I’m a little less angry every day, but this still needs to be said.

I am angry. And justifiably so, I think.

Three days ago, 53% of Maine told my friends that they do not deserve to be treated as my equals in the eyes of the law. Their civil rights were put to a vote, and 53% of Maine said Yes, it is perfectly acceptable to stick to the status quo, to deny people their rights based on who they love. 53% of Maine scrutinized their “lifestyles” and said, “I don’t agree with who you love, so you can’t be my equal.” 53% of Maine refused to separate the church from the state (if you are about to comment & tell me that there is no separation of church & state, keep this in mind: your church is tax-exempt) & voted to deny my friends the civil rights that come with civil marriage.

After spending much of Tuesday attempting to talk to every possible Farmington voter, I spent my Election Day evening in Portland. I spent hours surrounded by hundreds of people who were just as ready as I was to see equality happen. I talked & laughed & danced & watched the numbers come in. I screamed my gratitude to volunteers & organizers who had shared my dedication to equality. My ears soaked in inspirational almost-victory speeches & my hands turned deep shades of red from applause. I shared embraces with men & women who wanted nothing more than to make the same commitment to their partners that I will one day make to a man. I felt my eyes well up with tears as the local mayor took the stage to tell us that we had won Portland with almost 75% of the vote. I was absolutely ready to be an active part of history.

By 1am, the tension in the Holiday Inn ballroom had become tangible. Our latest update, informing us that the opposition had pulled ahead with just over 50% of the vote, was now 45 minutes old. The screen on the wall would refresh every few minutes & the dull roar would become a whisper as we would wait for new, more optimistic numbers; they didn’t come. Around 1:30, huddles began to form, & people began to cry & wait for the news. Jesse Connolly took the mic to tell us what a wonderful job we had done. This vote was razor-thin, he said, but the downward curve of his mouth said it all: our work hadn’t been enough. 53% of Maine still believed that my friends were second-class citizens.

Tears came. Some let out sharp, gasping sobs; others were stoic with wet, shining eyes. Arms were flung around the nearest necks, trying to find lifelines to keep afloat in the emotional typhoon. More arms were draped over shoulders as circles formed & we tried to encourage each other. I found my mouth speaking words that I wasn’t sure my head believed, telling those around me to stay optimistic, because if we threw good energy into the world, it had to come back to us. I proceeded to throw curveballs, fastballs, knuckleballs of good energy everywhere I could, but I think my head already knew that it was no use. The ballots had been cast & nothing could change that.

Wednesday was the hardest. I was tempted to skip classes, but I insisted on walking with my head held high. I broke down, piece by piece, over the course of the day, & then spent much of my evening in the Alliance office. I was overwhelmed with hugs & support & gratitude for the work I had done, but that didn’t change what had happened. I cried several times that day. I cried for Aaron, for Alex, for Tom & James, for Lisa & Lisa, for Meredith & Melissa, for Merrill & Nopa, for Gretchen & Ruth, for so many others.

Every day since, I’ve spent a small piece of the day talking to one person or another from the campaign, asking how they’re holding up. Some fare better than others: some are beginning to move on, & I can feel the optimism in the words they type, hearing their voices the way they were around August when the cocktail of good weather & successful campaign work had kept us all going. Others are gradually building the strength to stay at work for a full day. Some are full of energy after getting a good night’s rest, & are ready to begin the fight anew. Others still can’t believe what has happened. I empathize with all of them.

I am angry at what my state has done to my friends, but as Jacques said to me the other night, it is not necessarily a surprise. It was time for us, but it was not time for the rest of the state, & as this vote has proven, we work on their schedule. There are less of them every time; some die, some realize that they know us & love us “not merely with words or tongue, but with actions & in truth”, some stop voting. One day, it will be our time.

I had a conversation with a good friend on Wednesday night who offered to let me process all of this (& I certainly did). He reminded me of one of my favorite Scriptures, which I would like to pass on to all of you. (<3 you Charles, thanks for this.)

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. -1 Corinthians 13:4-8

I encourage you all to try to walk through the aftermath in love. As angry as you are at those who voted against you, try your hardest to love them anyway — even if that means not saying a word.

We have more fight left in us than they realize. Take time to be angry & upset, to be frustrated & hurt, to cry & scream & lock the door. Then open up the blinds, step back out into the world, & show them that we are ready to do this all over again. Continue to come out in support, even when the issue isn’t in the foreground of everyone’s mind. It’ll get them thinking. If they know one of us, they’ll vote for all of us.

Essay #1 for Nonfiction. I apologize for the length.

I am beautiful.

            I am not the “conventional” kind of beautiful. I am not a size zero (or even relatively close). I don’t have blond hair or blue eyes. I do not dress like a fashion plate, and half the time I probably don’t even dress in a way that flatters my body. I rarely wear makeup or use any sort of hair products, and I only recently managed to entirely give up biting my nails. I am twenty years old and I’ve been told I appear to be anywhere from seventeen to twenty-three. I am not what a lot of people see as beautiful. Most of the time, I am not even what I see as beautiful. But I am beautiful.

            I haven’t always seen myself as beautiful; this realization has been fairly recent, and much help and much hurt have been required in order to reach it. It has required feeling like the smallest, ugliest, most worthless creature to walk the planet. It has required experiences that changed my life for the worse before it changed for the better – experiences that I cannot bring myself to write about. Experiences like Michael.

 

I will never be able to write about you.

            You probably have no idea how much that kills me, because you have no idea what writing means to me. You don’t realize that when I don’t feel good enough, when I don’t recognize my own worth, when I don’t feel beautiful or intelligent or capable or optimistic or anything else that is good, writing gives that back to me. You don’t realize that the fact that I can string words together and make them mean something that strikes a cord in someone is sometimes one of the only reasons I keep going. You obviously don’t care, since your memory strips me of this.

            Why do I even question this? Of course you don’t care, since you don’t even know this about me.

            You know nothing about me, other than the fact that I had a crush on you in high school. You probably don’t remember my name or the fact that we were in the same French class for five years. You couldn’t describe what I look like, you don’t know who I was friends with, you don’t know what instrument I played for the six years that we were in concert band together. You might remember a day when you were a sophomore and you were handed my most intimate thoughts on a piece of paper, but not from me. Yeah, sound familiar? Is it all coming back to you now?

            Do you ever wonder where that girl is now? Well, in case you’re wondering, she’s sitting in an apartment in Farmington, Maine, and over four years later, she’s having a nervous breakdown as she tries to describe the moment when you changed the course of her entire life. She remembers every piece, every moment, every word, every facial expression, but with every word she writes, she comes even closer to vomiting. It takes about two sentences to have her kneeling before the toilet; she won’t actually vomit, but God, she’ll want to. She’ll want to purge you from her memory, you and every piece of herself that you have tainted, every pound of flesh that you added to her frame, every bit of herself that you have made feel unbeautiful.

            I wonder if you know that you are the sole reason for someone’s lifelong struggle to feel beautiful. I wonder if you know that you are the reason that she needs to make others feel beautiful, because she doesn’t see it in herself. I wonder if you know that she begins to cry every time she is called beautiful, or strong, because she can only seem to remember you making her feel ugly and worthless and weak.

            I wonder if you know the effect you have had on one life.

           

This is what I wish I could say to him. I won’t tell you who he is, or what he did. You can make your own assumptions, and most of them will probably be much more awful than what actually happened.

            But he isn’t what I want to tell you about.

            Instead, I will tell you about my mother.

            My mother grew up under the wing of a mother who obsessed over weight. I never saw this side of Nana, but apparently it existed when my mother was a teenager. She has told me stories of being forced to stand on the bathroom scale, and listening to her mother relay the number to the rest of the household from the top of the stairs. She has told me that she was driven to anorexia as a teenager. She has told me that she doesn’t want the same for me. She has encouraged me to see myself as beautiful. She has reprimanded me for choosing to take diet pills. She has told me time and time again that looks do not matter.

She has encouraged me to go on diets. She has scrutinized my exercise routine. She has watched my eating habits like a hawk, praising salads and “tsk”ing at desserts. She has subtly pointed out every pound that I’ve gained while being in college, rebuked me for the sweet tooth that I inherited from her, given condescending once-overs and not so subtly made known her disapproval of my fluctuating jean size.

She was the one who encouraged me to go on my first real diet. It was the solidifying and the undoing of our “normal” relationship.

I remember the hiss of oil on hot metal, the crackle of pancake batter beginning to crisp, the sweetness in the air of chocolate chips melting, metal scraping against metal as a spatula peeled a pancake away from the griddle, the hiss of the batter side beginning to cook as it was replaced. I remember my father in his plaid pajama pants, his Napa Auto Parts t-shirt ridden with holes from years of wear, standing in front of the stove.

            I remember the whir of the blender on the other side of the kitchen, the grinding of metal cutting through ice, unfamiliar scents like soymilk and frozen fruit and powders that were supposed to taste like French vanilla, the cold whisper of ice chips sliding down the inside of a plastic cup. I remember my mother in Tigger pajama pants that probably went to Goodwill a few months later, some nondescript tank top, a pink terry-cloth bathrobe. I am a freshman in high school, and it is the first morning of my spring break. I am probably wearing the pajama shorts with pink and brown stripes, and an oversized sweatshirt, and my voice is still heavy with the remnants of sleep as I wish two very separate worlds a good morning. They turn to me simultaneously. “Breakfast?”

            That was the day everything changed. On one side of the kitchen stood my life as it had been every day before. On the other stood my life as it would become.

            I certainly can’t say that my weight had never been a concern; when a girl enters middle school wearing size 16 women’s jeans while most of her classmates only recently stopped shopping in the children’s section, it’s at least a subconscious thought sometimes. But that day, my mother took it to a new level. That day, I realized how my mother saw herself, and how she saw me. I remember not being able to look in a mirror without lifting my shirt to examine my stomach, to compare my reflection to the last time I looked.

            I remember the feeling that my mother and I had a real connection. The time spent making our morning shakes became our bonding time. We envisioned the blades at the bottom of that blender slicing off all the pieces of ourselves that we didn’t like: the stomach pudge, the love handles, the extra bits in hips and thighs. We were a real mother-daughter pair, in such a twisted way.

I remember the beginning of the first summer, and shopping for summer clothing. It had been less than two months, and I had dropped a size, as had my mother. I remember the once-overs becoming more and more approving, the way she watched my clothing selection at Old Navy, noted the selection of a large top rather than the former extra-large. I remember making my shake one afternoon and feeling the smile in her eyes as she gave me the usual once-over and said, “Well, look at you, Miss Skinny Minnie.” I remember smiling wider and standing up straighter, and having the confidence to wear spaghetti straps and shorter shorts. I remember how much my mother’s opinion suddenly meant to me.

This was where he came in.

He is the nightmare I am constantly waking up from. You might know that feeling: jolting from bed in a cold sweat at some ungodly hour, not wanting to go back to sleep because this isn’t one of those times when you want to see how the dream ends. Instead, this is one of those times when you desperately wish for some sort of remote control to change your dream. This is one of those nightmares that will haunt you as you walk through the rest of your day; a name will set you on edge, a vaguely similar face will make your blood run cold. He is the nightmare that is so real, it hurts to think about; he is the one that hurts your heart so much that thinking about it makes your whole body sick, and it makes you not want to write, because in order to write, you have to dig deep, and the deeper you have to dig, the more sick you have to feel.

 

Dear Michael,

            I think I just need to write about not being able to write about you.

            I’ve given up on trying to write about what actually happened, or how I felt then, or how I feel now.

I’ve given up on trying to find the words for the emotions that come over me when I stumble across you on Facebook or in the recesses of my mind… or for the sickness that comes over my stomach when I think about that day & how you probably don’t even remember me, let alone what you did. I’ve given up on trying to put pen to paper because the words just don’t flow; instead I just put head to hand & hope that God will bring me some kind of healing. I’m told that the healing doesn’t come because I don’t believe enough that it will. I’m supposed to have faith the size of a mustard seed, & within that miniscule faith I’m supposed to have some kind of massive faith for something miraculous. I’m not supposed to doubt. I’m not supposed to be bitter.

            I open up my heart—this piece of luggage that I have carried for years, filling with souvenirs and memories, not taking the time to look back at them—unpack it, lay out its contents piece by piece. I take note of every time I’ve tried to forgive you, every time I’ve even maybe gotten through a couple of days without thinking terrible thoughts about you. I inventory every time I’ve picked you back up and insisted that the awful things you did were a part of me that wasn’t going to go away. I count the times I’ve wanted to tell you that you haunt my words, you hide in the dark crevices of the letters that will not come from my pen into daylight, you stick to the inside of my lungs and make my breathing hoarse. My words are yours, my ink drawn from the blue of your eyes. The journal entries that I wrote, the ones you saw—they’re yours too. You took them from me, and you gave them to everyone you knew, out of some kind of perverted generosity, some twisted way of saying you were flattered that I wrote those things about you.

            You never saw my body—no one has, and only one person ever will—but a piece of that is yours too. Underneath my sweatshirt & blue jeans, the glossy pink stretch marks that decorate my hips are yours. When I sit down, the small rolls of flesh around my stomach are yours. Sometimes I will tighten my abdomen, suck you in, make you invisible. Sometimes I cut my body apart like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, only to realize that it is truly incomplete without those extra bits. I force pills down my throat to burn those pieces away—those pills belong to you, too, as if little bits of you are swallowing yourself, canceling you out. But it doesn’t work that way; the pieces of me that are made from you can’t go away; like they keep me safe. Like in some twisted way, my life is incomplete without you, without what you did.

 

After him, I spiraled into a depression that lasted for months. My emotions became foods—rich, heavy foods, mostly composed of chocolate, that glued themselves to my insides, became walls of extra flesh around my body. My relationship with my mother proceeded to unravel, as all of her hard work came undone with every pound that came back. I remember watching the smile fade from her face as the walls grew thicker. I would gain a few inches in height over the next few years and end up looking a bit more proportional, but this didn’t lessen the tension.

In the process of growing distant from my mother, I became more like her than I had ever thought possible. In effect, she became her mother and I became mine. Weight was our rivalry and our common bond. For years, our conversations would revolve around my weight fluctuation, my choice in college to use diet pills, and my lack of romantic relationships.

I began attending a local church, and found some of the answers I was looking for there, particularly in a scripture given to me by my youth leader—Ecclesiastes 3:11, which read, “He makes everything beautiful in its time.” I don’t remember how I first encountered this verse, but I remember falling in love with it, and being so comforted by the thought that everything and everyone had a time and a place to be beautiful, that it was all in God’s hands. I also remember being confused, wondering why everything couldn’t just be beautiful from the beginning. But every translation said the same thing: He makes everything beautiful in its time.

I started to think that maybe there was some truth to this “in its time” idea. Maybe we’re not beautiful in and of ourselves. Maybe it takes time to become beautiful. Maybe we start out as something not-so-beautiful and we have to wait to become beautiful. We can’t make ourselves beautiful—we aren’t our own Creator. It takes time, it takes patience, it takes a lot of testing and sometimes it takes a lot of hurt. It takes feeling ugly and worthless and miserable. It takes heartache and tears. It takes a force greater than ourselves, and whether we believe in the same “force” or not, we certainly cannot achieve this growth on our own.

 

And I guess that’s true. I guess you somehow led me to where I am. In some weird way, I couldn’t have made it here without you. I wouldn’t have known to keep myself guarded, or that I shouldn’t hide anything. I wouldn’t have known to watch what I write, or to be completely real in my writing and not to hide behind filters and firewalls. I wouldn’t have become so uncomfortable in my own skin, and I wouldn’t have learned to see myself as beautiful.

So I guess, in some weird way, I should be thanking you. I don’t want to thank you for hurting me, or for the way that you hurt my heart so much that my entire body feels sick trying to write about you. But if you hadn’t happened, if I hadn’t looked in the mirror that day and seen myself as ugly, as worthless, as next to nothing, as something you could insult and cast off, I would have had nothing to improve upon. I would not have found my time to become beautiful.

I may not be your biggest fan… I will certainly always despise what you did, and wonder why you did it… but I know that you happened for a reason, and I know that somehow, I became beautiful because of it.

 

I am beautiful.

            I am not the “conventional” kind of beautiful. I am not a size zero (or even relatively close). I don’t have blond hair or blue eyes. I do not dress like a fashion plate, and half the time I probably don’t even dress in a way that flatters my body. I rarely wear makeup or use any sort of hair products, and I only recently managed to entirely give up biting my nails. I am twenty years old and I’ve been told I appear to be anywhere from seventeen to twenty-three. I am not what a lot of people see as beautiful. Most of the time, I am not even what I see as beautiful. But I am beautiful.

            I am oval-faced, dirty-blond-haired, hazel-eyed, 5’9”, size-12 beautiful. I have a beautifully quirky laugh. I have a beautiful smile and beautiful eyes. I have a compassionate heart. I walk with my head held high (most of the time). I have curves and I enjoy them. I recognize my own beauty.

            I haven’t always seen myself as beautiful; this realization has been fairly recent, and much help and much hurt have been required in order to reach it. But I am beautiful.

            And so are you.

Yes, I’m blogging again.

I wrote this for my Nonfiction class a few days ago, & felt like sharing it. Feel free to leave feedback.

 

Reduce me to love. This is the cry of my heart to You, it has been for years, but they claim that I love wrongly. I love the wrong people, I love in the wrong ways, somehow I love wrongly.

          I didn’t know that there was any wrong way to love. Paul told us that love was patient and kind; that it did not envy or boast; that it was not proud, rude, self-seeking, or easily angered; that it kept no record of wrongs; that it did not delight in evil but rejoiced with the truth; that it always protected, trusted, hoped, persevered; that it never failed. Supposedly, every one of these words was inspired by You, given to him by You. Supposedly, this is what Your love is, and this is what You want love to be. But this is not the love I see around me. What has love become? Does this kind of love only apply to some?

          I have tried to be patient to no end. I can’t say it’s always worked, but very few people can. Reduce me to patience.

          I have tried to be kind, and I’ve probably succeeded just as much as anyone else. I’m certainly not perfect. Reduce me to kindness.

          I have tried not to envy, and I know I’ve failed. I have envied those who have the love that I think I seek, though I know the love that I already have is so much more than we can have on earth. I have the love that died for me. This love is my pride. Reduce me to live in this love.

          I have tried not to boast, and I would be boasting by claiming to not boast. I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, says Paul, that Christ’s power may rest on me. I am weak. I am not proud of these weaknesses, but I am supposed to be, for it is in my weakness that I find strength. Your strength. Reduce me to that weakness.

          I have tried not to be proud, and I have failed. I have found my fulfillment in my works, and not in the One who created me. Reduce me to humility.

          I have tried not to be rude, and I hope that this is one thing at which I have succeeded. I have tried not to offend, not to be condescending, not to be anything that does not reflect love. Reduce me to this.

          I have tried not to be self-seeking, and if we’re taking this term literally, I have failed at this as well. I have sought myself in the sense that I want to know who I am. I have forgotten that everything I want to know about me can be found in You. Reduce me to You.

          I have tried not to be easily angered, and I have certainly failed at this. The smallest thing can set me off lately. I hold on to old grudges. It takes years of wrongdoing to anger You. Reduce me to this.

          I have tried to keep no record of wrongs, and I have only succeeded at this with certain people. There are some people I don’t know if I can ever bring myself to forgive, yet I am to always forgive without question. Reduce me to forgiveness.

          I have not delighted in evil. The truth is love, and I have rejoiced in that.

          I have tried to protect, and I hope I have succeeded. But You said always to protect.

          I have trusted, perhaps too easily, but You said always to trust.

          I have hoped. I have hoped to heaven and back, and this hope has not let me down. But You said always to hope.

          I have persevered. Sometimes I have been broken. But You said always to persevere.

          I have failed. I have failed countless times. But love never fails.

          Jesus, reduce me to love.

It’s 3am & I can’t sleep… so I’m blogging.

About five hours ago, a question was asked of me that broke me. Not in an “I’ve seen the light” way, but in an “Oh my God, I’ve REALLY had enough of this” way.

About five hours ago, I was collecting pledge cards with a few volunteers on campus, and a friend of mine, to whom I’ve barely spoken in the last year-plus, came down the stairs. Being my IPVR-shy self, I refused to make the ask. Let someone else take it. Alex did. Walked up to her determinedly but casuallly, as with anyone else, and asked if she supported same-sex marriage. Before the last of the words could escape his lips, she extended an arm, palm out to push him away, and nearly yelled that she would be voting against us as she quickened her pace to distance herself, as if homosexuality was contagious.

Pledgecarding continued. Ten or fifteen minutes passed. Enter Maria again, from the snack bar doors. I made brief eye contact, but couldn’t bring myself to smile. She hovered for a moment before “Psst”ing & beckoning me over with a single finger. I took a step or two toward her. Not too much. I already knew what was coming, but I hadn’t thought she would be so blunt as to approach me in public; I would have at least thought she would reserve the attack for Facebook. But no. Oh well, no escaping it.

“How can you call yourself a Christian and support this?”

I didn’t hesitate to roll my eyes & turn on my heel to return to my circle of volunteers. I wish I’d had the words, but I’m so sick of the question & ones like it, the words don’t come anymore. At least, not as words. They come as screams when I lock myself in the office half an hour later. They come as fingers wrapping themselves in my own hair & threatening to pull. They come as the tears that haven’t made their way out yet over the last few months. They come in the form of my body shaking with sobs. The question has never been phrased this harshly, this judgmentallly. This made the previous gestures seem subtle: the outcasting, the lack of interaction almost entirely.

I wish I’d had the words when she stood in front of me. I wish I could have matched her courage, been able to answer with words that would make her think or at least halt further questioning.

But I don’t know how I would have answered her. I support this with everything I have. I live & breathe this campaign. But how would I have answered her without being equally cruel & rude & condescending?

I support this because I don’t believe that my beliefs should be forced on others.

I support this because I’m not entirely sure what my beliefs are right now.

I support this because I’m pretty sure Jesus would be a fan of civil rights, even if He doesn’t dig homosexuality (that one still stumps me, but I think questioning God is healthy on occasion).

I support this because my friends deserve the same rights that I have, & if you knew them half as well as I do, you would see that. That boy you pushed away is one of the sweetest boys I’ve ever met; you don’t even know him, but you know that you hate him & don’t see him as deserving of the same rights that you have to be in a loving, committed, & legitimized relationship.

I support this because some of those children that you love so much live with two fathers, or two mothers, & I know you wouldn’t dare tell that child that their parents shouldn’t have the right to raise them.

I support this because I want my friends to know that God loves them for who they are, & that message can’t get across if I am spreading lies about them or insisting that they are wrong & do not deserve access to every part of society & every blessing in life.

 

I support this because I am done caring what anyone thinks. There is only One who matters, & He will judge me. I’m fairly certain that He won’t hate me for wanting others to know real love.

Some disjointed thoughts on why I’m doing what I’m doing.

I’ve been asked far too many times why I care about something like this if it doesn’t actually affect me; why I am “going against God”; why I am doing what I am doing.

My inquisitors are wrong. It does affect me. Maybe not directly. But it does. I can’t imagine waking up on November 4th & knowing that Maine has decided that my LGBT friends do not deserve to be considered my equals. I can’t imagine the sick feeling in my stomach if I woke up that morning knowing that if I had done something, that could have changed. I’m doing this because I can’t have that happen. If I do have to wake up on November 4th & know that things didn’t turn out the way we wanted, I want to be able to take comfort in the fact that I made every possible attempt.

During our debrief at the end of tonight’s phonebank, a woman who had never volunteered before spoke up. She said, “This isn’t a gay rights issue. This is an EQUAL rights issue.” I couldn’t have said it better. I am doing this because all men are created equal & endowed with certain inalienable rights & among these are life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness.

I’ve had so many people try to convince me that this is about some kind of special privilege for a group that doesn’t deserve it. They are wrong on so many counts. It’s not special privilege; it’s about my friends having the same rights that I am entitled to as a straight woman. If you could see the love that these people have for each other & for those around them, you might even start to think that they deserve these rights more than you do. Some days, actually many days, I’ve had that very thought. They know what it is like to be hated, but they return love & kindness & compassion. The people who have contributed to this campaign are some of the most wonderful human beings I have ever had the privilege, the blessing, of encountering. I can’t imagine what my life would be like without them in it. If you have no idea what I’m getting at, go spend one afternoon at a phonebank. The love in those rooms, the bond that people create over these issues, is unlike anything I’ve ever known. I am doing this because I feel more love for & from those people than I have felt in almost any other part of my life, & they have no reason to be ashamed of their love for anyone, especially those with whom they want to spend their lives.

This fight is about so much more than marriage. This is about treating people, WONDERFUL people at that, just as you would treat anyone else: with love & respect & dignity. This is about acknowledging that we are all human, no matter where we are in life, no matter if we are black or white or gay or straight or anything else in between, and that as humans, we all deserve to be able to live our lives without fear, without inhibition, without having rights taken away based on what we look like or who we love. I am doing this because I cannot enjoy the privilege of living without fear, of living my life the way I see fit, if I know that it is just that: a privilege, & a limited one at that.

Jeremy once joked that if I didn’t have people hating me for my stance on this issue, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. I think he may have been right. When people fight me on this, I know that it is because I am standing firm. (“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature & complete, not lacking anything.” -James 1:2-4.) I know that it might not please people, but I know that I am standing firm for what I believe in. I know that what is in my heart isn’t always what pleases people, but ultimately, people aren’t the ones that matter. (“Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” -1 Sam. 16:7.) They’ll be unhappy with me over one thing or another. I know that my intentions are good, & I know that I am doing this out of love, which is what those of us who call ourselves followers of Christ are called to do. He NEVER told us to pass judgment on anyone. Over & over, He told us to love. I cannot be satisfied with the way I love if I merely say “I love”. I must love by doing, & that is why I am doing this.