Follow my Journey in LVC/ Heterosexism in America

Welcome to the beginning of my blogging about my experiences in the Lutheran Volunteer Corps! I'm very excited to share my journey with all of you. 

Tonight is the last night of orientation in Minnesota, and I move to Baltimore tomorrow. I'm extremely tired and cannot commit to an entirely original reflection. But I have to get this out. LVC has so far encouraged me to consider the deep injustices faced by the LGBTQQIA community. The conversations surrounding this topic have deeply moved me. 

To all of my gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, and/or asexual friends who have suffered from discrimination and social injustice because of how you feel or who you love, I am so incredibly sorry and want you to know that you have my support to be the way you were born.

Here are some of the advantages heterosexual people enjoy in modern American society: 

• Heterosexuals do not have to worry about having that "conversation" with their parents, siblings, friends, etc. about who they are sexually attracted to, nor do they have to worry that such a conversation may potentially disrupt their relationships with those closest to them. 
• Heterosexuals have the freedom to legally marry the person they love in any American state.
• Heterosexuals need not avoid PDA, such as holding hands with a lover in public, for fear that someone will find their behavior morally reprehensible, sinful, or repulsive. 
• Heterosexuals in all states do not have to worry that they might be fired by their employer because their sexuality goes against their employer's religious beliefs. 
• Heterosexuals don't have to worry about being deemed unfit to raise children based on their sexual orientation.  
• Heterosexuals are not accused of "recruiting" others to join their sexual orientation. 
• Heterosexuals do not have to justify their sexuality to people of a different sexual orientation, nor are they called upon to explain what they think has caused them to be heterosexual. 
• Heterosexuals are not frequently asked when and how they first decided that they are heterosexual.
• The sexuality of heterosexuals is not often suspected to be a "phase." 
• Heterosexuals are most frequently seen as people first and sexual beings second. 

To my LGBTQQIA friends and followers, please know that, in the words of my Regional Director, Sue Ryan, "YOU ARE LOVE!" Know that you are okay the way you are and that you are not doing anything WRONG! Believe that our generation has the power to change the hateful conditions of heterosexism in America. 

I will be blogging more about this topic, but in the meantime, I want to share this beautiful poem with all of you: 

Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.