proud member of Club Unicorn...

There are many, myself included, who know people who are homosexuals. Watching these friends be teased, bullied, and tortured by people in their schools and even their families has always made me upset. What makes me more upset, though, is that when these friends have come to me asking for help and advice, I never know what to say. Telling someone to shut up is easy. It's offering comfort and help that's hard for me. All I know how to do is put my arms around them and tell them I love them, then suggest a random adventure to take their minds off of things.

I won't lie and say that homosexuality doesn't bother me sometimes. It's been something that has been really hard for me to deal with, too -- my friends, like me, are LDS and some of them discarded their testimonies in favor of saying, "Well, this is just how I am and I'm going to do whatever I want because if God loved me, he wouldn't have made me this way." That has been very difficult for me to accept -- God made you that way because he loves you, just as he made me a depressive perfectionist with suicidal tendencies (there -- I said it). The challenges he gives us are meant to turn us to him. He gives us these struggles because he knows exactly what we need to teach us and to make us stronger. For if we take our weaknesses and our temptations to him, he will strengthen us and get us through.

Balancing my love for my friends but my dislike for the lifestyles they choose -- it's really hard. A friend of mine posted an article on Facebook this afternoon that I happened to notice because of the title (rhetorical strategies, people -- they actually work). It's an article titled "Club Unicorn: In which I come out of the closet on our ten year anniversary."

I'll admit -- I was expecting some confession to ten years of lies. However, it was completely the opposite of that. And I am so grateful for it. This is such an example of courage and faith -- an example that can be applied to anyone who struggles, be it with acceptance of sexual orientation and reconciling that with personal beliefs or with the temptation to throw it all away.

While I do not have these attractions, there are people who I love that do. After reading this article, I feel that I have something to say to them when they need help. And so, I am proud to say that I am a member of Club Unicorn (and now a follower of The Weed).