SeekingUnderstanding

This is a law that Smac and its other defenders can't show a single instance of being needed. Can't show a single case where other laws have been inadequate to keep people safe. Personally I think the law passed is serving its exact and intended purpose. It's purpose is clearly to make transgendered individuals feel marginalized unsafe and unwelcome. To harass those (including cis gendered individuals) that don't fit into societies gender norms by deputizing citizens to harass people trying to pee. Hooray for loving christians!

This is exactly the point I made in the post that blipblap replied to. I’ve yet to see the “limiting principle” as to why God allows all manner of horrors on earth but draws the line at spirit / physical body gender / sex alignment.

I’m sorry, but you’ll need to read back to understand the context that you’re replying to.

Hey BlipBlap. Always fun to see new posters around. I wasn't presuming that gender was "meant" to be separate from biological sex. It's my understanding that under Latter-day Saint theology, the spirit is a distinct entity from the physical body. That among many other characteristics the spirit has a gender (you'll have to tell me if it makes sense for you to define a spirit's "biological" sex). The spirit predates the physical body. Sometimes the physical body has defects because we live in a fallen world. Many of these defects prevent the physical body from matching the spiritual. For example, some genetic defects result in significant neurological impairment, blindness, and many other ailments. Why does your god allow his children's physical bodies not to align with their spirit body in these cases? How does he always ensure that spirit gender and biological sex are always in alignment? And why does he always make sure that lines up when he allows so many other horrors in the world?

I object to this, because the motivation for the legislature was clear. This is lawfare intended to chill a particular kind of speech practiced by a particular group of people using vague language. It doesn't matter if a particular live drag show isn't lewd. This law gives the capricious religiously motivated government all the tools to shutdown speech they religiously disagree with, because risking criminal penalties in a lengthy court fight is just not something most venues want to do. The fact of the matter is that you seem fine with the government's action on a live show that had too many hip thrusts. You seem to think making that a criminal offense is fine. You seem hunkie dory characterizing such things as "sexualizing and grooming children" But you don't seem to think hip thrusts in a movie is the same thing. Instead you want to compare "hip thrusts" to strip shows. Correct me if I'm wrong but it sure does seem like your bigotry is showing.

It was my understanding that legally, a "reasonable person" standard exists. Is this not the case? Would a reasonable person conclude that these individuals are trolling or not?

So to sum up, the following at a live show is "sexualizing and grooming minors" and is worthy of further laws and criminal penalites: But the same in a PG-13 or R rated movie at a theater is hunky dory. Make it make sense outside of a religious hatred of LGBTQ people?

The true cry of conservatives everywhere. Especially if they are designed to target minority communities our religions tell us to hate.

Your acting as if public screening R rated movies doesn't exist. I'm sure you can link me to your advocacy efforts to end this obscene grooming of children.

I'm sorry, but I don't think that the Florida legislature is acting in good faith. Instead they are threatening lawfare to rein in acts that go against their religious principles. If they were really concerned about lewd conduct and "grooming" why have they done nothing to prevent children from watching rated R movies with their parents?

Who gets to define these terms? Given the uproar from conservative wackadoodles over books that show two moms or dads, as well as the uproar and outright ban of the movie "Lightyear" over it's inclusion of a kiss, then yes, I absolutely have a problem letting those kinds of people enforce laws over this kind of stuff.

I would like to further point out that this interpretation was caused by your unquestioning consumption of outrage porn. You may want to edit your news diet.

Here you go. Your quotes are telling therapists to not force a monogamist world view on people but instead focus on the problematic non-consent. This is so simple I’d think even you could grasp it.

Lol. If you read each of your quotes, not a single one of them has anything to do with “secret nonmonogamy”.

This makes it sound like you’re very much against a book that shows a child with two moms being read in a child’s class. But a book with opposite gendered parents would be ok. Correct?

A lot of ark steadying going on here.

What a pile of Christian hate.

Is this some type of game for you? Here are a couple scenarios for you. A group of women are in a hot tub together at a posh touristy hotel. Two men enter the hottub. Should the women in the hot tub assume that these men are a potential threat - even potential rapists? If you answered no, you're an idiot. One of the men sat down and groped one of the women's crotch with plausible deniability. Just another day being a woman. Scenario two. A woman spends a month with a host family in a foreign country. This family has hosted many young women before. There are children in the family and the family seems nice. While at the beach, the host offers to take the girl out on a battle board into the bay. Should the girl view the guy as a potential rapist? If you answered no, you're an idiot. The strong man while 100 feet from shore proceeds to grope the girl while she lies there petrified and terrified he might drown her in an "accident". She runs away that day, but nothing happens to the dad because plausible deniability. Just another day being a woman. But poor Spencer. He has to go through life knowing that woman can't tell if he is a threat to them. The horror. These stories are just two of the dozens of stories that I could share from just one woman that I know by the way. With utter contempt, John

This has been explained to you over and over and over and yet you refuse to listen.

I'll try to be more polite than my 2024 me. But it is very off putting how much of a victim you seem to want to be here. It's not about you. That's also a really big false dichotomy you have set up there.

I was curious, so I dug in a bit. Their study is linked below. Figure 14 shows a survey retention rate of 54% (which as I understand it, indicates the respondent indicates that they identified with the indicated religion as a teen and continue to do so). This compares with 82% for Hindus, 77% for Muslims, 76% for Jewish, 66% Orthodox; 57% Catholic. Buddhists were at 45%. The error bars on some of these numbers are pretty large. Latter-day Saints score better than many protestant faiths, but I'm not sure members of protestant traditions view changing church's the same way that the above listed religions do. That is, I'm not sure a Methodist deciding to be Baptist or Episcopalian carries the same weight as a Latter-day Saint becoming Methodist or vice versa. (If that makes sense). In order to arrive at the claim "retain members at significantly higher rates than most other religions", the study authors state "To understand retention rates, it is important to not only look at the percentage of who continue to identify as a member of their childhood religion as adults, but how many are regularly participating in religious services. ". Using some dubious math (IMO) they arrive at Figure 15 which puts Latter-day Saints on top. https://foundations.byu.edu/0000019b-1343-d613-a59b-17df82980000/latterdaysaintreligiosity-pdf

I disagree with you on what is the "default" worldview of the West, but I suspect that goes beyond the scope of this thread (at least the time I have for it). More to the point for me, when the god you grew up with no longer makes any sense, where does ultimate authority rest? In keeping with a Latter-day Saint tradition, the holy witness of the spirit is the pinnacle evidence of truth is it not? And that spiritual experience happens wholly within the self. I'm curious why you think that? I can't speak for everyone, only myself, but I certainly didn't evaluate religious claims via a secular lens (and based on the many conversations I've had with others that have left Mormonism, their experiences are similar to mine). I graduated from high school in rural Texas. I went off the college at BYU. I served a mission under a mission president that was a "No Death Before the Fall" kind of guy. I married at the Y, have 6 kids. Secularism in no way shaped the lens that I evaluated religious claims through. I first evaluated the religious claims that I was raised on based on their own criteria. They didn't work for me. The fruit they produced in my life was bad. I tried to reconstruct my faith, and that sort of worked for a while, but at the end of a long journey I had to admit to myself that I just didn't believe. When evaluating my lived life experiences (trying to lead a life of virtue and faith), the secular lens explained everything, and a religious lens just didn't fit my lived life experience. Again this is a bit backwards. I agree that people who are raised in a secular lens would find "submission, sacrifice, or trust" in unseen things to be extremely difficult. But since you are talking about people that leave - well people that leave don't start with that mindset. They start from a position of faith. Then something in their life prompts a reevaluation.

I think this is too shallow. People stop attending because they don’t believe. Many do turn to secularism but this treats secularism as a cause instead of a symptom. Secularism is more common because in a pluralistic society with access to a wide world of contradicting religion and views and information at our fingertips, rigid religious claims can’t withstand scrutiny (obviously in my opinion). It’s a broad ecosystem of ideas out there and people choose what makes the most sense to them.

Stretching the limits of the ai tool I think.

I'm really late to this thread, but holy cow are you out of touch. And privileged. "Character and community reputation matter. At church, court, or in social settings, people aren’t complete strangers. You can observe how someone treats others over time — their consistency, humility, self-control, and how they speak about women and children. Most decent men have a track record that becomes visible in a community." No no no no no. The most violating assaults my wife suffered were both from respected trusted known individuals. Get over yourself. Stop making this about your fragile ego. LISTEN to the women you respect in this thread and just stop. "Blanket suspicion of all men creates its own problems. If the default teaching is “all men are potential rapists,” it becomes very hard for good men to build trust," Good. Men need to work very hard to create respect. They need to call out bad behavior. They need to at all times be aware of how they can impact the well being of those around them. "even in safe settings like church." This from the church that teaches women they are responsible for being "Walking Pornography" for men. "It also teaches young women to live in unnecessary fear of half the population, which can be paralyzing." When this is a bigger problem than the harassment, I'm sure the women here will let us know.