This is how you help.
April 5, 2012 51 Comments
I’m not any kind of an activist. At least, I don’t think of myself as one. There are causes that stir me up and to which I’ll happily donate time or money. When my English prof asked our class to write in our journals about the things we’re most passionate about, this is what I wrote.
Here in Ohio, I’m not allowed to marry Jazz. Not Allowed. I can sign different papers and have other ceremonies, but not the ones that make my state accept us as married. I call him my husband because it’s the word I want to use to define what he is to me. Part of what he is to me, since there are a lot of other words that define him in my mind too. I’ve seen people wince and I’ve seen them smile when I introduce him as my husband.
He’s mine, I’m his, and so I support Equality Ohio and Freedom to Marry.
I have never been so badly bullied as since I’ve come online to interact with people all over the world and share bits of my life. Hiding behind anonymity, cyberbullies seem to have no problem tearing into people even while hiding behind rainbows. There is a list in my WordPress admin area of email and IP addresses for people who will never be allowed to comment in here and a couple who I want to approve before I’ll let them have their say. Yep, I’m totally oppressing people’s freedom of speech, but it’s what I’ve got in my arsenal against bullying and I’m going to use it. Honestly, if I didn’t, Jazz would.
So I support this film called Bully and I support The Trevor Project and NOH8 Campaign.
My family loves me and Jazz, but there are a lot of kids who aren’t so lucky and adults who are still scarred from what their families did to them. I know people who were thrown out on their own, beaten, raped, or shunned. I have a friend who has a scar beside his eye from his father hitting him. I have a friend who’s tried to commit suicide more than once. I had a friend who succeeded.
I want to change the world by changing minds. Educate a generation of people who won’t hate me, hurt me, ignore me and those like me. This is why I support M/M romance authors. Statistics show that the majority of people who read their stories are middle-class, middle-aged women with children. These readers are open to learning about LGBTQ people and teaching their children to be the same way. No one has to know what they read because the characters are in their heads and in their hearts. No one has to know how they vote, but I’m going to believe that we’ll benefit from it because they know that love is love and no law should stop that.
And since you’re reading this post, I’d just like to say thank you.
This is how you help.
About Thorny
Alec
Jazz
Thorny
All blue "emotional emoticons" courtesy of LazyCat at 
<3
(((((((((hugs)))))))))))))) You’re a wonderful man, Thorny, you & Jazz both.
:scratching my head: I can’t recall if I commented yet or… not. Truly exceptionally excellent post you’ve written here, Sunshine! Well written, well said and majorly mint source of information and intellect you’ve provided us followers. I’m in aw of your mind and the way you think. Can I pick your brain? :snickering:
Even more ((((hugs))))
I’m an incurable romantic, and I get really *warm fuzzies* when I find someone who’s IN LOVE (like you and Jazz, and Matt and Brad!). I just wish more people would recognise that it doesn’t matter WHO a person loves, just that they ARE ‘in love’
XOXO
Carole-Ann
(((((((((hugs)))))))))))
You do a lot to help, Thorny. I never doubted it.
Thank you, all of you, who are adding to that generation I want to see who just accepts that love is love and anyone who thinks otherwise is wrong.
{{{{{{{such huge hugs}}}}}}} I really love that
Nobody can say it better than somebody who’s lived it.
<3
I have always thought/taught/and believed that love is love…no matter who is giving and who is receiving it. If you are lucky enough to BE IN LOVE, OR BE LOVED, I say YAY! I am happy for you and hope you have a lifetime together. Period. My son is 9 and both my husband and I have tried to teach him that no matter what you look like, who(m) you love or WHAT you believe in, (or don’t believe in I guess), we don’t judge anyone, because we don’t want to be judged. Period. Love is a beautiful thing, meant to be celebrated. I am one of those middle-aged mother’s/housewives that reads MM romance for the story (and yeah, sometimes for the hawt lovin’ lol!). A romance is just that to me no matter that the MC’s are both men. Just as in real life, I love the stories of true love….I figure I am in love, everyone else should get the chance to be too!
I’m another mother teaching her children about acceptance. My kids all have friends that are gay and they all stick up for them if anyone dares say anything about it. They still are slightly wigged out about my choice of reading material, but that’s another story.
Thorny, just by being who you are and telling the world how you feel, you are making a difference. I hope that one day your state allows your dreams to come true so you can legally marry Jazz.
Perfect! *hugs*
Actually I should have added that I’m one of those mothers who has long been teaching her children about acceptance. While I only have a couple of gay friends, apart from my BIL and his partner, my older son is in a circle of friends that include 2 gays, 1 bi and 2 trans lesbians. My younger son (nearly 18) regularly goes to car races with my BIL and his partner, and stopped being friends with a couple of boys who kept saying unkind things about gays. I am extremely proud of them, yet I have never said that to them, nor will I, as to them, what they do is nothing special. And that’s the way it should be.