For God's sake, can we all just get along?
For God's sake, can we pick back up the Golden rule?
For God's sake can we say nothing if we don't have anything nice to say?
For God's sake, can we all just take a moment and think?
For God's sake.
With all that is going on as we speak about homosexuality, we all need to just take a moment and step back. EVERYONE has an opinion on the matter, be it for, against, or they truly don't care because it's not a priority of their life. Sadly, it is probably those who truly don't care that I love the most, even though I am for equality.
Those people who don't care rarely get involved in the debates. Rarely interject, comment, create a blog post, or concern themselves in matters that are extremely controversial, especially right now.
It's a hot button topic at the moment. And y'know, it should be. Some equate this equality to the same thing as racial equality, and most people against homosexuality say that it's COMPLETELY different. Truthfully, it's not too far off. But, probably in different manners than you're thinking.
When you think the fight for racial equality you probably consider that your god made everyone. To quote the song "Red and yellow, black and white, they're all precious in his sight..." You think that the battle lines were drawn much more drastically, with different restrooms, seating sections (if allowed in to sit at all), schools, etc.
Homosexuals aren't that alienated, right? Besides, it's their CHOICE to be a homosexual, they're choosing to live in sin. People didn't CHOOSE to be black, that wasn't something they could help. So really, homosexuals have brought this on themselves. This isn't anything like the civil rights movement, right?
Wrong.
People are feeling alienated.
People are being bullied.
People are receiving threats.
People are feeling unsafe in their schools and communities.
People are being treated subhuman.
People. Are. Dying.
Matthew Shepherd and Lawrence King are the Emmett Till of our current civil right battle.
People are using the word "normal" in regards to every day things that homosexuals want to be a part of and can't. A NORMAL marriage. A NORMAL medical benefit. A NORMAL family.
Normal. I don't even know what that words MEANS in today's society.
- Interracial marriages
- Step and adopted children
- Men wearing eye liner
- Women wearing overly revealing clothing
- The goth fad
- Amish colonies
- Looking to Hollywood to set the bar on beauty regardless of how unrealistic
- Seeing bloodshed, heartache, death, drugs and thievery in our evening news instead of uplifting reports on all the beautiful things in our world that occurred that day.
Are these things normal? What defines normal? All these things were thought to be different when they first came to be. Shoot, the Amish are still considered different because they haven't "evolved." How is it these things that were once "different," have come to pass as normal? Is it just time? Society being worn down? Do we have a difference in tolerance?
With all the negative attention the world is giving to being a homosexual, it's easily becoming a problem in our society.
No, not being gay. Being gay is not the problem. Being who you are is NEVER the problem.
Teaching our children to discriminate is the problem.
Being an example of hatred, nonacceptance and narrow mindedness is the problem.
Not teaching acceptance is the problem.
Hating the sinner rather than the sin is the problem.
I'm not asking everyone to vote for marital equality. I am asking everyone to vote for equality as a whole.
Why is it that kids are being attacked for being gay? Teenagers are killing themselves because of being bullied and harassed for their sexual preference.
Because their peers are looking to the adults for how to respond to these scenarios. And instead of seeing adults showing to agree to disagree and still love thy neighbor, they're seeing people like Westboro Baptist Church. They're seeing their parents openly talk about the disgust of the homosexual lifestyle without ever seeing that it's the acts within the lifestyle that aren't approved, not the person themselves. They're watching their pastor and youth leaders condemn homosexuals to hell and preach that it's such a wrong decision. They're looking to the people of authority in their lives to show them how to handle something different than they know, and WE ARE FAILING THEM.
From a Christianity stand point, these children are seeing all that is wrong with other lifestyles without ever being taught how to be a better witness. We're not teaching them to hate the sin and love the sinner. To show Gods love, grace, mercy, forgiveness, and acceptance through their own actions. About how to reach out to these children.
From a Christianity stand point, for the sake of your god, PLEASE consider how you're representing Him. Consider what kind of example you're being. While wanting to be an example of a great Christian to your fellow Christian is all fine and dandy... your fellow Christians know God. Consider the example you're being to those who don't know God yet. If you live your life as an example to those who don't know Him, you will be a shining example to both. If you assume that anyone worth being an example to already understands the foundations of Christianity, you are losing SO many lives.
Religion aside, it is our RESPONSIBILITY to help the children of our generation to feel safe, feel accepted, feel they have a friend, an ally, someone to stand with them. THIS is what we need to be teaching our kids at home. When they get older they will eventually decide for themselves what they believe. We need to teach them things that will stay with them. Regardless of if they believe homosexuality to be right or wrong, they should believe in a personal equality for everyone. EVERYONE should be able to walk the halls of their schools, their streets, their library, their community center, and not fear being beaten up or shot. Nobody should ever feel so alone they want to kill themselves. NOBODY. We need to teach our children how to be a friend. How to not care what the rest of the world thinks.
Forget just in the aspect of homosexuality.
That child in their class who obviously comes from a financially struggling home? That child who sits at a table alone at lunch, wearing the same clothes as yesterday, with only a half a sandwich, who's stomach is growling ferociously by recess because it was barely enough to hold him over. Who doesn't have a jacket that fits for winter. We need to teach our children to reach out. To share their lunch. To come home and ask their parents for help making sure that for everything we've been blessed with, we're responsible enough to help the less fortunate when we're able.
The child who is the target of all bullying. You know who I'm talking about. The one ANYONE will pick on because they're different, they matured faster than the rest, they're smelly, they spend half their school days in the resource room, they're deaf, they're blind, or...heaven forbid, they're homosexual.
WHY do our children think it is okay to partake of the bullying? Why aren't we setting an example at home? No. Why aren't we setting a STANDARD at home that explicitly shows our children this is not okay?
And with social media now-a-days it's even worse. Not only is the bullying able to follow the kids home from school, but now the examples we set as adults are able to stretch like a wild fire across our friends of friends in hardly any time at all.
That stand you just took against equality. Against homosexuals rather than the act of homosexuality? Against someone rather than in support of someone? That stand you just took could have been the last thing they saw before killing themselves. The last words they read. Yet another person, who doesn't even know them, judging them and saying how wrong, how disgusting, how subhuman they are.
Is that the mark you want to leave on this world?
The mark you want to leave on their hearts?
I IMPLORE you, to PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE think before you speak on these issues.
I don't care if you don't agree two people of the same sex should marry. That is your call. I honestly don't think that anyone else really cares too much either. Don't get me wrong, they want it, but when all is said and done, I think an over all equality and tolerance are far more worth fighting for than just marriage equality.
I am so tired of seeing our generation lose innocent lives to this unnecessary hatred and bigotry. To ignorance. But most of all, I am sick of losing innocent lives because we, as adults, didn't stop to consider who was looking to US to set the example.
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