Laura G Owens ~ Writer. Raw. Real. Chronically Ambivalent.

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do, you apologize for the truth. – Benjamin Disrael

Tag: religious protection

Kim Davis: At least we have this in common

I sickened myself as I cheered, celebrating this Christian being thrown to the lions. I watched the one minute coverage below and rooted the mob who piled on in front of Kim Davis’s desk, a woman who three-times divorced with two kids out-of-wedlock (not judging pointing out hypocrisy) refuses to grant marriage certificates to same-sex couples.

 

This was bound to happen. Kim Davis just happens to be the first face of rebellion.

After SCOTUS ruled, people warned priests would be hauled off to jail if they refused to marry same-sex couples, but religious institutions have legal protection, a public servant or private citizen doesn’t.

I want to dig out some grace with this lady, do unto others; I want to step into Ms. Davis shoes as she’s hauled off for contempt of court. She had to be terrified.

I want to dig up some grace for this lady, who I genuinely believe feels it’s spiritually impossible to break her contract with God.

I want to try to feel her pain, to know the crowd catcalls are unnerving and that the media attention is undoubtedly upsetting her family. I want to know that all the pressure is nothing compared to her very real, very felt fear she’ll go to Hell if she goes against God.

I want to try to momentarily move into her place of such deeply wholly, holy, heartfelt God obedience that she risks jail and losing her job.

Ms Davis says this isn’t about hating gays and lesbians, the default “I promise I’m not a meanie” disclaimer for disguised discrimination, but the fact is refusing to grant a law-abiding adult a marriage license is hateful.

I wan’t to find some pity but I can’t.

Because the day I concur that what Ms Davis stands for in the name of religion is right by God is the day my soul dies, is the day I live with the Hell of my own earthly making.

In that Ms. Davis and I have much in common. I too would go to jail and risk my job over my beliefs.

Pregnancy ‘warm and fuzzy,’ birth control ‘immoral?’ Mr. Potter, snap out of it.

bcClick here to sign petition against Eden Foods

I’m curious if Eden Food’s CEO Mr. Michael Potter ever had the “immoral and unnatural practices” he says birth control promotes, before he got married?

“Michael Potter, Eden’s CEO, claims, among other things, that contraception ‘almost always involve[s] immoral and unnatural practices.’ That’s one of the reasons why he filed suit in 2013 against the mandate of the Affordable Care Act that classifies birth control as preventative healthcare for women.” “Shocking: Eden Foods vs. Birth Control.”

Or is it just women who have immoral and unnatural pre-marital practices? The unmarried men of superior morality aren’t anywhere near the bedroom of such women. It is a person of undetermined gender who lays with and impregnates the hussy.

I’m a bit confused, but I’m a little slow.

“After filing the suit, he went even further, saying that the government has ‘no right’ to extend coverage for birth control, comparing birth control to Jack Daniels, and saying that pregnancy should be covered but birth control should not because pregnancy has ‘more warmth and fuzziness.’ When the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision was announced, Potter said he was “grateful” for the court’s decision while calling President Obama a “dictator” who wants to take away Americans’ rights.”  “Shocking: Eden Foods vs. Birth Control.”

Gosh golly, had we known birth control leads to the uncontrollable loosening of the chaste just as drops of whiskey inevitably part the lips of the committed teetotaler and transforms them into guzzling alcoholics, I would have banned this Devil’s lure called birth control myself.

“Pregnancy has more warmth and fuzziness?” than birth control?

Mr. Potter I’d suggest until you experience the warm and fuzzy of pregnancy and childbirth firsthand (the latter anything but and the former (while not in my case) 40 weeks of misery for some women) you might want to keep your Hallmark fantasy adjectives to yourself.

I’d appreciate it if people (those in the know and the clueless) would stop romanticizing baby-making.

A child when wanted and loved and cared for by responsible loving parents is still hell-hard but yes, all-out storybook romantic in parts, and worth every hair-pull.  Insuring birth control coverage gives babies and women (and men) a civil society, one that promotes reproductive choice and timing.

Babies are not merely the Will of God, they are a real life living breathing responsibility.

Also Mr. Potter, have you ever heard of a 17-year-old impoverished uneducated girl determined to keep her crack baby? Say for instance, she lives with her verbally and physically abusive drug-dealer boyfriend who when mom isn’t home has his way with her little one?

Yes, maybe mom knew better about birth control, about abstinence, about her adoption options, about the dirt bag she had sex with unprotected, but she said okay anyway and hell no, I’m keeping my baby. Maybe she was ignorant and knew none of the above, which is why we shouldn’t be focusing on banning company-provided birth control coverage, but on teaching our kids abstinence, self respect and  protected sex.   

Morality wish list crossed with reality. 

While I’m all for teaching abstinence as a desirable and viable option, it’s naive to insist everyone keep their legs closed until marriage. And like it or not, people in love (and people in pure unfettered lust) like to test the sexual compatibility waters before a lifetime of monogamy.  

But let’s look at folks you approve to copulate. Married couples. Take for example, the 50-year-old husband and wife who had their kids and now want to move on to their empty-nest phase. They want a hundred percent (okay 99.9%) guarantee that their baby-making days are over. 

Should they remain celibate? Okay Mr. Potter, you first. 

Oh yes. Condoms. While I’m not familiar with the growing list types and textures, my guess is condoms don’t rank high on every couple’s Top Ten Ways to Add Sexy Time Excitement. Add to the worry the chance the condom fails, which isn’t a high probability but is possible (and yes, the Pill isn’t 100% either). 

Next up, the self-control Pull Out Method where an “oops” might be to some merely “God’s will” to let a baby shine through. But perhaps the woman (and man) would like to invoke their own will for making a baby, seeing as they’re the one’s raising the baby, not God. 

Excerpted from: “Eden Foods CEO Doesn’t Know Why He’s Against Contraception, but He Is.”

“Ian Millhiser, a legal analyst for Think Progress, noted that Potter’s utter lack of religious conviction undermined his already-thin case. When Carmon called Potter back for comment, he seemed very confused by his lawyers’ claims about devout religious faith. Carmon asked him what particular religious belief led him to sue, and his answer is surely one beloved by his lawyers:

“Well, there isn’t any one particular religious belief, Irin,” he said, sounding irritated. “I find it hard to get my head around the question.”

He then went on to claim that his employees could get “free” contraception elsewhere, because of the HHS mandate. In reality, they cannot, because the HHS mandate doesn’t offer alternatives to employees whose employers have told them they can’t use their own insurance benefits.”

Mr. Potter, you find it hard to get your head around why you deny birth control coverage?

Is your free floating squeamishness that you feel sort of yukky, gross, dirty and wrong-ish about any tool that allows sex to occur without a baby the end result? I’m guessing that if you got pregnant every time you had sex you might feel less ambivalent about making sure you didn’t.   

You fell asleep Rip VanWinkle, woke up and forgot what era we live.  

Birth control doesn’t promote sex. Birth control gives reproductive choice and sexual freedom to half the populous who has it by default. This is not to suggest I promote willy-nilly free love. But men have always had sex without worry of getting pregnant. Women are entitled to the same freedoms.

I-thought-we-all-assumed-this, by now.

Mr. Potter, heavens to Betsy, women are having sex in and outside the marriage. Some of them (take a deep breathe) even like it.  Moreover, women who have sex (with men who are having sex with them) may not be ready (or ever) to have a baby.

Try to process that you’re not part of the immorality problem when you cover birth control.  You’re part of the problem of denial and judging women when you romanticize baby-making and insist “moral sex” is only between married couples. If a baby is conceived from a married couple who isn’t ready or wants to remain childless what do you say? Blessings abound?  

Babies deserve to be born to people who want them.

Women deserve the dignity and respect to decide if and when they get want to have a baby.

Image credit 

God, Guns but no gays? My Letter to this Kentucky business owner

Image: Wikimedia Commons

I just sent the following email to this Kentucky business owner. I’m HORRIFIED his family received death and rape threats for his store policy, but I’m also horrified at his policy.

Dear Herald Owner,

I am terribly sorry your wife and children received death and rape threats in response to your policy to “refuse to produce promotional products that promote homosexuality.” I’m glad the two men were charged with Terrorist Threats in the Third Degree. What your family went through was horrific, inexcusable and undoubtedly terrifying.

I am however, deeply saddened that in this day and age a company would deny service to a citizen based on sexual orientation under the protection of “religious beliefs.” What if my religious beliefs didn’t for example, support “promoting” people of color or bi-racial children or, or, or….

I understand you allow the LGBT community in your store, but by refusing to embroider anything that reflects sexual orientation, you are indeed, blatantly discriminating.

Please don’t invoke Scripture to validate your discriminatory stance. Instead, please pause and think for yourself. Does your policy even FEEL remotely God-like?

Your policy is anything BUT in line with the Jesus and God that I know. You mention that you “have been the victim of racism” and I’m terribly sorry. I hope your children will never feel the sting of racism, or any other “ism” in their lives. Yet somehow the pain you felt doesn’t resonate with the pain you cause someone under the protection of “religious beliefs?”

You must understand it’s simply impossible to “promote” one’s born sexual orientation any more than one can “promote” being white, black, female etc. I don’t promote my “female lifestyle” I am female. I didn’t decide to be Caucasian. I am Caucasian.

How old were you exactly, may I ask, when you decided to be heterosexual?

Your refusal to create products that “promote homosexuality” is no different than if a business owner refused service that “promoted the interracial lifestyle.”

If God was against our gay citizens God would not have created people attracted to the same-sex. If you can’t use compassion to grasp these concepts, please use good old-fashioned common sense.

The God I know is shaking His or Her head and frowning. I truly hope one day you’ll sit down with yourself and realize that refusing service based on one’s sexual orientation is the same as refusing service based on race, ethnicity, gender etc. The Bible isn’t a book of conveniently held beliefs or a book to uphold discriminatory practices, the Bible is an interpretation through the prism of Man and I’d suggest, a reflection of what sits in one’s heart.

I hope your children will know true grace as they grow; I hope they will know, despite their parent’s views, that all God’s children, born who they are, deserve respect and equal service.

God, guns but no gays? Shame on your Kentucky lawmakers.

Sincerely,
Laura Owens

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