Rachel Ford is a programmer, and since 8:00 to 5:00 doesn't provide enough opportunity to bask in screen glare, she writes in her spare time. She was raised a very fundamentalist Christian, but eventually "saw the light." Rachel's personal blog is Rachel's Hobbit Hole, where she discusses everything from Tolkien to state politics.
Mike Huckabee, the man who wants to become President to protect us from an atheistic theocracy, has a solution to violence in this country, particularly in our schools. Take a guess. You’ll never figure it out. Okay, okay… it’s more God. (Gotcha, didn’t I?) Speaking at a conference arranged by televangelist Morris Cerullo, Huckabee recounted how, when he was a youngster, his public school was full of religion: Read more
You may have heard that Republicans were aiming to vote for a 20-week abortion ban on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling. Some Republican Congresswomen took issue with the bill, particularly with the limited rape exception. The political repercussions, they feared, would be damaging to the party. Congressional leadership abandoned plans for the vote, and focused instead on H.R. 7, which … would prohibit insurance plans sold in the new health care exchanges from covering abortion, and it would eliminate tax benefits for small businesses that purchase insurance plans covering abortion. The bill would also prevent the District of Columbia from using its own locally raised funds to subsidize abortion care for low-income women. That bill passed. Some pro-life and conservative voices are not at all happy, however, that the 20-week abortion ban was shelved. Their ire (and vitriol) has come to focus on the Republican congresswomen who voiced concerns with the bill. One of those targets is North Carolina congresswoman Renee Ellmers (below). Which is strange since, as Joan Walsh at Salon notes, Ellmers is hardly the archetype of a woman’s rights activist. Read more
I first heard about NYCpastor.com when I started seeing an article from the site, detailing what kind of women Christian men should avoid, making its rounds on social media. (Atheist, divorced, career, feminist, and travel-loving women are among those who will doubtless be relieved to know that they didn’t make the cut). According to the site’s “about” page (no doubt built for the inevitable moment when readers wondered, “who are you, person who is so wise in the ways of women?”), NYC Pastor is the blog of Dr. Stephen Kim, pastor of Mustard Seed Church. Since writing that illuminating piece, Dr. Kim has addressed a few other burning issues (like, do dead fetuses go to hell?) in a fashion so monstrous that he immediately outs himself as either one of the greatest Internet trolls of all time… or a fairly typical New Calvinist. Read more
Christian mom and blogger Veronica Partridge posted an entry to her blog earlier this month, detailing her decision to stop wearing leggings. What’s notable about the post are the reasons she gives for this choice — reasons that we see echoed throughout the “modesty” doctrines of the Christian community, that teach women that their clothing choices and the appearance of their bodies are responsible for the thoughts and actions of other people. Now, before going further, I do want to be clear that I’m not criticizing Veronica, or calling into question her right to dress however she likes, for whatever reason she wants. I’m also not suggesting that she was hostile or anything of that nature in her post; she actually goes out of her way to stress that these are her thoughts and not a universal moral injunction against yoga pants. My problem isn’t with Veronica at all — but with the religious teachings that can convince her that wearing an item of clothing of which she is very fond is a sin, and can in turn cause other people to sin. My problem is with “modesty culture.” Veronica’s post is simply a good illustration of how women internalize these teachings, and the impact they have on a person’s thoughts. Veronica writes that she had “been having a conviction weighing heavy on [her] heart” regarding tight pants, but one discussion in particular, with a set of both male and female friends, really struck her: Read more
