(No Matter What our Beliefs Happen to Be)
By Ernie McCray
This Kim Davis situation is just too familiar for my liking, too much like it has always been in this country based on what I’ve seen in 77 years.
I mean I have no idea what this woman’s work entails in a day. But one of her tasks seems, to me, like a dream job, where all she’d have to do is a little soft shoe with jazz hands and a big smile and sing: “Howdy do. Congratulations, you two. Here’s your marriage license. Toddle-oo!”
But she can only do that for “Adam and Eve.” “Adam and Steve” or any woman whose honey is a she has to be insulted by her for all the world to see because of what her scripture has taught her to believe.
And, in spite of this incredible hateful breach of gay people’s rights, the woman has thousands of worshipers praising her for standing up for her “beliefs” which aren’t written anywhere in Kentucky’s “Issuing of Marriage License Guide,” it wouldn’t seem to me – and cartoon-like GOP folks seeking the presidency praise her name, with no trace of shame, with no apparent modicum of human decency.
Oh, to borrow from Fannie Lou Hamer back in the 60’s, I am so “sick and tired of being sick and tired” of seeing people’s civil and human rights trampled on because of society’s handful of hateful beliefs.
As far as I’m concerned you can hate me all you want. Loathe me until your heart’s content. I truly, like most black folks I know, don’t care. We’re too busy trying to put food on the table and pay the rent and hope our kids can make it to school and back smarter than they were the day before and safe and sound. We see being detested as a given in our country. No big deal.
What really riles us up, though, is when the abhorrence of us is used in tangible ways against us, when it’s used to deny us, like it has in the past, of: a nice seat on the bus or a seat anywhere at the movies; a chance to live in choice neighborhoods; a place at the table in cafes; a swim in a public pool with white kids; an opportunity to skate at the rink at any hour it is open on any given day.
And because of the apathy we Americans have towards bettering our ways of relating to each other, the struggle goes on…
We come up for air in the midst of all the hate, and cry to the very skies “Black Lives Matter” to a reply of “All lives matter” which is a big problem because we’ve never been sincerely included in concepts of “all.”
And, let me tell you, not being a part of “all” can land you on some mean streets where your children rarely see examples of how nice life could be, where crimes can become choices that are relatively easy, where your children can be shot down in the street, out of anger that runs deep, no matter the perpetrator, a gangbanger or the police.
The horror of it all is that it’s based on beliefs. Beliefs like: all one has to do when they’re low on the totem pole in this society is “pick themselves up by their bootstraps”; if you haven’t committed a crime you shouldn’t have anything to worry about; black men are beasts; affirmative action gives people a huge leg up.
And our biggest social sin, perhaps, is the indelibly ingrained belief in our collective national psyche – although we will never admit it – that some people are just “less than” others. Complete with the obligatory “mob” that has always been around struggles for freedom in our country – the picture of that today, the hooray-ing worshipers of Kentucky’s Rowan County Clerk who yell their soul destroying beliefs to the heavens.
She’s taken an old American story and run with it, a story of one group of people, in this case a bunch of homophobes, trying to lord it over people they hate.
And I doubt that there’s a single LGBTQ human being out there who cares that this woman doesn’t like them.
But you can bet that they are intensely rankled that she has been allowed, as a public employee, on the taxpayers’ dime, their dime, to interfere with their desires to simply marry whomever they choose.
So, as I ponder such thoughts, I can only hope that we as a country are getting past not appreciating such a beautiful concept as “freedom for all,” that we are nearing a point where we can let the Adams and Steves of the world just be – no matter what our beliefs happen to be.
Photo courtesy of https://www.flickr.com/photos/
Ernie McCray
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Too often religious beliefs condone hatred. Look at the animosity between the Shiites and the Sunis, the Crusades, the 100 years war in Europe, Catholics and Protestants in northern Ireland. This is only a brief summation. Religion should be about love, acceptance and caring for the poor and the environment, our earthly home. The Pope got it straight. Until we value all human beings regardless of belief systems, religious or whatever, race, nationality, ethnicity, we earthlings have a long way to go regardless of our technical proficiency which in the long run doesn’t even matter.
Francis has opened up conversations in the Catholic world that have lain dormant for ages.
Has hypocrisy finally brought the near and far right down?
Kim Davis cried before the cameras a few weeks ago, saying she “didn’t want to be in the spotlight.” Of course she did. She waved her arms in Hosannas for the cameras with Huckabee and Cruz.
I’m wondering if the right’s repeated denials of climate change before aa nation either sweating through another heated September or buried in water in others — and all its other rejections of obvious needs while it raises war and violence to religious necessity — have proved to a new generation that these perversions are based in desperation. Those who lie publicly have made the mistake of thinking they have a right to do that in the name of some higher authority. Well, VW can’t get away with it. Maybe pretty soon the politicians won’t be able to.
It’s being reported that the Pope met with Kim Davis. First Serra’s sainthood and now this. I’ve lost what respect I had for Pancho.
No one’s always right, and no one’s really self-employed, not even the Pope.
Thank you, Ernie, my Brother-in-Struggle for your thoughtful and soulful commentary. Too bad that Kim Davis and her ilk won’t read it. But it wouldn’t change their negativity if they did. If she had lived back in the day, she would have favored slavery, while going to church every Sunday.
“Ain’t’ that the truth?! Just like the white-hooded devils removing their cones as they walk into the “house” of GOD on Sundays.
You made many thoughtful observations, as usual.
In response to Kim Davis, she needs to find a new job! And if she doesn’t “believe in” (scary words) being gay, obviously she doesn’t need to marry someone of the same sex.
What happened to our supposed separation of church and state? And how did the far right hijack religion???
Thank you Ernie for this poignant piece. I’m still wrestling with the Kim fiasco and her menagerie of whatevers..It reminds me of something out of a Dumb and Dumber movie; just NOT funny.