26

Apr

Silently Single & becoming the poster child for single folk

I liked this:

Those people who write about being single are annoying.

They are either super happy with being single [and make you feel guilty for the days that you don’t feel equally super happy] or they complain about being single [and that always makes me roll my eyes in annoyance].

I didn’t want to be annoying.

But on a deeper level, I didn’t want to write about something that was so. stinking. personal.

Because when you desire to be married, pray and believe that God hears you, and then buzz by your 31st birthday still single, that junk is personal.

The writer approaches her single life as a Christian woman who deeply wants her unanswered prayer of getting married to be heard by God. She writes about being in an unwanted season of her life and being unsure how to cope. I can relate: I am still learning how to have authentic relationships, show up for my friends and myself, be gentle and kind to myself so I can share that with others…let alone becoming emblematic of happy single people. (As some of you have probably guessed, I embody the Single more than the Happy most of the time!)

It’s not my job to be the poster child of Single Christian Girls.

I don’t know everything there is to know about how to handle this season – friendships with boys, sex, boundaries, roles, career pursuits, all of that stuff. I am not here to claim ultimate wisdom on how to do this.

[And seriously, those poster people are the annoying ones I already told you about. I really don’t want to be annoying.]

I thought you’d enjoy that perspective. I know that y’all will tell me if I get to be one of those annoying people. I’m really trying to avoid that.

100 days ago Short URL Comments

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26

Apr

The connection between civil rights and gay rights

This article by Jonathan Capeheart makes some excellent points. I usually dislike the analogy between the struggles for gay rights and civil rights in the African American community, because they seem to be very different struggles. But I am OK with being wrong in this case. That’s what education is good for:

Civil rights icon Julian Bond told me during an interview for the PBS program “In The Life” in 2008, “Black people, of all people, should not oppose equality. It does not matter the rationale – religious, cultural, pseudo-scientific. No people of good will should oppose marriage equality. And they should not think civil unions are a substitute. At best, civil unions are separate but equal. And we all know separate is never equal.”

When I asked Bond what is the connection between the black civil rights movement and its gay counterpart, he said it was the immutable characteristics of the individuals involved. “You are what you are,” he said, “and you cannot be discriminated against in this country for what you are.

“And the fact that the black civil rights movement came to public attention before the gay civil rights movement, which is existing at the same time but I don’t think well known to people. . . These draw from each other. And the gay movement draws tactics and techniques and songs and slogans. As did the Hispanic movement, as did the women’s movement.”

From The Washington Post: “Black and gays: The shared struggle for civil rights.”

101 days ago Short URL 2 Comments

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