I totally understand your discouragement. It still amazes me, although, I don't think about it much anymore, at how when a person comes out of the closet and people have known this person for years, all of a sudden it's like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. They all think that he/she has an evil, dark agenda, and is out to subvert all that's good and decent. Hmm, let's think for a minute about well-known subversives who WERE evil and WHO did have dark agendas-Adolph Hitler (straight) I don't think I need to mention anything about him-his name speaks for itself, Joseph Stalin (again, his name speaks for itself), Charles Manson (total wierdo), just to name a few-all these people had dark, evil agendas. The only agenda I have seen gay people have is to get the civil rights and freedoms the Constitution gives us. The evil agenda that the Religious Right says we have, THEY MADE UP, to keep us LGBT people in our place. What goes around comes around, because they did the same bloody thing in the early 1900's to keep the black people in their place. It is the same thing and it's root cause is FEAR.
I am going to make a really bold statement-the Bible says that our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against powers and principalities that rule this dark world- our struggle is not against the Religious Right-Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Pat Robertson and such- it is against the idol they worship called FEAR. FEAR is a powerful and intoxicating demon and satan loves nothing more than to send it out to RELIGIOUS people who invite it in and they make it a home in their hearts and minds. And it feeds and foments and makes you crazy a little at a time. MY BIBLE says that GOD IS NOT THE AUTHOR OF FEAR.
Yeah we live in scary times-but what if we are here for such a time as this?
What if we are Esther during the time of Haman, and we need to be strong and courageous?
What if we are Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, and we need to speak out and fight for what our Constitution gives us?
What if we are slaves during the Civil War and the nation comes to blows over whether or not we are really people or not?
What if we are 6 million Jews who today are the symbol of what fear and hatred did to one man?
What if we are Kurds or Palestinians who have no country?
We keep going through this same struggle because we haven't learned the lesson that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, it is against powers we cannot even see, but we must learn to recognize them when they come against us. Our most powerful weapon is prayer. We need to be out, visible, love people when they don't love us. My Bible says Love casts out Fear. That is the only way. We need to be teachers, coaches, doctors, nurses, lawyers, moms, dads, everything we need to be out and visible and let people know that we are normal people who just want to live our lives like they do. We want retirements, we want our kids to go to college, we want to live in nice neighborhoods, we want the life that the Constitution of this country says we have a right to have because we live here.
Forgive me for preaching and I hope in some small way it helped. If not, forgive my ventings and rantings. I feel strongly about it, or could you tell?
