“I
have decided to stick to love...Hate is too great a burden to bear.” –the Rev.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Who will we next choose to hate? What
group? What tribe? What community?
In twenty U.S. states it is now a matter
of law or public policy that gender affirming care is banned for young people
13 to 17 years old. Even if their doctor believes that it is medically
necessary. Even if their parents agree that this is good for the mental health
and well-being of the child they love. Even if for these young people such care
represents the chance for them to finally become the person they believe they
were meant to be, created to be, as a child of God.
I think I might be a little less angry
about these anti-LGBTQ laws if the insincerity and calculated politics of the
legislators and governors who so often favor such actions, was not so clear and
obvious. You see by hating the LGBTQ community, you can actually win votes, at
least in some parts of the country. Hate the so-called “woke” crowd and you can
run for President. Use your faith to justify such mean-spirited and soul
crushing public policy and you even get to go straight to heaven.
Really?!
I know some might see my use of the word
“hate” as over the top or exaggerated or strictly for effect. I use that word “hate” intentionally but not
lightly. Here, “hate” fits. Hate is defined in the Merriam Webster’s Dictionary
as (in part), “intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear,
anger, or sense of injury.” Works for me.
We humans tend to hate that which we fear; tend to hate that which we do
not understand; tend to hate people we perceive are somehow making it hard for
us to be who we are supposed to be. It’s
that last reason to hate someone or a group of “someones,” that most confuses
me.
How is someone following American Medical
Association (AMA) approved guidelines for medical care a threat to anyone? In
the words of the largest professional medical organization in the country, “The AMA opposes
the dangerous intrusion of government into the practice of medicine and the
criminalization of health care decision-making,” said AMA Board Member Michael
Suk, MD, JD, MPH, MBA. “Gender-affirming care is medically necessary,
evidence-based care that improves the physical and mental health of transgender
and gender-diverse people.”
Trans folks aren’t telling straight folks how
they are supposed to live. Who they are supposed to love. How they are supposed
to constitute their families. The last time I checked, my trans loved ones
actually think it is my own business (and their own business too) about how to
understand and then live into gender. You know. Live and let live. Privacy.
It is kind of odd that so many of the same
folks who worship at the altar of small government and libertarianism then also
advocate for laws that represent government intrusion into private lives and
medical care. And to tell a parent how they are supposed to make medical
decisions for their kids? To dictate to people how they are to care for and
understand their own bodies?
And the whole faith angle? Using the
Christian faith as a philosophical justification to hate? To see trans folks as
somehow less than human and to claim that God feels that way too? Pastors
preaching contempt for LGBTQ folks from so many pulpits across America?
Look. I’m a Christian too. Have been for
62 years. Have served the church as a
working professional clergy person in the United Church of Christ for almost thirty-four
years. Nothing in the Bible I read or the faith I practice or the religion I
try my humble best to teach tells me that I have the right or the duty to hate
someone else just because of their status as a trans person. As the author of
the First Letter of John writes, “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate a
brother or sister are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister,
whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.” (1 John 4:20)
I get that for some people the changes in
our cultural understanding of gender can be hard to understand. But instead of
derision, what would it mean for more and more of us to just be curious about
this issue and not so threatened? What
would it mean for us to actually talk to trans people and ask them to tell
their story and then to listen in love and respect? What would it mean for us
to honor the bodily autonomy of folks and not presume to tell someone else what
they can and cannot do? What would it mean for us to just be a part of the
conversation and not the condemnation?
Who is the next class of citizens to hate?
The thing is, once we give ourselves
permission to dislike another because they are different than us, well then,
the flood gates of intolerance, disdain and discrimination open wide, letting
forth a torrent of self-righteous belligerence.
Which I think breaks the very heart of God. Because the one faith truth I believe with
all my heart and soul and mind and that I hold to with all my might is this
simple declaration. God is love. God is love. And if God is love then God’s children
are supposed to always lead with love too. No exceptions. Maybe a little humility too. After all, who
are we to stand in judgment of another human being for just trying to become
who they truly are?
Who is the next group to hate?
How about this instead? Who is the next
group to love? Who needs to be shown mercy? Who could use a little
kindness? I like those questions much
better. How about you? Love? Hate?
I choose love. Love. LOVE.
The
Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church
of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at
sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville
Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five
years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout
Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since
1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.
