Prop 8

Perhaps I am too open on my blog but I just got off the phone with my sister and she encouraged me to write about my feelings...so here I go.

Proposition 8.

Soo many things have been written and said about Prop 8. I will add a little more.

I love love. I have been in love a few times in my life and it makes me happy. Love makes me feel like I am on top of the world, like I can do anything. I love having someone in my life that I can rely on for anything and who can rely on me too. I love thinking about future...thinking about creating my life with someone. I have tried starting a life with people in the past, but it was nearly impossible because I wasn't comfortable or honest about who I was.

Ever since I was a little girl I have dreamt of getting married and having my little kids run around my house. When I was 6, maybe 7, I started making a book of things I want to do with my kids. Not sure where that book is now...its in a box at my parents house but I have certainly added to the list of things I want to do with my kids in my mind and heart.

I don't want to get married because most of my friends are married. I want to get married because I want to get married. I want to get married because marriage is the ultimate symbol of love and commitment. The kind of love and commitment that I imagine every person wants-I dream of it, I long for it. I want it more than I want anything-as I'm sure most people do.

I don't argue with any person for having their opinion regarding same sex marriage. We can all have our own opinions. But how (and why) can any person look at two people who love each other and say that they can't get married. Shouldn't marriage be a right every person should enjoy?

My dad asked me today why we (gay people) can't just call it something different. A civil union instead of marriage. I don't want a civil union because I want to get married. I want to participate in a wedding-not because a wedding itself is important but because weddings are the event that bind people. I want to get married because my parents did, my sister did-everyone I love and admire and want to be like did. They don't have civil unions, they have marriages. I want to get married and make my marriage happy and successful because there is nothing else a person can do that shows more love. I want to get married for the same reasons all my friends wanted (and did) get married. I want to find a person, ONE PERSON, who I want to share the rest of my life with. Why don't I just live with that person? Why didn't my parents? Why didn't my friends? Because people want to get married to the person they love.

At this moment in my life, I am nowhere close to getting married. But I hope for it someday. I pray for it even.

But then the discussion about the church comes up.

For anyone who knows me well knows that I love my Heavenly Father and my Savior Jesus Christ. I love the gospel. I have a testimony in the prophet Joseph Smith and I have a testimony that Gordon B Hinckley was a prophet too. I haven't asked God if Thomas S Monson is a prophet but I have faith that he is.

So right now I am struggling. How can I have a testimony in the church and embrace the lifestyle I am living and support things like gay marriage? I thought coming out would give me soo much peace and assurance. It has a little but I'm still having a hard time.

We are taught that the gospel is a plan of happiness. President Hinckley said that the members of the church of Jesus Christ should be the happiest people in the world because they have the knowledge of the gospel. He did not say that some members, or most members, he said all members. And there are gay members of the church. There are a lot of them. Unfortunately there are too many who, because they aren't accepted in the walls of churches, leave and become hard-trying to find peace elsewhere.

I don't have a conclusion. I don't know what is right. I am left with my own thoughts and literature regarding the topic. The love God has for me is a miracle-God is a miracle-God is soo good and awesome and when I think about Him I am humbled. I don't think I am a disappointment to Him, I have faith that He understands I fought and tried to rid myself of things that weren't 'right'. I believe He understands that if I didn't accept certain truths about myself, that I may not be here, that a life of depression and sadness is not a life for any of His children to live.

Elder Holland said it when asked about homosexuality, "We don't have all the answers."

We don't have all the answers. But God does. And according to the poster that was in my high school English classroom, "God made me so I know I'm not junk. I was made this way..."