Look. These aren't the same. I'm not saying they are. There are different types of each, some more and less severe. The most common type of female genital mutilation is more severe than the most common type of male genital mutilation.
But they are the same in that both rob a child of his or her right to his or her full body.
They both take away part of a human being without consent.
They both cause excruciating pain to the victim.
They can both cause death.
They both are attempted to be justified by religious reasons
They both are attempted to be justified by medical reasons.
They are both societally considered acceptable, albiet in different parts of the world.
They are both intended to rob the victim of sexual pleasure.
Consent is what's important. Watch this wonderful video, by youtube's freedom0speech. This may help explain to you what I mean.
The line between what should be allowed to be performed on minors belongs all the way at the bottom. ALL children deserve their full, intact bodies. I am as strongly against female genital mutilation as I am against male genital mutilation. No one here is minimalizing female genital mutilation. By supporting a ban on the forced genital cutting of minors, you show that sexism should not be allowed to be written into our laws. Males and females should be offered equal protection from those who wish to mutilate their genitals, no matter how severe or how mild it may be. Boys and girls have every right to intact bodies. No procedures save life saving, immediately necessary surgeries should be allowed to be preformed on ANY minors. This includes females. No one is trying to minimalize female genital mutilation. I am against all genital cutting.
I'm sorry if I sound repetitive, but people really seem to need to hear it said a few different ways before they understand.
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Monday, September 12, 2011
Friday, August 5, 2011
A Small Victory
The high school I went to, as I've mentioned before, shrugged off Church/State violations like they weren't a problem. Every veteran's day assembly had prayer involved, and I had to attend graduation for 6 years to play pomp & circumstance with the band; every year this started with a prayer. No one cared enough to report it and I kept quiet. During the earlier years, because I was totally apathetic to religion, and a little later, because I didn't think I had the resources to fight it, especially when it seemed 99% of the school wanted the prayer, and the other 1% seemed apathetic.
But, during senior year, sick of hearing a prayer at every assembly our school had, at national honor society inductions, I had halley record the prayer on her phone. You could barely make it out, but it gave me the momentum I needed to contact the Freedom From Religion Foundation They were incredibly helpful. I filled in their church/state violation form, and was contacted the next day. I gave them a little more information; nothing I didn't know. They wanted to know if a student gave the prayer and if I could give them stronger evidence it was pre-planned. This evidence wasn't necessary, but they said it could help. I let them know it was rehearsed the previous day in front of the principal and sent them a copy of the pamphlet that listed "opening prayer", along with the recording. They didn't actually wind up using the recording (or needing it) because it was so fuzzy.
Within two weeks, they sent me back a copy of the email that they'd sent to my superintendent and principal, and in less than another week, they sent me my school's reply. Thankfully, they were cooperative. They agreed not to plan a graduation NHS prayer again. And, on my high school graduation day, a student gave a prayer, in private, in his capacity as a student, without the condonemnent of my high school, or the captive audience of everyone attending the graduation. And halley and I walked away from it. I was thrilled, because my school didn't sponsor prayer.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation does some amazing things, so, everyone who can should support them in general.
But, during senior year, sick of hearing a prayer at every assembly our school had, at national honor society inductions, I had halley record the prayer on her phone. You could barely make it out, but it gave me the momentum I needed to contact the Freedom From Religion Foundation They were incredibly helpful. I filled in their church/state violation form, and was contacted the next day. I gave them a little more information; nothing I didn't know. They wanted to know if a student gave the prayer and if I could give them stronger evidence it was pre-planned. This evidence wasn't necessary, but they said it could help. I let them know it was rehearsed the previous day in front of the principal and sent them a copy of the pamphlet that listed "opening prayer", along with the recording. They didn't actually wind up using the recording (or needing it) because it was so fuzzy.
Within two weeks, they sent me back a copy of the email that they'd sent to my superintendent and principal, and in less than another week, they sent me my school's reply. Thankfully, they were cooperative. They agreed not to plan a graduation NHS prayer again. And, on my high school graduation day, a student gave a prayer, in private, in his capacity as a student, without the condonemnent of my high school, or the captive audience of everyone attending the graduation. And halley and I walked away from it. I was thrilled, because my school didn't sponsor prayer.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation does some amazing things, so, everyone who can should support them in general.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Religion and Sexuality
This article will also be published on generation atheist so go check it out if you happen to read my blog, but not it.
I've grown up in an area with a church on every corner. This is not much of an exaggeration. There are two churches within ten minutes walking distance from where I'm sitting, and four within 20. I live in a place where church/state violations are brushed of as silly and people roll their eyes when asked to include religions other than christianity, and find it unthinkable to not believe in a god. a vast, vast majority of people around here are christian. My high school had between 400 and 500 people in it, and the number of (out) atheists was at 7, at the highest, while I was there. Most people attended a church every week, at least.
Luckily for me, somehow, my parents don't happen to be very religious. My mom is something of an agnostic, but went with the label "christian" for a long time, because she'd gone to church as a kid, and she didn't utilize her own mind very much until a few years ago, preferring to let my dad decide these things. My dad grew up in an abusive home, and tried to get religion to save him from it around age 15, and since, even though he's not gone to church or read the bible, has been a weird sort of religious that seems to mean he thinks that there's a god who wants you to worship him and believes a few randomized passages in the bible. I'm not really sure why someone with such an insanely cherry-picked religion that seems totally unique to him would feel he could criticize others, but he somehow finds a lack of religion laughable.
Enter- My homosexuality, and screw with all of my family relationships. I didn't come out until about a year after my parents decided they found out. It's all a little difficult to explain, but my dad heard rumors that I was gay, and kissed my girlfriend at school, then, I gave xem a goodbye kiss on xyr forehead one day, and he decided that he knew enough to guess that, yes, I am a lesbian, and I should never be allowed to talk to my girlfriend.
The only reason I could ever get out of him was that god said homosexuality was bad. This utterly insane man had somehow chosen the verse about stoning homosexuals to believe, out of all of them. He called me disgusting, and told me I was going to hell. He told me I wasn't his daughter anymore. And the only reason I could get out of him was religion. My mom just cried and said she loved me, but she wanted me to change so god would love me. I was so confused at the time. How was this random Leviticus verse the one that would send me to hell when none of us kept the sabbath holy, attended church, prayed before dinner, or even learned about the bible? But, religion around here seems to be all about intolerance.
So, my parents' reaction to my homosexuality was because of religion. My friends? Actually, most of them didn't care. That's why they were my friends. But my pool of potential friends pretty much evaporated at school. I lived a dangerous double life that, in hindsight, seems crazy to have attempted, but, I digress, the point is, at school, I was an out, proud, lesbian, and that people knew this made them look at me with disgust. No one wanted me as their teacher-picked partner for assignments, and it was hilarious to point at me and say "that's the lesbian" When halley (my girlfriend) was holding hands and walking with me, asking explicit questions about out (then nonexistent) sex-life was okay. Teachers looked the other way for the most part, because really, we deserved it for defying god this way. It seemed every way I turned, someone hated me for loving xem because their sky dad said so.
This caused a little shame, but luckily, most of the time, I just felt depressed that everyone seemed to hate me without actually thinking about it. But I did feel a little shame. I tended to laugh it off. And I labeled myself a "bad girl" because I wasn't listening to my parents for the first time in my life, and, even though I didn't believe in god, it was still something I was doing that was yicky, according to most people I knew. I thought maybe something was wrong with me, and I was terrified that there was some premise I was missing that made their logic make sense without god involved, and I lived in fear of debates, because what if they proved that it was bad? would I stop loving xem? could I stop loving xem?
But what ultimately saved me was my halley and my friends. They reminded me that loving hurts no one, even if imaginary sky dad says it does. I have one conversation I'd like to share with everyone reading, paraphrased to the best of my memory between me and a friend on facebook chat. We'll call him Jeremy. He's the kind of guy who is always joking about everything, so one night, as I was telling him I watched the spanish channel on cable at four in the morning and it was utterly bizarre, the conversation went little like this
Jeremy: well, there's basically porn on HBO at four a.m.
Me: lol. okay
Jeremy: yeah, so now you can watch all the naked girlies you want, and no one will know.
Me: haha. I'm too much of a sweet innocent little girl for that.
Jeremy: ... yeah, I'm sure you are. lol.
Me: well, it's not like I haven't thought about it. But sometimes, I forget I'm not a good girl anymore. haha. It's like I was for so long, I don't remember that that changed.
Jeremy: Brittany, you are good. You are sweet and kind and you loving a girl doesn't affect this. Anyone who wants to tell you otherwise is just a narrow-minded fuckhead who is jealous that you have someone who loves you.
Me: I think that's the sweetest think anyone's ever said to me. I didn't know you could get that serious.
And it continued. But that reminded me, without this nonsense god stuff, sexual orientation of any sort is okay, and it doesn't affect how good or kind you can be, so no one experiencing this should be ashamed.
I've grown up in an area with a church on every corner. This is not much of an exaggeration. There are two churches within ten minutes walking distance from where I'm sitting, and four within 20. I live in a place where church/state violations are brushed of as silly and people roll their eyes when asked to include religions other than christianity, and find it unthinkable to not believe in a god. a vast, vast majority of people around here are christian. My high school had between 400 and 500 people in it, and the number of (out) atheists was at 7, at the highest, while I was there. Most people attended a church every week, at least.
Luckily for me, somehow, my parents don't happen to be very religious. My mom is something of an agnostic, but went with the label "christian" for a long time, because she'd gone to church as a kid, and she didn't utilize her own mind very much until a few years ago, preferring to let my dad decide these things. My dad grew up in an abusive home, and tried to get religion to save him from it around age 15, and since, even though he's not gone to church or read the bible, has been a weird sort of religious that seems to mean he thinks that there's a god who wants you to worship him and believes a few randomized passages in the bible. I'm not really sure why someone with such an insanely cherry-picked religion that seems totally unique to him would feel he could criticize others, but he somehow finds a lack of religion laughable.
Enter- My homosexuality, and screw with all of my family relationships. I didn't come out until about a year after my parents decided they found out. It's all a little difficult to explain, but my dad heard rumors that I was gay, and kissed my girlfriend at school, then, I gave xem a goodbye kiss on xyr forehead one day, and he decided that he knew enough to guess that, yes, I am a lesbian, and I should never be allowed to talk to my girlfriend.
The only reason I could ever get out of him was that god said homosexuality was bad. This utterly insane man had somehow chosen the verse about stoning homosexuals to believe, out of all of them. He called me disgusting, and told me I was going to hell. He told me I wasn't his daughter anymore. And the only reason I could get out of him was religion. My mom just cried and said she loved me, but she wanted me to change so god would love me. I was so confused at the time. How was this random Leviticus verse the one that would send me to hell when none of us kept the sabbath holy, attended church, prayed before dinner, or even learned about the bible? But, religion around here seems to be all about intolerance.
So, my parents' reaction to my homosexuality was because of religion. My friends? Actually, most of them didn't care. That's why they were my friends. But my pool of potential friends pretty much evaporated at school. I lived a dangerous double life that, in hindsight, seems crazy to have attempted, but, I digress, the point is, at school, I was an out, proud, lesbian, and that people knew this made them look at me with disgust. No one wanted me as their teacher-picked partner for assignments, and it was hilarious to point at me and say "that's the lesbian" When halley (my girlfriend) was holding hands and walking with me, asking explicit questions about out (then nonexistent) sex-life was okay. Teachers looked the other way for the most part, because really, we deserved it for defying god this way. It seemed every way I turned, someone hated me for loving xem because their sky dad said so.
This caused a little shame, but luckily, most of the time, I just felt depressed that everyone seemed to hate me without actually thinking about it. But I did feel a little shame. I tended to laugh it off. And I labeled myself a "bad girl" because I wasn't listening to my parents for the first time in my life, and, even though I didn't believe in god, it was still something I was doing that was yicky, according to most people I knew. I thought maybe something was wrong with me, and I was terrified that there was some premise I was missing that made their logic make sense without god involved, and I lived in fear of debates, because what if they proved that it was bad? would I stop loving xem? could I stop loving xem?
But what ultimately saved me was my halley and my friends. They reminded me that loving hurts no one, even if imaginary sky dad says it does. I have one conversation I'd like to share with everyone reading, paraphrased to the best of my memory between me and a friend on facebook chat. We'll call him Jeremy. He's the kind of guy who is always joking about everything, so one night, as I was telling him I watched the spanish channel on cable at four in the morning and it was utterly bizarre, the conversation went little like this
Jeremy: well, there's basically porn on HBO at four a.m.
Me: lol. okay
Jeremy: yeah, so now you can watch all the naked girlies you want, and no one will know.
Me: haha. I'm too much of a sweet innocent little girl for that.
Jeremy: ... yeah, I'm sure you are. lol.
Me: well, it's not like I haven't thought about it. But sometimes, I forget I'm not a good girl anymore. haha. It's like I was for so long, I don't remember that that changed.
Jeremy: Brittany, you are good. You are sweet and kind and you loving a girl doesn't affect this. Anyone who wants to tell you otherwise is just a narrow-minded fuckhead who is jealous that you have someone who loves you.
Me: I think that's the sweetest think anyone's ever said to me. I didn't know you could get that serious.
And it continued. But that reminded me, without this nonsense god stuff, sexual orientation of any sort is okay, and it doesn't affect how good or kind you can be, so no one experiencing this should be ashamed.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Video Games and Atheism
So, I'm a pretty big fan of scribblenauts and super scribblenauts. These are both games for the nintendo D.S. with a really cool concept. The gameplay is simple and creative, as you can have any item you can spell (minus some deemed vulgar, or some that are too obscure to be programmed in) and in super scribblenauts, you can add adjectives. You use any items you can think of to solve puzzles designed to have multiple ways of completion. Anyone who is a fan of puzzle style games should really pick this game up; It's well worth the money you'll spend.
Anyway, enough about the game in general; I'm here to praise one specific concept that spoke volumes to me, as an athiest. I always played with god in the original scribblenauts. There's something satisfying as an atheist to make god and kill him with a shotgun, nuclear bomb, poisin, acid rain, fire, and just any number of things you can think of.
Only last night, though, did I ever think to put "atheist" into the little notebook. I expected that to be too specific a concept or religions or lack thereof to be considered too controversial for it to cover without being accused of "stereotyping", but, no, to my suprise, a small, black haired guy in blue jeans and a skull shirt showed up for me to place. I happily showered him in gifts, flowers, food, some golden wings, money, and the little wrapped box with a bow that shows up when you use "Gift". Okay, so I get to feeling way to warmly towards video game characters. That's not the point.
The reason I'm writing this is what happened when I made god, to see how he and the atheist would interact. What happened? My little atheist guy ran over to god, the gear (far as I can tell, stands for thinking, working or fixing something) symbol came in a thought bubble, and god disappeared. Some people have said the athiest killed him, but I don't think that's the case. You see, in super scribblenauts, everything has four little life points, shown as red circles above them before they die or disappear. And god didn't lose his life points in this, he simply disappeared in a flash. I interpret the entire following as the atheist disproving god, and making him disappear. He does the same to a goddess. He does the same to zeus (looks just like god) and odin. I couldn't get the game to recognize any other gods I knew the name of, but I plan to try more. The general point: atheism disproves god.
So, to whoever on the creation and design team was responsible for this: Thank you, from an atheist for making your game represent atheism as correct. I know it's a small thing, but this mention and following makes me so happy. Let me say it one more time
Thank you, super scribblenauts creators
Sincerely,
a happy atheist
Anyway, enough about the game in general; I'm here to praise one specific concept that spoke volumes to me, as an athiest. I always played with god in the original scribblenauts. There's something satisfying as an atheist to make god and kill him with a shotgun, nuclear bomb, poisin, acid rain, fire, and just any number of things you can think of.
Only last night, though, did I ever think to put "atheist" into the little notebook. I expected that to be too specific a concept or religions or lack thereof to be considered too controversial for it to cover without being accused of "stereotyping", but, no, to my suprise, a small, black haired guy in blue jeans and a skull shirt showed up for me to place. I happily showered him in gifts, flowers, food, some golden wings, money, and the little wrapped box with a bow that shows up when you use "Gift". Okay, so I get to feeling way to warmly towards video game characters. That's not the point.
The reason I'm writing this is what happened when I made god, to see how he and the atheist would interact. What happened? My little atheist guy ran over to god, the gear (far as I can tell, stands for thinking, working or fixing something) symbol came in a thought bubble, and god disappeared. Some people have said the athiest killed him, but I don't think that's the case. You see, in super scribblenauts, everything has four little life points, shown as red circles above them before they die or disappear. And god didn't lose his life points in this, he simply disappeared in a flash. I interpret the entire following as the atheist disproving god, and making him disappear. He does the same to a goddess. He does the same to zeus (looks just like god) and odin. I couldn't get the game to recognize any other gods I knew the name of, but I plan to try more. The general point: atheism disproves god.
So, to whoever on the creation and design team was responsible for this: Thank you, from an atheist for making your game represent atheism as correct. I know it's a small thing, but this mention and following makes me so happy. Let me say it one more time
Thank you, super scribblenauts creators
Sincerely,
a happy atheist
Friday, July 8, 2011
Introduction
Hi! My name is Brittany. I am 17 years old, and can describe myself in a lot of ways. I am as liberal as they come. I am a screaming advocate for peaceful, natural parenting, and a proud sister to 6 year old Joey. I try to care for him in the ways I would care for my own children, but sometimes his parents get in my way. It's hard to practice peaceful parenting with a child that isn't yours. haha. I am also a lesbian, and proud of it. I'm in love with My beautiful, precious girl, Halley. I am proud to be with her and love her so much. I'm kinky; Naturally submissive, but usually playing the dominant role, because Halley loves it so much. I'm a girly sort of girl. I love dresses and sparkles and pink and rainbows. I am an atheist, and consider religion frankly dangerous, therefore hate it. I do not hate religious people, though. I love some of them a lot and hope to "show them the light" so to speak. I am a total child at heart. I love dolls and kids' shows. Especially Moose and Zee on noggin. I have one new, special doll. She's 18 inches and her name is Lellianna. I love to play with her and be a mommy. Speaking of which, I am the type to want to be a stay at home mommy. I want to take care of my babies and cook and clean for my wife. I don't feel anyone should be forced to do what makes them unhappy. I feel I should have every right to work any place that offers jobs to people, but that I should have the right to opt out. I am a gamer and a let's player. I love the classic series like Zelda, Mario, and Final Fantasy. I also love Kingdom Hearts and have played quite a few other games. Shooters are not my thing and I am not even interested enough to pick up a controller for them. As for let's plays, Joey and I have started a let's play of majora's mask. If you want to find it, the channel is SissyandJoeyLP. Anyway, guys, I don't think I've left any of the main things I wanted to cover out of this, so I'm done!
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