Evening Jen…it’s been an exhausting week. Your brain and heart hurts. The town’s all in a hubbub over a vote that happened on Tuesday. It was either YES to remove ‘Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity’ from the city’s nondiscrimination ordinance or NO to keep it. Unfortunately it turned into a huge hateful fight between radical “Christians” and the gay community.

I’m exhausted from being pissed off about it. There are so many bone-heads out there spewing crap! I’m embarrassed by the “Christians” for turning it into a “don’t let molesters into our bathrooms” campaign – which is SO far off base. I’m totally frustrated at the LGBT community for their taunts and accusation of ALL Christians.

Just about the time, things started to simmer down we find out an incredible author, Ellen Hopkins, is coming to visit a couple of schools and one of our libraries next week. Oldman attends one of those schools and he was so excited for her to come and listen to her thoughts on her books. It was thrilling for me as a parent to see my son excited about an author in a way that is usually saved for video games!

Apparently she got wind of our emotionally-charged civil rights battle and proceeded to give her strong opinion of it:

My issue has nothing to do with her opinion of our situation. It sucks! It’s wrong! But how she chose to speak her mind was, in my opinion, a little over the top considering why she’s coming here in the first place.

I wrote on her fan page about my son just wanting her to come as an author and not get political and that she shouldn’t be surprised by the vote as this is the Bible-belt. My comment was deleted. My son is NOT happy.

(Update: my post is there now… Maybe facebook can’t keep up.)

Now my voice was  drowned out… It’s her fan page…she has every right to do that. But the social media marketer in me knows that is not how to handle it. It’s the worse thing you can do. Especially when the subject is about freedom of speech/rights.

But this is my blog and here is where I can voice my opinion.

Jen, I really don’t think you’ll ever forget your views on all this, but just in case:

1. This is a battle where no one wins. This is a heart issue and there’s too much hate on this topic for it to change.

2. Something pretty drastic is going to have to take place for a revolutionary change. If the horrendous killing of Matthew Sheperd didn’t do anything in 1998, why do we think heated, emotionally-charged verbal fights on Facebook will fix the problem?

3. I wish certain Christians would quit hiding behind their version of Jesus and I wish certain members of the LGBT community and their supporters would quit hiding behind their “rights”.

4. I think it’s sad and pathetic that there has to be a nondiscrimination ordinance for anyone…including me.

Now, in all honesty…things will change – slowly. We’ve come a long way since the race riots of the 60’s, yet I still hear people in 2015 say things that makes me want to kick them in the nards.

All you can do is be yourself and love people for who they are. You grew up where people told you to ‘shut up’ all the time, so you know how it feels to not be heard. Remember to listen with your heart and you can’t go wrong…it’s your right.