Today I Am Ashamed To Be An Ohioan

At a time when Ohio's animal advocates are rejoicing as Nitro's Law has passed, making animal abuse a felony comes disaster!

Read this and weep....
Governor Kasich Signs Law

This is such horse sh*t I can't even stand it.  When we should be celebrating our Independence as Americans and Ohioans; on the 210th anniversary of our Statehood, this has happened.

I am ashamed to be an Ohioan. I am ashamed and frightened to be an Ohio woman.

My family has been in this state since 1795 and I am ashamed that 10+ generations of my family (men and women) have worked its land, preached from its pulpits, taught its children, wrote for its newspapers, served in its courts, worked untold hours for its arts, its homeless, its animals, its communities.  The women in my family have been tireless volunteers, mothers, grandmothers, college graduates, teachers, preachers, missionaries, musicians, actresses, financiers, merchants, booksellers, writers, farmers, suffragettes.....

Generations of Johnson Girls, past and present, are quivering in indignation and anger.

I am ashamed to be an Ohioan.

I always thought that when I died, my ashes would lie in the cemetery where my family for generations has been laid to rest. Now I almost feel as though the land I have lived in all my life, loved and defended is somehow soiled. That my spirit will not rest in the place I thought was home. It will cry for Ohio's women.

My home has been defiled. Ohio's green fields, her woods blazing with autumn glory, Lake Erie's waves crashing against her shores, her annoying winter slush, bright bluebirds and spring peepers, her July fire-flies, her dreary skies, her lake-effect weather, her parks, her orange-coned highways, her crowds, her museums, her history, her music, her foibles, glories, follies, triumphs have been diminished somehow.

My heart breaks and fears for the women of Ohio (and the other archaic states who have allowed this to happen). My heart aches and fears for men of reason, of education, of logic, of compassion.

I could make a smart-ass comment about "What's next for Ohio women: burkahs?" But that would be bitter fruit.

I am grateful that my mother is dead.  This surely would have killed her.  I think it would have killed my Aunt Nancy and my grandmother too. I can only pray that this can be overturned somehow.