Bridget Allison's Blog - Posts Tagged "aids"
Love One Another
Tonight I watched "The Normal Heart" and I didn't cry. This is something I tell people. I was brought up this way, and for the most part I am fine with the unshed tears. They well up and I don't know where they go. They nourish my heart, feed my soul set me to pondering and this evening I reflected on hatred, fear, predjudice and the people who clearly don't understand love. Love is magical. Love is the luminous and fragrant flower in a dark garden. It is where the heart seeks a resting place. Tonight I watched this war against disease and ignorance unfold on film and I remembered. I remembered hungering for information. I remembered when the burning question was not "How can we save the gay community?" The real question on everyones' minds was: "Can WE get it?" Those of you with congested and limited hearts say in an aside to willing ears that there is a gay agenda. And I want to ask "If you need change to occur, what is wrong with having an agenda? Don't you need a plan?" Sometimes I hear that the media and entertainment industry is behind it all. "Making us accept gays." Maybe. But isn't that a good thing? Isn't it wonderful? Media, entertainment, communication...there are speeches, books and films that have gradually opened hearts and minds and changed opinions in a sweeping way.
I talked to my children about gay rights when they were in middle school. I talked to them about the right to marry, the times when a gay couple could only put one parent on the form so that when the child they so desperately loved was ill one was "the" parent while the other was trapped outside, behind the glass of the "family only" room. So much has changed. But not enough.
I don't need to know you have "a gay friend" any more than I need to know you have a tall friend or a blonde friend. I'm more interested in what that says about you, that you needed to point it out first before I hear what is coming next.
What I really want to know is whether you think that gay friend has a right to marry and have a family. If you think the bible backs up your opinion that they shouldn't then I have to reply "Well, yes I have heard that one countless times." But all I hear about in my church is not the passage about who must lie with whom. I hear "Love one another."
I talked to my children about gay rights when they were in middle school. I talked to them about the right to marry, the times when a gay couple could only put one parent on the form so that when the child they so desperately loved was ill one was "the" parent while the other was trapped outside, behind the glass of the "family only" room. So much has changed. But not enough.
I don't need to know you have "a gay friend" any more than I need to know you have a tall friend or a blonde friend. I'm more interested in what that says about you, that you needed to point it out first before I hear what is coming next.
What I really want to know is whether you think that gay friend has a right to marry and have a family. If you think the bible backs up your opinion that they shouldn't then I have to reply "Well, yes I have heard that one countless times." But all I hear about in my church is not the passage about who must lie with whom. I hear "Love one another."
