Disenchantment

i used to love God and America. i got all the answers right in Sunday school. i paid attention in church. i gave thanks for being born in this country of equality and freedom. i got goosebumps when i sang the national anthem or amazing grace. i read the Bible. i was very interested in staying saved. i always thought America was far superior to any other country, and the American way was the best way. Christianity was awesome, and America was infallible.
then i met an entity that many call God. i met the God of Jerry Falwell, Fred Phelps, George W. Bush, Pat Robertson, Ann Coulter, and many others. i met this ugly thing they call their God and fell out of love with Christianity. their God is hateful, spiteful, revengeful, exclusive, intolerant, and unforgiving. their God and his values drive these people to hate and discrimination. God is supposed to be feared and respected, but their God is terrifying and loathed.
at first i thought this God was worshipped by a minority, but i soon came to find that a frightening amount of Americans make up his following. many of these Americans are in power and i very quickly realized that their God was influencing their policy. the idealist in me hoped for change, but kept getting disappointed. when Florida and other states banned gay adoption, even though so many children are in foster care, my inner idealist shrank. when school districts in Kansas and other states eliminated evolution from science textbooks, my inner idealist shrank. when 17 states restricted marriage to a union between a man and a woman, even though the wording of those propositions protected gay domestic abusers from being tried, my inner idealist shrank. when south dakota banned abortion to incite the supreme court to reverse roe v. wade, my inner idealist shrank. when i read that New York Times article about how it's harder for black people to get jobs now than it was even ten years ago, my inner idealist disappeared. how can i love my freedom- and equality loving country when my freedoms and rights aren't given to me? how can i love America when my citizenship is diminished because something in my biological makeup is "wrong"? how can i love America when i can do anything i want in my bedroom as long as it's with someone i could never fall in love with? how can i love America when my parenting ability is called into question because of the simple fact that i enjoy sex with women as opposed to men? how can i love America when the color of your skin still matters? how can i love America when schools have to cut science, Spanish, history, and art from the curriculum in order to help their students pass No Child Left Behind's education quality tests? how can i love America when i look across the Atlantic and see that my life could be so much better in Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, South Africa, England, possibly even the Czech Republic? I say I cannot love america and I cannot consider myself a full american until my privacy is more important than my homosexuality, until my rights are given to me, until my skin color isn't the reason I get a job, and until my sex isn't the reason I am not paid enough.
if you can, please restore my faith in my world.

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