Love Has No Labels

There’s an old saying – you can choose your friends, but not your family (luckily for me, I’ve gotten pretty lucky in the family department!). I bring this up because when it comes to falling in love, it’s a lot like family – you don’t “pick” who you fall in love with – it has so much more to do with that powerful feeling that comes over you and a connection to another spirit that is often independent of gender, race or creed.

I’ve attended many LGBTQ events over the years, and it has opened my mind even further to the challenges many of these individuals face in our society. Once I listened to a gay couple talk about why gay marriage was especially important to them and about the adversity they faced when they wanted to adopt a child. In their particular case, the only children many adoption agencies would allow them to adopt were babies who were born from drug-addicted mothers. They brought one of these frail babies home with the commitment and intention to love this baby through everything. We parents know how hard it is to raise even a healthy newborn baby – sleepless nights and endless worry are always part of the package. Yet, here, they said that if something happened to one of the fathers and he was the legally-bound adopted father, the other would have absolutely no rights to the child.

Along those same lines, say a lesbian couple experiences a terrible accident and one is admitted into the hospital – the woman who has loved and dedicated her life to her partner is not allowed to enter the hospital because she’s not considered family. How can this be?

I believe when you have been so committed to someone, have loved him or her, and worked together through life’s day-to-day challenges – you have the right to be married – regardless of your gender. Love is love.

As PRIDE month comes to a close and Cincinnati PRIDE parade approaches this Saturday, I want to join other organizations like Procter & Gamble and Macy’s who have come forward to support this cause. Like the amazing video above, love truly has no labels.

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