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If the female students just stayed in their rooms clothed in their prairie dresses and bonnets, there wouldn’t be a problem. If they must leave their rooms, surely they have the decency to keep their eyes on their feet and their mouths closed. Any behavior of a sexual nature, such as holding hands or making eye contact, is clearly an invitation that the girl slut wants more intimate contact. Why can’t the feds just recognize these truths? Liberty U does.
Kidding aside, this gets at the heart of conservative judge’s thinking … yesterday’s SC hearing on whether or not to allow religious advisors to touch the condemned just prior to their executions led to Handmaid Amy musing aloud about the state’s interest in minimizing risks during the proceedings. She immediately leapt to if they can stop ministers from touching the condemned, what’s to stop them from eliminating inmate prayer services because they might lead to riots?
Yeah, Amy, I was afraid of that slippery slope too. Thanks for bringing it to the forefront before things get out of hand.
An attorney had to navigate that bullshit with some eloquence rather than throwing up their hands and rolling their eyes. That’s why they earn the big bucks ;).
Liberty U students keep exhibiting a rebellious edge toward their elders. Reminds me of some not-so-conservative high school friends with very conservative parents, who had to go to schools like Pepperdine. But a lot I am sure are true believers in some of those christian ideas they’d been fed all their lives, you know, the faith hope and charity stuff that underpins e.g. the Catholic Worker House movement and and other social justice heavy strains of Christian spirituality.
This isn’t by itself evidence of course, but I can definitely see a sea change coming as a younger generation more in touch with the issues facing them displaces the hateful, paranoid Moral Majority brands of far-right evangelicalism. There’s a real hunger to address real issues in their lives, not just their grandparent’s bigoted fantasies. It’s not dress codes but assault and rape they want addressed.
Liberty U. is likely just one of many ‘Christian’ colleges in need of such an investigation. At some, the rape victim is a ‘fornicator’ and gets expelled. At others, rape is treated like a sin equal to any other sin. If the rapist repents and the victim is unable to forgive him, guess who’s suddenly in the wrong? You guessed it, the victim.
And at practically all of them, the victim is pressured to STFU because such an allegation might damage the school’s reputation.
So while the Senators should start with Liberty U., they should solicit comments from students and former students at other ‘Christian’ colleges and universities.
Living in rural GA, I have some experience with young southern evangelicals and while they are mostly still way more conservative than their peers, they are also way more modern than their parents.
Im not sure the church as we know it has more than 2 or 3 generations if cultural patterns remain. It isnt that the kids are choosing go be more modern and in that sense more liberal - it’s that they can’t help be that way by living in the modern world. It’s built into them - I see 15 year olds with racist parents dating BIPOC people with no problem - 20 something southern Baptist’s who decide to love and stay friends with their LBGQT friends. It isn’t all of them - but it’s way more than one would think based on their parents and grandparents.
My MIL’s family owned combines and would follow the wheat harvest every year. Her mother made slat bonnets, which are actually a brilliant idea - basically a hands-free portable umbrella. A wide brim hat stuck on good gives you more peripheral vision, but is also more prone to fall off if you are constantly moving up and down cooking in an outdoor kitchen and the like, especially in prairie winds. It being the twentieth century though of course they wore jeans.