Choices

You have two choices. Would you rather live in a Christian nation or a free country?

In a free country, you are free to be Christian, but in a Christian nation, only Christians are free. Let me rephrase — In a free country, everyone is free to be Christian or not, but in a Christian nation, only White, Protestant, cis, straight, affluent, men are free. Everyone else lives as beholden to that minority.

So let us rewind, for a moment, and talk about how we have always lived in a Christian nation, despite the founders supposed belief in freedom. White Protestant dudes have been running the show and oppressing everyone else, since they landed here, while they claim to be persecuted in America. The claims of persecution are merely a way in which to maintain their power over everyone else.

Whenever a man from this group is sad, we rush to make sure he feels okay. A good example of this was the #metoo movement and the backlash that followed. It mattered, for a moment, that women were calling out powerful men, but eventually the callouts turned back on the women. How dare they call out men. How dare they try to be equal. How dare they tell their stories of horror and make men uncomfortable.

When women stand up for themselves and call out men, a rush to check on the men is inevitable. Think pieces flow like rivers assessing the state of men in the workplace or men after harassment laws or the future of men. After all, checking in on the oppressors is SUPER important to maintain the order and we have been brainwashed to believe that even when they are fully and completely responsible for terror (slave masters, rapists, lynch mobs, supreme court justices, affluent movie execs with unlimited power) we still need to make sure that they are okay. We need to check in and check up on them. We need to coddle them. We need to feed their egos and let them know that we don’t believe ‘all men’ are bad. We need to make sure they are not feeling oppressed or persecuted. This is the beauty of minority rule. The White, Protestant, cis, straight, affluent, dudes have duped us all into believing that they should be prioritized. Even when they do the most heinous things. In the end, we all suffer in order to maintain the continuity of the freedom myth.

So, then, what can we do? How can we ensure the freedom of all moving forward? How can we turn the tide so that people will stop voting against their best interests? How can we make sure that everyone has an equal chance to succeed and that everyone is setup for success, regardless of their identity?

Step one is to stop believing the persecution myth of the White, Protestant, straight, cis, affluent, male minority. In a free country, individuals are able to practice their religion or not practice religion at all, without fear. In a free country, White supremacy is not a driving force and class solidarity can make change. In a free country, we can live our lives without fear of oppression from Christians who believe they are on a mission from g-d. In a free country, we each have autonomy and we can make decisions about our bodies without the opinions of religion destroying that freedom. In a free country, BIPOC people can live without daily fear of violence, terror, and potential death.

America should be a free country. Not a Christian nation. Christians are welcome to practice freely, in their churches, without persecution, but so are Muslims and Jews and Hindus and Atheists and all other forms of spiritual practice or abstention from those practices. All religions are welcome and no one practice takes precedence over any other. This is true freedom.

But when have we actually been free? From the moment the pilgrims landed here and began annexing land by slaughtering aboriginal people, this land was not free. From the moment the ships started arriving with enslaved people to work the land and be treated as less than human, this land was not free. From the creation of a document that was supposed to give equality and justice for all and left out people of color and women, this land was not free. Even in the midst of eight years with a Black President, this land was not free. As long as this land is run by the minority, who seek to deny rights to everyone else in favor of their own freedom and supremacy, this land will not be free.

We can only make this land free by voting and marching and demanding that we are all equal. That the majority of us want to see a future that is better for everyone, not the small few who hold power. I mean, that future will also benefit the minority, but not at the expense of the rest of us.

We cannot be free as long as we have an autocrat in office.

If you sit out the election or you vote for Trump, you are allowing the persistence of a Christian nation where the smallest minority of people will ever be truly free. And, most likely, you are not one of those people. So why would you vote against your own interests?

Don’t believe the lies and fake promises of a wannabe dictator. Vote for Biden/Harris. Vote for Democrats down the ballot. Vote to save our lives because another four years of Trump in the White House is not just an inconvenience. It is a nightmare. It will be the end of democracy as we know it. And not for the better. We do need to upend the system in real ways, but not through a dictatorship. We need to make the promise of the people real. That we control our futures. That this land truly is OUR land. And that with our votes, our voices, and our dollars, we can make it equal and just for all.

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