Yes I am intolerant of intolerance

So, earlier today I posted a story on Facebook about an attorney in California who filed a proposed ballot measure with the California Attorney General’s office asking voters to criminalize homosexuality in the state and impose a death penalty sentence. “The People of California wisely command, in the fear of God, that any person who willingly touches another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual gratification be put to death by bullets to the head or by any other convenient method.” Read  full text of this peace of work here.

In one social media conversation around this post I was chastised by straight, white men for coming across as too angry and judgmental for a progressive Christian. People on the thread quickly went down the rabbit hole of expressing outrage over the mixing of progressive faith and politics and name calling while conveniently disregarding the subject matter at hand – the proposal to legalize murder of LGBT people in the name of God. Seriously?

Yesterday I shared a pailful and grace-filled post written by Tonya about what her family experienced at Sunday lunch in a local restaurant. A real sweet “gay affirming” person in a Christian group on Facebook questioned whether or not the moms were being “over sensitive” and maybe just read the situation wrong.

While I’m genuinely thankful that many people’s daily lived experience does not include acts of bigotry, that does not negate the fact that I am sick and damn tired of this sort of thing happening regularly to me and people I love.  Straight friends who have not had this lens through which to view the world don’t really get to evaluate our experience nor suggest how we should respond to daily dehumanization. They just don’t.

Yes, I am indeed sensitive to the point of hyper vigilance where the hearts and minds of my children are at stake. I even get to protect my own heard and mind once in a while, shocking I know.

I know a lot of y’all will say these things are happening less and less, and yes that is true. I imagine you want to believe these are isolated incidents and would never happen where you live. I have been told by very good friends (and even a well-known blogger) that maybe I could dial back my angry posts just a bit because the haters are outliers. But here’s the thing…

No they are not.

I know I can be a bit of a lightening rod and that my work brings the haters out of the wood-work, but really all I am doing is draw them into the light.

Friends, these same trolls could very well be your neighbors, your teachers, your doctors, your your elected leaders, your church friends or your family. Every single visible display of vitriolic ignorance is evidence of a deep and sprawling sickness that exists in far more places than those from which it has been eradicated. The more strides forward we make, the more strident and violent the willfully ignorant seem to become. Every single time someone abuses me in public, please know there are hundreds more being abused behind closed doors. I often allow the abuse to play out far longer than I should because I want them to stand as evidence of the shameful and dangerous interactions LGBT people experience on a regular basis.

To quote a friend of mine, Daniel Jakob Eager, “You are not tolerant of my voiding of someone’s very humanity, you are intolerant!” (paraphrased)…. this is the predecessor to the cries of “Persecution!”…I do not care how polite one makes their bigotry and hate, it is bigotry and hate.”

So yes, I get to look ignorance, intolerance and loathing square in the eye and say as often and in any tone I choose that I will not tolerate that for me, my children or my sisters and brothers in Christ.

I wish every day I could radiate pure grace and tenderness. But by the very nature of being human, some days I am a gentle as a dove and wise as a serpent. Some days I extend a open hand of radical hospitality. Some days I storm into the temple and overturn the tables. Fear, perhaps the most powerful force second only to love, can drive us mad with personal inconsistency and self-defeating, specious behavior.

But know this – until that day comes when we do not need to have these conversations anymore, until that day comes when I can walk into any room and not worry if this space is safe for me to hold the hand of my loved one, until the day comes when I do not fear for my life or my child’s life in the hands of a doctor who may or may not be willing to kill a homosexual for God – I walk the line, straddled between faith and fury, between keeping the ends out for the ties that bind and keeping a close watch on this heart of mine, between being a fool to share a radical love of God that I can’t hide and trying with all my might to turn the tide.

Dear Maya, as you bask in God’s glory, I petition you to whisper in God’s ear on my behalf. Help me still rise with your abundant joy and indefatigable grace.