Pro tip: if an evangelical stranger approaches you asking to pray for you, there’s inevitably something about you that they see and want to change. [Ex: I attend a very conservative, very religious uni and am clearly tomboyish/lesbiany, and thus am constantly attracting evangelical strangers] If you can’t shake them (usually very difficult), then turn the tactic upon them by asking if they mind you leading the prayer bc “I have a few things on my mind.”
Then talk about whatever it is that’s making them uncomfortable. I ask god to protect all the lgbt+ kids that are lost, isolated or homeless. I mention my non-Christian brothers, sisters, and siblings that have to fight for recognition and respect in a monoreligious nation. I pray for the protection of immigrants and refugees, reminding my evangelical friends that their savoir was once one of that number. You can pray for pregnant mothers to find the resources and abortive care that they need, if they need it, if you’re feeling particularly brave.
This achieves two things: 1) there is no response to this, esp if you wrap it up with “amen, thank you guys so much for doing that with me. I hope y’all have a blessed day” and leave them no room to continue the prayer. But more importantly 2) that group will NEVER bother you again and you will show them, using their own method against them, that their prayer isn’t an act of faith, but of power.
Just thought I’d share bc I know that I used to be accosted by evangelical strangers once a week on my uni campus and never had a good response or ‘out’. This is by far the most effective method of shutting that sort of behavior down real quick.
Do what Jesus would have done and scare the “people of faith” away by doing the thing wrong.
I honestly always find the term ‘spinster’ as referring to an elderly, never-married woman as funny because you know what?
Wool was a huge industry in Europe in the middle ages. It was hugely in demand, particularly broadcloth, and was a valuable trade good. A great deal of wool was owned by monasteries and landed gentry who owned the land.
And, well, the only way to spin wool into yarn to make broadcloth was by hand.
This was viewed as a feminine occupation, and below the dignity of the monks and male gentry that largely ran the trade.
So what did they do?
They hired women to spin it. And, turns out, this was a stable job that paid very well. Well enough that it was one of the few viable economic options considered ‘respectable’ outside of marriage for a woman. A spinster could earn quite a tidy salary for her art, and maintain full control over her own money, no husband required.
So, naturally, women who had little interest in marriage or men? Grabbed this opportunity with both hands and ran with it. Of course, most people didn’t get this, because All Women Want Is Husbands, Right?
So when people say ‘spinster’ as in ‘spinster aunt’, they are TRYING to conjure up an image of a little old lady who is lonely and bitter.
But what I HEAR are the smiles and laughter of a million women as they earned their own money in their own homes and controlled their own fortunes and lived life on their own terms, and damn what society expected of them.
Now would you lazy little shits stop demanding Jewish people come to you with an annotated bibliography when they say “I’m very concerned this powerful person is miming rhetoric used to kill us in the past”?
Straight people really will say anything when they assume there’s no gay people around like today a straight girl said “I hate all that gay shit” when I told her I was going to see Love, Simon and another one called her ex boyfriend a “f*ggot” for literally no reason like it’s wild how these are the same people who will absolutely say they support gay people and then mock us when they think they’re behind closed doors
“Rafiki is a love story about two girls, Kena and Ziki, who live in a housing estate in Nairobi, Kenya. The girls are unlikely friends, and their fathers are rival politicians. When they fall in love and the community finds out, the girls are forced to choose between love and safety as two girls on different paths and the difficult decisions each must make about the life they lead and the ramifications of their choices.”
I wish Batman was depicted like this more often. Many of his villains are mentally ill and victims of tragic circumstances, it would be nice to see him try to help them as much as he helps the people they put in danger because of their problems.
I tear up every time I watch this show. “I had a bad day too, once.”