Since There Is So Much Overlap Between Anti-Gay Bigots and Anti-Choice Zealots…

By Evan Hurst-
 

   Hatred of gays and hatred of women’s rights to have autonomy over their bodies in all situations, including reproduction, are deeply entwined. Both are about the flouting of the patriarchy; both are about human beings living with integrity in ALL areas, including sexually, despite what the straight Christian men who fancy themselves our overlords might have to say about it.
   So it’s useful, as a gay rights organization, to occasionally look over the fence and see what our common adversaries are doing to victimize women and families dealing with painful decisions regarding reproductive health. On that note, I’d like to highlight an extremely painful, but important piece about what happened to a straight couple who had to make the hardest choice they never wanted to make, and how they reacted to the Christian protestors in their midst. Read it all, but here’s the first little bit:

“You’re killing your unborn baby!”
That’s what they yelled at me and my wife on the worst day of our lives. As we entered the women’s health center on an otherwise perfect summer morning in Brookline, two women we had never met decided to pile onto the nightmare we had been living for three weeks. These “Christians” verbally accosted us—judged us—as we steeled ourselves for the horror of making the unimaginable, but necessary, decision to end our pregnancy at 16 weeks.
After extensive testing at a renowned Boston hospital three weeks earlier, we were told our baby had Sirenomelia. Otherwise known as Mermaid Syndrome, it’s a rare (one in every 100,000 pregnancies) congenital deformity in which the legs are fused together. Worse than that, our baby had no bladder or kidneys. Our doctors told us there was zero chance for survival.

   Yeah, read it all, please. The fight for gay rights and the fight for reproductive choice are the same fight. I’ve quoted it before, but take it away once again, Amanda Marcotte:

After all, these two fights—for reproductive rights and gay rights—are the same fight. It’s about the right of people who aren’t straight men to have a sexuality without punishment or shame. We’re the ones who deserve the label “pro-life”, because we support the right for gays and women to survive and to thrive—to live. And make no mistake, we’re all up against a patriarchal right that is sadistic and violent.

   Yep yep yep!

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