Lets talk about the VMAs...not about Miley Cyrus

*WARNING* I know this topic is touchy and I may offend some but this is my opinion and I'm going to voice it.


I watched the VMAs last week and while yes Miley's performance seems to be the popular topic of conversation I think theres something else that should've been talked about.

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis won a moon man for Best Song with a Social Message with their song Same Love. That along with them performing that song really was the big moment of the VMAs to me. I think this should've been the focus of the evening and what was talked about over the next few days. I was surprised that that song was voted on enough to win. I think that speaks multitudes of where we stand as a generation and country on the issue of Gay Rights and Marriage Equality.

When I first heard Same Love on the radio I cried. Some of it is remnants of hormones still shifting back into place but most of it was because I was glad to hear a song like that made it onto the radio. There needs to be more people in this country and across the world brave enough to write and perform music like this, to stand up and say we are all equal and deserve the same rights. I feel very strongly about this not because I have had gay friends over the years but because I don't think the love a woman has for another woman or a man has for another man is anything different then the love my husband and I share. I think its despicable that kids get bullied in school for being different in any sense of the word let alone for who they might have feelings for. I think it's very sad that we can deny someone the right to marry someone they are committed to spending the rest of their life with just because they are of the same gender.

I have said for years that people who quote the bible to further their own agenda often are misinterpreting what it really says. When I was growing up going to church and sunday school I remember being taught that God created all of us, God knows what path each of us will take, God gave us his son Jesus Christ to be nailed upon a cross in order to forgive us for our sins and that God knows all. If this is true then how could he hate people who are gay? How could that be something he didn't know would happen? How could that, even if it is a sin, not be forgiven? I think people need to stop using the bible as a platform to stand on. This was a book that was written many years ago and all the books in it were written by different people. The whole bible is a persons perspective on what happened all those years ago. I'm not saying that doesn't make any of it true or untrue but how can we use it as a reference to say how God feels about anything? How can we use that to say something isn't right or okay?

I really believe and hope that within my lifetime we will see equality for all. I hope that I can raise my children to be open minded and closed to hate of what they don't know or understand. We need to stop focusing on one "celebrity" who danced provocatively and look at the bigger issues.


I wanted to include the lyrics to Same Love by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Mary Lambert. I hope that you can read these lyrics and feel the powerful message in them as I did.

When I was in the third grade I thought that I was gay,
'Cause I could draw, my uncle was, and I kept my room straight.
I told my mom, tears rushing down my face
She's like "Ben you've loved girls since before pre-k, trippin' "
Yeah, I guess she had a point, didn't she?
Bunch of stereotypes all in my head.
I remember doing the math like, "Yeah, I'm good at little league"
A preconceived idea of what it all meant
For those that liked the same sex
Had the characteristics
The right wing conservatives think it's a decision
And you can be cured with some treatment and religion
Man-made rewiring of a predisposition
Playing God, aw nah here we go
America the brave still fears what we don't know
And God loves all his children, is somehow forgotten
But we paraphrase a book written thirty-five-hundred years ago
I don't know

And I can't change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
And I can't change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
My love
My love
My love
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm

If I was gay, I would think hip-hop hates me
Have you read the YouTube comments lately?
"Man, that's gay" gets dropped on the daily
We become so numb to what we're saying
A culture founded from oppression
Yet we don't have acceptance for 'em
Call each other faggots behind the keys of a message board
A word rooted in hate, yet our genre still ignores it
Gay is synonymous with the lesser
It's the same hate that's caused wars from religion
Gender to skin color, the complexion of your pigment
The same fight that led people to walk outs and sit ins
It's human rights for everybody, there is no difference!
Live on and be yourself
When I was at church they taught me something else
If you preach hate at the service those words aren't anointed
That holy water that you soak in has been poisoned
When everyone else is more comfortable remaining voiceless
Rather than fighting for humans that have had their rights stolen
I might not be the same, but that's not important
No freedom till we're equal, damn right I support it

(I don't know)

And I can't change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
My love
My love
My love
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm

We press play, don't press pause
Progress, march on
With the veil over our eyes
We turn our back on the cause
Till the day that my uncles can be united by law
When kids are walking 'round the hallway plagued by pain in their heart
A world so hateful some would rather die than be who they are
And a certificate on paper isn't gonna solve it all
But it's a damn good place to start
No law is gonna change us
We have to change us
Whatever God you believe in
We come from the same one
Strip away the fear
Underneath it's all the same love
About time that we raised up... sex

And I can't change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
And I can't change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
My love
My love
My love
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm

Love is patient
Love is kind
Love is patient
Love is kind
(not crying on Sundays)