“We don’t even need to talk about why being gay is wrong, right?” our youth pastor asked the 10th grade guys Sunday School class.

The classed nodded in agreement.

My friend, Tom Langford, added, “And it’s not a choice. There is no gay gene.”

The conversation moved swiftly on to another topic. I remember nothing else about that day, or even that year, other than those forty five seconds when smiling, well-intentioned guys in khakis and polo shirts unknowingly condemned me to hell.

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On May 4, 1970, our National Guard opened fire on student anti-war protesters and bystanders at Kent State. Four students died and nine other people were wounded. That was a dark day for our country and the families of all who died and were injured. Some sociologists now believe that Kent State may have triggered the next forty years of fear-based politics in the United States and catalyzed the growth of radical fundamentalism within Christianity.

Certainly there is evidence that the events of that day gave ultra-conservative Christians and their privately held institutions of higher learning a bonfire of fear to fan, and they did so with vigor. Preachers with pulpits full of confused and mourning Americans opened a flood-gate of condemnation against pot-smoking, atheist, radical hippies and all “suspicious acting and looking” people who could conveniently be lumped in with them.

Continue reading on The Huffington Post

One of my great passions is the idea of Simple Living. Recently, a friend asked me,

“What does simple living have to do with nonviolence.”

For me, the answer lies in the fact that we North Americans are 12% of the world’s population consuming more than 60% of the world’s resources; leaving the one-third living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with only 3.2 percent of the remaining resources.

When I was growing up, we used to talk about bringing the rest of the world up to the American standard of living. But now we understand that with this chasm between those who have and those who have not, this goal is not a possibility. And neither is peace as long as that chasm continues. Peace is only sustainable in a world where justice prevails. And as long as the injustice of gross economic disparity continues to exist, so will war.

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