Speaking Truth to Power Since 1976 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Profile picture
Rebecca Diamond - Mom to 1 kid, 2 fish, & 3 cats; Wife, Geek, Fibre Artist, Indie Dyer. #MeToo #Survivor Opinions are my own, and are plentiful. she/her
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Sep 7, 2022 5 tweets 2 min read
As a Reform Jew, the version of the Amidah we chant uses m'chayeih hakol (give life to all).
Since last year when I chant it,I say m'chayeih meitim (revives the dead) out of gratitude for the fact that M, the daughter of my friend @Nick_theGeek,was literally revived from death.⬇️ My friend @andrea_r interrupted my participation in Rosh Hashanah services with an emergency alert that M had suddenly dropped with a heart attack. I, in turn, interrupted the service itself, and we said a Mi Shebeirach (prayer for healing) for M. ⬇️
Mar 10, 2022 14 tweets 3 min read
Y'all, my son is bisexual. I didn't 'make' him that way. He was not sexually abused nor was he exposed to inappropriate materials or any other weird theory people have.
He was made by a loving Creator in that Creator's image, and for him, B'tzelem Elohim means LGBTQIA (a thread) I suspected he wasn't straight by the time he was 5. I kept my mouth shut about it because it wasn't my life, it wasn't my identity, and frankly, it wasn't my business.

But I leaned into advocacy and ally-ship, jussssssst in case. And if not for him, for someone else's kid. 2/12
Nov 1, 2021 6 tweets 1 min read
In spite of what people might think, breaking the law in order to have an illegal funeral for a Covid victim doesn't actually honour the victim's life.

Yes. It happened.
No. We did not attend. At some point, this has to stop.

If you can't comply with the law and only hold funerals in controlled access spaces with proof of vaccination/gov't ID, because family members are unvaccinated...

MAYBE YOU SHOULD NOT HOLD A FUNERAL AT ALL.
Nov 1, 2021 4 tweets 2 min read
I mean I thought it was “hurtful” that my mother-in-law suffocated to death after catching Covid but clearly @premierbhiggs feels my angry comments about her death and his carelessness with public safety are more so.
Bless his heart. @premierbhiggs And yes. I blame the conspiracy theories my MIL consumed for her death, even more than the provincial mixed messaging.
The fact remains that “going green” reinforced her beliefs about Covid not being a big deal.
Oct 31, 2021 8 tweets 2 min read
This reminds me of my cat Smokey.
CW: animal gruesomes

Smokey was half Manx; our across-the-road neighbours were VERY upset when their show cat found my scrawny calico.

He was a grey/white tabby, with the long legs and the bobtail, and he ran like a bunny. 1/8 For some reason, when we moved houses when Smokey was two, he decided that I needed a fresh frog for breakfast every morning.

So fresh, indeed, that he refused to bring me a *dead* frog. Oh no.

Only the best for his Hooman and that meant a LIVE frog. 2/8
Oct 30, 2021 6 tweets 2 min read
“Unknown small but nonzero fraction of a murder” perfectly expresses what I think some folks I know engaged in.

For someone in the medical profession to tell family to avoid vax / not seek care when they were dying of Covid because “it’s a hoax”?
Fractional murder, indeed. Would my mother-in-law be alive right now if 3 of her 4 children hadn’t ardently embraced conspiracy theories?
I dunno.
What I *do* know is that her husband got vaccinated, caught Covid from her, and had 2 days of sniffles.
She spent days on a ventilator and died.
Oct 28, 2021 5 tweets 4 min read
I tried to comment on the story. Apparently @CBCNB thinks comments mocking the vaccinated and expressing conspiracy theories are fine, but my comment was inappropriate and deleted 🤔

Why is that, I wonder? ImageImage @CBCNB A sampling of comments - real names attached! - announcing their intent to violate the law. That’s permissible. Cool, cool. ImageImageImageImage
Jan 15, 2021 8 tweets 2 min read
I had a moment this evening where I prepped slides for tomorrow's Shabbat Tzedek (honouring the legacy of MLK, Jr) where I flashed back to being 7 years old in 1983, when the holiday was created. (a short thread) 1/

CW: Dissociation, abuse Part of me was sitting on the pew in our tiny little church, feeling suffocated by the carpeted walls, the little buzzy noise from dissociation flitting in my ears. My body was one row from the front, hands in my lap, eyes forward looking at the pastor. 2/
Jan 11, 2021 52 tweets 10 min read
Time to do this.

CW, y'all, this one is going to be dark.

Long, dark, painful - mentions abuse/rape/trauma/child & pet abuse/death.

Avoid if you can't deal w/that or severe religious descriptions in this moment - it's ok to skip and take care of you <3 1/ I want to talk about who I saw at the Capitol on the 6th. And by "who I saw" I don't mean "I literally saw him in the crowd" - as far as I know, I don't think he was there.

But I saw him there, over and over and over again, in the faces of so many people in the footage.2/
Jan 9, 2021 6 tweets 2 min read
CW: sexual abuse

When I was 7 and we made our annual visit 20 min up the road to see my grandfather/step-grandmother, my 6yr old half-aunt asked me what we did at my church.
I told her about the naked game where I had to take my clothes off and 1/2 then stuff happened. She asked how to play it and I said you had to take all your clothes off and so we did but then I got sad and my chest hurt so we got dressed again and I asked what she did at her church.

And that’s how I got a beating for learning to pray the rosary. 2/2
Jan 9, 2021 5 tweets 2 min read
Fun fact: I spent my childhood years in a church influenced heavily by the Message.
For those not in the know - William Branham, giver of the Message, was the “prophet” who ordained Jim Jones and got his ministry going.

1/ I’m sitting here tonight with the fact that Rep. Speier was attacked twice - once by people who followed Jim Jones, and once by people heavily influenced by the pastor who was *too racist for Jim Jones*. 2/
Jan 8, 2021 4 tweets 1 min read
ExFundie here.
All of this, plus:

Bedtime stories were Foxe's Book of Martyrs

Expectation that if we survived the "oncoming persecution" we'd go to hell because TrooChristians get killed for jeezus.

"Prayer Walks" around the city to "claim the territory for Jesus". 1/ Engaging in "spiritual warfare" on the regular - my exorcism survival rate is 100% out of 7, and I still have the "demon of rebellion" that makes me "think I have the right to speak out like a man." 2/
Dec 22, 2020 9 tweets 2 min read
Spent a blissful few moments this morning visualizing what I'd like to see happen to @senatemajldr - and even @SpeakerPelosi after her "$600 is a lot of money" comments - but mostly, honestly, to all the GOP who have enabled and caused this current crisis. 1/9 I don't want jail time for them. Not even a single day.

Instead, I'd love to see them stripped of all sources of income, and their bank accounts distributed equitably starting with the lowest-income tier first.

Then, 2/9
Nov 17, 2020 6 tweets 3 min read
#ILeftBecause of several reasons, actually.
*CW* ABUSE/TRAUMA

Reason One: My broken arm, broken neck, broken jaw (multiple times!), broken nose, ruptured eardrums (multiple times), burns, and scars from torn flesh were, in fact, NOT "what god says you deserve for being evil". 1/ Reason Two in the #ILeftBecause saga -
I was not damaged goods because my father raped me.
I was not a seductive Jezebel because the evangelist groped me.
I was not ever "the strong woman he needs to be in ministry so get back w/your attempted rapist". 2/
Nov 15, 2020 15 tweets 3 min read
This is me, 17 years ago almost to the minute.

I was being induced because of pre-eclampsia...after 16.5 weeks of increasingly problematic measures to keep me from delivering, thanks to going into pre-term labour at 20 weeks. (A thread) *CW:Abuse & pregnancy details* Yes, I said 20 weeks. I was under a lot of stress at my job; they had a policy of firing pregnant women, and I'd been fighting that quite illegal discrimination.

So I wound up in hospital at 20 wks, contractions every 4-12 minutes, dilating, effacing, etc. 2/
Nov 13, 2020 15 tweets 7 min read
So here's the thing.

For all of you looking on in bewilderment, shaking your heads, asking how ANYone can truly believe that 45 won the election, that massive voter fraud occurred, that Biden is a cannibal/pedophile/insert Q crap here...

Here's why.

(A thread.) Dinosaurs and man co-existed; God created North America as a place for Protestants; all dogs come from one pair on the ark.

tinyurl.com/y657ys8y

Note: *MY* pastor said dinosaurs were fake & that the commies buried the fake bones to prove evolution & make us all atheists. 1/
Nov 6, 2020 4 tweets 2 min read
This is the second time today that the...oddness...of my past has hit my timeline. This particular "prophet" hit big-time when I was around 15/16. His exegesis of Gorbachev's birthmark was a particularly odd twist. (short thread) I hadn't followed him closely, just would pop in every now and then and see how much he was milking with his cultural appropriation, supersessionism, Islamophobia, etc. His site endtime.org is a doozy. He also ran jerusalemprophecycollege.com because of course he did. 2/
Nov 5, 2020 6 tweets 2 min read
@TheRaDR Hi :) I was raised Pentecostal, in a tiny cult in Louisiana. My grandfather was a missionary.

(Yes, I've reclaimed the Judaism from the other, Sephardic, not-Pentecostal side of the family.)

Anyway, a multi-part answer because it's too long for one tweet. @TheRaDR The White Supremacy Gospel believes that angels are constantly in Africa (and South America, specifically Brazil.)

They are engaged in "spiritual warfare" a la the The Book of Daniel. They can be summoned from this great warfare as needed. 2/
Dec 6, 2019 10 tweets 2 min read
Cab Driver: "Oh, he's letting us go first. Thanks, fella, that's very white of you."
Me: "Play that one back for me again and 'splain how it's not racist."
Him: "Um...um...I didn't expect a white person to let me cross?"
Me: Nope. Nice try though. (a thread) This particular driver was actually funny. His cab was clean, and he did the 4 hours each way trip over two days without complaint. He was careful about my allergies. Those are all good things.
Aug 26, 2019 21 tweets 5 min read
Question for all the #exvangelical #exfundie #exchristian moms out there, if you nursed your child(ren):
Did you, too, encounter bizarre attitudes about breastfeeding in your time in church? #thread It started when my son was tiny - he didn't nurse until he was 5 weeks old, so I pumped and syringe fed (with my husband's help) every two hours around the clock for 5 weeks until he could latch.
I was told it was just my pride making me fight to nurse.
Aug 22, 2019 25 tweets 5 min read
So. I was born in 1976. I started school in August 1980, just before I turned 5, at home - my older brother had attended an ACE kindergarten, and it was deemed too liberal by my parents (his teacher wore PANTS when she wasn't teaching!) #thread CW: Abuse I was literally part of the first wave of Christian Right-wing Homeschoolers; my parents had planned to homeschool us illegally, and it became legal that month in Louisiana because a legislator's relative wanted to homeschool.