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| Photo taken by the Long Island Gay Men's Chorus on June 14, 2014 in Huntington, Long Island. |
Day 48/365
Ever just feel hated? Like everyone is against you, talking about you behind your back, mocking you and staying away from you? Most likely, you have experienced this at one point or another in your life, and some of you have experienced it quite a bit.
I've felt this way in grammar school, high school, college and the monastic life, the workplace, and plenty of times online. But the kind of hate I had to deal with this past weekend was a really scary strain of the hate virus. It's the kind that has taken over the minds and bodies of otherwise good people, and caused them to act maliciously toward their fellow souls.
On Saturday, June 14, 2014, while I was standing on Route 25A waiting for the Long Island Pride Parade to begin, I spotted a group of four men holding hate signs walking up the road toward me, calling out some kind of hate speech to anyone who would listen as they did. They'd soon be right in front of my face, and so I decided I would say something once they were.
Time stopped. I saw them approaching in slow motion, while across the street, a police officer was directing traffic nearby, and two other officers were walking slowly up the sidewalk. Friends and strangers alike grew quiet as they approached. I can see the whole scene repeating in my head over and over again like the Zapruder film. I knew it was a moment in time, and a moment for me to tell these jackasses they were wrong.
So just as they came walking by, chanting out their hate with pride, I yelled, "God loves everyone!" Well, they stopped dead in their tracks, and their leader (pictured in the photo above) comes up to me and says, very calmly, "That's right, God does love everyone, but he hates your sin, and he hates my sin too." Now if this were an online conversation, I would have gone round for round with this fool for another 15 minutes, but instead, I knew he was just demented and sick, sadly suffering with the HATE virus. I knew there was no way I'd get through to him, that I'd only upset the people nearby even further by giving him the time of day. So I instead just moved him along with my arm through the air, and told him to keep moving and go away, or I'd call the officers over.
Well, the officers across the street were now stopped in their tracks watching this happen, and as the guys moved away, the officers turned around, crossed the street, and began following these idiots in the direction they were headed.
I was proud to have stood up to these sick men, but I was literally shaking for minutes afterward. They'd gotten to me. I'd let them get to me.
And the part that gets me the most is, these were regular guys I might not realize are suffering with the HATE virus if I saw them anywhere else. If we were in an elevator and it got stuck between floors, these men would probably talk to me very nicely. If they saw me collapse in the park, they'd probably run over and help me. If they saw me following them into a store, they'd probably hold the door open for me. But because I was standing at a pride parade, they chose to hate me, to judge me, to use the Bible against me. These men are my brothers either way, but on that day, they chose to hate me.
Still, I was grateful for so much more that day than any harm done to my psyche. I was grateful for the sweet couple to my right, there to support their daughter marching with Pride For Youth. I was grateful for my partner and my friends nearby for surrounding me with love. I was grateful for my friend Mac marching in the parade with SAGE (Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders), who I was able to greet with a big hug. I was grateful to the police officers who just 30 or 40 years ago would have taken the side of these angry sickos with their hate signs and hate viruses. And I was grateful for the thousands of people there waving rainbow flags and cheering for others, thousands who have all seen the hate virus spread, but who have all chosen to spread love instead.
This is a sad reality. These people that hide behind God. They say that God hates "your" sins. Well don't they realize that they have sinned too. I feel as though HATE is the Worst sin of all.
ReplyDeleteTrue, but I'm not fond of the "sin" argument in general, as it infers being who God made us to be is a sin, let alone how we express our love, affection, and even attraction for one another. You're absolutely right that hate is the worst sin though. If we are all one with God, then you are not just hating your neighbor, you're hating God too.
DeleteJesus, the man whose name they use on their hate signs, said he who is without "sin" should be the first to throw stones. Two thousand years later, people who pretend to follow Jesus are still throwing stones. These men aren't Christians, they're zealots. Anyone who at the end of the day shows more affection for words in a book than another living soul is no true follower of Jesus.