Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. On “Asexual” as umbrella term (February 22) "Sometimes I hear newbies propose that there should be a separate asexual community that is *not* inclusive of gray/demi/etc. folks. I would go so far as to say that this idea is totally pointless."

2. Eliminating the Impossible (February 20) Very good point from xkcd.

3. Fix Your Hearts or Die (February 22, via) "Meanwhile men are finding out that they'd rather suffer loneliness than learn how to treat women as human beings instead of possessions, because treating a woman as a possession is domination, which means that it is seen as not just masculine, but core to masculinity. Treating a woman as a human being is gay, which is the least masculine thing of all."

4. Gaza death toll for first 16 months of war far higher than reported, says peer-reviewed study (February 18) "'The combined evidence suggests that, as of 5 January 2025, 3-4% of the population of the Gaza Strip had been killed violently and there have been a substantial number of non-violent deaths caused indirectly by the conflict,' the authors of the study, a team including an economist, demographer, epidemiologist and survey specialists, wrote in the Lancet Global Health."

5. Does Waiting for Marriage for Sex Increase the Chance for Painful Sex? (February 23) "Because for so many women, the first sexual encounter doesn’t happen because her body wanted it—it happened because 'time’s up.'"

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Image source.

Links related to the antichrist:

1. Former top general calls military's removal of trans troops a costly mistake (February 21) "I'm completely qualified to serve. I'm good at my job. The Navy has paid for me to be good at this. If we really are preparing for deployment or combat, why can't we just focus on doing our jobs and doing them to the best of our abilities?"

2. The Battle Of Minneapolis (February 22) "Think about that: You now live in a country where volunteers deliver babies at home, in secret, off the books, because mothers fear that if they go to the hospital, they will be abducted by masked, armed agents of the state while giving birth."

3. In Crackdown On Worst Of Worst Children, ICE Raids Kids Who Wrote Letters, Deports Sick Two-Month-Old (February 20) "Besides, before going on to whatever job she’ll have at a right-wing think tank, or in Hell itself, departing DHS propaganda minister Tricia McLaughlin explained to the Independent that it’s perfectly normal to dump sick infants across the border in the middle of the night, especially if you can do it before an interfering federal judge can stop you."

4. I posted a link about this same story last time, but this one is also worth reading: A Presidents' Day lesson from Philadelphia (February 17) "Instead, she wrote, 'It is not disputed that President Washington owned slaves.'"

5. I Love Illinois. I Love America. I Refuse to Stop. (February 19, via) "I am begging my fellow politicians, my fellow Illinoisans, my fellow Americans to realize that right now in this country we are not fighting over policy or political party. We are fighting over whether we are going to be a civilization rooted in empathy and kindness — or one rooted in cruelty and rage." From Governor JB Pritzker.

6. UN experts condemn US executive order imposing fuel blockade on Cuba (February 12) "They expressed deep concern about the foreseeable humanitarian consequences of restricting fuel supplies to Cuba through the coercion of third States. 'Cuba is already experiencing severe energy shortages, due to previous U.S. sanctions, with blackouts lasting up to 20 hours in many areas, affecting refrigeration for food and medication, and contributing to public health crises.'"

7. Maine immigration observers sue over Trump admin "domestic terrorist watchlist" threats (February 24) "Addressing their interactions, the lawsuit put it bluntly, '[T]he message of intimidation was express and clear: Plaintiff Hilton’s lawfully protected First Amendment activity, and that of her fellow observer, would result in them having their personal data captured and being placed on a ‘domestic terrorist watchlist.’'"

8. ICE Whistle Blower (February 24) "'Never in my career had I ever received such a blatant unlawful order, nor one conveyed in such a troubling manner,' he said. 'Incredibly, I was being shown this memo in secret by my supervisor, who made sure that I understood that disobedience would cost me my job.'"

9. We Can Beat Gavin Newsom (February 18) "If you are committed to progressive policy, Newsom is shit. If you want a Democratic leader who will relentlessly fight the right, then Gavin 'I want to praise Charlie Kirk at every opportunity' Newsom is also shit."

10. A U.S. veteran adopted an orphan from Iran. Decades later, ICE is trying to deport her (February 24) "But in the eyes of the U.S. government, the woman, who's now in her 50s and lives in California, is not American. Instead, she's an immigrant who overstayed her visa since she was a toddler and therefore, subject to deportation. She spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity because she fears speaking publicly will complicate her immigration case."

Blogaround + Happy Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year decoration with rabbits, for the year of the rabbit. Image source.

Happy Year of the Rabbit! 兔年大吉！

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1. 'It was a beautiful moment': Moore County drag show goes on despite power outages (December 5) So, some conservatives were outraged about a drag show, and then there was a power outage- and then one of the people who opposed the drag show tweeted "The power is out in Moore County, and I know why." I find this SO FASCINATING, because yes, I have been in many situations where a Christian says something- something that if it was really true, would be very alarming and maybe we should get law enforcement involved- but nobody takes it that way. (The example that comes to mind is people saying, "I'm such a bad sinner, if you all knew what I've done, you wouldn't even want to be in the same room as me." Or a speaker I saw at a Christian event who said, "I've broken every one of the 10 commandments"- and immediately my brain was like "oh my goodness, she had sex???" and then my second thought was "WAIT, 'do not murder' is one of the 10 commandments" (!!!!!!!) and then my third thought was "well Jesus said that being angry at someone is as bad as murder, so I'm sure that's what she meant.")

So- "The power is out in Moore County, and I know why" and then she was so surprised when the police showed up at her house. Because, she meant it like, obviously God has heard our prayers to stop this drag show, and God has answered by causing this power outage, and this is such wonderful news, it's so exciting to see God working. She had no idea that, to normal people, it sounded like she was saying "I committed a crime." Her mistake was tweeting it where people outside of her Christian bubble could see it.

2. Wards of God (December 2022) "They have families. And those families are really struggling, maybe. And sometimes they’re struggling primarily because the state is intervening oppressively, but either way they exist."

3. Idaho’s ‘faith-healing’ exemption has led to more senseless child deaths (January 19) [content note: child death] So... I'm not sure if changing the law will help here. If "your kid might die" isn't a good enough reason for parents to go against their religious beliefs, then why would "your kid might die, and then you'll get arrested and charged with murder" be a good enough reason? I assume these are parents who love their kids and also really really believe that it's wrong to get real medical care, and that if they "obey God" then God will magically save their kids' lives. (Or, if God doesn't save them, well, it was "God's plan" so it's okay.)

I'd be interested to know if other states which do not have a "faith-healing exemption" have fewer children dying in these kinds of situations. Or, maybe if they arrest other people besides the parents- people who pressured the parents into refusing medical care, people who might fear "I'll get arrested" more than they fear "the kid might die."

But definitely some kind of action needs to be taken to stop this. Children have a right to real medical care.

4. Nonviolent Activism, Stress and a Major Victory in Oklahoma: On Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s Motion to Delay Executions (January 19) [content note: death penalty] "I don’t ever intend to sit back and let government killing of its’ citizens ever become an easy process."

5. The Humble Power Box That People Line Up To See (January 20) "A power box in Lujiazui, Shanghai's financial hub, has become a popular check-in spot."

Blogaround

1. Black Hole Star – The Star That Shouldn't Exist (December 15) Wow this is wild.

2. Longtermism: the good, the bad and the ridiculous (December 12) You know how I sometimes talk about how hell completely ruins Christianity, because you can justify any atrocity ever by saying "well it's not as bad as hell"/ you can claim that what you're doing is so good and important even though it harms people, because there's a chance you're saving people from hell/ etc? Well, turns out the secular world is able to come up with an equivalent which is bad in all the same ways that heaven/hell are. Great...

3. The Pro-Life Mayberry Myth (January 8) "People who oppose Clinics aren’t that different from those who oppose colored folk."

4. Back on the (prayer) chain gang (January 13) I wrote about prayer last week- here's another Christian perspective on it. Also, the footnote at the end about how church prayer chains are "women's work" is SPOT-ON.

And another post from the Slacktivist: Tasting and grazing (January 16) [content note: euphemisms for oral sex] "Sex is not a separate universe with a separate set of rules."

5. Mansplaining in the Bible (January 15) "In Hannah’s case, well-meaning but totally clueless Elkanah doesn’t help the situation when he mansplains to Hannah why, in truth, she has no reason to be sad."

6. "For God So Loved The World?" (pdf, published in 1989) This is a very long, very good paper about the concept of "redemptive suffering" as it relates to Christian conceptualizations of what Jesus' death meant, because "redemptive suffering" has been used to argue that it's *okay* that injustice is happening (in particular, this paper mainly focuses on oppression of women) and that victims need to just accept their suffering like Christ did.

A lot of very very good points here. It's long, but since I'm a Christian feminist, I'm extremely interested in all of this, and I recommend reading the whole thing.

My opinion is, the core of the problem being discussed here is that suffering does exist in reality, and all religions have to address that somehow- have to address it by offering some kind of hope in the midst of suffering, something positive or inspirational, something along those lines. But there's a very fine line between "you will move on from this bad thing and have a good future" and "if that bad thing hadn't happened, then this other good thing wouldn't have happened after" [which may be true in a literal, factual, cause-and-effect sense] and "it's actually GOOD that that bad thing happened, because look at these good things that came as a result." There's a very fine line between "God understands what you're going through" and "therefore you're blessed to be in this bad situation because you are getting closer to God." There's a very fine line between "God sees and cares about what you're going through, God knows you don't deserve this, God will make this right someday" and "that's good enough, you don't need to consider whether it's possible for *you* to make a change and get OUT of the bad situation."

I 100% support the idea of using religion to find something positive in a bad situation after the fact. But we have to be careful that we don't buy into those "positive" things so much that we are no longer working to prevent those bad things from happening in the first place. Prevention is much MUCH better than finding a silver lining after the fact, and we have to make sure we NEVER lose sight of that.

For example, when someone dies, you often hear people say "they're in a better place." But nobody really believes that 100%. If you did, then you would kill yourself right there so you could go to "a better place." Everyone knows that *not dying* is better than if someone dies and then everyone convinces themselves to believe "they're in a better place." My god, I hope resurrection is true, but I don't know.

Anyway, my views are probably closest to what this paper calls "the suffering God." I also think the writings of Dr. King and Oscar Romero (also mentioned in the paper) are very important and powerful. They truly did take up the cross, and they had a lot to say about it.

I disagree with the paper's conclusion, because the writers seem to be saying they're not okay with *any* talk of anything positive at all related to suffering, because it can be twisted and used to tell victims that they need to just accept their suffering and that it's somehow good that these things are happening to them. I mean, yes I see that it can be twisted that way- but the reality is that suffering does exist, and I think religion has to at least say something hopeful about it. Otherwise, what good is religion?

Also, the writers of this paper seem to be saying they're not okay with any Christian view that says the cross is important. At the end, they present their own Christian ideology, which includes the point "No one was saved by the death of Jesus," which is, uh, surprising, but DAMN I read this section and I'm like "that'll preach." The Christian ideology they present here at the end is powerful and worth reading.

7. If you know someone is adopted—tell them (January 12) It is shocking to me that apparently there really exist people who adopt kids and then intend for those kids to never find out.

8. Atheist group demands Indiana sheriff end coercive inmate baptisms (January 14) "The problem here isn’t that the prisoners are making a public proclamation about their faith, which is obviously their right. The problem is the Sheriff’s Department promoting these religious events as if they’re inherently positive and treating Christianity as the office’s default faith."

9. Penelope Garcia’s Criminal Minds (December 21) "Historians have their favorite online resources, but where in the digital world is Garcia searching? According to the series, Garcia is accessing a series of digital archives that are equal parts fantasy and aspiration. Watching her work and seeing her archives are opportunities to think about what it would take to make this fantasy the historian’s reality."

10. The Double Standards of Sexual Expectations in Marriage (January 16) Oh my this post is so good. Every single point here is SO REAL. This could be an entire exhibition hall in the museum of "Are the straights okay?" (And no, we are not okay.)

Blogaround

A photo of a shiny metal playground slide in the sun, labelled with types "Fire" and "Steel" as if it's a pokemon. This twitter post has a bunch of slides with pokemon types and it's FANTASTIC.

1. Months-Long Dutch Church Service To Protect Migrants Ends After Policy Shift (posted January 31) YES. The kingdom of heaven is like ^

2. My #ExposeChristianSchools Story (posted February 1) "Taking advantage of these natural and normal vulnerabilities of children and minors with an agenda is exploitative. And yet it is normalized in Christian schools in the name of love."

3. Fake News About Abortion in Virginia (posted February 1) [note: the language in this article assumes pregnant people are all women, but that's not true~ trans people exist!] "But there’s contempt for women embedded in the idea that, absent legal prohibition, someone on the verge of giving birth might instead terminate her pregnancy to avoid the brutalities of labor. 'No matter what the law were, in real life, these things don’t happen[.]'"

4. Queering Eve (posted January 31) "Eve becomes the heroine of the story when she resolves to call God’s bluff. She decides that obtaining the knowledge of good and evil is worth the risk of death; that she doesn’t want to live under God’s thumb, unable to fully understand the world in which she resides." I love this! You know, my favorite type of bible fan fiction to write is re-imagining the stories of biblical characters who are portrayed as "bad guys." (Like Achan and Ham.)

5. It’s OK to Question White Evangelicals Adopting Black Kids (posted January 28) "She calls a Black woman “racist” for asking whether she’s introducing her Black children to Black culture—and ignores the existence of real racism."

6. Meet the Chicago woman who rented hotel rooms for the homeless during deep freeze (posted February 1) The kingdom of heaven is like ^

7. A Birth Plan for Dying (posted September 2018) [content note: child death] "The worst of it this: If you show this map to anyone, to try to give shape to the contours of the greatest, most difficult act of love you have ever committed, you will be called a murderer." An account of a "late-term" abortion of a wanted pregnancy.

8. Epiphany: Jesus wept (posted January 6) "And then God Almighty — God who laid the foundation of the earth, who determined its measurements when the morning stars sang together, God who commands the morning and causes the dawn to know its place, God who bound the chains of the Pleiades and loosed the cords of Orion — wept."

9. Inside the Scam of the "Purity" Movement (posted February 5) "Using the hashtag, women shared stories of waiting indefinitely for a husband to materialize, spending years lonely and riddled with guilt if they masturbated, or blaming themselves for their sexual abuse."

10. Before judging 'late-term abortion,' understand what it means, doctors say (posted February 6) [note: the language in this article assumes pregnant people are all women, but that's not true~ trans people exist!] "Abortion later in pregnancy is not used as an alternative to delivering healthy women's full-term, viable pregnancies. Additionally, it's callous to suggest that healthy women with viable pregnancies at term abruptly change their minds and seek abortion care as the solution." PREACH.

11. US sees limitations on reuniting migrant families (posted February 2) "'The Trump administration’s response is a shocking concession that it can’t easily find thousands of children it ripped from parents, and doesn’t even think it’s worth the time to locate each of them,' said Lee Gelernt, the lead ACLU attorney." Oh god this is bad.

12. The Ugly Nihilism of Jerry Falwell Jr.’s Comments About Why It Doesn’t Matter if Trump Is Immoral (posted January 2) "And it’s a 'distortion,' he said, to imagine that the country as a whole should love its neighbors and help the poor just because Jesus told individuals to do so."

13. On Raising Strong Daughters (posted February 5) "Having a daughter who is willing and able to talk back, and push back—and does mine ever —may sometimes make parenting more difficult in the moment, but it also makes her safer."

Blogaround

A cake with layers whose colors are the asexual flag. Image source.

1. How Did Saying “Merry Christmas” Become a Judeo-Christian Value? (posted October 17) "The problem, I suspect, is that people sometimes forget that Judeo-Christian is not a synonym for evangelical Christian—because, and let’s be frank, that is how it is used."

2. An Indiana county just halted a lifesaving needle exchange program, citing the Bible (posted October 20) You'll be shocked to hear that the bible verse they cited doesn't have anything to do with needle exchange programs. Also, they literally said "morals" was the reason to NOT approve a program that saves lives. Just goes to show in conservative-Christian-land, "morals" doesn't actually mean morals at all. It never did.

3. Get a Thumbs-Up from Trick-Or-Treaters with This BB-8-O'-Lantern (posted October 18) NICE.

4. Ace Community Census. A survey to gather data on the asexual community. Go over and take it~ Even if you're not asexual you can still take it- they want some non-asexual data to compare with.

5. The 'orphan' I adopted from Uganda already had a family (posted October 13) "The travesty in this injustice is beyond words. I must be clear in the following statement: My race, country of origin, wealth (though small, it's greater than that of the vast majority of people in the world), my access to "things," my religion -- none of these privileges entitles me to the children of the poor, voiceless and underprivileged."

6. On Protecting Women from Abusers, Franklin Graham Is an Opportunist and a Hypocrite (posted October 25) "In early 2016, when Naghmeh Abedini accused her husband, Saeed Abedini, of abusing her, Graham immediately sided with her alleged abuser. Graham undermined her statements publicly and went so far as to suggest, again publicly, that she was doing the devil’s work."

7. The rules about responding to call outs aren’t working (posted October 24) "Like most formal descriptions of social skills, the rules don’t quite match reality."

Blogaround

Edgar Allen Poe Dameron cosplay. Image source.

1. Karen Handel and the spurious Christian case against LGBT adoption (posted June 23) "Most conservative leaders I know who vocally oppose LGBT adoption are not lining up to register as foster parents."

Blogaround

"for any of you having an awful day, here's a kitty adorably failing to look vicious." Image source.

1. In China, a church-state showdown of biblical proportions (posted January 11) "Many Chinese no longer accept the idea that being Christian means forfeiting a Chinese identity."

2. On Purity Pledges: I Ate Cheesecake, And I Liked It (posted December 7) "Kids are being asked to make decisions about their bodies, their sexuality, and their relationships, long before they have even the faintest notion of what it’s like to be even want to date someone, let alone develop a relationship with them and want to have sex with them."

3. The Astronomically Correct “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” Is Fun and Factual (posted January 9) "Lightyears out from here to there / your light's distorted by the air."

4. One Tweet Shows the Hypocrisy of America's Reaction to White People Rioting at Ohio State (posted January 13) "If this had been a black majority, can we honestly say the rampant fires, stadium break-in and goal post destruction would be have been treated as celebratory revelry?"

5. "Jesus loves me" in Mandarin Chinese:



6. 10 Questions About Why Ableist Language Matters, Answered (posted November 2014) "You see something wrong? Compare it to a disabled body or mind. Paralyzed. Lame. Crippled. Schizophrenic. Diseased. Sick."

7. A Better Way to Talk About Adoption (posted January 14) "I feel that if I allow myself to think of anything else beyond what has happened, such as being adopted into another family or even staying in China, that that could not have been God’s best for me. That somehow my birth parents had no value in God’s eyes because God didn’t provide them the means or ability to keep me, since I was 'meant' to be in the family I am in now."

8. "I think we should 'eat somewhere else'..." Image source.

9. LGBTQ Christians: Hope for the Unseen (posted January 16) "People like you don’t exist."

Blogaround

Image source.

1. Examining Adoption Ethics: Part One (posted May 14) "The missionaries and locals are saying something very disturbing: so often vulnerable birth moms are coerced and misled, families are manipulated and deceived, children are flat out bought. International adoption is Big Business. I’ve read emails describing orphanage directors who paid $20 for birth certificates and $75 to take a baby right out of his mother’s hands."

2. A False Gospel of Reconciliation (posted May 17) "The goal toward which the resurrected Jesus is working in the world right now is not some imaginary peace where people 'reconcile' in name only while the abuse is never stopped and the wrong never righted. No, this is instead a total bending of the violent and unjust world back toward God’s shalom, until it is completely put to rights on the final day."

3. a cartoon for the victims of tornadoes (posted May 20)

4. The legacy of silence: Why we ignore the rape of women from Guatemala to Syria (posted May 13) [trigger warning] "I’ve heard multiple stories that detail honor killings after women have been raped in Syria—a survivor is shot by her own brother/husband/whoever in the family."

5. A letter from a former anorexic to the CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch (posted May 24) "Because beauty is not a number. I know, because I got down to size zero. And it wasn't enough."

6. Is Pope Francis a universalist heretic? (posted May 24) "I think we have a much better chance inviting someone to share in the sacred mysteries of Christ when we’ve sat in the trenches with them and fought for causes that we’ve shared than when we come in and say none of what you’re doing is worthwhile because I haven’t yet presented the gospel to you."