#TeamRainbow – Amanda 2
So, I am a bit behind in my days, so bear with me. I will pick up where I left off on Sunday. The morning started rough with a trip to the showers. After getting ready we arrived back at the church of Sunday services. I was kind of hesitant to attend church as I’m not a person of religion. Rev Kev was able to make us feel comfortable and his sermon was bright, and upbeat. He preached equality and understanding to the congregation which was mostly made up of gay and trans persons. It was unlike any church I’ve ever been to before. It was probably the first church that I even felt a little bit comfortable at. I didn’t feel like I needed to hide the person I was because I knew that Rev Kev would accept me anyway I came to him.
After church we attended a luncheon with the church members and we got to meet members of the community. It was good to hear their stories of how they came to belong to this ministry. These people we just met yesterday opened themselves to us and we celebrated. It was definitely like breaking bread together.
After lunch we headed to a sculpture garden and then after we went to the Mall of America. This was good for our group bonding time. We split up into two groups and we got to see who the real shoppers were! We met back up to eat before splitting up one more time into different groups. It’s so easy to go in between any member of the group and feel at home. After merely a day the awkwardness was gone and we were able to get along just fine. Even to the point where we frequently make fun of one another.
After leaving the mall we came back to the church to get ready for the next day. We got ready for the next day and we were able to meet our volunteer coordinator, Billy, he works for the Rainbow Health Initiative and he coordinated our events for the week. We stuffed some envelopes for an event and he filled us in on our week’s activities. He also gave us slips of paper with the names of different trans individuals written on them, so we could have the opportunity to explore the trans world more.
My person’s name was Marci Bowers, MD. She was the first transgendered woman to become a surgeon and she performs gender reassignment surgery to this day. She is also married and has children, just like any other person would. This exercise was to teach us that trans persons are no different than the rest of the world.
Later that evening we head to Minnesotans United for All Families. This organization is fighting a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in Minnesota. We were trained in the art of phone banking and then we were divided into groups of two to begin our round of phone calls. My partners name was Philiip and I had the opportunity to learn much about his life and what it was that called him here to help with this effort. He was not the only person I got to hear from. I also met a man who with his partner had raised two children. This is important because during the phone calls he had a personal story to give to others.
I won’t lie, the phone banks were not my favorite. We were presented with a list of about 50 names and numbers. I was able to call 38 people. Out of those people about 5 were against gay marriage and I was only able to reach 2 supporters. This was incredibly taxing thing to do, to be hung up on, to be cursed at, to not be heard out. I can’t imagine sometimes how the gay community must feel not being able to marry their loved ones. It just doesn’t seem fair.
Marriage is about love. You marry your best friend because they want to spend the rest of their life with each other. To not grant that someone the right to do that is despicable.
One woman told me on the phone that she won’t discuss these matters over the phone with strangers. To that I replied,
“You’re not comfortable talking to a stranger on the phone about their rights but you’re willing to cast a vote that would take away a strangers rights?”
*Click*
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