Dear Baby

thesunkeepers asked: Just wondering, as NC residents what is your opinion on the gay marriage debate? What do you plan on telling E & A about it when they are old enough to understand?

Hmmmm. This may lose me a few followers, but I think this is a really important question to answer.

I don’t talk about it that much on this blog (mainly because it’s a non issue) but my mother is a lesbian. I wrote about the experience here if you’re interested in the details.

So my kids have a Mimi (my mom) and a Gigi (her partner). They will grow up with this being a normal part of their grandparent experience. I hope that having a lesbian grandmother means that my children will always have open hearts to accepting and valuing all people. We feel this is a beautiful opportunity to teach them that love is love and they will experience this first hand as they spend time with their Mimi and Gigi who shower them with affection, take them on adventures, spoil them & love them tremendously.

I have also spoken openly about the fact that we are believers in Christ. We have an open an intimate relationship with Him. There are, however, many conflicts within my religion about the acceptance of the LGBT community and specifically gay marriage.

Personally, I feel there are people who twist the Bible to say what they want it to say. They use God’s words to point fingers and say you are wrong and I am right. They use it create them and us.  These manipulations of the Christian faith do not work for me.

So in the same way that some Christians say that the Bible says homosexuality is wrong (but turn a blind eye to the fact that it also says divorce, greed, jealousy and even eating shellfish is also a sin) - We have chosen to take the core messages of God’s word - to love your neighbor, to practice patience, to give of yourself, to spread goodness, to share the beauty in His words and the sacrifices that He made for mankind - and use these things as the basis for what we will teach our children. God is good. God loves us. We are all His children. He is always with us.

I’m not writing this post to point fingers at anyone (there’s been enough of that already). I don’t write these words to invite criticism or to create a heated debate on interpretations of the Christian religion (although I suspect it might anyway). I write this to try to explain how support of my mother and the LGBT community can live in harmony with my religious beliefs.

It comes down to this:

We are all sinners. And God loves us anyway.

So with that said, I fully support gay marriage. I believe that any two people who love one another enough to commit their lives to each other should be allowed the right to do so. Marriage is sacred. It will always be sacred and allowing two men or two women to experience the sacredness of that union - to profess a lifelong commitment to love, honor, cherish before God - that detracts nothing from the sacredness of marriage. Allowing a same sex couple to be married does not threaten the sanctity of my marriage in the least. Marriage is a beautiful journey and it’s one that I hope my mother will get to experience again one day should she wish to.

Every night our family holds hands at the dinner table. Everly bows her head with us as we ask the Lord to guide our lives and help us to be good people. When she says “amen” at the end of her bedtime prayers, we hope that above all else, we are able to teach her and her little brother that God is love and love comes in many forms.

Melissa

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