Today, no Tarot education, friends, or card stories.
Just one very excited artist, so happy that yesterday, love won.
Portland is a very LGBTQ-friendly town. Huggy. Love-y. Most of us want everyone to find joy and happiness in life. (There are of course the exceptions to the love-y Portlander rule, but, thankfully, I don’t know any of them personally.)
We were happy when gay marriage was legalized here, but I can’t say just how thrilled I am to know that now folks can get married all over the U.S., even in my college town of Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
Now, I’m not normally one to be public in my discussion of politics, but this is very personal to me, and to many people I care about. Marriage equality is a topic dear to my heart, but for more reasons than just that of wanting my friends to be able to love who they want to love.
Dad was probably tickling me as he always did… Hence the mad giggle fit.
I grew up with a different kind of bigotry in my life. My mother married my awesome stepfather, whose mom is Panamanian and whose father is African-American. I had friends whose parents stopped letting their kids come over after my parents married, because my dad was black and my mom was white. This was shockingly still considered a no-no by some in the South.
My dad was such a healthy, loving source of support in my life. I had an intense mother, and I credit my stepdad for teaching me how to have a sense of humor. He is genuinely one of the kindest men I know. We went through a lot together. My mother and I needed him on an emotional level, and it was total B.S. to me that anyone else thought they had a right to decide that they were wrong for wanting to marry. People’s judgments, both spoken and unspoken, really got to me as a kid. I loved having him as my dad, and I couldn’t understand people’s ignorance.
Who were they to say whether he got to be my father in an official capacity? Watching this intolerance over and over again raised me to be very aware of the treatment of others, especially in the departments of love and marriage.
Dad and I playing Jenga… The tower collapsed seconds later.
So, I guess it’s not surprising, even if I don’t identify as gay myself, I have always been an advocate for the rights of LGBTQ people to marry whomever they love.
Love is love. If only we could all be so lucky to love someone and be able to spend our lives with our perfect partner.
The Lovers
And, to celebrate love winning, of course I had to re-share “The Lovers” card from The Portland Tarot. It features two wonderful people I love very much. I think they are one of the greatest couples I know. How they started dating is one of my favorite little stories.
Yay for love and for getting to make our own choices. One day, kids will look back on this time and scratch their heads that who you got to marry was ever an issue.
As a friend posted today on Facebook… “Now it’s not gay marriage. It’s just marriage.”
Preach it. Go out and represent love, my friends!
With love,
Theresa
