Love is Love

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about love, what with all the controversy polluting the news stations about whether or not to ban gay marriage. The fact that there are people in this country and throughout the world that feel the need to restrict some people’s ability to express their love doesn’t make me angry. It makes me want to cry.

I am a person who was brought up with only the bare minimum of religious beliefs. I was raised by parents who never told me what to believe or how to live my life. I grew up around individuals who lived their life in direct contradiction to the rest of the world...and to this day, those are the happiest people I have ever come across. As a result of my rather free spirited upbringing, I feel that I became a more open minded and non-judgmental individual

Naturally, there are plenty of opinions, lifestyles, and belief systems that I don’t agree with. But if people are hell bent and determined to believe those things and live their life that way, I say fuck what the rest of the world thinks and go live your life. And because I have spend the majority of my life being tormented and ostracized for being different and living my life in a way that often goes against the majority, I feel very strongly about the fact that you do have to ignore what the rest of the world thinks and simply live.

Then there is the notion of LOVE. Love, in any conceivable form, is a blessing to be cherished and preserved when you find it. There are people in this world that walk the streets alone without the love of a friend or family to call them back home. There are people who pray every night and then cry themselves to sleep because they want the companionship and devotion from someone they can call their own. And the thing is, some people simply never find these things. Some people never find love. And even if they do, the likelihood of that love working out and preserving them till the end of their days is often dismal.

But there are people who do find love. And it is eternal. And one day they decide that they want to take vows before the other to declare that love and their commitment to one another.  But there are people right at this very moment who are trying to make that option illegal. And they are doing so purely because some of these individuals are considered “different” and “abnormal” and “against God.” Apparently they are threatening the sanctity of the sacrament of marriage.

I believe that everyone is entitled to their own belief system, even those who believe that gay marriage is a sin. But it’s not just their beliefs that anger me, it’s the fact that so many of them stem from some sort of religious conviction. I’m not exactly a religious person, but I do know a few things about God.

I’ve sat in church many a times and listened to preachings echoing from a podium. And Christianity’s savior, Jesus Christ, was a man who called every willing person to him to hear the word of God. He did not discriminate against one’s station in life, their current religious affiliations, their occupation, or their past offenses. Christ is a man who died for the forgiveness of every single person’s sins. And he did it in an act of unconditional love for all. And God is responsible for creating each and every one of us....he did so in his own image as they say. He made each of us different, and I believe he did so deliberately. If we were all the perfect specimens of humanity, there would be no need for God and Jesus wouldn’t have had to die. He made no mistake in creating some us straight and some of us gay. And I don’t think he made any of us with the intention of having us walk this earth alone devoid of love. He loves us....and I know he tries to bring some sort of love into each of our lives. If a person happens to be gay but they are lucky enough to find love, does it really make sense that God would be opposed to it---a God who sent his only son to earth just to teach us about unconditional love?

To me, love is love. And it appears in as many different forms as there are stars in the heaven and individuals on the earth. To preach out against any one of its forms, goes against everything Jesus taught us. It goes against everything spoken of in church every Sunday. Everyone has a right to be here and share in this life God created for us, and so too everyone has a right to love...regardless of how different or abnormal seeming that love may be.

And if gay marriage truly does go against the will of God, then those people will have time to answer for their sins when God calls them away from this life. That may be their cross to bear, but it is certainly no one else’s. So why worry about it? Someone else’s salvation or damnation is in the hands of God. He will make the final call.  So to those being discriminated against, keep fighting the good fight and living your life as you see fit. And to those discriminating, I’d worry about spending more time working on your relationship and standing with God....because we are all light years from achieving his perfection.