Congrats on the engagement. Also, I want to salute you for having the moral courage to do this.

Doug

That's a huge problem--the anti-choicers have a habit of lying to the little kids about what abortion really is. When they're not making the attempt at subtlety, just planting the idea and encouraging it to grow into any number of absurd and gruesome untruths. It's really hard to get someone to see the facts when their brains have been marinated in images of babies being forcibly cut out of their mothers and killed, warehouses full of barrels of still-living babies, and of course the conveyer-belt of brazen and irresponsible whores at the demonic family-planning clinic. When they're marinated in it at an early age, I'd imagine it gets even harder.

That is absolutely nauseating that that bastard would say such a thing to little kids. It's too bad he was only reprimanded--if it had been nearly anything else, he'd probably be fired.

I would have looked him up and cut the religion out of his soft underbelly, if he made my daughter cry.

Sorry. Father's prerogative. :)

Sadly, we can't even be sure it was a "he."

Sorry. Father's prerogative. :)

I miss the preview. This never happened when there was a preview. *sigh* :)

The part of the story with the little girl got to me. I was raised grades K-8 in Catholic school, though nothing ever soaked in. When they started in at six, I hit the ground questioning! (not out loud, of course) Unfortunately, not everything got spit out right away.

I came across something disturbing to me couple of years ago as my mother and I were happily rooting through all the things she'd saved from our childhoods. I looked over various religious junk with nostalgia if not reverance, until I came across an anti-abortion drawing from sixth grade. It was of a very pregnant woman at a counter, taking a bottle of pills from the hand of an off-page speaker, who was instructing her to take all the pills and before she knew it that kid would be out of her hair, or some such flippant callously-murderous sentiment. The memories came flooding back about how evil these people were, to be killing babies without and kind of godly remorse, and what horrible women (they stopped short of using the word "whore") would do anything but dutifully give birth and raise their sweet, innocent, wonderful little God's gift to them. And how the world was sooo evil and godless and mass murder of infants was the result. The emphasis, BTW, was more on the women than on the abortion providers, too.

I was so infuriated, just as I was when they told me that in public school, you'd be suspended if the school officials ever heard you breathe a word about Jesus. Apparently, from my drawing, I envisioned women just popping in a few days before their water broke, getting a bottle of over-the-counter pills from some uncaring, godless corporate dealer, and...well, I dont' think I ever thought much further than that.

Then I grew up, found out the reality of abortion (the methods, the actual statistics, that sort of thing), realized the non-representative strawmen and outright lies the faithful hateful had told me (uncorroborated, unproven, emotionally-manipulation-based stories, made up scientific "facts" and fabricated statistics, that sort of thing), and now I'm completely pro-choice.

And arguing with parents who repeat uncorroborated anti-choice horror stories about how they broke into a clinic and found "a warehouse of barrels of still-alive little innocent unborn babies, yea, as far as the eye could see!" and claim that my more reliable evidence is just "whores and baby-killers lying so they can keep slutting and murdering". They love that twenty-year-plus-old story, with it's over-the-top true-crime-style horror and they are not willing to give it up. Plus my dad is certain they are just setting us up for a baby-killing industry, wherein the doctors will get to use discarded fetuses for their stem cells and that women will be encouraged to get abortions as often as possible. It would do no good to tell him he sounds not much better than his brother, my aluminum-hat-wearing insane uncle who fried his brains on heavy drugs many a year ago and now believes he is being pursued by both aliens and the Mafia. (Yes, he is walking around loose. Yes, that is very terrifying.)

It's nauseating that these people will indoctrinate their kids like this, before they even know what's going on, deciding what they think before they're old enough to form a real opinion. It hits a more personal note with abortion to me, because that's one area of my rational thought armor they actually managed to cut through (however temporarily), what with the cute babies and whatnot. I've never held a grudge that there was no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy, but the fact that they had me drawing little posters of misinformed religious hatred before I was old enough to understand any of the situation pisses me off like you wouldn't believe.

That said, I'd love to do what you guys are doing (since apparently girls can do it too), but I'm afraid that I couldn't let the crap slide, not even what you're describing, and I'd do more harm than good. I've lost a lot of tolerance for wilfull ignorance and hate, and it's hard for me to believe that anyone has a right to be so completely and proudly stupid. After some shouting, and then some punching, I'd end up on trial for assault. I think my brother might too. I commend your patience and self-control!

Again, good for you!

I think I have to disagree with you, even though I appreciate your comment.

The conflict is not about whether or not anyone's beliefs -- no matter how "crazy" or accepted -- are true or false.

The conflict is whether or not anyone may impose his or her beliefs on another, regardless of how heartfelt those beliefs may be, including whether or not parents may violate the human rights of their children.

The fact that they believe that they are saving their children's souls is irrelevant.

I make this point, because I think it's a trap to which it is easy to fall prey -- and a trap often set by believers.

My father sincerely believed that he had a god given right to beat me into submission.

He had every right to believe this.

He had no right to impose this belief upon my person thereby violating my personhood and autonomy.

But, I really like your last point about sending souls to heaven. Although the Mormons would take issue with this comment. For some reason -- they think they have to get from the ether to earth and then onto heaven. Which is why Mormon women are treated as baby incubators and plural and celestial marriages are part of the doctrine.