But then as I was walking along the parade route rooting on the Parents of Asian LGBT's, or the Lutheran Church welcoming its diverse and inclusive congregants, I also had to pass the fervently anti gay, Jesus hates you, foaming at the mouth band of homophobes screaming indignities through their megaphones, as their next generation of hate filled children ranted and raved with them.
And it made me wonder why we (I) have permitted people like that to even think for one moment they actually speak God's wishes, or translate God's will? Why do we as mere mortals, (those of us who do believe in a God) think that the Pope and his cacophony of Cardinals, the orthodox Rabbi's and his clan of congregants, the Imam's and his assortment of Ayatollahs, the Mormon Prophet and his gang of General Authorities permit them to assume they know God better than you or I?
Why am I the sinner, as a gay man, because I love another man? Why am I the bad guy because those who do not permit difference, insist that God is not inclusive. Why have I allowed those who hate, to drag God's good will and his/her grace into their own petty bias and ignorance's?
Why have I, like a lemming, accepted that those who say they speak for God actually understand not one word God has said? I know when I speak with God, he/she asks that I be true to myself and be true to those on this Earth with whom I share this planet. The evil, I am told through my interactions with God, is not doing unto others as I would want others to do to me.
As both a Jewish man and a Gay man growing up in this country I have heard the harangues and the hollow harassment's about not being as good as, or not being loved by one true God. I am still told my those who say they speak for God that this is a Christian nation. I am told that the Bible trumps the Constitution and equal rights for Gays would be an abomination to God (this coming from the God who supposedly wrote the old testament, the new testament, and Book of Mormon and Koran) I have witnessed bully's torment "sissy" boys, tease"butch" girls", parents segregate their children from youngsters who identify their parents as my dad and my other dad; all of this based on some fabricated lie that Jesus said it was okay to do so.
And for almost 37 years of my sixty years on Earth (I came out at 37) I bought this baloney that those who say they know God must be right. It took so much courage for me to come to terms with who I was, and once I proudly said I happen to be Gay, I also realized that those who told me gay was bad because God said so, did not know the same God I did.
The protesters were in place along Santa Monica Boulevard, placards, and messages of hate next to Jesus' name. They shouted sodomite and sinner and between each sentence shouted God's name. But so many LGBT's and their families and friends proudly parading on this day of Pride just looked at them and said, you don't know God, all you know is hate, loathing, fear and for that you know nothing at all about God. What hell on Earth it must be for you.
So today, I once again realized just because someone claims the reigns of a bully pulpit, because they state facts in their own fantasized way, because they shout louder and base their truths on tiny tidbits of reason, they don't have the power. And on this day of Pride in LA I realized once again, I have the power and can never let anyone take it from me.
Gay pride, human pride, being proud. Happy Pride everyone! what a revelation.
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