Everyone's puzzle is different

This Google Doodle is beautiful to me. What a way to show support for the LGBTQ community when the Olympic Games are taking place in a country ruled by a horrifyingly, anti-LGBTQ leader. I would love to see the smug look wiped off Putin's face. AURGH!!! It is so frustrating to live in a time when there is still such hatred and discrimination.

I had such mixed feelings about these Olympic Games. On one hand, I do wish the U.S. would have chosen to boycott, to take a stand against such bigotry. But, I realize that isn't really an answer and I'm thinking any of the LGBTQ athletes would not like it. I'm guessing they would want to live the Olympic dream and give a giant STFU to Russia while doing so.

I guess I just don't understand such broad-brush hatred. I'd rather judge the assholery of an individual's character, or lack thereof than just have hatred because they fit in a specific category. I'm not claiming to be perfect at accepting everyone, but I try to be conscious of my shortcomings.

When thinking about the LGBTQ community, it helps me to put faces on those letters; to personalize it. I think about a lesbian friend who is raising a couple of really great kids. I don't dispute that, if she were straight, she could also be raising great kids. BUT, if she were straight, she wouldn't have THESE kids. One came into her life as a "step" child because he was her partner's son. She would not have been able to mold him into a fine young man and he would not have been able to mold her into a loving, patient mother if it weren't for her being in love with his mom.

Her wonderful, sensitive, beautiful, artistic daughter would not be growing to make her mark on the world in the way she is if her mother brought her about in a straight relationship because the daughter from the straight relationship would not be this specific girl. Yes, Kristen could have had an amazing daughter with a man she loved in a straight relationship, but that daughter would be different person, would have a different make-up, different talents, different ways of seeing the world. She wouldn't be J.

I'm not saying that Kristen being gay is better than a straight Kristen. I'm just saying that these particular kids and this particular mother wouldn't be who they are today because the pieces of the puzzle of their family would be taking a different shape, creating a different picture. How could anyone not want their family to be?

After all, aren't we all just trying to put our life's puzzle together a piece at a time?