Hate

This past Saturday, I read an article in "The Vancouver Sun" entitled "Homosexuality, religion and acceptance." Written by columnist Douglas Todd, he commented that, after including statistics on his blog around how people with different religious affiliations see homosexuality, the responses he received were difficult to read.

Here's a direct quote from the article:

'Many of the hundreds of ostensibly anonymous comments that flowed in from readers are not for the faint of heart. A minority of the commentators...treat homosexuals with disgust. It comes pretty close to promoting hatred (which is illegal in Canada) when homosexuals are uniformly described as "sick," "dirty," "unhygienic," "sinful," "arrogant," having "no principles," "immoral," "condemned in the Bible," "a health risk," "horny," "prone to psychiatric disorders," "lustful" and "going to hell."'

Wow! When I first read that, I was stunned. For all the advances that have been made in the acceptance of gays and lesbians over the past forty years since the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City, we still have a long way to go. While a majority of people may well be supportive of gays and lesbians now, it's the more vocal and hate-filled, religious minority that give us reason to pause, and that create a world in which gays and lesbians must be fearful, just because of our sexual orientation.

I don't plan to go through each of the highly descriptive words or phrases above to discount how they don't necessarily apply to gay people, or how they may apply to all people--gay, straight, or otherwise. The fact that they are directed, in this case, toward gays and lesbians tells me there are still a lot of stereotypes out there, and there's still a lot of unnecessary hate toward people who are different and misunderstood. So much for the benefit of having religious affiliation when it comes to the love of God for all people.

We've come so far, but we still have so far to go.