. Don't make me pay for your misogyny.

Bull shit

[4588686]

Although I'm glad that funding misogyny is ok when it's done through the government rather than through a private insurer.

[4588686]

Although I'm glad the Church's apologists can spare some of the time they might otherwise use to defend the Church's 2,000 year exclusion of women from the hierarchy or decision to include St Paul's sexist rantings as cannon to explain to women who want to have sex without getting pregnant and sexually active gay people that they are marginalizing and objectifying themselves.

[CrossCuT]

If you use contraception, you are participating in the objectification of sex. Attention male and female neanderthals: Human beings are not things. Sex is a meeting of people, not objects. You are part of the reason my first graders wanted to diet. You are part of the problem. Don't make me pay for your misogyny. 

 

The true virtue of unapologetic catholic judgment in full force. Because 100% of people who use contraception hate babies and treat eachother like meat. 

[4588686]

The true virtue of unapologetic catholic judgment in full force. Because 100% of people who use contraception hate babies and treat eachother like meat.

Well, it's ok if you rip off a bit of jargon from the social justice movement first. Apparently.

[blazeingstar]

The true virtue of unapologetic catholic judgment in full force. Because 100% of people who use contraception hate babies and treat eachother like meat. 

 

Yeah, and contraception's perfect so two well meaning teenagers who "perfectly" use contraception could never get pregnant. 

 

Even after male sterilization their is a period of time men can still impregnate a woman....and tube ties had been know to fail years later.

 

The fact that contraception don't want to focus on is that sex produces babies.  And sex without acknowledging that a baby can happen is selfish sex.  If one wants to participate in a wholly selfish activity, then they can pay for it themselves.

 

And it does lead to a very selfish "me" culture.

[CrossCuT]

Yeah, and contraception's perfect so two well meaning teenagers who "perfectly" use contraception could never get pregnant. 

 

Even after male sterilization their is a period of time men can still impregnate a woman....and tube ties had been know to fail years later.

 

The fact that contraception don't want to focus on is that sex produces babies.  And sex without acknowledging that a baby can happen is selfish sex.  If one wants to participate in a wholly selfish activity, then they can pay for it themselves.

 

And it does lead to a very selfish "me" culture.

 

I am not arguing to effectiveness of contraception I am merely suggesting the mere possibility that maybe the use of contraception does not render the users as selfish, sex crazed, objectified individuals. I think the person is cause of that...not the contraceptives.

 

Would you also say that everyone who owns a gun is a senseless murderer? No. 

A majority of the time, the exact same reasons for contraceptive use is identical for the use of Fertility Awareness (NFP).

[Anastasia13]

You are perfectly fine with not wanting to pay for a young married woman ever being able to use contraception when she is medically unable to safely carry a baby but have no qualms about paying for a woman with no ovaries/ uterus?

 

Crosscut was right to point out the judgement of assuming all couples that use contraception are simply objectifying people. It takes time to learn NFP and some people find things in their medical situation change after they get married and maybe even have their first kid. Scripture advised married couples not to hold off on sex from each other for more than a limited time lest one of them fall into temptation. There are people who could die if they carry another child. If you don't want to support any protection beyond NFP even if permitted by their priests, then fine, but please don't act like the one people using contraception are horny objectifiers. Such sweeping judgements are not called for.

 

You are ok with preventing covering any contraception but no one has spoken up about the poor stewardship of paying for maternity leave for a woman who has already had her uterus removed? This goes against the stewardship encouraged when Adam and Eve were to care for things and exemplified in other instances of scripture-the 10 virgins with oil parable for example. God does not want people to waste. Don't any of you care about something beyond gay marriage and contraception?

 

Gosh, sometimes I think some Christians would vote for someone who was hardline pro-life (on the abortion issue only) before you would vote for someone who wasn't a hardline pro-life (on abortion only) but exemplified Christian charity and worked for things that gave people hope for a decent life and opportunity beyond poverty and ignorance praying to get medication to save their/their family's lives and would given them an environment that wouldn't literally make them sick. It's the hypocrisy of attitudes like that which make it easy for others to mock Christians and not get shut down for it.

 

This thread was about persecution but is almost exclusively about Obamacare covering contraception. I hope that every one of you that is not happy with the situation has contacted your representatives. Here is for House of Reps if anyone reading this needs. http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

 

I think this thread had some good points.

Belief - Government makes you pay? - Are you ok with paying?

Anti-contraception - yes - no

Anti-war - yes - yes (and if you are not, you should be)

Anti-way public school works - yes - varies

[Lilllabettt]

If you are using birth control to contracept i.e, you are using contraception, you are participating in objectification.

That's the reality of the situation. 

People who do it might have "reasons." I guess thats between them and the Lord.

The psychosocial consequences of objectifying/giving permission to another to objectify are the same regardless of all the warm fuzzy intentions. This has nothing to do with Christian religion, btw. 

Dehumanization: it stinks. 

See below. Written by a college educated female and posted on the website of an organization  that is supposed to encourage conversations about what it means to be a "good man."

http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/you-can-get-laid-without-being-a-jerk/