I have never been a political person. Or, that is, I have never been outwardly political. I make a point of not speaking about my political views to anyone, not even close friends. Nor do I speak about religion. I have my various reasons for it.

First of all, I have found, that you can’t change people’s minds. Not typically, and I’m not interested in trying. Live and let live. I don’t like arguing. I don’t think “my way or the highway” or anything like that. And I also know that people judge. Boy, do they. I don’t like being judged for what I think or what I believe. No one does. So why shame others? I don’t like to do it.

So, you may not have noticed, but I don’t talk about politics. I don’t do Facebook, and that’s one reason I don’t. Many people either want agreement and commiseration or they want to debate their views. It’s either a circle jerk, or it’s futile.

People also assume I’m a die-hard liberal. Maybe because I’m an artist? But now, perhaps by me stating that, now I’ll be judged as the opposite. You’ll never know though, because life isn’t black and white.

All that being said, I’m going to reveal a story. A very, very personal one. It’s not one I’m proud of. And in saying that, that doesn’t mean I’m “pro” or “against” abortion. I will say, I do not think it should be illegal, so now you know my view there. I do not think it should be a means of birth control either. That’s ridiculous, and I don’t think any sane person believes it should either. I don’t think anyone who has had one ever took it lightly. It’s impossible.

I had one once. I was barely fifteen years old and it was at the end of years of being molested by more than one person. It was almost too late when I found out. I was devastated, but I knew there was no other choice for me. I was about to move out of my parents’ house, and in fact, I was already pretty much not living there anymore. I used their couch to recover for a couple of days. They had no idea what I’d been through. No one knew what I had done. I had no one to discuss it with. I even lied to the people at the clinic and said I had someone to pick me up in the parking lot, but no one was there.

To tell you the truth, despite the complete and utter horror it was to go through, I felt fortunate. I was well aware that it was once illegal, and I had known, all too well, how my parents got together in the first place in the late 1950s.

My parents were work friends and my mother got pregnant by a man who was engaged to another woman. My dad found her crying during a lunch break and she told him. He actually offered to marry her, but she wasn’t going for that. He’d been wanting to date her for a long time. She asked him if he was willing to take her to Cuba to get an abortion and he agreed, which is how they wound up getting close. They got married three months later.

If all that didn’t happen, I wouldn’t be here. Not that me being here is so miraculous or even a blessing to the earth, but I am glad for my life.

Do I think abortion is “okay?” Probably not, but do I think it’s a sin? Well, I think that doesn’t even matter. It shouldn’t matter what anyone thinks about that. The Holy Bible shouldn’t have anything to do with politics. Especially because the Holy Bible does not represent all the people in the country. And no one can say for certain that human life begins a conception. Just like no one knows for certain what happens after death. No one knows. People only have belief. And BELIEF is not TRUTH.

Science is not based on faith. You can not prove something (tangible) over and over in the same circumstance across the board within the same environment with the same results (every time) that way. That is not faith. That is not a belief or a conspiracy. Those are viable, provable facts. You can’t get results like that in religion. And religious people will tell you that God works in mysterious ways and they rely on their faith to get them through difficult times, not science.

Not that faith can’t work. It can. Just not every time no matter what. Because it doesn’t depend on your will. It’s God’s will, and we do NOT know what that is. If we assume what God’s will is, that’s pretty fucking presumptuous. If you’re going by scripture only, that’s not every religious person’s source of Word, so you’re not playing fair, you’re playing God.

Even all Judo-Christain religions have about a billion sects and they all interpret that book differently. Some take it literally (fundamentalists) and those people, if they mostly sit on the Supreme Court, do not represent the majority of the country. Most Christians are a lot more progressive than all that. At least the ones I have known. They don’t think that stoning your wife to death for stepping out of line would literally be the appropriate punishment or sacrificing goats for this or that, or what have you. Meanwhile, how many fundamentalist Christians covet their neighbor’s wives? That’s an actual commandment! It’s a “worse” sin, like murder.

But I digress. Because, I have done quite a lot of talking about politics, religion, abortions, opinions, and all kinds of shit. But I’ve gotten that off my chest and broken my silence.

So, next time, I’ll talk about how queer I am and how all the laws are (have already) changing/changed to crush us queer folk and the poor trans kids—that are more likely to off themselves if they aren’t seen and cared for in a formative and important time of need. What the fuck?!