But, sadly, not everyone in my community sees it that way. It wasn’t long before an angry street preacher and his family came to the park to protest the event. They screamed and shouted at passersby, their signs full of hateful words. Their faces were contorted with angry expressions, brows furrowed and teeth clenched. They were the antithesis of this day, of this happy day.
I remember feeling, not anger back at them, but sorrow. I especially felt this for their young children, who were holding up signs with hateful words that they probably were unable to read or understand at such a young age. My father said it best: fundamentalism makes you mean. It fills you with an us vs. them mentality, a dichotomy of the good guys vs. the bad guys. It demonizes our fellow human beings for being different, not just in the context of the LGBT community, but being of a different faith, of a different political party, even of a different denomination of Christianity.
No doubt this street preacher teaches his children that the world is a scary, evil place and that only they hold the absolute truth. The worst part of all of this is, they believe that they are doing something loving. There is a saying that goes, “there is no hate quite like Christian love.” This is a perfect example of that. Their sense of love and hate is so mixed up that they believe that what they are doing is loving.
My family never did street preaching. Even back then, we had a distaste for people that would spend their time yelling at people on the street, while holding up vicious signs. Of this, I am very grateful. But, there was still that us vs them mentality. Growing up, I saw people of other religions as going to hell, because that was what I was taught. I believed that anything other than conservative values was wrong, even evil. Funnily enough, it wasn’t until I began dabbling in Wicca that I started to see things from a different perspective; people were sacred, life was sacred. There’s no them, just us. Instead of being tough, we should be tenderhearted. I began understanding other people and their views, seeing everyone as distinctly unique, but in the end, part of the same family. And how could I harbor hatred in my heart for members of my own family, simply because they were different, or believed differently than me?
Leaving fundamentalism was the best decision my family and I ever made; suddenly, we were looking at things from the other side. We began to understand that people are different, and that’s okay. We listened to stories told to us by survivors, but members of the LGBT community who were kicked out by their own families. It’s like a light turned on and we could see the world for what it really, truly was; not for what someone said it was. Fundamentalism not only makes you mean, it warps your view of the world. But when you take the blinders off? It becomes the most beautiful world to be part of. You have joy in the little things. No more is there a fear of hell or sinning, or doing something to make God “pour out his wrath” on you. Love others. Love yourself. It’s that simple. So simple, it seems, that it's too hard for people who have been raised in hate to understand. For you see, love, when it is warped, is hate and indifference. But love, when it is raw and realized, will always be patient and kind. Ask yourself; do the street preachers come off as patient and kind? Do they keep records of wrongs? Do they rejoice in the truth? Do they hope all things, bear all things?
If not, is it really love? Or is it hate disguised as love?
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