Christmas Is So Offensive

[footballfanatic]

The Washington Post gave audience to Ruth Everhart who said that the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, offended her. Why? Well her reason for being offended started off as a claim that the virgin part about Mary was offensive because rape victims could no longer obtain virgin status. But then, if you read further into her statements, the offended lashes out at the church and the “patriarchs” for, as she alleged, making “vaginas inherently dirty” and says that attempting to protect ones virginity until marriage won’t work and was what she called, “the idol of sexual purity.” full article

This is a good article on the issue of everyone being offended by absolutely anything and trying to get political points or even change laws because they are "offended." Yet if a Christian is offended by something, they are called "intolerant." Funny how that works.

 

[redleghunter]

I'm offended by the article. But that does not count in liberal MSMism given I am a Christian.

 

[Widlast]

The proxy server here at work is offended by the website that hosted the article, so can't read it.

 

[grasping the after wind]

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...nU2AxY&usg=AFQjCNGlU80Lyv8D9j-B1ve7ciYNnreKeQ

 

[Philip_B]

The OP has taken the matter from a secondary source ResistamceFeed.com and that means that the article has in fact I think been strained and filtered. The Original Article from the Washington Post can be found here Our culture of purity celebrates the Virgin Mary. As a rape victim, that hurts me. and I think it makes more sense and is a better read.

Ruther Everhart also has a website to be found here http://www.rutheverhart.com/ and that may well paint a very different picture from what was being gleaned in the OP and the source quoted.

 

[Ada Lovelace]

The Washington Post gave audience to Ruth Everhart who said that the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, offended her. Why? Well her reason for being offended started off as a claim that the virgin part about Mary was offensive because rape victims could no longer obtain virgin status. But then, if you read further into her statements, the offended lashes out at the church and the “patriarchs” for, as she alleged, making “vaginas inherently dirty” and says that attempting to protect ones virginity until marriage won’t work and was what she called, “the idol of sexual purity.” full article

This is a good article on the issue of everyone being offended by absolutely anything and trying to get political points or even change laws because they are "offended." Yet if a Christian is offended by something, they are called "intolerant." Funny how that works.

Here's the actual Washington Post article the OP's article is mocking:
Our culture of purity celebrates the Virgin Mary. As a rape victim, that hurts me.

Where does it state that "Christmas is so offensive" as claimed in the thread title?

You wrote: "yet if a Christian is offended by something, they are called "intolerant." Funny how that works."

The author of the Opinion piece in the Acts of Faith section for religious viewpoints in the Washington Post is a Christian. Her name is Reverend Ruth Everhart. She is an ordained pastor. She was raised as a Christian and adhered to her faith in earnest. She was "sexually pure" until she was raped during a home invasion in her 20s, which then made her feel impure and inferior.

This is not an article about someone having a tiff because of being greeted by "Happy Holidays" instead of Merry Christmas, or something else equally vapid. It's about how victims of rape and sexual assault have felt pained that virginity is lauded as the epitome of purity in their religion, and how those who have "lost" theirs are irrevocably tainted. It's especially painful when their virginity has not been lost, but cruelly stolen. She's far from the first victim of rape and sexual assault to express those raw feelings. Elizabeth Smart, the woman who was kidnapped from her bed in the middle of the night as a young teen and held hostage for many months by sadistic lunatics who abused her horrifically repeatedly, has spoken poignantly on the same topic. In captivity she remembered her Sunday School teacher having told the class that once a girl has lost her virginity she's like a piece of "used chewing gum; nobody ever wants that", and all hope for herself was decayed. After she was freed and returned to a loving family she still believed herself to be worthless because she was not a virgin. That she'd never be valued or loved, that she was ruined. That erroneous belief was tremendously damaging to her. It's why she and her parents made it an ambition to reframe how virginity is viewed, and more importantly, how it's taught to young people. She's continued to be an advocate for reform even after becoming a married mother. I wouldn't be surprised if the "news" site that posted the article in the OP twisted her story around to make it about her being against gum. Smh.

 

[Dave-W]

. It's about how victims of rape and sexual assault have felt pained that virginity is lauded as the epitome of purity in their religion, and how those who have "lost" theirs are irrevocably tainted. It's especially painful when their virginity has not been lost, but cruelly stolen.

This attitude has a long history in the christian church. In reading some of the early church fathers, it seemed to me that some of them had an almost idol-worship attitude on virginity. I believe it was Jerome who said that the ONLY reason God allows sex in marriage is to create more virgins for the church.

While virginity was honored in ancient Jewish culture, it was never idolized. It was however in certain segments of Greek and Roman society. (Remember the Vestal Virgins?) So I believe this preoccupation on virginity is pagan in origin.