Unfiltered Ocean

With the rare exception of my high school graduation, I haven't stood during the national anthem since probably middle school. Fetishizing our country, blindness to reality, and pretending to be patriotic are just not my cup of tea. What are we even standing for anyway when we stand during the national anthem? We send our brothers off to die in someone else's war and then we don't take care of them when they come back physically and mentally broken. We don't take care of our own and yet we're supposed to be proud to be Americans? What sacrifice are we really honoring, when all we're doing is wasting the lives of our fellow human beings? I personally don't stand because I'm not gonna honor a country that everyday perpetuates systemic racism and sexism, casts out the poor and helpless to the streets, and sends our own neighbors and siblings and parents off to die for someone's oil stocks. And when I see our President of the United States call peo

Recently, I read an opinion article by Zoe Williams from the Guardian. In it, she argued that politicians use their religious faith to justify their bigoted and misogynistic views instead of using them to justify doing things for the greater good. She suggested that the solution is not to prevent religion from being an influence in politics, but rather that sex in politics is the actual problem; and that people that share the same faith as these politicians need to stand up and reject such intollerance. Finally, she argued that to call out intollerance, whether fueled or not by religious faith, does not make one intollerant. I agree with her on all of these points. Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Moog, of the British House of Commons was her target here. Recently, Rees-Moog came under a lot of fire when he suggested that his Catholic faith to implores him to reject abortion in all circumstances and to disavow same-sex marriage. Now, I was not baptized Catholic, and I don't necessa