Having endured a closet that almost killed me, and having slowly but surely started to re-claim my faith & working to come out as a gay follower of Christ, I suppose in my mind & in my heart, I really can't help myself. God has shown me that the old line is true: it IS darkest before the dawn.
Even with an abiding faith that, as the email from the California Courage Campaign stated, this "shameful attempt to nullify these unions will not be vindicated in the eyes of history" & that "love will prevail, no matter how hard they try to fight it," I have also come to understand that faith without words is dead.
Of all that my Lord has taught me since leaving the prison I had built for myself, my eyes have been opened to the undeniable reality that my own broken heart simply cannot stand as a reason to stop fighting; those Christian Soldiers out there who see "abomination" in how we love, and who see us as enemies instead of siblings in Christ really do count on our being too demoralized to speak up & to stand up for our own hearts & our own lives.
It's not enough to not-so-simply know that I am right in believing that even GLBTQI people were made in God's image, and that we are loved just as we are...warts & all, as they say. It's not enough to know that following where the heart that God gave me leads me, and being truthful to myself & to the world is no sin. It's not enough to refuse to hide anymore. It's not enough to merely hope for better.
I know that "love is patient, love is kind...it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres," and I know that it is life-changing love that provides the impetus to keep going when sometimes all else seems lost, and--while "they" may not realize it yet--Love is what "they" are truly fighting here. I'm pretty sure that those who would, with ugly pride, attempt to put asunder what God has brought together know not what they do, and so it is up to each of us--unwilling to forgo this most noble of human endeavors simply to validate someone else's dogma--to remind them every...single...day that the enemies they have created in the dark recesses of their minds & against which they preach their Gospel of Exclusion bear no resemblance to the virtual Army of Lovers--and those who support our equality--who fight for a higher & much more sublime purpose than simply the right to do with our genitals as we please.
For so much of my life, it was other people who fought the fight for me, because I was too weak & too hurt to fight for myself, but--THANK YOU, GOD--those days are gone.
Part of my own spiritual rehabilitation is speaking out & screaming as loudly as I can & to as many people as I can that the Emperor Has No Clothes, and reminding the world (or as much of the world as I--as one person--can reach) that this whole fight is not about how I love, but that I love...and that's why I know we will yet see victory...even if not in my own time on this earth.
In this battle, those who fear & lie about us don't seem to be on the same page as the rest of us. "They" think they are fighting people who toil endlessly to be able to have the right to engage in what "they" have determined is "perverted sex," not knowing--or, at least, not admitting--that what we are really fighting for is our hearts' desire.
The true bottom line here is that we have so much more on the line in this fight than "they" do, so maybe they really can't fully understand that we can never give up, and we can never give in because--while they are fighting for what they believe is their "Godly cause"--we are fighting for our very lives.
To me, there is simply no comparison.
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