Surrounded by war, hate and bigotry, people often turn to religion to escape the insurmountable hate in the world. In Fayetteville, a pastor has decided to add to the hate and violence brewing everywhere else.
In his sermon, Pastor Sean Harris was defending Amendment One, the amendment that would define marriage between a man and a woman and take away a single woman’s domestic violence protections among other things. Harris went on to say parents should hit their children with “limp wrists” to prevent “gender-variant” behavior.
Harris is one of many, since the beginning of time, who is preaching violence against something that cannot be helped. A person’s sexual orientation, just like skin color and gender, cannot be changed. Physically or mentally abusing your child because they are displaying qualities that are not deemed “heterosexual” will only push the child into drastic measures.
In the past few years alone, intense physical and mental bullying has caused multiple children, teenagers and adults into suicide because people in their life would not accept them for who they were.
“It Gets Better” aims to provide hope for many closeted people who are currently in a situation where they cannot show who they really are. The program has done well, but more programs need to be in place to provide young people in the closet a place to go if they have no friends or family to turn to. In order to fully escape from the hate and violence, someone in the situation needs to have a sanctuary they can turn to.
The greatest tragedy has yet to be seen, as to how many Harris can sway to join his vile ideals. I am not asking someone who is uncomfortable with homosexuals to embrace them with open arms. There is no reason to prohibit someone, socially or legally, from becoming who they are because they cannot help who they are attracted to, much less beat them for it.
The truth is that there will always be people like him. It is the matter of drowning out those who preach hate in order for ideas of acceptance to be heard.
Hopefully in 50 years, we are going to look back at the gay rights movement as we do the civil and women’s rights movements. We will tell our children that it was a long time coming and should have happened sooner than it did. We will put the blame on people like Harris from preventing it from happening sooner, but we can only blame ourselves if we are unwilling to help.
It would not be a stretch to say that greater strides in the gay rights movement have been made in the past 20 years than in the previous 100, but movements such as Amendment One still prove there is still a great challenge ahead.