How Can I Hate Hate?

I feel really uncomfortable today.

I started my morning watching a NOH8 campaign video posted on someone’s Facebook:



I then saw that the Westboro Baptist Church plans to picket the funeral of one of the soldiers from my hometown who died in Afghanistan.

For those who don’t know, the Westboro Baptist Church is based in Kansas, and according to their website they, “engages in daily peaceful sidewalk demonstrations opposing the homosexual lifestyle of soul-damning, nation-destroying filth. We display large, colorful signs containing Bible words and sentiments, including: GOD HATES FAGS, FAGS HATE GOD, AIDS CURES FAGS, THANK GOD FOR AIDS, FAGS BURN IN HELL, GOD IS NOT MOCKED, FAGS ARE NATURE FREAKS, GOD GAVE FAGS UP, NO SPECIAL LAWS FOR FAGS, FAGS DOOM NATIONS, THANK GOD FOR DEAD SOLDIERS, FAG TROOPS, GOD BLEW UP THE TROOPS, GOD HATES AMERICA, AMERICA IS DOOMED, THE WORLD IS DOOMED, etc” Yeah, that’s really what they say.

And my initial reaction? I HATE these people. I hate people that bully homosexuals until they feel like the only option they have is to end their lives so they don’t have to deal with the pain anymore. I hate these supposed “Christians” who hide behind vulgar hate speech to spread the word of God. I want all of these people to burn in hell for the hatred they spread and the lives they negatively effect just for their own kicks.

And then I had to stop myself. See that word? Hate? If I hate them, how does that make me any better than them?

And if I hate them, they’ve garnered the reaction out of me they were looking for. And they win.

It’s such a confused and complicated conflict to be in. How can I feel like this isn’t right and I want the world to know it, without encouraging their hatred with my own hatred back?

I asked my community (through my Facebook) to show up on the day of the funeral and blockade the family from the WBC. I asked them to do what a small town in Missouri did (here’s the story on that) and show up early to take all of the parking spaces. Use bodies to make sure the WBC gets nowhere near the funeral. But most importantly, do so PEACEFULLY. Do not engage them, do not scream at them, and do not enforce physical violence upon them. That makes you no better than they are. Instead, show them how true Americans, and how true people of God, act.

I am so troubled by the fact that, coming upon my 24th birthday, these kinds of issues exist in my world. I want to see a truly United States of America before I die, although I’m sure that will never happen. It’s so conflicting to feel like there’s nothing I can do to make homosexual teenagers (and even adults) feel like there’s NOTHING wrong with them and no matter how bad it gets, it always gets better. I feel like there’s nothing I can do to show soldiers that they don’t die in vain, and that even though there’s this small, miniscule population of hate-mongers in our country, they don’t speak for the whole.

Sometimes I wish people would just open their eyes. Accept people for who they are. And all live peacefully, whether we 100% agree with what our neighbors are doing or not.

I feel like I’ll never see that day. And that leaves me in tears.


To learn more about the "It Gets Better" Project, please visit their website. To help your veterans, please refer to my previous blog posting for a list of resources.