Do You Feel Personally Hunted By The Religious Right?

[ruggerson]

I know we all despise these people because of their relentless cruelty and evil.

But for some of us, the evil that they perpetrate is not a political abstract at all. It actually affects our daily lives.

Do you PERSONALLY feel under attack by them? Do they make your life worse?

If you'd like to, please share your experiences.

[ixion]

1. I don't know if hunted is the right word

but the RR sure are a major problem. I really don't care what religion they care to practice, as long as they don't insist that I practice it, too. That's where we start to have a problem.

[ddeclue]

2. They knocked on the door the other day ... so yes..

Have you found Jesus yet? Yeah come on in.. I think he's somewhere under this pile of dirty laundry...

Doug D.

[SpiralHawk]

23. Check your tortillas

He seems to turn up pretty regularly on them.

[murray hill farm]

3. not hunted...

but maybe annoyed.

[MichiganVote]

4. They bore the hell out of me, that's bad enough

[babylonsister]

5. Not hunted, but the 'believers' are some relatives and friends

I can no longer talk to, so they've affected my life.

[snowbear]

6. Heck.. I know plenty of major "Relgious Lefties"...

And neither the religious left or the religious right try to interfere with me personally..

But I do know a lot of hardcore Democrats who are far, far, far more religious (and by that I mean they are 10x more dedicated to their churches and the work that they do) than the religious right.

Go figgur' :shrug:

[babylonsister]

12. Wow! I don't know any religious Dems, not that that's a bad

thing. But my religious 'right' brother turns me off, and we can't talk.

[snowbear]

13. Wow... none?

Religion has nothing to do with Republicans --- NOTHING..

Hence the reason idiots like the Reverand Chan Chandler was kicked out of the Waynesville Baptist Church in North Carolina. Remember that? Booted his ass after he made all the Kerry voters leave the church. What a low life dirtball! :mad:

You only have to look as far as the Christian DU section right here at Democratic Underground to realize that many of our own members here are very religious! O8)

It's something Republicans try to cease on because they try and play the "ethics issue" card. LOL..... Republicans and Ethics!!!!! http://eliteleague.co.uk/forum/images/smilies/lol!.gif http://eliteleague.co.uk/forum/images/smilies/lol!.gif http://eliteleague.co.uk/forum/images/smilies/lol!.gif

[babylonsister]

16. The Dems I know

aren't religious, except Dad and his lady love, but they're 78 and almost-80, respectively.
But they are spiritual! :hi:

[snowbear]

18. We have a super liberal Methodist church here in town!

And it was great listening to the female minister debating with a male rightwing pastor at a local Baptist church on our local liberal talk show.

The station brought the two of them on to discuss how hy church's should leave politics "OUT" of their sermons ... but the wonderful female minister wound up royally kicking the other guy's butt; telling listeners about how bias he was and how he tries to brainwash his members..

She did her homework and was able to recall every complaint ever made about how the rightwing wacko runs his cult!

Anyone living here would know which Baptist Church I'm talking about.. there's tons of them here, but only one that Dobson comes up to visit on a routine basis.. http://eliteleague.co.uk/forum/images/smilies/lol!.gif

Scary place.. :scared:

[stevietheman]

7. The Religious Right hates our freedoms, that's for sure. n/t

n/t

[eve_was_framed]

8. NO, but they sure make me wonder what it's like to go hunting....

[Nutmegger]

9. Well I have this uncle...

who has converted to the "born-again" faith. Now he's out on a mission to convert the rest of the family. I'm lucky that I live in the next state over but sometimes he'll stop through (he travels) to see if anybody is at the house.

He's a rabid repuke supporter! UGH!

[madrchsod]

10. no ---

i know what christ`s words mean to me and it ain`t what they are preaching...i could give a shit less what they say.

[toddaa]

11. I'm a bad parent

Why? Because I don't take my children to Church for moral indoctrination once a week. And it's not just religious rightists who have told me this. Sadly, religious leftists have expressed a similar concern that my children are going to grow up amoral and selfish.

[ruggerson]

19. Morality has nothing to do with organized religion

One can be both spiritual and moral and never set foot in a church. If you bring your kids up to understand what kindness, generosity and responsibility are, which I'm sure you're doing, that's the whole ball game.

[seabeyond]

14. no. i challenge them. i am surrounded by them.

and i challenge them. they know how i live, they know how i treat others, they know how i love. so i challenge them. i have not had a single person able to make me less, feel hunted or inadaquit. they know me. and i hope in my challenging them they might think twice before judging the next person.

[AtomicKitten]

15. Their scorched earth ideology has split my family apart

I have fundie siblings and old school Catholic parents. My other "normal" sibling and I haven't broken bread with them since late 2000.

[Coyote_Bandit]

17. Not hunted exactly but

I guess you could say that I am surrounded by religious kooks. I live in crazy red fricking JOklahoma where church attendance is as much a social and business pursuit as a matter of faith. I have sworn never to work for or to hire anybody that uses any kind of Christian symbol or advertising in their business. I know too many folks that have been taken advantage of by these greedy charlatans. Many years ago when I was young I attended a fundamentalist school - and was quickly (and proudly) labelled a troublemaker. My brother and his family are fundies. My sister-in-law's sister attended a Baptist seminary for several years. The two sisters had a theological argument over the holidays and the former female seminary student was informed that her opinion was worthless because she was a woman. She did object to that. The same sister-in-law's father is a former Baptist pastor. I can't escape them at family get togethers. I also have several Christian acquaintances who have varying levels of tolerance for views different from heir own. Truly, I am surrounded by religious kooks.

Edit to add that I love baiting the fundie kooks and showing them the inconsistencies between their agenda and their faith. I consider it sport and sometimes I manage to take a point or two.

[Mr Rabble]

20. I do indeed. I just "lost" a friend over this insanity.

I still cant believe that this has happened. Not because we were so close, rather because I saw first hand how insane his reasoning has become.

I blogged about it at the time, earlier this month-

http://lyingorstupid.blogspot.com/2005/12/what-was-i-thinking.html

Im going to sleep. Goodnight all!

[tenshi816]

21. I used to, then I left the country.

My remaining family members back in Georgia are fundies, particularly my stepmother, who is of the nearly-frothing-at-the-mouth variety (my dad's OK though). I used to go around with a constant sense of dread when I knew I had to spend time with them because my stepmom disapproves of everything about the way I live my life - not that I do anything outlandish, but because I'm not a fundie like she is, I'm therefore bad and unredeemed. To make it even worse, I'm a Catholic, which to some of my family members means I'm not Christian at all.

Now that I only see them every couple of years and live 4000+ miles away, things are much better. It took years, but I finally got to the point where I will either laugh at them or argue with them, and I refuse to be bullied anymore or made to feel bad about myself.

[TriMetFan]

22. Yes I do.

Yes because I'm a lesbian and I don't and will never understand why my rights have to be any Religions business. So when they attack my civil rights thats when I feel that they are hunting me. :grr:

[xchrom]

24. absolutely!

do i need to say more?

[NoFederales]

25. No, but I am dismayed by the bravery by which these toxically ignorant

sheep now feel free to spew their coded spin. The power which emboldens them--how do they feel they actually have anything? To me it's like standing in front of an empty hearth and expecting to feel warmth; I do not get it.

NoFederales

[closeupready]

26. I do feel that their homophobia harms me, by extension

that is, homophobia - statistically (in terms of attacks) and anecdotally - is on the rise, and that is definitely due to the increased power of the Religious Right.

I don't take these things personally, but when I look at the constellation of factors which are feeding this homophobia, they are one of those pinpoints of light.

I wouldn't necessarily characterize it as being "personally hunted" but as a member of a group on their shit list, I do see the connect between their rhetoric and people's attitudes.

[belle]

27. As another member of one of their favorite scapegoat groups,

I tend to take it personally, I'm afraid. Or, well, it's personal enough, you know? It affects me directly, certainly. If I want to marry a female partner and their foaming campaigns keep me from doing so, damn right it's personal. If they had their way I'd still be arrested just for having sex with her in a number of states, and would have been up till a couple of years ago. They make it nearly impossible for my same-gendered partnered friends to adopt or conceive children, more so in some states and situations than others, but there are a thousand little snags even in supposedly enlightened places like here. They put my (legal) immigrant best friend through a million hoops he never would have had to go with if only he could have married his male partner of over six years; enough so that he nearly had to leave the country. They take my tax money to teach schoolkids that people like me are sick and perverted, or don't really exist at all; and still more goes, unconstitutionally I might add, to "charity" groups that specifically shut out and even demonize lgbt people, many of whom are in direst need of that charity. They would wipe all representations of my sexuality off not just TV but every form of media, if they could. And while it's not so bad as long as I'm living in NYC or the Bay area or suchlike, I'm still getting good and sick of the lies and demonization from major public figures in the media (hey, super, 9/11 was our fault! And Katrina! And the decline of the American heterosexual marriage! And the fact that they're terminally unhappy and angry!) They don't go away even if I plug my ears. They don't just "disagree with my lifestyle" (god I love that one). They want to eradicate me, and mine. I find myself heartily returning the sentiment. It's not good.