The Left Can Be Just as Bad as the Right – The SCCL Pence Post

The Left Can Be Just as Bad as the Right – The SCCL Pence Post

(June 7, 2017 edit farther below –
Drury posted a link to this at her SCCL group. Most of her readers have missed the point of the post. Some of them incorrectly assume I am an evangelical, that I voted for Trump, or am a member of the GOP – I am not.

This post has been modified several times to add new information

Some of the more frequent criticisms I’ve received in regards to this post I have addressed in edits below)

January 2021 update: 

In light of this (Hill news story right below), I wonder if the clowns at “Stuff Christian Culture Likes” would like to walk back any of their harsh rhetoric of Pence?

(Link): Fox’s Chris Wallace: Pence “chose the Constitution” over helping Trump

More (January 2021 updates):

(Link):  Mike Pence reportedly stunned and incensed at Trump for inciting Capitol riots

(Link): A Reuters photographer says he overheard pro-Trump insurrectionists saying they wanted to hang Mike Pence at the Capitol

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Over at Liberal- to Ex- Christian (and sometimes atheist) SCCL Facebook group, Stephanie Drury linked to an editorial (her link),

“I Was Trained for the Culture Wars in Home School, Awaiting Someone Like Mike Pence as a Messiah”

“”Christofascists have been wanting someone like Pence in the White House and, until now, didn’t have a way to get one in.”

Posted by Kieryn Darkwater on January 26, 2017
–end quote–

My main point is that groups such as Drury’s, many left wingers, many Ex Christians, are just as bad as those they criticize.

Depending on the topic, they can be just as hateful, rude, or harbor as many blind spots and double standards as those they criticize, whether we’re talking about Republicans, conservative Christians, and Donald Trump (or V.P. Pence) or LGBT causes, or abortion, or whatever the issue.

By the way – Drury’s SCCL Facebook group has largely nose-dived into being an anti-Trump type group over the last few months.

She used to cover spiritual abuse by churches and the like, but politics seem to be over-taking her group a bit.

It seems like every 4th to 5th post at the SCCL group pertains to criticizing Trump.

The Real Bully: Not Tolerating and Misrepresenting Trump Voters and All Who Are Concerned About Islamic Terrorism Via Refugee Programs

The Real Bully: Not Tolerating and Misrepresenting Trump Voters and All Who Are Concerned About Islamic Terrorism Via Refugee Programs

(Oct 2018 and May 2020 Updates Below)

The woman whose blog post I am addressing is guilty of the very things she accuses others of. The irony.

I am not positive, but I believe the following was written by the same woman who I had to un-follow or mute on Twitter over her non-stop ‘Never Trump’ ranting several months ago (and/or she Tweeted me several times disagreeing with my links to news stories about Islamic refugees who had raped women or killed people). (I believe she is on Twitter here (Link): @MYsongofpraise )

(She is now tweeting under the name Melody / @PeaceofResista1 – more on this below – May 2020 update: she has apparently deleted the “PeaceofResist1” Twitter account at some point)

April 8, 2016 , UPDATE

As of a few moments ago, “@MYsongofpraise” blocked me on Twitter. LOL. My goodness.

I think I had her on mute myself, or else unfollowed her, but I didn’t block her. But she has blocked me from following her Twitter tonight.

I cannot grasp the mentality: she feels that Trump is a bully, but she uses her blog and Twitter account to bully anyone who voted for Trump, or who is not naive about Islamic migration and Muslim refugees (as she is).

I called her out on all that via this blog post (which I shared on Twitter, and just a few minutes ago on Twitter), and she must have just seen one of my Tweets, because she only just blocked me a few moments ago.

// end update

I am neither strongly for or against Trump.

I did not like Trump’s sexist comments or behavior, as reported in the media. I do think that gender complementarian Christians should have spoken out more forcefully against Trump’s sexism than they did.

In my view, some who support Trump go over board, but then, so do people who are opposed to Trump.

You have Trump supporters who get vitriolic over the mildest criticisms of Trump or his policies, and they seem to feel Trump is the second coming of Jesus and can walk on water and do no wrong.

On the other hand, Liberal Anti- Trumpers and conservative Never Trumpers are equally bad, but in the opposite direction – they behave as though Trump is the reincarnation of Hitler, which he is most certainly not (and the non-stop comparisons by them of Trump to Hitler cheapens the horror of the Holocaust).

Here is the person and blog post I am responding to (I will include excerpts from the post further below):

(Link): Watchblogging and #evangelicalbetrayal – from the “On Hope” blog, the URL contains the phrase “atckmelodythoughts”

The individual who is behind that blog post – I shall refer to her as “Hope” (is her name Melody?) – describes herself as a moderate conservative.

If I remember correctly, and unless I am confusing her with another person, I followed “Hope” on Twitter several months ago ((Link): @MYsongofpraise – now tweeting as “PeaceofResista1“) ) but had to un-follow her, as she is a rabid Never-Trumper. The frequent anti-Trump rants, and their companion worst-case assumptions of Trump supporters or Trump voters, got tiresome to read.

This blogger is (again, assuming this is the same person I encountered on Twitter months ago), very naive concerning Islamic-motivated terrorism in Western nations.

She’s the sort who wants Americans (and others) willy nilly accepting refugees from Islamic nations, without seemingly caring about the possible negative ramifications involved.

She thinks it’s mean, cruel, or un-Christlike to exercise caution and prudence into accepting migrants, refugees, and immigrants into one’s nation. We’re supposed to allow touchie-feelie, bleeding heart sentiments over-ride caution and good sense in regards to national security.

Evangelical Russell Moore Criticizes Other Conservative Christians For Supporting Sexually Smarmy Donald Trump but Moore Has Attacked Adult Virginity

Evangelical Russell Moore Criticizes Other Conservative Christians For Supporting Sexually Smarmy Donald Trump but Moore Has Attacked Adult Virginity

In the midst of the current election season, we have some conservative Christians who are upset with other conservative Christians for supporting Republican nominee Donald Trump.

The media have been reporting around the clock the last couple of weeks with all sorts of allegations that Trump has groped women and so on. In spite of some of this questionable to clearly sexist behavior, some conservative Christians have spoken up to defend Trump in public, which really angers Russell Moore.

Considering that Moore has criticized adult, Christian virgins in the past (see this post and this post), I find it pretty rich that he wrote an editorial, which was carried by the Washington Post recently, criticizing other Christians for not supporting biblical sexual ethics in light of Donald Trump’s smarmy behavior towards women.

I have additional commentary below this long excerpt:

(Link): If Donald Trump has done anything, he has snuffed out the Religious Right by Russell Moore

Excerpts:

…Journalist Mark Halperin (Link): noted this weekend that virtually all of the “reaffirmation of support” for Trump, following the disclosure of his sexually predatory recorded comments, were from religious conservative leaders. This is a scandal and a disgrace, but it should not be a surprise.

…We know nothing new about Donald Trump. He has told us about his view of women, his view of sexuality, his views of marriage and family for more than 30 years. He has gloried in reality television decadence before reality television was even invented, in his boasts to tabloid reporters. He reaffirmed who he is over and over again, even during this campaign — from misogynistic statements to racist invective to crazed conspiracy theorizing.

And yet here stands the old-guard Religious Right establishment. Some are defending or waving this away, with the same old tropes they’ve used throughout this campaign.

Tolerance, Compassion, and Knowing People Personally

Tolerance, Compassion, and Knowing People Personally

I keep running into politically left wing types or touchie-feelie Christians (some of whom may be somewhat conservative, which surprises me) on social media who assume the reason I must oppose certain things, such as–

-Mass Muslim immigration
-Allowing biological men into women’s bathrooms and fitting rooms under transgender laws

is due to some kind of personal animosity towards these groups of people.

The reason I object to, or am concerned about, things such as mass Muslim immigration or transgender bathroom bills has NOTHING to do with personal hatred on my part towards Muslims or transgender people.

I find this so frustrating that this is assumed about me from the start, and this assumption occurs constantly on Twitter and other blogs.

If you bother to get to know me, or read many of my blog posts on this blog, or stop and ask me my feelings about things (instead of JUST ASSUMING you know why I must hold thus- and- so an opinion on a given topic), you would discover I’m pretty laid back about things, more so than the people who yell at me online.

All The Single Ladies by Rebecca Traister – Various Links to Reviews or Commentary About the Book and Its Issues

All The Single Ladies by Rebecca Traister  – Various Links to Reviews or Commentary About the Book and Its Issues

There are currently a million links about the new book “All the Single Ladies” by Rebecca Traister

Up til now, I have made individual blog posts about that book – reviews, commentaries that reference it, or interviews with its author.

I no longer feel like devoting that much effort into blogging about it, so here is a lone thread crammed with links about it.

This post may be edited in the future to add new links about this book as I find them.

Some of these links might only be tangentially related to the book. I only have one life to live, and I don’t want to spend it blogging about this one book.

It sometimes takes me a long time to put a single blog post together – especially hunting through the “Categories and Tags” area of the blog area, having to skim through a long list of tags. It’s a time consuming pain in the ass.

One thing you will notice in many of these articles is how often Traister points out that men do not usually face as MUCH social stigma or penalties as often in life -or employment- as single women do for being single. Which is true.

As I have written of before, (Link): Men are not hounded, judged, or shamed nearly as much as women are for remaining celibate, single, and/or childless.

The fact that a woman author had to write a book discussing singleness among women speaks to how much singleness is different for women than it is for men – it is far more socially acceptable (and among Christians) for a man to remain single and childless than it is for a woman.

Do some segments of culture harass men over being single or kid-free or question their manliness? Yes.

I am not saying that life or church is a cake-walk for never married or childless or childfree men. But as a matter of comparison, on a scale of one to ten, with one being “awesome and great” and ten being “terrible and hellish” single and childless men get treated to about a, I don’t know, a four on that scale, while women get a nine or a ten.

Because women have vaginas, they are expected to have babies. There is far more stigma attached for a woman to be single and without children than there is a for a man, because church and society do not expect having babies to be necessary for a man to be fully a man socially or biologically. Not near as much as it is for women.

Women get pressured for more often and more severely to marry and have babies than men ever do or ever will.

I am not saying men get ZERO pressure, only that they get a 1 or a 2 in pressure, where-as women get a 9 or 10 in pressure on the scale of marriage and natalism.

It is far easier to drift thru life as a single bachelor dude with no kids than it is for a woman to go through life with no husband or no kids – you won’t get judged as much by family, church, politicians, conservative think tanks, over this stuff as a woman does over it. And it’s sexist bullshit.

Here are the links (more might be added to this post in the future as I find them):

(Link):  The Single American Woman via NY Magazine

(Link):  Review: Rebecca Traister’s All the Single Ladies is a reassuring balm to the rhetoric that surrounds us 

• Yet in spite of these harsh truths, All the Single Ladies is celebratory, the stories of real women who are single a reassuring balm to the rhetoric that surrounds us. Traister asks, by outlining the ways women can succeed when their societies support their choices, to consider what we really mean when we tell women to marry for better or worse.
• Her argument – that our public policies are what need to change, not the rate at which we marry or the age we do it – prioritizes equal pay over joint accounts, better health-care provisions over shared plans, comprehensive child care instead of Mommy-and-Me clichés, and other tangible solutions instead of abstract platitudes.

(Link):  Rebecca Traister’s ‘All The Single Ladies’ is a singularly triumphant work

(Link):   Single Women are Quietly Remaking Our World

• By Emily Simon
• “Single women are taking up space in a world that was not designed for them.”
• That sort of statement – at once radical and obvious – is characteristic of Rebecca Traister: a happily married mother of two who is currently encouraging us to recognize the cultural and political power of single women.

Scary Single Ladies: Rebecca Traister Explains Why Single Women Frighten The Hell Out Of The GOP

Scary Single Ladies: Rebecca Traister Explains Why Single Women Frighten The  Hell Out Of The GOP

Sometimes some of these reviews of Traister’s book, or interviews with her, bring up how so many Republicans often demonize or criticize single motherhood.

I happen to be a Republican myself, someone who was raised in a traditional Christian home.

One thing I don’t get is how so many other Republicans and Christians do in fact constantly bad-mouth single motherhood, but out of the other side of their mouths, they frequently complain that not enough women are having babies.

It ticks these types of Republicans and Christians off that baby-making rates have declined a bit in the last decade or whatever (see this link for example).

So, on the one hand, my fellow Republicans complain about women having babies (women who happen to be single), but then turn around and complain and gripe about women NOT having babies.

Christians and Republicans are somewhat inconsistent on this point. They might argue that women should marry first, and then make a baby with their spouse, but this is part of the problem: plenty of women WANT to marry, but there are no eligible males for them to marry (see this link or this link for more).

And, of course, there are married women who cannot have babies because they are infertile, or some may choose to forgo motherhood – and their choices should be respected, not condemned.

Another thing that bothers me about this conservative demonizing of single motherhood is that I suspect one view that undergirds it is that they believe that marriage or parenthood supposedly makes adults more mature, responsible or godly, which is simply (Link): not true (and see this link and this link).

(There are a lot of conservative Christians who have taught or said that people only become mature or responsible when they marry or have a kid.)

The Bible does not teach that marriage or parenthood are necessary to make a person more godly, loving, responsible, or mature.

And even every day common sense and observation bears that out: we’ve all known, or heard of, married parents who are immature, greedy, or immoral swine.

Disclaimer:

• I am right wing and have been a Republican for years. However, I don’t always agree with Republicans on everything.
  I do occasionally agree with some of the left wing’s criticism of right wingers, and concerning how dismally right wingers treat singles, I agree with them on that.

The link I give you here is from a left wing site, by Amanda Marcotte, a liberal feminist who is (Link): sometimes hypocritical about women’s sexual issues.

Even though I completely disagree with Marcotte on some topics, I did find myself agreeing with some of the content of this interview she had with this book author:

(Link):  Scary single ladies: Rebecca Traister explains why single women frighten the hell out of the GOP by Amanda Marcotte

Excerpts:

• Author Rebecca Traister’s new book on single women looks at how this growing population is reshaping America
• Author Rebecca Traister’s last book, “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” took a comprehensive look at how the 2008 elections changed everything for American women.
• Now she’s back with a similarly pop music-themed title, “All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation,” an examination of the role single women have played in American culture, both in our history and in our current times.
• (Link): Single women are a potent political force in a way that they never have been before, making up nearly a quarter of the electorate and leaning to the left of both men and their married counterparts.
• This, along with a whole host of inchoate fears about what happens when women are left to their own devices without male supervision, has led to a rash of conservative pundits and politicians denouncing the ladies who aren’t married. I interviewed Traister about this moral panic over single women and what it means for the culture at large.
• [Question to the book author]: In your book, you detail how obsessed the conservative media has become with single women, who clearly anger right-wing pundits. The most hilarious quote you pull is Rush Limbaugh whining, “What is it with all these young, single, white women?” What is it with these conservative pundits focusing on single women?
• It was just a couple of weeks (Link): after his tirade of Sandra Fluke that he made those comments about another woman who had written a book.
• The fact that he said “white,” well, there are these versions of single womanhood that we are presented and the version that threatens most, is the white, privileged women.
• Sandra Fluke testifying in front of Congress, women who are writing books, Murphy Brown, and Anita Hill, even though she’s not white, a lawyer appeared for Clarence Thomas.
• There is a kind of woman who is economically powerful, professionally powerful who threatens a white male grip on power that has a long historic precedent in the country. Independent women living outside of marriage threaten all kinds of things about the way power is supposed to work.
• What if reproduction is taken outside that version of male control? What if women are competing?

AZ GOP (Republican) vice-chair calls for sterilizing poor women: If you want a baby, get a job

AZ GOP vice-hair calls for sterilizing poor women: If you want a baby, get a job

I am right wing and a Republican. Several left wing sites were reporting this story.

If it’s true, it’s strange and hypocritical. Although I am right wing and socially conservative, I do not agree with the habit of other right wingers and conservative Christians who place too much emphasis on family and marriage.

I’m rather puzzled when any right winger speaks out against helping families or single mothers, as this man has done.

Much of the time, right wingers complain about how single women are having abortions, or they complain about how many women are delaying childbearing or choosing to skip motherhood altogether, or they complain about how secularists and liberals are destroying marriage and the traditional family.

I don’t see how a party can on the one hand, say they support those things, but then turn around and want to punish or shame women who get pregnant prior to marriage but rather than have an abortion, decide to keep and raise the baby? That doesn’t make any sense to me, and I am a right wing Republican myself.

This politician’s views also work against the standard Republican or conservative Christian belief that a woman’s only, or most high calling in life, is to be a wife and mother.

You can’t be consistent by saying on one hand you’re deeply disturbed that women are choosing NOT to be mothers and wish they would chose to be mothers, and also arguing that women were created by God to do nothing but pop babies out (that’s supposedly their “highest calling or role in life”), then turn around and say you want to sterilize women so that they cannot be mothers and have babies.

(Link):  AZ GOP vice-chair calls for sterilizing poor women: If you want a baby, get a job

by Travis Gettys
Sept 12, 2014

The recalled Arizona senate president who proposed the state’s controversial anti-immigration law said he could fix public assistance programs by forcibly sterilizing women who receive aid and by requiring drug tests for all recipients.

“You put me in charge of Medicaid, the first thing I’d do is get Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations,” said Russell Pearce on his weekly talk radio program. Then we’ll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce] or use drugs or alcohol, then get a job.”

He suggested drastic cuts to food assistance for needy families, (Link): reported Phoenix New Times, and he urged strict limits items that could be purchased what little help was available.

…“No cash for Ding Dongs and Ho Hos, you’d only get money for 15-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and powdered milk – all the powdered milk you can haul away,” Pearce said. “If you want a steak or frozen pizza, then you’d have to get a job.”

He also suggested Spartan accommodations and strict rules for anyone who received government housing assistance.

“Ever live in a military barracks?” he said. “You’ll maintain your property in a clean, good state of repair, and your home will be subjected to an inspection at any time, possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or an X-Box 360, then get a job.”

Despite his apparent endorsement of draconian policies, Pearce insisted he favored a small-government solution to poverty.

(Link):  AZ Republican Wants to Sterilize Poor Women: ‘If You Want to Reproduce, Get a Job!’

(Link):  Arizona Republican Advises Sterilizing Women On Welfare

Edit. Sept 23, 2014:

(Link): Russell Pearce’s resignation isn’t enough for protestors

(Link):  Top Arizona GOPer Russell Pearce resigns after sterilization comments

The far-right former lawmaker who helped push Arizona’s “papers please” immigration law has resigned as a top official with the state GOP after making comments about sterilizing poor women.

Russell Pearce, a former state senator, resigned as the party’s first vice chair late Sunday, the Arizona Republican Party announced.

On Saturday, the state Democratic Party highlighted comments Pearce made recently on his radio show. Discussing the state’s public assistance programs, Pearce declared:
“You put me in charge of Medicaid, the first thing I’d do is get Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations…Then we’ll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce] or use drugs or alcohol, then get a job.”

The comments were quickly repudiated by Republican candidates for several statewide offices.

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Related posts:

OFF SITE:

(Link):  It’s come to this: Planned Parenthood now attacking GOP plans to expand access to birth control

THIS BLOG:

(Link): Why Are Conservatives Forcing Mothers From Their Kids? by M. Walther

(Link): Former Democrat Mayor Dennis Doyle Arrested for Possession of Child Porn During Term in Office

(Link):   Family Research Center (Christian group) thinks people (including the Nuclear Family) should be cut off food stamps

(Link):  Judges who Force Insane, Negligent Women, or Addicts to Get Abortions or Undergo Sterilization – Also: Court Ordered Male Sterilization – Being A Parent Does Not Make A Person More Godly, Mature, or Responsible

(Link):  Are Marriage and Family A Woman’s Highest Calling? by Marcia Wolf – and other links that address the Christian fallacy that a woman’s most godly or only proper role is as wife and mother

(Link): Southern Baptists Pushing Early Marriage, Baby Making – Iranians Pushing Mandatory Motherhood – When Christians Sound Like Muslims

(Link):  Baby Making Fixation at Christianity Today Magazine Online – Shaming Women For Not Procreating, or For Delaying Motherhood, or For Limiting the Number of Children

(Link):  Editorial at Christianity Today Actually Suggests that It Takes Motherhood To Make A Woman Become Mature / Also: Homeless Mother Stays In Hotel Room and Makes Her Toddlers Sleep on the Street

(Link):  Conservatives and Christians Fretting About U.S. Population Decline – We Must “Out-breed” Opponents Christian Host Says

(Link): Fox News Channel Guest Encourages Female Host To Quit, Get Married, Have Babies – Look, I’m Right Wing, But Also A Never-Married Woman, and I Find This Obnoxious

(Link):  Christian School Fires Single Woman For Having PreMarital Sex But Offers Her Job to Her Single Boyfriend Who They Know Had PreMarital Sex Too (and similar news stories – Re Christian Employers and Sex)

(Link):  Republicans And Women: Single Women Vote Democratic Because They Wish They Were Married, Pundit Says

(Link): Women in Sao Paulo Must Provide Proof of Virginity to Be Hired as Teachers