July 4th is a painful reminder that freedom is a lie
Patriotic songs pretend we value equality. Those soaring lyrics only wound my heart.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” — Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.
On Independence Day this year, I couldn’t shake a sense of sadness. As I listened to the usual patriotic songs and watched the celebrations draped in red, white, and blue, the word freedom kept wounding my heart. Each song drove home an awareness that freedom is once again under assault in this nation.
We love to sing about freedom and liberty. But, exactly whose freedom and liberty do we care about? Are we really talking about all citizens? Freedom has always been a lie Americans love to tell about themselves.
It was not self-evident to the Founders that LGBTQ Americans, Black Americans, Women, or Indigenous People deserved any equality at all. So, to hear the Conservative Justices spouting their “Original Text” hogwash, none of us should ever enjoy the same rights as white, landowning men.
According to this originalist fantasy, our nation should never move forward, expand the notions of freedom to more citizens, or live up to the promises of freedom for which the Founders risked everything — even though they recognized their own faults and limitations. Then, they put those ideals into writing to ensure future generations knew their radical intent.
It was the hope & promise of freedom they laid as the foundation. They enshrined an ever-evolving grand experiment that of course would grow and change and expand to include more people as the nation grew. This is the freedom and belonging to which I and every LGBTQ, person of color, and woman in our country have always fought to join.
We are fighting for full inclusion in the fabulous tapestry of America. To finally have equal status under the law. Not a gay marriage — just a marriage. That is the goal. To have no asterisk, no adjective that separates and hedges on the full meaning of the cherished union between loving adults who commit themselves to one another for life.
My marriage vows are as sacred as the Constitutional oaths I took to protect my country and community. Once again, as an LGBTQ American, I am reminded that I take these vows to fidelity, service, and duty in a country that does not see my life as equal. My status as a female means the state can force me to give birth against my will. Legislators have already begun to state their intent to strip my wife and me of our marriage security. Conservative bigots on the Supreme Court do not believe that I have the Unalienable Rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Independence Day rings hollow when so many in our country continue to vote for these radical revisionists, intent on erasing 250 years of forward progress to return to a time when equality was only for the 1%.
Yet, against all odds, I live with hope. I still believe that the promise of our Founding Ideals will one day be fully realized for all citizens. I believe in our imperfect, but worthy American Dream. One of our most cherished rights is the right to protest, to “petition our government for redress of grievances.” That is why I will continue to resist in every possible way.
I will not be silent while religious zealots try to impose their radical vision of inequality in the name of unholy faith. I will fly my flag because I will not allow insurrectionists and fascists to take over my nation’s symbols of freedom. I will proudly introduce my wife in public and demand equal status as a couple because we are lawfully married. I am never going back to their originalist, colonial, patriarchal, cis-gendered, white male-dominated, bigoted, backward version of America.
I swore multiple oaths to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. We cannot rest until Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are understood to apply to every single person in our country. Freedom for you must also mean freedom for me. Without equality, freedom will always be just a lie we love to tell ourselves.
