Reconciliation
I grew up in a religious household. Not of necessity, of my own choice. In middle school, I was invited to youth group by a friend and never left. Most of my adolescence was spent somehow affiliated with church. Then one day, I decided to come out to my youth pastor. He didn’t say much, but I immediately knew he viewed my sexual orientation as a problem. He never said anything that upset me; but I found his silence to speak quite loudly. That was the day I realized how surrounding myself with suppressive people was no longer healthy, and I parted ways with him and the church. I now feel completely removed, not only from many of the people and places of my christian upbringing, but from my teenage self. It has become relegated to the appendix of my biography.
The predicament in which I find myself then becomes which, if any, of my personal beliefs have changed? There is no doubt that I have learned from what I experienced. It was due to this event that I began advocating for gay rights on the state level and found my voice politically. But on the other hand, do I still believe in all the things I did growing up? Are they mutually exclusive or can I reconcile the two worlds?
To the Roots: Today in the Americas: A Vignette for Jose Martí
To live in exile – to sculpt clouds.
The disjointed effects of the US intervention against the Spanish in Cuba in 1898 cannot be measured without Cuban response. On Jan. 29, 1895, Jose Martí issued from New York, where he’d first visited in 1875, the order of uprising (117 years ago). He…
No human being is illegal. National security is used to foster inter ethnic tension.
(Source: anarchyagogo)
“In the absence of peace and love, we teach war and hate as an escape from the problems we are too lazy to solve.”
(Source: spreadthemovement)
“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.” - Thomas Jefferson (Jefferson Memorial)
(Source: somewisdom)
