Verbal Vomit

These past few months have brought wave after wave of trials and lessons and blessings and miracles... and I feel an intense need to start blogging again. For some reason there is a difference in writing in my journal daily and trying to refine my thoughts a little more and sending them out into a virtual void. (check out the "v" alliterations today: verbal vomit, virtual void... that's very vonderful? hahha)

I have been participating in the online discussion of Prop 8 ever since it passed, and this is one article that I found that had quite an educated, civil discussion. There is nothing that bothers me more than misinformation and half-truths and I have found blatant lies being used by both sides of the campaign. Read the article and the follow up comments if you're interested.

http://www.newstatesman.com/north-america/2008/10/gay-rights-church-bennion#reader-comments

THis is what I posted... this was one of my neutral comments.

I_politik, I agree wholeheartedly. This is an incredible disaster. I have read every single comment posted to this article, and it has been incredibly enlightening. I have worn myself to the bone having difficult conversations about this with my friends, gay & straight, religious & not religious, yes on 8 & no on 8 & apathetic... and the conclusion I have come to is that as a society, we do not have the tools to engage in dialogues appropriately.

We are raised to appreciate and celebrity individuality and diversity-- in theory. Yet when our sphere of reality, opinions and familiarities bumps with someone else's who is vastly different, there is internal conflict. The universal motto of love to "do unto other as we would have them do unto us" is impossibly difficult.

The reason I say this is because I am convinced that if we could see and talk to each person posting to this article, we would be able to see that in the end, they do not want anyone harmed. The attackers and accusers of the mormons don't want mormons actually attacked and harmed. And those accusing the no-on-8'ers saying they're just as bad if not worse don't want them harmed either.

My friends and I have been succesful in talking about this when we speak honestly and humbly... when we say, "it hurts my feelings that you would not support the rights of gays to get married" or "i feel it hurts my feelings that you think i hate you for wanting to define marriage as between a man and a woman".

On top of all the challenges this issue is forcing us to face, we also have an opportunity to discover how competent we are at really appreciating diversity-- even when it hurts us in our core. How devoutly do we want to strive to love others? Only those that agree with us, or even the very people that hurt us?

I just noticed the caption underneath the picture reads, "Religious conservatives are trying to dictate people's personal choices". If the picture showed opponents of No on 8, would the caption read, "Liberals are trying to dictate people's personal choices"?

I think not...