Bigotry

I have been guilty of bigotry many times in my life. As a human, we are entitled to make even the most foolish mistakes. However, as spiritual beings, we are expected to overcome those shortcomings and evolve. 

In the course of hacking through the weeds to find my way back to my innocent spirituality, I took a pro-active interest in learning more about many things that make us, as humans, different. One of those traits was homosexuality. 

Point blank, it is a mistake of nature. It is not cruel to say it because it is in understanding that we were given the male and female characteristics for the purpose of breeding and increasing our species. After opening my mind to knowledge and facts of this issue, I can attest to the declaration that it is not a choice but an affliction created in some way or another within the womb. 

One argument I have heard time and again by christians is that this cannot be anything other than a human choice because "God doesn't make mistakes." No one is saying God has made a mistake. This is where many people get the physical human body confused with the heavenly soul. This vessel is nothing more than an Earth-bound being hosting the soul that is here to learn. It is prone to everything else for which all other creatures of this planet are susceptible.

By refusing the very science behind homosexuality and confusing nature with God, you are saying that conjoined twins aren't a mistake. Babies born with brain tumors aren't a mistake. 6 fingers on one hand aren't a mistake. The extension of the caudal vertebrae causing the rare deformity known as a "human tail" isn't a mistake. Cancer isn't a mistake. Did you know blue eyes are a birth defect?

I could go on but I think you understand.

Homosexuality occurs all throughout nature. We can even see how easy it is to happen when we study species who can change gender as a method of sustaining its existence. Sometimes, wires get crossed and the same biology that makes this possible in those species becomes a deformity of sorts through others.

Humans are animals. We are mammals prone to the same laws as all other Earth bound creatures, laws that are sometimes skewed because something goes wrong within the womb or because of an existing defect in ovaries, eggs, or sperm. Defects happen. Visit any NICU in the world and you'll see that. Are people saying God is making a mistake every time one of these defects occur? Well, I suppose that depends upon your idea of just how involved God is in Nature. I have found that the only people who blame God for bad things are those too afraid to accept that bad things happen, sometimes for no reason ..they just do.

Here is where you may try to say things like cancer, blindness, deafness, physical deformities are for a purpose. That God has a purpose for giving us such obstacles. I've heard this all my life as a coping mechanism by humans to understand why bad things happen. Okay, so what about homosexuality? Why can that not be considered an obstacle to test us? Because it's feared and hated. It's long been unacceptable in our civilized society to ostracize children with down syndrome, we turn away in pity when we see someone bound in a wheel chair, and our heart goes out to people with cerebral palsy. Yet, we judge, criticize, and downright hate homosexuals. Ironically, just a few hundred years ago, things like down syndrome, cerebral palsy, MS, and stuttering were once top 10 reasons for a person to be shunned or stoned to death.

The hate for homosexuals comes not from God (MY God would NEVER condone hate) but from mankind's limited understanding of science in the early days of the bible and from necessary tribal laws meant to ensure the growth of a race/nation. Homosexuality stunts culture growth because there is no breeding to promote numbers, so it was deemed unproductive (no pun intended) to have intercourse with a member of the same gender. It didn't become a "sin" until religion got involved, and religion was always political, always a tool of manipulation to make the weak minded, ill-educated citizens do as they were told.

Going back to something I said earlier, when I remarked that homosexuality could be an obstacle, I didn't just mean for those inflicted by it. I mean for those who aren't, as well. For what better test could a god have for his subjects to see just how compassionate and loving they have evolved into being by placing before them that which terrifies their limited understanding and tests the man-made foundation of their religion? 

To open oneself up to what God truly wants of us, we must question all of those words passed down to us not by Him but by man, and when we do this, the corruption of human interference melts away to reveal the true heart of "God."

There is only one law God has ever held dear. It is Love Thy Neighbor. There is no need for 10 commandments or 20 or 90 or 1,000. This one alone is powerful enough to keep all of the greater force's warmth inside of us and evolve our species into what was intended for us to be.

Some time back, I read something shared by a friend that influenced me to write the following letter to the company:

Wipe Out Homophobia

‎"Today, Charlie and I went to cakeshop to get a wedding cake and were turned away and informed they did not serve gay weddings.

Masterpiece Cakeshop

3355 South Wadsworth Boulevard Lakewood, CO 80227

(303) 763-5754

masterpiececakeshop@msn.com

Dear Masterpiece Cakeshop, 

It was brought to my attention that you have a policy in place to refuse service to gay weddings. While I understand it is your right as a private business owner to refuse service to anyone, I would like to respectfully share my thoughts with you on this matter. 

I want to say first that I am not gay; therefore, I don't have a personal stake in this matter from the perspective of the homosexual couples whose proposed business you've turned down. I do, however, have a personal issue with hate and ignorance and misunderstanding, all of which affects us as a common species networked together (like it or not) to create a planet of friendship or division. So it is my business when I witness anyone working against the good of mankind. 

I understand that Colorado is going through a terrible ordeal at this time regarding the Aurora theater shooting at the Dark Knight Rises movie premier. It isn't my intention to bring more grief to you, though you don't seem to mind doing it to others.

Were you aware that gay rights groups and individuals came out to support Colorado during the memorial for the shooting victims?

The group "Wipe Out Homophobia" released a message several days ago alerting people to the planned protest of the Aurora shooting memorial service by the Westboro Baptist Church. "Wipe Out Homophobia" was quite probably responsible for thousands of Facebook users learning about this shameful attempt to bring more trauma to the residents of Colorado and to the victims of that tragic crime. This is the link to their post, which generated 1,929 "likes" and 531 "shares" (which were seen by hundreds more and even more after that if others "shared" from their friends pages) to spread the news that it seemed only "Wipe Out Homophobia" was willing to address.

Because of this "sharing," members of Facebook planned to meet at the memorial to form a human wall between the mourners and Wesboro Baptist Church protesters.

Homosexuals wanted to come out in force to defend Colorado and protect its residents in their hour of need. They didn't care that the victims and their families may have been straight, black, white, Christian, Jewish, young, old, racists, or bigots. There was a choice to be made between "right" and "wrong," compassion and apathy, and they chose wisely from their hearts to do the unselfish, loving thing. 

I want you to know that I respect your decision and any business owner's decision to stand for what you believe in. What I am left to wonder, however, is exactly what you are deciding to stand for.

I can see the benefit in refusing to service a KKK rally, to refuse to cater a pornography shoot, to refuse to make a wedding cake for a 30 year old man to a 12 year old girl, and even to cater a political event of an opposing candidate of who your business has chosen to support. 

What I can't see is any benefit in refusing a cake to celebrate a joyous occasion centered around love, an event where the honored attendees are two consenting adults committing no crime and who prior to this event, never caused you personal grief. 

Our world is in such turmoil right now. Everywhere we look, we see violence, hate, pain, despair. We see fighting in the streets, on foreign soil, and in our neighbor's homes (or our own). With all of the negativity overflowing in our lives on a daily basis, why would anyone choose to punish love? Some semblance of hope for our species when all too often we are hard pressed to find any? 

I am sorry that you have so much darkness in your hearts that you cannot see the good in something as happy as a wedding. As an event specialist, you should know the joy that comes from weddings. You would know how important a wedding is to the couple involved. You would know how much happiness comes from not only the couple but all those involved in the planning and in the celebration. It's a moment in time when the chaos of the world doesn't exist. For just that flicker in the timeline of our world, people aren't hurting or dying or fighting. When anyone sets out to purposefully extinguish even the smallest moment of joy so rarely shared these days, I have to wonder just how they are able to live with so much hate in their hearts. 

I am sure that your business will suffer for this, and rightfully so, but I am more concerned with the human condition involved rather than the financial aspect. Where love offers a spark of hope for mankind, hate breeds and spreads like a cancer across our Earth. As long as there are people like you, who are so bigoted that you can see a cake as "gay" or "straight," humans will continue to struggle to attain the greatness they can be, greatness that bigotry will always keep just out of reach. 

Now, I am pagan and we don't have laws or sermons or official guidelines to follow regarding homosexuals or human kind. We simply mind our own business and leave each other to follow our own paths to enlightenment the supreme being wishes for us to reach. Your bible, however, covers such attitudes as yours quite clearly. 
 

Leviticus 19:18 

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Matthew 22:36-40

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Luke 6:27 

“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you..."

Mark 12:31 

The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Romans 13:8-10 

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

James 2:8 

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.

Ephesians 4:25 

Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.

Romans 15:2 

Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.

1 John 4:21 

And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

1 John 4:20 

If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

1 John 3:18 

Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

Proverbs 10:12 

Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.

Matthew 5:8 

Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God.

Hebrews 13:2 

Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.

1 John 4:18 

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear.

Galatians 1:8-9 

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

Sincerely,

a Navy wife whose husband defends every race, creed, gender, age, profession, and sexuality.