Here are some other people’s thoughts that made me think this week. Remember inclusion does not mean I fully agree with everything in each article or the site they’re linked to.  (Anything in the quotes below that are in bold was added by me)  Caution: some ideas or content might be considered offensive but my point in this weekly segment is to combine a list of other’s writings that made me think (and most likely challenged me beyond my current knowledge of something) regardless of whether I agreed with them. Though the last one I just added for its humor.

“…when you start with a God-given identity, you begin to see the complexity of our conflicting convictions. Because there are people made in the image of God who have arrived at different conclusions than you have, whose real beliefs have stemmed from a real place of hope and principle, uncertainty and worry…

I am not going to buy into a group think narrative. There are obvious rights and obvious wrongs, but one political party does not corner the market on all of them. Neither does one presidential era or march. We are operating in a complex world attempting to force us into a simplified system. It doesn’t work that way. And if we find ourselves fitting too easily into one or the other, it’s possible we’ve been had.

Maybe.

I’m just speaking as someone who feels like she doesn’t fit anymore. Who is wary of political labels and promises and feeling isolated in my neglect to pick a “team.”

Inauguration Day, the Women’s March and the Lonely in Between by Sarah Anderson

“…In fact, in right-wing conservatism, it’s almost considered a religious duty and moral obligation to speak out in opposition to anyone who isn’t on board with the right-wing vision for America. It’s “speaking the truth in love,” so they say. In fact, those who don’t speak out, or perhaps take a more reasonable nuanced approached, are often accused of being complicit with very evils they claim to oppose.

But now that Donald Trump is president?

Well, now that Trump is president “speaking out” is rather frowned upon.
Instead, we’re told that it’s time to “get behind the president,” that it is “time for us to unify together,” and that we must support our new president. After years of non-stop criticism we’re told that now we’re supposed to shut up and unite.

Folks on the right like Franklin Graham have never actually believed that we should “get behind the president” because they just spent eight years doing the precise opposite. They don’t actually believe we should be quiet, stop speaking out, and that we should avoid being divisive– they just want those who disagree with them to do that.

Few things in the world have the ability to unveil a hypocrite as much as the allure of political power…”

How Conservatives All Of A Sudden Became Against “Divisiveness” by Dr. Benjamin L. Corey

“When all else fails, though–and let’s be clear here, all else is in fact failing and doing so catastrophically–Christian leaders have begun teaching a new morality that has subtly altered forever their followers’ perceptions: The ends justify the means.

In other words, whatever they have to do is okay as long as it gets them what they want…

Those of us who were totally baffled by how a group that claims to have a lock on objective morality could ever support someone who categorically defies the very notion of morality and constantly flaunts his rejection of morality might find some illumination from the other questions on the survey, however. A lot of it dealt with how Americans grapple with the problem of hypocritical politicians.

Americans generally are a lot less likely these days to say that personal moral transgressions ought to disqualify politicians from serving in office…

So that’s … Republican voters–who are overwhelmingly Christian–who think it’s okay to be a total hypocrite on a personal level as long as someone’s pursuing their agenda in office…”

Needs Must When the Culture War Drives. by Captain Cassidy

“Finally, one friend asked “Which rights don’t I have that I’m supposed to be marching for?” and that’s when it finally crystallized for me what the people I know aren’t understanding about the Women’s March…

The Women’s March is many of the women of this country declaring a culture war on misogyny, hatred, bigotry, racism, ableism, transphobia, homophobia, femmephobia, and one Party’s intent to destroy not women’s “Rights,” but all of our freedoms: The freedom of the press, the freedom of speech, the freedom to peaceably assemble. It’s not just our Bill of Rights that are under a war of attrition, either. Women marched this past Saturday because our realities are not all the same, and we have to protect each other.”

The Women’s March is a Culture War by Samantha  Field

“What happened in Nebraska raises the question: If there were no consequences, how many of us would give up our kids? After all, child abandonment is nothing new and it’s certainly not rare in the United States. Over 400,000 children are in the foster care system waiting to be placed in homes, thousands of parents relinquish their children every year…

American culture can’t accept the reality of a woman who does not want to be a mother. It goes against everything we’ve been taught to think about women and how desperately they want babies. If we’re to believe the media and pop culture, women — even teen girls — are forever desperate for a baby. It’s our greatest desire…

If policymakers and people who care about children want to reduce the number of abandoned kids, they need to address the systemic issues: poverty, maternity leave, access to resources, and health care…

There also needs to be some sort of acknowledgement that not everyone should parent — when parenting is a given, it’s not fully considered or thought out, and it gives way too easily to parental ambivalence and unhappiness.”

Not Wanting Kids Is Entirely Normal by Jessica Valenti

“Yes. I know. Horrible things happen to women all over the world. I also ache for their oppression, their abuse, their poverty, their lack of schools and clean water. But that’s a whole different conversation. In case I haven’t made myself clear yet, there’s a lot of women right here, in this country, who need things they aren’t getting, and they deserve their own conversation.

Which brings me to The Women’s March.

I didn’t march because I personally feel marginalized. I marched because I can. I marched because a lot of women can’t, even if you don’t see them…”

To Christy on Facebook, who doesn’t need the Women’s March by Susan Speer

“Nothing that has ever happened or will ever happen was as great as Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The crowd was magnificent and huge, bigger than any crowd had ever been before!

Everyone in the world had come there at great expense. They sold all their possessions — their homes, their “Hamilton” tickets, which were worthless to them — to raise money to come and see this great sight. They could not believe that a perfect being such as Donald Trump even existed. They thought that he was a myth or a legend or a decades-long series of fabrications.

But then they saw him, and their doubts fell away…”

The true, correct story of what happened at Donald Trump’s inauguration by Alexandra Petri