Gay marriage to blame for floods

[Guest route67]

I saw the headline and - understandably - I immediately thought it was a pronouncement by some evangelical nutcase in the Bible Belt of the good ol'  US of A.  (Pat Robertson, and his ilk, for example)

 

Gay marriage to blame for floods

 

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that it's not only America that has its fair share of swivel-eyed, bible-bashing loons...

[JaiDee]

 I will take our American South over anywhere in Blighty for sheer amount of crazies any day!

 

 

But considering where Yanks came from in the first place, I guess it was inevitable BOTH places would have their share of bible-thumping lunatics

 

 

[JaiDee]

Damn you,  Rte67......I can't read any of your posts now without hearing that calm, rational,  Scottish inflection of yours in my head. Kind of like trying to read something written by Morgan Freeman without hearing HIS voice, just impossible  grrrrr

[bumblebee]

The latest of this saga:

 

Facebook campaign launched to get 'It's Raining Men' to number 1 after Ukip councillor blames floods on gay marriage.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/facebook-campaign-to-get-its-raining-men-to-number-1-after-ukip-councillor-blames-floods-on-gay-marriage-9075412.html

[Hoot]

If one believes the conventional history, the Pilgrim Fathers fled England to ESCAPE religious persecution.

 

Not so.

 

The establishment was actually growing MORE tolerant of religious expression, and this rather upset the hard-line nutters, who then hopped on a ship and made for The New World, where they would be free to PRACTISE religious persecution.

 

.....

 

That is one odd interpretation of history..I guess facts don't matter. And portraying the Church of England in the 15-1600's as some sort of progressive movement is ludicrous, how exactly were they growing more tolerant?.

 

The Separatists broke from the Church of England, which was illegal as it was a state run religion. There were fines imposed for not attending COE run services and imprisonment for running your own services. Don't believe me?  Look up the 1558 Act of Uniformity. Two of the Separatist Church leaders were held in prison and executed. Is that your idea of more tolerant?  You were not free to practice your own religion in England at that time.  That is religious persecution, and  yes, that is why the Separatists fled from England to the Netherlands and eventually the new world.

 

Yes, we have a Puritanical history,  I don't like or agree with it and the follow on effects that it has had to this day...but don't make up your own history. 

[Hoot]

If one believes the conventional history, the Pilgrim Fathers fled England to ESCAPE religious persecution.

 

Not so.

 

The establishment was actually growing MORE tolerant of religious expression, and this rather upset the hard-line nutters, who then hopped on a ship and made for The New World, where they would be free to PRACTISE religious persecution.

 

And those were the ones with the gumption to travel.  Left behind were the dregs.

 

From thence to now bigotry, secterianism, and hatred have found fertile ground on both sides of the Atlantic...

 

The country of my birth, Scotland, has the Wee Frees (The Free Church of Scotland).  They make fundamentalist imams seem like pot-addled hipsters by comparison...

 

 

I ain't makin' up shit.

 

I did NOT say they were NOT persecuted, just that this is the ONLY reason generally given for their voyage(s), which is simply NOT the case.  The Puritans did not appreciate one little bit the tolerance of Catholicism instigated by James VI & I.  That the state would no longer persecute with vigour Catholics (at least "any that will be quiet and give but an outward obedience to the law" Source: Letters of King James VI and I, ed. GPV Akrigg, University of California Press 1984) did not go down at all well with the hardest of hard-line Protestants.

 

Hence the flouncing off to The New World, where they could happily burn Catholics, heretics, witches, & etc.

 

You made no mention of ONLY in your OP, what you said was that it was not true that they fled England to escape religious persecution, which is incorrect and that is the point I took issue with.  They did flee and headed to the Netherlands long before heading to the New World on the Mayflower. 

 

And if it was not the ONLY reason, the 'alternative' reason you posited was that they fled to persecute others, which I don't know what to say about that.  I guess I would say they were free to persecute themselves at that point in history.

 

Your quote of a King James Letter shows tolerance - to the catholics.  It is the don't ask, don't tell policy.   However, the Puritans - and the Separatist sects were Protestants, not Catholic.  And the quote you used is really not in context.

 

Lets not forget the Puritans came to rise under Elizabeth I, whose persecution of those not in line with the church is well document.  Those I mentioned who were executed for Separatism were under her rule as well as  the majority of those Sepratists had fled to the Netherlands by the late 1500s. They were the same who went to the new world via the Mayflower, coming out of those settelments in the Netherlands (via England).   The mass migration of the Puritans (non-sepratists) from England was under Charles I in the 1620's onward as the religious conflict once again got bad and a whole different set of circumstances emerged.

 

**is there no spell checker on this thing - my typing is horrible.

[Hoot]

No, what I said was - and I quote - If one believes the conventional history, the Pilgrim Fathers fled England to ESCAPE religious persecution.

 

My point - for the 3rd time - was that this was not the ONLY reason they left Englandland.

 

And if you read my post again - try reading it properly this time, old sport - you will find that I never confuse Puritans with Catholics.

 

The quote is perfectly in context, as the main thrust of the original post was that they wanted to practise religious persecution themselves, and the state was heading (albeit slowly) in the opposite direction re religious tolerance.  This tolerance began under James, as his own writings show.  That tolerance came to a stop some 30 years later, but that's a whole other story...

 

Anyway, let's get back on topic - we can always blame JaiDee for introducing a picture of the Mayflower and starting all this...

Good idea to blame JaiDee.  :-)   I did reread your use of the King James quote and got your intedend meaning  - though I do take issue with the properly remark old sport    As for the rest I too shall let it go and return the thread to it's former excitement of gay marraige and it's raining men protests....adios