Mourning

I mourn for the family of Trayvon Martin. I mourn for every person of color who feels even less safe now than they did yesterday. I mourn for us all as a society when we care more about unfettered gun possession than we do the sanctity of life.

Every time I write our Senator John Moolenaar about the outrageous assaults happening in Lansing on reproductive freedom or about his own misguided twisting of the concept of religious freedom, he responds touting his belief in the sanctity of life. Where are his so-called “pro-life” ideals now?

Where is the pro-life movement when 400,000 Michiganders need Medicare expansion? Where is the pro-life movement when programs supporting living, breathing children are defunded to support tax breaks for corporations and the super-rich? Where is the pro-life movement when lobbyists try to push more guns and bullets into schools and churches, hospitals and day-care centers? And where is the pro-life movement when Trayvon Martins die every day on our streets?

If you are not outraged at the outcome of the Trayvon Martin murder trial, then do not dare call yourself pro-life. If you care more about forcing unnecessary and invasive vaginal ultrasounds on women than providing them with affordable access to birth control and health care, then do not dare call yourself pro-life. If you live in Midland and do nothing about the fact that Saginaw - our neighbor just 30 miles away - ranks as the #1 most dangerous city for women IN THE ENTIRE U.S., then do not dare call yourself pro-life.

For you are Trayvon Martin. Today, tomorrow, or the next day, a George Zimmerman could stalk, attack, and murder you or your son, your nephew, or your neighbor’s boy and walk away unpunished. When the injustice and stupidity was great enough, even Jesus got angry.

I will continue to be nonviolent, because violence only begets more violence. I will continue to love my neighbors, even when they seek to trample the right of women, GLBT folk, people of color, and immigrants. I will continue to try to find the good in legislators who ignore their own rules of conduct, who seek no public comment or expert opinions, and who pass bills in the dead of night while democracy sleeps. But I will be nice no longer. And neither should you.