Because it keeps coming up

I am the "Ban" master. I get banned regularly. It's hard to take it seriously anymore. With regard to being banned by Biblical Families, a "pro Christian Plural Marriage" discussion forum, I have the following to offer.

When I was banned, I sent the following to their email address that was for "further information" regarding the "banning." All I said was "As You Wish." I'm a huge fan of the movie, "The Princess Bride," in which the phrase "As You Wish" is eventually revealed as another way of saying "I love you."

I know, I have to be less obscure. Not all folks have seen the Classic.

Mark Cowperthwaite:

"I was going to put you on post approval due to your continued sarcastic and demeaning posts, but as that option was not available I had to ban you for the time being. I would be happy to take the ban off once we get the post approval option working again. I was in the middle of writing to you about this when I had to take care of one of the children who is ill. Let me know if you would like to be reinstated, but if you wish this, every future post will have to be approved by a moderator before it goes on the forums. I understand if this is not agreeable to you."

My Reply:

"Please cite what was sarcastic. Please then show that sarcasm is intrinsically inappropriate. Please show how I was demeaning.

You presume quite a lot Mark.

I have always said you can do as you wish with your forum so please do as you wish. When you communicate with me privately and off the board, drop your presumption and pony up with proof or do not communicate with me. I have no need of your sweeping judgement when you announce it without proof. If you have family issues, by all means attend to them, they come first. If you don't have the time for both tasks I would prioritize my family if I were you. You could always get back to me immediately after you find the time to do so even if that were a year from now.

I do not recall my objecting to your banning me. I would, since you mentioned it and did it, point out that I have asked this be done many times before as a voluntary move on my part but your collective wisdom deemed that you wait until you were angry and felt the need to throw me out in mid conversation. What kind of pathology requires you to wait until you feel the need to say 'get out and stay out' when I've offered to leave peacefully MANY times? It's one of those situations where someone is told 'You can't quit, you're fired.' Please share this with the rest of your moderators."

I was not, nor have I ever been "seeking an occasion" with Biblical Families and it's hierarchy. In truth, it seems that no one can remember why they asked me there in the first place and I've always been at odds with the nebulous management of the group that is ever changing. My personal guess is that at the time I was invited to join, I was considered a bit of a plural marriage heavyweight and you couldn't exactly have a forum like theirs without inviting me. I'm not that heavyweight anymore in terms of public consumption and that's fine by me. I have a church to attend to and that's a very consuming activity. We are growing slowly and I think most of what I do now is going to be seen in later generations if God blesses what I am doing.

I had been on a posting hiatus at BF for over a year and resumed posting when I began to see unedited work of mine distributed publicly at the forum without attribution. In fairness, I had given permission for that to be done with the poster in question as they wished to use the work with reference to their own church leadership. I hadn't expected it to show up in a public forum, but there it was, so I thought I'd return and see how things went. I got into tussles almost immediately, but this time with an entirely different group of moderators.

The two posts were well received when posted by someone else other than myself. That's interesting in view of the fact that it's my work and I've been accused of having all sorts of overtones that are insulting and demeaning when I write publicly. So I'm forced to think the following. I have a reputation. That reputation among the plural believers has always been of a difficult and contentious person. Thus if I say it, it's rude and insulting and sarcastic and demeaning. If someone else says it, even if it's not agreed with, it's not rude and insulting and sarcastic and demeaning.

So be it.

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