[DanaC]

I'll also add as one final (and slightly mischievous) point:

reread this portion of MTPs post; but replace MTP as the narrator with a young moslem woman. I have no doubt that there would be voices raised in anger at the moslem faith, and at a culture that disregards females. There is precious little anger in this thread at the Christian faith and a religious culture that disregarded MTP in decisions on her own life.

My parents wanted me to GET MARRIED AT 18! They think me getting a college degree is probably a waste of time. They believe my ex-boyfriend "owns a piece of my soul" because we had sex. That although I was terribly unhappy with him, and with him mainly because he was the first guy to ever pay attention to me, THAT I SHOULD STILL MARRY HIM AT 18! That I should get a SECOND job, and support HIM through school.

I spent FOUR YEARS on anti-depressants, not able to look up from my feet, hiding in my closet or a book. I was suicidal, and took pain-killers recreational. When I wasn't doing these things, I was goin to church or youth group, or praying to God. Trying to be a good Christian, and not understanding why my heart was still devoid, when I had all the "faith" I could muster. When I begged my parents; no I did not "throw a fit," I wrote out all of my arguments, asked them to sit down with me and tried to discuss the issue with them, it ended in literal begging, I begged them to let me stop youth group. I was endlessly harassed at it, not just by other kids, by the youth minister herself. They knew this, they believed it. They made me keep going even though 9 out of 10 times I came home in a complete wreck.