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Teens browse this list for services in your area. Don’t run away, call for help.NEW YORK AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION (ACLU) : YRights As a Pregnant Or Parenting Teen (2007)]Pregnant or Parenting? Title IX Protects You From Discrimination At SchoolGuttmacher Data: Minors’ Rights as ParentsIf you are facing abuse or threats because of your pregnancy here is a crisis line. http://www.thursdayschild.org/html/about.htm 800-USA-KIDSRESOURCES STATE BY STATE:ALABAMA: Babies First: United Methodist Children's HomeFor teen mothers in foster care.If you are a pregnant teen in Alabama in foster care, ask your case manager, counselor or CASA worker if this program could be right for you.ALASKA Passage House: Passage House907-272-1255 (Call to get help now.)Ages 17–21ARIZONA: Girls Ranch Scottsdale: Girls Ranch - Florence Crittenton.Ask a school counselor, case manager, or CASA Advocate about Girls Ranch Scottsdale.An adult needs to help arrange admission if this program is right for you.Most but not all pregnant teens at Girls Ranch Scottsdale are in Arizona state custody.ARIZONA:The House of El-Elyon:HousingParenting ClassesAges 12–18ARIZONA: Starting Out Right: Starting Out Right | Free Pregnancy Test | Arizona Youth PartnershipCall 520–719–2014 or email [email protected] suppliesARIZONA: Tempe. TeenAge Pregnancy Program (TAPP) / APPP👩‍🎓Educational support.Case management.Counseling.Parenting preparation.ARKANSAS: Compassion House: Get Help - Compassion House479-419-9100 (Call for help.)HousingChristian orientation.Ages: 19 and underARKANSAS: Hanna House: Hannah House of Fort Smith Arkansas479–782–5683 phone or email: [email protected] 13–29CALIFORNIA: (Alameda County) Bay Area Youth Center: Real AlternativesEmail: [email protected] SkillsAges 16–25CALIFORNIA: El Nido Programs - El Nido Family Centers: Teen Family ServicesHome Visits help teens connect to healthcare, education, counseling, financial help employment and childcare.Several locations in Los Angles areaAntelope Valley: Pacoima office at: 818.896.7776CALIFORNIA:Maternity Shelter Program - Home [email protected] Diego AreaAges 18–24CALIFORNIA : (Lake County) Lake Family Resource Center. Teen Parenting/Adolescent Family Life ProgramServices for Pregnant and Parenting teensMust enroll before 19th birthdaCalifornia: Welcome to Mary's Pregnant Teen Shelter .Housing.CALIFORNIA: (Sacramento) Waking the VillageHome Infograph — Waking the VillageContact us about our housing programs: 916-601-2979HousingEducational SupportIntensive MentoringCase ManagementArt, Friendship, Community, CreativityChild Development CenterTravel, Recreation, CampingAges 18–24CALIFORNIA (HOUSING) (North Hollywood.) Youth Volunteers of America Los Angeles. (VOALA) Women’s Care Cottage. Women’s Care Cottage is an Independent/Transitional living program assisting homeless young women coming out of emergency shelters, foster care and probation. Admits women with one infant up to the age of 1 year. Provides up to 18 months – 3 years of housing, case management, counseling, social and cultural activities. Ages 18–21.COLORADO: options for Pregnant or Parenting Teens. Jefferson County Adolescent Pregnancy and Parenting Program (JCAPPP) Jeffco Public Schools. Non-residential. Specialized curricula, job-training, social support. Onsite childcare for teen parents.COLORADO: ttp://ttps://obgyn.coloradowomenshealth.com/health-info/teens/teen-pregnancy-programs Non-residential. University of Colorado/Colorado Adolescent Maternity Program. (CAMP) Specialized obstetrical care for teens. Emotional and social support.COLORADO: (HOUSING) Hope House of Colorado Quote from the website: “Hope House is metro-Denver's only resource providing free self-sufficiency programs to parenting teen moms, including Residential, GED, and College & Career Support programs. Additional supportive services include parenting and life skills classes, healthy relationship classes, and certified counseling, all designed to prepare them for long-term independence.” (ages 16 to 24)COLORADO: Yampah Mountain High School Non-residential, public School-based support for pregnant and parenting teens. High quality Infant and toddler childcare onsite.CONNECTICUT: Noank Community Support Services Clift House. Shelter care for ages infant to 18, either gender. Pregnant and Parenting teens.CONNECTICUT: Young Parents Program Public school-based services for pregnant and parenting teens. High School completion support and ONSITE childcare at High Schools for teen parents. Districts offering the Young Parents Program: Bridgeport, Griswold, New Britain, Torrington, Waterbury, Windham. Contact: Shelby Pons, MSW, [email protected] (860) 807-2126DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: (Non-Residential) Teen Alliance for Prepared Parenting Specialized Pre-natal care. Education support. Counseling. Teen fathers also served. Ages Served: Adolescents who are pregnant and aged 21 or younger are eligible to enroll at any time during their pregnancy. Young fathers may enroll if they are expecting a child, or if they have a child under the age of five years. Once enrolled, youth may continue to participate in the program until 23 years of age.DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: http://tps://dcps.dc.gov/page/expectant-and-parenting-students (Non-residential). Expectant and Parenting Students. New Heights. “Supportive case management and assistance with securing services, such as a childcare voucher, WIC, housing, TANF, employment, job training opportunities, college/university admissions and more.” Public High School Programs: The following schools have the New Heights program in their buildings, and can be reached at the following phone numbers:Anacostia, (202) 645-4040Ballou, (202) 645-3400Ballou STAY, (202) 727-5344Cardozo, (202) 671-1995CHEC, (202) 939-7700 ext. 5063Coolidge, (202) 282-0081Dunbar, (202) 698-3762Luke C. Moore, (202) 678-7890Roosevelt, (202) 576-8899Roosevelt STAY, (202) 576-8399Washington MET, (202)727-4985Wilson, (202) 282-0120Woodson, (202) 939-20324. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (HOUSING) Perennial Transitional House for Teen Parent23.DISTRICT OF COLuMBIA: HBP Teens Non-residential. Support services and structured classes for pregnant and parenting teens. Case Management and Home Visiting. Centered particularly on the needs of young African-American parents. Multi-phase program. Ages Served:12–2124.DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: DC Social Innovation Project Non-residential. Teens to Doulas: This innovative program trains teens who are already parenting to serve as doulas for women in the community. The goal is for successful teen mothers to share their skills to reduce the risk factors in the community for other mothers.25. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: Teen Parent Assessment Program (TPAP)(Non-residential) Financial Issues: This is an assessment program that evaluates teens for independent living in the D.C. area. Usually, teens can apply for TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) in D.C. , but must be living with their parents to receive this aid. The Teen Assessment program determines on a case by case if the pregnant/parenting teen in an independent or other living situation qualifies for the aid. Service Contact: Teen Parent Assessment Program Contact Phone: (202) 698-6671Contact TTY: 711. If you are unable to get an appointment for the Teen Parent Assessment Program, you may need to get a referral from your school guidance counselor or other social services.26.DELAWARE: Diocese of Wilmington Bayard House27.FLORIDA: (HOUSING) Group Home, Bellview FL, Hands of Mercy Everywhere Hands of Mercy Everywhere. Christian-oriented residence that also offers diverse practical, educational, and therapeutic services to teen mothers. Ages served not specified28.FLORIDA: Hannah's Transitional Living || ANCHORAGE CHILDREN'S HOME || (850) 763-7102 Transitional living apartments for pregnant and parenting young women. Ages 16–2229.FLORIDA: Home Our Mother’s Home. Keeps teen mothers who are in foster care with their children.30.FLORIDA: (Pinellas County) Transitional Living Programs - Family Resources SafePlace2BTOO-Young Moms. (Scroll down the page for maternity services. The first program listed on the page has the same name but is for LGBT youth.) Housing and support. 18 month program. Ages 16–21.31.FLORIDA: Woman to Woman - Children & Family Services Gulf CoasJewish Children & Family Services. Non-residential mentoring and goal-setting for pregnant and parenting teens. No age range specified.GEORGIA: House of Dawn: Changing Lives, Changing Generations770–477–2385Housing👩‍🎓Educational SupportCareer and Life skillsCounselingAges 13–23GEORGIA: Home | The Living Vine Christian Maternity Home.HousingProgram emphasizes strict Christian environment, so possibly suitable only for committed Christians.Hawaii: Hale Kipa: Independent Living Program808.754.9844Emergency ShelterAges 12–17HAWAII: Neighborhood Helping Pregnant and Parenting Teens Neighborhood Place of Puna. Non-residential. Practical, material and emotional support.37.HAWAII: (HOUSING) Mary Jane Home | Catholic Charities Hawaii The Mary Jane Home. Ages Served: 18 and over.38. IDAHO: (and Eastern Washington) Alexandria's House | Volunteers of America Ages Served: 16–20.39.IDAHO: (Burley) Cassia High School Alternative Public High School. Serves teens who would benefit from an alternative school, including pregnant and parenting teens. Childcare for teen parents provided.40.IDAHO: Marian Pritchett School Marian Pritchett School. (Serving pregnant teens since 1964) Public High School for pregnant and parenting teens. Includes Giraffe Laugh Childcare for students attending Marian Pritchett School. Marian Pritchett - Giraffe Laugh.41.ILLINOS: (HOUSING) (Chicago) response-Ability Pregnant and Parenting Program (RAPPP) The Night Ministry operates 120-day housing programs for youth and for pregnant and parenting young mothers and their children. Call toll-free 877-286-2523. Ages 14–19.42.ILLINOIS: http://theharbour.org/successful-teenseffective-parents.html The Harbour. STEPS Program. Individual subsidized apartments for teens and their children. Parenting classes, counseling and case management. Age range served: not specified.43.INDIANA: Maternity Home With A Heart Hannah’s House. (HOUSING.) Faith-based/Christian. Parenting classes, counseling, referrals to community resources, emotional support. Serves ages 13 up. (Website states youngest resident they have served was 13 and the oldest was 43.)44. Indiana: Project Home IndyResidency for Teenage Mothers (Link leads to application page)HousingMedical CareEducational SupportParenting ClassesLife Skills ClassesAges 15 -19 at admission.45.INDIANA: Young Families of Indiana Network Future Promises. Non-residential school-based support for pregnant and parenting teens.46.INDIANA: (South Bend) Youth Service Bureau of St. Joseph County Young Mom’s Self-Sufficiency Program. (YMSSP) Non-residential support services.47. IOWA: Ruth Harbor - Pregnant? Christian orientation. Counseling, midwife care, doula services, recreation, outings. Ages ?-24. Does not specify minimum age.48.IOWA: Transitional Living for Teen Parents United Action for Youth. (UAC) Housing and other supports. Ages 17–21.49. IOWA: Transitional Living Services - Youth & Shelter Services, Inc. - Iowa50..KANSAS: About Us | Wichita Children's Home 1. Bridges. Housing for pregnant and parenting teen mothers 2. Moving on to Motherhood (MOM-Non-residential case management and support.)52. KENTUCKY: (HOUSING)Mother & Baby Home All God’s Children Mother & Baby Home. Faith-based. Nationally Accredited Childcare program onsite provides care for resident’s babies so they can attend school. Support, therapy, classes. Ages 13–21.53.KENTUCKY: (Louisville) Teenage Parent Program Georgia Chaffee Teenage Parent Program (TAPP). Non-residential. Provides support and services to help pregnant and parenting teens complete their high school educations.54. KENTUCKY: 👩‍⚕️ Young Parents Program (YPP.) Non-residential. Specialized obstetrical care, support and counseling. Ages served: Under age 18.55. LOUISIANA: I'm Pregnant. Now What?Phone : (318) 925-4663Crisis Line : (318) 277-9506Email : [email protected] Sanctuary for Women. Faith-based/Christian. Counseling, goal-setting, career planning, parenting classes, life skills and recreation. Participation in religious activities may be required. Onsite accredited education/certified teacher for High School completion or GED. Ages served: 13–23.56. LOUISIANA: Parenting Jus4me. Non-residential. Support and parenting classes for pregnant and parenting teens. No age range specified.57. LOUISIANA: http://ttp://www.lighthouseministriesinc.org/ The Lighthouse Child Residential Center. Faith-based. Cares for pregnant and parenting teens and their children. Licensed to care for children from birth through age 18.MAINE: FINANCIAL HELP: TANF and Teen Parents58. MAINE: rgh Rumford Group Homes Teens are housed in several different apartments supervised by the program and are provided with various services. Ages 16–21.59. MAINE: Crisis Center | Bangor, ME Shepherd’s Godparent Home. Ages served: teens to thirties.60. MARYLAND: Programp=s for Pregnant Teens and Teen Mothers | Hearts & Homes for Youth Damamli. This program is for pregnant and parenting teens in the foster care or juvenile justice system. The program starts the teen in a specialized foster home and later she lives independently with her child, with support from the program in her own apartment. Age range: 16–20.61. MARYLAND: Housing & Support Saint Ann’s: Grace House, Hope House and Faith House. Residence with onsite High School. Ages 13–21.62. MASSACHUSETTS: Programs Bridge Over Troubled Waters. Single Parent Housing. Transitional Housing for teen parents. Does not specify age range served.63. MASSACHUSETTS: (Boston) St. Mary’s Home Faith-based history but apparently no religious requirements or programming for participants. Housing. Case management, onsite high school completion, parenting classes, therapy. Ages 13–21.64. MICHIGAN: Shelter - Alternatives For Girls Provides emergency shelter for homeless teens and their children. Transitional housing program also available. Website did not mention specific maternity care programs offered. Ages 15—MICHIGAN: Eastpointe. Gianna House now open, but the website isn’t up currently. RESIDENTIAL. Ages 13–17. Contact information will be posted here ASAP>65. MICHIGAN: MI Health Family - MOASH Websites provide information on help for pregnant and parenting teens in Michigan. Michigan Organization on Adolescent Sexual Health. (MOASH) PREGNANT & PARENTING TEENS Ages served not specified.66. MICHIGAN: Michigan Adolescent Pregnancy and Parenting Program (MI-APPP) Case Management for pregnant and parenting teens. No are range specified.MINNESOTA: LEGAL RIGHTS OF TEENS: The Rights of Teen ParentsMINNESOTA: A School for Pregnant and Parenting Teens Longfellow High School. Non-residential public high school.MINNESOTA: The Nest: A Maternity Home The Nest. Focuses on ages 18–25 but may accept minors placed by parents. More information soon.MISSISSIPPI: http://mchms.org/pdfs/MCH_Two_of_Us_Brochure_032314_RGB.pdf Two of Us Therapeutic Maternity Home. Full-time licensed nursing staff. Highly specialized intensive care and education for mothers and infants. Ages 10–18.MISSOURI: 👩‍⚕️ https://www.barnesjewish.org/Medical-Services/Obstetrics-Gynecology/Women-Infants/Childbirth-at-Barnes-Jewish/Teen- Pregnancy-Center Barnes Jewish Hospital. Non-residential services, including specialized obstetrical care, classes and support. Ages 17 and under.MISSOURI: Mother's Refuge - Supporting Young Mother (HOUSING). Ages 12-21. Does not appear to focus on excessive religious pressureMISSOURI: Nativity House KC Faith-based. Roman Catholic.MISSOURI: Youth Services - reStart reStart Youth Services. Four transitional housing units for pregnant and parenting teens. Ages 16–21.MISSOURI: Home The Sparrow's Nest. (HOUSING) Ages 19 and under.MONTANA: Blackfeet Teen Pregnancy/Parenting Coalition Teen Pregnancy Parenting Coalition. Non-residential. GED tutoring. Case Management. Peer support. Nutritional Counseling. Childcare. Ages Served not specified.MONTANA: Mountain Home Montana Non-religious, comprehensive program. Housing. Bonnie Hamilton Home. (Group living) Mountain Home Apartments. (Individuals living with child.) Licensed Therapy. 24–7 mental health crisis line. Other resources. Ages 16–29.MONTANA: Nurtured baby, Healthy adult, Strong community Florence Crittenton . (Needs updating)NEBRASKA: CARES. ( info needs updating-program may be closed.)NEBRASKA: Center for Healthy Families Nebraska Mental Health/Project Harmony. Non-residential. Support services for pregnant and parenting teens. No age range specified. (Omaha residents only).NEBRASKA:Teen & Young Parent Program - Nebraska Early Childhood CollaborativeNNEVADA: “Living Grace” website is not available as of 8/15/2019. Will update as I get more information.NEVADA: Pregnant and Parenting Teen Saint Jude’s Ranch. Most residents are youth placed here by state social service and juvenile justice agencies.NEVADA: Contact Casa De Vida. (HOUSING) —More information available soon.NEW HAMPSHIRE: (Littleton)TRANSITIONAL LIVING PROGRAM (HOUSING). Case management, GED/Highschool completion, parenting classes and other services for pregnant and parenting teens and young adults. Ages served 18–21.NEW HAMPSHIRE: Our Place | Catholic Charities New Hampshire Our Place. Non-residential Faith-based. (Roman Catholic) Prenatal, breastfeeding, parenting and other classes and resources for parents of all ages.NEW JERSEY: http://ttps://www.cge-nj.org/program-offerings/adolescent-program/ The Center for Great Expectations (Adolescent Program) (HOUSING) AOther programs for women also available. Licensed Clinical Staff. Ages served: 13–18,NEW JERSEY: Capable Adolescent Mothers Crossroads Programs. (HOUSING) Intensive Long-term program. For General Program Information regarding Crossroads’ programs and services, please contact Michelle Wright at 609 880 0210, ext 109. Ages: 16–21.NEW JERSEY:services and Programs that help young homeless mothers and pregnant women Raphael’s Life House, Inc. Housing, licensed counseling, parenting classes, GED completion and career development. Ages served: Not specified.NEW MEXICO: Catholic Charities of Gallup NM (HOUSING)Casa San Jose. Residential care for pregnant and parenting teens. Ages Served: Not specified.NEW MEXICO: 14 to 17 Information Page Information from Pegasus Legal Services for Children about legal rights of minors in New Mexico, including teen pregnancy and parenting.NEW YORK: Residential Services Catholic Charities Community Maternity Services. Multiple programs: Heery Center-Ages 12–21, focuses on pregnant and parenting girls placed by juvenile and state agencies. Joyce Center is the transitional living maternity home.NEW YORK: Pregnant/Parenting Teens Children’s Village-Inwood House. Age range served not specified.NEW YORK: (Rochester) http://ttp://centerforyouth.net/index.php?cID=89 The Center For Youth. Chrysalis Program. 18 month program. Residential setting for pregnant or parenting young women. Ages 16–21.NEW YORK: Supportive Housing (Brooklyn) Diaspora Community Services/ “Mother’s Gaining Hope”. Federally funded “Maternity Group Home”. (MGH) I have not further details on ages served or its programs at this writing.NEW YORK: SERVICES SUSPENDED DUE TO BUDGET. (Concerned readers please consider donating. )(Niagara region) https://hannahhouse.ca/ Ages: through age 24. No lower age limit stated.NEW YORK: Regina Maternity Services Catholic Charities of Rockville Centre. Housing For pregnant teens and their children. Regina Residence is a structured program with case management. Mary Residence is supported independent living for graduates of Regina Residence. Ages 11–24.NORTH CAROLINA: http://www.angelhousematernityhome.org/admission_information0.aspx Angel House Maternity Home. Minimum Age: 17NORTH CAROLINA: Services for single, pregnant, & non-pregnant teens, women and their families | Florence Crittenton Services | Charlotte, NC Multiple residential programs. Ages 10 and up.NORTH DAKOTA: St. Gianna Maternity Home (HOUSING) Residents required to participate in prayers and attend Mass. Ages Served: Serves minors but does not specify age range.NORTH DAKOTA: Home | The Perry Center Serves minors placed by parents, but does not give age-range. Christian oriented services, apparently placing emphasis on evangelism but also offering life-skills and other practical services.OHIO: (Franklin County) The Center for Healthy Families The Center for Healthy Families. Non-residential. School and Community based services for pregnant and parenting teens offered at four high schools. Services for teen fathers also included. Ages: 13–19.OHIO: (Mentor, Ohio) Pregnancy - Hannah’s Home. Minimum age 18. More information available soon.OHIO: The Highlands - Shelter Care (HOUSING) Residential care for pregnant and parenting teens and their children. Ages 14–20.OHIO: (Columbus) 👩‍⚕️Teen and Pregnant Program Nationwide Children’s (Hospital). TaP. Non-residential. Comprehensive medical care, classes, counseling, referrals for pregnant girls and women ages 21.5 and under.OHIO: WIC (Supplemental food for Women, Infant Children) WIC - American Pregnancy Association\http://file:///C:/Users/17074/AppData/Local/Pa/TempState/Downloads/158843%20(1).pdfOKLAHOMA: Broken Arrow Public Schools Mentoring Healthy Parents (Formerly Margaret Hudson Program). Non-residential. Support for pregnant and parenting teens. Age range not specified.OKLAHOMA: J.A.M.E.S., INC. WEBSITE CURRENTLY DOWN> CHECK BACK SOON> Educational support and college scholarships for pregnant and parenting teens. High School seniors and college students.OKLAHOMA: http://s://www.choctawnation.com/tribal-services/member-services/choctaw-support-expectant-and-parenting-teens-sept Choctaw Support for Expectant and Parenting Teens. (SEPT) Services for teens pregnant with or parenting a Native American child under the age of one year. Must live within the 10.5 county service area of Choctaw Nation. Ages 13–21.OKLAHOMA: (Owassa) Oklahoma Baptist Homes for Children . (HOUSING) (Owassa) Maternity Cottage and transitional living apartments for Mother and Child Program. Participants must attend Southern Baptist church while in residence. Age range served not specified.OKLAHOMA: Transitional Living Program (HOUSING) Housing offered to youth, including pregnant and parenting teens and their children. Ages 16–21.OREGON: Safe Haven Maternity Home Safe Haven Maternity Home.OREGON: Dedicated to helping young mothers Saint Child. Housing for pregnant girls and women and their infants. May stay for up to a year after birth of baby. Faith-based (Christian). Counseling, education, job training, life skills and other supports. Participants are offered bible study and other Christian activities but are apparently not coerced. Ages 14–24.Pennsylvania: (Lansdale) (HOUSING) Home Morning Star Maternity Home. Ages 13–25.Pennsylvania: Maternity & Pregnancy Services - Catholic Charities of Harrisburg PAPENNSYLVANIA: http://ttps://www.valleyyouthhouse.org/programs/transitional-housing/maternity-group-home-mgh/RHODE ISLAND: (HOUSING) (may be for 18 and above only) Little Flower Home - Serving RI & Southern MA - Housing for 'Pregnant Homeless' WomenRHODE ISLAND: About Nowell Leadership Academy (Public Charter High School) For Pregnant and Parenting teens.SOUTH CAROLINA: Help for pregnant and parenting young women in South CarolinTENNESSEE: Comprehensive Resource Center The Hagar Center. Non-residential. Classes, support and material assistance.102. TENNESSEE: http://ttps://mercymultiplied.com/about-us/ Mercy Multiplied. Faith-based/Non-denominational Christian. Residential programs are located in four states for girls including a facility in Nashville, Tennessee. The programs are designed to work with on many issues, including pregnancy. The website states that the program does not demand that the pregnant mother relinquish her child to adoption, however, neither is there any indication of housing or services offered for the mother/child family. Adoption services prominently noted on website. Counseling is strongly centered on Christian teachings, although Mercy Multiplied states that its counselors are Master’s Level or graduate student interns. Counseling process includes/demands “commitment to Christ”. This program might be appropriate for young women who of their own free will wish to pursue Christianity. Ages Served: Unknown at this writing.107. TEXAS: Annunciation House: Apply for Services108. TEXAS: Apply | LifeHouse Houston. Housing and other support. Strong focus on Christian evangelizing. Ages 12 and up. (Other services for non-residential clients also available.)109. TEXAS: Teen Parenting Help - Jane's Due Process Information and support for pregnant teenagers concerning Texas legal rights.110.TEXAS: Viola's House111. UTAH: 👩‍🎓Horizonte Instruction and Training Center. Young Parent Program. Programs Non-residential. High School completion and vocational education with onsite childcare provided by Head Start. Parenting and other skills. Flexible scheduling. Contact Person: Kathy Williams (801) 578-8574 ext. 233.112. UTAH: Teen Mother & Child Program Non-residential. University of Utah/Teen Mother and Child Program. Obstetrical care/Nurse-Midwives. Social and psychological support and referrals for other needed services. Ages served: 19 and younger.113. UTAH: YWCA Of Salt Lake City. Referrals to Transitional Housing. No other details as of this writing.114. VERMONT: Family Literacy Center (Non-residential) Educational center for pregnant and parenting teens and young adults. Infants may attend classes with parents until they are four months old and after that Onsite Nationally Accredited childcare is available full-time. Onsite licensed therapy, parenting and nutrition classes and other social supports. Ages served: High school freshmen age through age 25.115. VIRGINIA: Grace Home Ministries. (HOUSING) Program is long-term and residents encouraged to stay for as long as two years with their babies. Faith based/Christian. Program includes participation in Christian experiences. However, Grace Home states: “We believe religion is a matter of personal conviction; therefore, we don’t put any pressure on program participants in matters of personal faith or beliefs. Mentoring, childcare classes, case management. Ages 1–20.116. VIRGINIA: (Lynchburg) ADOPTION-ORIENTED! Liberty Godparent Maternity Home. Services | Liberty Godparent Home If you have decided for adoption AND you are a Baptist or of a similar faith, you might consider this facility, as its emphasis is on adoption. The program does offer “Mommy and Me” support if you decide on raising your baby yourself, however, the emphasis is clearly adoption. Faith-based. (Baptist) Residents attend Thomas Road Baptist church. Other services from their website: All residents are required to attend school, pursue a GED, or participate in vocational training. Classes are offered off site at Liberty Christian Academy through Liberty University Online Academy (grades 6-12). Tutoring services for GED and SAT exams are available as needed. To help each young lady build a positive future, the LGH staff is committed to educating the residents on Life Skills and other topics such as Decision-Making, Parenting, Adoption, and Nutrition. About Us Overview | Liberty Godparent Home Ages Served: Not specified.VIRGINIA: (Fairfax County) Second Story for Young Mothers - assistance for mothersSecond Story for Young Mothers. (HOUSING) Residential services offered through independent living in townhouses for young mothers between the ages of 18–21. Pregnant and parenting teens between the ages of 16 and 18 receive non-residential community based support, education and services. Follow-up support and case management also offered. 24/7 Crisis Hotline - Call 1-800-SAY-TEEN or text “TEENHELP” to 855-11 TTY 711VIRGINIA: (Alexandria) Keep it 360 | The Alexandria Campaign on Adolescent Pregnancy (ACAP) T.C. Futures. (Non-residential.) From website: The T.C. Futures Group provides parenting meetings and developmental playgroups specifically for Alexandria’s teenage parents and their children. Parents learn about positive parenting skills, child development, and local resources. The group meets every other week after school at T.C. Williams High School. Participation is not limited to T.C. Williams students; all teenage parents in Alexandria are invited to attend. Participation is free, and Spanish translation is available. For more information, contact David Wynne, TC Williams Social Worker, at 703.824.6800.VIRGINIA (Fredricksburg) Mary's Shelter Mary’s Shelter. (HOUSING) Faith-based. Provides residential care for up to three years. Minimum Age: 18.VIRGINIA: Mommy and Me Program. ( A program component of “Youth For Tomorrow”.). (RESIDENTIAL/HOUSING) Faith based/Christian. Intensive program for pregnant teens and their infants. Education for teens at accredited school on campus, health care, parenting classes, in-house therapy and nursing staff. ) Admissions are either by court placement or social service agency referral. Teens may stay until their child is four-years-old. Ages: 12–18.VIRGINIA: (Winchester.) About | New Eve Maternity Home New Eve Maternity Home. (HOUSING). Faith-based/Roman Catholic. Help with education, employment, life skills. Ages served: 18 and above. (?)VIRGINIA: (Norfolk) THIS LISTING NOT ACTIVE CURRENTLY. WILL UPDATE ASAP. Eastern Virginia Medical School. Non-residential. Specialized obstetrical care. Classes, parenting skills, emotional support, transportation to prenatal appointments.WASHINGTON: (Seattle area.) Housing Cocoon House. (HOUSING) Housing for pregnant and parenting teens and their children. (Short -term and long-term.) Support for education, life skills and employment. Ages 12–17.WASHINGTON: (Spokane) Alexandria's House | Volunteers of America (HOUSING). “Spacious historic home”. Mentoring, support, doulas, other services. Ages: 16–20.WASHINGTON: (Spokane)http://ttp://gracesonhousingfoundation.org/ Hope and Housing for Teen Moms and their Children Graceson Housing Foundation. (Housing.) Faith-based/Christian but spiritual activities are left up to choice. This program is strong on community and nurturing. Classes, life skills, and employments skills also offered. Ages 13-18.WASHINGTON (Seattle) 👩‍⚕️ "Family Medicine Residency Teen Pregnancy and Parenting Clinic. (A program of Kaiser Permanente but you DO NOT have to be a Kaiser Permanente member to receive services.) Non-residential. Accepts Medicaid and other insurance. Prenatal care with delivery at Swedish First Hill Hospital. Offers help getting medical care coverage, nutritious food, childbirth classes, parenting classes and well-child care for the baby until two years of age. (Well-child care is only for the babies whose mothers used the Teen Pregnancy and Parenting Clinic for their prenatal care and delivery.) Open Tuesdays and Thursdays. Drop by or call: Kaiser Permanente Capitol Hill Campus, West Building 206-326-2656. On the bus line. Ages served: Not specified.WEST VIRGINIA: Crittenton Services, Inc. A Florence Crittenton program. (More information to follow)WISCONSIN: (Milwaukee) Pregnant and Parenting Youth Program (PPYP). Non-residential public school-based support.WISCONSIN: (Sheboygan) 👩‍🎓 Sheboygan Area School District Non-residential. TAPP/Parenting Lab. School-based support for pregnant and parenting teens. Guidance counselor assists pregnant students with educational plan/ONSITE childcare/parenting lab for teen parents. Classes designed/flexible to accommodate pregnancy related issues. Pregnant or parenting students in Sheboygan contact your school guidance counselor to access these services.

No.This is another of those atheist blogs filled with anti-theist bigotry and assumptions of superiority and false claims. Christianity has had its issues—usually when entangled with secular government—but it is most certainly not the bloodiest in history. Jenny Hawkins's answer to Have Christians persecuted others more than they, themselves, have been persecuted?I went through every item on this list. Acharya S—who is the one with some credentials—has apparently accepted a list from someone named “Kelsos” without checking its content for accuracy. I assume she didn’t check, I am giving her the benefit of the doubt that she didn’t publish this amount of error intentionally, because half the items on this list—should not be on this list—and there are multiple reasons why.The First reason some of these should not be on this list is because they are not religiously motivated events.For example, The Battle of Belgrad is listed. In 1453, Mehmet II, the victor of Constantinople, geared up and invaded the Catholic Balkans; the Hungarians defended themselves. The Turks had 70,000 trained troops, the Hungarians never had more than 50,000, mostly unequipped, untrained peasants. By what definition is self-defense Christian persecution? Battle of Belgrade: 1456According to Wikipedia, to qualify as actual religious persecution, an event needs to be “the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group of individuals as a response to their religious beliefs or affiliations or lack thereof.” Religion needs to be what actually drives the act. For example, from the beginning Islamic war was primarily religiously motivated. The multi-volume Encyclopedia of War, edited by Gordon Martel, uses the same criteria that the armed conflict must involve some overt religious action, to be labelled a religious war. There is no definition of religious persecution that does not include religion as a primary factor—not a peripheral one.That means, if a King is motivated to grab a piece of land from another country because his country is poor and needs the resources—and that King also happens to be a religious person—that does not make that a religious conflict. That’s a conflict caused by geography and economics and leadership.Even if that king tries to use religion to drum up support, that does not automatically make it an overtly religious event either. That’s manipulation. Something overtly religious—such as a goal of conversion—would have to be involved and actually driving events, and even that would only make religion one aspect of causality, along with the other causes, of this particular King going to war.Another example of this is the claim: “16th and 17th century Ireland. English troops "pacified and civilized" Ireland.”There is some debate about why Henry VIII decided to re-conquer Ireland, but the most immediate reason was because the Fitzgerald dynasty of Kildare had become unreliable allies. They had invited Burgundian troops into Dublin to crown the Yorkist pretender, Lambert Simnell, as King of England in 1487, and then in 1535, Silken Thomas Fitzgerald openly rebelled against the crown. Henry VIII put down the rebellion and set about pacifying Ireland and bringing it under English control. He was not gentle about it. Pissed off Kings rarely ever were.Crowning another King is generally considered a good way to get in trouble with the existing King. Throw in a little rebellion and you were pretty much guaranteed an armed visit. This is not religious in nature. It’s politics. History of Ireland (1536–1691) - WikipediaThe peasant rebellion in Stedding Germany is on this list though they were motivated by economics in rebelling against their overlord. He happened to be a Christian. His response was not religiously motivated any more than their rebellion was. This was over money—specifically taxes; it was about political and economic power—and poor leadership.All the crusades are on this list! They should not be because the entire history of the Eastern Crusades is one of response to Muslim aggression. It is not religious persecution to defend your life against someone who wants to take it over and make it over in their image.From the time of Mohammed, Muslims had sought to conquer the Christian world. They did a pretty good job of it, too. After a few centuries of steady conquests, Muslim armies had taken all of North Africa, the Middle East, Asia Minor, and most of Spain. In other words, by the end of the eleventh century the forces of Islam had captured two-thirds of the Christian world.Palestine, the home of Jesus Christ; Egypt, the birthplace of Christian monasticism; Asia Minor, where St. Paul planted the seeds of the first Christian communities: these were not the periphery of Christianity but its very core.And the Muslim empires were not finished yet. They continued to press westward toward Constantinople, ultimately entering the European continent itself. If not for Charles Martel, the stubborn Spaniards, and resistance in Greece and Italy, they would have taken it. Almost nothing was capable of standing in their way for long.As far as unprovoked aggression goes, it was all on the Muslim side. At some point what was left of the Christian world would have to defend itself or simply succumb to Islamic conquest. Crusade Myths | Thomas F. MaddenThe First Crusade was an errand of mercy in response to a plea for help from those struggling to survive.Does anyone out there actually think it’s reasonable to equate self-defense and religious persecution? Even Christians have the right to self-defense.Most of the accounts listed in the native section should not be on the list for this same reason as well. The majority of native deaths occurred within the first century of contact with Europeans because natives did not have immunity to the diseases Europeans carried in their blood. This means the New World was what is called “virgin soil” by epidemiologists. “Virgin soil outbreaks” are universally devastating.That means the majority of native Indian deaths were from disease, not war, and they were unintentional and in no way religiously motivated.NativesAllow me to quote from The Impact of European Diseases on Native Americans“Many of the epidemic diseases that were well established in the Old World were absent from the Americas before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492.”Smallpox, measles, chicken pox, whooping cough, diphtheria, scarlet fever, trachoma, malaria, typhus fever, typhoid fever, influenza, cholera, bubonic plague, and probably gonorrhea and leprosy were unknown in the precontact period. The catastrophic epidemics that accompanied the European conquest of the New World decimated the indigenous population of the Americas in the first hundred years of contact.The first Spaniards to reach the Caribbean islands found at least four distinct Indian cultures. Some recent estimates suggest that the pre-Columbian population of Hispaniola (modern Dominican Republic and Haiti) was close to 4 million. By 1508, fewer than 100,000 Indians remained. By 1570, almost all of the Caribbean Indians had disappeared, except for the Caribs in a fairly isolated area of the eastern Caribbean. A similar pattern occurred in Cuba, which was conquered in 1511.The rapid decline in the numbers of Native American peoples and the demands of Spanish settlers for labor, led to the establishment of the transatlantic slave trade by 1518. The Americas became the site of an unprecedented mixing of peoples and infectious agents from previously separate continents.The first epidemic disease to attack the Caribbean Indians might have been swine influenza, brought to the West Indies in 1493 with pigs that Columbus had obtained from the Canary islands on his second voyage.Typhus may also have attacked the islands before the first known smallpox outbreaks in Hispaniola in 1518 and Cuba in 1519.Smallpox decimated the Arawaks of the West Indies, before making its way to Mexico with the Spaniards, and preceding them into the Inca Empire.”None of these diseases caused the kind of devastation back home in Europe that they caused in the New World. Hawaiians died from measles for heaven’s sake! Much to the surprise and dismay of most of the Europeans.There were exceptions of course.Governor John Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote in 1634 these deaths were a great sign of "the marvelous goodness and providence of God."He also refused to participate in the “Great Awakening” where his contemporaries opened their many churches to include Africans and Native Americans. Therefore it seems fair to say Winthrop’s attitude was not the common one. Claiming this ‘great sign’ for one had the same universal meaning to all the Christians in general is a baseless claim.The majority of the European settlers were just ordinary people who had not intended to bring such devastation to the native populations. They had no way of knowing ahead of time it would occur. Things sometimes happen that are out of our control.Ten Common Misbeliefs1. Fiction: The Mayflower Pilgrims gave the Indians smallpox-infected blankets, wiping out 90% of the indigenous people of New England.Fact: This is chronologically impossible. The Mayflower landed in November 1620, two to four years AFTER the war and epidemic that decimated the New England tribes in 1616-1618. There is no historical evidence of smallpox aboard the Mayflower. The first recorded smallpox outbreak in New England occurred in Boston in 1633.Contemporary reports called the epidemic that decimated the New England coastal tribes between 1616 and 1618 'the plague.' Europeans of the time knew the difference between smallpox and plague. The disease was most likely a form of plague originating from French fur traders in Nova Scotia and Eastern Canada, similar to the Black Death epidemic that killed half of Europe and England in the mid-1300s.2. Fiction: The Pilgrims were welcomed with open arms by the Indians.Fact: At the ‘first encounter’ on December 6, 1620, Nauset warriors attacked a group of Pilgrims exploring the shoreline. They fired some 30 arrows at them before being driven off by musket fire. Fortunately, no one was killed or even injured. Two years earlier, two French fishing vessels had been attacked, burned, and their crews killed by the natives. While Plymouth Plantation was under construction, the Pilgrims were under constant threat of attack and annihilation by the neighboring tribes, with the notable exception of Massasoit's Pokanoket band and a few other friendly groups.3. Fiction: The Pilgrims came ashore in 1620 as an invading army, raping and pillaging. They massacred the first 700 Indians they encountered, then sat down for a Thanksgiving feast with the survivors.Fact: The 52 Pilgrims, (14 adult men, 4 adult women, and 34 children) who survived the first winter were peace-loving God-fearing people who made friends with the Pokanoket Indians they met in the spring of 1621. The Pilgrims and the Pokanokets lived in peace and harmony with each other until 1675, over half a century.In 1675, the Indians declared all-out war on the settlers, in one of the bloodiest conflicts, per capita, in American history.4. Fiction: The Indians never harmed anyone. The Europeans came to North America and massacred the peace-loving inhabitants.Fact: It went both ways. There is no question that Europeans and Indians massacred one another from time to time, but research shows that from 1600-1850, Indians carried out approximately 500 massacres against Europeans, and Europeans committed about 450 massacres against Indians. A total of approximately 9,000 settlers were massacred by Indians, compared with roughly 7,000 Indians massacred by Europeans.Fact: At first, the Puritans, who began arriving in 1630, ten years after the landing of the Mayflower, did not regard the Indians they encountered as natural enemies, but rather as potential friends and converts. But their experience with the natives gradually yielded to a more hostile view. The Pequot tribe in particular, with its reputation for cruelty and ruthlessness, was feared not only by the colonists but by most other Indians in New England as well. In the warfare that eventually ensued, caused in part by intertribal rivalries, the Narragansett Indians became actively engaged on the Puritan side.Hostilities opened in late 1636 after the murder of several colonists. When the Pequots refused to comply with the demands of the Massachusetts Bay Colony for the surrender of the guilty and other forms of indemnification, a punitive expedition was led against them by John Endecott, the first resident governor of the colony; although it ended inconclusively, the Pequots retaliated by attacking any settler they could find.Fort Saybrook on the Connecticut River was besieged, and members of the garrison who ventured outside were ambushed and killed. One captured trader, tied to a stake in sight of the fort, was tortured for three days, expiring after his captors flayed his skin with the help of hot timbers and cut off his fingers and toes. Another prisoner was roasted alive.Fact: The torture of prisoners was routine practice for most Indian tribes, and was deeply ingrained in Indian culture. Valuing bravery above all things, the Indians had little sympathy for those who surrendered or were captured. Prisoners. unable to withstand the rigor of wilderness travel were usually killed on the spot.Among those—Indian or European—taken back to the village, some would be adopted to replace slain warriors, the rest subjected to a ritual of torture designed to humiliate them and exact atonement for the tribe’s losses. Afterward the Indians often consumed the body or parts of it in a ceremonial meal, and proudly displayed scalps and fingers as trophies of victory.Fact: War was—is—brutal—on both sides.5. Fiction: The Puritans gave the natives blankets with smallpox—as did the army later in the west—in order to steal their land. This was the first germ warfare.Fact: The only actual occurrence of “germ warfare” is a single instance from the British during the Pontiac Uprising in 1763 when the Indians besieged Fort Pitt. Colonial Germ WarfareThe Puritans never did this. Actually, no American ever did. The “conspiracy”of the U.S.Army at Fort Clark has also been disproven—a ship’s passenger started the spread of disease there. Were American Indians the Victims of Genocide?Conclusion:If you are driving to work one day, carefully obeying all traffic laws of course, and someone in a hurry runs a red light and t-bones you, it would be wrong to ticket both of you. An accident happened to you. The law will hold the other person responsible, not you. But what if someone else hit the that car from behind and pushed them through the light? Then an accident happened to both of you—even though they were the ones who hit you. Things do happen that are out of our control.The meeting of these two cultures—native and European—was a bit of a car wreck, no doubt—and the natives came out of it worse off, absolutely. There is great tragedy here. But it was not intentional, and intent matters. These were not diseases that caused this kind of devastation back home in Europe. Hawaiians died from measles for heaven’s sake! The Europeans had no basis upon which to expect such catastrophic death— especially 350 years before germs were identified as the cause of disease by Pasteur.Assessing responsibility and causality in historiography requires cautious and careful fact finding—and unbiased fairness and reasoning. It’s wrong to hold the past to a standard no one could actually live with here in the present.For a real genocide to occur there needs to be intent—not accident.This list takes events out of context.It was believed at the time of Theodosius I, Emperor of Rome in AD 389, that a state must have a single religion to support it, and for the Romans, religion was first and foremost a social activity that promoted unity and loyalty to the state.Rome was not tolerant of other religions in a modern sense. Rome did not tolerate—Rome subsumed—the gods of the people it conquered. It was the Christian’s inability to let their God be one among many that made them stand out. Because:It had always been Roman policy that citizens must worship the gods of the Empire, and failure to do so was treason.Christians refused to participate in the public sacrifices to other Gods, so this policy is what allowed the Romans to legally “punish” Christians. Christians did not simply have their meeting places destroyed as the pagans later did—although that happened too. They were maimed—had their eyes dug out and their hands and feet cut off—they were tortured, murdered, had all their possessions confiscated, inheritances stolen, they were beaten, and attacked by mobs of angry pagans who blamed bad weather or failing crops on the Christian refusal to sacrifice—and more.It has been calculated that for the first nearly 250 years of Christianity, Christians endured 129 years of persecution and 120 years of peace.That is not tolerance.When the religion being required by the Empire changed—the policy—the Roman policy established long before Christianity—did not change.The requirement to worship the gods of the State was a Roman requirement.Context matters.Another example: Charlemagne did kill Saxons who refused to convert, but he had been fighting a war against them for 33 years—after his grandfather and father before him had also been fighting them and defending his people from their raids for 70 years.It was war— against people who committed repeated violence against the Frankish people. Religion was an aspect of this—but it was not the primary cause; 100 years of Saxon raids were the primary cause.Context matters.This list of heretics is another example. In addition to taking the events out of the context of their worldview, the fallacy here is expecting our modern values to have been present in an ancient time. Failing to recognize the medieval world was not the modern world is the fallacy.For medieval people, religion was not something one just did at church. It was their science, their philosophy, their politics, their identity, and their hope for salvation. It was not a personal preference but an abiding and universal truth. Heresy, then, struck at the heart of that truth. It doomed the heretic, endangered those near him, and tore apart the fabric of community.Medieval Europeans were not alone in this view. It was shared by numerous cultures around the world. The modern practice of universal religious toleration is itself quite new and uniquely Western.Secular and ecclesiastical leaders in medieval Europe approached heresy in different ways. Roman law equated heresy with treason. Why? Because kingship was God-given, thus making heresy an inherent challenge to royal authority.Heretics divided people, causing unrest and rebellion. No Christian doubted that God would punish a community that allowed heresy to take root and spread. Kings and commoners, therefore, genuinely believed they had good reason to find and destroy heretics wherever they found them.The Truth About the Spanish InquisitionThis viewpoint is hard for us to understand from our modern view; it is especially difficult to accept that they believed they were doing the right thing. This doesn’t make them right, but it should make them more understandable.Context matters.This list uses partial information to color things. It’s similar to taking things out of context, but it involves leaving out specific critical information.For example, the list claims, “Spanish Inquisitor Torquemada alone allegedly responsible for 10,220 burnings.” (That would be extremely difficult since the total number is generally estimated at 2,000.) But it’s the information that is left out that is critical—that this Inquisition was a tool of the State—not the church.The Muslims took over Spain—the Iberian Peninsula—in the eighth century. After invading in 711, large areas of the Iberian Peninsula were ruled by Muslims. There were five separate Christian kingdoms at this time.Traditional historiography, especially Spanish scholarship, has stressed … the existence of the Reconquista, a continuous phenomenon by which the Christian Iberian kingdoms opposed and conquered the Muslim kingdoms, understood as a common enemy who had militarily seized Christian territory.However, the Reconquista did not result in the total expulsion of Muslims from Spain, since they, along with Jews, were tolerated by the ruling Christian elite. The Spanish Inquisition (Inquisición Española) can be seen as an answer to the multi-religious nature of Spanish society following the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslim Moors.Once the Muslims have been expelled and Iberia reclaimed, the King and Queen of Spain, Ferdinand II and Isabella I, needed to consolidate power in the monarchy of the newly unified Spanish kingdom.Murranos—nominal converts from Judaism—were denounced as a danger to the existence of Christian Spain, and under pressure from the crown, Pope Sixtus IV issued a papal bull in AD 1478 authorizing the Catholic Monarchs to name inquisitors who would address the issue.The Pope’s involvement in the Inquisition’s beginnings did not mean the Spanish sovereigns were turning this over to the church; on the contrary, they sought to use the Inquisition to support their absolute and centralizing regime and most especially to increase royal power in Aragon.The first Spanish inquisitors, operating in Seville proved so severe that Pope Sixtus IV attempted to intervene and put a stop to the Inquisition.But the Spanish crown now had in its possession a weapon too precious to give up, and the efforts of the pope to limit the powers of the Inquisition failed. He kept trying. The King kept saying no. In 1483 the Pope was coerced—basically blackmailed—concerning the church’s continued presence in Spain, and pressured to hand over the power of the naming of a grand inquisitor to the Spanish government.The first grand inquisitor in Spain—named by the King— was the Dominican Tomás de Torquemada; his name became synonymous with brutality and fanaticism. Torquemada used torture and confiscation to terrorize his victims; his methods were the product of a time when judicial procedure was cruel by design.The grand inquisitor acted as the head of the Inquisition in Spain and was assisted by a council of five members and consultors. All those offices were filled by agreement between the government—(not the church)— and the grand inquisitor. The council, … put the effective control of the institution into the hands of the civil power.The Spanish Inquisition was a State tool of nationalism and racial purity, as well as religious purity, similar to the campaign Nazis would wage in the twentieth century, all while being primarily about consolidating the power of the monarchy.First the Jews, then the Muslims, then the Muslim converts called Moriscos, and the Protestants, and then the Spanish Inquisition turned its attention to prominent Roman Catholics. It persecuted everyone who stood in the way of this agenda—an agenda which went way beyond religion alone.This list leaves all that out which gives the impression the church was in control of the Inquisition when it was actually the State.The Inquisition was not definitively abolished until 1834, during the reign of Isabella II. In its nearly 400 years of existence, although records are incomplete, about 150,000 persons were charged with crimes by the Inquisition and about 3,000 were executed—2000 of them by Torquemada.The Truth About the Spanish InquisitionSpanish Inquisition | Spanish history [1478-1834]Spanish Inquisition - WikipediaThere are multiple lies and omissions of information in the list on natives. I’ve already mentioned one. I want to include an evaluation of every reference on this list, but then this would not be post-able!ANCIENT PAGANSThis list contains several outright false claims.For example, it says, “As soon as Christianity was legal (315), more and more pagan temples were destroyed by Christian mobs. Pagan priests were killed. Between 315 and 6th century thousands of pagan believers were slain...”The truth is, Constantine did not immediately outlaw paganism. Christians were a minority in this era and Constantine needed the support of the upper classes who were still pagan. That makes the claim: “As soon as Christianity was legal…” an outright lie. And there were no pagans martyred because of their faith under Constantine or his son Constantius II, and even later, they were never martyred by the thousands.Even though his son Constantius II did make laws and edicts aimed at punishing pagan practices, the emperor's policies were passively resisted by many governors and magistrates who remained pagan themselves.He enacted a law that exacted a fine from those who were guilty of vandalizing sites holy to pagans, and he placed the care of these monuments and tombs under the pagan priests. (Salzman, M.R., The Making of a Christian Aristocracy: Social and Religious Change in the Western Roman Empire (2002), p. 182)True anti-paganism did not begin until AD 382 under the Emperor Gratian; he declared that all of the pagan temples and shrines were to be confiscated by the government and that their revenues were to be joined to the property of the royal treasury. Still, he didn’t kill anyone just for being pagan.During this period, Hypatia from Egypt is known as having been killed by a Christian mob. Out of the 9 events listed under ANCIENT PAGANS, this is the only one that is straightforwardly correct and belongs on this list.It should be noted there were mobs of both kinds—Christian and pagan mobs—and records of street fighting between them as far back as AD 250.It wasn’t until Theodosius I that pagan priests were killed—but never by the thousands.( Hypatia - Wikipedia ; Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire - Wikipedia ; Peter Brown, Rise of Christendom 2nd edition (Oxford, Blackwell Publishing, 2003) p. 74.) (The Roman and British Martyrology. Publisher: O’Neill and Duggan, Dublin, 1846. 31st December) Persecution in the Early Church; Persecution in the Early Church: A Gallery of the Persecuting Emperors; Anti-Christian policies in the Roman Empire - Wikipedia ; (Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire - Wikipedia ; H.A.Drake, Lambs into Lions). Christian persecution of paganism under Theodosius I - WikipediaThis could go on and on with a continued blow by blow of each section, but this is the third one of these kinds of lists that I have seen now, and one of the things I have learned these extremists count on is that you won’t actually look anything up!These kinds of lists are riddled with lies and inaccuracies, and if you looked—you would find them. I looked so you wouldn’t have to.Don’t fall for this.There are items that should be on this list.It is to the everlasting shame of the Christian church that there are any at all, but the original question here was is Christianity the worst, and even with all of Christianity’s failures, they don’t come anywhere close to deserving a yes on that. The simplest evidence of that is that Christianity never intentionally committed any genocide; Islam intentionally committed at least five. Look up the Armenian Genocide, the Assyrian Genocide and the Greek Genocide for starters.But the sad truth is, there are no innocents in the religious conflicts of the past. The Jews murdered Christians by the thousands when they had the power to do so. Look up Joseph Dhu Nuwas or "Yousef Asa'ar." Hindus are persecuting Christians in India today because of nationalism. Islam has never stopped jihad. Peaceful Buddhists have had their share of conflicts. It’s human nature that is the problem. Distorting the truth in order to blame a single religion in this fashion is simply bigotry.Beware of all these kinds of lists on the internet!They are more inaccurate than accurate, not researched properly, with no real scholarship behind them. They have an agenda and it’s not about truth, it’s about bigotry.If anyone references one of these lists as an authority—don’t accept it! These are generally posted by atheist extremists who will only drive us all further apart.

Syria is a small, poor, and crowded country. On the map, it appears about the size of Washington state or Spain, but only about a quarter of its 185,000 square kilometers is arable land. That is, “economic Syria” is about as large as a combination of Maryland and Connecticut or Switzerland. Most is desert—some is suitable for grazing but less than 10 percent of the surface is permanent cropland.The bottom line is that the population/resource ratio is out of balance. While there has been a marginal increase of agricultural land and more efficient cropping with better seed, neither has kept up with population growth. Moreover, as the number of people in the country has increased, they have been unable to agree on how to divide what they have. So it is important to understand how their “social contract”—their view of their relationship with one another and with the government—evolved and then shattered.Since before history was written, Syria has been fought over by foreign empires—Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians, Persians, Macedonian Greeks, Romans, Mongols, Turks, British, and French. Only during the Umayyad Caliphate in the 7th and 8th centuries A.D. was it the center of an empire. But that relatively short period left Syria with its Islamic heritage. For many centuries, the society has been overwhelmingly Muslim.Syria also has historically been a sanctuary for little groups of peoples whose differences from one another were defined in religious and/or ethnic terms. Several of these communities were “leftovers” from previous invasions or migrations. During most of the last five centuries, when what is today Syria was part of the Ottoman Empire, groups of Orthodox, Catholic, and other Christians; Alawis, Ismailis, and other sorts of Shia Muslims; and Yazidis, Kurds, Jews, and Druze lived in enclaves and in neighborhoods in the various cities and towns alongside Sunni Muslim Arabs.During Ottoman rule the population was organized in two overlapping ways. First, there was no “Syria” in the sense of a nation-state, but rather provinces (Turkish: pashaliqs) that were centered on the ancient cities. The most important of these were Damascus, which may be the oldest permanently settled city in the world today, and Aleppo. The concept of a state, much less a nation-state, did not enter into political thought until the end of the 19th century. Inhabitants of the various parts of what became Syria could move without feeling or being considered alien from one province of the Ottoman Empire to the next. Thus, if the grandfathers or great grandfathers of people alive today were asked about what entity they belonged to, they would probably have named the city or village where they paid their taxes.During the First World War, Great Britain and France were at war with the Ottoman Empire, which had sided with Germany and Austria. The war was hard fought, but long before victory was in sight, the British and French concluded what became known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement to divide the Middle East between them. Britain subsequently made other, conflicting deals with the leaders of the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire that would have modified the agreement, but France insisted on effecting most of its terms. (Subsequently, France lost to Britain the mainly Sunni Muslim Arab and Kurdish area of what was to become northern Iraq.)The map shows how the Middle East was to be divided among the Great Powers. Most of what became Syria which the French gave to the British at the peace conference to remind them of the deal.First, the French created a “Greater” Lebanon from the former autonomous adjunct provinces (Turkish: sanjaqs) of Mount Lebanon and Beirut. To make it their anchor in an otherwise hostile Levant, they aimed both to make it Christian-dominated and big enough to exist as a state.But these aims were incompatible: the populations they added, taken from the pashaliq of Damascus, were mainly Muslim, so the French doomed Lebanon to be a precariously unbalanced society. Then they split Syria into detached administrative units: In 1921, they separated Alexandretta, in the northwest, and later ceded it to Turkey (where it was renamed Hatay); they split off the hinterland of the port of Latakia, a partly Alawi area, and in 1922 briefly made it a separate state; and they made the Druze area (Jabal ad-Druze) in the southwest an autonomous part of their colony. Finally, they divided the two major cities, Damascus and Aleppo, making each the capital of its neighborhood.When French policies did not work and nationalism began to offer an alternate vision of political life, the French colonial administration fell back on violence. Indeed throughout the French period—in contrast to the relatively laissez-faire rule of the Ottoman Empire—violence was never far below the outward face of French rule.The French bombarded Damascus, which they had regime-changed in 1920, in 1925, 1926, and 1945, and they pacified the city with martial law during most of the “peaceful” intervals. Constitutions were proclaimed periodically, only to be revoked, and independence was promised time after time until it was finally gained—not by the Syrians nor given by the French but bestowed on Syria by the British army.Because the French administration was under the control of the Vichy government and had abetted German activities, the British invaded in 1941 and overthrew Vichy France’s administration. However, they left behind the “Free French” who continued essentially the Vichy regime. The last French soldier did not leave until April 17, 1946, which became Syria’s national day.It is not unfair to characterize the impact of the 26 years of French rule thus: the “peace” the French achieved was little more than a sullen and frustrated quiescence; while they did not create dissension among the religious and ethnic communities, the French certainly magnified it and while they did not create hostility to foreigners, they gave the native population a target that fostered the growth of nationalism. These developments have lingered throughout the last 70 years and remain powerful forces today.The majority of those who became Syrians were Arabic-speaking Sunni Muslims. Since the road to worldly success was through the Arabic-speaking army or bureaucracy, Syrians, like the inhabitants of empires throughout Asia, found conversion to Islam and becoming Arabic-speaking—if they were not already members of this community—attractive.The earliest estimates we know suggest that between seven and eight in 10 Syrians saw themselves as Muslim Arab—and, under the growing influence of nationalism, saw being a Muslim Arab as the very definition of Syrian identity.What was unusual about Syria was that the other two or three in 10 Syrians did not feel the same way. As in Ottoman times, they continued to live in economically autarkic areas of the countryside and in quarters of most of the cities and towns of the country.Nationalists took this diversity as a primary cause of weakness and adopted as their primary task integrating the population into a single political and social structure.But the nationalists were deeply split. The major Islamic movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, argued and fought for the idea that the nation must be Arab Sunni (or “Orthodox”) Muslim. Minorities had no place except in the traditional and Ottoman sense of “protected minorities.” The more conservative, affluent, and Westernized nationalists believed that nationhood had to be built not on a religious but on a territorial base. That is, single-state nationalism (Arabic: wataniyah) was the focus of Syria’s statehood.Their program, however, did not lead to success; its failure opened the way for a redefinition of nationalism as pan-Arab or folk nationalism (Arabic: qawmiyah). As it was codified by the Baath Party, it required that Syria be considered not a separate nation-state but a part of the whole Arab world and be domestically organized as a unified, secular, and at least partly Westernized state. This was a particularly difficult task because the dominant Muslim community, initially as a result of French rule and later as a result of domestic turbulence and foreign interference, regarded the members of the minority communities, particularly the Jewish community, as actual or potential turncoats.Looming over Syrian politics and heightening the tensions among the contenders for dominance throughout the post-war period has been the modern, powerful, and American-supported state of Israel; regular wars between Syria and Israel began in 1948, almost before either state had achieved full independence, and were repeated in 1967 and 1973.Border clashes, informal fighting, and limited ceasefires were interspersed among these major confrontations. And since 1967, Israel has occupied the 1,200 square kilometers (460 square miles) of Syrian territory known as the Golan Heights. In 1981, Israel proclaimed that it had annexed the territory, a move not recognized by the U.S. or other states, and moved nearly 20,000 settlers there. Meanwhile, intermittent peace talks have been secretly held from time to time without result. A ceasefire, negotiated in 1974, has held, but today the two states are still legally at war.It was in answer to the perceived weakness of Syrian statehood and the disorder of Syrian political life that the first Assad regime was established in 1970 by Hafez al-Assad, the father of the current leader.The Assad family came from the Alawi (a.k.a. Nusairi) minority, which includes about one in eight Syrians and about a quarter of a million people in both Lebanon and Turkey. Like the Jews, the Alawis consider themselves the “chosen people,” but they are regarded by Orthodox Muslims as heretics.Under Ottoman pluralism, this mattered little, but as Syrians struggled for a sense of identity and came to suspect social difference and to fear the cooperation of minorities with foreigners, being an Alawi or a Christian or a Jew put people under a cloud.So, for Hafez al-Assad, the secular, nationalist Baath Party was a natural choice: it offered, or seemed to offer, the means to overcome his origins in a minority community and to point toward a solution to the disunity of Syrian politics. He therefore embraced it eagerly and eventually became its leader. Consequently, to understand Syrian affairs, we need to focus on the party.The “Resurrection” (Arabic: Baath) Party had its origins, like the nationalist-communist Vietnamese movement, in France. Two young Syrians, one a Christian and the other a Sunni Muslim, who were then studying in Paris were both attracted to the grandeur of France and appalled by the weakness of Syria. Like Ho Chi Minh, they wanted to both become like France and get the French out of their nation. Both believed that the future lay in unity and socialism.For Michel Aflaq and Salah Bitar, the forces to be defeated were “French oppression, Syrian backwardness, a political class unable to measure up to the challenge of the times,” according to the British journalist Patrick Seale’s account in The Struggle for Syria. Above all, disunity had to be overcome.Their answer was to try to bridge the gaps between rich and poor through a modified version of socialism, and between Muslims and minorities through a modified concept of Islam. Islam, in their view, needed to be considered politically not as a religion but as a manifestation of the Arab nation.Thus, the society they wished to create, they proclaimed, should be modern (with, among other things, equality for women), secular (with faith relegated to personal affairs), and defined by a culture of “Arabism” overriding the traditional concepts of ethnicity. In short, what they sought was the very antithesis of the objectives of the already-strong and growing Muslim Brotherhood.Like the Muslim Brotherhood, the Baath Party spread among young students.Western people was astonished at how vigorous the student political movements were and how seriously, even violently, the students played a national role. Hafez al-Assad was one of the first student recruits of what would become the Baath Party, and quickly became a local hero for his dedication to its cause. As Seale describes, “He became a party stalwart, defending its cause on the street … he was one of our commandos.” And he almost paid with his life for his bravery when a Muslim Brother stabbed him. So, pardon the pun, his antipathy to the Muslim Brotherhood began early and went deep.Like many young men of his generation, Hafez al-Assad first put his hopes in the military, which seemed, more than political parties, even the Baath, to embody the nation. He avidly studied his new profession and became a fighter pilot, but he quickly realized that the military was only a means of action and that what it did had to be guided by political ideas and organization. So, he used his military affiliation to energize his party role. This, inevitably, caught him up in the coups, counter-coups, and sundry conspiracies that engaged Syrian politicians and army officers during the 1950s and 1960s. Emerging from this labyrinth, he skillfully maneuvered himself into the leadership of his party and domination of the political and military structure of the country by 1971. And his assumption of the presidency was certified by a plebiscite in that year.His survival, much less his victory, was nearly a miracle, but he had not managed to solve the fundamental problem of Syrian ethnicity and particularly the role of Islam in society. Finally, the Islamic forces were ready to challenge the regime in a total war. An army unit sent to the Muslim Brotherhood's stronghold in the city of Hama was ambushed. The local Muslim guerrilla leader gave the signal for a general uprising. During the night, the city was involved in a vile insurrection "without prisoners". The regime was fighting for his life.This problem, which is so tragically and bitterly evident in Syria today, found an early expression in the writing of the new constitution in 1973. The previous constitutions, going back to French colonial times, had specified that a Muslim should hold the presidency. Despite his dedication to secular politics, Hafez al-Assad made two attempts to cater to Muslim opinion. In the first, he got the clause in the former constitutions conditioning the presidential office to a Muslim replaced by a redefinition of Islam of sorts. “Islam,” the new language stressed, “is a religion of love, progress and social justice, of equality for all…” Then, in the second move, he arranged for a respected Islamic jurisconsult (not from Syria but from Lebanon, and not a Sunni but a Shia) to issue a finding (Arabic: fatwa) that Alawis were really Shia Muslims rather than heretics. This was not merely an abstract bit of theology: as heretics, Alawis were outlaws who could be legally and meritoriously killed—as we have seen in recent events in Syria.The Muslim Brotherhood was furious. Riots broke out around the country, particularly in the city of Hama. For some years, Assad managed to contain the discontent—partly by granting subsidies on food and partly by curbing the already-hated political police—but the fundamental issue was not resolved. Muslim Brothers and other disaffected groups organized terrorist attacks on the government and on Assad’s inner circle, killing some of his close collaborators and exploding car bombs at installations, including even the office of the prime minister and the headquarters of the air force.Fear, loathing and a river of spilt blood ruled out any thought of truce … that explain[s] the terrible savagery of the punishment inflicted on the city. Behind the immediate contest lay the old multi-layered hostility between Islam and the Ba’th, between Sunni and ‘Alawi, between town and country…. Many civilians were slaughtered in the prolonged mopping up, whose districts razed, and numerous acts of savagery reported…. Government forces too suffered heavy losses to snipers and many armoured vehicles were hit by grenades in the rubble-strewn streets … between 5,000 and 10,000 [people died].Except for a narrow belt along the Mediterranean, the whole country is subject to extreme temperatures that cause frequent dust storms and periodic droughts. Four years of devastating drought from 2006 to 2011 turned Syria into a land like the American “dust bowl” of the 1930s.That drought was said to have been the worst ever recorded, but it was one in a long sequence: Just in the period from 2001 to 2010, Syria had 60 “significant” dust storms. The most important physical aspect of these storms, as was the experience in America in the 1930s, was the removal of the topsoil. Politically, they triggered the civil war.Before the heavy fighting began, Syrian oil fields produced about 330,000 barrels per day, but Syrians consumed all but about 70,000 of that amount.Sales supplied about 20 percent of GDP and a third of export earnings. Production subsequently fell by at least 50 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.Syria’s oil is of poor quality, sour, and expensive to refine. Industry, (mainly energy-related) employed about a third of the adult male population and provided a similar percentage of the national income.Before the war, moves were being made to transport oil and gas from farther east across Syria to the Mediterranean; obviously, these projects have been stopped. Now there is a sort of cottage industry in crude refining of petroleum products for local use and smuggling.The Bush administration signaled a new anti-Syrian policy in 2002 when the president included it in what he proclaimed to be the “Axis of Evil.”Covert activities were stepped up and, the following year, Bush threatened to impose sanctions (which he did impose two years later).In 2003, Israel used American aircraft in a strike on a Palestinian refugee camp just outside of Damascus.It was the first of a sequence of humiliating attacks that the Syrian armed forces were unable to prevent.The American Congress rubbed salt into that wound by passing the Syria Accountability Act, which charged the Syrians with supporting terrorism and occupying much of Lebanon as well as seeking chemical weapons.At the same time, diplomatic moves were made to reduce tensions. In 2006, relations were resumed between Syria and Iraq (by then under an American-imposed Shia government; the two countries remain cordial today).In 2007, senior EU and U.S. officials, in an informal version of recognition, visited Damascus, while Syria, seeking to end its split with conservative Arab governments, hosted an Arab League meeting.But the issue of weapons of mass destruction quickly soured these demarches, particularly when it came to relations between the U.S. and Syria.In a still-controversial charge that North Korea was building a nuclear weapons facility at a remote northern site, Israel again bombed Syria in 2007. But six months later, French President Nicolas Sarkozy invited al-Assad to Paris to work toward re-establishing diplomatic relations.Tensions were then once more eased with high-level visits and, in 2010, the U.S. sent an ambassador to Syria. Three months later, however, Washington imposed new sanctions on the country.The sanctions aimed to diminish government revenues, particularly from oil exports, and to increase public opposition to the regime. The Syrian regime had not changed, but there seemed to be no clear or consistent policy by the U.S. or the EU toward it.Years of devastating drought beginning in 2006 caused at least 800,000 farmers to lose their entire livelihood and about 200,000 simply abandoned their lands, according to the Center for Climate & Security. In some areas, all agriculture ceased. In others, crop failures reached 75 percent.And generally as much as 85 percent of livestock died of thirst or hunger. Hundreds of thousands of Syria’s farmers gave up, abandoned their farms, and fled to the cities and towns in search of almost non-existent jobs and severely short food supplies. Outside observers including UN experts estimated that between 2 and 3 million of Syria’s 10 million rural inhabitants were reduced to “extreme poverty.”Aside from “conspiracy theory,” some observers believe that the radical groups, mainly Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State of Iraq, have been equally beneficial to Assad's regime as they have been equally harmful to the moderate FSA and the alluring image of the Syrian revolution.For many, Assad, who helped al-Qaeda affiliates gain access to Iraq during the 2003 U.S. invasion, is now using them in Syria to strengthen his military and political position in the ongoing war.Such rationale seems very plausible, taking into consideration the prevalence of the radical groups in the war in Syria and how their presence there has helped in distorting the image of the Syrian revolution and consequently making the West reluctant to provide the FSA with lethal weapons.In his recent televised speech, President Assad said the crisis in his country could only be solved by striking terror with an “iron fist.”“No solution can be reached with terror except by striking it with an iron fist,” Assad said, adding, “I don’t think that any sane human being would think that terrorism can be dealt with via politics.”A political solution for the Syrian unrest is not a choice for al-Assad, or a preferable choice, as violence would be more rewarding for the embattled president, at least to remain in power till the end of his term.Assad knows that transforming the ongoing war in Syria into a fight against terrorism would ensure him more international appeal support from Syrians already anxious over the presence of radical groups in their country.So Assad has declared a war against terrorism. In other words, he is building a cause for himself and his regime.Syria turning into a failed state is actually in the interest of Assad and that is why he is working on prolonging the war to achieve his unannounced “plan B” of an Alawite state in the port city of Latakia.