Heather Heck recently left her newborn son, whom no one knew existed, in a garage while she visited her family with her boyfriend. He was later discovered by her neighbour. And as you can probably guess, God, Jesus and Casper are being praised left, right and center for their alleged involvement in rescuing the baby.
The mother, of course, is being treated and described as the stereotypical selfish bitch who couldn’t be troubled to care about her child while everybody has brought the father’s line that he had no idea she’d been pregnant, much less given birth(!) hook, line and sinker. In all, it’s just another day in the life of an American child in Godbag Land.
Noticeably overlooked in this situation is that the young mother was raised on the belief that pre-marital sex is only a slightly lesser sin than giving birth outside of the golden band of state approved, God sanctioned marriage. A non-virginal un-owned woman is bad enough. A un-owned mother might as well have “Evil Tool of Satan” tattooed on her forehead in those circles.
Is it really a mystery as to why this young woman would hide her pregnancy and the resulting child even if the child was endangered? No, it’s not once you hack through all the self-righteous (religious and secular) bullshit currently flying about. Godbags may insist there’s no greater thing than being a mother, but the fact of the matter is that one has to be the “right” kind of mother to get the godbag stamp of approval. The right kind of mother, of course, is one that has been legally bought and paid for with a band of gold.
Ms. Heck fell from the rank of “young woman” to “single mother” and in Godbag Land, there’s only one lower rank, “The Devil’s Own” which consists of those of us who’ve pissed off the Masters and their Henchmen to such a degree that the only reason we aren’t banished is because of the continued usefulness of our parents and/or spouses.
To ignore the fact that she was taught to be ashamed of being an unwed mother and to fear being “found out” is to excuse the ever present hatred of women in Godbag Land. Ms. Heck didn’t have much of a choice. As Heart put it in her comment on her post Conservative Christian Women: Speaking Truth to Power:
… Single mothers in fundie churches are a HUGELY oppressed group, are horrendously discriminated against, feared, marginalized, and treated, in general, very, very poorly compared with married women. …
I can speak to the truth of this statement. In one church I attended there was a mother who was publicly humiliated for “tempting” the male parishioners with open toed shoes. Another mother was publicly humiliated for being “too friendly” with the male parishioners. Yet another was chastised like a child for letting her pre-adolescent daughter wear a sundress. They and others were co-opted into all kinds of details and treated like Hydras if they demurred or showed a hint of self worth or respect.
It was a horrible thing to witness. And this is exactly what Ms. Heck would’ve been likely to experience. Saying she had a “choice” is like saying someone has a “choice” when a mugger puts a gun to their temple and demands their wallet. Ignoring why it all happened only goes to ensure that someday soon we’ll be reading about another baby born of a conservative single Christian woman found hidden away somewhere.
And you know what? The only way we’re going to stop it is if the godbags are made accountable for the bullshit they put in the minds of our daughters. Call it whatever you like. Pitch a fit about me being an unreasonable bitch who wants to censor the poor little men of the world. I’m simply quite tired of seeing women brutally victimized both physically and mentally in the name of sky daddies by holy men and then blamed for failing to survive the onslaught of God(tm) inspired, Bible backed hatred.
It simply must end. Period.
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