Why? by Michaela

I remember when I first asked, "Why is it so wrong for a man to love a man?" to one of my Sunday school teachers. I remember so clearly the disgusted look that twisted across her face and how scared I was of that look. Why'd she look so hateful that I'd merely asked?

I've grown up in a conservative Catholic family. I grew up under the lie that states that homosexuality is not true love, I grew up being told that it was wrong to marry anybody but a man, and I grew up with the misunderstanding that love is defined by what some people in Vatican City think.

But then I decided to do a little growing up of my own for once, about a year and a half ago. I started becoming aware of the politics going on around me and I started seeing through the motivations behind the lies I'd been told. I started to do my own research, to figure out for myself what I believed in.

My moment of revelation came a year ago when I scrolled through a post on Tumblr looking at pictures of homosexual marriages. I realized, the look on their faces is no different from the hundreds of pictures I've seen of "straight" weddings! Those two women look just the picture-perfect epitome of happiness, too. The love was the exact same.

And that's when I pledged to fight back. I'm driven by a want to try to make other people see that there's nothing wrong with love in any form. Naturally, of course, I'd stumbled across NOH8. One of my heroes, Tommy Joe Ratliff, actually posed for a picture, which was how I first heard of it. I found out that in two week's time, NOH8 would be coming to Dallas. Naturally, I went and got myself my white shirt.

People keep asking me, "Why do you do this? This doesn't affect you." And maybe it doesn't, not directly. But it affects the people closest to me, and I grew up with a motto that went "love your neighbor as yourself." I've already faced adversity for trying to take the equal rights to public visibility in the form of nasty cyberbullying from some of my peers, but this photo is my proof and my testament that I will not stand down. I will not be silenced.

I will fight until everybody can marry who they love.

-Michaela