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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 25th, 2023

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  • Technically all Christians have a version of this. Though even in “Bible Churches” it is usually tempered by the second bit below, and processes of repentance and whatnot.

    9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11 But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister[c] but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.

    12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”

    I Corinthians 5

    15 “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ 17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

    Matthew 18

    As an aside, that Corinthians bit spells it out in plain-ass English that any “Christian” screaming at non-Christians about being gay, trans, or whatever either do not know their Bible or only use it when it supports the actions they already want to take.

    As a second aside, it is kind of funny what one still remembers even after being out of the church for a couple decades.










  • Are you claiming children haven’t been abused because their parents found out they were LGBTQ?

    Of course not, that would be nonsense.

    I was just avoiding attributing anything like reason to the abusers. The choices of abuse victims are not typically the cause of abuse. The pieces of shit willing to abuse children don’t need a particular reason to do it, and I am not interested in claiming something the victim did was the cause. Even if the abuse ramped up after coming out, it still sounds a bit like victim blaming any way I word it. Which in turn makes me wonder how many of them were already being abused.




  • The examples listed are examples of violent victories not political ones. Even then, they imply backtracking instead of maintaining the status quo until victory.

    This was not a change in policy, it maintained the existing one, so that they could finalize their “divorce” amicably. There is a ton of properties as well as pensions involved. Properties that the UMC technically owns but was paid for by local congregations.

    It might be worth noting that those gay bishops that I mentioned aren’t actually allowed under current church rules. If they forced the issue and the conservative churches brought them to court instead, there is no telling what the courts would decide. Making deals was likely the smart choice, even if it meant waiting a bit until they start offering gay marriages to their parishioners.



  • Hmm, I wonder what would happen in we’d apply this to past social issues…

    This might be splitting hairs a bit, but it basically is what happened.

    For women’s suffrage they gained the right to vote in a number of city or states and eventually gained the right nationally.

    Also when slaves were freed, they certainly did not become equal members of society the next day. It has however gotten significantly better over time.

    If you want to push in a certain direction, you take a few steps forward, show people that the world did not burn down, and then take a few more steps forward.




  • This was a really interesting read, thank you for laying it out.

    Are PDFs like that Direct Democracy common releases from the UK parties? It really spells things out, at least as far as I made it through before getting distracted.

    There did seem to be a couple sections that I read that the data didn’t seem to match what was being claimed. Particularly the section on the Broken Pendulum (Pages 8,9). The authors seem to claim that in 2001 and 2005 were unique in that the opposition party wasn’t able to gain from losses in the government. If however you look at 1964 and 1983 they seem to be even more stark examples of the same. Seems like the pendulum was a general trend at best.


  • Sexual abuse happens in virtually every organization. The main issue is how it is dealt with. The catholic church has a long issue of dealing with issues internally, but this was definitely one that was not being handled correctly. Francis has made it clear that he is willing to face the issue head-on now that he has the power.

    We do not have to turn a blind eye to their past mistakes, but we should also acknowledge what they are actually doing to work on those mistakes instead of spreading misinformation about them still hiding from it.