Finding My Voice

My sweet, silent little Candie Girl is starting to get verbal. We went out into the yard the other night and she started howling like the beagle she is. While hearing these howls is startling, I am so happy that my puppy is finding her voice. This sweet little pup was a stray, turned in as a nuisance. She’s come a long way from the scared dog who was cowering in the corner of the dining room, terrified of the scary people who swept in and “stole” her from her foster home. She still has a ways to go, but it makes me happy to see her venturing around the house, even if it is to places I don’t necessarily want her to go. I hope that it means she is happy, confident and realizing that this is her home.

There is a scene in the movie Zoolander, where the main character looks at his image in the reflection of a spoon and asks the question “What’s my destiny?” It’s a question I’ve been asking myself, and the answer, like Derek’s reflection in the mirror, is “I don’t know”. I’m taking baby steps, and a big part of that is finding my voice and speaking my mind. I know that the time is over to be silent.

I’m ashamed to say that gay rights is an area that I’ve been relatively silent on. I can admit that part of the reason for that silence was fear. I’m a single woman, with a pretty bad track record on the dating scene. If I speak up on gay rights, will people assume that I am gay? An ignorant and stupid feeling, I know.

Well, the time is over to be silent. When something is wrong, it’s wrong. I have two friends from high school who are homosexual. They deserve the same rights as me and it should be a no brainer. I refuse to accept the fact that because someone is born the way they are means that they do not deserve the same things that I do. I may not know a lot, I may not be a Theology scholar, but I do know that God does not make mistakes.

Hearing that Proposition 8 was upheld in California infuriated me, and seeing the comments on my friend’s Facebook page, asking him if he has read his bible and citing bible quotes made me even angrier. I know that he did not choose to be gay any more than I chose to be straight, have brown hair or be short.

If my friends have been blessed and have found their life partners, then they should have the chance to make that person their husband or their wife, without needing a court order to do so. There shouldn’t be a fear that their loved one won’t be able to visit them in the hospital or be able to share in the fruits of their combined labor when one has passed.

It amazed me the first time I heard that at one time in this country the union between a black person and a white person was considered illegal. Imagine that – at one time the union that produced our President-Elect was considered a crime. I hope that someday my children will have the same reaction when hearing that gay marriage was once outlawed in this country.