Where do you imagine your place would be in a fundie world?

[Avalondaughter]

I can't imagine. I'm a lapsed Catholic and secular humanist married to a non-practicing Jew. I'm child-free and I suppose if you forced the issue, you might squeeze a baby out of me in the next year or two before my womb is officially closed. I suppose hubby and I would be put into some kind of reeducation camp and be forced to reproduce.

Interesting thought here. What if I did have a baby? Now fundies would consider my baby desirable since I'm white and European descended. If they force me and my baby to be Christian, I'll be keeping up traditional values and all of that. However, because of my age, there is a good chance my baby would not be normal. My baby would be useless in a fundie society. Even though all babies are supposed to be blessings, I have to wonder in a fundie world if some sort of eugenics might apply. A mentally disabled child who would not be able to carry on the next generation might not have a place in fundie society.

[EyeQueue]

I would be the compliant headmistress of The Beautiful Friends Home for the Fallen, a home for unmarried pregnant young women who are being forced to have their baybeez and give them up to godly, fundy couples of impeccable pedigrees.

On the sly, though, the school really educates these girls, to either be spies or they end up "escaping" (oh, darn...they must have been possessed by demons!!11) and being placed with the resistance or various underground organizations.

The babies are actually placed with families who seem like good fundies, but who are actually subversives.

[EyeQueue]

Even though all babies are supposed to be blessings, I have to wonder in a fundie world if some sort of eugenics might apply. A mentally disabled child who would not be able to carry on the next generation might not have a place in fundie society.

That would be like the UnBabies (or "shredders") in The Handmaid's Tale.

[AVENues]

Since even in this life I have cut myself off from unsupportive and emotionally hazardous relatives and I have cut off from social norms because I was living an obligation normal life before and I was miserable all the time, I'd say I was either a refugee with a tell it all book, or, and I mean it, 6 feet under. I could not fit in. I could not contribute to normality even in the civil world, living up to the expectation of having a family of my own and give up on the live I've wanted. I could not even imagine trying to fit in and pray away the misery in church and 5 times a day. I'm kind of like that woman in the movie "Hours" who had a loving husband, a child, was pregnant with another one, yet she was unhappy. And as soon as she had her second child, she had run away and lived alone. I totally sympathize with her but I'm glad I have spared such trauma to children and did the right thing.

[mirele]

If I hadn't managed to slip over the border to Mexico (goodbye Gringolandia!), at best I'd be in the ex-Mormon agnostic reeducation camp. Which is the same camp they'd be sending my devout Mormon neighbors to for reeducation.

At worst, I'd be dead, because they would have figured out (like it's really HARD) who I am and decided I was no good for the reeducation.

In the real world: My boyfriend is convinced we're going to get a real hardcase that makes Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee look like flaming liberals. Every time he says this, I sigh and say, "You know, it's really too bad you've never read 'If This Goes On--' by Robert Heinlein [only off four years!]" and then I say, "So are we going to New Zealand or Australia?" He doesn't like me saying that, but fuck, if he's gonna talk about the fundie apocalypse, I'm going to tell him we need to get the hell out of Dodge.

[Maude]

I would likely be self-medicating (illegally, of course) with alcohol and marijuana while being part of an underground resistance movement. There would be no place for someone like me in fundieland.

[NurseNell]

If psych meds were forbidden, I'd be dead. 3 months, max. Funny how praying didn't cure my anxiety and depression for fifteen years, but meds managed to take care of it in a couple months.

Ye just lacked faith. :geek:

[Lillybee]

I would be sent to the Journey of the Heart camp for grannies because I would refuse to do 70 loads of laundry a week. While there I would be requiting other grannies for the underground resistance.

[Claddagh]

I'd be shipped off to the Colonies with the rest of the UnWomen.

I'd be shipped off with you! Either that or in some fundie prison as I was baptised Catholic.

[ElphabaGalinda]

Well, its not so much a story as it is a whole universe now, where the Southern states have seceded from the rest of the US and formed their own theocracy. The political system is the Tea Party version of libertarian, in which most stuff is left up to the states, but there is no gay marriage, homosexuality is regarded as a mental disease and abortion and birth control are banned. People are sent to "training centers" for things like questioning Christianity, having premarital sex, reading forbidden books, etc. And just about every family is supposed to be like the Duggars, though not all are.

I've been working in thus for nearly two years, once I get it together I think it will be something i would be proud of.

Is it bad that I think that is really really plausible? I would love to read it some day, though it's the most terrifying kind of dystopia because I really understand how that could happen.

I think yours is a realistic depiction of a fundie world, so if I were in a fundie world I would be locked up in a mental hospital for having the disease of homosexuality. I'd like to think I'd be stronger than that, but in such a world I'd probably end up dead, either the death penalty for all the gay pre marital sex, or dead by my own hand. Which is why I'm grateful I don't live in such a world, and that I was born in both the time and place I was.

[susanmr5]

Hmm.. Let's see... Probably not bad off if we made a few minor changes. It wouldn't be hard to fly under the radar at all...

I'm a Lutheran married to a Catholic so we'd mostly be ok there. Probably would have to convert or go to some training place. We have a baby already so that would be a point in our favor along with the fact that we're both under 30. My IUD would have to go. We live in a single-wide trailer (I figure we can fit 6 kids before it gets "cramped") that's close enough to both sets of parents to keep things nice and family oriented. In fact, my parents can probably see into my kitchen from theirs. I would have to stop working part time and learn to garden properly. Also, my house would have to be *way* cleaner. Since we're in the country I think we'd be one of those "crunchy" fundy families who keep chickens and goats and make all their own bread and yogurt.

Done properly, we could totally have everyone fooled. I have an education degree and could home school the kids so they'd get a real education. DH could keep making schnapps and I bet we could sell it on the side. I would have a problem with their idea of reading material. Once I read everything I had hidden away, I'd really need some good books.

Along with the resistance liquor movement can we also have a resistance book movement? Some sort of secret bookmobile for banned books?

[jenny_islander]

Project Gutenberg. It shares a name with a fundie-approved source for Ye Olde Fashionede Free Bookes--they have the 1917 Britannica online, for example--so you could even talk about it in front of True Believers and get away with it. "Working on a book for Project Gutenberg" would sound to them as though you were one of PJ's battalion of volunteer proofreaders. Just be sure that you really are logging on to PJ sometimes and they'll never suspect that you have a printing press on the other side of the false back of your prayer closet. A manual press: one person runs the risk of owning a contraband computer with illicit Web access, prints three plaintext copies of a banned book, and drops the copies off at good God-fearing upright helpmeets' houses where everyone knows the only electricity goes to the headship's workshop. A whole other network of nice Christian ladies run the book trucks, coming to tea at the printing houses and leaving with gift boxes of zucchini and tomatoes that are 10 percent vegetables and 90 percent copies of Songs of Innocence and of Experience, The Lord of the Rings, Our Bodies Ourselves, and the Leslie Fish songbook.

ETA: Whoo, the above was incoherent, but my main point stands: Cells are the way to go. If you get a copy of The Bell Jar folded up in a quilt, you only know the lady who dropped it off for you. You have no idea who else got the other copies or how many other copies there were. You have no idea that the quilt lady got ten copies of The Bell Jar in a box of sweet corn at the quaint little farm down the road and the quilt lady has no idea that one hundred copies of The Bell Jar came off the manual press hidden behind the linen closet. Neither does she know the nine other ladies who got ten copies each in boxes of produce. Meanwhile, the printer doesn't know that the woman who dropped off the ASCII printout made two more that went to two other quaint little farms.

[AnnieC 305]

Death row. I'm a murderer I had an abortion.

What's creepy is that back in the GWB years/our pagan days the husband and I actually discussed this. That was when he got the tattoo with the crossed M-16's. I don't know how you folks up in Portland feel about such things but there are a heck of a lot of us liberal hippie rural types who wouldn't let that shit over the cascades, so I guess I'd be rebel or a scout, depending on which side you were on. In a denim skirt.

Off to clean a weapon or two. :violence-bowandarrow: :violence-sniperdark:

[Guest Anonymous]

We could find ourselves having to memorize our favorite works of literature, like the vagrant colony at the end of "Fahrenheit 451" did in order to preserve them. I could see the fundies having flying squads of firefighters whose mission would be to burn books, not put out actual fires.

[YPestis]

Hm, I guess my place will be a housewife to my headship. He's place is relatively 'safe' as he is a white, Christian male with a manly profession. I would be home popping out the babies and wiping poop all day.

Then again....

No alcohol. No diversity allowed. Science is restricted or banned in schools. Abortion and birth control is illegal. All entertainment has to be 'edifying' and wholesome. Ugh. I think I would kill myself.

[Kitty]

Is it bad that I think that is really really plausible? I would love to read it some day, though it's the most terrifying kind of dystopia because I really understand how that could happen.

I think yours is a realistic depiction of a fundie world, so if I were in a fundie world I would be locked up in a mental hospital for having the disease of homosexuality. I'd like to think I'd be stronger than that, but in such a world I'd probably end up dead, either the death penalty for all the gay pre marital sex, or dead by my own hand. Which is why I'm grateful I don't live in such a world, and that I was born in both the time and place I was.

To tell the truth it's really supposed to depict a Tea Party dystopia, but of course, that means it's fundie. It was supposed to be realistic, but with the recent threats of secession after Obama's re-election, maybe it's too realistic.

The backstory is that Obama got re-elected, the southern states threatened to secede, sort-of won the civil war/"third revolution", and formed a theocratic confederation. The remainder of the US gets a whole lot more liberal, while the CSA (well not CSA, they changed the name to avoid confusion with the USA) quickly turns into a third world country.

[redcurls]

Actually, I might pass pretty well in fundie world. With my looong hair, love of skirts, kick-ass baking skills, adoration of children, and *ahem* "purity" they'd probably marry me off. I'd probably busy myself with children and home, secretly give them a decent homeschool education, hide my diplomas and books, and desperately look for signs of a resistance.

Do we get a say in husbands? Because if we do, I pick some Bradrick cousin or... isn't there a young, single brother? Red haired children+access to secret info+the opportunity to chemically castrate certain patriarchs could make the situation tolerable.

[Guest Anonymous]

I don't know where I would be in the fundie world. I became a Christian in a non-Christian home thanks to a youth mission in my teens. I would have been left high and dry when Steve Maxwell and his ilk shut down the youth groups and insisted that children be kept close to their families. I have often wondered what they think will happen to any young person converted at their soft-drink-in-the-park missions...

[Kristelle]

Educated, young, colorful hair, lesbian, Arab, non-religious woman, known to partake in drunken revelry and wear jeans more often than not?

I'd either be killed, or move underground and work for the resistance! :lol:

[luckystone]

I'm not sure. If they had control, would I be pretending to be a fundie or not?

I'd be pretty rebelilious if my life and the lives of those I love weren't at risk...but if it was a crazy authoritarian regime I wouldn't bother. I'd probably settle into it. As an adult. As a teen I would have been miserable because I was a classic tomboy which would not be what they want!

Honestly, I think I'd probably enjoy some aspects of fundiedom. I don't mind long hair, I like cooking, I'd like to have a nice safe husband, the misogyny would get old. I could handle having kids - secretly I want a lot but I have too much to do to have them - but if the rest of the world was off-limits with me, I could probably handle that.

Lack of education would drive me mad so I would be secretly rebellious and teach myself as much as possible. Oh I would also be a secret atheist.

[Convicted Blossom]

Handmaid's Tale reference. Because the more entrenched the fundies become, the closer we get to Gilead.

Oh sparkles you attribute too much to me. As an Aussie I regarded the colonies as being outposts like Australia where I am. But I can run with The Handmaid's Tale reference.

[JesusFightClub]

I would take up the gun. There would be no other choice.

Thankfully I don't see it as remotely likely! And that would be a full on Handmaid's Tale scenario.

[moodygirl86]

Oh God, where do I start. Uh, OK. I was raised by a single mum and had three brothers, which led to the double-edged sword of me being a feminist AND a tomboy! Most of the other kids my age on our estate were boys and so I mixed mainly with them, as well as my brothers and their mates, and ditched skirts and dresses for good at age 10. I went an evil secular comprehensive, where the RE teacher was a self confessed atheist. As for my own religious affiliations, I consider myself an agnostic with Buddhist leanings. When I was 13, my mum met the man who would become our stepfather, and he gave me copies of all his Sex Pistols and Husker Du music. Consequently, I got into punk, cut my hair short and pierced my lip (and almost got suspended until our headmaster realised half the other kids in year 9 had been doing similar things thanks to the evil influence of those pesky Blink 182 and Sum 41 oiks). Haven't lived under maternal supervision since I was 16, and much as I love Mum, have no intention of giving up my freedom after all these years. The only one who still lives at home is my younger brother M, and that's only because he likes it, not because he feels he should. I'm looking for work but can't currently find anything, so am signing on and claiming evil government benefits. Most of my friends are men. I rent my own flat and have no intention of marrying or having kids, although I do have ambitions to become an evil cat lady when I'm in a better position to take care of a pet. If fundies ruled, I'd like to think I would be the modern equivalent of a suffragette in Victorian times, although I draw the line at throwing myself in front of horses. In short, I'm everything fundies hate. They'd probably end up throwing me in the loony bin where I'd bore all the staff to tears. And then they'd let me back out again. Any way I can avoid going to hell?

[latraviata]

Let's say that fundies ruled the country and their culture was dominant.

Where do you say that your place in that society would be?

Chained in a dungeon at night and pilloried in the town square during the day to be mocked by the crowd. Awaiting my heretic trial.

[FireIsCatching89]

I wouldn't exist. My mom would get a life sentence for her pro-choice activism that she was into before she had kids and we sucked up all her time.

Dad would be straight up executed. He has a boner for the Fourth Amendment, and well, I don't think fundies REALLY care for due process.

Brother and I would have never been born. Shame, since Brother became a minister, but he likes teh gheys, so he's not the sort they would want running around.