Abject Consequence

I did a bad thing when I was a boy. I did a lot of bad things when I was a boy. I remember being so caught up in my behavior and worried what would happen to me if/when I got caught. I felt shame for many years for natural impulses and childhood curiosities. I thought I'd go blind. I had a fire burning in my chest filled with white hot fear that I was sure would consume me in a lake of eternal suffering. I did so much to protect every part of my identity so that I could survive childhood and adolescence. I did it for me and rarely worried that I'd pay a price for living. Regardless of what I was told.

Piety and righteousness are the building blocks of our society. Don't believe me, go out and walk the blocks around your neighborhood. You'll see well manicured lawns, HOA enforced curb appeal, ticky-tacky little boxes of sunshine and arrogance. Along those shimmering streets you'll see churches and mosques and temples, and roadside denominations or revivalist and non-traditional evangelicals preying for your soul. And we abide or have provided space for those who would see us tortured for our sins in return for safe spaces and great market returns on our homes and neighborhoods. We save face and present our fraud as a kind of offering that we are doing right by one another when in reality we are choking on the bile that comes from judgement and persecution.

I used to believe that I would die from having sex. Specifically gay sex. Despite having learned about sexually transmitted diseases and safe sex, I have always been fearful that one day I'd make a mistake. One day, I'd become a statistic. I'd spend the rest of my days withering away to nothing, regretful for making poor life choices. Destined for a pine box and to never be included in the footnotes of my family's history.

I was afraid to live, because I was told that there would be consequences for my actions. And it wasn't only perfect strangers who echoed this warning. Family members, schoolmates, scorned ex-lovers.... they all warned me to expect a reckoning. No matter how hard I tried, I believed that I deserved to die. No matter what voice I listened to, I was convinced that I deserved nothing more. 

I felt this way in part, due to many conflicts of my convictions. When folks said that I deserved to burn in hell for being gay. I believed them. When a loved one told me I would get AIDS from having gay sex. I believed them. When society tells gay people and women that disease and pregnancy are a direct consequence of having sex... We believe them, because we have no other safety net to fall into to when we're falling. We're given two options, be fearful of a god and confirm to his will, or suffer the consequences. 

Pious and self righteous people love to say things like "you'll suffer the consequences, mark my words!" And they'll say it with such conviction that you'll believe it for a lifetime.

Until you wake up.

One day you realize that all that talking that folks ever did was nothing more than hot air. And you start to live your life. You start paying bills and moving from place to place, setting your sites on new adventures and meeting new people. You experience true love and dabble in carnal lust a few times in order to really feel what it feels like to be alive. Someday you'll get married, or meet someone who makes you feel good, even without having to extend a sexual olive branch. And you'll realize that there are so many other consequences that matter more than the one they all focused on and damned you to atone for. 

Or they'll make laws to be sure you do as you're told. If they can't persuade you to see the evil in your ways, then they'll force your hand. Because forced compliance and strong armed enforcement is much better to show a sinner the error of their ways. 

A sinner must pay.

A sinner must be broken.

A sinner will only be welcomed into the kingdom of heaven only after they have been beaten down and shown the mercy of his love from the followers of His word.

From the righteous, we enter Gilead.

For the pious, we offer up Texas.

And for the rest of us, we're left wondering just how much autonomy we will have when the American Taliban comes for our rights with that religious beliefs made into laws. It's insufferable. It's calculating. And it's unfair. 

Women shouldn't have to bear the burden or undue hardship of pregnancy because some folks believe that a fetus is a baby. Folks who believe that women are objects of breeding rather than capable human beings. 

As a man, I have never believed that I had/have a right to dictate what a woman should out shouldn't do with her own body. That's not my place and it has never been my place. And as a man, who believes in a woman's right to choose, I've never made an argument in favor of abortion. Because I believe it has always been a decision for a woman to make, on her own, with a doctor, or with religious counsel. A woman should always have her own autonomy.

But you'll hear those noises comimg from people who scream that a woman's right to choose is just another siren song for women who want to murder their unborn babies. And there'll be protests and blockades by men in hats and women hurling shame towards other women who choose to terminate a pregnancy. 

They'll sing in unison "if you didn't want a baby, then you shouldn't have had sex!" Because childbirth and sickness, and death have always been the payment for consequences. 

Looking back on how much time I've spent worrying about the consequences of my actions, I've sometimes wondered "have I mirrored these same fallacies onto the righteous and indignant?" Will they know the same suffering for the same behaviors that they go through? When I woke up and saw that people were suffering simply because they were branded with sin and guilt, then I started to understand what it meant to be compassionate. 

I learned that I could forgive myself, even if no one else would. I learned how to be a voice for others when they couldn't find a voice of their own. 

And I discovered that we as a people are not as far along as I once imagined us to be and we have a lot more to fight for in this world. 

If we're going to survive.

If we're going to evolve.

We're always going to have to fight.