Blessings

Family.

My sister, Mom, me and Dad.  Could we be more 80's? ;)

When asked what I am thankful for this Thanksgiving holiday, they are the first thing that comes to mind.  But my gratitude and love for them isn't any stronger on the third Thursday in November (or the 25th of December!) than it is any other day of the year.  

I love them every day. 

Me and my sissy

  

I think that Thanksgiving is a gift.  It helps us look beyond the day to day humdrum and take the time to reflect on what blessings we have in our lives.  

I've been lucky enough to have a large family on both the maternal and paternal sides. 

Me, Grammy and Laura on the famous couch

Me and my sister with Uncle Cy and Aunt Marlys (essentially our third set of grandparents - lucky kids!)

Ritchie family Thanksgivings tend to be very full.  Full of good food, full of laughter, full of lots of family (usually 20+) and always full of love.

The Ritchie cousins

I'm thankful, so very thankful and very, very blessed.

Equality?

There are some excellent points here.  

While I realize there will always be some who cannot and will not ever accept the LGBT community as complete equals (cause if you deny them marriage you deny them equality, plain and simple) there will also be those of us who will always, no matter how much you quote the very few words from the Bible about the subject to state your case, support equal (or in this case, gay) rights.  

I do not feel that my personal relationship with Christ is threatened by someone loving another of  the same sex.  Nor do I feel that the future of the "traditional family" is at risk because we allow two men or two women to enter a committed relationship with each other, protected by the same laws that protect straight couples.  

I can support the idea of changing the legal term of "marriage" into "civil union" for all people, straight and gay alike - the civil union term would refer to their law bound rights and, if they are a believer in the religious sacrament of marriage, then a "marriage certificate" would be issued by their religious organization of choice.  It would be a choice of the religious institution to offer the option of marriage certificates to just heterosexual couples or, if they are accepting of the gay community, they can choose to extend this to homosexual couples as well.  

This would not take away from the sanctity of marriage, in fact it would increase it because the term would only be used by those who believe in the religious aspect of the commitment versus being used as a blanket term to essentially mean a civil union.


Well, these are my thoughts on the matter - you are free to disagree (or agree!) as you choose.  If you choose to comment, my only request is that you are thoughtful in your reply and that you be polite. :)