I'm A Tea Party Hippie

It is official. This week, I attended two protests, one of which I organized. I am a hippie. Wednesday, we went to protest Vice President Joe Biden as he spoke here in Winston-Salem and Friday, I organized a Stand Up For Religious Freedom Rally at the Hiram H Ward Federal Building downtown. I've already posted the videos of the speakers for the Religious Freedom rally and I will write separately about my adventures with Joe Biden.

Today, I am confessing.  

I am a Tea Party Hippie. I rarely wear make-up, love long skirts and beads. I don't advocate free love, however. I prefer that people pay for their own love and their own contraception. It isn't right for others to violate my conscience by forcing me to pay for that which I am morally opposed. As I have told many, many people, this is not a fight I asked for, that the Catholic Church asked for, but we are not backing down from this fight.

Until Obama's HHS mandate, I didn't go around speaking about practicing the "no birth control" part of my Catholic faith. Many people did not know we have never used birth control because they see that we only  have three boys. What they can't see when they observe our family is that we have 19 souls in heaven. We've lost 18 pregnancies in our 19 years of marriage, and folks can't see our family waiting for us in heaven. When people find out about our losses, they are usually quite perplexed as to why we didn't start using birth control so as to stop being open to life and potential losses. We believe that God can perform miracles -- even after so many losses.

I want to be like my friend Joyce (read her blog: Mouth From the South) when I grow up.  In the 60s, she stayed home raising her family and now that she is in her 60s, she attends one protest a week.  I've always voted, was in the military and sometimes worked at the polls.  No more.  Since President Obama's election, I have been to more protests than I can count. November is coming and this Tea Party Hippie will be protesting, spreading the word to others and voting.  We cannot allow our government to take away our freedom. Are you in?