marry me

When I met my husband we were young. Not Kentucky young, but young. When we decided we were soul mates and wanted to be together the government didn’t say anything (my in-laws did, but that’s another story). We were 21 and 20 to be exact. Still in college, living with my grandparents, no steady jobs. Just a strong love and feeling that we were supposed to be together. Years later when we had our first child, no one said no. They sent us home with a small baby and neither of us knew the first thing about babies. Like most parents we learned what we needed real quick and now we just take it day by day.

I am a Christian, Lutheran to be exact. If you know anything about Lutherans there was a big hub bub about the ELCA’s stance on gay marriage and my church went through the vote and it was hard and it was ugly, but we are still an ELCA church. If you ever wanted to see an example of Christians pointing fingers and not being very-Christian like go to an ELCA series of votes and forums on what your church should do.

The reason I am writing all this is because I was not married in a church. We had a small JP service with our closest friends and family. I always thought I would be married in a church, but that wasn’t the way it went for us. My kids have both been baptised in my church, I teach Sunday School, VBS, etc.

All of these options were mine to make. I found someone I loved and we made choices, without the input of anyone in the government. Yet there are many committed couples of the same sex who are being told this is not an option for them. There are states saying this is wrong. I personally have an uncle in an relationship that has lasted with his partner about 3 times as long as my own parents relationship.

I don’t know everything, I don’t know a lot of things, but I do feel in my heart that Jesus taught us to love everyone and treat people with respect and love regardless. I have not found anything in the Bible spelled out to me about who should marry whom. There is so much wrong in this country, that love of two people should not be something we need to even make decisions on, we should be worrying about education, the economy, debt-things of that nature.

While I am being honest I am also a card carrying Republican. There are many decisions the current administration makes that I totally don’t agree with, but for President Obama to come out and say that he has evolved on this topic and he is in support of same sex marriage was huge. I loved that he was able to come out and do that. LOVED it.

North Carolina like all those other states has some serious issues to resolve. I mean they are saying you can technically marry your 1st cousin there, so I guess genetic malformities are ok in that state, as long as you are not gay. They also still enforced sterilization on people deemed unfit into the 70’s, so again, they were choosing who could and could not become parents, based on the evaluations of others. There is also the issue that the last time they amended their state constitution it was about inter-racial marriage.  Come on people when are we going to learn that differences are not important. Seperating people by differences does not work.How many more kids do we have to see bullied to the point of hurting themselves or others? What are we telling teens out there who may be gay about how we view them as a society if we say you can’t marry someone who is of the same sex, even if you are in love. Enough is enough. I want my kids to grow up and not have questions about same sex couples, or people of other races, or people who may have a physical difference. I want my kids to grow up and love everyone, to do what Jesus told us and to take care of each other, to be your brothers keeper and love your neighbors as yourself.  I am just tired of all the hate and as a mom, I don’t want my kids to ever be denied any basic human right such as the right to love and marry who you choose.  And as a Christian I don’t want to be lumped in with the groups who claim that same sex marriage is a sin.