David McElroy

She went to the bridge that night to kill herself. That’s what she said, anyway. All I know is that I believed her.

It was a year ago tonight when I got a text message. She told me that she was on a bridge and was ready to die. She had threatened repeatedly to kill herself during the two years prior to this, and there had been several times when I’d been truly afraid. There were times I talked with her most of the way through the night — on the phone from almost a thousand miles away — just trying to keep her alive until morning would arrive and the suicidal demons of depression would slip away from her. At least until it was dark again.

I loved her. We had a long and complicated history. That part doesn’t matter anymore. But I loved her more than life itself — and I do love my life very dearly. I loved her even more.

She told me in her text message that as she stood there thinking about what she was about to do, I was the only one she wondered about. She was worried about how I would take it. She worried about whether it would affect a film I was working on at the time. She said it surprised her that I was the only one she thought about. She had no reason to lie, so I believed her.

After texting for a few minutes, I asked her if she would talk on the phone. She didn’t reply for a minute, but then my phone rang.

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After a divided Supreme Court ruled today that Hobby Lobby can’t be forced to buy birth control for its employees, the reactions have been predictable.

Social conservatives are hailing it as a great blow for freedom. Progressive leftists are screaming that this is about bosses controlling access to birth control for their employees. At any moment, I expect to see the chant start somewhere that the five justices on the winning side hate women.

I have trouble working up any enthusiasm about this case. Yes, it’s a good decision in a narrow way for religious freedom, but it’s pretty hollow when seen in context of everything else.

The Supreme Court has already ruled that Americans can be forced to buy things they don’t want to buy for themselves. Think about that. If the government believes you should buy hamburgers from McDonald’s or a subscription to National Geographic or a specified array of sex toys, the court has said it’s fine for government to require that of you and punish you if you don’t comply.

The court has already said that it’s perfectly fine to force employers to buy health care for their employees — plans that the government must approve. Whatever government deems to be necessary, companies can be forced to buy for you, whether you want it or not.

The Hobby Lobby decision only says that if a company’s owners object to birth control on moral grounds, they can’t be forced to purchase that particular coverage.

That’s all this decision does. While it’s right in the very narrow sense, it’s so utterly inconsequential compared to everything else that’s already been mandated that it’s hard to believe it matters.

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When I stepped outside my front door Sunday afternoon, I saw four young children running around playing together. On the porch next door, there was a father keeping an eye on the kids. He smiled and waved as he said he hoped they weren’t being too loud.

There was absolutely nothing unusual about this scene, but it wouldn’t have taken place this way even 20 years ago. And it would have been illegal and maybe caused riots 50 years ago.

Why?

One of the children was a little blonde girl. One was a black boy. Another girl was a black/white mix. The fourth was an Asian boy. The father was Asian, too.

The nice thing is that it was perfectly normal in a middle class southern suburb today. The tragedy is that it would have ever been a big deal and that it remains a big deal to some people even now.

When I moved to Trussville 20 years ago, it was still a sleepy little town that hadn’t quite come to grips with being a bedroom suburb of Birmingham. Not too many years before that, it had been a tiny Mayberry out in the country. And some of the thinking of some of the people still reflected a dying past.

I remember a young guy who had grown up in the town talking to me about racial changes in the area. He lived on my street and I was speculating about when we would see black neighbors there.

“Oh, they’ll never let that happen,” he said confidently, without specifying who “they” might be. “All the niggers live up on ‘Nigger Hill.’ They won’t ever let ’em move down here.”

This was around 1992, so I was shocked to hear someone still hold those sorts of views, much less openly stating them. I didn’t try to argue with him or explain the offensiveness of what he was saying. I just marked him in my mind as an ignorant redneck.

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