I spent the weekend moving back to my parents' house for the summer. I found someone to take over my part of the lease for my apartment for the summer--that way I can save some money and pay off my credit card before I leave for Montana. My parents moved into a smaller apartment after I moved away from home five years ago, so I'm in the spare bedroom sharing a room with my mom (because my dad snores and my mom can't sleep because of it, lol!). Quarters are slightly cramped but that's alright. Theoretically the small space of the apartment and the room could really be annoying, but most of my evenings are spent downtown with friends and doing various things anyway, so it won't be too bad. Good to save money in any case, and it will also be good to spend some more time with my parents before I leave for Montana (and wherever else after that!).
I just received word that I have been accepted to attend the "It Takes a Family to Raise a Village" conference in San Diego this August. It is hosted by the Ruth Institute, which is a project of the National Organization for Marriage. It is being hosted at The University of San Diego, which is a Catholic university. The purpose of the conference is to provide political and social reasoning for the protection of marriage. This is going to be great, because while I can theologically defend marriage between a man and a woman, it is much more difficult to defend marriage outside of Biblical principles. The website says that students can expect to be exposed to "Faculty members from across many academic disciplines, students and faculty from across the faith traditions that support natural marriage," and "like-minded students from different schools."
It seems like it's going to be a sort of conglomeration of various types of belief and thought, but all directed towards the common purpose of marriage between a man and a woman. I guess we'll see if that's truly the case when the time comes. I'm very excited for this opportunity! I never would have been able to attend if they hadn't accepted my application for a travel voucher, either. I don't usually apply for things like this because I'm always so doubtful that my requests for monetary support will be granted. That's actually why I never applied for scholarships in school--because I thought it would just be a huge waste of time since there's no way they would even consider my requests. I'm starting to realize that it's not actually a waste of time at all--people do grant requests. It's funny how we humans think, sometimes.
This actually can be compared to my relationship with Jesus in a huge way. Because I never believe that I can accept anything from Him, and usually never believe He's offering me anything, either. The concept of grace and salvation is sometimes just too much for me, I halfway don't believe it sometimes. A lot of times. It's difficult to even let people pray for me on an individual basis because of this. If we're in a huge group accepting prayer requests from everyone then I feel fine, but if someone just wants to pray for me and only me, then I feel weird and uncomfortable about it. I feel weird asking God for things for myself. I'm not sure if that's because I just feel totally undeserving and like I should be punished for sin, or because I just don't truly believe that God loves me, or what.
Wow, I intended this post to be informative and ended up on a tangent filled with angst and self-analysis. Sorry about that!
Anywayz--for more information about the conference, visit the website. There's already conflict over the conference, which is to be expected I guess. On a blog I found recently, the author condemns it, saying that the conference "invites students to discover the fun in denying and eliminating the fundamental rights of their fellow citizens who happen to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender." He goes on to say, "It would be fabulous if San Diego’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender student activist community signed up and showed up. Best of all, it’s absolutely free." He then directs visitors to the online application.
I find this sort of thing to be both sad and irritating. I understand that supporters of same-sex marriage consider it a personal affront to their liberty that there are people who want to deny them this "right." However, I would never ask my fellow anti-homosexual-marriage friends to sign up for a conference for gay marriage just so that we can "infiltrate" and attack proponents of gay marriage from "within." It's so ridiculous to me that the argument has gotten so hostile. Why can't people just communicate with civility?
It also irks me that proponents of same-sex marriage say that people like me are intolerant for only wanting heterosexual marriage to be lawful. This whole idea of "tolerance" is completely erroneous and illogical. After all, if I, as an opponent of same-sex marriage, want to join the administrative board for an LGBT group--or even to volunteer for such a group--I would be denied because of my beliefs, right? LGBT groups promote tolerance for all people, but the nature of their group is such that inherent within it is an intolerance for any other kind of belief system that opposes same-sex marriage or LGBT lifestyles. There really is no such thing as "tolerance," because the very nature of belief systems will not allow for all-inclusiveness.
Phew. Now that I've gotten all that off my chest, I'll wrap up by saying that I'm going to start a website soon, which is intended to keep track of the happenings in Montana. If I get it going soon enough, though, I'll probably be adding a link to the Ruth Institute conference, as well. I'm so excited that I got accepted to this conference, with the travel voucher and all! I really need to start believing that I'll get accepted to things I apply for. Especially now that I'm starting to apply for grad schools and such. Self-confidence undoubtedly shines through in personal essays, but self-doubt is probably even more obvious.
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