Have you heard about this? Somehow it's escaped my notice until now, even though apparently there's been some attention to it in the national media over the past two or three years.
Quiverfull is the philosophy espoused by a certain brand of extremely nutty fundamental Christians that one should just have as many children as God fits to "bless" you with, and all forms of birth control (even the natural family planning that even the most old skool of Catholics--and the Pope--are down with) are sinful. This tends to go along with a bunch of related uber-fundie ideas, like women being submissive to their husbands, and homeschooling, and keeping your children away from the outside bad influences inherent in our culture.
I came across this in an online discussion of some Discovery Channel reality shows (really! that's shows, plural! as in more than one!) about people with a dozen or more children, which I have never seen. I gather they're a train wreck of monumental proportions and people watch out of morbid fascination. Tater tot casserole! Babies handed off to their siblings to raise! Dads who found their own basement churches! Neighbors dropping trash bags of old clothes on the porch, which are then descended on by swarms of children looking for something that fits! I have to try to catch at least one of these shows, to see if it's all as bad as the semi-horrified mocking would have me believe. Maybe when I get over my HGTV addiction.
What really astounds me, though, are the number of people posting to these threads who actually know people who are fundie religious whackos. It occurs to me that, living in what I fondly like to call my little blue-state paradise, while I get to meet all kinds of colorful and unusual people, I don't know any religious whackos. All the people I know who actually go to church or temple are nice, moderate, everyday kind of people. They aren't freaked by women wearing pants or cutting their hair, they don't make their four-year-old daughters wear bathing suits that cover them to the ankles, and they don't start their own churches in their garage. So, yeah, I think I'm missing out.
Does anyone want to take up a collection to send me on a field trip to Arkansas, or perhaps Texas? That'd be swell.
xoxo
3 comments:
My daughter lives in CA: not the part you see on TV, but the part our vegetables come from. It is absolutely stiff with people whose religion and politics are about 30 degrees right of James Dobson.
My offspring thinks religion is a neurological disorder (and neuro is her field!) and has politics that make *me* look reactionary, but she is fair. Her observation is that people like this, who look like the lunatic fringe in MA, look like the lunatic fringe in the Valley too.
When the rest of the religious conservatives find themselves conflated with the nutcases by the media, there's some reason for them to feel put upon. Pity we can't all get along, isn't it?
PS: You don't want to go there: it's hot, it's smoggy, and what happens to your food before you eat it will put you on a permanent diet of green tea and vitamins. Watch my blog...that's coming up.
1.) You know, besides all the people in the threads saying they knew extremist whackos, there were also a fair number of people saying plaintively, "I'm a Christian (or Southern Baptist or home school my kids) and, please, don't think I'm like that. We're normal!" so I hear ya. They were so worried about being conflated with the cult-y fundie nutcases.
2.)In the late 90s, I read "The Coming Plague" and a bunch of other books about how the microbes are winning and how unsafe our food supply is, etc, and it led me to becoming vegetarian for two or three years because I was convinced I was going to get Mad Cow disease otherwise. So now any reports or discussion of what happens to my food before I eat it, I deal with by going "lalala, I can't hear you". I don't want to know how any of it is grown, raised, slaughtered, inspected or not inspected, or what those people in restaurant kitchens do to it, because I just get crazy and I've got to die from something anyway.
3.)I was happy to read where you wrote that where your daughter lives is well away from where those terrible fires. That whole thing is so horrible.
Aw, that's alright. I grew up in the age of the drive-in restaurant. I like some CO with my veggies: it seems normal.
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