How does this campaign affect you personally? What does the campaign mean to you? We’d love to hear your story. Please send your story to information[at]noh8sl.com OR you can leave it in the comments below!
I just wanted to take the time to say how much your effort in the NO H8 Project has inspired me. I must admit, before coming into SL I was stuck in my own conservative world, set and stoic in my beliefs and totally against the cause that is being fought here. It didnt take me long to realize that everything I have been brought up to believe about marriage and love is totally incorrect.
I didn’t take the time and I wasn’t willing to look at someone elses life and put myself in their shoes and consider what it would be like to not be able to make that lifelong committment to the person you truly love. Regradless of their gender, they are still a person, and every human being should have the right to make their own choices, whether or not other members of society agree with those decisions or not. Coming here on SL and seeing the passion inspired by this movement: No one cares if someone is gay or lesbian, transgendered or bi, the love here is for people and people alone, and I wanted to personally thank you for opening my eyes to a whole new perspective.
-Anonymous
I grew up in a Catholic family with parents who never spoke to us about anything that wasn’t mainstream. I didn’t ‘know’ about gay people until I was in my late teens. As embarrassing as that is to admit to you, I don’t think it’s all that uncommon for people my age and older to be that sheltered growing up. The problem with the sheltering that my parents did is that it did not prepare me for real life and be as open-minded about people as I’ve become. I had years of catching up to do.
SL, in many ways, has opened me up to new experiences and meeting people I would have never known in my life. I live in the South now, a very hard-core religious area so most of my RL friends (while tolerant) are not as open-minded as I am. There was a Proposition similar to the one in California this past election and unforunately, it did not pass.
So, that brings me to you, Trace. I’ve talked openly to my kids recently about some of my friends ‘online’ and the amazing diversity of people I’ve met and have gotten to know. In passing, I mentioned the project that you were doing and it ended up being a gateway to a very meaningful conversation with both of my kids about gay rights and that it would never matter to me who they love, just as long as they were treated right. It mattered to me for them to be clear that everyone has the right to love who they choose and religious idiology did not belong in our government’s law books. Of course, I used less rhetoric but both are now nowhere near as sheltered as I was growing up and I’m very proud of that.
-Lizbet Loening
I have dated both men and women and always noticed how different people respond. It is surprising how it still is an issue in modern time.
And this starts largely, I think, with our leaders making it an issue.
Sure, equal rights, most constitutions in the Western world speak about this and we hear how important this fundamental right is for society.
But really… equal rights seem such a fake when issues like this arise.
One of the reasons why I support this cause is that I want to decide who I love and possibly marry. And I want to feel safe and free to make my own decision, just as others may.
If you come from a background as I, where even your own family does not accept this basic part of you, it is not other than logic to fight for a cause like this and support it in any way possible.
I know how much it hurts not to be accepted for who you are and what you have to give up to be who you are.
It is not something I wish upon others.
And for that I fight. For that I am really glad to see others fighting, whether that is organising the whole campaign or just supporting it… it is all equally important.
Let’s love (or not love) people for who they are, not for what they are.