#progmo

I get it, there’s annoying ones that won’t leave practicing members alone. But when you have more vitriol for those people than for the Church that will literally call exmos “Judases” and all kinds of evil names, then I don’t feel safe around you.

Because I refuse to participate in the illusion that the only way to participate in the government that represents me is to register and vote Republican.

Because I've already sent John McCrostie, a gay educator, to my state legislature. Voting Democrat in Idaho is NOT a waste of a vote. Democrats win elections in Idaho when they run and when they TRY. So many elections in Idaho are still full of Republicans running completely unopposed.

Because showing up for myself as a disabled, chronically ill woman matters. Showing up for other marginalized communities in Idaho matters. Surrender is not an option when you understand it's people and their lives, not numbers, on the line.

Because in order to change a state from red to blue, it doesn't take magic. It takes work. It takes uncomfortable conversations, challenging the status quo, and asking important questions for as long as it takes to go through all the shades of red, then purple, then finally to blue.

I did not fail. In my own small way, I have taken Idaho from ruby red to red violet. That isn't nothing. It's exactly what change in a place like this has to look like. Patient. Long suffering. Incremental.

I vote blue in Idaho because I understand the assignment. I'm where I'm supposed to be, doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm changing the soil so something different could actually grow and survive here.

For posterity/ICYMI: here is the entire saga of my former bishop refusing to grant home sacrament administration to my family during a pandemic because he thought an ultimatum would force us back to church in person.