Is it really hate?

I survived the Amendment 1 battle this spring. Many hurtful things were said during the months leading up to the day that 62% (I think) of my fellow citizens of North Carolina voted on my marriage with a resounding NO SAME SEX MARRIAGE ALLOWED! I remember coming home from working the polls that evening, and seeing the early results on tv. It was like getting hit in the gut; I just started crying.

I recently read an article in which an archbishop said that the proposed amendment in Minnesota, which is on the ballot this fall, isn't meant to hurt anybody. That struck me as a very strange thing to say, but I'll even give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he really means it kind of in the way a parent with a belt in his hand might say "this hurts me more than it hurts you." I don't agree, and in my opinion it is willfully delusional, but I expect his self-rationalization depends on believing that he's not intentionally hurting a large swath of the population.

I've been troubled through all of the rhetoric surrounding civil rights about the use of the word "hate". I do know that in the household where I grew up there were two phrases that were completely off limits: "I hate you" and "Shut up." Every family has its taboos, and those were ours. So I come from a lifetime of not using the word hate to describe my feelings for any person. Things, yes. I can hate my hair, a movie, a hideous chair, getting out of my warm bed on a cold morning. But people? No.

I was not born a Unitarian-Universalist, but when I first came into the fellowship and read the principles, they resonated with me. I could definitely "affirm the inherent worth and dignity of all people". That doesn't mean I love and want to hang out with all people everywhere, or that I agree with and have respect for everything everybody says. Not by any means. But the inherent worth and dignity of every infant born? That's a no-brainer.

If I truly hold that affirmation, it requires me to try to see things from another point of view. Who are the people who would commit atrocities against other people in the name of their religion? How can anyone beat a child to teach her how to behave? Why does the idea of black people voting freely, or gay people getting married cause such strong, and often violent, resistance?

I'm not very good at it, seeing it from their point of view. And I run the risk of inserting my own arrogance or judgments. But when I try to put myself into the shoes of the lady outside of Chick-fil-A with a handful of waffle fries and a mouth full of slogans, it most often feels like fear. Fear that the world is changing too fast. Fear of those people who seem so different. Fear that her own child could become one of those others. Maybe even fear that if she doesn't personally do something to stop it, she will be held accountable by her God and be condemned.

I really think that most people, unless they are clinically insane, justify their behavior, no matter how bizarre or unreasonable it might look to others. The embezzler is just borrowing the money and will pay it back before anybody misses it. The car thief needs this car more than that "rich" person who owns it. The student who cheats on the test didn't have time to study and needs this grade to graduate. We all rationalize and justify our behavior, usually in small, inconsequential ways. As the behavior moves up the destructive scale, the justifications become ever more unusual, but they're still there. Even terrorists who kill people have their own reasons and justifications.

Hate is a strong word. I don't think the lady outside of Chick-Fil-A hates me. She doesn't even know me. It is easier to hate an amorphous group or an idea than it is an individual person you interact with. Sometimes hate is the appropriate word and describes a very real feeling. But to refer to entire groups of people as HATERS seems counter-productive to me. It simply perpetuates the stereotypes and generalizations that give rise to violence in the first place.

Maybe we can celebrate the International Day of Peace by not calling people haters.