Why, Mississippi?

I write this as I struggle with so many questions this week about my home state of Mississippi. So many devastating articles have flashed before me just this week. I’ve written blog posts professing my love for the people of this state and who it shaped me to be in my childhood and early adulthood. I have slapped magnolias everywhere and have sipped my sweet tea with the fondest of memories of childhood. I have rallied those bulldogs with a cowbell.  When people ask where I'm from, I answer with pride. I’ve defended this state and have gone to bat for her against those stereotype-wielding critics. I’ve returned stereotypes and hateful history with current progress, my own success stories, and stories of the good people I’ve known. Lately, I’ve grown weary as I struggle to defend my beloved state and her proposed laws that I believe restrict others. I’m tired, but it’s so hard to walk away.

How has Mississippi come to choose what sins she’ll look past and which ones she will put laws into place to punish?

The right to refuse sale to gays and transgenders because of religion? Okay, I’m going with you here...I hear you speak of religious freedom. I totally understand that pastors have an issue with marrying a gay couple. I get that, and I believe so do the gay couples. I don't believe anyone wants to be married by anyone who doesn't hold similar beliefs. I wouldn't ask a Catholic priest to conduct my service or request to be married in a mosque. I believe that are some situations where one would have conflict with their religion such as ministers, priests, etc. Right now, people say that this bill only affects those businesses that are wedding related, but is it? Can it really stick to that? It seems pretty loose after spending the time to read through it myself. Have you read this or just the right or left wing articles online? A seamstress can deny a wedding dress? You are selling a dress, not your salvation. A bakery? Noone invited you to condone it or go to the wedding. I hear this argument about how a Jewish man would have to make a cake with a swastika...okay, has that happened yet? A black baker making a KKK cake because he doesn't have "religious freedom?" Has that happened yet? If so, it would have been an issue already. Please don't sweep this under the rug as an issue when the issue is really about gay couples. The other groups are hate groups. Gay couples must not be lumped into this comparison. I haven't heard any arguments other than these sorts of comparisons - which would not be an issue now. Those issues would have been battled already, no?

I can't even imagine this. I have been in homes of gay couples, Muslim families, Jewish families, Christian families, and quite frankly, "way out there" families. No matter what I think personally or spiritually, I am there committed to be the best dang behavior analyst or speech pathologist I can be. My workplace is my mission. I will continue to go into homes and shine a light, to be the best example of Christ I can be. I will not refuse to walk in the door and I will not refuse my God-granted mission, talent, skills for the sake of religious differences. How would anyone know God's/Jesus' love when they aren't given the platform from which to see it because they are too off the mark? The door is closed? The welcome sign has been turned around? 

I know businesses sell goods to those engaged in premarital sex (and a lot of it!), those who have stolen, those who have cheated on their spouses, those who have taken advantage of the poor, those who have hated, those who have abused children and elderly, those that abuse their wives without you even knowing it, and the list goes on. The last sentence is full of what I’ve known as sins in the church, yet there is no law prohibiting sales or denying happy fulfilled lives to those people. Who gets by with those? Freedom for a few? Why not freedom for all? I value my religious freedom therefore, I must equally value another’s right to choose no religion or a different religion. I can’t support restricting others for what doesn’t make sense to me or isn’t my choice for a lifestyle. I am so proud of my faith and it guides all of my personal decisions. I choose who I spend time with, and I engage in activities that are pleasing to those whose opinions I deem important including Jesus. However, because I’m human and I don't have the answers that eternity holds, I cannot restrict others that are more conservative or liberal in their beliefs. 

I will not support restricting two law abiding adults who have been in a committed relationship for years in their endeavor to answer a calling or fulfill a need in our foster care system. Too many children’s lives are at stake. I cannot imagine telling a child whose only dream is to be loved and have a family that their dreams can’t come true because my religion doesn’t support gay couples adopting. He or she must remain in foster care until a more “suitable” couple arrives. Your dreams are important kid, but I’m going to hold off on giving you a family.

This is also personal. A human rights issue to one is an issue to all. As a woman, I see how far we have to go for equality (really, wages are still lower for a woman? So hard to believe in this day and age). We still struggle with racial equality. We just have to be careful to think of everyone in regard to basic rights because too often we realize years later and look back to wonder how we could have been so naïve, or wrong, or inflexible, etc.

It’s personal to me because my marriage would have been illegal before 1964. Let us not forget the Lovings who were sentenced to a year in prison in Virginia for violating the Racial Integrity Act of 1924. 1964 was not that long ago but I thought Southern states, especially Mississippi, had made so much progress in the last few years. People actually believed so much in the color of skin prior to that law being deemed unconstitutional. People even supported that with biblical references too. I would not have been able to share my two loves- Mississippi and Luba.

This week I read the story of the couple that was evicted from the RV park because they were an interracial couple. This guy is a veteran, a sergeant per the article. When I was raised in Mississippi, we were proud of our veterans. My Mississippi would not have disrespected a veteran due to race. In the same article, the owner told the wife that he didn’t know she was in an interracial relationship because she didn’t talk like “she was married to no black man.”  Wow, how do I sound? When I speak, can you tell that my husband is black? What does that even mean? Am I supposed to talk using a certain phonological pattern that indicates black english vernacular? What have you visualized Mr. [restraining from name calling] as a “black man’s wife?” It’s baffling and for that reason, I will not restrict others’ right only to realize my sins in hindsight when too much damage is done.

I owe so much of who I am to my beloved home state. I’m finding that she is now, though, shaping me in who not to be. For that, I am deeply sorrowed. My hope lies in those who are just and who value equality to step up and be a voice for the marginalized and make a better and equal world for all. Let us show the strong side of Mississippi, the side we know is there but gets eclipsed by these stories. Let the love overshadow the hate and the fear. Commit to dispelling the stereotypes and showing who she can be, not who she was.

We can have equality and still have religious freedom to navigate our own spiritual paths.


On another note, maybe check your memos Mississippi, the Supreme Court already ruled all this unconstitutional.

Love well,
Danielle