I spent 20 years in the United Pentecostal Church cult, and the right-wing of the Republican Party. What that was like, how I got out, and my take on what's going on with the Christian Right today.
In 1977, the United States was poised to pass the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing legal rights to all Americans regardless of sex. It had been passed by the House and Senate, had bipartisan support (including Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter) and had been ratified by 35 of […]
Back in my days in the UPC, Easter was a Really Big Deal. Not for the reasons you might think – yeah we were jazzed about the “empty tomb” and all. But above all, Easter was our One Yearly Shot at “unsaved” family members and other random strangers who only […]
I dunno… maybe it’s just the generally apocolyptic feeling of the time we’re living through. Maybe it’s just ripples of the last big thing my “parents” did to me. (Will write about that soon, it’s a doozy…) But this morning I was scrolling facebook and saw that Bill Gates has […]
In 1984, a man named David Bogatin – who had no income on record – made an agreement with Donald Trump to purchase 5 condos in Trump Tower. The NY State Attorney General ruled the purchase was money laundering. David Bogatin was a member of the Russian mafia. So begins […]
The email subject line read, “What to do when #MeToo comes for you, too.” The email itself was from one of the original internet marketing gurus, someone who started in the ’90s teaching the ins and outs of Google advertising and who now lives very comfortably in a high end […]
My ancestors have been speaking to me this week. Yesterday, John Beckett wrote a blog about the current situation here in America. Mr. Beckett has been saying for a while now that his Gods (especially The Morrigan, whom we both have a relationship with) were saying a storm was coming, […]
Tell a story of religious trauma and you are bound to get at least one person who says that you were just doing it wrong, in a bad church, or “following man instead of God.” I’ve gotten dozens of such comments on this very blog. My most recent was yesterday on […]
My younger son asked me that question just a bit ago. If you don’t know, he’s 17, but is on the Autism Spectrum, bipolar, and a few other things that cause him to be less mature than his age, overly tender-hearted and generally anxious as fuck. I asked why on […]
Every signpost in Ireland is currently blanketed with posters regarding an upcoming referendum. On May 25, Irish voters will go to the polls to decide the future of their 8th Amendment, which outlaws abortion in pretty much every circumstance. What Outlawing Abortion Really Means I’ve mentioned before that I’ve always […]
I grew up 30 minutes from The Cove, the “Training Center” in Asheville, NC where Billy Graham and his family lived. I have relatives that live off the same 1-40 exit you take to get there. My paternal grandparents were the type of Southern Baptists Graham spent his lifetime trying […]
I woke up this morning to the new trending hashtag #MeAt14 on Twitter. Many of the tweets are just images of girls at 14, who are obviously too young to be in any kind of sexual situation with a man in his 30’s such as Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore. […]
CW: Non-consensual physical contact, emotional abuse. It could begin over anything. Sometimes it was over some youthful indiscretion on my part. Sometimes, my dad would even be laughing and joking one minute, and the next minute it was as if a switch had flipped and he was full of […]
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