bigotry

I think it doesn__ matter if you or I or anybody else thinks homosexuality is a sin. It doesn__ matter if you or I think anything is a sin. It doesn__ matter if homosexuality is a sin or not. In fact, it doesn__ matter if anything anybody else does is a sin or not.Because sin is a very personal thing! It always has been and it always will be!And it has nothing to do with love.

Man is the bridge of good as much as evil. He hurts and he loves. He divides and he unites. He destroys and he rebuilds. He kills and he saves lives. Yet, he denies or pretends that he does not know the other side of him. He only knows of himself as the protagonist, the righteous, and the honorable one. Others, who do not belong to his fold, are the villains, the devils, and the low-life beings. Ironically, the less he knows of his other self the more he becomes what he derides and denigrates. He is the tragic paradox of what he claims to be despite the evidence of his action that proves otherwise. (Danny Castillones Sillada, Man: The Paragon of All Paradoxes)

Don__ we get it? To put our arm around someone who is gay, someone who has an addiction, somebody who lives a different lifestyle, someone who is not what we think they should be_ doing that has nothing to do with enabling them or accepting what they do as okay by us. It has nothing to do with encouraging them in their practice of what you or I might feel or believe is wrong vs right.It has everything to do with being a good human being. A good person. A good friend.

My request today is simple. Today. Tomorrow. Next week. Find somebody, anybody, that__ different than you. Somebody that has made you feel ill-will or even hateful. Somebody whose life decisions have made you uncomfortable. Somebody who practices a different religion than you do. Somebody who has been lost to addiction. Somebody with a criminal past. Somebody who dresses __elow_ you. Somebody with disabilities. Somebody who lives an alternative lifestyle. Somebody without a home.Somebody that you, until now, would always avoid, always look down on, and always be disgusted by.Reach your arm out and put it around them.And then, tell them they__e all right. Tell them they have a friend. Tell them you love them.If you or I wanna make a change in this world, that__ where we__e gonna be able to do it. That__ where we__l start.Every. Single. Time.

Love is an awfully personal thing for most of us, so why isn't hate?

Remember who you are. This creature wants to take it from you. Do not let him.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.

I have known a lot of people in my life, and I can tell you this_ Some of the ones who understood love better than anyone else were those who the rest of the world had long before measured as lost or gone. Some of the people who were able to look at the dirtiest, the poorest, the gays, the straights, the drug users, those in recovery, the basest of sinners, and those who were just_ plain_ different.They were able to look at them all and only see strength. Beauty. Potential. Hope.And if we boil it down, isn__ that what love actually is?

The more you put your arm around those that you might naturally look down on, the more you will love yourself. And the more you love yourself, the less need you__l ever have to find fault or be better than others. And the less we all find fault or have a need to be better than others, the quicker this world becomes a far better place to live.

There are no other heaven and hell outside the human mind. Goodness is heaven, hatred is hell. Acceptance is religion, sectarianism is blasphemy. Love is holiness, discrimination is sin.

To me, many of what seemed to be Bible contradictions only pointed to the grace of Christ. It is not so much a rule book on how to be holy as it is a prophecy of the One who can make you holy. In this, I see God as the least bigoted of all in existence: While men always, in their hearts, delight in vengeance for being wronged, God is the only Being who wants to free you from the penalty of His own laws.

Dreher laments we now live in a __ost-Christian_ America, but he__ wrong. The Americans who are standing with their loved ones and neighbors are in fact doing exactly what Jesus asked them to do, when he said that we should love each other as we love ourselves. It__ possible, however, that we live in a post-accepting-bigotry-cloaking-itself-in-the-raiments-of-Christ America. And, you know. I can live in that America just fine.

The imagination is truly the enemy of bigotry and dogma.

When the mind is without fear and prejudice, and the head is held high with the strength of reasoning, then only the brightest rays of religion can penetrate the darkest corners of the human society.

Our love for our country is worth nothing if it deprives us of our sense of humanity, if it destroys positive consensus.

Salvation of human life requires disclosure of truth through reason, surpassing bigotry.

Worse than any severe mental illness, is the illness of bigotry.

Bigotry lives not just in our words, but in our actions, thoughts, and institutions.