All you need is love...

"All you need is love.
All you need is love.
All you need is love, love.

Love is all you need."

This past week one of my friends, Allyn posted an interesting article on Facebook.  It was a recent Gallup study showing that for the first time a majority of Americans are actually deciding that they are okay with legalizing gay marriage.  For me this was amazing.  for those of you who don't know me I am a crazy, raging liberal.  I believe strongly in human rights and the freedom to make our own choices without others making our decisions for us.  I believe that we all were put here (not sure by who) to live our lives according to how we see fit.  At some point everyone says (regardless of political affiliation) in their life, it's time to go grow up and make decisions separate from our parents. My question to you is, why do we say that we should be able to make decisions for ourselves when the vast majority of people see it fit to make decisions for the majority of us?  Why is it that someone else is always trying to tell us how to live our lives?  Doctors tell us how to live, when to lose weight, when to sleep more (blah blah blah), people tell us who to love, who to marry, what to do with our bodies.   So where exactly do we all fit in to the let's make our own decisions?  Where is this line drawn?  What decisions are we allowed to make and what decisions is someone else supposed to make for us.  Why the hell is always someone else telling me what to do? Do you know?  I sure as hell do not!

Most of you know I live in Tennessee currently.  When I first moved down here on my red chevy cavalier was a Human Rights sticker.  It looked like the pic above.  After living here maybe two weeks I left work one day to notice my sticker was gone.  WTF?  Why would anyone ever rip off an equality sticker?  Then it dawned on me... equality and the human rights campaign to some stands for what people like to call gay rights.  They consider it a campaign to give "Gay" people special rights, when in fact it's just asking to give this group EQUAL rights. In every facet of our lives people discriminate against this group, all the organization and the group wants is the opportunity to love and choose freely like any heterosexual person gets to.  I say, as a nation we butt the hell out and let people live their lives as they see fit.  Who are we to judge?  It's no body damn business what I do in my bedroom or my home and it's no bodies damn business what a homosexual person does in their bedroom or their home.  Maybe these people should realize that the HRC really isn't about "gay rights" it's about human rights, gay or not we are still part of the same human race, and should all have the same rights.  It's about the ability for all of us to make our own damn decisions in life without everyone else trying to do it for us.

After I posted the above article, my cousin Merideth commented, "Majority of the people in the world will support Gay Marriage long before they will support them raising children! :)"

After she made this comment I decided to do some research on her comment.  Most people know adoption is not an easy process by any means, it takes patience, a good deal of money and a lot of love.  To be gay and try to have a family is even more difficult!

 According to Love and Pride, "current reliable gay adoption statistics for America, there are statistics on children in gay homes. In 1976, there were between 300,000 to 500,000 gay and lesbian biological parents. In 1990, 6 to 14 million children had at least one gay or lesbian parent. Between 8 and 10 million children were being raised in gay and lesbian households.In 1999, approximately 547,000 children in foster care in the US, 117,000 legally free for adoption. There were only qualified adoptive families available for only twenty percent of them. Ten percent of the US population is homosexual, meaning a lot of couples whose biological resources for children are reduced are currently prevented from filling in the adoption gap."

Also this website states, "even in areas that have gay adoption laws, gay couples adopting may find they face prejudices within the system. Mainstream assumptions on gay parenting have led to an attitude that gay parents are a child's last resort.Often in gay adoption, parents will get harder children because social workers leave them last on the list. It is ironic that bureaucracies that believe that lesbians and gay men are not suitable parents will place children who require the most highly skilled parenting with them.Gay families have unique strengths that help troubled children. Gay couples adopting usually accept differences, understand what it is like to be in the minority, assign different gender roles, and have the skills to be open about sexuality with children who have been sexually abused."

So now I pose a question, why does it matter the sexual orientation of the parents.  Isn't it more important that they can provide a loving home and properly take care of the children?  I thought we lived in a nation with more children to be adopted than homes for them to go to? Seems senseless to discriminate based on sexual orientation.  Last I checked gay, wasn't a virus or bacteria that we could catch, so I'm not quite sure. What harm does it cause? I'm pretty sure the only thing is it steers from what we as a society consider as the social norm to raise a family in. Take a look around everyone, there are very few families that still fit the social norm that we lived in even 10 years ago.  Being a single mother or father is much more common that it used to be. Single parent adoption or IVF is more common. 

For those of you who do not know, Merideth that I spoke of earlier is currently a gestational carrier.  Her and her family (her husband and 3 children) made the decision to do a very selfless act for a very loving couple.  Here is the shock and awe factor for some of you, it is for a Homosexual couple.  Yes, you read it... H-O-M-O-S-E-X-U-A-L!!!! That's right I am the very proud damn cousin of a wonderful woman and her family who is so selflessly blessing a couple with a child, correction children (she's pregnant with twins) :)  Congratulations to the soon to be parents!  You and your family Merideth, are fulfilling two people's dreams to be parents and providing a loving home to two very special children! 

  

The last thought I will leave with you is perhaps one of the most inspirational speeches I have heard in a long time! 

 

In a world so full of hate why is it so hard to realize that, all you need is love?