Trapped by Pregnancy, "Used" by your "Body's Owner." Spousal Rape is Real!

"Slavery has never been abolished from
America's way of thinking."
- Nina Simone

Today, I was contacted by a good Christian woman who had been reading my articles on “Abortion.” She told me that she has been married to a man for only 3 years. Never in my life have I wished more to lift my hand in vengeance, against this woman’s husband.

At first, the relationship was fulfilling. He treated her with respect and love. He would call her to check in from work. They would date regularly, going out to eat, seeing a movie, and take trips to destinations unknown.

After their first year of marriage, they decided to have a child. He stuck by her during the pregnancy. He would go to her OBGYN appointments. They would take pregnancy classes together. He was everything she expected.

But, when she gave birth, things changed. Her husband started to complain about how she was spending more time with her child than with him. He started making demands in regards to cleaning house, and making sure meals were ready for when he came home.

“And I really did try, Daniel. I was still healing from my C Section and it was a bit painful. It was hard enough for me to adapt to becoming a mother, I was just settling into being a wife. I never realized he emotional toll that my mother went through.”

She developed a routine where she would play with the daughter, to tire her out, and then put her to bed while she made dinner.

It started when he would call and tell her that he would be late from work. He was a shift supervisor, so she could understand the responsibilities his job would entail. As her their relationship progressed, he started spending less and less time at home. There was always business meetings and friends wanting to hang out. She understood that he needed to have a life, outside of the family.

One evening, it was brought to her attention that her husband has been seen around town with another woman. He was seen at the movies, in Applebee’s, and even together at the Lobster Festival. When she brought it up to him, they had an argument. He became aggressive towards her.

He said things like: “Don’t I work hard to provide for you?” “How do you expect me to feel, you never have time for me!” And “You better shut up and get back in your place, Woman!” Then he left, to be with his “friends.”

It was when he came back later that night when her experience became a nightmare. The smell of alcohol was on him, and the resentment he held before he left was still fresh in his mind. They argued, like any couple would in this situation.

What happened next is what broke my heart.

As she relayed to me her experience, she broke down into tears. She told him that she is miserable in their relationship.

At that point, her husband proceeded to throw her on their bed and force himself on her. There was no love in his actions. This was ownership and domination in the strictest sense.

She began to cry out and plead to be left alone:

“Daniel, the more I cried, the more I struggled, the more he seemed to enjoy it. He was no longer the kind and gentle lover I once knew. He did not care if he was hurting me, I was just some toy for him.”

After he had left, she spent the night alone in her room. This beast she had married left the home, to parts unknown. She had cried and her sleep was filled with nightmares. The next morning, she was awakened by the cries of her daughter.

After the traumatic night, her vision of reality seemed unreal. She was not emotionally connected.

“It was like I was watching life happen, as a viewer. I was going through the motions of being a mother but I could not make an emotional connection with anything, not even my baby daughter.”

She was distraught, she sought the advice of a woman she knew from church;

“Honey, that is what happens sometimes. That’s what it means to be a wife. You just need to understand that, and make the best out of the situation.”- quoted from my friend

The next afternoon, her husband sauntered in, like nothing happened. He came home from work, she had dinner ready. They continued to live as if nothing happened. They no longer talked, laughed, or loved each other like they used to.

“At least we kept up appearances.”

A few weeks later, they were eating supper the phone rang. Her husband answered it. After a brief conversation, he hung up the phone. Upon his lips, he bore a message that sunk her deeper into hopelessness;

“I guess you won’t be leaving me anytime soon, you're pregnant.”

The Cost of "Help"

"By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

SOURCE

Life happens. There are financial circumstances that affect even the most stalwart of savers....

It could be due to a lay off. Maybe it is due to Social Security withholding a payment. It could be some poor addict spent his money satisfying an addiction. Maybe it is the financial hardship caused by the effort of creating a new home or battling DHHS for custody of their children.

No matter if we feel the reason for a situation is justified or not, it still exists, and sometimes it can be life threatening.

When a person goes into the community seeking help, what is not spoken of is the resources spent trying to find help. Often, people overlook the time and frustration invested, the gas exhausted or the money spent on taxis, just to go to a place where help may or may not be available.

The title “Charity” does not mean “infinite resources.” Though charitable organizations strive to fulfill the basic needs of those contacting them, each person helped, each meal given, each dollar spent is taken away from a larger budget that could go into more social programs that helps the whole community, in general.

It is a careful balance between the needs of the many and the needs of the few.

The cost of seeking help also has an emotional toll, as well. The act of asking for help means that life has become unmanageable in some way and you lack the skills or resources to handle the problem, at hand. This diminishes the overall self-worth and feeling of pride that people feel when their lives are in perfect order.

It is in these times in people's lives when the word "No" also means you’re not important enough, you’re not intelligent enough, you’re not valuable enough to society to have your need, no matter how necessary, fulfilled. This may not be the intention, but this is the result.

Often, the simple act of seeking assistance leads to people being diminished in society's view. It is a common thing for me to hear complaints about charitable organizations helping to keep the impoverished, the addicted, the mentally ill, in their state and not really help the issue.

These same people have the luxury of a comfortable home, a good family, and equitable employment. It is easy to complain about society's issues, when you place yourselves above and not participate in it. 

When I asked one of my "well off friends" what he thinks we should do to help the situation, his reply was:

"We could just keep them in Jail. There they can get the shelter, food, and clothing that they need."

 Unfortunately, according to the statistics, that is what many organizations in our government have been doing, to begin with.

Continued in "Justice Or Revenge What Is The Fire And Who Is The Fuel?"

This ACLU report presents the results of a yearlong investigation into modern-day "debtors' prisons," and shows that poor defendants are being jailed at increasingly alarming rates for failing to pay legal debts they can never hope to afford."-https://csgjusticecenter.org/courts/publications/in-for-a-penny-the-rise-of-americas-new-debtors-prisons/

SOURCE

Battling "Old Man Winter"

"Winter is nature's way of saying, 'Up yours.'"-Robert Byrne

Another winter has come, and another storm blows through. In the blustery day filled with wind, ice, and snow, I decided to relax a bit and talk to some old friends on Facebook.

Amid a heated discussion on some self-important and nonmaterial subject, I type the well-known abbreviation, “BRB!” (Be Right Back)

Well, my “be right back” was for about an hour. In that time my discussion on how I can scientifically prove GOD’s existence erupted into an argument on how the term “supernatural” means beyond scientific understanding, so man can never understand anything that is labeled as such.

After reading the previous threads in the debate, I let myself be known.

“Hey Daniel, where have you been? We need your thoughts on all this!”

I replied, “Its blizzarding outside, and I went to shovel the snow.”

“But Daniel, you don’t need to shovel, your landlord takes care of that! Why go do it?”

It is an interesting thing, convenience. In my life, I have several conveniences and I openly admit that I take them for granted. My car is a convenient form of transportation. My telephone is a convenient way to communicate. My apartment complex, with their “Snow Shovel Crew,” conveniently clears away snow from our dooryards and driveways with predictable reliability.

"The difficult we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer."—Motto of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during World War II

But sometimes, even with all the conveniences in our world, there are times we should lay aside the hard effort of others and rely on ourselves. With the blizzard in full swing, I decided to go shovel snow before it builds up too high.

I wrap myself in the necessary accoutrements, my scarf, my gloves and my “Great Coat.” I arm myself with a snow shovel and make battle with “Old Man Winter.”

I carefully begin throwing snow from our front door, past the walkway. I blaze a trail through the snow drifts to our parking spaces. I shovel fore and aft of my car in the event that I might have need to drive.

But “Old Man Winter” is a powerful foe, and does not approve of the clearing I made. Just as I sit down to recommence my discussions on Facebook, he casts his cruel gaze upon my hard efforts. With the sound of wind laughing in my ears, he begins to snow down his vengeance.

We had multiple battles before he relented. Time and time again, I make safe what he made impassable. Just as I thought my strength would fail me, his last attack ends.

Weary from the heaviness of my shovel, sore from the blows I cast upon him, I retired for the night.

Why would I persist in my unnecessary fight to keep my walkway clear?

I do it because I do not want my wife to struggle if she leaves our unit. In my love for her, I want to keep her safe and comfortable.

I do it because my next-door neighbor is an older woman who might have trouble leaving her unit. My respect for her would not allow me to ignore the trouble the winter storm would cause her.

I do it for every UPS driver, Mailman, and Federal Express delivery man who would struggle to have my packages delivered to me.

I do it for every Policeman, Fireman, and EMT who might come to our rescue in the event of an emergency.

The question of why I shovel has a rather simple answer. I do it because I am part of a community.

"Without a sense of caring, there can be no sense of community."-Anthony J. D'Angelo

The Dangers of being Charitable

"Good communication is just as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after."-Anne Morrow Lindbergh

SOURCE

“A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.” ― Jack London

A few weeks ago, I was invited for a cup of coffee by a rather generous and charitable man. He told me that he was in the library and heard me play piano. He said it was rather enjoyable and wanted to pay me back.

Never to be one to turn down a cup of coffee and a new friendship, I graciously agreed.

Kindly, he asked me if I had a car, or did we need to take his.

I told him, “Yes, I have a car. It’s the Ford Fusion with the license plate with the word “FUSION.”

He told me to meet him at the Rock City Cafe.

SOURCE

It really was a pleasant conversation. He told me about how he is a “Believer in Christ.” How he makes his “rather comfortable living” writing for various magazine and websites. He told me how he is strong in faith and donates a bit of his income to charities. He told me of individuals and families that he has helped. He told me how he sponsors youth mission trips, soup kitchens, and even an animal shelter.

He spoke of sympathy for those less fortunate than himself. People who do not have the ability, intellect, or financial means to be “as successful as himself.”

This conversation trailed on like a catalog of good deeds that has been carefully recorded for “Judgement Day.” If there was one word I could confidently use for this man is “Helpful.”

Then, he told me about his net worth and why he donates every year, because he hates how the world is.

I do not know if he needed a confidence boost, or if he was just relaying information for the sake of conversation, but I could not control myself. My reaction was not about pride, nor was it about judgement. I laughed a loud, obnoxious, and infections laugh.

My host, others sitting adjacent to our table, and even an employee began to laugh, as well.

After the laughter died down, this gentleman asked me what I found so comical.

“Please do not take this wrong. It’s because of everything you had listed to me, from your religious beliefs to your income level and tax credits, you never mentioned the most important thing of all, LOVE.”

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.” -Elie Wiesel

Love, a word that has been marketed “ad Nauseum.”

In the secular world, it is spoken of in the physicality of humanity. It often involves things that makes us specifically comfortable, regardless if it is the enjoyment of a “potential mate,” the anticipation of an occupation that increases our financial abilities, or the social gratification of our charitable work.

In the religious world, our “Love” is specifically called into question by GOD. Many religious texts warn about the dangers of religiosity and selfishness. It appears, in our humanity, we lost the concept of what love truly is:

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."- 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NIV)

When reading this passage, there is one thing that speaks most greatly in my heart. From the story of “Creation” to the “Jesus Example”, the Bible repeatedly brings to the forefront what the ultimate nature of love is;

LOVE IS EQUALITY

“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift." Matthew 5:23-24 (NIV)

Even GOD addresses that fact during sacrificial offerings. The purpose of “sacrifice” appears to be the desire for GOD to have every man approach him in “equality,” with no sin, no guilt, no suspicions, no resentments. A relationship that GOD can have with the purest part of man.

The interesting thing is, in all my experience working with charitable organizations, I rarely find any whose goal is to bring equality to those of those classes of people whom we have diminished opinions of. Homelessness, Mental Illness, Food Insecurity, the Under-Educated, it appears that the Charity System that we have developed, seeks only to keep those “in search of help” on the verge of success.

One such example I have is with a Church that I would volunteer with. While there, I saw a church on the verge of failure be caught up with the politics of despotism. This church had lost its older members over time, and the pews were not being refilled. A sanctuary that was designed for over 200 people regularly had less than 20.

The finances for this church were working in a deficit. Without tithes and offerings, there was little money for operating expenses or even the pastor’s salary. For all intents and purposes, the church was on the verge of failure.

That is, until the pastor claimed inspiration of using his “Church” for a homeless shelter. It may have started with just one act of charity for a homeless person, but what the pastor found is a way to keep his church open.

He started by allowing more and more homeless stay in his church. The more homeless he had, the more money he would receive in contributions. The more homeless he had stay in HIS Church, the more participants he forced into his congregation. The larger his congregation, the more successful his church looked.

Not everyone that was a member of his church agreed with this. Questions were brought up about how the “Homeless Donations” were being filtered into church operating expenses. Questions about how there were occupancy statues and laws that were being ignored. Questions about building codes that were being flaunted, so the basement of the church could be remodeled to hold even more homeless individuals.

The pastor spoke of success and God’s will. How none of this would have been possible unless God desired it to be. He flaunted his ability as a pastor and even “his homeless men” whenever he could. His quest for glory and taste for power grew at an astounding rate.

What is worse, any questioning of his policies were claimed to be “attacks by Satan on his Godly enterprise.”

This homeless shelter, that I had whole heartedly participated in, did not do the most important thing that a “homeless shelter” should do, stop people from being homeless. There were rules in place that kept people “actively homeless.”

“The Rules” prevented the homeless from finding work outside of normal business hours. “The Rules” enforced the participation in church services, regardless of religion, work, or illness. “The Rules” could not criticized in a public or private way, without risking expulsion from the shelter. “The Rules” became a means of keeping people debilitated, even when facing illness.

In this shelter, there have been quite a few deaths, and little medical oversight. In one instance, a man who had been severely ill was threatened with expulsion went to the hospital. The pastor of this church went into his sleeping area and called him derogatory names like “P***y, Lazy A**h**e,” and many others which I would never have expected a pastor to say.

It was at that point that the man forced himself to get medical care, regardless of losing his place to sleep at night.

The man had acute appendicitis, and would have died if he had pushed himself and gave in to the Pastors whim. The same day he was admitted, he had his surgery. In fact, his Appendix was so enlarged that they had to make an additional incision in order to remove it.

This is just one example of the “Dangers of being Charitable.” I have seen people and families kept in an economically debilitating state. I have seen men die due to the need to "keep numbers up" and not alleviate the reason for the need. Too often, I have seen charities devolve into being about the good that is being done, not about the people they are helping.

Charity is supposed to be about bringing equal footing amongst all people, regardless of race, creed, economic or other sociological factors. Not just Christianity, but many religions teach without “Love, Humility, and Respect” to those who are in need, charity becomes a tool in which grows the “Green eyed Monster” of Pride.

"It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels."-Saint Augustine

 Continued in  “Spiritual Warfare; Mission Trips Are No Longer About Spreading the Message”

Police still Blind to illegal Houses of Prostitution STILL Going on in Maine, at least in Waterville, And they are helping teens lose their virginity?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Reinforcing a Disability in the name of "Family"

"Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each."
― Plato

SOURCE

 She is 3 years old has a full life ahead of her. She is just discovering the pleasures of mud, the joys of a sunny day, and the wonderful experience of dessert. Every morning she awakes with the anticipation of the wonders that the new day will bring.

She walks into the living room, wiping the sleep from her eyes. Her tummy makes a loud rumble. She is new to understanding the messages her body gives her, and she is still learning how to communicate with people to allow them to know what is in her thoughts and emotions.

She looks for her mother, so she can have her hunger pains satisfied, but her mother is too busy dealing with an issue that her older brother is having.

The sounds of her brother’s frustration are filling the house. He is stomping about, making loud noises to express his displeasure.

She observes her mother in the process of correcting her brother about one reason or another, but her attempts seem to only escalate the situation. She hears her mother’s raised voice. She sees the mother’s arms flailing about frantically. The expression on her mother’s face frightens the little girl, but her tummy is beginning to ache without breakfast to fill it.

In her sweet voice and simple vocabulary, she bravely says, “Mommy, hungry.”

Her mother is too focused in dealing with whatever situation her brother is involved in. In her mother’s opinion, the situation must be dealt with immediately.

Not realizing that she is adding to the stress of the household, the mother gets frustrated, and starts to raise her voice even louder. She threatens her son with a lashing.

“MOMMY, HUNGRY,” but the daughter’s words fall on deaf ears.

The little girl is feeling the miserableness of an empty stomach. All she knows is that she is hungry, and she is not even being acknowledged.

How can she make herself heard? What can she do to be recognized? Her little 3-year-old mind does her best to look at the problem and find remedy. Finally, it dawns on her…

What would her brother do?

Not knowing any better, only knowing hunger, she impulsively grabs a picture from the end table next to her and slams it with all her strength on the floor.

"Childhood should be carefree, playing in the sun; not living a nightmare in the darkness of the soul." ― Dave Pelzer, A Child Called "It"

With the sounds of shattered glass, all the yelling stops, and the focus is now on the daughter.

The mother looks condescendingly at her daughter. In the mothers mind, she begins to chart the recent behavior of her daughter. She begins to use her experienced, but unprofessional knowledge of her son and applies it to her daughter.

She picks up her cellphone and calls her son’s case manager.

“She is starting to behave like my son, I think she has the same problem.”

The role of parent is a hard one, indeed. You must be a supporter, a comforter, a provider, a teacher, a doctor, and many more, too numerous to list. For parents that have more than one child, sometimes you have to wear many hats, all at once. If you are a parent of one or more special needs children, this can further complicate the parenting role.

As a parent, we try focus on the what we believe is needed to keep the family safe. Often, we are so focused on the immediacy of a situation, we lack the ability to look at the larger picture or take our children’s feelings into account.

When we are in the middle of a crisis, we react with the typical short sightedness of people whose lives might be in danger. Our “Fight or Flight” response occurs, regardless of what the reality of the situation should call for.

To our detriment, many would not see a little girl who is suffering from hunger pains. We do not hear her words expressing a need that the little girl views as critical. We do not realize the effect that the family situation has on the little one.

What we do is apply our current emotional crisis response being redirected on a situation that we parents are also creating. We infer, we diagnose, we judge our children into a situation that can only lead to the imitation of what the little ones see around them.

And in our Adult, Authoritarian, Parental perspective, we do not see the situation. We, instead, use the concept of genetic predisposition, medical opinion, and psychological diagnosis as the excuse for why our families seem to be dysfunctional.

I am not saying that this happens all the time, but it is time to stop using science to excuse our own “Bad Parenting Skills.” More parents need to start using understanding, mercy, forgiveness, and love, like all of us dreamed of getting when we were children;

When we were unheard, when we were unfairly punished, when we were thought of as “unimportant.”

The Lie of the Sisterhood: Domestic Violence is Higher in Lesbian Relationships

"Remember that what you believe will depend very much on what you are." - Noah Porter

Like with many stories, it starts with a phone ring, and another, and another.

As I got drawn out of my slumber, I was ready to answer the phone and give the person on the other end a good “what for” due to waking me.

I grabbed my phone and said “Hello, what do you want,” in my meanest, gruffest, tough guy voice I could muster after being woken up from a dream of a summer’s day on Old Orchard Beach.

The reply I received was silence, then a familiar voice of my friend Jennifer answered, but it was not the happy, go lucky, voice that I am so used to hearing from her.

“Daniel, I am sorry I called you. I just don’t have anyone to turn to. I don’t know what to do.”

With those words, her semblance of dignity and control melted away.

“We had an argument, my money was stolen, my wallet was thrown into the fireplace. I looked into the mirror and my face is bruised and I think I bit my tongue”

With that, she gave off a weak, little laugh.

I asked her what happened.

“Karen beat me up pretty bad, but I probably deserved it.”

I told Jennifer that I would send her some money through Western Union and that she needs to get somewhere safe. Luckily, in spite of Christmas, I had saved $400 for my wife’s birthday, which was on the third of January.

I was hoping to give my fiancé, Tricia, a celebration like she never experienced before. I had prepared an itinerary that would have involved taking her down to Boston for a few days. In the face of this crisis, I decided that there would be other birthdays. At least, I bought her the horrific “Elvis Clock” she wanted.

I told Jennifer I would help her out, give me an hour. With that, I called Kings Inn motel and paid for a week for her. I called the Washington Domestic Violence Hotline, www.wadvhotline.org, and scheduled a time to have someone check up on her after she arrives her room.  I called Western Union and sent her $200 with a password so she would have a little spending money to provide for her needs.

I called her back to let her know what arrangements I had made for her. What she said next brought a real tear to my eye,

“Daniel, I have been with men and they treated me horrifically. I thought if I was lesbian, then I would find someone who would be more compassionate, more understanding. Someone who has been through the same abuse that I have gone through. Instead, I end up being with someone who treats me worse than any man has.”

We continued to talk for a bit. She told me that instead of love and acceptance, she has been abused worse. She told me how her partner would not allow her to spend her own money without consultation. She told me how she was expected to pamper her partner. She even told me how her partner manipulated her to have a "Menage a Troi" with another girl she was attracted to.

"I keep telling her how I feel, but she degrades my feeling as not being of the sisterhood and I was being selfish and not caring for her needs."

“At least men will just hit you and run away. Women will hit you and then comfort you, all the while explaining to me why I deserve it.”

It is an interesting thing, being a male and seeing this happen. Being a sexual abuse survivor, I was always told about how “Men” are the abusers, molesters, and rapists. I was told that a man’s inability to connect on an emotional level is what drives his need to manipulate, control, and abuse his significant relationships.

I was told that this is what I was going to grow up and become.

Instilled in me was a great fear that I would become like my abusers. The result in my life is that I became more sensitive, more caring, more logical, and more loving.

But just as I had a fear of becoming like the stereotypical man that I was taught in my therapy sessions growing up, I suspect that the fear of not being “masculine” or “strong” enough for woman in a Lesbian relationship can be just as frightening.

If you look at what society typifies as the “masculine” gender role, you find the expectations of strength, control, resistance, and limited abilities of compassion, empathy, and love.

If you apply this idea not on the physically male, but on the alpha role of the relationship, you can see why lesbian relationships have more mental, emotional, financial and physical abuse. Women taking on the alpha role have pressure of proving their validity on social, religious, and economic levels. Unfortunately, this entails dominate personality to live up to what they perceive as the expectations of “manhood.”

It appears that many of the Alpha's in a lesbian choose to be like the men that many of them claim to despise. I hear the complaints of many woman about how men treat them. I hear about how only a woman can understand a woman, and women are "safer" around other 

What is worse, these women use their sexual identity to try to manipulate women who are leaving abusive relationships

In order to prove their power, women who have become lesbian after horrific abuses done at the hands of men may become like those same men. Shunning away the emotional capacity, destroying the feelings of empathy for their partner, and becoming the controlling, dark abuser that requires total servitude, total allegiance, total ownership of their partners.

The National Violence Against Women survey found that 21.5 percent of men and 35.4 percent of women living with a same-sex partner experienced intimate-partner physical violence in their lifetimes, compared with 7.1 percent and 20.4 percent for men and women, respectively, with a history of only opposite-sex cohabitation. Transgender respondents had an incidence of 34.6 percent over a lifetime according to a Massachusetts survey.

The CDC’s 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, released again in 2013 with new analysis, reports in its first-ever study focusing on victimization by sexual orientation that the lifetime prevalence of rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner was 43.8 percent for lesbians, 61.1 percent for bisexual women, and 35 percent for heterosexual women, while it was 26 percent for gay men, 37.3 percent for bisexual men, and 29 percent for heterosexual men (this study did not include gender identity or expression). You can find the study here:Addressing Intimate Partner Violence in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Patients and Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence

The biggest problem with these numbers is the fact that as a group, the LGBT community still suffers from discrimination, prejudice, and hate. After careful research, I found the percentage in these statistics may be higher because many are motivated to skew their answers for the “sake of the cause.”

What is worse is I have heard excuses from national religious organizations, from local churches, and even from “Americans” that claim the issue is caused by their sexual identity and not by the “mental health” of the people involved.

I just want to say that it is very hard to grow past my past. I grew up living in a “dog room” being called “Prairie @!$%#er” and being beat by the people who were supposed to love me. I ran the danger of taking my learned expectations of what love was and applying them in the here and now. It was very hard for me to finally realize that I am not like those people who destroyed my sense of confidence, of value, and of love.

I am currently in a relationship where I am not kept on the edge of crisis. I am in a relationship where my love is not just expected, but sincerely appreciated. Most of all, I am in a relationship where the need of me to agree is not a prerequisite for our friendship, support, and love.

For anyone, from those who are in the LGBT community to those who are in a Heterosexual relationship, do not need to live up to the expectation of the “gender role” that has been established in our experience.

In fact, when I find my emotions are spun out of control, when my spirit feels drained, when I have absolutely no idea how to handle a situation, I ask myself this one simple question:

“What Would Jesus Do?”

And I do it, with much success.

"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings."- Anais Nin