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Melissa Pearson English 2010 Professor Jeffery Greenwell 30 November 2013 Same Love Growing up, I was always told that being gay was wrong. I was raised to think that when it came to sexual orientation, everything was black and white: either you were heterosexual or you were mistaken. And I really believed this for a very long time. At church I was told that marriage was only sanctified between a man and a woman and quite honestly, at the time I didnt understand why a woman would want to be with anyone other than a man and vice versa. I firmly believed that liking someone of the same sex was immoral and I bought into all of the negative connotations that come with the label gay. I had no reason to question what I had been taught. That is, until my family was thrown a curveball. My cousin Austin came out and told our family that he was gay sometime while I was in junior high. While we had always thought that my cousin was somewhat odd, it still seemed to come as a shock to all of us. Gay wasnt something that was just a distant problem that other families had to deal with anymore. Suddenly, it seemed like homophobia was stalking us at every family get together. One of my uncles refused to go to our family parties if Austin was going to be there. Still, my parents encouraged my siblings and me to love him and treat him the same as we normally would; he was family and the fact that he was gay didnt change anything. Despite this, it did change things. Austin went from being one of my favorite cousins to being someone I struggled to even hold a conversation with. When we did talk, we often got into

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arguments and would remain upset with each other sometimes for months at a time. It wasnt long until Austin stopped coming to family gatherings all together. As I got older, I started to question the things I had been taught all my life. I began to think that although I still didnt believe it was right, maybe it would be okay for people of the same sex to get married. I remember sharing this with a friend and her telling me that if gay marriage were made legal, homosexuals would want to get married in our Latter Day Saint temples. Admittedly, this idea deterred me from any more progress in the subject for a very long time. Eventually, I couldnt sit on the fence any longer. I had to figure out exactly what my beliefs were and where I stood not only on the subject of gay marriage but more importantly, how I felt about homosexuals in general. I imagined how it would feel if I was told that it was wrong for me to be in love with someone. To be told that how I felt was immoral and sick and that I would burn in hell because of feelings that I couldnt even control. These thoughts made my heart ache and caused me to finally grasp how incorrect all of my previous notions about homosexuals had been. I had to come to terms with the fact that everyone has the right to live their life however they want and just because that wasnt the way that I lived my life, that didnt make their lifestyle wrong. I began to ask a lot of my friends their opinions on homosexuality in an effort to get a broad range of opinions and views. One night, while talking about gay marriage with a friend of mine, I was telling him how I thought that everyone had the right to love and be with whoever they wanted. He brought up the point that in an argument against gay marriage, a lot of parents asked what they were supposed to tell their kids when they saw gay couples together. I vividly

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remember my whole body tensing as my mind assessed this new problem: what was I supposed to someday tell my kids if I ever had any? My mind seemed to be flying off in all different directions and in a matter of seconds I was ready to completely change my mind about my newly declared stance on gay marriage. Then, without missing a beat, my friend said You tell your kids that they can love whoever they want to. This statement was so pivotal to me and it was then that I truly began to comprehend exactly what I was trying to stand for as far as gay rights go. It also made me realize that I would want my kids to know that they could love whoever they wanted and that there would never be any conditions on my love regardless of their sexual orientation. Later, when speaking with my sister, she said that homosexuality was a choice. She then explained to me that there had been many studies saying that boys who were very awkward around girls and had little success with them in their teens later came out as being gay. Therefore she said they were making the choice to be gay because they didnt have much luck with girls. This logic didnt make sense to me at all. Wouldnt it make more sense that gay males were awkward around girls because they didnt really like girls but felt like it was expected that they did? I dont believe that anyone would choose homosexuality, not because I think that its a wrong choice, but because, as Ben Haggerty sang in Same Love, gay is synonymous with the lesser. It was then, that I realized I also needed to start doing my research. Having been raised in the LDS religion, I started with mormonsandgays.org. It was there, on the homepage, that I found the acknowledgement that same-sex attraction is not a choice. It also states that their church reserves the right to deny marriage into their temples to whomever they wish. But the central theme on the website is love and acceptance. Which I believe is the most important part. I

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dont think that everyone needs to like homosexuality. But I do believe that it is important for people to love those around them, regardless of their sexual orientation. In some arguments, it has been claimed that gay marriage will weaken the institution of traditional marriage and break families apart. But isnt it possible that the converse is also true? In refusing to legalize same sex marriage, we are effectively stopping families from even forming and denying many happiness and freedom. In our rejection of those with same sex attraction, we are also advocating for families to be torn apart. We are saying that it is okay not to accept those who are different than us. Today, many homosexuals are subjects of physical and emotional abuse. Some get kicked out of their homes and disowned by their families. It has been reported that 9 out of 10 teens with same sex attraction have been victims of bullying at school and sexual identity crisis has been related to 30 percent of completed suicides. It seems unfair that we live in a world like this, where kids would rather die than be who they are. I have experienced being for, as well as against, homosexuality and I can understand the reasons for both. Regardless of this, I believe that everyone has the right to love whoever they want. God commanded Love thy neighbor. He didnt place any conditions on this love. While I acknowledge that I have made mistakes and misjudgments to homosexuals around me, namely my cousin, I intend to make new strides towards loving my neighbor. I believe that if more people were to take some time to understand things from anothers point of view instead of making judgments, a lot of this negativity around homosexuality could be resolved.

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Works Cited Macklemore. Same Love. The Heist. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, 2013. Mormons and gays. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 2013. Web. 21 Oct. 2013. Gay Marriage. Pro Con. Pro Con, 2013. Web. 21 Oct. 2013. Adams, Angela, Maurianne Adams, Warren J Blumenfeld, Warren Blumenfeld, Carmelita Castaneda, Carmelita Rosie Castaneda, Heather W Hackman, Madeline L Peters, Ximena Zuniga. Readings for Diversity and Social Justice. Routledge, 2013. Print. Gay Bullying Statistics. Bullying Statistics. Bullying Statistics, 2009. Web. 30 Oct. 2013.