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Changing His Mind, Changing Mine
By Linda Gebroe
There are many things I never thought I’d be doing in my life: spending a day with my favorite author; sitting in a fourth-row center seat at the opera; perching on a catwalk and showering confetti upon a U.S. president. But indeed I’ve done them all.
Now I can add admiring a Republican to the list. Recently San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, a Republican, signed a resolution to overturn California’s prohibition on same-sex marriage.
When he campaigned in 2005, Sanders said he favored civil unions, but not marriage for same-sex couples. Two years later, his thinking has changed. It turns out his daughter is a lesbian, and several of his staff members are gay.
Sanders said that, “In the end, I could not look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships – their very lives – were any less meaningful than the marriage that I share with my wife.”
Watching the mayor choke back tears and say he was choosing to lead with his heart was, for me, akin to witnessing a miracle. While conservatives say he has flip-flopped, I would call the mayor’s change a matter of personal evolution.
“Two years ago, I believed that civil unions were a fair alternative,” Sanders said. “Those beliefs, in my case, have changed. The concept of a ‘separate but equal’ institution is not something that I can support.”
Sanders’ move illustrates one of the greatest things about life – that we can grow and change based on our experiences
Staying rigid in our beliefs requires us to refute clear-cut evidence before us, to reconstruct the truth to align with those beliefs. It means abandoning our real connection to the world outside us. The inevitable – and sadder – next step is disconnecting from what is inside us.
That’s not how I want to live and apparently that’s not how Jerry Sanders does either. Changing his mind by listening to his heart is not a matter of weakness. It’s what people do when they’re strong enough to be open.
I remind myself of this as I pry the sticky fingers of my own belief system off all Republicans. I’m proud to say that now I admire one.
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Betty's List ‘Linda's A-Musings'
Columnist Linda Gebroe.
Linda Gebroe brings more than two decades of professional experience to her role as writer, editor, publications manager and communications consultant. Since 1987, she has owned and operated Gebroe Communications Services, a business that has helped scores of organizations communicate with a variety of audiences and markets.
As a sole practitioner, Linda has been able to do what she loves most, which is writing. Her work has been published in the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine, and the San Jose Mercury-News, and been aired on KQED-FM, San Francisco’s National Public Radio station. A lifelong baseball fan, Linda has also written for the Sporting News, and for the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics magazines.
You can reach Linda at lgebroe@comcast.net. Or visit her web site: http://www.lindagebroe.com
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