The ABC series “When We Rise” inspired me to share my views. Those are my personal opinions, not intended to harm anybody.
I grew up with a generation of kids that experienced this immense shift of how LGBT people are perceived. I don’t think that most people with a disdain for gay people actually understand where their feelings are coming from. I believe that people at their core are always loving, so I was baffled how really sweet people in my community at the same time could take badly about a group of people that had never touched their lives.
I do admit that there was a time when LGBT people made me feel uneasy, it was not that they had done anything to me or said something. So I tried to understand where my feelings were coming from, just the notion of my catholic faith and upbringing felt like a cop out to me. There are countries and cultures where nobody has ever talked about the LGBT community, where this issue feels invisible if you live in that world, and I did grow up in such a world, so when LGBT became an issue in my generation, it was “unknown” to me. Very often people fear the unknown, and the easiest way to combat it is, is to talk about issues that are unknown. What made me uneasy about LGBT people was that I did not understand it. It might be easy for some people from the get-go to understand it, it was not for me. Initially I viewed the LGBT issue from the standpoint of “same-sex love”, but it made it easier for me to understand under the stand point of simply people loving each other. I thought more and more about whether it mattered when it came to the topic of love if the gender of the two individuals mattered, in the end I came to the conclusion that it did not.
My other conviction that I hold is that I can only speak for MYSELF, this may sound simple, but to me, it means that nobody is entitled to tell anybody else how to live their lives. It pains me when people with conservative family views and catholic faith speak hatefully about LGBT people, also because there is always the chance that one day there might be an LGBT person in their family or my very own. I think this is the junction where the issue of LGBT concerns us all. Every LGBT person has a family and loved ones or is a loved one to somebody, in the end we always want our loved ones to be treated well.
I know that for myself, my relationship I do want the family format of a man and a woman, hopefully one day married in a church wedding with children, but those are the wishes for my life. While I do view myself as a conservative, I think every way, however people want to live the time they have on this planet deserves respect. I love how there are different types of families, and I find it exciting. This is how I came to love the diversity in our society and I dearly hope that despite the current US presidency even more people no matter from which walk of life they come from they come to respect people with different views.
There is enough room for all of us, it is of utmost importance that we all share our stories and experiences.
Twelve Pink Stars 