Referendum 74.

So. Same sex marriage. It seemed to be one of the big social debates in this years' election, really nationwide but especially in the state of Washington where it was up for vote. My personal opinion is that my friends (and people who I don't know, of course) should be entitled to the same rights I have as a heterosexual in a married relationship. HOWEVER, that is my opinion and I understand that many people have a different opinion. My issue with this comes when people display their opinion in a manner that is hurtful to those involved.

Case in point: people who were against ref. 74 were camped out on a freeway overpass every day for the past month leading up to the election. They had kids up there, they were decidedly anti-gay, and it was completely inappropriate and derogatory. In fact, it was so bad one day that I flipped them off and I would have done the same if these people were FOR same sex marriage but were displaying their opinions in a way that was hurtful to those who disagreed with their stance, EVEN THOUGH I agree with their principle.

What boggles my mind and what I just don't understand why we live in a world where compassion and tolerance seem to be things that just sound good in theory but aren't really practiced by all. Why we can't all just get along DESPITE our differences instead of letting our differences define us and spread us further apart? My hope is that someday- for this country and more specifically for my children- we live in a world where compassion, tolerance, and love drive people to display how they feel. I felt like the people against ref 74 were only displaying their feelings in the way they were because they were either scared of or just had pure hatred towards gay people, either of which is just sad.

Fast forward to the end of the story- Same sex marriage passed in the state of Washington, which in my opinion is awesome. It means that a whole lot of us believe that gay couples deserve every right that we, as heterosexual married couples, have. I realize a lot of people truly believe that marriage should be a man and a woman and that's fine- I respect that- but ultimately, my personal opinion is that same sex couples are just as valid as heterosexual couples (having said that, I will also never display that opinion in a derogatory way)...

All of that being said, I'm glad the election is over. It was bad for my blood pressure to drive under that underpass every day. Hatred breeds hatred and every day I just got more and more pissed off...to the point where I was wondering if I could chuck a water balloon or something through my sunroof as I drove under the underpass (I know, ridiculous). It is truly my hope and prayer that as we enter a time where more social issues like this are brought to the forefront, that people start to become MORE tolerant and less hateful.

All we really have in this world is each other and events like hurricane sandy make you realize that any day everything you have could be taken away. In this respect, there is no room for hatred and no point in wasting our time in displaying it. But, this has been proven time and time again in the past (IE: slavery) but somehow people seem to keep repeating history, albeit with different issues. Again, if we could all just become a little bit more compassionate and tolerant, we might actually change the course of history. We might actually move forward just a little bit instead of staying stagnant and continuing to promote hatred and intolerance... no matter what the issue is.