OPINION | If You Turn Away, God Sees That Too
You don’t get to remain neutral when they’re dragged out in the dark
When they come with clipboards and guns, they’re not lawmen. No need to call them that. They’re fascists. And ICE isn’t a policy dreamed up in a lab, it’s a weapon against Americans. It’s the state sanctifying fear. It’s the government deciding which bodies get to exist without terror. They don’t come to serve. They come to hunt.
This is old evil wearing a fresh badge. And I remember. Not in the way history books want me to. I remember in my body. In the way I watch my undocumented friends text me every time they hear tires slow in front of their house. In the way brown mothers call on the saints louder than they call the police. In the way I watch white liberals say “it won’t be that bad,” just like they did before the trains.
This is fascism. Say it with your full chest. Say it like a rosary. Say it like a curse. Because that’s what it is. It starts with IDs. Then it's vans. Then it’s raids. Then it’s silence. And then it’s a new normal where some people vanish and no one says their names.
The song says, “Ich erinnere mich an die Weimarer Republik.” I remember the Weimar Republic. I remember what happened when fascists rose in plain sight and people danced a little harder, thinking that would stop it. When artists were silenced politely. When punks became tourists in their own scenes. When the doormen took tips and the cops took names and the resistance got edited out of the pamphlets.
Fascism doesn’t need you to agree. It just needs you to be tired. To turn the music up. To pray privately. To say nothing when they come for someone else.
Well not in this house.
Saint Michael is a warrior. Not a diplomat. Our Lady of Guadalupe appears to the colonized. Not the empire. Saint Toribio walks beside the ones who cross borders barefoot. Not the ones who draw them with blood. My altar is not neutral. My prayers are not polite. My saints are not bipartisan. They take sides. And so do I.
This is not a moment to hesitate. This is not about politics. This is about the soul. This is a God Test. And the stakes are eternal.
What kind of human are you when the vans roll by? Do you hide? Do you record? Do you pray louder? Do you feed the ones in hiding? Do you pull over and block the street? Do you light your candle and name names in heaven? Because if you don’t, the world will remember. And more importantly, so will God.
Every saint in heaven is watching this unfold. They remember the camps. They remember the churches that said nothing. They remember the priests who kept quiet. And they are not coming down soft this time.
The undocumented are not invisible. They are holy. Every child in hiding is a miracle. Every father at risk of deportation is a martyr waiting to be named. Every mother who keeps the lights off after dark, hoping the neighbors don’t report her, is a prophet of survival.
This is fascism. And if you say nothing now, your silence will rot your spirit.
But if you speak, if you act, if you protect even one person from harm, if you light that candle with a name carved into it and whisper, “I will not forget you,” then heaven hears that. Then God hears that. Then the saints stand taller around you. Because this is the moment. This is what we were born for. To decide if we are soft-spoken shadows, or warriors made of light.
And if they come to your town, to your job, to your child’s school, remember this: God is watching what you do next.
So yeah, I’m your Gay Psychic Dad. And I have seen this before. And I will not sit still. And I will not forget. And I will call them what they are.
They are fascists. And I remember.
— The Internet’s Gay Spiritual Dad
Song: “Ich Erinnere Mich An Die Weimarer Republik” by The World/Inferno Friendship Society
Author’s bio: I’ve spent the last few years as a journalist, chasing stories that mattered and holding truth to the fire. But long before that, I was reading candles, saying novenas, and whispering prayers over pots of coffee at dawn. My work lives where spirit meets struggle, rooted in folk Catholicism, resistance, and the radical act of showing up for each other. I’m not here to sugarcoat the sacred. I’m here to light candles in dark places and say what needs saying. You can call me the Spiritual Gay Dad, because someone’s got to mix holy water with holy rage.
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