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10/28/2014
Actually no, kindness does not demand making people mad at you
I'm so tired of seeing some version of this, a popular evangelical idea that Dr. Russell Moore just echoed at the anti-gay Southern Baptist conference taking place this week in Nashville:
It's such a convenient out. It excuses any manner of crude, cruel, or even reprehensible behavior. After all, if scripture demands that people will hate you, then you are "right" for hurting and angering people who are different. So goes this belief.
It's a really horrid teaching, to be honest. And extremely egocentric, too. It's kind of an inverse of the golden rule—one that takes all onus off of the aggressor and his or her ability to self-check and places all blame on the people (in this case, LGBT people) who did nothing more than react to what you gave them. It's yet another way for anti-LGBT evangelicals to suggest that they are above all the rest of us commoners who simply cannot understand how and why their really mean and nasty acts against a minority populations are actually a form of "love."
It's a lie designed to take any and all fault off of a crowd that has been so rightly caricatured for its aggressive inability to take responsibility for anything. I see right through it. And I'm not playing this game. Yes, Southern Baptists, as a generalized whole, you are indeed a fallible community. And when it comes to recent history, your church's aggressive acts against LGBT people and LGBT rights (including this draconian conference taking place right now) are among your most egregious and obvious faults. Own it. This attempt to wiggle out of responsibility for bad actions only adds deep insult to the very real, ver damaging injuries that your discrimination has imposed on so many facets of civil society.
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