You are probably aware by now that North Carolina voters passed a constitutional amendment making same sex marriage illegal.
I will pause here to say that I debated about making this blog post and it has weighed heavily on my mind. I am in a role where I am required to be pretty politically correct at work and sometimes outside. But then it dawned on me that this is not about fitting into someone else's vision of what it means to be politically correct. It is about doing the right thing...and it's always the right time to do that.
I find it appalling that this country continues to move on this trajectory of exclusion. I am frightened that history is repeating itself as people are banding together to take away the rights of others just because....well.....I don't see any valid reason for it so I'm going to leave it at that.
I teach my children to be a friend to all, regardless of what they look like, how they talk, what they wear, where they live or any other lame excuses that we adults like to come up with as to why we should exclude someone. We have some very close friends who are in a committed, loving marriage and are doing a remarkable job raising their child. The only thing making them different from my husband and I is they are gay. We also have other gay friends who are not in a committed relationship. You know what? They have the same hopes and dreams to eventually be in a loving, caring relationship as I did before I got married.
I refuse to be degrading to someone because their lifestyle is different from mine. I belong to a religion that states we don't believe in same sex coupling. I have deeply struggled with this and have considered walking away from the religion all together. In the end, I have made peace with my belief that a church is it's people and we have some of the best friends due to our involvement in our church. So I stay in the religion but the conflict eats at me. Every. Day. (That, and the fact women can't be priests but that's a whole other post in itself.)
A small part of me gets that sometimes people bond out of fear of the unknown. My family is simply not that different from the families we know with gay parents. We may want different sized houses, different number of kids, different types of jobs but we each deserve the basic rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That should apply to us ALL, not just the ones amongst us who are deemed worthy.
Don't let this post fool you into believing that I have a pollyanna approach to the world. I am a realist when it comes to how the world works and how it grinds us down each day. But I simply can't stand by and say nothing because it might be too risky or someone might think I am inviting confrontation because of my opinion. It's always the right time to do the right thing.
Please don't be silent.
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." -Dr. Martin Luther King
