...In which our heroine supports her own.

By itself, this news story wouldn't be too remarkable. Disturbing, as it involves a grandmother who beat her 16-year-old grandaughter after catching her in a lesbian relationship, but sadly not suprising.

What struck me about this story was how similar it was to the story involving one of my own friends. Her lesbian relationship was discovered by her grandmother. Things got ugly--she was kicked out of her house, threatened to be reported to the police (her girlfriend is older, and basically excommunicated from her own family. A family that includes a formerly drug addicted brother, children born out of wedlock and abandoned, and another brother who was himself engaging in a relationship with someone underage. But he wasn't gay.

This friend is one of my oldest. Along with her, another one of my closest, oldest friends is also a lesbian, or perhaps bisexual. While the friend who got kicked out of her house is now living with her girlfriend half a country away, my other friend is not out of the closet. I worry for the day when her family finds out, worried that they will react the same way.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't moderately shocked when I found out both of these girls, girls I've known since we were 5, were gay. Sure, I was accepting of gay people before, but it was still startling to find out that people you seemingly knew everything about were in one fundamental way different.

These girls have had major issues in their lives--one turned to cutting to get her through a depression, and the other started becoming a little too dependent on painkillers after knee surgery. Since each of them has embraced their sexuality and begun relationships, they have never been happier. And if they're happy, then so am I.

I love both of those girls and something like them being gay could never stop the friendship I have with them. I get personally offended whenever someone says something cruel. I just hope that their families, and the family in the story above, could realize that to love someone means to love every part of them, for better or worse. It amazes me that someone could treat someone they "love" so poorly for something that they cannot change. Such is life I guess, and I hope there comes a day when the families I've discussed here realize how many lovely things they are giving up for one they don't.