Show Some Extra Love Today

Jesus in Therapy Christian friends, can you take some extra time today to reach out to the LGBT community in love? Many of them are your brothers and sisters in faith, and they hear and see all your comments. They see your silence in the wake of another tragedy like last night. Can you call out someone who makes arch jokes about the homosexual community, or equates gay marriage to bestiality? These are hateful statements.

You can say you "love" gay people all you want, but if there are none happily visible in your life, you should question that. Are there gay couples at your dinner table? Ever?

If not, percentage-wise, this might mean you have several gay friends, who have chosen, in wisdom, to hide it from you. Because they don't feel safe with you. They've heard your comments at church, or your prayer request that someone in your family will be "converted back" to being hetero. They've seen your rants, or your openly hateful friends' rants, on Facebook. Your silence on Facebook, when someone seeks to marginalize this maligned community? It says volumes.

Can you take a stand to really LOVE this community? When you take every turn to stand against gay rights, gay marriage, transgender rights . . . and walk past every cute little turn of phrase (wink, wink) to belittle the LGBT community, you are complicit in a culture of hate. Speak out. (I won't say this is about conservatives, because many of my conservative Christian friends OPENLY SUPPORT the gay community) - I will call this BACKWARDS. If you support your gay friends (and you do have some, whether you know it, or not), please show it.

Speak out, speak loud, speak often. Call people out for their death-by-a-thousand-cuts support of a culture of hate. Show them some love, especially today. This is not a day where they feel safe, or loved, by our culture. One by one, I'm hopeful we can change this.