I am an American whose patriotic journey has brought me to a dark place.  As most white Americans of my generation I was taught ours was the greatest nation in the world. We were home of the free, land of the brave, and every day before class we proudly stood, hand over heart, and said the Pledge of Allegiance before the stars and stripes. 

I remember being taught the story of Betsy Ross in elementary school and later playing Betsy Ross with one of my girlfriends from Blue Birds. I was much older before I learned most of the story was a myth.  Each year we had Thanksgiving plays at school, only to later learn that the stories of a Pilgrim feast with the Native Americans was as accurate as the one about Betsy Ross.

During the turbulence of the sixties and early seventies, I questioned our government, disagreed with the War in Vietnam, and closely followed the Watergate trials. It wasn’t until the summer Olympics came to California in 1984 that I experienced a renewed sense of patriotism and was proud to call myself an American.

I felt strongly about the importance of the United States Constitution, especially the First Amendment, guaranteeing us the right to peacefully protest, free speech, and separation of church and state. I applauded the three branches of government, naively believing that would ensure our continued freedom.

I celebrated the words, “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.”

But how did I justify my pride of a country built on the institution of slavery? A country that practiced genocide on its native people?

I never thought our country was perfect. When studying slavery in high school, I sympathized with Nat Turner. I personally witnessed the scars left on the Native Americans today, because of our historical treatment of them.

Yet, as an amateur genealogist I understood the history of man has not been kind. It’s not an excuse, it’s a statement of fact. But I felt our country was a work in progress, and I had faith it was moving forward, trying to create a better world. I believed the strength of our Constitution would help us do that.

During my genealogy pursuits I dug deeper into our family tree, finding ancestors that brought me both pride and shame. I gathered the necessary historical documentation and was accepted into the Daughters of the American Revolution. That was a year or so before the pandemic, so my participation with the DAR in Arizona was brief, as meetings stopped due to sheltering in place, and then we moved to Oregon. Yet my time with the DAR I found rewarding.

The SCOTUS recent ruling overturning Roe V Wade has stripped half of its citizens of rights they held for half a century, forcing women to risk their lives, health, finances & dreams to turn an unwanted embryo into a baby. Or in some cases, allowed to die because of an embryo they wanted was no longer viable and was killing them. We are no longer moving forward; we are going backward.

We currently have a Supreme Court dominated by conservative justices, which means they take an originalist interpretation of the Constitution. What does that really mean? The website constitutioncenter.org describes it this way:

Originalism is a theory of the interpretation of legal texts, including the text of the Constitution. Originalists believe that the constitutional text ought to be given the original public meaning that it would have had at the time that it became law.

Considering black people were slaves and couldn’t vote, and women couldn’t vote at the time the Constitution was written, I don’t think taking an originalism interpretation is going forward. We just stepped back in time. If you want to see how far back in time we stepped, you can read this.

Over on twitter, a guy who proudly claims to be a supporter of the 2nd Amendment—which I assume means he doesn’t want the government regulating his guns, chastised me for opposing the ruling, thinking nothing wrong with telling a woman how she must use her body, yet vehemently opposed to the government interfering with his gun ownership.

I know some of my Christian readers will adamantly disagree with me. Some may even decide never to read one of my books again. I just wish they would understand that just because THEY see an embryo as a baby, it does not make it so.  It seems the Jewish and Muslim faiths take a much more liberal view over the rights of a woman to control her body in regard to abortion. By their laws regarding abortion, it’s obvious in this instance they value a woman’s life far more than some Christian faiths.

Yet the bottom line, I don’t believe ANY religion should dictate the laws in this country. I believe you have the right to follow the laws of your church, but you don’t have the right to force your church’s laws on others. I just wish the Supreme Court felt the same way.

17 comments on “This Brokenhearted American

  1. Karen Millett

    No one should have the right to dictate what a person does with their body. I cannot believe that everything seems to be going backwards when it comes to women. It’s a sad world and sad existence.

    1. Wen L

      Life begins at conception…THIS IS A BABY! Liberalism is a weak view of life. Why is it always disgust toward Christianity? This horrible murderous law was NOT in the Constitution…..calm down and know that there were over 63 million babies murdered since 1973….how could anyone still want to continue with this heinous crime against humanity. I would ask my right to speak be respected as you asked of yours. 50 years of prayers…..God spoke.

      1. Bobbi Holmes Post author

        Life of the embryo begins at conception. But an embryo is not a baby. If you go by the Bible, human life begins at first breath.

        It is not a disgust against Christianity. Not all Christians believe as you do. However, this anti-abortion stand is being pushed by people who claim to be Christian.

        Other faiths, such as Jewish and Muslim condone abortion for various reasons, such as to save the life of the woman.

        I have a question for you. A woman sometimes needs an abortion to save her life. These include conditions such as ectopic pregnancy, hemorrhagic shock, preeclampsia, renal and cardiac disease, cancer, sepsis, and lupus.

        But new anti-abortion laws are making it difficult and sometimes impossible to get a timely abortion for medical reasons. And women will die.

        I assume we both agree a woman is a living human.

        We disagree that a fetus is a living human.

        So, which do we save? A person who is unquestionably a human being, or a fetus that some believe is a human and others don’t?

        Who do we save?

        These new rush to abortion laws are dangerous to women’s health and women are going to die.

        Real humans, who actually have a thinking brain, and families who love them are going to die because of these laws.

      2. Meme

        That is YOUR view. Yet once the babies are born to parents who CAN’T afford to feed them you fight to stop the government from helping to provide food, clothing and shelter for these children. You care about them when they are no more than an egg and yet are willing to let them starve and live in unhealthy conditions once they are born because you don’t want to pay higher taxes. SMDH

        1. Wen

          Use birth control and be responsible. Most are using abortions as healthcare. There are extreme cases however there are those who have even had 10+..

          1. Bobbi Holmes Post author

            Actually according to a report I recently read, half of the women who had abortions HAD used some form of birth control. In some cases it was because the used it incorrectly, or it failed. Even a vasectomy is not 100% I had a friend who had a surprise baby after her husband’s vasectomy. Apparently he forgot to go have it checked afterwards to make sure he wasn’t shooting blanks.

  2. Sarah

    I can feel your sadness reading this. You should follow Bette Midler on twitter. I admire her for some of the things she comes out and takes a stand on and she’s always spot on and ahead of the game when it comes to calling out big issues in the US. On a totally different subject though and relating to what you said about embryos not being babies. I came across a professor called Carol Bowman who studies past lives, particularly recollections of past lives by young children and the concept of reincarnation. I hadn’t thought about much at all. (always been into ghosts though and them coming back to haunt the living etc) That was until my daughter aged 2.5 and born in 2003 told me she remembered being trapped in 9/11. I came across Carol’s book ‘Return from Heaven’. Its full of stories told by the parents of children who remember past lives when they are a similar age to my daughter, and remembering at about 2/3/4 years of age, matter of factly stating things like they miss their other mom, remembering people, places etc. Well a couple or so stories (its been a while since I last read it), say that some kids remember choosing their parents and not entering the body until weeks after its developed in the womb. So basically the baby has no soul until the soul chooses to enter it. Some fail, the woman loses the baby and the soul tries again. Sometimes coming back on the next try and in one case I remember the child told his ‘mom’ that his aunty was supposed to be his mom but she lost him. I truly believe my daughter was here before. I also wonder if she tried to get here sooner as I lost a baby just before falling pregnant with her. These kids often have dreams and memories about their past lives, and often nightmares/night terrors, irrational fears. We live in the UK. She used to have an irrational fear of fire, bad dreams about it as a little one. We’ve never had a fire. She wanted smoke alarms as a 4/5 year old. She has always said, and still does that we drive on the wrong side of the road in the UK. She says it feels wrong. She used to have dreams about driving on massive motorways (we call them) and used to say as a teenager that she thinks she would know how to drive to and around New York. We have never been to America. This was also I should point out, before I chose to tell her about what she said to me aged 2.5.

    https://www.carolbowman.com/reincarnation-forum

    Hope you get time to read some stories, or find in her book the stories about souls entering embryos. Sarah

  3. Meme

    I could not have said it better. Frankly, after watching how the Trump supporters who have claimed to be Christian have behaved in the last several years, I no longer call myself a christian. I absolutely do not want to be associated with such hateful people. It’s all become politicized and is no longer about caring about and taking care of each other. Hate does not equal Christianity.

    1. Wen

      So let me understand. You are quitting God because you can’t have your way? Trump haters are not unbiased, listening to liberal outlets. Never will get the truth. Sorry for you. Hatred is painful

      1. Bobbi Holmes Post author

        I don’t think she said she is quitting God. She just does not want to be associated with a particular vocal group who claims to be Christians. I totally get what she is saying.

        1. Meme

          Thank you Bobbi. That’s exactly what I was saying. She totally missed my point and at the same time proved it.

    2. Bobbi Holmes Post author

      I understand what you are saying. It’s like a radical group has hijacked Christianity, like a radical group hijacked my flag.

      Yet if I am honest, Christianity was hijacked long ago. For example, when the church went on its witch hunt. Ironically one of those witch judges was cited as an expert witness of sorts, when the SCOTUS made its ruling to overturn Roe. Yes, we are going back.

      If Christians would simply live by Jesus’s example, I don’t think we would have a problem.

      Fact is, a good percentage of those on social media who claim to be Christian are typically breaking the Commandment not to take the Lord’s name in vain. They take God as their identity, and then they go along willingly breaking one commandment after another, and then use the sorry excuse about everyone being a sinner, and they are forgiven….and then go out and break another Commandment.

      If there is a Christian God, I do not believe he is a chump. He knows what is in a person’s heart.

  4. ruby E mendenhall

    I believe That this a step backwards. This will mean more women who lives are in jeopardy. This means back ally apportion. The problem is we as a society will be paying for the welfare of unwanted kids in the system. We may feel that it is wrong to have an abortion, but it is not our lives being affected other than having to pay for the unwanted kids. I believe being a Christian is not in organize religion but within ourselves and in our hearts and how we treat each other no matter how we disagree with how people live we all a path we have to walk in this life to get us through the next level of our existence. It is a verry sad day in Mudville

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