Monday, April 15, 2013

The benefits of social media

my newest addition to my coffee cup collection. I feel pretty cool drinking from it!  (Get it? It means Cool Beans!) 

For everything that may be wrong with social media, I love it. I love that I can discover websites, photos, job opportunities, songs, friends, anything on Facebook (and maybe more if I had a Twitter account). Last week I discovered both a cool blog post and incredible song. Like I have mentioned in my blog in the past, songs can have a huge effect on me. Last week I discovered this blog (song is included in it)

The blog is addressed as a letter to the church from a girl who went to a Macklemore concert and listened to a song about accepting gay marriage. She talks about the dangers of the church not accepting gay people. She talks about how the church is afraid of change. She talks about how that's not what God would want. I wholeheartedly agree with her.

As a Social Work minor I have to take a Human Diversity class. It is online and each week we talk about a different marginalized group here in the United States and ways to approach equality. This week we happened to talk about those who are gay, bisexual, or transgender. Of course this was a hot button issue with everything happening with gay marriage.

In the past I have talked about exactly what this fellow blogger spoke of-accepting and loving anyone. We as humans do not have the right to judge based on any particular characteristic, sexual orientation included. I truly believe a person is born a certain way, not all Christians do. In his song, Macklemore takes on the same belief I do by saying those opposite of me "think it's a decision and you can be cured with some treatment and religion. Man-made rewiring of a predisposition. Playing God..."

How can I tell someone the person they love isn't the right person? How can I not see a gay couple with all the tools to raise a child and not support it when we have unprepared couples raising children left and right? I am meant to love and be loved. I don't think I deserve, nor any human, to decide these things-playing God does not bode well for the person who tries to.

Macklemore's song, Same Love, embodies what it means to be accepting. He shares that the church and our society have not shown the respect all people deserve. There are more important quotes from his song than I can put on this blog so I really encourage you guys to watch the video on the blog I referenced above. The lyric that hits home for me is "I might not be the same, but that's not important, no freedom till we're equal, damn right I support it." The history of the United States is filled with efforts to create equality among everyone, whether it be Asian Americans, African Americans, women, the mentally and physically disabled, or those who love someone of the same sex. We have made great strides towards equal representation with minorities, and I believe soon enough I will be able to watch my friends who are gay walk down the aisle and marry the person they love.

Showing my support as a Catholic is a risky step to take, but it is one that needs to happen. I want to be known as a someone who emits the love of God to all I come into contact with, gay or straight, black or white. If a person is on this Earth, God put them here for a reason, He made them who they are. We can't mess with His beautiful work, we can only love and appreciate it. That is what I aim to do.