My Jihad Mom

Wi Citizens For Life, Anti-Abortion Protest, Madison, WI 1972

Welcome to in Qatar! I’m working for the Royal Family at The Doha Tribeca Film Festival. Today we’re at Shafallah Center for Persons with Disabilities – also funded by the royal family. The kids are The Amazing Spiderman while making superhero capes. They’re fascinated that I’m from New York.

What felt like an obligation has proven to be a joy.

            Shafallah has a 1:2 student/teacher ratio. Their pool adjusts depth, based on physical needs and abilities. Architecturally integrated ramps allow for independence. Wheelchairs swirl around campus without concern. Shafallah is a marvel.

            Someone naively remarks, “US schools don’t have as many challenged students.”

            I quietly respond, “Abortion isn’t legal here.”

            Flashback.

I’m 9-years old. I’m standing on the pedestal of the Colonel Hans Heg Civil War Statue above a mob of people at the WI state capitol. l’m carrying an “adoption, not abortion” sign given to me my mother by the vice-president of Wisconsin Citizens Concerned for Life.

I’m guessing most pro-life coalitions wouldn’t care, but I’m there without my consent. You know who does care? The pro-choiceprotestor yelling at my mom. “

“You brought a child here? What were you thinking? A riot could break out.”

I don’t know why I’m there. I’m confused, but there’s no question. I’m loyal to my mom.

“Stop yelling at her. Leave us alone.”

            Despite being right, I shouldn’t be there, the woman backs down. God bless her.

            I go back to waving my anti-abortion sign as would any good, co-dependent, pre-pubescent, protestant son.

            The next day my picture is on the front page of the State Journal newspaper, forever leaving me labeled pro-life in some dusty Vatican archive.

WI Citizens for Life was started by the Catholic Church. Its doctrine was written by Bishops who have committed to a sexless life.

            One trimester becomes another. I grow up. So do my opinions.

I don’t get to tell anyone what to do with their body. Especially women. I don’t get to tell others the rules by which they should live.

Probably in part because as a gay man, I’m tired of others telling me how to be something they’re not.

           I choose to support the choices made by those I love and trust. Regardless of which choice they make.

I’ve been in weddings of pregnant brides.

I’ve babysat for single parents.

I’ve pondered adopting an unwanted child.

I’ve held the hand of someone walking into a clinic.

           All the while trying to wrap my head around the fact that my precious mom felt so differently.

That desert day, 8,000 miles away from WI, surrounded by beautiful children, I thought of my brother Butch and sister Valerie, both of whom are intellectually disabled and have lived the American version of a Shafallah life. I finally get a little clarity.

My mother was defending the results of her choices. Her family – the children that many people may not have chosen to bring into the world. The kids my mother raised, nurtured and adored.

That evening I moderated a stadium screening of Secretariat. In the film Diane Lane plays a woman who stakes everything on her horse, despite everyone telling her the horse she was betting on was a lost cause.

During the talkback, in front of an audience of over 5,000 people, I called on a woman dressed in a burka. She started with, “I have no question, just something to say. Jihad…”

Oh no. What’s the going to become?

“Jihad has been twisted into something violent and ugly. There’s no denying it can be and sometimes is, but for me and my family, jihad is believing beyond all reason. It’s the urge to hold fast to things you must do. Women like the one in this American film, the ones who keep fighting when everyone in the world tells them they’re wrong. That’s jihad.”

Many assume the road not taken denigrates the road they’ve chosen.

They want traffic to flow in one direction. Their direction.

In those moments, invisible barriers are being built.

There is fallout, even though we are all more than one belief or one action.

We are more, and we go on to be other things.

After being widowed my mom spent her afternoons helping a food pantry deliver groceries to homebound people living with AIDS. There she was still fighting for life – in a different way. True to form, she always brought my brother along.

I never talked to my mom about abortion. I didn’t trust we could.

Neither did the women in my family who feared judgment. Or losing her love.

Even when making what for them was an inevitable choice.

Choice, like jihad, always lingers and has consequences.