Why I Won't Move to Oklahoma, or Kansas, or Texas..

The list is actually quite long, of states I won't be moving to in this great country I call home. Some folks might be curious about why. So here's the break down.

Some are for religious reasons. Did you know 6 states still have laws on their books that bar atheists from holding office? I'm not going to fake an interest in a make-believe being just to get involved in civic governance as is my right as an American citizen. So that takes the following states off my list.

• Texas
• Tennesse
• South Carolina
• Mississippi
• Maryland
• Arkansas

Oklahoma gets a special mention in this category because GOP lawmakers there have recently introduced a bill that would restrict marriage to Christians and Jews. HB1125, check it out. As in, atheists, muslims, etc need not apply for marriage; so sad, too bad, you weren't needing that status for health insurance or tax purposes were you? Better find yourself some jesus and get to a church. Because, in addition, the bill would bar all judges and other secular officials from performing marriages in Oklahoma. So people who just need a quiet, quick ceremony are out of luck too.  That does not endear the state to me, no matter how many of my relatives are there.
Kansas likes to shove religious nonsense into school curriculum so they get an honorable mention too.

Some are off the list for reasons that are tangential to religious reasons, namely their war against women's reproductive rights. And, no, I don't buy for one precious second that these abhorrent laws are based on safety for women. You want to look at women's safety? Check out the rates of death by botched abortion and note the point on the graph where women finally had court mandated access to safe legal abortions. (Hint: Roe v Wade was decided in 1973.)
Women's safety is certainly not maintained when researchers say nearly 200,000 Texas women have lost access to contraception, cancer screenings, and basic preventive care, especially in low-income, rural parts of the state. All in the name of "safety." So spare me that.

So, with that little bit of clarity behind us, here are the states that I won't move to because I'm a woman of reproductive age and controlling my fertility is of vital importance to my economic and physical well being.

•  Oklahoma - Yes, unfortunatly OK tops this list, as it has the highest number of laws restricting women's access to abortion and that has affected the number of women's clinics, making all other health services hard to come by.
• Kansas is high on this list too, so in spite of its close proximity to family, it's out.
• Louisiana has family in it, but again it's out. (Plus, they like to elect felons, what is up with that?)
• Missouri climbed this particular graph in a dramatic way this past year, it was in consideration before that happened. Oh well, too bad. 
• Texas .. oh Texas.   When I say this state is a war-zone, I'm not just talking about the 100 mile radius surrounding the border. They are waging war against the health of half their population. Texas Health and Human Services estimates that the state will see almost 24,000 unplanned births in the coming year because of the cuts to services.  That will cost taxpayers a pretty penny, up to $273 Million is what the THHS says.  I'm so not interested in joining that party.

(The data in this chart is primarily sourced to the Guttmacher Institute).


 It's really too bad. I wish I could move closer to extended family, there are a lot of them I really miss, but I'm not interested in rewarding the lawmakers of these states. If they are going to pass laws hostile to women, and/or hostile to secular Americans, this woman is not going to move there. Period.

They don't deserve my brain power, they don't deserve my skills or my payroll taxes. They don't deserve my sales taxes, my fees, fines or permit dollars. Fuck 'em. 

It's perhaps a small thing in the larger picture of state budgets, but they are my small things, and I still have control over them, so I'll decide where they go.

Oregon, Vermont and Washington, why do you have to be so far away?
-Jennie

What Could Get Me Back in a Church?

Not all of my readers will be interested, but I think some of my readers might be curious.
What follows is based on a response I made to a post on the Patheos blog network, in regards to a book that tries to list the top 7 things that will get young people back into the churches they are leaving in droves. 

I've not read the book. :-D Check out the link above if you want to see a summary of what the 7 things they listed were.

I am a Millennial, and I left the church when I left my parents' house, and I haven't been back since.  If I was to make a list of the 7 things that would get me back into a church, it would look like this:

1) Quit preaching hate. I got so tired of hearing about all the sins and sinners I was supposed to not associate with or participate in. Half of them seemed arbitrary, none of them seemed logical or helpful to living in a pluralistic society.
2) Respect women. Some faiths are better than others with this one. But pretty much any religion that wants me to take back seat, second seat, or any seat other than an equal one, is never going to get a second of my time or a cent of my money. I'm also not interested in hearing how some random part of my body is sinful and should be covered up. Neck, shoulders, ankles, knees, face, elbows, breasts... bah. They are no more sinful than my ears or my knuckles or my forearms.
3) Can you revise the bible? I know, it's supposed to be the "word of god." But, let's be honest, it's not. It was written by men, translated by men, revised by men. Update it for the new millennium already! Drop the bronze age anachronisms, nobody cares about tattoos, seafood or mixed fiber clothing anymore. It would be nice if there were more women's voices in it, telling their stories, perhaps even stories where the women are something other than a whore or a virgin or the "wife of man #3." Some nice warrior women, leader types would more closely match what I strive for in my life.
4) Be more open to those of us who question. I don't believe in deities anymore. But, that in and of itself, is not a part of why I don't go to church. I would still go if it were a welcoming community that accepted me AND my disbelief. I like helping my neighbors, I like living a life of service and kindness and sharing.  I like singing songs with my neighbors and celebrating life's milestones together. Can you divorce all of that from the Thou Must Believe bit? I certainly don't want to go to a church for the community aspects and lie about it, I'm not a liar.
5) Yes to the local point. I'm not going to drive a long distance to get to a church I like. There is a Unitarian church I feel like I might be happy at, but it's an hour drive away, so it's a no go. Every church within walking distance is .... well.. not meeting my criteria.
6) Work to build up the wall of separation between church and state. I'm not interested in living in a theocracy. Not of any stripe. Churches don't pay taxes to the state, so they should have no say in the governing of the state. Period. "Leave unto Caesar" and all that. Quit sending money to PACs that work to implement Sharia law, whoops I mean Christian values into law. Quit preaching from the pulpit on political candidates and their level of acceptableness to the particular brand of faith you practice. Continue that practice and you'll never see me step foot in your building.
7) This is an addendum to the "be local" point. Support locally. Keep service projects local. Mission trips to 3rd world countries look great in the church bulletins, but they aren't really great at helping people. Time and time again, the missionaries leave and the super great technology that they installed works for a while, then breaks and with no who knows how to service or fix it, the people of that village go back to whatever unsanitary, dangerous or inefficient thing they were doing before. There are plenty of people who need help in every community. Young families who could use help with child care, elders in need of food, vets in need of someone to talk to, new comers in need of a friend or a meal, kids in need of a big brother/sister or adopted grandparent. It's not as flashy and exciting, but it would be of more actual help if the church focused locally first.

Non-belief is growing rapidly in my generation. If the only young people you're interested in adding to your church are the ones that already agree 100% with your faith and your rules, you may find those numbers dwindling, no matter how many big fancy worship concerts you plan.  You should maybe look at the actual beliefs of those who are leaving, and ask how you can better align your church with what they actually need and actually believe in.
Or not.
Just don't kid yourselves when the numbers of "Nones" keeps growing and the average age of your congregants continues to rise, while their numbers fall. The Nones are not confused, misguided or "lost souls." We're sick and tired and fed up with the churches.

If you want to find me on Sunday morning, I'll be in my vegetable garden, happy and content, free of divisiveness, free of arbitrary rules, wearing what I like, and making my own decisions, although maybe a little lonely.  All you have to do is match that experience, minus the lonely and you could get me back into a church. Will you?

My bet is no.
-Jennie

Why I Will Never Join The HSLDA

HSLDA - The Homeschool Legal Defense Association. In case you don't know the acronym in the title off the top of your head.

We've started, just barely, on homeschooling preschool with our soon-to-be 4 year old. Right now it's a light mix of felt shapes on the felt "learning board" I made for him, connect the dots counting books, puzzles and reading books to him. Preschool.... *sniff* my baby's growing up. 

Anyway, there's always the question, "how are WE going to homeschool?" There are so many different ways to do it. Unschooling, Waldorf inspired, box curriculum based, online curriculum based, bible based, etc. For those of you who have read more than one post on this blog, you won't be surprised to hear that the bible won't enter our curriculum until we get to religious studies or mythology units. I'd like us to do unit based homeschooling, tying in all the basics (reading/writing/rithmatic) into whatever unit we're studying that month. I'm not sure I've convinced hubby yet, I think he envisions some sort of boxed curriculum that helps him track and measure things. We'll probably try a bit of both, and maybe something else I can't even think of right now as we try to find what works for us and the boys.

There are a few things I know for sure though, and one of those is that we will NOT be joining up with HSLDA.  This group is a  hardline Christian organization. Complete with the unrestrained persecution complex that so many Christians espouse these days.  (As if the most populous religion in the country, with references to its deity on our money and in our pledge, could possibly be a persecuted people, give me a fucking break.) Complete also with the patriarchal views, the bigotry against gays and ties to people I actually would like to see persecuted. (I mean prosecuted... Freudian slip there.)

The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) has given workshops on how to stonewall social workers and used inflammatory scare tactics to work their member families into a tizzy, calling and badgering any politician, civil servant, or researcher who sees the need for change. They have helped create an environment where more kids will grow up like I did and they have held up “parental rights” as some golden calf, the be-all end-all. They apparently believe this so heavily and have had so little real opposition (I mean how much can children themselves fight this?), and they have been so litigious and nasty to the little bit of opposition that they have had, that for now they have won. They have successfully had more and more legislation to this effect passed and they are still doing so right now.
They haven’t done a very good job of sanitizing the stark reality of their position though, and that is that they apparently do not believe children have any rights except the right to be born.
In 2000, Christopher Klicka, the late longtime HSLDA director and homeschooling father of 7 even said “if children have rights, they could refuse to be home-schooled, plus it takes away parents’ rights to physically discipline their children.” Hmm, I wonder why any kid might not want the brand of homeschooling that they are selling?
While plenty homeschoolers refuse to have anything to do with the HSLDA, lots of conservative Christian homeschoolers still pay dues to them for their legal services and the HSLDA uses that money to further deregulate and expand into some even more suspect causes, like ensuring that the United States is the only other nation besides Somalia and South Sudan to have not ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. HSLDA’s founder, Michael Farris, is even trying to get a “parental rights amendment” put into the U.S. constitution instead. HSLDA does a lot of fear mongering about a supposed future anti-Christian backlash, a coming persecution of dedicated homeschoolers, and fanning this fear keeps them in business. The fact is, no matter how many press releases they send out, this just isn’t happening. We also aren’t in the 70′s anymore, when pioneering homeschoolers sometimes got threatened with truancy prosecutions. The worry that we need this total deregulation to prevent social workers from snatching up homeschooled kids is not only unfounded, it is elevating a far-fetched dystopian threat while ignoring the dystopian reality that I and far too many other homeschooled children have actually lived.-HeatherJanes

The Home School Legal Defense Association reduces homeschooling freedoms by knowingly disseminating inaccurate information, an example being the UN's Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It contained dreaded phrases like, "the rights of children" and "equal treatment of men and women." If there's anything conservative Christions fear more than those phrases, it would have to contain a mention of LGBT peoples as human and worthy of respect. Another view point that HSLDA stridently opposes. I don't agree with their premise that equal rights for gays and lesbians would be a blow against anyone's homeschooling rights. This organization whips its members into a fearful frenzy at every opportunity, then uses their membership monies to fight political fights against a wide range of non-homeschooling related causes.  See aforementioned LGBT rights and women's reproductive rights.

All the while, HSLDA ignores the actual problems present in the homeschooling community.  HeatherJanes' story is one of the many you can find online as a whole generation of children reach adulthood and freedom and are telling the sordid truth about their conservative Christian "homeschooling" experiences. HeatherJanes was the only one of her 6 or 7 siblings to learn to read. I've read of girls getting far less schooling than their brothers, right now that's completely legal, if incredibly sad for those girls. Stories of abuse being hid by keeping the children at home where there are no required reporters.

So, that begs the question, will we join ANY homeschool association? Possibly. We may join up with the local school district's homeschool association if they have one. We may try to join up with a local parent-organized homeschool group.  We may find however that all the options local to us are heavily geared towards and populated by conservative Christians. And if that is the case, we may just avoid the hassle and hate and heathen comments and do our own thing to our own beat. There are of course online communities for non-christian homeschoolers.
Heathen Homeschoolers - was supposed to be back up and running last fall, but has not yet come back. *cross my fingers*
Secular Homeschooling has a magazine.  There used to be a couple of blogs I followed, but they got attacked by rabid Christians and no longer feel comfortable blogging. So, I'll keep looking. We'll find us a community.

An organization that is truly representative of a broad spectrum of homeschoolers:

* Has a governing body freely elected by the members
* Requires no statement of faith for officers, employees, lobbyists, members, or as a condition of service
* Has a board of directors with a diverse make up, not only one type of homeschooler
* Holds elections that are open, free and democratic
* Surveys members for their opinions
* Takes action based on members' opinions
* Remains neutral on non-homeschooling issues

HSLDA Embodies None of These.

-Jennie