Love is love

At the beginning of my sophomore in high school, our history teacher told us that we would be learning how to debate.

Sounded great to me -- I mean, I had been arguing with my dad about politics (and with my sisters about literally everything) for as long as I could remember, so it seemed like a perfect fit.

Once we had assembled our teams, the teacher gave us a choice of topics to debate. Everything from increasing the speed limit on Rte. 80 to smoking cigarettes on school property to abortion...

My team of all girls chose abortion. We all agreed that being in favor of a woman’s right to choose would be a debate we could win. It was common sense after all, right? A no brainer.

How could anyone argue that a woman did not have the right to decide what she could do with her own body?!

I went home and talked with my step-mother who told me a story I would never forget. Her best friend Alice had died at the age of 16. Desperate and terrified, she had attempted to give herself an abortion. With a coat hanger. And she bled to death.

In my research I found countless more stories like Alice’s. Unfortunately, the horrible choice Alice faced was the same one millions of women and girls faced before Roe. I couldn’t fathom a world where that would be a reality again.

Using coat hangers to terminate an unwanted pregnancy because there were no other options available? What kind of civilized country forces that choice upon it’s people?

I hadn’t grown up in that world. It was 1990 and if I had needed to terminate a pregnancy, I had safe medical options.

So, I couldn’t fathom it. I didn’t HAVE to fathom it.

Until Dobbs that is...

On May 2, 2022 when Politico published a leaked draft of the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which showed the Supreme Court’s intent to overturn the right to abortion as decided in Roe v. Wade.

Their INTENT to overturn Roe v. Wade.

It hit like a sledgehammer and a gut punch all at once. My mind immediately went back to the story of Alice. We COULD NOT go back to that. It was unfathomable. It was our right. One I had known for my entire life, and yet - the Supreme Court, one with THREE Justices who’d been appointed by a serial sexually assaulting seditious MADMAN, was going to strip me and every American woman of a right we had known for FIFTY YEARS?!?

How could this happen?

But it did.

But as bad as that was — it was what they said in their ruling, in particular what Clarence Thomas said, which scared me even more.

He forewarned that the overturning of Roe v. Wade would be but the first of such rulings, and that key Supreme Court decisions based on the privacy doctrine introduced by Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) would now be vulnerable to repeal: those rulings guaranteed gay marriage and the rights of access to contraception among other things. He said the court “should reconsider" the Obergefell decision.

(*On June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that the 14th Amendment requires all U.S. states to recognize same-sex marriages.)

They were coming for gay marriage.

In the year 2022 — the United States Supreme Court was signaling that it was coming for gay marriage next.

5 unelected Justices who have been appointed to lifetime seats and have very little, if any oversight of any kind, had stripped away a woman’s right to bodily autonomy, a RIGHT women had enjoyed for FIFTY years, and they were going to strip gay couples of their right to marry next.

Anyone who thought for a moment that this far right leaning, Christo-fascist court WOULD not make good on their promise to end gay marriage would have been naive.

That is why it had to be protected. Before the Court could undo it.

And that is why the passage of the Respect for Marriage Act matters so much. In a world where it seems that intolerance is on the rise, where FUNDAMENTAL rights can be stripped away with the stroke of a pen, the right to marry who you love needed to be protected at all costs before it was too late.

It really is shocking that in 2022, it often feels like we’re being pulled backwards, but here we are. The right doesn’t like the direction this country is headed in. They don’t like for anyone to challenge their notions of how things work. They don’t want to yield any of the power they claim is “god given” to them.

They don’t like anyone to challenge their belief that in order to be truly “American” you need to fit into neat little stereotypical boxes.

Christian.

White.

Man.

In particular.

They KNOW the face of the country is changing. That’s what happens as societies evolve.

They know that this means extinction for them, because they REFUSE to abandon their position that their whiteness alone gives them a birthright to having power. That their Christian faith puts them in some position a superiority. They can’t let go of those ideas. So they have to try to trample on anything “other”. They have to throttle the threats they see coming from those who don’t love like they do, or worship like they do or look like they do.

And they’re doing everything they can to stop what’s coming. Everything they can to maintain power and control.

Forcing women and girls to carry unwanted pregnancies to term is one way.

Stopping gay marriage is another.

And along came the Respect for Marriage Act.

The monumental step over the finish line after decades of activism. After every step forward for gay rights and for the rights of interracial couples to marry, and to have those marriages RECOGNIZED by ALL the states, the Biden administration and the Democrats in Congress (along with 12 Senate Republicans) knew they had to make this happen now. Before SCOTUS could strip those rights away.

We all know that DC is more divisive than ever now. That getting ANYTHING done with bipartisan support is a Herculean task to say the least. But they got this done. This one goes into the W column. It’s a win for gay couples and interracial couples, it’s a win for their kids, it’s a win for America, for our future, and it’s a win for love.

Love is love.

And it it the antidote to hate.

With racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia and antisemitism on the rise — the answer is love.

I got to witness the signing of the Respect for Marriage Act, and it made me extremely emotional to behold.

But as the days have passed since, my memory of that moment has opened up and blossomed like a flower.

Because as I reflect - while I knew in that moment that I was witnessing something truly historic, I know that I was also witnessing something extremely hopeful.

Something which represented the promise of America. Something as simple and profound as acknowledging that people should be able to love and marry who they choose without the government getting in the way.

Something so fundamental that it shouldn’t need protecting. But the truth is that it does.

And one of my biggest takeaways from this historic moment is that as hopeless and dark as this world often seems, that we can still find a way to find the light. To embrace the light. To cherish and protect it. And to pass it on to future generations, so that they may do the same.

This was a start.

We have much work to do.

We have many more fundamental rights to protect.

The fight is ongoing.

But at the end of the day — Love is love.

And love has prevailed on this one.

But we can’t let our guard down for a moment.

We can’t take anything for granted.

Ever.

There is far too much at stake for that.

Thank you for reading.

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