They're having an anti-gay-bullying "pride day" tomorrow, with purple being the color of support.
That puts me at loggerheads. How do you be anti-anti-gay without being pro-gay?
As someone who was on the wrong side of bullying as a kid, I sympathize with anyone who's being picked on. As a sensitive kid (and smart and the tallest kid in class, so a triple outlier), I got hit with those anti-homosexual pejoratives, but anyone who wasn't properly macho got those; we didn't have young people who were "out" back in the early-mid 70s, at least not where I lived.
Regardless of what someone is or does, they don't deserve to be picked on. The Golden Rule makes that loud and clear, so anyone making a gay teen's life miserable for no good reason is not on God's side.
As a Christian, I'm not a fan of Islam. It's a flawed religion that sees Jesus as merely a prophet rather than a subset of God. However, that doesn't mean I would go up to the pair of Muslim-looking girls at Midland High who leave about the time Eileen does when she subs there that need to chuck those veils or go back to Pakistan. They'd likely get far worse invective that I feel comfortable typing here, but such stuff is sinful, plain and simple.
As a Christian, I take what is written about homosexuality in the Bible at face value. That being said, that doesn't mean I have free rein to tease and be mean to a gay classmate. It's not going to help them draw closer to God to let loose with a homophobic nastygram.
The problem (for me) in the anti-gay-bashing/bullying crusade is that bullying is wrong, period. Whether a kid is getting picked on for being the "wrong" race or the "wrong" size or the "wrong" orientation, teasing and bullying is wrong.
You can be against bullying without approving of the aspect of a person getting picked on. Thus, people like me are in a box, wanting to encourage kids and not have them teased into depression and often suicide, but also not wanting to encourage improper behavior in the process.
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