Unalienable Rights

I want to start by acknowledging the deep pain felt by our trans and intersex siblings after the hard Supreme Court decision about school athletics and equal access. I mourn with you. It breaks my heart that once again a decision like this has been made that is based in fear and gatekeeping.

Yet this is what we do, us Americans. We're too good at decisions based on fear. We are expert gatekeepers. We fight against who we say we are every day.

For 250 years we have wrestled with what Jefferson meant when he wrote it is self-evident truth that "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." The wrestling has been long and hard - men? equal? rights? What is happiness? What is liberty? Who decides? It might be the central story of the United States. And our trans beloveds are now part of that story.

I'm not the right person to break it all down for you, what the Court decided on June 30, but civil rights lawyer and rabble rouser Sam Ames is, and I encourage you to read Sam's entire post; in it, we get a full breakdown on the decision, what justifications they used, and how this is the best worst case.

What I want to highlight from Sam's post is the ending, because here's where we come in. Sam writes:

Is today a good day? No. Is this a loss? Absolutely. What happened in that court chamber could take a lot of teeth out of constitutional protections for trans people. But, importantly, it doesn’t take trans people out of constitutional protections. This morning, as I breathed a sigh of relief realizing that the words I was reading would set us back years but not decades, it caught in my throat that not getting beaten worse is the win. Tonight, I’ll grieve along with every trans person who has read the news today that our hearts are in a state of permanent brokenness.

And. We are experts in breaking. Pride started with broken windows and slashed tires. It was born of devastation, and from the jaws of loss we seized our dignity, closed fists tight around our right to exist and have not let go for 57 years. Loss is where we were forged. I don’t wish our thick skin on the generation of youth reading this news today, but I do want them to remember we are at home in the fire and that they will always have a home with us. From Stonewall to the Great Hall, there is no win that will make us more worthy of dignity, and no loss that will make us less. We were then and are now too powerful to be weakened by weak men, whether they’re hiding behind billy clubs or white feather quills. What we saw today was not our loss. It was their weakness.

I can’t think of a single time in this nation’s history when increasing access decreased strength. Our institutions are always stronger when they protect more people. Today, an institution decided to protect fewer.

These are not the people we want answering any burning question. Let it simmer a little longer. We can take the heat.

Sam is writing about LGBTQIA+ folk, and we know that other fights for those unalienable rights over the centuries have also included acts of breaking 'born of devastation' and that those fights mattered, because every person is created equal.

So what's for us? We have to live up to Bishop Budde's observations in this year's Ware Lecture, that we are built on an unwavering commitment to the inherent worth and dignity of every person, and that we must continue to unwaveringly affirm, promote, and respond. And more, we must make it abundantly clear through all we do in our congregations and communities that all truly means all, that there is no part of anyone that is not welcome. We have to let go of judgment and gatekeeping. And more, we have to shout it from the rooftops. We have to be a beacon of hope and a clarion call to keep proving the expansiveness of Jefferson's assertion 250 years ago.

I have hope that one day we'll get there, and we'll celebrate a major anniversary without such devastating news to the contrary. Today is not that day, but I haven't given up on this nation yet. Jefferson and the founding fathers were on to something - they weren't perfect by any stretch, and I know they could not have begun to imagine where we would take this nation and their words. But I do have hope.

And it begins here, with us, loving our trans beloveds, making sure everyone is welcome and safe and seen.