Valuing Women First, Reducing Abortion Second

Watching all the coverage of the anti-abortion protesters gathering at Notre Dame before the President's commencement address I can feel the anger in me rising.

It is not that I am pro-abortion, or disagree with the freedom of speech and the right to protest, and yet I can feel myself getting a little crazy!

Abortion is undoubtedly a very emotional issue, and I suspect this is because we wrap a number of other issues and deep seeded feelings up in this debate.  Investigating my opinions on abortion reveals less interest in the medical procedure of abortion, and more interest in the issues it symbolizes. It seems much hurt and devaluing of women has come from both my religion and my country.  

Men beware, it might just be easier to agree to give women a choice, rather than open the space for this much larger debate...

Has Christianity Left Women Behind?

Watching the protesters at Notre Dame placing the signs on their graduation cap of a cross with two baby feet on either side, enraged me.  This symbol reminded me of the way I have felt disenfranchised from traditional Christianity. 

Apparently God is male, first fail for women.  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit... I count three whole parts there, couldn't we have gotten even 33% representation in the trinity? It sure makes it harder to be God-like when you are born the wrong gender to begin with. The one main female role model in the church is both a virgin and a mother (a very hard standard for most modern women to live up to). And let us not forget in Catholicism as well as some conservative protestant traditions women just aren't equipped (read smart enough) to teach men.

And it is not only what we aren't.  It is the incredibly small box of expectation of what we are. In many traditional Christian settings women are seen to be primarily baby factories. Somehow the issue of abortion seems to imply that the Church doesn't trust women's ability to choose whether they want to fulfill that role, as if that decision was pre-determined for us when our eggs were formed.

A Country Where All Men are Created Equal

I appreciate that abortion is legal in this country, but the way this debate is often framed rips away at the equality women feel.

Women are so often portrayed as the monsters in the abortion debate when so many factors lead to the situation of an unwanted pregnancy with at least one factor that is always present, a man!

Another factor rarely discussed is the lack of health insurance for women. Did you know that less than half of American women can get health insurance through work?  Keeping that in mind did you know that a 22 year old woman can be charged 1 1/2 times the premium of a 22 year old man in the individual insurance market. Yes, that is because it is expensive for the insurance company if that woman gets pregnant.

So until America decides to value the health of a woman and offer fair and equal health care for all women, I have very little patience for your debate as to whether women should have a choice to have an abortion or not. Without first the basic respect for a woman's health, this issue can quickly make women feel like property rather than people.

Working for Solutions

Let me be clear, I am not saying that pro-lifers hold these views that I have articulated anger me so. I am trying to convey why this issue is such a hot button issue for me.  I believe there is much that needs to be done to bring feminism to Christianity and equality to America.  I would love to spend more energy on these issues, less on fighting about the fetus, and together from a place of high value and regard for women I believe we could work very effectively to decrease unwanted pregnancies.   

What Do I Think About Rick Warren?

Ok, so I am frequently being asking what my opinion is on the Rick Warren selection for the invocation at the inauguration, and it is time to get this out once and for all.  

I am mad as hell that Rick Warren was selected to give the invocation.  I am mad that on the biggest human rights issue of our day, the candidate I worked endlessly for has decided to literally begin his presidency by giving the stage to someone who worked so hard to take the rights away of so many California citizens.  Take rights away, I can't believe I am even typing those horrible words.  If I hear one more person tell me it was a smart political move for Obama, I just might throw up.  I didn't work this hard for this kind of "smart political moves."

As a Democrat, as an Obama volunteer and supporter, and as a person who deeply loves gay and lesbian family members and friends I am nothing short of furious!

But I do not wish to write today from any of those perspectives (though it would be easy to do...)

Today, I wish to write to you as an OUTRAGED Christian!  I just can't take it anymore!  ENOUGH!  Seriously, dammit ENOUGH!  

How, I ask you, how can the millions of American Christians, sit back and continue to allow their faith to be tarnished and marked by injustice and prejudice.  What world are they living in?  What faith are they following that makes this behavior acceptable?  

How is Christianity any place other than the leading edge of the fight for equality?  How is Christianity any place other than the leading edge of inclusion and acceptance and wholeness! How can Christianity and its followers possibly be responsible for discrimination against a minority group of Americans?

So in all my fury and outrage, here I sit.  Yet, again questioning if remaining in the Christian movement is something I have the courage to do.  I sit deeply ashamed of mainstream Christianity in this country today.  I sit wishing Rick Warren wasn't the face of Christianity to millions of people.  I sit ready to act and fight and work to end this last form of  socially acceptable, truly rotten discrimination.  

And I simply sit.

As a child it was almost more than I could bare to come to grips with the reality that  I was white while learning of the pain and suffering "my people" had caused African-Americans.  

And yet, like it or not, it is a part of me.  But I hope dealing with the pain of that reality took me to a place of greater awareness.

So much of my time in the Christian movement is time spent with those just like me. The Progressive Christians that aren't interested in dogma or particular beliefs.  They don't take the Bible literally, but look to it as one of many sources of poetry and metaphoric wisdom.  These Progressive Christians care about the earth, work for equality for all people, love to use their mind and intellect to question and wonder, are followers of Darwin, champions for the poor and are inspired social activists. 

All Christianity is not equal.  But all Christianity is part of the human experience of trying to understand life.  And a part of understanding life is wrestling with prejudice, and injustice, and at times even hatred.

So for today, I will sit with the utter agony of holding both the peace and the pain that my religious tradition has caused so many (this is where that courage comes in).  And if I am able to survive that just maybe that will lead me to sit more generally with the peace and the pain, that I personally have caused the world.  And if I keep sitting, maybe one day, down the road, I will see that my peace and my pain, my joy and my sorrow are one.

And for now... I will promise to try contain myself while at the inauguration and will try my best not to throw my shoe at Rick Warren.