We here in the USA are a nation of immigrants, and regional migration is still a major theme here, because what are regions in this nation can sometimes seem like "a whole other country" (to quote a Texas travel advertisement I once saw). Try moving from North Carolina to Hawai’i and not having culture shock. Try moving from Georgia to Maine (or the reverse!) and not having some fun learning the local dialect. When I travel within the USA, I treasure that feeling of having Gotten Away, sometimes to the point that I don’t want to go home (I remember being particularly displeased to leave Alaska, oddly). It’s part of what’s neat about the privilege of having been born in such a huge country and having the means to travel.
Settlers and immigrants form a great part of the pageantry and drama of the history of the United States, and, of many nations in the western hemisphere (for better and for worse). I’ve found their stories interesting at worst, inspiring at best, and always wondered at what drove people to leave everything they knew behind to risk it all on some new frontier. I know the motivation is slightly different for each person, but at least in one sense, I’m beginning to get a whiff of what it must feel like.
I’m coming to understand, to some extent, what it must have felt like for people who just felt like they had to leave. I’m beginning to get a feeling for what it’s like not to feel safe anymore. I’m beginning to understand what it’s like to consider starting a family – and realize that where you are holds you back from doing so more than anything else, because you just don’t feel like you can adequately provide for your family’s security and welfare.
The past few days have been another little shove in that direction for my husband and me. We learned of the assassination of Dr. Tiller, and that came as a nasty, unsettling shock. We talked shortly thereafter about what that means for our safety. As you might understand, when religious extremists begin killing, we consider ourselves not too far from the top of their lists. They come for our civil rights first – Proposition 8 is the largest example, but a coalition of christian churches has made "a declaration of war" (their words, not mine) on our civil rights in the District of Columbia, and the Catholic church is leading the assault on us in Maine. If and when such measures make the ballot, we then endure well-funded, widely-publicized hate campaigns which vilify us and push people to question our value as human beings. They label us predators. They call us pedophiles. They compare our loving relationships to incest, and call it tantamount to bestiality.
My husband and I both chose the safest possible location we could in Texas, but that’s only so safe. This is where we met one another and first made a home, but it’s not a safe place for us to start a family. I know it’s easy for some of you to say "those people aren’t real christians," and to make the distinction in your minds and call it good. Forgive those of us for whom it is harder because we have long been surrounded. Proposition 8 won 52% to 48% in California; Proposition 2 passed 76% to 24% here. We live in the only county in the state that didn’t vote for it, and that hasn’t guaranteed us safety from harassment, threats, or discrimination. We are saddened that walking our very mixed neighborhood holding hands, we sometimes wonder when a vehicle slows down passing us what’s going to happen next. I know it seems wrong, but often, when we see someone wearing something with a lot of christian insignia, for example, we take avoidance measures – walk the other way in a crowd, go find someplace else to be in the store, et cetera. We know and have met "true christians" and good people of all faiths and of no religion. We are just very, very tired of the looks and the comments, or even just the fear of them. It’s like flinching everytime you near someone who has hit you repeatedly – or even someone who looks like them. I feel badly about it sometimes – other times I remind myself it’s just a self-protective measure. My husband doesn’t feel badly about it at all...his life has been a story of someone abused by people of faith who devalue him (and us), and I don’t try to deny him his feelings or ask him for generosity that was beaten out of him long ago. I just do what I can to love, protect, and honor him.
Our experiences leave us not knowing what to expect next. It’s a very insecure place to be.
There are places in this country where one might think she could expect to feel safer, but with the wingnuts in full bay, it sometimes feels very difficult to know where to turn. Even in a place which one would think of as being as liberal as New York City managed to elect a state senator (a Democrat, no less) who leads thousands-strong rallies to attack us, and people have still been killed just for looking gay. And when the religious right wages their hate campaigns against us, those attacks go up in frequency. You have to give them some perverse credit – they are taking the fight to our doorsteps in a very real way.
People tell my husband and me to be patient, "equality is coming", just wait, the next generation really thinks we’re people, we’ll get there. This treatment has continued our entire lives; these hate campaigns have been a fact of our nation’s political life for more than a decade now. How much longer are we supposed to wait patiently? It gets so that now, when we talk about the next referendum fight, when we talk about where it might be they’ll come after us next, my calm, reasonable, rational husband shakes and tears up. Petition drives make us want to just withdraw and hide. Granted, it’s not as personal as the Proposition 8 fight – it’s not our marriage on the line this time. This time. Where are we safe? We work hard to secure our lives and our future, and there comes a point in time when the need for security finally outpaces patience for legal and political quicksand. We are not getting any younger, and small children require a lot of time and energy. We would like the option to make a safe nest for a little family where we know our children will not be likely to see us treated badly, and where they will not be as likely to face abuse because Daddy and Papa are in love.
And that feeling – that desperation for a solid footing, for the knowledge that they can’t take anything from us, including our future children, who could become suddenly not our children upon simply crossing a state line; the knowledge that, though there will always be haters, there is not a large silent assent to the treatment we endure – THAT is what that makes me feel as though I have begun to understand why settlers left everything behind to start someplace anew with the promise of a place to build a better life. The wonder at the first settlers’ willingness to cross an ocean or continent is not so abstract to me now.