Recently in Religion Category

Princess Hijab, an apparently atheist 21-year-old street artist, has gained notoriety and some acclaim for "hijabizing" advertisements on the streets of Paris. Via Muslimah Media Watch :

I would say my work is inspired from the anti-consumerist movements. I’m an advertising hijabist. In other words, I cover all advertising with a black veil, which is a dark symbol, a reference on pop culture, and a way to hide elegantly advertising. It is also a study on territories and identities.--Princess Hijab

Princess Hijab (not her real name; she's remained anonymous) has disappeared as of late; her website, princesshijab.org, appears to be deserted. However, her art raises some interesting questions. If Princess Hijab is doing this out of religious conviction (which seems unlikely, given some of her statements ) or disgust at over-advertising, how does that change how we view her art? Is this a case of religious censorship, feminist outrage, or anti-corporate activism? Or all three?

Last week, we lost a member of the family. The details, being both private and not particularly germane to the argument, I will spare you. But suffice to say that this person has been in a long slow decline for more than a few years and had signed a DNR order. During his last days, he improbably contracted H1N1, and then even more improbably recovered from it, but as a result had to spend time in isolation--which was incredibly traumatic--but for more than the obvious reason of spending what could be your last few days on earth utterly alone.

Because you see, he wasn't utterly alone. He was paid a visit. Not by a doctor or a nurse or other trained medical professional, not by a family member in a contamination suit, but by a woman who worked in the hospital's billing department. During the course of processing his records, she saw that he had a DNR flag on his profile. So she looked up what room he was in and went to talk to him. Using her administrative bona fides, she let herself into his room <em>in isolation</em> and proceeded to preach God's love to him, and urge him to take off the purple bracelet and embrace life and rescind the DNR order. Ambushed, unable to leave or even really move, experiencing difficulties in speaking, and listening to someone he didn't even know or who didn't know him or the suffering he was enduring tell him that it was God's plan that he should suffer <em>more</em> and prolong his suffering as long as medically possible was, as you could imagine, more than a little upsetting.

I don't know when this movie is supposed to be released in the US. I heard December 18th, but then I read this article from October 14th detailing the trouble finding a US distributor because of belief that it will have "limited appeal". Apparently the patriarchy has a problem with it.

It's the cinematic story of the last days of Hypatia, a mathematician and astronomer, and a pagan woman; a scholar in the ancient city of Alexandria. Some modern scholars consider her death to be the first "witch burning" of the long and brutal transition from pagan culture to christian rule. Socrates of Constantinople, an early church historian (c.380~) wrote of her death:

Some of them therefore, hurried away by a fierce and bigoted zeal, whose ringleader was a reader named Peter, waylaid her returning home, and dragging her from her carriage, they took her to the church called Caesareum, where they completely stripped her, and then murdered her with tiles. After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron, and there burnt them.

This is from the Hypatia bio (via a pretty cool timeline of women's history)

Hypatia was the first notable woman in mathematics and philosophy. Her death brought an end to the position of Alexandria as the centre of scientific activity in the ancient world. Hypatia was murdered because her humanistic philosophical ideas were resented by the Church.

hi all. i have a group blog called christian feminism. someone here was asking for resources but the post was closed to further comments so here i am a full-fledging member of feministing now. :)

just to let you know about us we are not liberal (or conservative) theologically but actually do use the bible to support christian feminism. i know, sounds crazy but it's true and we don't mangle the book or cherry pick it either. jesus was most definitely a feminist! we're more postmodern than anything else and try to eschew those false dichotomies of conservative and liberal. most of us have been a part of the emerging church movement back in the day when it was all about postmodernism. feel free to come on over and visit and i'll have to check out this site more.

peace,

linda

Oh yes, Australia can do insane nutjobs with the best of them - and I have the dubious honour of being in the same city as this one tomorrow. Pastor Danny Nalliah will be in Canberra, the nation's capital, to conduct a 'prayer offensive' atop Mt. Ainslie. Why? To combat such horrifically evil forces as witchcraft, homosexuality and abortion.

He picked Mt. Ainslie (a mountain overlooking the city, from whence one can see straight down Anzac Parade to Parliament House) because a group of schoolchildren allegedly found a black mass altar there. 'The type of altar discovered on Mount Ainslie pointed to a black mass and the work of dark forces wanting to cast spells on Australia and federal Parliament,' Pastor Danny said. And then - and this is my favourite, FAVOURITE bit - someone asked him why he thought that Satan had managed to invade the houses of Parliament, and he replied: 'The number of politicians who have serious marriage problems.'

I feel kind of bad taking potshots at him, actually. It's just too easy.

I’ll say it right out: I am a Christian, a liberal, and a feminist. This combination of beliefs and ideologies gives me an interesting perspective from which to observe current events and political rhetoric. Admittedly, my beliefs as a Christian do not alienate me from liberal communities quite as much as my liberal political and social views alienate me from many Christians. However, there are some aspects of feminist writing that are problematic, and even so insensitive as to disenfranchise some of the very people feminism aims to champion.

The reason I am posing this assertion with such bluntness is because I respect the intelligence and logical capabilities of the feminist blogosphere. Disagree with me if you want, but first, read with an open mind. Because, brace yourself, I’m about to talk about abstinence. And how even abstinence until marriage does not necessarily have to be anti-feminist or sex-negative.

There’s been a lot of discussion on the topic of virginity around here lately, and even more over at Bitch Magazine . Many of the awesome feminists around here have emphasized the idea that sometimes, not having sex can be as empowering, liberated, and feminist as having sex. These posts and comments have, however, continued to relegate religously-motivated abstinence to the category of dangerous, anti-feminist slut-shaming. It’s important to incorporate the knowledge that, in many churches and for many young Christian men and women, the concept of abstinence until marriage is anything but patriarchal.

Yes, the shaming of those who choose to have sex before marriage is unequivocally wrong. Yes, some churches and Christian organizations put the burden of remaining “pure” disproportionately on young women. Yes, some of the language that emphasizes the image of virginity as a “gift” that can only be given once, or as central to a young person’s self-worth is dangerous propaganda. And yes, abstinence-only education is a disaster. That being said, however, there is nothing inherently wrong with the way many churches approach the topic of abstinence, and there is nothing wrong with young women who decide not to have sex solely for religious reasons.

I recently ended a relationship with a man who was a self-identified feminist. The reason it ended was because he became very religious and no longer held religion to the same standards of equality as he did the rest of life. For a long time I tried to understand- I read and read about women in Orthodox Judaism hoping that I could find where the traditions were fair and equal. And, well, I couldn’t. In fact, what I found was much much worse than what I had known to begin with. Some of it really surprised me as someone who has grown up Jewish, and I felt a strong need to write about it.

I already knew that in Orthodoxy, women can’t be Rabbis. (women in Open/Modern Orthodoxy can go through Rabbinical school, but in the end will be given a different title) I knew that women weren’t allowed to bless the Torah or read it in front of mixed company. Really I could write pages and pages on the things that are sexist and unfair, and I may write another blog about it soon. But I wanted to touch on one big issue that shocked and disgusted me.

Wing whackaloons at Conservapedia have a new project they're working on: Re-translate the Bible to meet their standards.

The Bible, you see, is just too darn liberal.
So they're re-working it.
Among other things, they want to avoid emasculating it with unisex, "gender-inclusive" language;
to explain Jesus' "economic parables with their full free-market meaning";
to remove liberal falsehoods such as "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do", and
later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the whole "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone" bit;
and to get rid of socialistic terminology, such as "comrade", "laborer", and "fellow" (as in "fellow worker", they note).

(H/t to PZ Myers at Pharyngula)

I recently received this article in my e-mail inbox, written by a colleague of mine who is Iranian living in Belgium. Some tension is being felt across Belgium at the moment to do with the headscarf (similar to recent debates in France. This is her response. I offered to post this on her behalf as she is very keen to find out what other people think.

Yesterday evening I went to the cinema to see a documentary on Iran and I participated in the debate that occurred afterwards. Since I did not have sufficient time to express my deepest thoughts, I decided to write an article in the hope of promoting a discussion which would enrich our multicultural society and a dialogue which could allow unity in diversity actually to take shape.

I began by expressing a critical comment regarding how the film begins, explaining the reasons for the Iranian revolution. To my great amazement I heard the same litany of ineptitude that I have been hearing continuously for the last 30 years: the Iranian people revolted because they could not handle modernisation! For years now I feel insulted because Iranians--including myself--are treated this way, as retarded and backwards. The truth is that it is precisely because this modernisation did not reach the whole population and all regions that the Iranian people revolted, because the oil manna was not distributed equitably throughout the whole country, and certainly equally because no democracy and freedom of speech existed in Iran.

Next I wanted to linger on the current issue facing us in Belgium: Wearing the veil at school. In this article I would like to direct two warnings to my Belgian friends as well as my Muslim brothers and sisters.

Thirty years ago things all began in Iran with the veil and in a very short time ended with stoning. In 1979, during the revolution, people from both the political left and right wanted to use religion to cause the masses to rise up but the fundamentalists took a more subtle approach: they removed both groups from power before eliminating them.

Do we want the same situation to happen to us here? I have a serene and happy life in Belgium and have absolutely no desire to see this country turn into an Iranian style dictatorship, a regime which I esteem neither a republic nor Islamic, not only because the juxtaposition of these two terms is semantically impossible and that they are antinomical since a republic by definition is secular and a place where one does not mix religion and politics. Above all, how can a regime be considered Islamic when its prison guards rape girls and boys with impunity solely because these persons took part in pacific street demonstrations?

"Cry as if you have a million voices; it is silence that kills the world." ~ St. Catherine of Siena

Sister Louise Akers, a 66-year-old Cincinnati Catholic nun, was banned two weeks ago from teaching in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Her crime?  She supports the ordination of women priests.

The injustice of the disciplinary action inspired Dr. Carol Egner, a lifelong Catholic and gynecologist, to write a letter to The Cincininati Enquirer in support of Akers.  In her letter, Egner said she could find no biblical justification for not allowing women to the priesthood and pointed out that allowing women priests could reduce the burdon of the current priest shortage.  "I agree with ordaining women as priests now," she wrote.  "And perhaps if we had already been doing this, words like sexual abuse would not be associated with the Catholic Church."

When the Rev. David Sunberg, the pastor of Egner's church, read her letter, he demanded she write another renouncing her position.  When she refused, she was told she could no longer teach her religion class for sixth-graders at Our Lady of Lourdes parish. According to The Enquirer :

Egner, who has been a volunteer teacher for two years, said she never discussed her views on women priests in her religion class and she told Sunberg she never would bring it up. Her letter does not identify her as a teacher and does not name her parish.

"I feel the punishment is disproportionate," Egner said. "Priests have abused boys and their punishment was disproportionate the other way. I feel the church really hasn't taken responsibility and addressed that, and yet I can't write a letter to the editor.  I don't get that."

Frankly, the Catholic church's dismal position on women and reproductive rights disgusts me, but I also recognize that these positions will only become more stringent and harsh without input and leadership from its female parishioners.  You can help Akers and Egner by sending letters of support and outrage to the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and The Cincinnati Enquirer .

So, I am trolling for opinions amidst an online community whose values align with my own. I am a straight but queer-friendly feminist with advanced degrees in gender studies, and I am currently teaching at an accredited evangelical university in the US. To provide a little background: I was raised conservative evangelical and attended a Christian university myself (mainly at the behest of my parents). During college, I experienced a feminist awakening, largely thanks to the influence of beloved feminist professors at this Christian university. I became a feminist evangelical, then a liberal feminist mainline Christian ... and then finally entered a liberal feminist slightly-reverent agnosticism. And that's where I am now, pretty much. I have accepted that Christianity will always be a part of my background and therefore of my identity, but I am not actively a Christian anymore, really. Or at least I'm on the fence, trying to sort things out. How's that for hedging?

The Evangenlical Lutheran Church in America, or ELCA, is currently (literally right now) holding its Churchwide Assembly in Minneapolis, MN. Over the past few years, the ELCA has moved closer and closer to acceptance and support of same-sex marriage/partnership, with the voting margin slimming constantly.

My friend Jason is liveblogging via Facebook and reports:

...the ELCA has committed itself to finding ways to allow congregations that choose to do so to recognize, support, and hold publicly accountable life-long, monogamous, same gender relationships.

Yay! Still up for vote is whether ministers can be in same-sex relationships, and probably some other things that I don't have all the facts on.

You can watch a live feed of proceedings (and read the recently-adopted social statement on human sexuality) at ELCA.org/assembly. Or follow attendees' Twitter updates by searching #CWA09.

What?!

This was my immediate response to a talk I had just heard at my friends’ Southern Baptist church.  I had a whole list of ridiculous phrases I was about to rattle off- “complete obedience to one’s husband” was one, for instance, that this man had just said to us.  I was ready to, in fact, make jokes about this talk in order to mitigate some of the anger I felt, assuming that my friends would be in total agreement with me.  They weren’t.

I will, quickly, summarize his argument:

Women are precious creatures that must be protected, and their fathers and husbands can do this for them.  This was written in the Bible and is God’s will, as it is His will for the husband to make major decisions in the marriage.

These decisions, in fact, included even decisions that are primarily the woman’s and hardly should rest with the man at all, husband or not: her career, the birth control she uses. The talk was wrong in so many ways.  It used the Bible and God to defend misogyny.  The ideas it promoted left the woman literally enslaved to her husband.  If I were to give the talk any points at all- and it truly made my blood boil- it is in that it was not in the least bit subtle.  It told my friends directly that the rest of their lives would be dedicated to their husbands.  The most shocking part was that my friends were not outraged- at all.  In fact, they told me their mothers both lived and had preached this to them their whole lives.

Let’s get this straight: I grew up in Oklahoma, but I do not align myself with many of the mainstream views in Oklahoma. 

Hey everyone,

just thought I'd pass on a link to an article I found -- a list of dos and don'ts for defending Muslim women, specifically aimed towards White, western feminists .  It was written by Fatemeh Fakhraie, associate editor of Altmuslimah, which is a source for critical gender thought within the Muslim community.

Thoughts?

So, I've been thinking about this a lot lately:  I happen to be a christian...and a feminist, and the two tend to clash.  This seems to be a really rare combination of beliefs, and I'm having problems with people doubting me on either side of the spectrum. I was wondering if there are anymore christian feminists out there...and how do you deal with people either doubting your religious views or your feminist views? I also am having trouble finding any books about faith and feminism, and I was wondering if anyone out there has any recommendations?

Thanks guys!

RAR RAR RAR RARR! This is fun.

Seems my beloved representitive is at it again, I am sure you all remember her deplorable remarks about homosexuals and "the gay agenda" not too long ago?

I can't take it anymore! How did this woman even get voted in again?!?

What kills me the most is that this state wasn't ever predominately Christian! We were founded as a dumping ground for Native Americans, not to mention there were tribes already here long before Europeans even settled this far!

In recent years this state has tried it's best to reflect respect for the Native Americans, by the Gods this state's name is Algonquin! (I think, IDK it means red people in some native american langauge, maybe Muskogian?)

And don't even get me started on the "We are a Christian Nation" crap, Thomas Jefferson said it better in the Treaty of Tripoli Article 11: "As the Government of the United States of America, is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion....."

So yeah, I just had to get that off my chest, thanks.

And for all you other Oklahomians.. tell her what you think: sallykern@okhouse.gov

In the ongoing controversy about the proposed burqa ban in France, the voice of one group of people is strangely obscured. Muslim women who do not wear the burqa or the headscarf do not feature prominently in this debate. We do hear a great deal about the importance of preserving the choice of Muslim women who want to wear the burqa. But in any community, the choices of some people impact the lives of others. The presence or absence of the choice to wear a religious garment that is meant exclusively for the female members of a religious group affects gender relations and gender hierarchy in the community as a whole.

I am a Muslim woman and I do not wear the burqa or the headscarf. The constant reference in liberal media to those women who choose to wear it has made it increasingly difficult for the countless Muslim women, such as myself, to express our discomfort with it. This is because any outright criticism of the garment comes across as an intolerant attack on the religion of Islam as well as the Muslim women wearing it.

The reality is that many women have reason to dislike the burqa even when they do not harbor any Islamophobic sentiments. The fact is that the burqa is often imposed on women by hardline states or religious groups. The Saudi Arabian government forces women to wear the burqa in all public places. It also prohibits women from driving or travelling without a male relative. The Taliban imposed the burqa on women when it controlled Afghanistan before 2001. Today, it forces women to wear it in areas it controls in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In societies in which women are punished severely for not wearing it, the burqa is a part of a range of laws and policies designed to suppress women. It is not hard to see why many women in these societies associate the burqa with a highly repressive patriarchal structure that subjugates and confines women in the name of Islam.

Elizabeth Barnes has worked in abortion care for fifteen years. She is inspired on a daily basis by the incredible, moral, ethical, beautiful people she has had the privilege to meet, care for, work with, and learn from doing this work. She is based out of Philadelphia.

Since the assassination of our friend, colleague and hero, Dr. George Tiller, we abortion providers have been asking ourselves: how do we make sense of this horrible event? As the Executive Director of two clinics, it is my job to help navigate the hardest things...to frame them in some way so that we can respond, get better, grow through our challenges. But I can not do that here. I can not make sense of this. I am heartbroken. But does this mean that I am without hope, the ability to take action, a path of direction? No. Absolutely not.

Why do we do this? Why are we abortion providers? Abortion is all about reality. There is nothing theoretical about being faced with the decision to terminate a pregnancy. Whether at five weeks, at eleven weeks, at twenty six weeks... these decisions are made with the "realness" of your life staring you in the face. Pregnancy puts a bright light onto our lives, every time. Dr. Tiller lived in this reality and so do the rest of us in abortion care. Dr. Tiller knew that no one walks into a clinic and says "I am here to exercise my constitutional right to an abortion." He knew how messy abortion could be, just like everything else in life, and helped us all navigate this, talk about it, do it better, and even celebrate it.

I have heard many times that the risk of violence comes with the territory of being an abortion provider. I do not accept this. I will live with it, but I do not accept that this risk comes with the territory. I do not accept the feeling in the pit of my stomach when I train staff how to evacuate after a bomb threat as casually as the average person at work might show someone where the coffee pot is. I do not accept that I have become an expert in combating domestic terrorism, that my gut instincts are so finely honed due to a concerted expenditure of effort and energy and fear. I do not accept that this is our lot. I challenge this expectation and I ask you to do the same. I can live with it, but I do not accept it.

The fact is being an abortion provider carries a host of blessings and challenges- that is what makes it a compelling and wonderful and my life's work. Abortion providers are privileged to serve, care for and be challenged by very complex patients at very complex points in their lives- we move on the edges of life and death, and when we do things well, we ease passages, provide space for transformation and second chances, provide safe haven, and treat many who have never been treated so before as deserving of dignity and compassion. We believe women can be trusted with the most difficult moral challenges and we live this belief every day.

After Church this morning, while I was standing in line to thank the pastor I saw a small sign on the table that we put information, sign-up sheets, and things like that.  The sign said this:

"Every boy wants to be a hero. He wants to be powerful, he wants to be dangerous, he wants to know ... 'Do I have what it takes?  Conversely, every girl wants to believe that she is captivating and worth fighting for. She wants to know ... 'Am I lovely?' Only you, Dad, can answer those questions. That makes you the most powerful man in your child's life. Now with a new cover, this booklet will show that You Have What It Takes."

It was an advertisement for the book: You Have What It Takes: What Every Father Needs to Know By: John Eldredge.  

I don't know who put it there.  My pastor is a woman.  When it was miy turn to speak with her I didn't mentions it for three reasons: that really wasn't the place; I didn't have a chance to actually look through the book and It probably wasn't her doing.  I would rate my Church as fairly liberal we are very excepting and people are realy kind. 

I came home and googled it. I found this about the author. 

Although I find this disgusting, I don't have children so I am hesitant to tell people how to rise their kids.  

I am posting to ask for advice.  I would like to talk to my pastor but I don't want to just go in blasting her.  This is my church and I love it.  Should I just suggest another book to be placed along side it? Advice?  

Also, if your advice is to just leave the church because Christianity is "stupid" please refrain from commenting.  

The following is an excerpt from Religion Dispatches , an online daily magazine for intelligent progressive analysis of religion and public life.

Sex in Crisis: The New Sexual Revolution and the Future of American Politics
By Dagmar Herzog
(Basic Books, 2008)

What inspired you to write Sex in Crisis? What sparked your interest?

Sex in Crisis has a great deal to do with my prior book, Sex after Fascism: Memory and Morality in Twentieth-Century Germany (2005), which offered a major revision of our assumptions about the Third Reich’s sexual politics and its aftermath, including close attention to the complicity of the Christian churches under Nazism. In his book American Fascists, Chris Hedges had drawn direct parallels between the religious right in the United States and the Nazis, but I thought that was not the point. As a Holocaust scholar, I’m deeply uncomfortable with direct parallels, but what I did learn from studying the Nazis was that they were quite pro-sex for their own followers, while denigrating “Jewish” sex as dirty and immoral. They had it both ways, and that was a significant key to their appeal. Intuitively, I thought there was a comparable dynamic going on with the religious right.

While I was researching and writing Sex in Crisis, I was continually struck by the extent to which there was a massive misperception of what the religious right stood for. So many saw only the puritanical and homophobic side of the religious right coin; they didn’t see the Christian vibrator Web sites or the detailed evangelical sex advice manuals. At the same time, the religious right was indeed doing tremendous damage, gutting sex education in US schools and eroding HIV prevention in Africa–all in the name of morality.

As someone who was raised in the Bible Belt South, in a deeply religious family, I was horrified by the religious right’s new distortion of Christianity and its deleterious impact on national and international health policy. I wanted to make sense of how the religious right had succeeded in redirecting the national terms of conversation about sex: spouting ugly homophobia, reshaping women’s sexuality in particular, increasingly going after contraception and not just abortion, insisting that sex before marriage would have horrible consequences (even though 95 percent of Americans have had premarital sex), and mocking the moral values of self-determination and consent.

What’s the most important take-home message for readers?

READ MORE : http://bit.ly/ZdT50

It seems you can’t turn around anymore without hearing every possible media outlet launch into something about terrorism.  There are the obvious war references, but more and more there are a growing number focusing on domestic or “homegrown” terrorism.   While I don’t have a problem with that, given it’s an issue of the times, I feel that there’s a glaring omission in these reports.

            Christian-faith extremists.

            If you really want to talk about homegrown terrorism, why are people so shy about attaching the label where it fits?  The very definition for terrorism is  the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce (esp. bombing, kidnapping, and assassination) carried out for political and/or religious purposes.  So why with all the abortion clinic bombings, the murders of doctors providing safe, LEGAL medical service to consenting patients, and a number of other atrocities committed under the guise of “doing God’s Work,” has that label not been used ONCE in media?

            Because they’re “Christian?”

            Religious extremists are religious extremists regardless of which religion is involved, so why do Christian fanatics get special consideration when it comes to their behavior?  And before anyone pulls out the freedom of religion card, maybe my legal knowledge is shoddy, but last time I checked, it was still illegal to kill.  Even if it’s supposedly part of your religious beliefs.

            Where’s the logic behind this disconnect?

            We denounce all terror!  … Except when it’s Christians performing terrorist acts and spewing hate and intolerance under the guise of obeying the “Word of God!”  Because that’s a good and righteous cause!

            Really?

            Really?

I'm not Jewish or even religious for that matter, but as someone who grew up in a conservative Christian church where women weren't even permitted to vote on how their tithes would be spent, I think this story is pretty awesome.  

When Alysa Stanton, a student at Cincinnati's Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, is ordained as a rabbi on June 6, she will become the first African-American woman in the world to hold such a position. 

According to the college, of the more than 6 million Jews, up to 400,000 are people of color.  Less than 20 percent of the 2,942 rabbis ordained at Hebrew Union have been women.   The role of women in the rabbinate is still a contested issue in some Jewish  circles --  for more on this, read here .  To give some perspective: Judaism is one of the oldest religions in history, dating back more than 3,000 years, and yet the first woman to be ordained as a rabbi wasn't until 1935 (the first female rabbi to be ordained in the U.S. came in 1972).

Stanton, a single mom of an adopted 14-year-old daughter, was assigned to intern at a congregation in Dotham, Alabama as her first student rabbi assignment.  When she arrived, the congregation president called the college to complain -- Stanton said she was told that a “black person ministering to a white congregation in the Deep South was unheard of.”  As the college rabbinical director tells it , the congregation quickly got over the race/gender issue and at the end of the year even wanted Stanton to stay.  Something tells me that events didn't transpire so simply as this, but it nonetheless gave Stanton the confidence to consider another congregation in the South.  She will preside over the Congregation Bayt Shalom in Greenville, N.C. after her June ordination.  Only about one-half of graduates manage to land jobs, thus making Stanton all the more stand-out.

Ernest Adams, an African-American Jewish convert interviewed in the afore-linked Jewish Week story, says Southern congregations' acceptance of Stanton signifies a racial and cultural shift.

“In the South the Jewish community couldn’t be as liberal as the Jews up North, where you could find Jews marching with Martin Luther King. In the South, the rabbis had to be cautious. But now that a white Southern congregation can hire a black rabbi, there is a significant change. The fact that it has been greeted with equanimity means there’s a big shift. The culture is changing.”

Steve Sunderland writing for Salon Magazine agrees :

Why we haven't seen African American or Asian American Jewish leaders, Jewish teachers, Jewish ministers, is no secret to anyone who understands the role of prejudice in religious history. Religions have been one of the last bastions of segregation, even as laws have fallen in schools, public transportation, and college admissions. The stubborness of prejudice found strong roots in religious tradition that has only begun to yield to the pressure of young and brave people, like Ms. Stanton.

Shalom, Alysa, and all the best in your endeavors.

When I realized that I was a feminist and openly 'came out' as a liberal to my family and friends several years ago, I began to face a problem that is unresolved until this day. How do I reconcile my strong belief in Feminist/Liberalism/Equality with my equally passionate belief in Jesus Christ/Christianty? All I hear from Christian leaders is that anything Progressive = going to Hell. My family has actually told me being a feminist is against God's Word. However, it seems that most people who are liberal and feminist are very 'cold' towards Christianity, and some people who consider themselves liberal take great pains to 'debate' my faith with me. I feel like I can't say anything to anyone at all about what I stand for because there is always going to be *someone* who is going to get really pissed, so I don't say much at all, which doesn't last long because I can't keep my mouth shut. This has been a personal issue for me because I have been unable to find a 'church home' now that I don't live at home any more. Any thoughts or ideas (besides pick a side)? I honestly think being Christian/Liberal is not incompatible, and if there are any good blogs/newsletters/resources out there, please let me know. Also, is there anyone else on this site who experiences this tension?

Article here

A little bit of Background for those that may not know, the Church of Jesus Christ of Ladder Day Saints (LDS Church) or Mormon Church sometimes symbolically (no corpses involved) baptizes people after they have died so that they can go to heave.  As the article states this got them into so hot water when they got caught doing it for Holocaust victims.  So not they are only supposed to do it for church member’s family member.  The thought process goes like this, if I convert to the LDS church and I want my family to have the opportunity to join me in heaven I have them baptized.  After someone is baptized they are added to the churches membership logs (that is how they discovered that Mrs. Dunham had been baptized).

My question to the community is, is this a big deal or not?  Like a lot of activists for reproductive rights I have had a very angry Christian tell me that he/she is going to pray for my hell bound soul.  What bothered me is that this person was trying (not succeeding) exert power over me.  They meant it as an act of violation or at least it felt like they did.  

This is gonna be a quick post.

I was at the ocean front in Va Beach and the season is about to pick up. If you never been to Virginia Beach or the oceanfront its a fun place to be with attractions on every block.

Well, sometimes over-zealous Christians stake out a corner and protest against everything. They hold up signs and parade the sidewalks yelling at people (especially women and girls) and cops protect them.

There is this anti-cursing law they enforced at the beach to make it family friendly. No profane words, no words that can incite intimidation, harassment, or any sexual term that would make people feel uncomfortable. Well, the zealot was holding up signs "REPENT WHORES" and was talking about all women who aren't married will burn in hell and all women who have sex are whores. He had signs up that said "REBELLION OF WOMEN WILL LEAD TO DEATH AND AN ETERNITY IN HELL" and was following girls who were in their bathing suits or a dress and called them whores.

A cop was watching the crowd and my boyfriend went up to them and said "Aren't they breaking the rule by calling women whores?" and the cop was quite rude to them if I may say and said no. He later told them that the men were harassing the women and girls and followed them around and was intimidating them and the cop just said "That is irrelevant. The law doesn't enforce when it comes to that."

Kinda shocked, but he was still trying to get him to say what the cop really wanted to say. Then, the cop got all big and ballsy and said "Whore is not a curse word, especially when directed to those that are deserving" and he told us to go away.

That guy who held up those sign, basically threatening, harassing, CURSING, and intimidating women was the one that was breaking the law and HE'S the one protected, and the people who are being subjected to it (FEMALES) are the ones who gets blamed and will be punished if said anything.

I'm seriously thinking contacting my local newspaper and local news broadcast programs and complaining. Any thoughts?

For the Love of God, The Bible as an Open Book, in paperback, by Alicia Suskin Ostriker (Rutgers University Press, 2009).

Alicia Suskin Ostriker's latest book of essays will make provocative reading for liberals who want to say "Yes, We Can" to taking back the Bible as it seeks to pry a few more fingers from the iron grip conservatives have had on its meaning in the American cultural imagination.

This Bible is not, Ostriker wants us to see, the sole property of those who deny the links between "spirituality and sex, skepticism and joy, Us and Them." As a woman and a Jew, a poet and literary critic, Ostriker refuses to turn her back on the Bible; 'this is mine, too' is the persistent whisper between the lines.

The Hebrew Bible in particular is, for Ostriker, like a river that has shaped the channels of thought and feeling in her mind. But like a river, that force is flowing--dynamic--and quite capable of changing its course over time.
Simple phrases like "the love of God" and "an open book" come to mean...

Read the rest at Religion Dispatches...

So I've really been enjoying all the talk about feminist weddings in the blogosphere -- because I'm in the middle of planning my wedding. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one trying to balence my beliefs with all the wedding industrial complex bullshit. And mine is a same sex wedding (in a place where it is currently not legally recognized), which just makes the planning full of extra difficulty.

So I was really excited to read Jessica's latest article at The Guardian about planning her feminist wedding . Overall, the article was great. At least until I got to this part of the last paragraph :

So, while our wedding will be politicised, it won't be a feminist caricature: I won't be sporting Birkenstocks under my dress and we won't ask the "Goddess" for a blessing.

That's when I started to see red. Because both my fiancee and I are Pagan. And we will be asking the Goddess for a blessing on our marriage -- and we won't be doing it in "scare quotes".

It makes me really angry to see my faith thrown out there, by someone who doesn't share it, as a caricature. The definition of caricature is " exaggeration by means of often ludicrous distortion of parts or characteristics". And for some of us, invoking the Goddess at our wedding isn't ludicrous or distorted, its a fundamental part of our spiritual belief.

I thought this was very cool.

(Quick translation issue -- the article uses the term "klal Yisrael," which basically means Jewish unity or the Jewish people as a whole -- people who disagree with her on ideological grounds saying that staying as one Jewish organization is more important than splintering into a zillion little ones that fight with each other.)

This story from CNN just really upset me. Far beyond the fact that it's DISGUSTNG to sell your 8 year old daughter to repay a gambling debt, the idea that a custodial parent obviously has no say in what happens to her child because she's a woman, and dad can just sell off his kid, because, well, that's that wacky sharia law! It really gets to me. And here's a choice quote (considering the gist of this story, taking it out of context really doesn't change the grossness):

"It is incorrect to say that it's not permitted to marry off girls who are 15 and younger," Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, the kingdom's grand mufti, said in remarks last January quoted in the regional Al-Hayat newspaper. "A girl aged 10 or 12 can be married. Those who think she's too young are wrong and they are being unfair to her."

Note again: Saudi Arabia=bad place. With waaaay too many friendly connections to the US. I realize that this is a radical version of Islam-does anyone with knowledge about this religion have any insight into why this is ok? Or the reaction of someone who views Islam differently? It's getting very hard to view this religion with any amount of neutrality, and while I realize this is the American media choosing what they want to report, and that I don't have a balanced perspective on Islam, but...jeez. This kills me.

*Please note that after the first two sections, everything is to be taken very sarcastically.  This is to point out the ridiculousness (sp?) of "going by the Bible."  Also my apologies if it makes little sense, I was ranting after all.*

Leviticus 19.22: You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

My body is holy.

I like to think of myself that way. I am mystical, I am powerful. There are processes in my body that are scientifically fascinating. Being female makes me almost miraculous - I can experience sensations that are practically beyond the scope of comprehension. I can orgasm, I can think, I can move, I can love. I can have children.

I'm not the only who thinks the female body is holy, either. Every religion I have ever studied has revered the mother, revered the strength and intelligence of the young girl, of the older woman. Unfortunately, many if not most religions lose these elements in practice - but religious texts themselves are incredibly full with adoration of the female. 

But usually, when people talk about the sacred nature of the female body, they aren't talking about the incredible things the female body can do and feel. They talk about purity.

They've got it entirely wrong.

When you value purity, you place the emphasis on having done nothing, having achieved nothing, having gained nothing and having lost nothing. The concept of purity has nothing to do with the concept of the sacred, as the sacred originally was. 

There's a simple and essential difference in these two ideas about holiness. One is positive, one is negative. To tell a girl that she is holy only if she denies herself the natural impulse of her physical body is to tell her that she is made imperfectly - that if she slips, even in thought, she is entirely worthless. To tell a girl that she is holy because she is inherently sacred, that her body is incredible and should be appreciated and cared for - but not feared or denied - is to empower her. This messages gives her strength, gives her choice, makes her more important not only in her own eyes but in the eyes of her community.

So to the purity balls and the abstinence only movement and those who recruit for virginity pledges I say this: fuck you and your purity. Give me my sacredness back. I reclaim the word and it has nothing to do with whether or not I have sex. It has to do with the way I value myself. If I choose to have sex with and think myself sacred, I am sacred. If I am raped and I consider myself holy, I am holy. If I have sex with a woman and think myself sacred and think her sacred, then we are. If I choose not to have sex, I am sacred for choosing to care for my body in that way. If I am male and think my body sacred because of the incredible things my body can do, I am also sacred. If my body and my gender do not match this societally created dichotomy, I am also incredible and I am also sacred.

It's my body. They are our bodies. So give me, give us back the right to be sacred.

My mother has been going through some really difficult times lately, so she's been turning to her faith (Catholic) to help her through it. I have no problem with religion, and I think it can really help people--when it's not used to hurt others that is. Anyways, she told me that she wanted to go to this "weeping Jesus" thing with her, so I went to support her. The story behind this weeping Jesus is that there was this 13 year old kid who was dying of cancer, and the doctors told his parents that he had a few weeks to live. So the family prayed night after night until one night while they were praying, the kid noticed the picture of Jesus they had hanging on the wall and said, "Look mom! Jesus is crying!" His parent's looked and saw that Jesus was, in fact crying. The kid ended up living, and is still alive 17 years later (he's 30 now). My mom figure if she saw this picture, it would help her out...

This is related to the post by "RosieRioter" about feminism and religion.

In Mary Strange's column today she talks about how women, while making up a significant part of most congregations, make up only a fraction of the leaders in their denomination. In many cases (such as with the Catholic Church) they are openly barred from holding leadership roles.

This makes me wonder if religion in America is just exaggerating society's attitudes in general. Women are far from equally represented in Congress or as partners in law firms. While there is no doctrine that currently prohibits them, they are obviously being discouraged in some way. Perhaps religious organizations are just turning into doctrine what everyone else is thinking and acting on.

That being said, these organizations are obviously even worse than our societal pressure because they are mandating inequality, not just encouraging it.

I guess my question is, "Is the church merely a reflection on our cultural values as a whole? If it is, then when we change, will it?"

I know you could say that the church won't change when we will because their scripture doesn't change. I'm optimistic, though. Many churches have decided to ignore the parts of the Bible that talk about selling your daughter into slavery so maybe with time they can start to ignore other sexist elements, too.

I was raised Roman Catholic and I can pinpoint the two events in my life that I became a feminist and stopped being a Catholic.

I went to public grammar school but still was active in my local church. (When you're raised on the Southside of Chicago church is just part of life.) I was one of the first girls allowed to be an altar server, prior to that you had to be a boy.

I just started my training and the priest was not subtle about the fact that he did not want us girls to be there. He would address the boys while ignoring or being flat out mean to the girls. I was learning how to do a funeral which requires standing in the back of the church and holding a candle. I was so terrified of the priest that I was afraid to ask to go to the bathroom and peed my pants. (Fun fact: also last time I ever peed my pants.) I put the candle down and ran out of the church.

A few years later, I was about 13 years old and in CCD class. I asked my teacher why women couldn't be priests. He told me they would gossip about what they heard in confessional.

At this point I called bullshit on the entire establishment. I went through confirmation to make my Mom happy but I have not called myself a Catholic since that day.

It's not just Catholicism. Almost every major religion has similar sexist traditions. I have Muslim and Jewish friends who drifted from their families because of their faiths treatment of women.

Does anyone else have a similar story? Was there a point where you could no longer justify an institution that treated you as less than your brothers? Were you able to find a common ground?

Keep in mind, I'm not talking about faith . I'm talking about the institution.

I recently stumbled across this clip of pastor John Piper, from my hometown of Minneapolis. He is giving a sermon on the anniversary of Roe v Wade and speaking directly to Obama about his position on abortion.

While I do not agree with Piper's position on abortion, I think his sermon was fine. Meaning, it was not particularly hateful or condeming. Until....he starts talking about the Obama daughters and how the President should want them, chaste, clean, married, not receiving reproductive freedom, and having babies. Something about it really rubbed me the wrong way.

Currently, one of the hottest op-eds on the National Catholic Reporter (NCR, the progressive Catholic newsweekly) takes a harsh and critical look at the church hierarchy's response to both the excommunications in Brazil and women's ordination in light of the Vatican's statement on International Women's Day:

These recent developments are part of an all-too-familiar pattern. In the past year, women and men who publicly support increasing women’s roles in the church have been penalized and excommunicated, under the same automatic and self-imposed penalty that the mother and doctors in Brazil supposedly incurred.

The authors, Aisha Taylor and Erin Saiz Hanna are leaders of the Women's Ordination Conference , the oldest and largest organization advocating for the expansion of women's roles and voices in the Catholic church.  (I don't recommend reading the comments section unless you'd like a head-shaped dent in your desk.)

Anne Eggebroten, a commentator at Women's eNews, also weighs in and highlights the voices that have condemned  the bishop's actions, including Taylor and Hanna, as well as Frances Kissling, best known as the former president of Catholics for Choice.  Eggebroten highlights a unique way for those who oppose such excommunications to respond:

To demonstrate the irrelevance of the church's position, women's groups around the world need to start an honor roll of people excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church, starting with Maryknoll priest Roy Bourgeois, who attended and affirmed the ordination to the priesthood of a Roman Catholic woman in Kentucky last August.

I know there's been a lot of back and forth between feminists on here about the appropriate role of religion in regards to the larger feminist movement.  I know there are many who believe that those who identify as feminist should walk away from religious institutions such as the Catholic church.  It is my belief, however, that injustice in the church is a threat not only to Catholic women, but to women everywhere.  The work of individuals and groups like Women's Ordination Conference and Catholics for Choice are part of the larger feminist movement, and are taking the fight right to the front steps of the Vatican.

I received from my husband today this link talking about an editorial in the Vatican's official newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. Apparently women owe their increased freedom to the invention of the washing machine. The contraceptive pill did not make any contribution other than polluting the environment and causing male infertility. One commentor felt this was a mis-interpretation of the article but I haven't been able to find it online. I have found many other similar takes on it though, like this one which mentions commentators and politicians reading the editorial the same way.

So ladies, enjoy your "freedom", get the washing done and while you're at it have a baby instead of messing up the environment. I cannot even comment on the link to the story about the 9 year old Brazilian girl - what is wrong with the Catholic Church?

The Vatican is defending the excommunication of the doctors and the girl's mother.

The kicker?

He [regional archbishop, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho] also said the accused stepfather would not be expelled from the church. Although the man allegedly committed "a heinous crime ... the abortion - the elimination of an innocent life - was more serious.

You can read the article here.

Unbelievable. Props to the President and Health Minister for speaking out in support of the doctors.

Following a slew of articles detailing the latest nonsense about the Bishop in the Scranton, Pa., diocese, it was great to see the main article in this week's University of Scranton "Royal News" :

Joan Kuzmack Kiel strongly urged for the distribution of the HPV vaccination to women in the Asia Pacific countries during her speech at the PNC Breakfast on Tuesday morning., Feb. 24, in The Rose Room of Brennan Hall.

A University of Scranton alumns (sic), Kiel has travelled to 13 of the 14 Asia Pacific countries, and plans to travel to Vietnam in the near future. She has travelled to these countries to try to sell and distribute the vaccine to women in need.

The article details Kiel's talk to the audience of the civic and business community in Scranton, and how important administerting the HPV vaccine can be. As someone who finished her Gardasil series, I heartily agree.

When I pulled up this article, I was reminded of how some conservative talking heads had come forward saying the HPV vaccine could turn girls into whores, because you know, it encourages them even more to have "premarital" sex because it makes them safe!

Quoth Bill Maher : "It's like saying if you give a kid a tetanus shot she'll want to jab rusty nails in her feet."

I live in Australia, in which there are many Muslim women, and many of them wear burkas (full veils, covering every part of the body except their eyes and hands).

The other day, I was at the beach (where, incedentally but importantly, there are many topless sunbathers), and a woman in a burka was breastfeeding her baby.

I passed without taking much notice, except to notice how absolutely adorable the little dear was.  I was waiting for a friend just 100 metres away, and some people were discussing how ridiculous it was for her to "cover herself up and then breastfeed in public".  They were blathering on about it for about five minutes, so I chimed in, saying that the traditional reason for a burka is to avoid a male gaze.  While careful not to assume that this was this particular woman's reasons for wearing the garment, I explained that breast-feeding is not a sexualised act, and not one that we should view as such *insert breast-feeding in public feminist discourse here*.  I asked them if they would be so offended if she was feeding her baby with a bottle, and they said "Well of COURSE not, but that's not the point", and I left before I was told to.

This seems to be a combination of two very important feminist issues, and I was wondering if anybody had any other thoughts on the subject... aside from telling people to mind their own business.

I've been seeing a lot of posts here lately where people seem to assume that all the religions that use the Bible believe in the Christian viewpoint of it.  Since the story of Adam and Eve comes up a lot, I figured I'd try to write out the Jewish interpretation of this story, and how it fits into a feminist framework.

Before I get to the actual story, there's another story I need to tell first, to explain the traditional Jewish view on Biblical interpretation.  (I can't remember the source of this story, but it's very old and considered part of Jewish tradition.)  Several rabbis were arguing over the interpretation of a particular verse.  One rabbi, Rabbi Eliezer, had one view, but the other three rabbis had a different view.  Rabbi Eliezer tried to convince the others that his interpretation was the one that G-d actually meant.  He said, "If I am right, let that rock start dancing."  And the rock started dancing.  He said, "If I am right, let a river appear right here."  And a river appeared.  And so on.  But the other rabbis still disagreed with him.  Finally, Rabbi Eliezer said, "G-d, if I am right, let your voice come down from the heavens."  And a voice said, "Why are you arguing with Rabbi Eliezer?  He is right."  And one of the other rabbis replied, "The Torah was given to us on earth.  It is not in heaven."  Meaning, G-d had control of the Torah only as long as it was still on Mount Sinai.  Once Moses came down from the mountain, the Torah belonged to the people.  And since among the people, it was three against one, Rabbi Eliezer lost the argument, and the other rabbis' view was the one accepted as the law.  And G-d laughed and said, "My children have bested me."

It disturbs me when I hear or read people say that the Bible condemns homosexuals and is silent on the issue of rape.  I recently saw an event celebrating the recent publication of "Yes Means Yes" in Cambridge, MA which, sadly, I will have to miss.  It got me thinking, though, why even the word rape isn't mentioned anywhere - as if the modern usage of the word didn't exist back then.  I've since read on the internet about why this could be, and found that at least three ancient words have been translated to "sodomy".  This, of course, presents some confusion.

The first one refers to male temple prostitution (there is a female variant of this word that is also translated as prostitute).

The second has an unfortunate homosexual connotation which is anal penetration, described as unclean and is performed far more often by heterosexual men with female partners, the last refers to sexual intimidation and violence by aggressive men against both male and female victims (and not always in the case of war, as the example of Sodom illustrates).

This last one almost certainly refers to rape.  Unfortunately, in most cases, the violation of men (while having nothing to do with homosexuality) is what is condemned because it brought them down "to the level of women" - a rather harsh indictment of ancient patriarchal cultures and a sign of how far we've come (even if we still have far to go).

In the Old Testament, it is also true that slavery was tolerated, even though we know it is a practice that God finds detestable.  Likewise, the word used for rape in the ancient world, found in the example of Sodom and translated as sodomy, is also detestable and must be viewed in the modern light, regardless of the gender of the victim (and is on the short list with idolatry, adultery, and murder among those things which He detests the most).  Check out these three web sites for yourself.

Girls to marry militants, orders Taliban 2 Jan 2009

(from The Times of India)

ISLAMABAD: On the heels of their crusade against girls going to schools, the Taliban have now issued new dictum in the areas under their sway asking parents of the grown up daughters to marry them to militants or "face dire consequences".

This new force-marriage campaign is being run in most of the areas in the Pakistan's troubled NWFP through regular announcements made in mosques to congregations.

Such instances have come to light recently through some of the affected women daring to go to authorities for justice rather than meekly surrender to the militants’ dictates.

Salma, who teaches in a primary school in Peshawar, told the Dawn newspaper that Taliban have told families to declare in mosques if they have unmarried girls so that their hand could be given in marriage, most probably to militants.

If they did not do so, the girls would be forcibly married off, the newspaper quoted the 30-year-old widow as saying.

*A very long post on a very vexing topic.*

Everything that mainstream and even right-wing America believes is good is, to the Daughters, poison.

To the Visionary Daughters/ Issacharian Daughters/ stay-at-home daughters movements, the words "independence" and "self-achievement" are anathema.

Who are these daughters?

They are young, predominantly European-ancestry women living in the West, practicing Christianity and Judaism, who not only believe, as many evangelical Christians do, that a woman's role in life is to support her girls alone, but who encourage unmarried young women to live with their parents and to forego outside jobs in favor of "training" in housework. They do this so that they might help their *father* fulfill his life-vision, until such time as the daughter is given in marriage to help her husband fulfill HIS life-vision.

As then-Stay At Home Daughter Genevieve in New Zealand writes,

"It was not so long ago that my ambition was to be the first woman prime minister of New Zealand. And it was even less time ago that I was working a highly paid legal executive job for a prominent solicitor [lawyer]. The Lord has done quite a work in my life since this time. He has turned my heart to my FATHER, my family and my home. (all caps Okra's)

Genevieve learned to help her father with his vision, his business (as opposed to pursuing her own self-focused interests and jobs). Presumably, her mother did not have a vision of her own that required support. When Genevieve married Pete, she saw it as an explicit transfer of authority and vision from her father to her new husband. Now her job was to support Pete in HIS business of his own choice:

"[my husband] Pete would set the vision; he would follow the calling God had for him and seek to be fruitful in the areas God wanted him to take dominion. And I would help him to be successful in being fruitful. I would help him to see his vision to completion."

And this is only the tip of a deep iceberg.

The post on the main Feministing site last week about Old Spice's "Manliness" contest led me to a treasure trove of loudly-and-proudly anti-feminist, anti-humanist, anti-HUMAN philosophy. See, for only a few examples:

• A young Jewish woman in Israel advances her theory of "Domestic Felicity," in which girls/women must do everything they can to avoid university education. Seriously. Read the site.
• Maidens of the Home by American Maiden, a young Christian woman living at home with her parents who describes her occupation as "Keeper at Home -in-training." She writes: "Why is going through a secular college an assumed event in every high school graduate's life, but simply learning at home and continuing education in many mediums highly disregarded? The answer is clear. Karl Marx saw it plain and simple. Feminism."

What interests me is that some of the most visible leaders of this movement are people like the Botkin sisters, Anna Sofia and Elizabeth (aged 20 and 22), who are unmarried young women living in "their father's" home, yes, BUT who are also published authors, professional bloggers, and motivational speakers as well. A far cry from learning how best to scrub a toilet for one's future husband and children. Apparent disconnect? Here is what this duo has to say about their own domestic training:

Those who know us only by our public appearances see only a tiny part of our life, and can't know how much we enjoy doing the "unglamorous" work that makes a family thrive. We have laundry to wash, hungry people to feed, floors to mop, families to reach out to through hospitality, and men in the family who can always use an organizer, stenographer, editor, or someone to iron their shirts. This is our real life, and we prefer it. A few times a year we have opportunity to, in a sense, reap the harvest we have sown by writing, and it often involves going public, but to us it's just another privilege of service, like taking a meal to a needy family. We and our parents believe this is the kind of life that will best prepare us for marriage to any kind of man.

Their site is filled with such attempts to reconcile the sisters' very impressive (by "the world's" standards) accomplishments with their stated ideological goals of limiting their pre-marriage training to that of the domestic and "visionary helpmeet" variety.

Believe it or not, despite my religious pedigree (see below), I was unaware that this ideology had in the U.S. been crystallized into a formal movement that actively discourages young women from attending university to begin with or even from working at BURGER KING or THE GAP or BEST BUY after finishing high school. Because attending college or working any type of job on the "outside" breeds in women a "selfish" focus on herself and causes her to "value her own achievements" so much that entering a life of godly wifehood apparently loses its luster somewhat. In other words, keep 'em ignorant so they don't know what they're missing. (Explore the sites I link to; they actually use this exact language).

One self-professed anti-feminist writes:

"I was very depressed for a long time when I first came home after graduating from college. It took me between one and two years to wean myself away from dependence on the constant feedback of school grades to confirm my worth."

(Okra asks: as opposed to those other facets of life that DO confirm your worth, like washing the bathtub, unearthing a new bread recipe, and learning to sew so that if you meet a like-thinking man and marry him one day, you can run his household as an efficient chatelaine?)

When I was a junior in high school, I transferred from one private non secular high school to a smaller private non secular high school full of the smallest minded people I think I've ever met.

Patriarchy was stressed just as much as religion, after all it reads word for word in the Bible that women were created from man and so we must beneath them and are thus expected- by God, so they say, to take inferior roles in the workplace, at home, and in church. I remember one particular religion class where the teacher- a man, since women shouldn't be an authoritative teacher of religion to boys past a certain age, was instructing us young sixteen and seventeen year old women on how to be good X women. We are supposed to marry a good X husband, have his children and raise them in the X faith, and if we have a job, it shouldn't be one that makes more money than our husband's. There even exists a line within traditional marriage vows where brides promise to 'obey' their husbands, but that line does not exist in the groom's lines. I was always very offended to sit in that classroom and constantly be told how women were second class citizens compared to men. I remember the class that completely blew me away was when he printed out an article on women supporting pro-choice and condemning them as sinners and refused to hear anyone disagree with his opinion.

It was also not an uncommon occurrence for a few of the men teachers to act sexually inappropriate around their students, one incident being the gym teacher getting called out by his female student for looking down her shirt and his rebuttle to her was that she shouldn't dress like such a little tramp. The incident was pushed under the rug after the school guilted her parents,who were parishioners at the church affiliated with the school, to keep quiet.

It was a total culture shock as I have been reared in a very liberal family where I was assured I could do and be whatever I want, and was never taught to recognize gender as an obstacle or handicap. Needless to say I transferred once more my senior year- to public school- finally!

Peace, Love
Breezy

My mom is a very religious. She's listening this guy preaching on the radio as I'm writing this, and I can't believe the words that are coming out of his mouth.

He's saying that the husband 'should be their wifes pastor', and jokes that if the husbands wife is coming to church to listen to him, and get advice from him, that he has 'too much power' over that mans wife. He also quoted a section in the bible that basically says that women are supposed to be silent in church.

There are many dated passages in the bible, and some that are just crazy. Like this one:

"No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the lord"- Deuteronomy 23:1

I wonder of that pastor believes that one too.

On yesterday's Democracy Now they interviewed Father Roy Bourgeois. He has been a staunch (and vocal) opponent of the Army's School of the Americas as well as the Iraq war. Now, the Catholic church wasn't thrilled with that, but it wasn't until he showed support for women that they really freaked out.

He has spoken out in favor of allowing women to be ordained as Catholic priests. Because of this, the Vatican is threatening to excommunicate him if he doesn't recant his beliefs.

This is my favorite quote from the interview:

"But what we have here, at its very core, is the sin of sexism. And like racism, no matter how hard we try to justify it or bring in, you know, God to bless discrimination, in the end it is always immoral."

Now, I'm no fan of Catholicism (or religion in general). I went to Catholic chirch as a child and it's definitely not for me. Pope Benedict has only made things worse - going even farther to take away women's rights and focusing less on the humanity aspect of religion than John Paul II did. But I feel that if a woman wants to be a priest, that should be her right.

No one should be denied their right to exercise their religious beliefs because of their gender. As long as they aren't hurting themselves or others, no one should be denied their religion for any reason. And if someone feels called to become a priest, that's what they should be.

The unfortunate sucess of Proposition 8 in California leading to the denial of marriage rights for homosexual couples in California has put the Mormon church in the spotlight. With the fervent support/spmorships of Prop 8 from many bigoted Mormons, it would seem on the surface that Mormonism and feminism are completely incompatible—what with the Church of LDS history of being sexist, racist, and most recently—highly homophobic.

Fellow Feministing community member, ohmissjulie, recently blogged about being “Mormon, Feminist, and Kind of Afraid.” I think it is important to point out to her that she is most definitely not alone as a Mormon feminist. Pulitzer Prize winning Harvard University History Professor Laurel Thatcher Ulrich-- the woman who coined the phrase (that we have all seen on t-shirts or buttons at one rally or another “ Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History” is a devout Mormon AND feminist.

A recent post has drawn quite a strong reaction. While I do not mean to comment on the opinions of the author of that post, it set me thinking about the role religion plays in our personal understanding of feminism, and whether the two are mutually incompatible.

The obvious answer would, of course, be no. The stance an organisation cannot be conflated with the positions adopted by its individuals (and surely the latter is diverse).

But my response to that is limited by my own experience.

While I was baptised into the Roman Catholic faith as an infant, and while I continue to identify as Catholic almost fifteen years later, I also consider myself feminist, even knowing that many of the Church's teachings are in direct opposition to the values of feminism. This includes the rejection of homosexuality, Humanae Vitae, excommunication upon those involved in female ordination, and so forth.

A Mormon feminist posted about her precarious position of being a feminist Mormon, amid the Prop 8 battle and the post-8 backlash against the Church. A lot of posters there are sympathetic to her plight and apologetic for hateful statements or stereotypes they or their allies may have made about Mormons, even while they admit they're very frustrated with her church (technically, my church as well, though I've got a pretty nice resignation letter I'm perfecting and mustering the courage to send in).

While I could talk about Mormonism, feminism, bigotry, and GLBT issues until I was blue in the face (and I may on this very blog, when I have more time to sit down and I'm in a less tense emotional state about the entire matter), I'd instead just like to talk about one pet peeve of mine in particular. It isn't unique to the issue of Mormonism and feminism, but I hear it when these two identities are being discussed quite often.

I'm a Mormon. And I'm a Feminist. I don't say either of those things as often as I probably should, and I certainly don't often state them together. I do my best to live in such a way that both affiliations are pretty obvious; my semi-conscious hope, I think, is that my actions will speak loudly enough that I won't have to bring up the actual labels themselves, so then I can be who I am without having to face the social consequences of my beliefs. The Mormon and Feminist communities have always had - how do I put this delicately? - a complicated relationship, and I've always been afraid that owning one aspect of my worldview would immediately ostracize me from the people who owned the other.

I've never felt that fear more poignantly than these past few months, with the leadup to and fallout from the vote on Proposition 8 in California. Half of my friends have been vehemently defending Prop 8; the other half have spoken out passionately against it. And me? Well, I don't vote in California, I've said. And I've taken that as my excuse to completely wuss out of the entire issue. I hid my feminism and my liberalness from my religious friends. I hid my religiosity from my liberal, feminist friends. I tried to make sense of the issue while I retreated from it - which, by the way, has turned out to be impossible. Unable to understand without involving myself in it, I figured I could just bury my head in the sand for a while and everything would somehow just blow over.

By Jameelah Medina

I know it is difficult for some to understand why a piece of cloth on someone’s head can have so much importance. But the hijab is more than a piece of cloth for those of us who wear it. For me it is a privilege to be able to wear the hijab , and it is a daily reminder of my faith. It is a way for me to be in charge of my own femininity and to make an active decision about what I choose to cover and what I choose to let people see. For a Muslim woman to be forced to remove her hijab in public where men are present is a humiliating and possibly traumatizing experience that she will not soon forget. This humiliation and indignation is the same that a non-Muslim woman would feel if she were forced to take off her shirt and bra and walk around topless in public where men are present. Just as most women feel that their breasts are a private area that is to be covered in public, many Muslim women feel the same way about their hair. The forcible removal of a woman’s hijab should be just as unacceptable as the compulsory removal of a woman’s shirt and bra.

In December 2005, when I was arrested for having an invalid train pass, I was forced to remove my hijab in front of male deputies at the West Valley Detention Center. I felt completely naked. I honestly cannot imagine feeling more humiliated even if they had forced me to remove all of my clothing. What I mean to say is that, for me, wearing clothes without my hijab is just as meaningless as wearing a hijab without any clothes on — either way, I feel exposed. When the officers compelled me to remove my hijab , it was as if they forced me to remove all of my clothing because of the level of indignation I experienced. No woman should have to experience this even if she has been arrested.

In this country, we are supposedly free to practice our religion, and we do not check our federally protected rights at the jailhouse door. Or better said, we should not be forced to relinquish those rights, especially when that right can be so easily protected by having certain policies in place. When I told the deputy that I could not take off my hijab , there should have been a policy that would allow her to check my hair in private. At the airport, I am always taken into a private room or behind a curtain, where 2 or 3 female TSA agents have me unpin my hijab , they check my hair, and I put my hijab back on. But because there was no such policy in place at the jail, I was forced to remain uncovered for approximately 12 hours and to be seen uncovered by male deputies. During this time I was also hyper-aware of the presence of male voices in my proximity, and felt utterly vulnerable.

Once I became aware that my rights had been violated, I did not have any other choice but to seek justice for the wrong that was done; I had to do it for myself and for every other woman who has ever and will ever be put in that unnecessary situation. I am just so thankful that the ACLU was able to take the case and fight to safeguard the religious rights of women. As a result, San Bernardino County will implement new policies that protect women’s rights, and I hope that all jurisdictions will follow this example.

Learn more about my case and the settlement at: www.aclu.org/muslimwomen .

My boyfriend recently received a film titled "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West." Tens of thousands of this DVD have been sent to independents in battleground states. I am always interested in hearing different views, so I decided to check out the DVD. First, I checked out the cover of the DVD. Here are some of the things I noticed:

1. This film is distributed by the Clarion Fund. Who is the Clarion Fund and how did they get the funding to distribute this DVD? I went to their website, which by the way, contains very little information. I did not find any names, only a generic email address. I emailed the organization to get more information about their funding and have still gotten no response.

The UK is supposed to be secular.  Of course it's not.  In two days two different religious groups are threatening not just women's rights or freedoms but - their lives.

Life-threatening screw-up number one.  We now have Islamic Sharia courts operating in the UK.  Yes, I know you're thinking - that's impossible, people would NEVER tolerate this.  But these courts don't deal with big crimes - just little trivial ones like inheritances, divorces and domestic violence.  So far they've ruled in six domestic violence cases and in each case decided it's best for the husband to take anger management classes and the wife to be sent back to live with him.  And the British judicial system will enforce these rulings despite the fact that we know two women a week are mudered by their violent partners in the UK.  Religion 1 - Women's Lives 0 .

(My browser/screen doesn't offer an html option, so excuse the un-hyperlinks).

Perhaps you've heard about the recent controversy over magazines pulled off display by Southern Baptist leadership.

They were recalled because they featured cover photo and article discussing women pastors.

A Southern Baptist leader, Richard Land, has written an article explaining SB views on women leaders in church (believed to be scripturally discouraged) v. women leaders in the secualr realm (permissible, since the New Testament is silent on that score).

That's the fun message of one Ohio church.  The Havens Corners Church in Blacklick, Ohio, has a charming new sign up. Apparently they're not big fans of Katy Perry's hit song "I Kissed A Girl ".

A sign outside Havens Corners Church in suburban Blacklick has the lyrics from the song's chorus, "I kissed a girl and I liked it" -- and adds, "Then I went to hell."

Church pastor the Rev. Dave Allison said the Bible clearly states that homosexuality is a sin, so the sign is intended as a loving warning to teens .

Yes, we can totally feel the "love" in this message to young lesbian and bisexual women. Kiss girls and it's straight to hell for you! It just radiates kindness and tolerance and compassion. Jesus would definitely approve, don't you think?

[crossposted from Evil Slutopia ]

I saw this in Salon.com today.

and I thought it would be of interest to you all.

Now, I'm not going to hold Palin personally responsible for every nutty thing her pastor says but I do seriously bristle at her invocation of God and God's plan when discussing the war in Iraq and her proposed energy policy.  This would seem to indicate that she is even more extremist than I previously thought possible.  It really creeps me out.  I just don't think that God should have any role in politics (yes, I live in this fantasy world).

So, it will be interesting to see if Palin will be made to answer for her pastor's controversial views the Obama was.

I am a feminist atheist, but for most of my adult life I was a practicing Jew. Ironically, if it wasn’t for my Jewish upbringing, I probably wouldn’t be such an ardent feminist, but if it wasn’t for my feminism, there’s little chance I would be identifying as an atheist today.

With all dues respect for those who are religious. I want to give me opinion of why i think God is another form of oppresing people. If we look at Chrsitiany and mostly all types of religions god is seen as a male patriarch figure. Just the fact that we used the word He for describing all humans tells you something. How come we don't use the word  "He" in this sentence. "He just had a baby" or " He just got his period." Anyways I think the figure of any god oppresses not only women , but all people. Look at  Genesis, it says God created Adam to his own image, and Eve's image was in a way created by Adam for his own image and adavantage. So it seems like it's a chain reaction of oppression; God oppresses Adam, and Adam oppresses Eve. So actaully Eve is been oppresed by two male figures. All I'm trying to say is that in my opinion it would make sense that the the bible was created not by the historical facts about some supreme being and its humans he created it. But that supreme being was just but another man in this Earth. It was created by a man who wanted his philosophy to be lived by all people for generations and generation to come, because to him that was the perfect form of humans to live by. So we all are really just living another man's ideas and values.

Please give me your thoughts on this issue, thanks.

As both a Christian and a Feminist I've found my voice repeatedly silenced in both communities. I am in a vast minority at the conservative Methodist college I attend, subjected to the same inane conversation about how feminism is "unnecessary," "unChristian" and "all about getting pissed off when men try to open the door for you."  Likewise,  in the feminist community I am inundated with stories of fundamentalist Christians who say and do horrible things. Where are all the Christian Feminisits? These two groups can and do coexist

<a href="http://www.womenwriters.net/may2001/biblebeltfeminist2.html">Here is a great article</a> on the relationship between Christianity and Feminism. I think it is extremely important that Christian Feminists do not get too caught up in their own little world. It's crucial that we hear the views of those who don't share our faith. But it would be nice if our views were occasionally heard too.

For another look at why christianity and feminism are not mutually exclusive try <a href="http://christianfeminism.wordpress.com/"> this blog.</a>