Something that has disturbed me a great deal for some time now is that the religious right is SO GOOD at getting coverage that many, MANY people assume that religious = right = oppression = VERY BAD THINGS. They have put the bucks into ensuring coverage of their point of view.

The tone and extent of prayer that kicked off the inauguration really scared me. I winced, and I cringed, and I got mad, and I thought about it a lot, and I still am.

It scares me, first, to know the religious right (RR) is about to get us all, and second, that those of us who are R but not R will have a hard job to be heard and to help make change within the atmosphere the RR generates.

I feel like my voice of moderation and diversity and tolerance, already too small and quiet, has just been stolen out from my very breath and co-opted for a purpose I cannot place within my own moral compass.

I feel like jumping in the car to follow Big Mick and make it all stop as soon as it can be stopped. But I have to tend to my own patch here, or who will?

Make no mistake at least about where I stand, which is where I have stood all this time despite what anyone here assumed about me. I stand for all the choice we can think of having, for the personal responsibility that goes with these choices, and for people being there to help each other through the feelings and realities that are the result of our choices.

I stand there despite knowing from my own memories what the life of a fetus is and means, and despite holding all of human life precious. Because our free will is MORE precious. Without it, we are not human, and without being human, we can have no rights at all.

For those of us who are Christians, we must remember that free will is the first way in which we are made in God's image. We tamper with others' free will at great peril.

I'm going to be talking about that quite a bit in the coming months. Right here in the midst of Republican, conservative, rigid, north central PA... as a pastor's wife who has a certain place in the community, although it is supposed to be a very quiet place. They're gonna get me for it, too. And you know, it would be nice to be able to be here at Mudcat and explore these sorts of things without getting it from "friends."

~Susan