Jesus won't bring you any presents!

Video has been removed by user? Awww, I was looking forward to seeing it.

The mother is almost too perfect. It could be real, but I suspect that it's a dramatization.

P.Z. - How much Christian blood do you have to drink each day in order to get by with so little sleep?

Sorry, Christian. You're not ranked high enough in The Conspiracy for us to release that information.

Unless... That name... Creepin' Crustaceans, a spy!

Note that Christian Burnham wants to know how much Christian blood PZ needs to drink to maintain his diabolic level of activity. Will any Christian do?

I'm aware of the irony.

When you lot finally throw the Christians to the lions- just remember, some of us are called Christian, so don't take your commands too literally.

I haven't seen the video, but my Mom told me the same thing when I told her I was an atheist. It wasn't part of her first volley, but it did come later after she had time to think about it. Oddly enough, 6 years after declaring my atheism, I still get presents. I guess Santa doesn't care if you are a theist.

Incidentally- is the video actually working for anyone? I can't get it to play.

This is why you don't reveal your atheism until you're old enough to be the one giving presents on Christmas.

Pavlovian conditioning? Jeez, is the kid a trial, or the mom? She used the F-word too, no less.
Isn't swearing a sin? (hehehehe).
I think the video is pretty symbolic too. Inadvertently.
I noticed the dad kept his mouth shut, but it was pretty short.

Another video here via Norm at OneGoodMove, not through YouTube. (I couldn't get the YouTube one to work, so for others who can't, this one is a QuickTime version.)

Everyone else can't get the Youtube video to play?
Hmmm...maybe it's because I use Winbloze.
(Ducks out of the way of multiple flying hockey pucks)

Thanx Eric.

That video is pretty appalling.

In all fairness though- the mother is probably convinced that her son will go to hell if he fails to believe. Half the blame lies with the church.

I haven't seen the video, but my Mom told me the same thing when I told her I was an atheist. It wasn't part of her first volley, but it did come later after she had time to think about it. Oddly enough, 6 years after declaring my atheism, I still get presents. I guess Santa doesn't care if you are a theist.

Yep, me too. So I kept going along to church. I should've stayed home and missed xmas.

My Dad didn't yell, but he did the guilt trip thing; telling me how disappointed he was and how he so wanted his kids to have faith. He seemed to blame himself more than me.

I never told my Mom exactly, she just gradually figured it out.

I mentioned it at a dinner table conversation one night and had just never thought about whether or not they knew; I always assumed that they did know. I never could tell whether Mom wanted me to keep going to church solely because she wanted my brother to make friends and I was setting a 'bad example' in the middle of conservative Texas, or whether she actually thought attending sermons and listening to people ritually 'cleansing' themselves and 'drinking the blood of Christ' was supposed to make me want to believe. Dad got angrier than Mom, at first, but he more or less gave up right away. They both know I'm not going to murder someone tomorrow just because I don't believe in the sky father.

I don't tell my dad directly that I'm an atheist, but he should be able to expect that from the all the rants I gave him about my cousin (his sister's youngest son) becoming a catholic brother (in his way to be a priest). I know that particular congregation because I used to deal with them and hang out with them before, so I was telling my dad how they are filthy liars (and somewhat racist, but in all fairness that has not much to do with catholicism in general).

So after all these rants he should at least suspect it. I don't tell him directly because my mom died some 10 years ago, while still in her early 40's, and after that the family became together a little, and we began going to church more. I won't do that anymore, unless it's a yearly mass thing about my mother, but I'm not living in the same country anyway.

In any case, I don't care what my family thinks, they've always respected my beliefs, even more than my other cousins' and I can't wait to see my idiot cousin-brother and ask him what nonsense he's been fed.

It's good parenting skills to know you don't launch the thermonuclear missiles with the first offense, because you won't have any credible escalation options left when you discover the really awful thing the kid has done.

Heck, that's just good sense in any interaction between two parties, not just parent-child relationships.

Wow... I still remember when I was about six years old and I asked my mother "Why do those people beleive things that are not true? Are they stupid?". She was quick to defend their intellects, but that did not stop from eventually becoming one of them there uppity atheists.

That was pretty appalling, but I'd have to say that my experience was worse.
I don't remember how it got brought up, but I calmly said I don't believe in God anymore. My mom just got a hurt look on her face and said "then I've failed as a parent". Then, the next day my dad brought it up and said that he wasn't upset because he knows I'll find my way.
A good tongue-lashing would have been welcomed as opposed to the guilt I felt. I'm still kinda mad about it.

Also, I'd say that this video is legit (at the very least the reaction). It looks like a brother or friend was taping, tossed it online, and when the "atheist" found out his mom was a caricature of online intolerance, he made the poster take it down.

I'm pretty conflicted about it. Didn't watch the video, partly because it's all kinds of petty and childish to go and post it on the internet. I haven't told my family I'm an atheist, and I don't really plan on it. On one hand I'd like for them to know that it's a valid choice, and I'd love for them to see reason, but they're too invested in it. Their whole lives revolve around friends in the church, activities in the church, the entire extended family is in the same church. The only thing telling them would accomplish would be to wound them deeply, and make them worried for the rest of their lives about the state of my soul. For some people, it's not just about bucking tradition, or rejecting the family culture. It really is about the threat of hell, and I've seen family members cry over and over again about someone they love not being "saved". I refuse to inflict that on them just for the sake of total disclosure, just like I didn't tell them when I started having sex or about every fight my husband and I have. I don't see the point.
That (atheism) is the one thing I know would really hurt them, so unless it's necessary I'm not going to do it.

It's good parenting skills to know you don't launch the thermonuclear missiles with the first offense, because you won't have any credible escalation options left when you discover the really awful thing the kid has done.

For all you know, she hasn't yet launched her thermonuclear missiles. This may be only the first step...

I couldn't see the video with either either link, but that woman's reaction sounds less harsh than my own mother's reaction--she called me a bad mother and disowned me. We haven't spoken in over a year.

Oh well.

We don't give presents in my family anymore, and you know what? Christmas is way better for it. No more having to pretend that whatever piece of junk you've been given is exactly what you you wanted, for one thing, and no more angst about what to get people either. Funny thing is, we're all atheists (except maybe my granny)...

It also occurs to be that the promise of recieving presents is a lousy reason for remaining Christian - unless you're planning on selling them all and giving the money to the poor.

Reading Carlie's entry and many of the other entries here, I realize how fortunate I am. My parents were neither surprised nor upset to realize that I had shed religion. But then, atheism has been fairly well distributed among my family for many years. My parents raised us Catholic, and the catholocism fairly infused our lives growing up; right down to the lists of "A," "B" and "C" movies that we had tacked to our cupboards growing up.

But when we all grew up, Dad kind of stopped going to church and Mom went back to the Lutheran Church for a while until she finally settled on a Pagels-type God. She just kind of thinks that God/The Universe are cheerleaders for our happiness and certainly doesn't believe in Hell.

While my older brother's atheism was an issue for a short time, it inured my folks to any sort of shock they may have experienced by me "coming out." And that's what this is all similar to, isn't it? It's coming out.

I envision the day when children can go home to their parents and say "Mom, Dad, I'm back and I am an atheist." Dad says "Okay, wanna go out and shoot some baskets?" Mom says "Take your shoes off when you come in the house! And find something in the fridge. I'm off to church, but we can make lunch when I get back. You're so skinny, you should eat more. Don't they feed you at that fancy college?"

Some day, friends, someday.

I want to see television appearances. Oprah, Dr. Phil, The Daily Show.

Viral atheism! Angry moms everywhere! Mayhem!

It' okay, Michael! I'll give you a present. Resist the oppressor!

Kurt Vonnegut has said in a few places that if you want to shock your parents and you don't have the nerve to become homosexual, you should go into the arts. It occurs to me that atheism is also a viable option — perhaps even an escalation.

Now, I'm in a bit of a fix: both of my parents have written as a hobby (Dad worked on Raymond Chandler-esque detective novels, Mom on Wild West serial romances which would have Fabio on the cover). And as far as I can tell, Mom's reaction to Dennett's Breaking the Spell was that he bent so far backwards he endangered his spine.

I'm not sure the tactic of competitive present offering is the best means of keeping the faith when dealing with a hormone ravaged teenage boy. If the best the Christian God can offer is a Playstation-III I hardly think that would measure up to the special offer of 72 virgins that Allah is currently making (or so we are told). Thinking back to my teenage years I would have been tempted by an offer of one!

OK, I think I've figured it out. My devout mom must have known, before she died, that I was an atheist, but I never actually told her outright and she never said so in so many words. My dad is actually an atheist, despite being a Presbyterian church elder. He is naturally the sort of person who takes to piety as a way of demonstrating how superior he is to everyone else, and is also somewhat inclined to believe the stories he makes up about himself. The rest of my family heard me say, at Mom's funeral, that I was uncomfortable around all the religious crap, and sat me down at the dinner table for a good religion-bashing. It turns out that they had all formerly given me up for "lost," having been brought up by a religious maniac like Mom. I HAD NO CLUE AT ALL until then.

Just goes to show, you never know, do you? Jeeze. I feel really horrible for the people who can't reconcile with their family because they choose not to follow the family's favorite fairy tale.

I'm a second-generation atheist (for which I will forever be grateful to my parents) so I didn't have to go through anything like that... but in my freshman year at college, I did become a born-again (well, born, I guess) Christian, and wow, that was almost as bad. My mother was *pissed*. My dad, I think, had more faith that my rational side would win out again with time. He treated me with respect and even drove me to church, and was quietly satisfied when, after actually reading the Bible, I became a born-again atheist the next year. I didn't see it as rebellion at the time, but as I had been a really "good" teenager, it probably was, to some extent. Aside from helping me learn about fundamentalism from the inside out, I also learned the right and wrong ways to deal with rebellion. My mother's reaction (as understandable as it was!) just contributed to my sense of persecution (and every born-again *lives* for that persecution complex, let me tell you!), while my father's was something I really appreciated as I lost my new faith.

I think these stories demonstrate that when religious people say they 'believe' in God, they don't mean 'belief' in the same sense that they believe lightbulbs will turn on if a switch is flipped.

It seems to have more to do with group identification and social identity than modeling the world.

I think that people are probably misunderstanding the reaction of the mother in this clip. A hell believing evangelical is aiming for an eternity in 'heaven' - that is the goal. Yet what sort of heaven would it be for a mother to know that her child is simultaneously burning in the fires of hell till the end of time ?(and that presumably is what they do believe as it is what their pastors tell them). If that is the case ANY member of the family leaving the church condemns the whole family to an eternity of knowing their loved one is burning in hell. To most of us uppity atheists that is simply another argument against the very idea of heaven and hell but to an evangelical it is a thought too terrifying to really contemplate.

MartinC:

Reminds me of the old question, "Are there tigers in Heaven?"

If there are no tigers in Heaven, then Calvin will be sad, and nobody can be sad in Heaven. But other people can't be happy if they're always in danger of being eaten by tigers. We can only satisfy the requirements by saying that tigers don't eat people in Heaven — but then the tigers won't be happy!

Who was it who said that because he believed in the Bible, he knew that Hell existed, but because he believed in a loving God, he knew it was empty?

There is a way to be an atheist, and not blow your cover by ceasing to go to church. Become a member of the choir. A really good choir doesn't care if you believe or not; it's not interested in your "soul", just your voice. (Remember, I'm talking music here, not the rest of the flicking nonsense.)

The choir in which I sang for twenty years had the added advantage of singing from the gallery, rather than the chancel. That meant that I might read Dawkins during the sermon.

Elliott:

Everyone should count their blessings that I was raised without religion. If I joined a choir and tried to sing, every fundamentalist from Scottsboro to Montgomery would start screaming in the tongues, for they'd be convinced that Satan was alive and unleashed.

The only choir I'm gonna be part of is the metaphorical one — you know, the one that Dawkins is preaching to.

I expect there will be plenty of chocolate in heaven, and tigers and other 'man eating creatures' will all eat chocolate. Let's face it, if it exists, heaven pretty much HAS to be all about chocolate...

Anyway, let's face it. Hellfire isn't as threatening to most kids as the loss of Christmas presents.

As for this being staged... I don't think the mom was staged, but obviously the kid set her up, and the buddy turned off the camera when things got too hot. If this were in the south, the kid is probably sporting some stripes about now... which could well be the motivation for pulling the video.

I've told my mum a number of times that I am not a christian.After 12years she understands and though she fears for my soul, I think she fears more that I am right about Hell being a load of crap, so we don't talk about it much. My mum never threatened to take away my christmas gifts but a couple of my sisters tried that argument with me. I did my best to point out that most of thier holiday traditions came from paganism and that as good christians they shoudln't get anything from santa either. The argument was dropped in favor of putting up the tree and eating candycanes. But My family isn't very big into religion. we all had to go to church and get confirmed, but in my home confirmation was pretty much graduation from church. She gets stuck in her Irish Catholic rut sometimes, but she doesn't go to church except for funerals, christening and marriages. I got a Good solid Boston upbringing LOL.

I feel for that kid. He might give in and try ot fake it for the sake of peace at home, but if he's got the athiest itch now it will probably stick with him. Hopefuly

Yelling at your kid like that, two inches from his face, when he is using his brains to think independently and make a decision about his life, is just wrong.

dorid:

Where's the chocolate in the Bible?

Oh, yes, it's the same chapter that talks about America.

(-;

Heh. The only reason I stayed with the church as long as I did (through early adolescence) was because I enjoyed the choir. I wonder if my mother has any photos of me in my choir boy outfit — those would freak out more than a few readers, if they existed.

Blake Snarky Asks: "Who was it who said that because he believed in the Bible, he knew that Hell existed, but because he believed in a loving God, he knew it was empty?"

The name Hippocrates comes to mind.

The Hippocrates I knew died in 410 BCE. . . .

Now see, give me a church with a choir that performs Bach, and you'll have me there every week! But the couple of times I've gone to church with my friends just for fun, all they've done are these boring songs with one line repeated over and over so everyone can sing along. Why doesn't anyone play GOOD religious music anymore?

I never had any trouble coming out to my parents--I think I was about twelve, but I'd been thinking it for a lot longer than that. It was only when my Dad started asking me when I wanted to have my Bat Mitzvah that I told him I didn't believe in God. They were disappointed at first; my dad even talked to our rabbi to set up a meeting between me and him, but I said I wasn't interested and so it was dropped. The advantage of growing up in a two-faith household (my mom is Catholic), with neither parent practicing very much.
Worse was when I casually mentioned that I was an atheist to one of my best friends in high school (who is now on her way toward becoming a nun). She started to cry for me, and I had to comfort her and tell her it would all be alright.

In heaven, there's lots of chocolate but no irritable bowel syndrome.

...

...

Way to show the love, mom!

Yeah, this probably should have been private, and I'm sorry for what that kid's gonna have to go through after his mother finds out. But ... I'd also like to thank him for showing the price kids can pay for beginning to think for themselves. I can easily imagine Michael here finding himself a sudden outgroup to his entire religious community.

I remember the nasty, neverending payback I had to go through after my stepfather found out I didn't believe in a god. It was low-key emotional abuse that went on for years. And my mom placidly allowed it.

On the other hand, I don't think there are any deliberate villains here. If mom gets a look at herself in this, there's a good chance she'll be deeply hurt by her performance.

...

I'd like to expand on a couple of elements of all this:

Say Michael regretted posting the video, which he probably did, since he removed it. And say he's 15, 16, whatever.

How many of those moments did you yourself have at that age? You farted in class. You laughed and blew milk out of your nose at the family reunion. You said that thing that was supposed to carry only to your two friends, but there was one of those sudden conversational lulls in the room, and everybody heard it. You got pantsed during a basketball game at the park and 50 strangers got a look at your skinny bare ass.

Ideally when you do this stuff, you suffer from it briefly and move on. But now those moments can be video'd and posted on the web - maybe even by you.

Something that should have passed in a moment, or a few days, is now immortal. Even if you did it yourself, it's not just "your own fault." A teen shouldn't have to own the responsibility of what such a posting might cost him/her in the long term. We're just not mature enough at that age to make "forever" decisions.

I grew up in a gun culture, and even took classes in gun handling. I know I'm capable of handling guns safely. But if we took a thousand teens and handed them all loaded guns, there WOULD be blood before the day was out.

The potential harm of a gun is hidden. You can't automatically see the fullness of it. It's something you need TRAINING, and a healthy helping of paranoia, to understand. (For the exact same reason, I'm waaaay in favor of sex education for kids.)

This particular Web technology is also a loaded gun. If I had the choice of teaching kids a Bible as Literature class and an Internet "gun safety" class, I'd much favor the Internet class.

Finally, I can't help but notice that here I am - here we all are - voyeurishly helping to amplify this intense, private and probably, eventually, extremely embarrassing event in Michael's life. Just for the moment, I'm not too proud of that.

...

...

Where are the videos of kids getting yelled at for saying they believe in God?

While I'd like to give that mother the benefit of the doubt and give some credit to the 'oh, I don't want to see my baby roast in hell' thing, I've often suspected a lot of what fuels that brand of rage is more a complicated sort of resentment.

As in, what drives that tone is roughly this line of thinking: 'Yes, on some level I know I've just swallowed a line myself. And that I worked your whole life so far to get you to swallow it too... And now you gotta show me up by oh so forthrightly spitting it out? Damn you, but that does make me feel quite the putz by comparison...'

Just a (terribly uncharitable, I know) suspicion of mine, mind you.

My mother cried when I told her. I'd rather expected she would. Did it as gently as I could, really, put it off, quite a while, too, knowing that. But realistically, sooner or later, I knew it had to come to that. She'd have heard it from someone else, sooner or later, otherwise. And honesty, y'know, that's got some value, too.

I came out as an atheist to the Presbyterian minister before my confirmation. I simply told him and my parents that I did not buy into any of that nonsense. Dad was cool because he is an agnostic "fence-sitter" but mom was a little disappointed because at the time she bought the Christian sthick. Thankfully, since then she has become a simple deist. The minister was actually ok with it. He said he would answer any questions I had and, OF COURSE, if I decided to believe he would be there for me. It should be noted that over half of my family are atheists so I'm not so much a black sheep.

Blake:

"Hell is empty because God is a loving god" is standard Universalism. They are the second U in UU.

he mother's argument about making promises in the confirmation process is the one that sticks in my craw the most. Kids are told it is their choice to enter into this contract (at 10-12 years of age) and that it will be binding for the rest of their lives. The parents reenforce the "you get to decide" and "we trust you to make up your own mind and commit" concepts. I suspect however that none of the parents would support the same 12 year old kids signing up for a one year trip to Nepal or committing the family to a lease on an SUV.

What's the mother's name and address? I'm an atheist, but I can be bought. For a candy cane, I'll become an agnostic; for a Christmas stocking, I'll become a Protestant; and for a Christmas present, I'll become an Evangelical. I doubt she could afford my price for becoming full-blown Fundamentalist.

I expect there are lots of people who never proclaim their disbelief, not out of fear of censure exactly but simply because they don't think it's particularly important so long as nobody forces them to attend church or otherwise makes an issue of religion. My Dad encountered Spinoza at UCLA and was converted to his rational pantheism. Dad kept quiet about this heresy for something like 70 years, only "coming out" to me after my mother, a Southern Baptist of sorts, died.

An interesting cultural reference here.

Whew!

What a relief to know I'm not at all unique!

I remember telling my Mom (West of Scotland, Catholic -- kinda like Irish Catholic, but the pope has a hotline to OUR house!) when I was 11 or 12 that I didn't believe in God. Being a good catholic she didn't swear , but she did cry, was extremely hurt, and called in the parish priest, my cousin (who was a noviciate priest), my friends (who were secretly thinking I did this just to avoid mass) and anyone else who might possibly influence me.... I had to live with this throughout High School until I went to college at 17.

She still doesn't understand that I'm athiest.... She doesn't understand why my wife and I didn't get our children baptised/'Christened', etc...

She still says 'god bless' and sends religious symbols whenever she can (little crosses, and 'our lady's', st. christopher's, and such). She 'prays' for us... and she thinks it does us good... My wife & I look and say thanks (for the thought) but have learned to be tolerant of Mom's foibles.

My son (11) is also athiest -- he puts 'belief in god' on the same intellectual plane as belief in Santa, or the tooth fairy. Since we moved to Atlanta he's had some challenging 'discussions' with peers ("What church do you go to?" "I don't - I don't believe in God!" "Don't be stupid -- stop kidding me... what church do you go to?")

Apparently kids (at least here in the south) don't seem to understand that you're allowed to not_believe_in_god... they all think that belief in god is built in with apple peaches, peanuts and PB&J lunches, and that the choice is simply which (christian) church...

What a shame!

However, my son (hopefully my daughter who at 2 is still a little young) will help some kids to think for themselves, or at least question their un-questioned obediance....

CalGeorge asked:
"Where are the videos of kids getting yelled at for saying they believe in God?"

No videos, but there is an article called "Religion's Generation Gap Growing," on beliefnet.com. They claim there is an alarming increase in religious belief in young people and quote one pastor saying: "My joke is, they [the parents] liked them better when they were on drugs."

It's not the initial news that shocks secular parents, it's what happens after.

I've got a somewhat satiric blog post and a link to the article here:

http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/03/are-we-losing-this-generation.h…

My old denomination used to defuse the 'tigers in heaven' problem by saying you wouldn't remember anyone or anything that wasn't in heaven with you.

So, say for example that Bob goes to hell and the rest of his family goes to heaven. None of Bob's family will remember that he even existed or anything they did together in life.

Freaking creepy, now that I think back on it.

And, like most of life's important moments, Tim Kreider at The Pain [http://www.thepaincomics.com/weekly020424a.htm] has an appropriate illustration.

I don't know about you all but I don't get the video from onegoodmove, just the audio.
From the comments there, I found that the video is still posted here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8Aq00yJSxo
I looked and didn't see anyone post it here, sorry if I'm re-posting.

The "hell is empty" quote, I believe, was from George Carey, when he was Archbishop of Canterbury. Unless it was the Archbishop before him, whose name I've forgotten. 'course, he might have been ripping off Hippocrates...

Even if the music isn't crummy, being an unbeliever in the choir can be a problem. Many choirs face the congregation even while seated, so your reaction to the sermons, including falling asleep, are obvious to everyone. My wife noticed this years ago, before I quit.

I get the feeling it was older than Carey — like I read it quoted in a Borges essay somewhere.

I always thought my mom would react in that same way when she found out that I was an atheist. I told her last easter, and she took it very well. We talked for a while, and she knew where I was coming from, so she supports me no matter what I think.

I was a Christian missionary when my son told me he was an atheist.

I never shouted. I never threatened. We talked. And talked. And reasoned. For months.

Once only, I said to him, "People will think I haven't taught you properly." He called me on it; "Mom, this isn't about you; it's about me." And he was right, and I acknowledged it, and it became a discussion again about ideas.

But for me, it was all about Hell. My baby was going to hell! That was the problem. And for me, what would heaven be, with my baby in hell?

It started a long round of questioning and examining on my part, and ended up, some years later, in my becoming an atheist.

So he was right, all along.

But the way we handled it strengthened our relationship.

Ah, nostalgia . . .

I'm not sure how much this nasty little scene has to do with atheism per se; quite possibly we're just looking at a very unfortunate family dynamic. Odds are, if her son weren't an atheist, the mother would just find something else to make her foam at the mouth: You have a girlfriend? You have a boyfriend? You got a B in math? You're wearing that? And so on and so forth, until the poor kid finally hits eighteen and gets the hell out of there.

Susannah,

That's a wonderful story. I wish all Christians were as open-minded. I wish all parents would listen to their kids the way you did.

It struck me that the mother blurted out, "You know what? We have to start going to church every week!" Um. Catholics are supposed to do that anyway. Weekly attendance at mass is one of the strict rules. Catholic Mommy is probably realizing she neglected her son's brainwashing and the guilt pangs are getting to her. Do as I say, not as I do!

I also think that the Church prefers that mommies not use the F-word when instructing their children on the importance of religion, but I'm not sure which rule that is, exactly. I couldn't find it my copy of the Catechism.

Mirror of the Video:
http://basangpanaginip.blogspot.com/2007/04/video-mother-scolding-her-s…

kurage wrote:

I'm not sure how much this nasty little scene has to do with atheism per se;

Well, not much as far as I can tell but it it was pretty fuuny. Especially the part where she grabbed the kid and screamed "IT'S ALL ABOUT JEEEESSUUUUS!!!!111"

LOL Because that's the best way to convince someone to be

...Christian.*

* damn you post button, damn you!

Blake: in reference to comment #39,

If you just READ the BOOK OF MORMON you could probably figure out that Jesus brought chocolate to the Americas after his resurrection... you know, during that time when he went to "tend his other flock"

Good chocolate ALMOST makes you believe there is an intelligent designer ;)

Is this video for real? I mean, Alison Bechdel's cartoon strip, Dykes to Watch out For, had a storyline about the 13 year old son of a lesbian couple posting a private conversation between his parents on You Tube. Context was different, but I'm wondering if this child posts a video of parent isn't a popular storyline right now.

"Isn't swearing a sin?"

I think that was the 10789th commandment, subpart 9, paragraph (j): "Thou shalt not say 'fuck', even when thy son perturb thee, for it maketh thee to look like an unhinged lunatic, yea and the heathens shall laugh at thy stupidity, thus saith the Lord."

-jcr