Response to Carrie Prejean

"Well, I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anyone out there, but that's how I was raised, and that's how I think it should be between a man and a woman." Miss California Carrie Prejean

Ever since I found out what "gay" was, I have been for equal rights. I do not understand why in the world people are against other peoples happiness.

My first problem with Miss California Carrie Prejeans answer at the Miss USA pageant was that she said that we can all "choose" whether or not to be gay or straight. I never choose to be straight. I just am. Just like homosexual men and woman ARE gay. It's not like choosing what you want for dinner. Its something that you are. Just like you have blue or green eyes. You don't get to change your mind when you get older.

My second problem with her answer was that it was just DUMB. Opposite marriage? I guess I have an opposite marriage. But wouldn't that really just be not getting married?

Her ignorance that she is spreading offends me. She is using her platform as Miss California to promote hate against something she doesn't understand. And it's not that I don't think she has freedom of speech or religion (and of course I think she is entitled to her opinion) its that I actually think she doesn't know what she's talking about.

In her own answer to her Miss USA question, she said, "that's how I was raised". So are you thinking for yourself or are you just doing what you think your parents would want you to say?

On the Today show this morning, she said that she is in Washington, DC to "protect marriage". FROM WHAT? Divorce? Isn't the divorce rate in this country around 50%? Do gays have anything to do with that? How can you call something sacred when most married people don't take it that way?

“Carrie only said what the majority of Americans believe: marriage means a man and a woman,” said Maggie Gallagher, president of National Organization for Marriage. “Her example resonates, especially to many young Americans, because she chose to stand for truth rather than surrender her core values.”

WOW. I mean I can go really far back, but didn't most Americans once believe that all African Americans should be slaves? Or that woman shouldn't have equality? Does Ms. Gallagher really think that America doesn't want to change?

People are being KILLED because they are GAY. Kids are KILLING THEMSELVES because people are terrorizing them in school. Is this really how we want to portray ourselves as a society? Intolerant of change? Isn't that what we voted in November for?

I am an educated, working class, white, straight, Catholic, American married woman. I love being Catholic. I embrace my religion, but it doesn't define me. I don't agree with EVERYTHING the Catholic faith believes. What I take away from my religion is that we should love our neighbors. We should treat them as though we would want to be treated. And that includes what we say and think about them behind their backs. This means ALL of our neighbors. You cannot sit in church every Sunday, pray every night, read your bible and then HATE. God knows that. Hate contradicts everything that you did previously.

I am so passionate about this topic because it seems to me that NO one sees a pattern. Women fought SO hard to get their rights. So that they too could own property, get jobs, make their own money and VOTE. African Americans fought SO hard to get their rights. I'm not saying we're all equal yet, but we are certainly closer than we ever have been. Now the same people whose grandparents fought so hard to be equal are judging others from their high horse.

So what you don't agree with the homosexual lifestyle. I could find things I don't agree with from YOUR lifestyle. But since when is the right to love wrong? Can you imagine if someone told you the way you loved was wrong? That the only person that you wanted to spend the rest of your life with, you couldn't, legally? And that's right, there will be divorces in the gay community, just like in the straight community. But how you would feel if you had no more right to see your child because you couldn't legally adopt them under both of your names. And there was NOTHING you could do. This is what the fight is about. Equal health care, divorce, child support, child custody, property rights, the right to see your significant other in the hospital and the right to make decisions if the worst should happen. How would you feel if all of that was taken away from you? I cannot imagine the struggle that they are going through right now. I pray that one day everyone can love who they want, be free to get married and even get divorced.