Typically, I begin each new month’s postings with a gratitude note and then some form of recommended viewing, reading, listening…that sort of thing. Although certainly there are people and circumstances for which I could express gratitude this month, I am deliberately choosing to omit that because I am going to be typing my way around and through some matters of controversy. And in doing so, I feel it is important to make it very clear that the opinions expressed here are my own and strictly my own. I remain grateful for every member of our son’s team who has worked towards helping him gain functional life skills, and I respect their rights to have their own private opinions which could be dramatically different from mine. That they work with our family as therapists does not in any way imply agreement to any statements I am making in this post, nor is me stating a position any indication that I expect others to agree with me on these matters in order to do their job as professionals.

Almost as soon as the news first broke that a draft copy had been leaked to the media of an upcoming Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, legal experts began weighing in on what this ruling could possibly mean as regards to other legal protections that had previously been affirmed and upheld by that court’s rulings. The overwhelming consensus of the opinions expressed by a variety of legal experts I have read is that the instrument of attack on overturning Roe v. Wade can certainly be applied to other laws such as those granting protections for interracial marriages, marriage equality for LGBTQ couples, and access to contraception. Those rulings were all predicated on a belief that they were covered under the umbrella of rights to privacy within the 14th amendment of the constitution. I have linked a few articles below as recommended reading that give the gist of some of this, including the original Politico article leaking the draft (which the Supreme Court has now verified as authentic), an IAPP article (an organization describing themselves as being a neutral global privacy organization), and a Vox article that consists entirely of interviews with legal experts discussing the possible implications of this ruling to other laws.

I am not in any way intending this post to delve into arguments for or against abortion. While it is certainly worth discussing that in a republic that claims to be democratic, this ruling does not reflect what has consistently been expressed via polling and surveys as the desired outcome of the majority of Americans for decades, I believe the larger implications for other laws should be something we all reflect deeply on as we consider what and who we are going to vote for going forward. Although the Justice who wrote the draft opinion demurred in regards to the possibility of this new ruling being used as a cornerstone of a legal argument striking down other laws, I believe it is important to note, as Aziz Huq (a University of Chicago Law Professor) told Vox, “Abortion, the draft says, involves ‘moral’ issues- as if forced sterilization and the punishment of private consensual conduct between adults didn’t!”

I have occasionally touched lightly on the fact that a little over three years ago, I resigned my membership to our former church. I declined to discuss my reasons here, because they are part of my private life. But, if laws that have been written to grant and protect rights related to a person’s private life are under attack, perhaps more of us may need to enter respectful discussions about these heretofore presumed to be private matters, especially if rights granted are important to us personally. My experience in my former church becomes relevant here because after 19 years as a member, I can with confidence and authority state that this group views marriage and who should be allowed to marry as a deeply moral matter. And that church is not alone in their belief. One of my private reasons for resigning membership to that church was in fact because I disagree wholeheartedly with their position in regards to this matter and do not believe it to be consistent with my own personal beliefs about sin or morality. My former church’s official position is that what they term to be “same sex” relationships are completely sinful and immoral, and they have been vocally and financially very active in opposing marriage equality.

Really it usually doesn’t matter to anyone when someone like me makes a public statement about their private sexual orientation. I’m not famous, I’m not anybody who could influence a large segment of the population. But it is private people like me, doing all they can to live the very best life they can each day, without the more extensive resources of the wealthy, that will be impacted if this new line of legal reasoning is used to reverse other legal precedents.

I am a Bi woman. While the phrase “hearts not parts” resonates with me, my attractions mainly do fall along traditionally male and female lines. If you know me and we’ve never had this conversation, well, that’s because it’s typically something I consider to be a private matter, where discussing who I could find attractive isn’t usually any more relevant to a conversation than it is to any other person who is married and in a closed relationship. I have been faithfully married to a man for 19 years this May because in our former church, that was the only accepted option if you wanted to be seen as moral and a member in good standing. I spent 19 years listening to this particular organization tell me exactly how morally wrong people like me are- I joined that church 3 years before Andy and I got married. So if you asked their leadership and a good chunk of their current active members (and really, you don’t need to ask, their positions are very public and in writing), what you would hear is that they considered who can and can’t legally get married to be a matter of grave moral urgency.

I have known since elementary school that I was attracted to both genders. When I was younger, I really had no idea how to frame myself and my own private sexuality as regards to morality, and it took me years of different experiences and thinking through a great many things to come to a point where I could be comfortable with exactly who and what I am, and feel confident and comfortable in saying that I personally cannot agree with religious models claiming people like me are immoral. If you look carefully at the positions of the groups I am currently willing to publicly or privately attend in regards to religion, you will note that they all support marriage equality. And that is because that is what I have privately needed to show myself love and for my own inner healing.

I love my husband, but Andy and I certainly have had this discussion…if anything ever happens to him, and I’m in a position where I want to date or feel like I even can date, I’m going to be open to dating either gender, any race or ethnicity. While it is a private matter, I imagine this will be as much in public as it is for any other consenting adult who wants to go to restaurants, movies, miniature golf, not be discriminated against at work for their relationships, or consider how thankful they are that if the relationship becomes serious enough to warrant it, they can get married. And I privately and publicly wouldn’t see anything immoral about any of that.

Because this draft ruling as it stands seems to imply that possibly so many of us don’t have a right to privacy in these matters and several others if a statistical minority of the population find them to be morally offensive to their own beliefs, I think perhaps more of us just may need to be a bit more respectfully public. Being a mom, a caregiver, a therapy support/provider, and a non-consequential disabilities blogger…those things aren’t the only things I am and they aren’t the only areas where I feel individual rights should be protected.

You can click on the titles below for links to the articles I recommended earlier in this post.

“Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion shows,” by Josh Gerstein and Alexander Ward for Politico

“Leaked Roe v. Wade opinion sparks right-to-privacy concerns,” by Jedidiah Bracy for IAPP

“After Roe: 9 legal experts on what rights the Supreme Court might target next,” by Sean Illing for Vox