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.
It’s actually doing The Thing right! Evangelicals love to forget Jesus was a radical brown immigrant who preached loving kindness and interpersonal tolerance and caretaking above/beyond/inspite of religious doctrine.
Evangelicals are really about Fanon over Canon, and hearing canon in plain modern English sometimes lands better
All the better if you can work some of the jist of Mark 7 into your prayer somehow:
6 He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
“‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
7 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’
8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”
9 And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! ….Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”
14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”…“For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—theft, murder,22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”
Our Associate Director of Advocacy and Development, Reid, wrote about service animals and invisible disability for Rooted in Rights!
“There are times when I don’t take my service dog with me. Some days I will wake up feeling well enough to go through my standard routine (work, errands, etc.) by myself. Other times, I know I will have a human companion with me to help me through the day, who can fill a similar role as my dog.
But sometimes, the reason I don’t bring my service dog out with me is that I fear the reactions of others…
When faced with questions about my disabilities or the purpose of my service dog, there is always a risk that I will be accused of “faking” my need for a service dog. These accusations alone can be enough to send me into a meltdown on a bad day. It is a real option I have to weigh: do I try to go out on my own, knowing that it will take me a tremendous amount of effort without my service dog, or do I bring my service dog and risk the ignorant comments of strangers making my mental state even worse?”
Don’t be that person, y’all. Just a note that just because someone doesn’t need the service dog 24/7, or every day in public, that doesn’t mean their disabilities aren’t real.
“No one is diagnosed with autism on the basis of being “just quirky.” That’s a characterization far more likely to be used to deny a diagnosis to women, girls, female-presenting and gender non-conforming people”
Admin Didi here, it is rare I feel the need to add anything to a submission, but this is a dead alien on a grandma couch and it is quite possibly the shiftiest thing to come across my inbox in the 5 years I’ve been running this shitshow. Carry on.
I kind of hate doing this, but the woman(queer+Jewish) I am seeing is in a tough bind. She needs money as she need for meds, and can’t afford it right now. It’s either get her meds or live on the street with her dog(with friends as she can’t afford the dog food atm). She also in need of clean clothing as she’s been pretty much been wearing the same outfit for the past month. I do my best buy getting food when I can, but there is so much I can do as my line of work right now isn’t doing so hot right now(45 is to blame for the most part, I can tell you the story just ask). Anything would be appreciated even $1. Even if 7 people give $1 each that’s better than nothing.
Venmo: nakedscientist under the for line please just leave it blank(I think you need to add a space for it to work blank) just don’t mention you know.
I don’t think she has PayPal but adding my PayPal info & giving the money to her. paypal.me/MxAbdi thank you again.
Some help would be needed as my friend broke her last pair of glasses and her shoes are torn up. She also actually hungry cause she’s not getting enough to eat. Any help would be appreciated.
For more than two years, Clarise Coleman faithfully attended every track practice and every cross-country meet for her son, Chase.
A few weeks ago, Chase, who is a nearly nonverbal autistic child, was running in a meet in Rochester, New York, with his team from Corcoran High School – was assaulted by a stranger in the middle of a race.
Coleman was waiting for him at a part of the course where runners would come down a hill but he didn’t appear and she went looking for him. She was shouting his name and then she started to meet people who pointed in the direction of her son. One of them said:
“I see a grown man, who is quite tall and fairly heavy … exit the vehicle and give this young man a shove that puts him back 10 feet and flat on his butt. Like, just shoved him across the road. The kid didn’t seem to be doing anything but standing there, obviously had nothing in his hands and weighed all of 130 pounds. This guy was easily twice that.”
This tall white guy was a 57-year-old man named Martin MacDonald who told the police that the reason he attacked the Black kid was he thought Chase was going to mug his wife and take her purse.
“My son is a minor. [MacDonald is] a grown man,” Coleman said she told police. “He put his hands on my son. Of course I want to press charges.”
However the police was deaf and on Oct. 21, Rochester City Court Judge Caroline Morrison sent a letter to the Colemans that shocked them:
She had denied their warrant application, and MacDonald would not be charged for second-degree harassment.
Now the autistic Black boy refused to go to practices and skipped running in his last meet of the season. He turned his running uniform in to his coach, who gently encouraged him to change his mind. Chase refused.
“We just keep telling him, ‘You didn’t do anything wrong. Chase is good. There are mean people and there are nice people and this person was just a mean person,’ ” Coleman said. “We just keep apologizing to him that happened. Especially me. I kept apologizing to him that I couldn’t keep him safe.”
The attack deeply traumatized him and he lost one of the few things that gave him a sense of pride and belonging.
Please, make a shout out to this outrageous accident! The white man still didn’t receive any punishment for ruining life of the Black boy. THIS IS HELL!
#StayWoke #BlackChildrenMatter #WhitePrivilege
Every reblog that includes Martin MacDonald in it is another web page to help make sure that when you google Martin MacDonald’s name, it’s in connection with child abuse and racism.
He did get charged with second degree assault. There’s a lot of focus in the article on MacDonald saying he wouldn’t have done it if he’d known Chase had autism, which implies that he’d be justified in shoving a 15 year black kid without autism. which is really gross.
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