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.
