1. The Realities of Voting (posted October 25) "We convince ourselves that our one vote matters, and if we win, then by God, we are right and superior and know better than all of you losers, who are so obviously out of God’s will in how you voted."
2. Traditional Marriage (posted October 31) Here's Sudden Clarity Clarence's take.
3. 5th Edition of the Feminist Odyssey Blog Carnival: Having It All (posted October 31)
4. I've Learned the Secret to Dating! (posted November 1) Amen to this.
5. QAMA: The Calculator That Makes You Better At Math (posted July 9, 2012) Nice!
6. Why the "Rape Thing" Haunts Republicans: Because sometimes they aren't as hypocritical as voters (posted November 1)
7. A Year of Biblical Womanhood (review) (posted October 30) "Agreed, no one is following all the commandments literally. People pick and choose. But here's the deal: They don't realize they are picking and choosing. And even if you argue with these people, pointing out how they are picking and choosing, they still can't see it."
8. ‘If conservatives really believe in the evil of abortion, they are morally obligated to embrace a policy that stands to limit it so impressively’ (posted October 31)
9. An Open Letter to Jim Daly, President of Focus on the Family, From a Gay Evangelical (posted November 2) "Over time, I prayed more and more fervently for God's intervention. It got to the point that I was crying myself to sleep, night after night, begging for God to take away my same-sex attractions and give me opposite-sex ones."
10. Easily solve "spot the difference" pictures within seconds (posted 2007)
11. Paying with Post It Notes (posted November 3) "I am paying you back for all the bad things I have done."
12. Right Mom/ Left Mom: How should Christians respond to the debate over legalizing gay marriage? (posted November 2) This video does a good job of explaining why Christians should support legalizing same-sex marriage. (However, the title is misleading- it totally DOESN'T present 2 points of view.)
First, the "spot the
ReplyDeletedifference" one made me lol :)
Second, I have to seriously disagree with Slacktivist's take on the ACA. Before
I even tackle the "contraception reduces abortion" argument, it's
crucial to mention a couple of points that Slacktivist completely ignored.
1) The ACA, with the mandate for institutions to provide contraception for
employees via mandatory healthcare insurance, violates freedom of conscience.
Setting aside the fact that hormonal contraception often causes very early
abortions, and whether you (collective "you") believe that
contraception is sinful or not, the fact remains that there are thousands of
Catholic, Christian, Orthodox, and other religious hospitals, schools, small
businesses, and the like that are being required to provide a service that
directly contradicts their moral and religious beliefs. Let's say for the sake
of the argument that contraception does in fact drastically reduce abortions
and that it would do a lot of good to the society. However, the government still
cannot step in and demand that the employers at the Catholic hospital down the
street, who believe in the sinfulness of contraception and therefore cannot in
good conscience purchase a healthcare plan that would provide free
contraception for its employees, provide this anyway. It does not take a
constitutional scholar to recognize that this is a blatant affront on the right
of people of faith to freedom of conscience. If the government can't force Jews
to purchase or sell non-Kosher items, it certainly cannot force other people of
faith to provide something that contradicts their beliefs.
2) In 2014, certain provisions in the ACA will go into effect that force people
enrolled in certain healthcare plans to pay an abortion premium from their own
pocket, irrespective of their religious or moral convictions. So basically,
people objecting to abortion will have to go find another healthcare plan that
doesn't contain this premium. This hardly seems an attempt to reduce abortion.
This is one of numerous articles that I found from back in the spring when this
premium was finalized: http://www.bdfund.org/obamacareincourt
Even if both of these points didn't matter, Slacktivist's article makes a moot
point, because contraception has not helped to reduce abortion in this country.
Although I could explain why myself, it's more economical to simply link you to
this post:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/badcatholic/2012/11/does-contraception-reduce-the-abortion-rate.html.
I'm not linking it because this guy is Catholic - it's excellent simply for the
logical and factual evidence he presents as to why contraception should not and cannot be used as a means to reduce abortion. I'd like to add one stat that I
don't think he mentions in this article. There is a report by Edin and England
(“Unmarried Couples with Children”) that shows that since the introduction of
"family planning" (i.e. contraception) in the U.S. via Title X,
nonmarital births were 5.3 % in 1960, 11 % in 1970, 18% in 1980, 28% in 1990, 33% in 1999, and 41% today. If contraception limits pregnancy rates, we should not see this enormous explosion of extramarital births since the introduction of the pill.