There are wars of aggression, babies born into unloving homes and raised in bitterness and poverty; Corporations cook their books so those at the top can become even wealthier while the honest worker loses a lifetime’s hard won financial security. People cheat, lie, steal, and abuse. Man’s inhumanity to man remains a mysterious reality.

And yet, according to the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka Kansas, God hates America and the only reason is that we, as a nation, have “gone the way of the Brokeback Mountain”

A haven’t seen the movie, but I am guessing God doesn’t hate us because of poor production value in the movies (and Westboro is, I admit, fairly thorough in their assertion that the entire population of the United States is hated by God – with the exception, I assume, of those that attend Westboro Baptist Church).

I have known many people, some good, some bad; I’ve known abusive people, weak people, overbearing people, boring people, happy people, sad people, uncaring people… I’ve know egomaniacs, alcoholics, drug addicts, and yes, I even spent a month in a courtroom with a man that brutally and maliciously killed his own father.

But, apparently, it is the gay people that I know that will be sending me – and all of you – straight to hell.

I can not understand an ideology so fueled with hate and fear. I have visited the website of this “church of God” and they have the moral depravity to count the days that Mathew Sheppard, murdered only because he was homosexual, has “burned in hell” – a direct quote.

I do not pretend to know with any certainty what or who God is. I’ve always felt that the whole point is that God is, ultimately, unknowable. God is certainly bigger than I am; bigger than my petty emotions and prejudices. Any attempt to “know” God is to compress the concept into my limited ability to understand.

To attest to know him with any certainty and most especially to rain down venomous hatred on people in his name – on whole nations – is, in my opinion, the first sure step to hell. The kind of inner hell that burns in the hearts and minds of the people that publish the disgusting website I just visited.

This isn’t how I understand Christianity to be, and those that attempt to follow the true spirit of faith – of any faith – should be most outraged at their faith tradition being so horribly mangled by hate and fear.

By comparison, the likes of Pat Robertson, who claims the west coast will be hit by a Tsunami this year because of our Godless ways here, is rather tame; (I’d suggest he use an earthquake for a much better statistical chance of being “proved right”.) 

Yet the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka Kansas has their right to free speech, even if it is laden with hatred. However, when they go about seeking out the funerals of American soldiers that have died in Iraq to stage protests, it strains even the most ardent defender of the 1st Amendment.

For little can be more distressing to the family of a young soldier that never really had a chance in life, that came home in a coffin, only to find a bunch of hate-crazed maniacs claiming that God is glad their son or daughter, husband or wife, sister or brother is dead. That God is glad because of gays; that soldiers are dying in Iraq because America has gone “the way of the Brokeback Mountain”.

I don’t even know what that means, but let’s be clear; soldiers are dying in Iraq because George Bush sent them there. It is no more complicated than that.

I’ll end this by saying something that is both a cliché, and a little embarrassing, only because I know that I will be talking about some of the same people reading this little diatribe:

I know gay people. Some of my best friends are gay. Some of the most talented, intelligent, and loving people I know are gay. People that I respect and admire. And it has nothing to do with that fact that they are gay. It doesn’t matter to me. It never has. They are friends, associates, colleagues. They are human beings. As far as I know, they hurt no one; least of all God.

They have loving, stable relationships and I have no more right to judge them than they do of me.

This seems absurd to me to say right now, and to those friends and colleagues, I apologize.

To those of Westboro that will celebrate the day I die and burn in hell, all I can say is “I will see you there, and rejoice”.

My tolerance ends at the steps of Westboro Baptist church.