One Nation UNDER God

I hate singing patriotic songs in church. Confusing patriotism with worshiping God is blasphemy. The flag, a symbol of our country, is too often an idolatrous object, worshiped like the golden calf in Exodus. Revered and saluted, the stars and stripes are respected more than many of the people it represents.

A typical liberal, I'm so appalled by others' blind, hysterical flag waving, I sometimes forget that I am also a proud citizen.

July 4 has always been an important holiday for me.

• The summer before second or third grade, I sustained an eye injury and was hospitalized. I was discharged on July 4. Blind in one eye, I still wanted to see fireworks. My dad drove me over to Omaha's Peony Park and from the inside of the car, I watched with the good eye. 
• In 1992 I got married on the fourth.  It wasn't a legal wedding. At that time, few of us sincerely thought legal gay marriage would be possible in our lifetimes. But celebrate we did as friends and family came from all over. It was a blast. The relationship didn't last, but that year, the fourth was great.
• One of my favorite July 4 memories is of a square dance convention in Baltimore in the year 2000. And yes, I square danced as a card carrying member of the Rocky Mountain Rainbeaus. We took a dinner cruise out on the harbor to watch fireworks. As we passed the point where Francis Scott Key was inspired to write the Star Spangled Banner, the huge crowd of mostly gay men and lesbians suddenly began singing, God Bless America. It was a goosebump moment. I thought that if all these people who have been told over and over again that they don't deserve equal rights, the right to marry, the opportunity to serve in the military, the freedom to love whomever they choose - that their citizenship is "less than," if they can still love this country, there must be something worth loving. 

This year, as we celebrate the nation's birthday, our citizenship is reaffirmed by the Supreme Court's ruling on LGBT marriage equality. I feel a little more like a proud American than I did last year.

I'm not a flag waver. I don't place country with God above all else. But I am a patriot. I believe the U.S.A. is a basically good place which requires constant tinkering and vigilance to stay that way. When I criticize the U.S. and protest some of the things it does, I'm not only exercising my patriotic duty to make things better, I am participating in the freedom of speech guaranteed so clearly by the Constitution.

This doesn't mean I think other nations are inferior. One of my favorite songs, rooted in a national song of Finland, allows for love of God and country without chauvinistic nationalism:

This is my song, O God of all the nations,
a song of peace for lands afar and mine;
this is my home, the country where my heart is;
here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine:
but other hearts in other lands are beating
with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,
and sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine;
but other lands have sunlight too, and clover,
and skies are everywhere as blue as mine:
O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,
a song of peace for their land and for mine.