Growing Up a Christian Republican…
I grew up in Christian Household. For a large portion of my life I went to church every single Sunday and then every weekday I went to a private Christian school. In fact right up until the 8th grade I was surrounded by Christianity, their morality system and sadly a lot of hypocrisy. But what really struck me as odd was when I was 9 and we had our 1992 Presidential election. It was President Bush running against Bill Clinton… This apparently was a good time for my school to turn us all into good little republicans.
I clearly remember being in class, and having our class vote on who we thought should be president. I remember my parents, being republicans themselves and talking about George Bush vs Bill Clinton and the issue that came up the most was abortion. At the time I clearly didn’t understand the reproductive process. I didn’t really understand what was happening when my younger brother was born because I was staying with family friends and what I remember most was staying at their home and watching the same boring cartoon over and over and over.
So abortion was the issue, but it was from a moral ground. It was what the Church was saying to do. It’s the issue that school pushed on us too and why we should want to vote for the republican party. We were told abortion was the same as baby murder… literally in words just like that. I was terrified of the idea because the complications of situations involving safety of the mother, rape and more was simply left out of the conversation. After all you don’t bring that part of this incredibly adult issue up to a 9 year old.
It’s twenty years later and some how the legality of abortion is still up in the air in this country. What’s worse is that the right wing of America seems to care as little about women’s health as they can. I just saw a gif that disgusted me in a way I can’t even put into words. 
The body language here is disgusting. It’s 4 years old of course but this is the attitude that permeates the republican party. Now I’m not saying all republicans are like this. There are shades of grey in every party but lately the lack of care for women’s health on the basis of a weird moral high ground in a country that is supposed to have a separation of church and state is really disturbing.
Some times people ask me why I don’t go to church anymore and it’s because it’s so hard to see a difference between religion and a political belief system I want nothing to do with. I grew up having the republican party thrown on me… I’m glad it didn’t stick.
