During Easter weekend I was in line at a Walgreens pharmacy with my niece waiting to get my mother’s prescription. There was one man ahead of us, who turned to us to chat.
“Happy Easter,” he said pleasantly.
I smiled and said it back.
“It’s too bad people don’t know the real meaning of Easter anymore,” he said.
Now the hair on my neck is standing up.
“Oh, I think lots of people do,” I said, still smiling, only now with a barely contained edge.
“Well, I wish the ones in our government did,” he responded.
I refrained from rolling my eyes. Not sure how I might have answered if my niece wasn’t standing next to me.
But allow me to tell you what was going through my mind as I stood there in the middle of one of the Trumpiest counties in New Jersey: Oh my god, do you honestly think the President of the United States, a practicing Catholic, doesn’t know the true meaning of Easter? Seriously? What is with you people and your grievance politics? Why do you so frequently feel the need to bond on what you perceive is wrong with this country? Never mind the biggest question of them all – why in holy hell do you assume everyone wants to live by your Christian beliefs?
And that of course brings us to women’s healthcare choices and the absolute arrogance of so many Christians in this country.
Instead of the extremes commonly used in this conversation, rape and incest, I’m going to stick to talking about more everyday situations that would put a woman in a place of making a decision about bringing a pregnancy to term. She’s sexually active, either in a loving relationship or not, perhaps enjoying the sport and release of casual sex. She could be young and not in a financial position to become a parent. Maybe she knows she’s not cut out for parenthood, but prefers not to become a nun.
Regardless of which is true, it’s none of our business. Not mine. Not yours. If you read that paragraph and felt your judgmental hackles go up at the thought of the scenarios presented, then thank you for confirming this isn’t about saving “babies” but curtailing behavior you don’t like.
It’s your right not to like it. Or do it. You can think your neighbor or co-worker is a slut for having a lot of sex. Whatever. But it is not your right to impose your Bible thumping on her.
The laws in this country are not supposed to be about your god. We ostensibly have freedom of religion. That means, keep your grubby hands off my reproductive decisions. I am hard-pressed to get over the arrogance it takes to insert yourself into something so intensely personal. Where does this entitlement come from?
Please tell me, which one of your rights is being invaded if a woman you don’t know terminates a pregnancy?
All we hear from you folks — whether you’re justifying an insurrection that injured and killed people, or whether you’re driving trucks in caravans, or showing up with obnoxious gear at Trump rallies — is how badly you want your “freedom.”
Again, which one of your rights is being invaded? I really want to know.
Your big manly guns aren’t in jeopardy; they’re multiplying like rabbits. If you’re straight (or deluding yourself that you are), you can get married. If you’re white, no one is working to constrict your voting rights or strike your side of the nation’s history from the textbooks. Your religion is practiced widely around the country in a variety of iterations in churches galore. For god’s sake, I saw a church in a strip mall in Maryland recently.
What the heck are you bitching about? Pronouns?
In its current form, the Republican party has unabashedly shown its proclivity for discriminating and taking away rights from anyone not white, male and straight. For decades the conservative news media has been escalating the “illegals storming the border and taking away your rights” narrative, but not until the advent of Trump did it pivot to the incredulous “COVID isn’t as bad as you think” and “despite not a shred of evidence the 2020 election was stolen.” These geniuses seemed to have just figured out that our trans citizens have been using public restrooms (nooooooo!!).
We are under minority rule thanks in part to the electoral college and a disgrace of a party that thinks it has a mandate when it’s won the popular vote exactly once in two decades. The majority of Americans are in favor of giving women a choice about every aspect of their reproductive lives. That’s a fact (Republicans unsure of what that word means might benefit from looking it up).
By the way, most of you are not pro-life. Spare us. Even your god is shaking his head over that wildly inaccurate tag. The former President is on record wondering why protesters outside the White House after George Floyd’s murder couldn’t be shot in the leg to slow them down. How life affirming.
A great man. I’m sure he was overwhelmed with grace on Easter Sunday, overjoyed at his Savior rising from the dead while reading his upside-down Bible.
I can guarantee you he’s laughing this week, not because he gives a damn about fetuses or any life but his own, but because he changed his abortion stance to be politically expedient and he feels his own power in this compromised Supreme Court.
Ah, if only we could all be so moral and chaste in the United States of America. What in the world would the elderly guy in Walgreens have to complain about then?
