Praying outside Marie Stopes Clinic

even if their presence is intimidating that is hardly unique among demonstrations,

I suppose the question that is troubling some people is how any demonstration that actively sets out to intimidate people who may well be at a vulnerable moment in their lives fits in with the core principles that are supposed to guide the Christian life.

Mefty – public prayer? Examples? Just not something I have really seen so trying to understand this

I just find it very difficult to see how you can argue others have the right to demonstrate without being hypocritical.

I am not suggesting the “pro life” protestors don’t have the right to demonstrate. They have a legal right to stand outside clinics and pray, and they are lawfully exercising that right.

However, this is a personalised protest intended to intimidate vulnerable people. They don’t have to protest this way, and I think their behaviour betrays a fundamental meanness of spirit and lack of respect for other people.

I’d bet most Christians in the UK would distance themselves from this behaviour.

Perhaps the police should be called to deal with the “protest” as it sounds awful. Why is this kind of thing “tolerated”?

Thm I’d say yes call the police, want to pray for people do it in your own home or church, they have gone their intentionally to mess with people.

Better still round all the prayers up – shall we create special camps for them so that they can only mumble aggressively well away from normal people?

Personally I do find mumbling so terribly intimidating. Why won’t they speak up so that you can hear them properly?? They are so inconsiderate…. ****s

Personally I do find mumbling so terribly intimidating. Why won’t they speak up so that you can hear them properly?? They are so inconsiderate…. ****s

Is that because you are lacking in empathy and not in the middle of a very traumatic emotional experience?

So you accept that the analogy is irrelevant for the UK then?

No, I’m saying put yourself in their position (didn’t think it was this difficult!)

Imagine you think that babies are being murdered. What do you do?

No it’s because I can’t hear what they are saying

At least with proper protesters you can hear the nonsense and have a giggle. But these terrible mumbling people deprive us of that. ****s

don’t feed the troll

That be a yes then thm.

I’m pointing out that both UK law and the will of the majority are in complete agreement, you appear to have spectacularly missed that.

Which part of the UK are the majority in complete agreement with? GB or NI?

At least with proper protesters you can hear the nonsense and have a giggle. But these terrible mumbling people deprive us of that. ****s

Does stopping people praying amount to a de-facto Christian Ban? I’m sure if Trump suggested it there would be outrage aplenty.

However, on the substantive issue:

Is there an echo in here?

Do the mumblers also deploy ballistic missals in their aggression?

I’d bet most Christians in the UK would distance themselves from this behaviour.

….and this thread.

mikewsmith

Thm I’d say yes call the police, want to pray for people do it in your own home or church, they have gone their intentionally to mess with people.

Prayers are only effective at short range, or didn’t you know that. Despite “Christian God” being omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent you have to get within spitting distances of your victims people who’s souls you are saving you can be seen to be on the moral high ground.

On a Sunday they all go to Church and pray for famine relief, for sick children or the end to war in the Middle East.

You don;t see them organising prayer missions to Eritrea, group pray ins outside of Great Ormond St or parachuting into war zones to pray for peace.

It’s about intimidation, pure and simple. Stand there, do something you can get “Oh, I don;’t know what the fuss is about *it’s only a prayer*” about if challenged.

It’s got nothing to do with religion and everything to do with controlling women.

Which part of the UK are the majority in complete agreement with? GB or NI?

The NI is a different case in that it’s still stuck in the 50s in its attitude to women in general, minorities, race, gay marriage, scientific fact and women’s reproductive rights, largely driven by a white, old, male political agenda.

However even though abortion is still a criminal offence there is a majority view that it shouldn’t be. The abuse of petitions of concern to prevent democratic will prevailing on gay marriage and abortion rights is the only reason NI hasn’t moved forwards on these issues

So you’re now saying that UK law and the will of the people aren’t in complete agreement then?

It’s got nothing to do with religion and everything to do with controlling women.

So much this. They have a right to protest, fair enough. We are all lucky to have that right in this country. There is a time and a place though. It’s harassment, you might not find whispered, public group prayer intimidating or upsetting. I know I don’t. Then again I’m going to assume you’re not on your way to get an abortion and I’m not either. If my wife or a close female friend needed one though and I had to see them outside I’d be having words and they wouldn’t be mumbled.

It’s a callous, cowardly targeted attack. If I were a Christian I’d be disgusted by it.

So you’re now saying that UK law and the will of the people aren’t in complete agreement then?

see my edit above, the only reason they aren’t is due to an abuse of powers designed for other reasons.

jonnyboi

The NI is a different case in that it’s still stuck in the 50s in its attitude to women in general, minorities, race, gay marriage, scientific fact and women’s reproductive rights, largely driven by a white, old, male loyalist free presbyterian political sectarian agenda.

Fixed.

That was a naughty thing to do – have you not read Revelation on the subject of horns?

funkmasterp – Member

It’s a callous, cowardly targeted attack. If I were a Christian I’d be disgusted by it.

This suggests a new approach- counterprayer. Get together a squad of moderate christians and have them settle down in front of the protestors and start loudly praying for them to see past their intolerance and to find salvation in the actual teachings of Jesus, and to learn not to judge, and to show compassion. See how they like it.

Or, if that doesn’t work, find a load of muslims to do the same, I’m sure that’d go down well. Or find out what church they’re from, and have a load of satanists go and have a black mass outside that.

have you not read Revelation on the subject of horns? Now they’ll be expecting hail and fire, mixed with blood to start raining down.

They sure as hell is a bit warm are not going to experience the rapture from a positive point of view!

This suggests a new approach- counterprayer.

I’m liking this idea Northwind – a prayer off!

The great British faith off

The great British faith off

Just need presenters now.

Are Sue and Mel still at a loose end?

The great British faith off

The Christians and the Jews,
They had a great, big jamboree.
The Buddhists and the Hindus
Joined in on satellite TV.
They picked the four greatest priests
They began to speak.

Are Sue and Mel still at a loose end?

St Paul of Hollywood and the Virgin Mary Berry?

Could all be held in the Big Tent of Compassionate Conservatism.

I’m going to see if I can ask them what they’re praying for.

Say I were someone going in for a procedure. Could I legitimately complain that I felt intimidated and have the moved on? Asking for a…. friend.

It would certainly be worth trying ie making a complaint to the police but if its only a bunch of folk mumbling I doubt much would be done. If they shout at the people going in to the clinic or anything similar then perhaps they would be

In this situation, the ‘praying’ (not going to get into whether it’s valid or not’ is completely irrelevant. It’s the deliberate presence of a crowd of people who are doing their damnedest to project their strong disapproval at vulnerable people (whilst cynically attempting to stay on the right side of the law) who are already, by definition in a pretty shit place. Abhorrent behaviour by the ‘Christians’ (although, as already noted, not particularly ‘Christian’ behaviour, so unfair to tear all with the same brush.

Every day, there are a few people holding rosary beads and clutching a bible, while mumbling.

On man’s few people mumbling is another man’s crowded doing their damnest (sic) to project their strong disapproval 🙂

#alternativefacts

Odd use of (sic). Anyhoo;

Mumbling prayers gathered outside somewhere that they have no reason to be other than to condemn and intimidate vulnerable people is about as far as they can push their grubby behaviour whilst staying (arguably) within the law. So yes, their damnedest, really.

#lackingempathy

Far worse things going on in the world right now. Mumbling is not doing much harm compared to some of the other choices of attacks the less liberal folk in the world can use.

Mumbling is not doing much harm compared to some of the other choices of attacks the less liberal folk in the world can use.

Very much depends on your personal perspective. It’s not a competition; prejudice, hate and general unpleasantness do not become acceptable because there’s someone else who is more effective at it.

Given that the “multitude” concerned have rosary beads with them and little more that the “power” of prayer, it’s probably safe to assume that their empathy lies with those that have been forgotten so far – the souls of the unborn

Radical view, I accept. And who cares about them….????

@v8ninety..Where did I say it was acceptable?

Edenvalleyboy; fair, but what you posted did sound a lot like minimising, playing down the unacceptability of their behaviour.

THM; I don’t buy that. If their actions were purely out of a desire to pray for the unborn, surely an appropriate place for that would be a church. Doing it outside a clinic is not about empathy, it’s about trying to force their views on others, trying to tacitly control and subjugate them, to influence their behaviour. And the others in question don’t need their shit at that point, they are dealing with enough shit already.

They can pray where they like IMO. They have their views and empathy works both ways.

I am more amused about the alternative facts that have been presented here. Even by STW standards they have been epic.

It’s no great surprise that the religious should hang around like a bad smell outside places like Marie Stopes clinics, passing judgement on praying for those who are going about their private legal business.

Having grown up in a country that has thankfully spent the last few decades freeing itself from the far-reaching controls of an overbearing Catholic patriarchy, I’ve seen just the depths to which the church has stooped over the years to deny women the freedom to decide what to do with their bodies and to extricate themselves from broken marriages.

Priests would rather the victims of rape who after the horror of their experiences, were unlucky enough to fall pregnant with the foetus of their attackers either a)were shipped to cities where they could live in servitude working in laundries away from the public shame wrought on their families or b) got on a ferry to the UK where they could trust the Godless English to abort the foetus, otherwise known as “spending the weekend visiting cousins in Liverpool and Manchester.” Just as long as it didn’t happen on the pure Catholic outpost in Western Europe. Thankfully, abortion clinics all over the UK accepted these victims with compassion and without judgement. For decades it was one of the greatest things the UK has done for Irish women, and of course still does.

The more fervently afflicted would hang around outside family planning clinics (even though it was illegal to advise that abortion was available in nearby UK) doing the prayer thing. Much of it orchestrated by the church itself. Of course this would be accompanied by photos of aborted foetuses on large placards waved in the faces of women entering…y’know, just to hammer the point home a little further.

The religious have interfered in Irish referendums on abortion and divorce – famously in the 1995 referendum on divorce with the poster “Hello divorce, Goodbye daddy.” (Well it’s the Catholic Church after all, who’d give a shit about mummy, eh?) Wherever there was a new depth to be plumbed, the Catholic Church never failed to go there.

This is what I’m reminded of when I see the religious praying outside clinics. Yes, they may be mumbling gently, and it may be entirely legal to do what they’re doing. But we all have a fair idea what they’re really up to.

They seem to have very little faith in the power of their almighty god thing.

As was said earlier, a “prayer” would work from anywhere, wouldn’t it (given the alleged infinite and omnipresent nature of the supreme being in question)?

Clearly, the god wotsit is ignoring the requests, otherwise all this women making decisions about their own affairs would have stopped.

However, banning these creatures from mumbling in the street would remove the opportunity of the occasional passer-by to indulge in a brief eye-roll and sneer, please don’t take away my right to avail myself of this opportunity! 😈