Love Has No Labels

How many of us when we first turned on the video were expecting something much different?  We have set prejudice and bias that we do not want to admit.  We have in our mind what love should look like.  We all do it.  We base our idea on love on past experiences.  We assume that people love just the way we love.  We say that we do not put labels on who can share love.  Yet deep down we do put labels on love.

The one difference that I think has the last stigma is that of different abilities.  I think that television and movies have really helped tear down this wall.  We see people returning from combat who have lost their limbs, have traumatic brain injuries or suffer from PTSD and are returning to their families.  Their families are just grateful to have them back that they overlook the disability.  The news has done a great job of showing that a disability doesn’t interfere with your ability to love.  We see stories of love between parents that have done great things to make their differently able child do miraculous things.  We see TV shows helping give people with disabilities anew release on life.  Many disabilities are not visible to our eyes.  We never know who we may fall in love with and then learn that they have life changing disabilities that are not visible to the eye.  Yet, that doesn’t keep us from loving them. 

My partner and I have no problem with society accepting our love due to us both having disabilities.  In fact, most of our friends are happy that we found someone that can accept our limitations.  We both have things that we can and cannot do and we work it out among ourselves.  It is amazing how you can have a disability and not be looked at as if you are incapable of showing love.  Most people will overlook the disability that we have and just see us as two people making the best of life with what we can do.  Our love is in no way affected by our disability in a negative way.  In fact, our love may be stronger because we want to be with each other as share as much time we have with each other.

Many of us do not have problems with people who are different races falling in love.   We have in most cases accepted that people who are different races can love each other.  Our children are in situations in which they have friends of different races and they grow up not looking at skin color when it comes to loving others.  In fact, that there are so many different kinds of people in the United States crossing the boundary of race we all have different make-up of races in our own body make up.  So how can we stop two people from loving each other because of race especially if we take account of the multitudes of races we are.

I can remember as a friend that my best friends were not the same race as myself.  I had friends that were all colors of the rainbow.  In fact, being part Native American the majority of all of my friends are a different race than I am.  My partner has African American in her genetic make-up.  So we do not share the same genetic race make-up, but it doesn’t that we love each other less.  In fact, our race has nothing to do with the amount of love we share with each other.  No one has ever said that you are can’t be together because of your race differences.  I know so many other biracial couples that love each other and they never look at each other and say we are special because we are different. 

Next we can accept that people of different ages can love each other.  We know in our own life that we have close friends that we love that are of different ages.  We have friends that are older than us.  We have friends that are younger than us.  It is not uncommon for people to fall madly love with someone that is not their age. 

My partner and I have 22 years difference in our age.  It is amazing how many people think that I am her child.  They want to look at us and try to justify in their mind our relationship.  Then after we tell them that we are a couple they usually say “Awe” and move on.  Our age difference hasn’t affected our love in a negative way.  Instead our love has matured over time as we have both aged and dealt with life.  I like to say that I learned had to be more mature and take on responsibility in our relationship.  My partner has kept young because she is with me.  We are able to learn from each other and grow closer to each other every day.

We usually have no problem accepting people with different religious backgrounds being in love.  In fact, in most situations you will not know that they do have different religious beliefs.  You often find out that your friends are just other people that have similar likes.  Then the days come that you find out that you do not share the same religion.  In most cases we remain friends and in some situations fall in love.  When you look at this video just think of this all the people may have different religious beliefs.  Yet, the only time that you question it is when people show outward signs of their religion that it even pops in your mind how can they be friends.  Yet, in other situations you would not question their friendship or the love a couple shares. 

I tell people all the time that we met the right way.  They look at me funny and then I say we met at Church.  You would first think that we share all the same religious beliefs.  Yet this is not entirely true there are things that we see differently.  Yet, we are both in love with each other.  We have learned from each other.   Those in our life do not know about the little differences that we have about religion. 

I also have other friends that are very close and dear that have very different religious beliefs from me.  Yet, it doesn’t affect our relationship.  Our similarities have led us to love each other.  No one judges because we are different.  We need to remember that we should not let religious beliefs keep us from loving each other. 

There is one stereotype that does bring a lot of prejudices.  Look at the first couple you see.  Couples behind the screen who are showing each other love.  Their skeletons do not let out the secret of their identity.  They stick their heads out from the screen and you find that they are two women.  This is one of the areas that people have the most trouble with.  

Think on this a moment how many people see a man and woman kissing and go “awe isn’t that sweet.”  The same people two men kissing or two women and their skin crawls.  People even get stressed out when they are holding hands or showing any type of affection.  They are afraid of them.  They fear that their kids may be influenced by them.  That somehow the public affection will lead to something terrible.   In some situations we miss that these same gender contacts might not be couples.  It may be two brother, two cousins, two sisters, showing each other affection.  Yet, we have been trained to think of this as a bad situation.   

I really believe that our religious institutions have caused some of the problems.  Many teach that it is a moral sin to show love to someone that is the same gender.  Many talk hate and spread fear throughout their congregation and the community.  The problem is that Jesus was the definition of love.  We have to show each other love for that is what God wants from us.  The problem is we have missed the fact that Jesus talks about love and we have taken a few scriptures and say that this is what God says about same sex relationships.

Being a lesbian couple is definitely not easy.  People judge us.  Our immediate family had to go through a time of adjustment some have accepted others shun us.  We get stares from people who think we should not be together.  We have people who try to convince us that we are living in sin.  It is very difficult to see people being able to hold hands and share their love.  While at the same time you have to be careful how you share your love in public.  You feel safe only in certain places.  You avoid certain areas because of fear of being hurt.  You go through life looking over your shoulder because you feel ostracized from mainstream society and you never know when a situation may go bad. 

All of our differences have helped us be able to share our love without people labeling our love.  For example with us both using assisted devices people understand when we are arm in arm helping each other.  Because of our age people always assume I am walking with my mom and they think it is sweet that we are so close.  People miss the fact that we share separate races. 

Look at your own life what labels are you putting on people.  Have you set up biases that affect how people can love?  Do you need to stop judging others?  Do you need to accept people and those that they love?  Do you need to open your hearts up to people that are different from you? 

The fact is that if you look at all the differences we share we will see that we all are in some ways different from others.  We will see that we are all a combination of many labels.  This only goes to show that we can live together in love.  In actuality, what you find is there are all kinds of different people that love each other.  We have to come and accept this and strive to show others it is okay to love each other in peace.