So I’ve been suffering a pretty bad cold for… oh, I don’t know. A month and a half. So sleeping has been challenging. I woke up this morning around 4 a.m. (if memory serves) and picked up my iPhone to look at the CNN headlines. One headline grabbed my intention. It was something along the lines of the GOP’s response to same sex marriage since Obama’s historic announced support.

The article (which I would encourage you to read), tried to explain how Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus believes in dignity and respect for all Americans, but that this doesn’t mean marriage equality. Apparently, he said:

“I don’t think it’s a matter of civil rights. I think it’s just a matter of whether or not we’re going to adhere to something that’s been historical and religious and legal in this country for many, many years… I mean, marriage has to have a definition, and we just happen to believe it’s between a man and woman.”

Ahem. “Marriage has to have a definition” and he gets to define it?

I am so incensed at the presumptuousness of the majority of the GOP. I’m actually more troubled by their co-opting of the religious narrative in this discussion because it has really been one of “religious people” versus “non-religious people.” But nowhere do I see my religious views, which are very liberal, represented. The assumption that all Western religions observed in our country reject marriage equality is baseless.

Further, I kept thinking of the arguments being used today and how the very same arguments were used until interracial marriage was made legal in the late 1960’s. The same arguments were made against so many minorities, demonized for the sake of control and power. I’m straight, but I identify with the feelings of persecution and simple unfairness.

Yeah… I do a bit of thinking at 4 a.m. And I couldn’t get back to sleep. Instead, a poem started in my mind in response. I’m sure if you’re reading this, I’m preaching to the choir, but I just wish people would remember that we live in a civil society, not a religious one. So here’s my response to Mr. Priebus and his ilk:

You might believe it’s unnatural but it is
Despite your beliefs
It may make you uncomfortable
But it doesn’t concern you
You might want to blot it out
But it’s not going away
You may want to fight it on grounds of morality
But it’s immoral to deny someone’s existence
You might think it threatens you
But you have created the threat of bigotry
You may want to lean on history to define the future
But the past merely points out our mistakes
You might want to make the world in your image
But it’s ours and it must be shared
You may think your position is the only right one
But you are wrong
The progress of humanity is a future where people can be who they are meant to be
Not who you want or need them to be
If my actions threaten you bodily
If I am violent towards you
Then defend yourself
If my actions threaten your mind or spirit
If my existence threatens you
Then you need to get over it
Because I exist
I have every right to be the fully realized human I was meant to be
Same as you
And just because someone tells you I am evil
Does not make it so
I am human
Same as you
I love
I hurt
I feel
I cry
I laugh
Your needs to feel better about yourself do not outweigh my need to be myself
Live how you will
But afford me the same
We are sisters and brothers in the human family
No matter whom we love
Or how we love
You are hurting your family

Stop it.

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