A Letter on Gay Marriage

To Christians of all denominations:

You can have your matrimony on the basis of your faith.

Let the LGBT community have their marriage on the basis of a Constitutional right.

There's no destruction of family values, slandering of the definition of "marriage" (because let's face it, there are so many words in the English language with more than just one definition or purpose), or war on Christianity. The gays simply want to be, well, gay and married to the ones they love under the court of federal law.

You can have your freedom of religion. Let them have the freedom to love.

Love,

a homo(sapien).

Coming Out Stories

Let me start this off by saying: Kristen, I'm sorry your mom outed you to the media, mostly because it is unknown if you would have done it yourself on your own terms. However, I'm not sorry about how happy it makes me, and how it is even better the news came from your mother. You are incredibly lucky to have not only a loving mother but a proud and supportive one at that. The world needs more people who think like your mom when it comes to acceptance and love, mostly because the world is in desperate need of acceptance and love. Congrats on having a wonderful family!

This can be applied to Miley Cyrus as well, what with her recent coming out story. She also comes from a supportive family, and in turn has used her status in the pop world to start the Happy Hippie Foundation to help homeless LGBT youth. It goes to show how individuals who live in a loving environment are motivated to ensure the love is shared all around. People need that, and it starts with acceptance in the family.

I remember when I came out to my mom I was terrified. I almost threw up because of the fear, and prayed that she wouldn't forever see me as a mentally diseased person (which I had thought of myself for a while before coming to terms with my sexual orientation). It wasn't an easy process at all, and it led to so much family drama. My mom, having promised not to tell anyone else besides my father (I wanted to tell my siblings one at a time), went and told everyone she thought fit to share the weight of the news with. The youngest was ten when I came out to her, and her mind was so innocent that she was furious and screamed how she hated me because she thought I had given her "the gay". Let me back this up: my youngest sibling loves musicals, and her obsession started at a very young age. One musical that she enjoyed at the time was RENT. So, taking from Angel's deathbed scene, she associated being gay with having AIDS, and that the disease was inherited in the bloodline. It's funny to think of her naive reasoning now, but her reaction made me incredibly upset. Everything kind of cleared up when I took time to explain to her how her favorite comedian at the time, Ellen DeGeneres, was gay and didn't have AIDS.

She's got a contagious dancing bug, though.

Overall, I wish there was more than just PFLAG for my mom to fall back on when I came out to her. I think if she had seen stories of parents accepting their child's identity, her process of coming to terms with my coming out would have been a little bit easier. I would like to think so. Nowadays, it's kind of hard not to see stories on the television or internet that revolve around someone's coming out or, as a shock-factor, of a teen's suicide due to lack of acceptance. Eleven years later, all that matters to my mom is my happiness.

Bottom line is it's great that there's a steady increase in coming out stories in mainstream media, with some of those stories coming from loving parents. The world needs to know that these parents are not ashamed or feel personally responsible for how their children identify. This goes out to all the mothers and fathers who are using any and all possible resources to show that any child who is gay, lesbian, bi, or trans is as normal as can be, especially if they are all raised with the power of love. Honestly, isn't that what creates a family in the first place? 

Everyone Is Brave, Everyone Is Bold, Everyone Is Beautiful

There's a lot going on with the news surrounding Caitlyn Jenner: how brave she is to come out to the public eye as the gender she identifies herself; how bold her announcements have been over the past few months up to yesterday's big reveal; how beautiful she appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair. Despite all the praise from LGBT allies across the globe, there has been as much backlash over Caitlyn's huge, public coming-out. We can always count on certain news networks and outspoken conservatives to make just plain idiotic and insensitive statements during a time of celebration, ready to jump at a moment's notice to ridicule one's personal achievement, like piranhas picking at a raw bone.

Besides the usual suspects of insult and injury, there is one group that has been making a surge of shared meme's and photos over social media who are offended by Caitlyn's coming-out: wounded soldiers. They mocked the fact that Caitlyn's reveal was brave by exposing their lost limbs and artificial appendages. The soldiers pictured seemed to take great insult that a trans woman had more merit of courage and bravery than they did, and she was getting all the credit for sharing her identity in the public light.

While I celebrate the fact that Caitlyn Jenner's exposure in mainstream media is opening doors for the trans community, I am sure there are war veterans, currently deployed armed personnel, and people who lost enlisted friends and family who feel that any indication of national appreciation is being stomped to pieces by another member of The Kardashians. These servicemen and women put their lives on the line to ensure that everyone in this nation can live free to bully and hate on each other as much as they damn well please. Sure, let's take away this title of courage because all that Caitlyn Jenner did was risk everything in her life just so she can feel comfortable in her own skin, and will continue to face ridicule for years to come. These veteran memes, however, reveal a problem of entitlement within our country. This sense of entitlement comes from the veterans' side of the spectrum, and also from anyone else whose life experiences are completely different from the aforementioned.

Brave, if one was to look it up, has different meanings besides "possessing/exhibiting courage or courageous endurance". It also means "to defy, challenge, dare" and "make a fine appearance", which could be applied to Caitlyn Jenner's Vanity Fair photoshoot. While one's understanding of a word may differ than that of another's, it doesn't mean that one definition of the word is the absolute truth. Everyone has their stories, their experiences, and their words to define what seems true in their life. What Caitlyn Jenner did was brave in her own world: she could have her show canceled, lose her friends and family, lose thousands of supporters, could be the victim of a physical hate crime, could be stripped of the legacy that she had made in the Olympics. However, she faced all those "what if's" by coming out. Her level of bravery will never compare to the kinds of bravery other people will face in their lives, but this was a big deal for her to carry through.

"More mean Tweets. IDGAF."

So while the public still reels over Vanity Fair's big story, let us not forget about the countless people who face adversity every day. Let's always acknowledge those who get beat up and brought down but always manage to rise above; who lose just about everything and have the determination to start over again; who are bullied relentlessly but find a way to channel that hatred into something positive; who put their lives on the line for all the people of America; who work the jobs they hate so they can give their children the opportunity to live their dreams. There are so many more, but it would take forever to type them down.

Have we forgotten that we live in the land of the free and the home of the brave? Even if we don't gain national attention, or receive public praise for our efforts, we are all automatically brave for whatever sacrifices we make in life. Francis Scott Key pretty much branded whomever is born in this country to inhibit courage and bravery. It's time we start celebrating that American truth rather than dividing it up.