Friday, January 11, 2013

Responding to the Responses.....

Responding to Responses from ‘Open Letter to Christian Homeschool Groups’

While not my most popular blog post, ‘An Open Letter to Christian Homeschool Groups’ garnered the most comments of any blog post I have written, both on the blog and on my facebook page.  The vast majority of the comments were positive or neutral.  I did however receive a few responses, a couple via private message, that are now fodder for another blog post.

1)  In defense of Christians, they homeschool because of their religion – they want to be separate from the secular world (and people) otherwise they would send their children to public school.  That is why they don’t allow non-Christians into their homeschooling groups.

I originally had a long response to this.  After careful thought however, I only have this to say:  That’s not what it means to be a Christian, as I understood it when I was a Christian; but that is the way to be a bigot.  It is one thing to avoid having your children taught evolution in public school or that there is no God.  It is an entirely different thing to avoid having your children meet, talk with, and learn to deal with people who believe differently than they (or you) do.

2)  Secular groups can be as judgmental and unwelcoming as Christian groups.

This is the harder point, because it is true and so sad.  The bottom line is that people are difficult.  Yes, all of us.  Women can be especially catty and mean – we should have been forced to play team sports in school where we would have learned that you don’t have to like a person to work with them and get the job done.

I say shame on the Secular groups who are judgmental and sanctimonious with their beliefs for they are acting just like the religious groups they bitch about.  I’ve been informed that there are secular groups who judge you based on what curriculum you use, whether you breastfed, buy organic, and all other sorts of nonsense.  Yes, nonsense.  When will we wake up and realize that we are not the brand we wear, the products we buy, or even the choices we made.  Good people can make bad choices.  More importantly good people make different choices that mine or yours and that should be fine!  Women need to get the hell over themselves.  Stop feeling so insecure and shaky inside about who you are that you need to nit-pick and judge every other woman’s choices.

We want to feel secure that our choices are the right choices.  We look outside ourselves for that security.  Meeting people who made the same choices we made makes us feel good, right, and secure.  Meeting people who made different choices than we did makes us uncomfortable, scared, and insecure.  Now whose fault is that?  It certainly isn’t the other person for making a different choice from ours.

Hating anyone for a difference is the worst thing any human being can do.  There isn’t a ‘right’ side in hate.  It is hate and hate begins with judgment.  It is our ego that is controlling our minds allowing us to build a case of ‘differences’ against another person so we can feel better about ourselves and so we can feel justified for shunning them, or worse.  So, to any secular homeschooling group that is unwelcoming of homeschoolers whose choice of how they school, what they use to school, how they dress, what they feed their children, what charities they donate to, what their political position is, etc…is different than theirs I say the same thing:  Shame on you!  We are all homeschoolers and the world our children will enter one day will be filled with DIFFERENCES.   

We all have two, and only two, choices.  Either we teach our children to work with and respect differences or teach them to be bigoted asstwats.


3)  I don’t take anything you say seriously.  *Your just an idiot with a blog.
*The grammatical error was theirs, not mine.

Yeah, uh…this one I don’t really have a response except to ask, “Why do you read my blog then?”  Of course, I suppose I could take the low ground and respond with, “And clearly you’re just an idiot with internet,” but that would be inappropriate.


~Mari B.

2 comments:

  1. I don't really disagree with anything you have said thus far but your posts make me sad. Sad that you would feel the need to pick on a whole group of people because one set made a stupid choice.

    Why can't people get together based on common interests? Why is that wrong? Hordes of people get together to don pointy ears and chant "Beam me up, Scotty!" If someone showed up with a lightsaber he'd be booed off the premises. This is what humans do. We get together with people who share our interests.

    Jesus had times where he hung out with the masses and times where he recharged with his like-minded friends. There's room in life for both. One of the goals of my secular homeschooling group is to launch community service activities. It's been a year and we have pulled off exactly 2 events. In a fit of frustration I decided to see what the church that sponsors our Cub Scout meetings does for the community. I was completely blown away by the massive list of projects they undertake to help a wide range of people.

    What's my point? My point is that it would be unfair for a nonbeliever to walk into their Sunday Morning service and rant that they are a bigoted bunch of self-centered asshats that don't follow Christ teachings because they didn't allow her (the non-member, non-believer) to take communion. Sunday morning is a time to recharge their batteries. These people get out in the community and "feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and [whatever else that verse says]...". But does it make them selfish and close-minded because sometimes they want to just chill with other people with the same worldview?!

    Oh but guess what? The church is also full of people who send their kids to public school. So if the two most important things in your life are your faith and your decision to homeschool, then wtf is wrong with seeking out a group of people that embrace both?!?

    I just don't get your judgey-ness. A group was jerky and you called them out. Way to stand up for the little guy. But then you turned around and judged every single other group in existence that chooses to congregate on terms you don't approve of. Impressive display of tolerance there!

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    1. I believe you may not have adequately comprehended what I actually wrote on the original post as you are referencing two different posts in your comment. The initial event that spurred my writing of the open letter happened to another person and that event combined with my personal experiences and the experiences of many others led me to write the original post because I was infuriated - as anyone with a heart and half a brain would be.
      Your comment bounces all over the place. Your example of the comic/sci-fi conventions to compare against the groups I was talking about is a case of apples and oranges. Those sort of groups are not the same as a group who proclaims to follow a religion that has specific tenets of faith.
      You appear to have completely missed the point that my issue isn't with Christians as a whole, it is with Christians who are in fact close-minded, bigoted, and do nothing but spread hate while hiding behind their church and the doctrines of Jesus; except they go against everything Jesus has taught. My issue is with groups that supposedly welcome all then kick someone out because that person didn't meet the new regulations and rules- even though that person had been a part of the group from the get go.
      You seem to have missed the face that I am secular and that there are many truly secular homeschoolers who do not involve themselves with religion beyond a historical teaching. They don't read Bibles or other religious books, they just teach a well rounded, non-biblical curriculum. You certainly seem to have missed the point that many Christian groups have been allowed to promote hate, intolerance, bigotry, and racism and then they cry "FOUL!" when someone calls them to the carpet for it. They claim persecution for their beliefs, all while persecuting anyone who doesn't believe the things they do. I was calling attention to it and for you to say that I am being judgmental for making a judgment on the hurtful, intolerant actions of any person or group is, in my opinion, asinine.
      I feel I showed great restraint in what I wrote given the fact that a group that had kicked someone out- someone who was a long time member and friend to the others, someone they had no problem with UNTIL they required a statement of faith. That is pure bullshit.
      I'm not sure what I wrote that you could possibly glean that the two most important things in my life are my 'faith' and 'homeschooling'. I don't believe in living in a vacuum. Finally, I did not call out nor judge every single other group in existence. How absurd! I called out a certain type of Christian group. After realizing that there are those in non-religious groups who take issue with those who don't do things exactly the way they should be done, I called them out too.

      In the end what I called out was people who are unwelcoming, self-important, judgmental jerks who believe that they are right (regardless of what topic is under discussion) and work to treat others as 'undesirables' for not being exactly like them or believing exactly as they do despite the fact that we are ALL homeschoolers.

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