That’s it, I’m out.
That was my first thought as a hopeful Election Day became a sleepless Election Night and then the sickening day after, and as the reality of the results began to seep like an infection into the deepest recesses of my mind.
Obviously I wasn’t alone, with Canada’s immigration website crashing as millions of my fellow countrymen and women apparently had similar dreams of escaping our rapidly disintegrating homeland. As Trump has assembled a ghoulish and frightening cast of characters to assist him in his national purge, the impending exodus has only grown. Leaving has seemed quite sensible.
But even in the sheer disbelief of the moment, even in the shock of such a colossal national failure, even with the grief of what might have been, and even knowing the stinking sewer of bigotry and violence that this reality would likely blow open, I knew I wasn’t going anywhere even if I could.
Without any logistical barriers to exiting—I am staying in Donald Trump’s America.
I’m staying because my son and daughter see the world as beautiful and people as good and the future as hopeful, and I’ll be damned if I have to move them thousands of miles away to give them that reality. They deserve the America they believe exists.
I’m staying to show the country that Christianity is not what they’ve been told it is by the Religious Right. It is not this Bible Belt bastardization, with a bloodthirsty, gun-toting, “Don’t tread on me” white, Republican Jesus looking to purify the country and drive out the gays and the blacks and the illegals and the Muslims.
I’m staying to stand up to the hallway bullies and the church door vandals and the drive-by catcallers and the social media terrorists, to let them know that they don’t have the run of the house just because they have a kindred spirit in the White House.
I’m staying because this has been the setting of my story, and because that story is not going to be held hostage for four years while I watch from a safe distance and pray someone does something to keep it all from hitting the fan. I’m sticking around to be part of the answer to that prayer.
I’m staying to be a builder of the country I dream of living in, the one whose glory I have seen, the one that has always been made better by good, quiet people who decided to be both good and loud in the face of a really powerful ugliness that seemed to be winning.
I’m staying to craft a Church in the image of Jesus, one where all people will find hospitality and compassion and decency; one that allows them all to participate fully, regardless of the color of their skin or the object of their affections or the bathroom they wish to use, or any other qualifier.
I’m staying so that I can use whatever privilege and platform and success I have, to be the perennial thorn in the side of those who’d make life hell for the marginalized communities I love so dearly; to take some of the blows and the bruises and venom they might otherwise take. I stay to be a defiant gap stander.
I’m staying to be the direct and loving response to the snarling pulpit bullies who wield God like a hammer; those who thump their Bibles and pound their podiums and spit their sermons and peddle their fear, all in the name of a Jesus they bear no resemblance to. I’m hanging around to hold their feet to the fire every single day they take Christ in vain.
I’m staying in Donald Trump’s America because it isn’t Donald Trump’s America.
It is not the Republican’s America.
It is not the Evangelical Right’s America.
It is our America.
It is we the people.
It is those of us who hold tightly those self-evident truths about the value of all its citizens.
It is the multicolored choir of our shared humanity.
It is white and black, straight and gay, native America and immigrant, cisgender and Transgender, the faithful and the faithless.
We are all co-owners of this place, and no man can drive us from that which we belongs to us and that we belong to.
And most of all I’m staying because it is my America. Because I love this place and what it stands for, and because I’ve done my time and worked my butt off and made my mark and paid my taxes and earned my scars and nurtured the ground I raise my kids on. And I’m not about to let anyone scare me or push me or scream me out of here.
I’m staying because diversity is worth fighting for.
I’m staying because going backwards for us is not an option.
I’m staying because the fight is redemptive when it is on behalf of those who are vulnerable and left voiceless.
I’m staying because my LGBTQ friends shouldn’t have to engage in old, brutal battles that they’d already fought and won.
I’m staying because women shouldn’t relinquish a fraction of the income and autonomy and opportunity they’ve suffered so greatly to acquire.
I’m staying because people of color shouldn’t have to give back anything they’ve gained through decades of sweat and blood and sacrifice.
I’m staying because girls growing-up today don’t deserve to get stuck back into some grainy, black and white, Father Knows Best prison of the antiquated, sexist expectations of insecure men wanting everything to be back the way it used to. It will never be the way it used to be, thank God.
And yes, I fully believe it’s all going to get worse before it gets better, but I’m staying so that hopefully the worse isn’t quite as bad and the better comes a little bit sooner. I am going to be that which resists the darkness.
I have never been intimidated by another human being no matter how big a bully he or she is, and so I am not intimidated by Donald Trump. He may have power and he may be one of the biggest of bullies on the planet with a whole new toolbox at his disposal—and I’m staying so that he understands every single day what this country is made of:
We are not all sycophants.
We are not all soul-selling evangelists.
We are not all perpetually bowed yes men.
We’re not all gullible rubes who can be duped into hating strangers.
We’re not all suggestible fools who can be sold toxic snake oil to fix our ills.
We’re not all dead hearted litigators looking to silence dissension and suppress truth.
We are not all tricked by the bluster and the tough guy talk that masquerade as confident competence.
We know a terrified fraud when we see one—and we don’t run from them.
And so even though I’m not looking forward to the next season of our country’s life for many reasons, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
With all due respect to Canada and Tuscany and Switzerland and Australia, I’m staying put.
This is the greatest country in the world, and I won’t let someone claim to be making it great again by tearing it apart.
I’m here for the duration, and yes we are indeed stronger together.
Time to unpack and get to work.
I’m home.
Note: As a white, cisgender, Christian male,I know that staying is a far greater ask for my friends in marginalized communities; that you endure difficulties I’ll never understand. You need to make decisions for your safety and sense of peace.
