The LGBT+ community has recently gotten a lot of popularity after Same-Sex Marriage was approved last year on June 26. Since then, there has been a great amount of support towards the community along with various protests against the congressional decision to legalize equal marriage. There have been various groups of people that actively protest against the LGBT+ community, but the church has become the main leader of the belief-based protesters.
Religion in the American culture has always been a big part of social life and because of this, many people, including entire families, are practicing-religious people that openly dislike the idea of same sex love. Since religious people believe this is wrong, it becomes especially difficult for a person to support the LGBT+ community if they live in a religious home. It is expected for the person to follow the same ideals and beliefs that the family follows and it may cause conflict when they differ from the conventional thinking. Usually the person that supports the LGBT+ community within a religious home belongs to the community itself, yet this isn’t always the case considering some people from outside the community also believe in equality and acceptance for all.
In these houses, it is common for conflict to generate through comments from both the supporter or the family. There is often some sort dismissal from the family towards the difference in thinking and it’s sometimes expressed through comments like “It’s not moral”, “They are going to hell”, “You have to be gay to support it” and, even though heterosexual supporters have a difficult time expressing their opinion, actual members of the community often go through much harder situations when they are humiliated by the family, rejected and sometimes even kicked out of their houses. It has to be pointed out that families react differently, some may just completely ignore that a member of the family is or thinks differently, like I was told: “I have made it so obvious, I even said that I was gay, but my mom refuses to acknowledge it” while others take extreme measures to assure the family’s beliefs, “They sent me to a Psychologist”.
Even with the amount of conflict and rejection that comes from the family, people still choose to stand for what they believe in. This should be an example to prove that nothing is impossible, that change is reachable and that hopefully one day everybody will be treated and loved equally. After all, love is what keeps people together, and love always wins.