Yesterday this showed up in my news feed along with the following story.
(I copied and pasted it “as is” so please forgive the spelling and grammatical errors).

Two young ladies arrived a Meeting wearing clothes that were quite revealing their body parts. Here is what the Chairman told them: He took a good look at them and made them sit. Then he said something that, they might never forget in their life. He looked at them straight in the eyes and said; “ladies, everything that God made valuable in this world is well covered and hardly to see, find or get.

1. Where do you find diamonds? Deep down in the ground, covered and protected.

2. Where do you find pearls? Deep down at the bottom of the ocean, covered up and protected in a beautiful shell.

3. Where do you find gold? Way down in the mine, covered over with layers of rock and to get them, you have to work hard & dig deep down to get them.

He looked at them with serious eyes and said;
“Your body is sacred & unique” You are far more precious than gold, diamonds and pearls, and you should be covered too.”So he added that, if you keep your treasured mineral just like gold, diamond and pearls, deeply covered up, a reputable mining organization with the requisite machinery will fly down and conduct years of extensive exploration.
First, they will contact your government (family), sign professional contracts (wedding) and mine you professionally( legal marriage).But if you leave your precious minerals uncovered on the surface of the earth, you always attract a lot of illegal miners to come and mine you illegally. Everybody will just pick up their crude instruments and just have a dig on you just freely like that. Keep your bodies deeply covered so that it invite professional miners to chase you.
Let us all encourage our wives, friends and daughters to dress well and decent!

There is so much wrong with this post I am not sure where to begin. Let’s just start here and see where it goes…

1. Humans decided gold, diamonds, and pearls were valuable. As far as I know God did not hand out a book of valuable minerals text in the garden of Eden.

2. Women and girls are not objects to be possessed or “mined”.

3. I am not my daughter’s “government” here to be contacted for permission to “professionally mine” her. She is not my property to give to whom I please. She is an autonomous human being who is able to choose for herself whom she wants to share herself with when that time comes.

4. Weddings are no longer considered a transfer of property (at least not in my household) or a license to “mine” a woman “professionally” (whatever that means).

5. If my daughter (or any other woman) “leaves her minerals uncovered on the face of the earth” (read: wears revealing clothing) she is not giving permission to be “mined illegally” (again, whatever that means).

5. He then says the most egregious thing in the story.

Everybody will just pick up their crude instruments and just have a dig on you just freely like that.

So, let me get this straight, if a woman doesn’t cover herself to this man (or any other man’s) standard, she should not be surprised if they “pick up their instruments and just have a dig on you freely”?!? WTF? Seriously? No. No. NO! This is wrong and a very dangerous thing to teach to both women and men.

After all these years, I don’t know why things like this surprise me anymore. Honestly it should surprise no one that stories like this are applauded and taught to our sons and daughters when much of the church espouses a theology where women are less than men, bear a greater responsibility for “sins of the flesh”, and are considered to be more easily deceived.

Oh yes, I almost forgot…

What is up with that picture? Let’s see, you don’t want women to wear revealing clothing, but you use a picture of a woman in revealing clothing to illustrate your point. Hmmm. Maybe all of this says more about you than it does the women you are trying so desperately to control

As my friend Elliot said this morning,

Like it or not that is the logical conclusion of the statement released by AG Paxton’s office yesterday.

County clerks and their employees retain religious freedoms that may allow accommodation of their religious objections to issuing same-sex marriage licenses.

According to the Texas Association of Counties, the County Clerk (I have added my commentary in bold):

[S]erves as clerk of the court for all misdemeanor county, criminal and civil courts including commissioners’ court and probate court; maintaining the official records of the courts they serve. The county clerk records the acts and proceedings of each of these courts, entering all judgments, recording all executions issued and the returns issued on the executions as applicable,(Unless they have a fundamental religious disagreement with those judgements) and administers trust accounts for minors and registry accounts (Unless they have a fundamental religious disagreement with the way trust account funds are spent); additionally, the clerk must keep an index of the parties to all suits filed in the court, and make reference to any judgment made in each case.  As clerk of the county courts, the county clerk collects and is responsible for money paid in court costs, fines and fees and for the payment of juror fees. (Unless they have a fundamental religious disagreement with those fines and fees)

The clerk is the custodian of all county records including birth, death, cattle brands, hospital liens, deeds, deeds of trust, liens, Certificates of Release or Discharge from Active Duty (DD 214), and a variety of other important records both public and non-public. The county clerk also issues and maintains marriage licenses and records assumed name certificates. (Unless they have a fundamental religious disagreement with who is listed as parents, who is discharged from the military, whether someone should be allowed to change their name and of course who gets a marriage certificate!)

As with all elected county officials, both the county clerk and the district clerk have ultimate authority over the operations of the office, including the authority to hire and fire  personnel (People who agree with their particular fundamental religious beliefs and to exclude atheists, Catholics, Muslims and anyone else they deem to hold the wrong religious views) and direct their daily activities. Both the county clerk and district clerk also have authority to determine how to use all other resources allocated to the office during the budget process. (They can, of course, use their fundamentally held religious beliefs to decide what budget items should and should not be funded.)

The past two years for my birthday we have been sending girls to school. The original challenge was to send one girl to school for every year I have been alive. We did great the first year (my 44th birthday) but we didn’t quite make our goal. Last year for my 45th birthday we went over and above our goal of 45 and sent 48 girls to school in 2014-2015. I am hoping this year we can beat not only the goal of 46 for my 46th but maybe even beat last year’s total of 48. How awesome would that be.

I am hoping you all will help me. There A LOT more of you this year than last year. I believe we can do it. Like last time, I will kick it off by sponsoring two girls, 2 down 46 to go!

Here are some statistics for inspiration:

• For each year, a girl stays in school, her future income can increase by 15-25%.
• Girls with secondary schooling on average have 2.2 fewer, yet healthier children.
• If 10% more girls attend school, a country’s GDP increases an average of 3%.

For just $58 you can send a girl to school for a whole year. That is only $1.11 a week.

Come on, let’s change the world for the better again this year!

Click this link to get started.  http://gifts.rescue.org/product/education/year-school

As always, let me know if you sponsor a girl or two (or more) so we can keep track together!!

I have had this meme or one very much like it in my feed a lot over the years. It always leaves me with a few questions.

What if:

• You are a kid who is being bullied?
• You are a woman who has had acid thrown in her face?
• Your spouse/child just committed suicide?
• You are a victim of domestic violence?
• You are currently being raped?
• You are gay and your parents threw you out of the house and now you’re 15 and homeless?
• You just buried your child?
• You have been forced into sexual (or some other form of) slavery?
• You are currently on the lethal injection table about to be executed for a crime you didn’t commit?
• You were a Jew who was incinerated in an oven at Auschwitz?
• You are a young girl who is having her genitals mutilated?
• You are a child who has been abandoned? or beaten? or sexually abused?

I find it ironic that this type of meme is meant to be a comfort to people. How is it comforting to place my trust in a God who has put me in such horrific and terrifying situations on purpose just so he can come to my rescue or teach me a lesson? I would never treat my children that way and if I did I would be convicted of child abuse.

I refuse to believe in or worship that God. That God is a monster.