i'm afraid

I’m afraid and I don’t know what to do about it.  I’ve thought maybe I should be more intentional about my interactions with the world—change my facebook habits, specifically.  I’ve also thought I should just go ahead and earnestly implement the two to five year plan to leave Texas and try to go to a friendlier community.  But those responses have many drawbacks, including leaving me feeling like a chickenshit deserter of things and people that are important to me.  I know facebook is not a diary.  And I know that you are not all “friends” with me on facebook because you want to be party to my inner monologue.  For those of you who aren’t interested, please feel free to move on through your newsfeed at this point.  For those of you who continue to read, I would guess that you are most likely the people to whom I am writing anyway.  If some of this sprinkles on someone else, I’m okay with that too. 

I told my brother Brian this weekend that I have some fear.  I told my Dad months ago that I was having fear.  Fear of the cultural war that comes about as a result of the backlash to the Supreme Court ruling on Friday.  I told Melissa on Friday that we should celebrate with abandon because I was sure that things would get ugly soon enough.  Shortly after I said that, Melissa told me that we drove past a church billboard that said, “The Supreme Court is not God.  Pray for the United States of America.” I didn’t see the billboard because apparently I was celebrating with abandon by averting my eyes from all things offensive or scary.  And the cool thing is, I have managed to continue to do it for the most part.  I have been very effective in weeding out contacts from my facebook newsfeed who say mean and hateful things (thanks to Chik-fil-a and getting married in Minnesota in 2013 and Ferguson, Missouri) so I haven’t witnessed the hate and violence that is coming from people who are upset about the Supreme Court ruling on Friday or from people who have inexplicably been upset about the removal of the Confederate flag from various places around the South.  And I strictly refuse to get news from anywhere other than NPR so I don’t ever hear anything ridiculous from other “news” outlets. 

And yet, despite my very intentional cocoon of (irresponsible?) blindness, I am still afraid.  I am afraid that mean-spirited picketers will picket my church, a sacred space for me, in Fort Worth.  I am afraid that some wicked group will decide to start taking a stand against ministers and justices of the peace and county clerks who are conducting same sex weddings and they will start picketing their homes or bombing those churches, or county offices.  I feel simulatenously silly even writing it.  But then my imagination runs wild and I think of how perhaps people who were at Stonewall that evening didn’t anticipate that they were going to be in a riot by the end of the night.  This stuff bubbles up sometimes when no one expects it. 

My brother says he’s sad that I live with that kind of fear.  He doesn’t have that fear for me or my father or my church.  He says the people who are upset about gay marriage aren’t the type of people who are going to show up on Sunday morning with picket signs, much less the type to make bombs.  But I don’t know.  I worked at Planned Parenthood for several years and I’ve seen lots of committed people show up everyday of the year to picket against abortions.  And they surely bombed those clinics.  Is it a lot different?  I don’t know. 

Yesterday I called to make a dentist appointment for Norah.  And the lady said, “Is she on your husband’s insurance?” And I ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS say, “No, I don’t have a husband, I have a wife.” But yesterday, I said, “No she’s on mine.”

What a chickenshit thing to say. 

Because yesterday I knew that a lot of people in the world were struggling with women having wives and men having husbands and I didn’t want to shove it in her face.  But did I pull a Peter in the garden kind of thing?  And deny the woman who I am committed to, who cares for me when I am sick and lonely, who’s raising my daughter to be an amazing funny and creative person?  Maybe not specifically.  But it was a denial for me.  And I am ashamed. 

And typing something on facebook isn’t going to change that denial.  Just like even though Peter started a giant church that is still here 2015 years later, we’re still telling that story of how he denied Jesus three times before the cock crowed.  Can’t a brother catch a break? 

No. I am afraid.  Afraid that the dentist will be mean to Norah if he or she learns that Norah’s moms are married.  Afraid that my church isn’t safe from hate.  Afraid that my dad and all of my lovely friends who are ready to do weddings with same sex couples will be harassed or harmed in some way.

I had friends yesterday who came to me and said they had rough weekends.  Because they were fighting all weekend with family members and friends and church members about their support of the marriage of same sex couples, their support of their friends, their support of my family.  And I felt bad for them because I was busy basking in the rainbow glow of my facebook and my loving and accepting family. 

I don’t think that changing my facebook habits is going to change the hatred that is out there, that may visit my church or my family.  I don’t think that moving to a friendlier locale will change that either.  Harvey Milk said you gotta give ‘em hope, but he did say that from San Francisco.  And then he died because he was working with someone who was harboring that hate. 

I’m scared.  I’m so grateful for all of you who are brave enough to stand up for me and my family and all of the others of us who are living our truth in this world.  And I apologize for being a chicken shit.  Hopefully I’ll be stronger today.