The 'No Religion' Rule - Advice Please

[jaykaythree]

One I'm working on now will have a short exposition of the leads' faith, as explained to their two-year-old granddaughter. But it's nothing that would seek to preach or proselytize, merely a glimpse into their lives and what drives them.

Hopefully that'll work.

 

[Futakween]

My story wasn't preachy yet was deleted even after being approved by the MODs. So yes, there is a chance that it can be taken down if someone reports it.

 

[thomas1965]

My story wasn't preachy yet was deleted even after being approved by the MODs. So yes, there is a chance that it can be taken down if someone reports it.

Sounds weird. Who did take it down?

 

[ElectricBlue]

Sounds weird. Who did take it down?

The process is: someone reports a story, it goes to Laurel. She reviews, and either gives it the okay and it stays live, or takes it down and refers it back to the author, the same way as if it was an original submission that gets knocked back.

If the author does nothing, the story stays down.

 

[thomas1965]

Was it also not offensive?

@thomas1965 only Laurel takes stories down.

That makes sense, I thought she is the only one to approve stories. Seems there are others as well.

 

[ElectricBlue]

That makes sense, I thought she is the only one to approve stories. Seems there are others as well.

Anyone can report a story, it goes to Laurel for action, as the site editor.

To the best of our knowledge, she's the only one who approves and takes down, but I've never seen this confirmed or denied.

 

[Pshee10029]

Hi Everyone

I was recently reading on another thread that there was a no politics and no religion in stories rule.

I'm fine with the reasoning behind that as I'm sure nobody wants to read some preachy, preachy script about the inner working of someone's political views or faith leanings BUT - one of my upcoming story chapters features the proverbial 'wayward priest' and I'm wondering if this will be OK? It's not a preachy religious thing, just the fact that a man of the cloth so to speak, is doing something that he shouldn't.
I'm relatively new here and don't want to break any of the rules so in general, do other authors think this would be OK?

Thank you

PS - I write in the NC/R category if that makes any difference.

I think that is fine. They are trying to prevent people from preaching religion and politics which is not what the site is for. People can go to Twitter for that.

 

[Futakween]

Was it also not offensive?

@thomas1965 only Laurel takes stories down.

For those who are antisemitic, it was probably offensive to them. She was Jewish and proud to be Jewish.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I think that is fine. They are trying to prevent people from preaching religion and politics which is not what the site is for. People can go to Twitter for that.

It gets complicated. I don't think anybody comes here to read a "why your religion sucks and mine is great" rant, but religion and politics do have a way of intruding into people's personal lives. It's not unreasonable for some stories to reflect that, especially in categories like Gay, Lesbian, Trans/CD, and Interracial.

If I'm writing a romance, and the two characters can't legally marry for reasons of race or sex, that's likely to be relevant to the story at some point. At least in Lesbian you'll find several good stories about people trying to reconcile their orientation and their religion, one way or another.

There's also the question of who gets to define what counts as "political". My friend @BrokenSpokes has written about characters who go to fight a war in a far-away country, and also about a non-white couple who experience racism. Both of those are obviously political topics, but an awful lot of readers who were fine with the former suddenly got allergic to "politics" when she started writing the latter.

tldr when it comes down to it, "politics" is almost everywhere, but we don't think of the stuff inside our own comfort zone as "politics".

 

[BrokenSpokes]

There's also the question of who gets to define what counts as "political". My friend @BrokenSpokes has written about characters who go to fight a war in a far-away country, and also about a non-white couple who experience racism. Both of those are obviously political topics, but an awful lot of readers who were fine with the former suddenly got allergic to "politics" when she started writing the latter.

tldr when it comes down to it, "politics" is almost everywhere, but we don't think of the stuff inside our own comfort zone as "politics".

This is an astute observation. I can argue that almost all of my stories are "political" in some way. 'Twas The Night Before features a homophobic grandmother trying to take a child away from a lesbian couple as somehow being unfit. Hard Landing features a woman in the army, serving in Afghanistan, who occasionally muses that she doesn't see the point in why we fought over there. Both of these themes are very political in nature. And yet I never received pushback of any kind from these two stories for being political.

However, The Journey features a couple, one of whom is African-American, one of whom is Hispanic. Both experience racism, both casual and institutional. The Hispanic character, Viv, also has a crisis of faith due to be mistreated and shunned by the Catholic church she was raised in. I got a ton of feedback for The Journey, that I was being "woke", especially whenever I mentioned prominent African-American thinkers like Nicole Hannah-Jones or Ta Nehisi Coates in an academic setting, and was met with accusations that THEY were among the most racist figures in US politics. (Laughable)

In my story The Hunt, which I set in 1950's New Orleans, I had my African-America characters experience some of the most brutal, horrific, direct racism I could imagine, but I received very little pushback on that. Indeed, I received some feedback that "it's a good think that the country has moved on from that." But my entire point of setting that story in the 50's was to show how little we've progressed, as almost every instance of racism I put in that story, I could find an example in today's headlines of the exact same behavior. Yet I wasn't accused of being "political" because I set the story in the past, not in the present.

Politics is in almost everything. If you think something isn't in some way political, that just means you're in the privileged class of that particular political divide.

The real argument isn't whether we should allow/welcome politics in our stories. The argument seems to be who gets to have THEIR politics represented, and whose are not allowed.

 

[lovecraft68]

I think its simply about being too personal with it, as in you can have a character be Catholic, but to have another character go on a two paragraph rant about the evils of Catholicism is seen as pushing a view more than it fitting the story.

Keep it light, avoid harping or ranting pro or anti religion or political party and you'll be fine.

I agree with RR that a mention of a real life person is going to get flagged.

 

[KeithD]

The real argument isn't whether we should allow/welcome politics in our stories. The argument seems to be who gets to have THEIR politics represented, and whose are not allowed.

Well, no, I don't think so. I think it's those who write from the heavily partisan attitude revealed here--and let it be reveled in their stories--who get into trouble having their stories accepted here. I don't avoid political or religion contexts in my stories and don't have any trouble getting the stories passed here, so I think it must be in heavily partisan and combative author views revealed in their story writing that gets their stories into trouble. Going after claimed bias of the Web site selection itself probably puts the author under scrutiny.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

The rules against politics and religion are in place to block work that either heavily promotes or heavily mocks. Simply having a religious person or a politician in a story — even as a major character — isn't going to run afoul of these restrictions.

( Assuming they're not actual public figures. Putting Trump, Pelosi, or the Pope in a story is playing with fire )

If your story is evangelical or a hit piece, that's when it's going to find itself under the ban hammer.

Pretty much this. It's not that those things can't be, but how they're there.