Family Values

I was so thrilled yesterday to see that love can conquer hatred and that the biased and unconstitutional Prop 8 was denounced in California. Same sex couples deserve the same rights as opposite sex couples and the concept of family has to move on, to progress, with the times. My concept of family is very different from what i grew up with and yet it is still as meaningful and as important and legitimate. Living in NYC, my family is a wonderful patchwork of friends, neighbors, business associates, gay, straight, human, non-human. It has nothing to do with pro-creation and everything to do with love and support and trying to live a life that values all lives, human and non-human alike. We are equal and part of the whole and to argue that one group deserves to have certain rights and that another does not is archaic.  I feel that we are at a pivotal time in the history of both our country and our planet. While things feel very scary and precarious, I have glimpses of a new reality around the corner that transcends differences and embraces the idea that we are all part of the same living organism. My family may look quite different than yours but that is what makes life interesting. Diversity helps us to learn and to accept the parts of ourselves that may fly in the face of what many consider "traditional". I love my family, both my blood family and my partner and our hairy children!