For Thee, but Not For Me?

persecution, christianity, beetlebabee, atheism, atheist, olive jones
I've been ignoring my favorite blogot*, and I feel bad about that. So today, I give you a dissection of People of Faith Under Persecution by the Beetle Blogger.

According to Beetle, poor Olive Jones, an inhome teacher for disabled students, offered to pray- once!- for a 14-year-old girl with cancer and the girl's evil, secular parents had her fired.

Of course, the parents tell a slightly different story, which Beetle didn't bother to include in her post.

Paddy and Stephanie Lynch, whose daughter is seriously ill with leukaemia, said Olive Jones' constant 'preaching' left their child deeply distressed.

. . .

Mrs Lynch, 43, who quit her job with the Higher Education Funding Council in April to care full-time for her daughter, said: 'Mrs Jones was employed to teach maths but used every opportunity to discuss religion, despite the fact I made it clear we were a non-religious family and didn't want to talk about these issues in this way.

'On one occasion she asked my daughter to pray with her, my daughter was distressed by this behaviour.

'On another, after the death of my daughter's close friend, Miss Jones told my 14-year-old daughter that when young people die they go to heaven. These conversations upset my daughter deeply**.'

Well, this sounds a little more reasonable, doesn't it? Ms. Jones was told, repeatedly, to stop discussing religion during what should have been math sessions, Ms. Jones chose to ignore these requests, so the parents requested that Ms. Jones not be given access to their daughter any more.

What I find especially enlightening about Beetle's report on this incident is how often she has blogged about parental sovereignty- the right of parents to raise their children as they see fit. Beetle does not want her children exposed to things like sex education or neutral portrayals of homosexuals, and argues vociferously that it is her right as a parent to control what her children are exposed to.

So why is it not the Lynch's right to decide whether or not their daughter is exposed to religion? Beetle gets to raise her children to hate Teh Ghey and love Joseph Smith, but I do not have the right to decide how to raise my children? Parental sovereignty for thee, but not for me?

Let's also imagine if Beetle would defend the teacher if the situation were reversed and the teacher repeatedly told a minor child, over the parents' objections, that there is no god, no heaven and no hell and that when we die we go nowhere at all. I rather think Beetle would have no interest in defending Ms. Jones under those circumstances.

Thank you for attending today's lesson in monumental hypocrisy.




*blog + bigot = blogot. h/t to [redacted] for coming up with that one.

**My guess would be that (a) a 14-year-old undergoing grueling chemotherapy for leukemia probably doesn't want to discuss death, and (b) fundys are well known for telling people that their dead loved ones who did not accept Jesus are roasting in hell. the fact that saying such a thing to a 14-year-old undergoing grueling chemotherapy for leukemia is unbelievably cruel doesn't matter much when you're peddling fear.