The unborn are not a part of their mother's bodies. The unborn are individuals. The life of the unborn can be started outside their mother's bodies. Frozen embryos are sometimes fought over in child custody cases. The unborn can survive both birth and abortion in the second-trimester and third-trimester of gestation. Surgeries and medical treatments can be done on the unborn.
"Doctors can almost always prevent transmission of H.I.V. from infected mothers to their babies by testing the mothers during pregnancy, treating those found infected with antiretroviral drugs, and giving their babies a six-week course of one or two drugs to prevent them from becoming infected. That works in the vast majority of cases, but when it does not, doctors provide stronger drug regiments to treat the infection in the baby," says The New York Times editorial staff in the March 5, 2013, article "The Intriguing Case of a Baby Cured of H.I.V."
Yet babies in their mother's wombs of the same age as those treated with antiretroviral drugs can be killed for virtually any reason by legal abortion except for some late-term abortions in fewer than 11 American states. Read my article "Abortion Hurts."
Science has forced some pro-choice people to now admit that abortion ends human life. Frances Kissling, a long-time pro-choice advocate and former president of Catholics for Choice, told Time Magazine in the January 14, 2013, article "What Choice? Abortion-rights activists won an epic victory in Roe v. Wade. They've been losing ever since," "When people hear us say abortion is just another medical procedure, they react with shock . . . Abortion is not like having your tooth pulled or having your appendix out. It involves the termination of an early form of human life. That deserves some gravitas."
The women's movement started out pro-life. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, passionately-in-love wife married 47 years, mother of seven, women's-rights activist and abolitionist, was both pro-woman and pro-life. In a 1873 letter to Julia Ward Howe, the originator of Mother's Day, Stanton writes, "When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit." Read my article "Pro-Woman, Pro-life."
Preacher, Abolitionist and Women's Rights Activist Sojourner Truth said, "You say women need to be helped into carriages and lifted over ditches. Nobody's ever helped me into a carriage or over a mud puddle. And ain't I a woman?" Truth said, "I have plowed, and I have planted. I have gathered into barns. No man could head me. And ain't I a woman?" Truth also said, "Jesus came from God and a woman. Man had nothing to do with him."
Science has now demonstrated that human life begins when sperm and egg unite. Aren't the unborn boys or girls!
God loves all people even His enemies. Matthew 5:43-48 the Message Bible says, "“You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.
“In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”"
God even loves rapists, the women and men raped and the babies conceived of rape. None of these people should be killed. Instead God desires that people be changed into the goodness of His likeness. 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 Amplified Bible says, "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (emancipation from bondage, freedom). And all of us, as with unveiled face, [because we] continued to behold [in the Word of God] as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another; [for this comes] from the Lord [Who is] the Spirit."
Isn't it past time to outlaw all abortions except those that science is not yet sophisticated enough to save the physical life of both the mother and the unborn? Read my article "Thoughts About Abortion."
The loss of a child hurts. "I have borne thirteen children and seen them almost all sold off into slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief none but Jesus heard," said Sojourner Truth. Japanese American and other Asian American parents couldn't do much to protect their children when former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ordered that Asian Americans be thrust from their homes into internment camps. Read my article "Faith, Fear and Japanese Americans." Rock star Steven Tyler of the band Aerosmith writes in his autobiography, Walk This Way, about his abortion experience, “It was a big crisis. It’s a major thing when you’re growing something with a woman, but they convinced us that it would never work out and would ruin our lives. … You go to the doctor and they put the needle in her belly and they squeeze the stuff in and you watch. And it comes out dead. I was pretty devastated. In my mind, I’m going, Jesus, what have I done?”
Showing posts with label Women's Rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Women's Rights. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Only One is All Good
"And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone," (Mark 10:18 English Standard Version Bible.)
Yet we often except near perfection in people we marry, in leaders and in others. Believers are saints, and saints sometimes sin. Jesus Christ taught us to ask Him for forgiveness daily. Luke 11:2-4 the Message Bible says, "So he said, “When you pray, say,
Father,
Reveal who you are.
Set the world right.
Keep us alive with three square meals.
Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.”"
Harriet Tubman was called Moses after the Biblical Moses because she led hundreds of African Americans out of slavery through trips on the Underground Railroad, not a train but a network of people who hid and helped slaves escape slavery and live in freedom. Large rewards were offered for Harriet Tubman's capture, but with God on her side she was never caught, and she never lost a passenger.
Harriet also married, John Tubman. John was a black man who was born free, but he treated Harriet as if she were his slave and said that if Harriet tried to escape slavery he would tell her slave master!
Harriet hid her plans to escape slavery from her husband. In 1849 traveling through the Underground Railroad, following the North Star, Harriet escaped from slavery on the Brodas plantation in Eastern Shore Maryland. Harriet said, "I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person now that I was free." She later said, "There was such glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees and over the fields, and I felt like I was in heaven."
Harriet could have stayed in "heaven," but she decided to go back to slave-states repeatedly to rescue slaves including her children, her brothers (she had 11 siblings) and their families, her elderly parents (Harriet Green and Benjamin Ross) and many others.
Her husband, John Tubman was a hard-hearted man. On one trip when Harriet came back to the Brodas plantation, her husband refused to come to a non-slave state. Harriet didn't waste the trip, she rescued some slaves. John Tubman married another woman.
Some of us are married to people we should have never married, or in relationships that we should have never entered or in other difficult relationships. 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 Complete Jewish Bible says, "To the rest I say — I, not the Lord: if any brother has a wife who is not a believer, and she is satisfied to go on living with him, he should not leave her. Also, if any woman has an unbelieving husband who is satisfied to go on living with her, she is not to leave him. For the unbelieving husband has been set aside for God by the wife, and the unbelieving wife has been set aside for God by the brother — otherwise your children would be “unclean,” but as it is, they are set aside for God. But if the unbelieving spouse separates himself, let him be separated. In circumstances like these, the brother or sister is not enslaved — God has called you to a life of peace. For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?"
When her marriage failed, Harriet kept on living and doing good. Harriet served in the Civil War on the side of the Union as a scout, spy and nurse. She was the first woman in U.S. military history to lead an armed expedition. In the Combahee River Raid Harriet led a group of mostly black soldiers in an audacious escape that liberated more than 750 enslaved persons. Movie material? Proverbs-style women are warriors. Read my article "Warrior Women,"
Being a warrior does not mean that a woman lacks nurturing capacity. After the Civil War Harriet went to live on a small farm in Auburn, New York. She eventually turned her home into a home for poor and elderly African Americans.
Harriet was also active in the women's movement. She worked with women like Susan B. Anthony to fight for women's right to vote.
Dr. Derek Grier says in his Ministry Minute "Strong Marriage," "We really have no idea how selfish and how self-centered we are until we commit to spend the rest of our lives loving and making decisions with another person." Read my article "Divorced = Eliminated from the Race?"
Just because John Tubman had no sense to appreciate the woman he had, didn't mean others didn't recognize Harriet's value. Abolitionist John Brown called her, "General Tubman." Solider Nelson Davis and Harriet Tubman married in 1869.
What other warrior women are like Harriet Tubman?
Douglas Brinkley writes in The Washington Post March 1, 2013, article "What would Parks do? Honor Tubman," "What would have truly perturbed her was that Obama has yet to issue an executive order to create a national monument for Harriet Tubman. The paperwork is ready; it just needs the president's signature. . . . Call or write the White House and urge the president to pick up his pen on behalf of history."
Yet we often except near perfection in people we marry, in leaders and in others. Believers are saints, and saints sometimes sin. Jesus Christ taught us to ask Him for forgiveness daily. Luke 11:2-4 the Message Bible says, "So he said, “When you pray, say,
Father,
Reveal who you are.
Set the world right.
Keep us alive with three square meals.
Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.”"
Harriet Tubman was called Moses after the Biblical Moses because she led hundreds of African Americans out of slavery through trips on the Underground Railroad, not a train but a network of people who hid and helped slaves escape slavery and live in freedom. Large rewards were offered for Harriet Tubman's capture, but with God on her side she was never caught, and she never lost a passenger.
Harriet also married, John Tubman. John was a black man who was born free, but he treated Harriet as if she were his slave and said that if Harriet tried to escape slavery he would tell her slave master!
Harriet hid her plans to escape slavery from her husband. In 1849 traveling through the Underground Railroad, following the North Star, Harriet escaped from slavery on the Brodas plantation in Eastern Shore Maryland. Harriet said, "I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person now that I was free." She later said, "There was such glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees and over the fields, and I felt like I was in heaven."
Harriet could have stayed in "heaven," but she decided to go back to slave-states repeatedly to rescue slaves including her children, her brothers (she had 11 siblings) and their families, her elderly parents (Harriet Green and Benjamin Ross) and many others.
Her husband, John Tubman was a hard-hearted man. On one trip when Harriet came back to the Brodas plantation, her husband refused to come to a non-slave state. Harriet didn't waste the trip, she rescued some slaves. John Tubman married another woman.
Some of us are married to people we should have never married, or in relationships that we should have never entered or in other difficult relationships. 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 Complete Jewish Bible says, "To the rest I say — I, not the Lord: if any brother has a wife who is not a believer, and she is satisfied to go on living with him, he should not leave her. Also, if any woman has an unbelieving husband who is satisfied to go on living with her, she is not to leave him. For the unbelieving husband has been set aside for God by the wife, and the unbelieving wife has been set aside for God by the brother — otherwise your children would be “unclean,” but as it is, they are set aside for God. But if the unbelieving spouse separates himself, let him be separated. In circumstances like these, the brother or sister is not enslaved — God has called you to a life of peace. For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?"
When her marriage failed, Harriet kept on living and doing good. Harriet served in the Civil War on the side of the Union as a scout, spy and nurse. She was the first woman in U.S. military history to lead an armed expedition. In the Combahee River Raid Harriet led a group of mostly black soldiers in an audacious escape that liberated more than 750 enslaved persons. Movie material? Proverbs-style women are warriors. Read my article "Warrior Women,"
Being a warrior does not mean that a woman lacks nurturing capacity. After the Civil War Harriet went to live on a small farm in Auburn, New York. She eventually turned her home into a home for poor and elderly African Americans.
Harriet was also active in the women's movement. She worked with women like Susan B. Anthony to fight for women's right to vote.
Dr. Derek Grier says in his Ministry Minute "Strong Marriage," "We really have no idea how selfish and how self-centered we are until we commit to spend the rest of our lives loving and making decisions with another person." Read my article "Divorced = Eliminated from the Race?"
Just because John Tubman had no sense to appreciate the woman he had, didn't mean others didn't recognize Harriet's value. Abolitionist John Brown called her, "General Tubman." Solider Nelson Davis and Harriet Tubman married in 1869.
What other warrior women are like Harriet Tubman?
Douglas Brinkley writes in The Washington Post March 1, 2013, article "What would Parks do? Honor Tubman," "What would have truly perturbed her was that Obama has yet to issue an executive order to create a national monument for Harriet Tubman. The paperwork is ready; it just needs the president's signature. . . . Call or write the White House and urge the president to pick up his pen on behalf of history."
Friday, February 22, 2013
Paid Leave Please
"For as many [of you] as were baptized into Christ [into a spiritual union and communion with Christ, the Anointed One, the Messiah] have put on (clothed yourselves with) Christ. There is [now no distinction] neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus," says Galatians 3:27-28 Amplified Bible.
When I became a single parent 20 years ago, a distinction between male and female certainly existed. I don't recall encountering full-time single dads, but I encountered many full-time single moms.
Although admittedly today most full-time single parents and most of the parenting is being done by women, I am encountering full-time single dads. One of the things that is good and different today is that a greater push for economic justice is not just being framed in terms of women's rights.
While we don't want to worship money, money matters. A Spanish word for "cash" is "efectivo." Money is a necessary tool for survival and for the advance of the Kingdom of God.
Many women say they have abortions because of concerns about the lack of money. Read my article "Thoughts About Abortion."
Proverbs 31:8 Complete Jewish Bible says, "Speak up for those who can’t speak for themselves, for the rights of all who need an advocate."
Americans and people of other societies need to reject abortion and to embrace life. One aspect of embracing life is to increase family friendliness in places of employment.
Family friendliness is more than a women's issue. Fathers are not helper-parents. Fathers are co-parents. Read my article "Do Fathers Have a Say in Abortion and Frozen Embryos?."
In the Old Testament God implemented many feasts and Sabbaths. Some of these holidays lasted for more than one day. God is for both work and rest both with generous, abundant economic provision.
It is critical that sick leave and other types of leave from work be paid leave, so that both men and women can meet the spiritual, relational and economic needs of their families. Unpaid leave is partial help. When Jesus connects truth to freedom and life, He doesn't give us a partial package. We must not remain content with unpaid leave. Paid leave is proper. Martin Luther King, Jr. says, "He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."
Change for the better often takes longer than we would like because of misguided, deeply entrenched mindsets. "Pasos cortos, vista larga." ("Short steps, long view.")
Believers are not to worry when they are not working that they will lose income. God promises to give us more than we need, if we do what He says to do. In one of the Sabbaths, God says through Moses in Deuteronomy 15:1, 3-5 English Standard Version Bible, "At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release. . . . But there will be no poor among you; for the Lord will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess--if only you will strictly obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today." Leviticus 25:3-7 New Living Translation says, "For six years you may plant your fields and prune your vineyards and harvest your crops, but during the seventh year the land must have a Sabbath year of complete rest. It is the Lord’s Sabbath. Do not plant your fields or prune your vineyards during that year. And don’t store away the crops that grow on their own or gather the grapes from your unpruned vines. The land must have a year of complete rest. But you may eat whatever the land produces on its own during its Sabbath. This applies to you, your male and female servants, your hired workers, and the temporary residents who live with you. Your livestock and the wild animals in your land will also be allowed to eat what the land produces."
A Chinese proverb says, "Pointing to a deer and calling it a horse." It means, "Right and wrong are deliberately mixed up." Good sounding arguments do not always produce good results. Stingy employment practices hurt business, families, other people and even animals some of whom need people to take the time to adopt them.
"Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society," said Ralph Waldo Emerson.
What are some creative and positive results of rest?
When I became a single parent 20 years ago, a distinction between male and female certainly existed. I don't recall encountering full-time single dads, but I encountered many full-time single moms.
Although admittedly today most full-time single parents and most of the parenting is being done by women, I am encountering full-time single dads. One of the things that is good and different today is that a greater push for economic justice is not just being framed in terms of women's rights.
While we don't want to worship money, money matters. A Spanish word for "cash" is "efectivo." Money is a necessary tool for survival and for the advance of the Kingdom of God.
Many women say they have abortions because of concerns about the lack of money. Read my article "Thoughts About Abortion."
Proverbs 31:8 Complete Jewish Bible says, "Speak up for those who can’t speak for themselves, for the rights of all who need an advocate."
Americans and people of other societies need to reject abortion and to embrace life. One aspect of embracing life is to increase family friendliness in places of employment.
Family friendliness is more than a women's issue. Fathers are not helper-parents. Fathers are co-parents. Read my article "Do Fathers Have a Say in Abortion and Frozen Embryos?."
In the Old Testament God implemented many feasts and Sabbaths. Some of these holidays lasted for more than one day. God is for both work and rest both with generous, abundant economic provision.
It is critical that sick leave and other types of leave from work be paid leave, so that both men and women can meet the spiritual, relational and economic needs of their families. Unpaid leave is partial help. When Jesus connects truth to freedom and life, He doesn't give us a partial package. We must not remain content with unpaid leave. Paid leave is proper. Martin Luther King, Jr. says, "He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."
Change for the better often takes longer than we would like because of misguided, deeply entrenched mindsets. "Pasos cortos, vista larga." ("Short steps, long view.")
Believers are not to worry when they are not working that they will lose income. God promises to give us more than we need, if we do what He says to do. In one of the Sabbaths, God says through Moses in Deuteronomy 15:1, 3-5 English Standard Version Bible, "At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release. . . . But there will be no poor among you; for the Lord will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess--if only you will strictly obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all this commandment that I command you today." Leviticus 25:3-7 New Living Translation says, "For six years you may plant your fields and prune your vineyards and harvest your crops, but during the seventh year the land must have a Sabbath year of complete rest. It is the Lord’s Sabbath. Do not plant your fields or prune your vineyards during that year. And don’t store away the crops that grow on their own or gather the grapes from your unpruned vines. The land must have a year of complete rest. But you may eat whatever the land produces on its own during its Sabbath. This applies to you, your male and female servants, your hired workers, and the temporary residents who live with you. Your livestock and the wild animals in your land will also be allowed to eat what the land produces."
A Chinese proverb says, "Pointing to a deer and calling it a horse." It means, "Right and wrong are deliberately mixed up." Good sounding arguments do not always produce good results. Stingy employment practices hurt business, families, other people and even animals some of whom need people to take the time to adopt them.
"Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society," said Ralph Waldo Emerson.
What are some creative and positive results of rest?
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Pro-Woman, Pro-life
For part of the lives of my grandmother, Mildred, and my great-grandmother, Pearl, in our great and glorious country of America women did not have equal rights with men. A time existed in America when women could not inherit family property, pursue schooling, get a divorce or vote. They were generally paid far less than men to do the same job and were severely restricted in the types of jobs and businesses they could have. Proper female professions were typically limited to teacher, nurse, farm help, factory worker, mill girl or maid.
Yet in spite of all these impediments, inequalities and injustices, contrary to some of today's feminists, the women's movement started out pro-woman, pro-life. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, passionately-in-love wife married 47 years, mother of seven, women's-rights activist and abolitionist, was both pro-woman and pro-life. In a 1873 letter to Julia Ward Howe, the originator of Mother's Day, Stanton writes, "When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."
Six of Stanton's children were planned; the seventh was not. She supported birth control, but not abortion linking abortion to infanticide. The seventh child was born to Henry Brewster Stanton and Elizabeth Cady Stanton later in life when Elizabeth was 44. She could have gotten rid of the "mistake," but instead of abortion, she chose life for their child.
Abortion and infanticide have an historical and present-day link. Jill Stanek was a registered nurse in the Labor & Delivery Department at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois. She discovered not only were abortions being committed there, but babies were being aborted alive to die without medical care.
When hospital leaders said that they would not stop, Stanek went public, eventually got fired for her outspokenness and has become a national figure in the effort to protect both born and pre-born infants. Her written testimony was included in U.S. Congressional debates on the Born Alive Infants Protection Act which became law on August 5, 2002. The Born Alive Infants Protection Act protects live aborted children from infanticide.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton authored the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments which sought equality for women. The Declaration of Rights and Sentiments reads in part, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness . . . The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyrant over her . . . In view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half of the people of this country . . . because women do feel themselves aggrieved, . . . we insist that they have immediate admission to all rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States."
Stanton joined with Susan B. Anthony to author the three-volume History of Woman Suffrage. Together these friends of 50 years were not just motivators they were movers. They fought for women's rights with many other women like Sojourner Truth. Although it was illegal for women to vote in America in the 1800s, Anthony cast her vote for president on November 5, 1872. She got arrested for it on November 18, 1872. Anthony says, "Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God." The Bible agrees. Acts 5:29 New Living Translation Bible says, "But Peter and the apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than any human authority." God does not favor men over women. Galatians 3:28 Amplified Bible says, "There is [now no distinction] neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
God also says through Solomon in Proverbs 22:6 English Standard Bible, "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." While Anthony did not marry or have children, Stanton married and had seven children, but both died before women had the right to vote in America. Harriot Stanton Blatch, Stanton's daughter, and Nora Blatch, Stanton's granddaughter, continued to fight for women's right to vote. Despite beatings, imprisonments and other persecutions, women obtained the right to vote in America through the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.
Yet in spite of all these impediments, inequalities and injustices, contrary to some of today's feminists, the women's movement started out pro-woman, pro-life. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, passionately-in-love wife married 47 years, mother of seven, women's-rights activist and abolitionist, was both pro-woman and pro-life. In a 1873 letter to Julia Ward Howe, the originator of Mother's Day, Stanton writes, "When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."
Six of Stanton's children were planned; the seventh was not. She supported birth control, but not abortion linking abortion to infanticide. The seventh child was born to Henry Brewster Stanton and Elizabeth Cady Stanton later in life when Elizabeth was 44. She could have gotten rid of the "mistake," but instead of abortion, she chose life for their child.
Abortion and infanticide have an historical and present-day link. Jill Stanek was a registered nurse in the Labor & Delivery Department at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois. She discovered not only were abortions being committed there, but babies were being aborted alive to die without medical care.
When hospital leaders said that they would not stop, Stanek went public, eventually got fired for her outspokenness and has become a national figure in the effort to protect both born and pre-born infants. Her written testimony was included in U.S. Congressional debates on the Born Alive Infants Protection Act which became law on August 5, 2002. The Born Alive Infants Protection Act protects live aborted children from infanticide.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton authored the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments which sought equality for women. The Declaration of Rights and Sentiments reads in part, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness . . . The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyrant over her . . . In view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half of the people of this country . . . because women do feel themselves aggrieved, . . . we insist that they have immediate admission to all rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States."
Stanton joined with Susan B. Anthony to author the three-volume History of Woman Suffrage. Together these friends of 50 years were not just motivators they were movers. They fought for women's rights with many other women like Sojourner Truth. Although it was illegal for women to vote in America in the 1800s, Anthony cast her vote for president on November 5, 1872. She got arrested for it on November 18, 1872. Anthony says, "Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God." The Bible agrees. Acts 5:29 New Living Translation Bible says, "But Peter and the apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than any human authority." God does not favor men over women. Galatians 3:28 Amplified Bible says, "There is [now no distinction] neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
God also says through Solomon in Proverbs 22:6 English Standard Bible, "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it." While Anthony did not marry or have children, Stanton married and had seven children, but both died before women had the right to vote in America. Harriot Stanton Blatch, Stanton's daughter, and Nora Blatch, Stanton's granddaughter, continued to fight for women's right to vote. Despite beatings, imprisonments and other persecutions, women obtained the right to vote in America through the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Discrimination
Zelophehad died without fathering any sons (Numbers 27). His inheritance was about to pass out of his family, but Tirzah, Milcah, Hoglah, Noah and Mahlah spoke up and said to Moses, Eleazar, other Israelite leaders and other people that's not right; our father's inheritance belongs to us. These daughters loved themselves and their family and friends by recognizing they needed to secure a place and provision of their own to nurture themselves, their families and friends.
Moses went to God to see if the Zelophehad daughters were being discriminated against and were due justice. God said yes; it's not right to let others have Zelophehad's inheritance because his offspring are females.
Our God often does things big. God didn't only correct this case of sexual discrimination. God also granted justice and protection to multiple members of families by saying in Numbers 27:8-11 New Living Translation Bible, "And give the following instructions to the people of Israel: If a man dies and has no son, then give his inheritance to his daughters. And if he has no daughter either, transfer his inheritance to his brothers. If he has no brothers, give his inheritance to his father’s brothers. But if his father has no brothers, give his inheritance to the nearest relative in his clan. This is a legal requirement for the people of Israel, just as the Lord commanded Moses." That made it impossible for a family to lose its inheritance.
Later on God manifested His plan of making it impossible for all believers to lose their spiritual inheritance. God made believers joint heirs with God the Son Jesus Christ for eternity. Pilate showed Barabbas partiality, and Jesus died. God didn't keep quiet about the wrong. Jesus Christ got up from the dead in three days granting forgiveness of sins and an eternal relationship with believers.
Speaking up is critical to improving relationships and living. Don't keep quiet about discrimination. Speak up. Proverbs 18:21 Amplified Bible says, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they who indulge in it shall eat the fruit of it [for death or life]."
Please share an on-line comment about speaking out against discrimination.
Moses went to God to see if the Zelophehad daughters were being discriminated against and were due justice. God said yes; it's not right to let others have Zelophehad's inheritance because his offspring are females.
Our God often does things big. God didn't only correct this case of sexual discrimination. God also granted justice and protection to multiple members of families by saying in Numbers 27:8-11 New Living Translation Bible, "And give the following instructions to the people of Israel: If a man dies and has no son, then give his inheritance to his daughters. And if he has no daughter either, transfer his inheritance to his brothers. If he has no brothers, give his inheritance to his father’s brothers. But if his father has no brothers, give his inheritance to the nearest relative in his clan. This is a legal requirement for the people of Israel, just as the Lord commanded Moses." That made it impossible for a family to lose its inheritance.
Later on God manifested His plan of making it impossible for all believers to lose their spiritual inheritance. God made believers joint heirs with God the Son Jesus Christ for eternity. Pilate showed Barabbas partiality, and Jesus died. God didn't keep quiet about the wrong. Jesus Christ got up from the dead in three days granting forgiveness of sins and an eternal relationship with believers.
Speaking up is critical to improving relationships and living. Don't keep quiet about discrimination. Speak up. Proverbs 18:21 Amplified Bible says, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they who indulge in it shall eat the fruit of it [for death or life]."
Please share an on-line comment about speaking out against discrimination.
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