we got to the LaColle border stop and she was held over for approximately an hour. she was taken into a small room and a woman typed on a computer for at least half an hour and whispered to other customs officials and did not inform her of anything going on. she said it was pretty scary because she had basically dropped everything in the US and she had no idea if they were going to try and send her back to nothing. eventually, they told her that her visa was not valid.

‘what do you mean, my visa is invalid? i have the papers right here in my hand.’

‘no, you have the wrong type of visa, blah blah blah’ you know, bureaucratic bullshit.

‘ok, so explain to me why i was allowed to get this type of visa, and why i have documentation for a valid visa, then.’

eventually, they let her in, but like GumbyAnne said, visas are not clear cut and they don’t necessarily make sense, and mistakes are pretty easy to make.

You are confusing the Constitution with the Declaration of Independence, I’m afraid. John Hancock, the guy to whom you are referring, was elected a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, but did not attend.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/marryff.html

I’m going to stop suggesting that there is any feminist element in the Catholic tradition whatsoever.

Without arguing the point you made, I would like to observe that there really are two nearly distinct Catholicisms - the one operated by the hierarchy, and the one experienced in the pews.

Seen from the inside (until I got summarily pitched out when I came out of the closet), it is often amazing how completely different what the institutional church says and does is from what the local parish says and does.

I suspect some (but not all, fer shure) of what your mother was commenting on was that her experience of being Catholic didn’t reflect to her the very clear misogyny that you see in Catholicism.

In my experience, most Catholics treat Rome the way most British people treat the Royals - glad they are there, feel they are important in some more or less unspecified way, but not in any meaningful sense a part of day to day life.

So for your mother, what is important about HER Catholicism is how she and other women are treated in their parish, not what some theologian writes.

I was having a conversation over the weekend with my mom about how Christianity hates women. I think it does, she thinks it doesn’t…

I think the most accurate way to put it is that Christianity can be detrimental to women, but is neither the most nor the least harmful system of beliefs out there.

Compared to some belief systems, Christianity can be quite repressive. Compared to other belief systems, Christianity is quite progressive. It is not Christians or Christian cultures who are selectively aborting female fetuses. Honor killing, which is common in some parts of the world, is explicitly prohibited by none other than Jesus himself (John

A fair amount also depends on the denomination of Christianity. It would be difficult to make the case that a church like the United Church of Christ or the Episcopal Church hates women, yet there are plenty of other churches that clearly do.

A large part of the reason behind these differences is the simple fact that the Bible contradicts itself, much more than most people realize. On one hand, Paul said

Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness. A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.

1 Timothy 2:9-15

On the other hand, Paul also said

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Galatians 3:28

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea; that you receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints, and that you help her in whatever matter she may have need of you; for she herself has also been a helper of many, and of myself as well.

Romans 16:1-2

It occasionally tries to pop its head up, only to be ruthlessly crushed by the hierarchy and denounced as heresy.

IOW, people have tried, so some writings by some theologians along those lines exist, but no go as far as being actual policy or teachings.

In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.
- Autobiography of Mark Twain

I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man’s reasoning powers are not above the monkey’s.
- Mark Twain in Eruption

To lodge all power in one party and keep it there is to insure bad government and the sure and gradual deterioration of the public morals.
- Mark Twain’s Autobiography

Look at the tyranny of party–at what is called party allegiance, party loyalty–a snare invented by designing men for selfish purposes–and which turns voters into chattles, slaves, rabbits, and all the while their masters, and they themselves are shouting rubbish about liberty, independence, freedom of opinion, freedom of speech, honestly unconscious of the fantastic contradiction; and forgetting or ignoring that their fathers and the churches shouted the same blasphemies a generation earlier when they were closing their doors against the hunted slave, beating his handful of humane defenders with Bible texts and billies, and pocketing the insults and licking the shoes of his Southern master.
- “The Character of Man,” Mark Twain’s Autobiography

If not, get one. If my close relative’s situation serves as an example, it helps a great deal to have somebody constantly saying “cut the goddamn shit and get your act together” with authority.

He’s ‘bringing home the pork’ for you ungrateful people…

Hypocrites need to be supported…

Now the Social Darwinists must face their Creationist kissing cousin and get married as she is pregnant with the fascist theocracy they’ve both helped to spawn.

Both will be looking to us to foot the bill for the child support and why not? Ronnie sucked in most of America for that long ago.

I hope we get out of this mess sooner than I think we will.