#equality golbat
The Pope can’t be progressive or a good ally. He’s required to be socially conservative and Catholic-centric.
That’s kind of his job and the tenets of the religion he’s the head of. The occasional fiscal liberalism comes from the whole “not worldly” thing, and is about the only exception. The pope’s always going to be a conservative dude elected by all the other most senior conservative dudes in the Catholic church, and occasionally you’ll get one who’s marginally less awful on what he thinks Good Things are/more devoted to actually trying to be good than be in power, but don’t ever think that Pope Francis or any other pope is going to be more progressive than the bulk of existing Church doctrine. Stop celebrating his minor concessions.
–Golbat
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Vaccines are safe and don’t cause autism. Get your flu shot so your germs don’t kill people.
Unless you have an egg allergy (eggs are used to culture vaccines) or are immunosuppressed, get vaccinated.
Also, autism isn’t a bad thing. I prefer being autistic to being dead, or killing someone who’s on chemo because I gave them a bad case of something.
–Golbat
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Don’t do racist or ableist things as “spooky” Halloween costumes. This includes thinking critically about costumes, party themes, and activities BEFORE you do them.
“Well, gee, I didn’t realize that a haunted house set in an abandoned “insane asylum” was ableist!” Really. Did you really. Did you even try.
–Golbat
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If you only care about Palestine/Syria/etc. because some of the people there are Christians, you don’t actually care.
That’s either just horrifically self-centered and callous or a displaced and factually inaccurate persecution complex.
–Golbat
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Equality Golbat: If society were open to change to improve people’s lives, “radical” thought would just be thought.
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Equality Golbat: If you want to be an ally, do not interject your opinions when they are unnecessary.
If there are members of an oppressed group who can and are wiling to say what you wanted to say, let them say it. Don’t silence the voices of the oppressed any longer.
-Glaceon
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Equality Golbat: Radical thought openly defies society and calls its principles into question.
All radical thought does is look at societal values and see if they can change, in order to benefit the people society oppresses. Radical thought is only radical because helping oppressed people is widely considered unthinkable and impossible to pull off.
-Glaceon
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Equality Golbat: If you want to be an ally, learn how to listen to people.
Sometimes, you’re going to hear things or see things and you’re going to be shocked. You might even be offended. Do not spend your time refuting those kind of claims. If you’re so upset that people can’t see you’re not “like other white/cis/straight/abled people,” it’s not time for you to be an ally.
Spend more of your time in an effort to see where other people are coming from, instead of trying to make yourself look like a hero.
-Glaceon
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Equality Golbat: Straight trans people and straight intersex people are MOGAI.
Cis intersex people are also MOGAI, as their experiences of being intersex people in a society that expects them to conform in a binary preclude their experiences of being cis. Trans and/or nonbinary intersex people are MOGAI by default.
-Glaceon
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Equality Golbat: “It’s awful that attacking Planned Parenthood shuts down the 97% that is non-abortion services, and the loss of abortion-related services is also a tragedy.”
The defunding of Planned Parenthood isn’t a tragedy just because referrals for abortions aren’t the only things Planned Parenthood does. It’s a tragedy because of all the things Planned Parenthood does including informing people about the option of abortion, which is an important and necessary part of a modern healthcare system.
–Nidoqueen
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Most people agree with the actual provisions of Obamacare when it’s referred to as its real name, the Affordable Care Act.
And, yeah, a lot of that is because of deliberate conservative propaganda, but it makes you think that a lot of people and especially the ones who made the executive decision to hype that propaganda back in 2009-10 and thereabouts simply hate Obama…for some reason other than his (admittedly often less than stellar) politics…gee I wonder what it could be.
–Golbat
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Never having had your humanity and rights questioned as part of a class discussion is a privilege.
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The ability to simply disagree with bigoted things instead of feeling directly attacked by them is a privilege.
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Equality Golbat: Is considering oppressed groups of people as undeserving of agency, autonomy, and security the right way to live?
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The ability to find conservatives hilarious instead of terrifying is a privilege.
Additionally, there is nothing more jarring than being in a minivan full of supposedly liberal straight cis white boys who are all acting like Donald Trump being elected would be simply funny and a little embarrassing rather than “I and a significant number of my friends would suffer material hardship and possibly be directly injured or killed if that happens.” (Though honestly, simply being in a minivan full of cis straight white boys is scary enough on its own, even if they’re all related to you.)
–Golbat
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Equality Golbat: “Being pressured to accept your abusive parents because ‘that’s just Asian parents being strict’ is not a form of privilege.”
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Equality Golbat: “Being stereotyped as bad drivers, bad speakers, and abusive parents is not a form of privilege.”
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Equality Golbat: There shouldn’t be a compulsory pledge of allegiance to begin with.
I’m fully aware that the US Pledge of Allegiance violates separation of church and state. It’s also horribly inaccurate.
“Liberty and justice for all” doesn’t exist for our enormous prison population, societally oppressed groups, nor for the people whose cultures have been almost destroyed in the aftermath of American imperialism.
The US today is run as an oligarchy, not a republic, and certainly not a democracy.
And children who don’t even know the implications of swearing allegiance are being deprived of the ability to think critically about their country from the start.
-Glaceon
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Equality Golbat: No one should be drafted, regardless of gender.
Even if military drafts are an example of sexism harming men, no one should have to be drafted from the start. Military drafts remove all people’s agency. If the people don’t want to go to war, they shouldn’t have to be forced into it.
The people should ultimately decide whether or not to go to war.
-Glaceon
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