A Different Kind of Pride

I call this post a different kind of pride for a reason. After President Elect Obama's win on election night, I noticed that people, young and old have a restored faith in this great nation. People are remembering what it means to have pride in their country. I'm not talking about arrogance, I'm talking about the power of coming together to make a world better for all peoples.

I talk about coming together because I spent a chunk of time recently living and working in West Hollywood, California. WeHo if you will really embraced the rejection of Proposition 8 (redefining marriage in California as one man and one woman.) As someone who does not believe in state sanctioned marriage, I was not a supporter of No on 8. That does not mean that I do not support equality; I'm a firm believer that the state should grant equality to couples no matter what their orientation, gender identity, race, religion, etc. is. I think of marriage as a union before God, a religious ceremony without any legal rights. I believe a church DOES have the right to say who they will and won't marry. I do not believe any legal rights should be included in this religious ceremony.

So I received a lot of flack from my peers in the LGBT community that I was setting the movement back. My independent thought, something that oftentimes is lacking in the LGBT community was "setting people back" somehow?

I'm not here to comment on that issue. Today what I want is to say that I'm so pleased to see my peers thinking about this issue. Sure, they're supporting something I'm not proactive in supporting, but they're out there. And they're talking to people, and they're listening. And I'm starting to see that intelligence, and discourse, and other qualities that I hold sacred are starting to resurface amongst the general public.

I thank anyone who has challenged me. Whether you agree with me or not, it's inspiring to have an intelligent conversation. It's satisfying to hear that not everyone agrees with me and can make a valid point in an argument that makes me question everything I believe.

I will not sit back in a world that offers blind faith and selective hope. I will always attempt to digest the opinions of popular culture, define my own reality, enjoy sentiments from the 'minority' and present my belief, popular or unpopular as my truth.



Thank you for letting me down off my soap box.