I DARE Any Romney Supporter to Read This

I almost started this blog with an apology. Or a promise that every blog I write won’t be a “downer.” Then I realized how much of my life I’ve spent apologizing for my thoughts and feelings so I’m not going to do that. Anybody who’s read more than a couple of things I’ve written knows that I’ve got a sense of humor, even about the rough stuff. But I can’t find a thing to laugh about regarding what I intend to say, so enough said about that.

Earlier today I posted a link to the 49ers football team’s “It Gets Better” video. To say that it really impacted me positively is an understatement. I’m just so grateful to these guys (and gals; I’m sure there are females in the corporate structure of the team and the female romantic partners, sisters and mothers of the players are not without influence, I’d bet).  In my comments on the video, I’d mentioned that I was 12 years old in 1977 and how much that video would have meant to me when I was 12.

My friend dear, sweet friend Shelly commented on my posting (just as a sinde note) that she’d had her first baby in 1977.

That got me to thinking. When I was 12, a “friend” of my family who was active in our church, the Christian camp where I went and the public school system in Walker County, Alabama molested me.

Then it hit me– I realized that if I’d been a girl, I might have had my first baby at 12 because that’s the year that he did this to me.

Finally, I put all these real facts into a hypothetical, which involves Romney and Ryan winning this election: If they had been in power when I was 12, there would have been no safe access to abortion. I’d have a thirty-five year old son or daughter by my molester today! I was dumbfounded just thinking of that possibility.

Then finally I thought of my beautiful niece Anna Kate. I love her more than life itself.  She’s twelve now and even though she’s maturing so quickly (as did I), she seems so, so much younger than I felt at 12 years old. God forbid something should happen to her like what happened to me, and God have mercy on the man if I ever got my hands on him! Her father, my brother would kill him—but not if I got to him first. I would kill him slowly.

But Anna Kate is living in a state that will vote for Mitt Romney. Many of the adults in my niece’s life are going to vote in hopes of electing an administration that would make it illegal for a girl impregnated by her molester to terminate that pregnancy. These people (my brother among them) are hypnotized by fast-talking radio jockeys and swift-boating SEALS. (Interesting. “Hypnotism” was a gimmick the man who molested me used to lure his victims.) Some people would try to say, “Well, we’ll just teach her how to stay out of danger in that way.” What then are you saying to the 12 year-old me? Was it my fault I couldn’t “stay out of danger?” Others will say, “Her parents will protect her from something like that happening.” What then are you saying to my parents? You don’t think my wonderful parents did everything they could to protect me?

It is heartbreaking to think of but something like what happened to me will happen to a child today in America.  If the child is a girl and she becomes pregnant, you are sentencing to carry her molester’s child if you pull that lever for the GOP candidates in November.  Take it from me, being molested is horrific enough. You Romney/Ryan supporters are placing on her an additional burden that is often too onerous to bear. In that way you become an accomplice to her molester in the horrible pain that is caused. I wonder how you can live with that.

Okay, so no matter what I say, some of you will still vote GOP in November.  You will find some rationalization around the things that I’ve said here or someone will surly provide you with one if you can’t come up with one on your own. Here is my prayer and I’m serious: I hope that in the instant that you vote, you will think of me at 12 and about what happened to me and about all the other children who have (or will have) a similar story. Realize that this shit happens no matter how good the kid is or how good her/his parents are. Realize that in that moment, when you are pulling that lever, you are becoming an accomplice to a criminal of the worst sort.  And you are pouring an inordinate amount of misery onto a tender heart that has already had more than its fill.