It’s no secret that I am a supporter of marriage equality. I will freely admit I was on the fence when it first because legal here in Iowa in 2009. Then sometime a few months after the law was in affect I had my “light bulb” moment- the sun was continuing to come up in the east every day, my hetero marriage was just as strong as ever, and the real only difference in my life was I knew a few more couples I got to congratulate on their recent nuptials. In other words, all the awful things that were supposed to happen never happened. Five years later all of this is still true and today I’m thrilled every time another state strikes down laws barring same sex couples from getting hitched.
That being said, I have quite a few family members and good friends- people I truly and deeply love and respect- who disagree with me on this topic. I get frustrated when they are all depicted as hateful, stupid rednecks. There are certainly some of those out there- members of the Westboro “Baptist Church” immediately come to mind- but they aren’t the norm.
Most of the people I know who favor a traditional view of marriage are good people with good hearts. They truly believe in their heart of hearts that to believe otherwise is immoral and that they are doing the Lord’s work by opposing it. Last time I checked freedom of religion is still part of our Constitution here in the USA and it wouldn’t hurt anyone to think about that the next time they speak on the topic.
We used to be able to “agree to disagree” and still be nice to each other. I wish we could go back to that time.
