A Different Kind of Valentine's Day Celebration

I am single…unmarried…unattached. Urban legend says that at my age, I have a better chance of being captured by terrorists or struck by lightning than finding a mate. As one might imagine, Valentine’s Day was not high on my list of eagerly awaited holidays. So, amid boxes of chocolates, florist’s windows ablaze with red roses and endless rows of pink and red sentimental greeting cards, I decided to look in a different direction this Valentine’s Day. I had the opportunity to “Stand on the Side of Love”…not the romantic, dizzying, sweaty palms kind of love, but instead the love of my fellow humans; of justice and fairness and standing up for the right thing.

Standing on the Side of Love (SSL) is a public advocacy campaign, sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Association, promoting respect for the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Working on national and local government levels as well as having an international presence, Standing on the Side of Love promotes the harnessing of love’s power to end oppression, exclusion and violence against people based on race, religion, gender, immigrant status, political orientation, sexual orientation or any identity.

On February 14, 2010 the Unitarian Universalists of Sterling joined over 100 communities nationwide as they hosted a forum and discussion about the rights of our gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning brothers and sisters. Loudoun County School Board Chairman John Stevens (Potomac) and Loudoun County Board of Supervisors member Stevens Miller (D-Dulles) joined Wendi Manuel-Scott a professor of African American Studies at George Mason University and Joy Cobb, a lesbian parent and Mountain View Elementary School (Purcellville) PTA President on the dais.

Professor Manuel-Scott, who recently completed a documentary about gay, black men talked about trying to make herself available to students needing support. Chairman Stevens, whose wife, Lori Stevens, is President of the Loudoun Education Alliance of Parents and a board member of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays of Washington, DC spoke of the difficulties gay and lesbian students face in a oft times unwelcoming school environment. My daughter, a senior at Briar Woods High School commented that the Gay Straight Alliance club at school was virtually nonexistent because gay and lesbian students are fearful of "coming out". Ms. Cobb spoke of the difficulty she and her partner faced when trying to adopt their children and how something as simple as completing a school form can feel exclusionary when you must fill in a mother’s and father’s name instead of a parent’s. Supervisor Miller talked about his recent successful experience proposing the addition of language prohibiting discrimination in county government hiring practices due to sexual orientation and gender identity.

A question and answer session followed with the audience primarily asking what they could do to help. I felt it was a constructive discussion and some thoughtful questions and enlightening comments were voiced. My disappointment was that most of those attending were of like mind, in effect we were “preaching to the choir”. I wished some of the individuals on the other side of the aisle had seen fit to come and dialogue with the attendees for I believe progress can only be made when people of differing opinions are willing to listen to each others point of view.

Standing on the Side of Love goes beyond advocating for the rights of gays. It calls upon us to use love to stop oppression whether it is of immigrants and other marginalized groups here in the US or gay and lesbian men and woman in Uganda fighting a government supported anti-homosexuality bill. When we choose to respect every person as someone of worth how can we help but Stand on the Side of Love?