07/04/2026
“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
That’s what y’all are outside celebrating today, right?
But I need us to be honest about something. Those words were never supposed to belong to only one kind of person. Not only the wealthy. Not only the straight. Not only the white. Not only the Christian. Not only the people who fit neatly into somebody else’s idea of “American.”
Everybody should have access to life.
Everybody should have access to liberty.
Everybody should have the right to pursue happiness without the government reaching into their body, their marriage, their identity, their classroom, their books, their vote, their womb, their religion, their children, or their future.
As it stands right now, this government has been bought, bullied, and bent toward Christian nationalism by people who only seem to believe in freedom when it protects them.
That’s what makes today feel so strange.
Fireworks are loud, but so is the silence around everything being stripped away.
So many people are celebrating independence while ignoring the fact that so many of us are becoming less free by the day. Rights are not always taken with one dramatic announcement. Sometimes they are taken quietly. Through court rulings. Through policy changes. Through book bans. Through voter suppression. Through laws that make people afraid to exist out loud. Through people using God’s name to justify control, cruelty, and exclusion.
Let me be clear, this is not me being anti-God.
I love God too much to pretend God is the author of oppression.
What I am against is people weaponizing faith to build a country where only some people get dignity. Only some people get safety. Only some people get bodily autonomy. Only some people get protected. Only some people get to call themselves free.
That is not liberty.
That is not justice.
That is not independence.
That is domination dressed up in patriotism.
So today I’m not moved by the flags and fireworks if we are not willing to tell the truth about the state of this country.
Freedom is not real until it reaches everybody.
Not just the people in power.
Not just the people who pray like you.
Not just the people who love like you.
Not just the people who live like you.
Everybody.
That’s the America people keep claiming to love.
Maybe instead of just celebrating independence, we need to ask who still hasn’t fully received it.
Maybe instead of pretending this country is free, we need to decide if we are actually willing to fight for freedom that does not require anyone to disappear, shrink, submit, or be silent.