I shouldn’t be surprised with the news these last months, weeks. I was a child of the 60’s. I lived through the time of desegregation. I spent two of my father’s stations in rural Georgia. And I was raised by a woman who followed the crazy fundamentalist hate mongers of which many are still spewing their vitriol while holding out their hands for your meager dollars, threatening damnation if you don’t take it out of the mouths of your children to give to them. I’ve been to many a Bother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show. I’ve heard it, read it, had it beat upside my head, and screamed into my ears through all of my formative years. I’ve seen racism up front, looking at the bloodied face of the neighbor caught walking down the street with his white girlfriend. Have felt rejection and hatred of being found unworthy for not believing as I was expected, as those around me did. And yet . . . .

They tell us that God is love. That only God can judge. That one should love one’s neighbor. Jesus taught that we teach by living our lives by our belief. We are taught that he died for our sins and all the laws of the old testament were no longer necessary because of his sacrifice.

So, that means we can now eat pork. We can wear fabric from mixed fibers. All those hundreds of laws no longer need to be memorized, adhered to, punishments noted, applied, held out for all to witness. We can now concentrate on what we were told to be Jesus’ message. To love. To care for each other. To treat all as our brothers, sisters. To know that unless we have lived without blemish, we have no right to judge another.

Now, I am not a Christian. That got beat out of me, screamed out of me, hypocrisied (don’t care if its not a real word, it should be) out of me far too many years ago. But, I can respect the honorable teachings of the religion. And it amazes me how I, heretic, non-believer, borderline atheist can understand the messages of Jesus and his followers can not.

I am also a firm believer in the 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech, including freedom of thought. I believe that everybody has the right to fill their minds and their hearts with as much hatred as they wish to. I believe they have the right to look at their neighbors and their family that don’t meet the mold they set before them and decide they are less than human, a monster, a pariah. They have the right to wish them ill in their hearts. We all have that right. But, some of us realize there are much better places to invest our energy than in hating family that doesn’t meet our standards, hating our neighbors, hating strangers. That life is much more enjoyable when you spend it doing things that make you happy than in doing things to make others feel pain.

However, what is different, what is so very frightening right now is the flood of hate speech, hate law attempts, hate politics that are in the air waves, on our news feeds and moving through our legislatures. There are currently at least half a dozen states attempting to pass laws that allow for legal discrimination, claiming it is an issue of religious rights. There are even more that have either passed or in constant submission on women’s reproductive rights, again citing the religious rights of a company.

Now, I am aware of the absurd ruling on Citizen’s United. That really, really needs to be overturned. A company is NOT, has never been and will never be a person. It is populated with people, run by people and owned by people. And each of those persons have a right, a vote, a voice. And there is a very obscure chance that the entire population of a corporation could vote unanimously on an issue, but I would guess even that would be unlikely at astronomical odds. A corporation is not a citizen, it is not a living breathing entity with individual thought. One of the great absurdities of this is that it is communism at its most perverted state, the hive mentality, the Borg. Not to mention hypocrisy at the extreme. For as it screams that social programs for the individual is socialism and should be opposed, it is attempting to say that it has the right to make the decisions for the people. The right to decide which people are worthy to be allowed into the hive. The rest will be left out to starve and die.

The politicians are quoting ancient and even by biblical standards, irrelevant passages to defend their claims, to rally their forces. But, if they were to truly abiding the rules of their “holy book”, the passages no longer apply. They were negated when their son of God was executed on the cross and all sins forgiven. And if they are to resurrect the old testament, they must do so wholly. They cannot eat pork and wear their designer blended fabrics and condemn homosexuality. They cannot elect women to power. There are hundreds of things they cannot do if they wish to bring back the old.

Hate is admittedly one of the most powerful unifying forces. One has only to look at history to know this to be fact. Create an enemy, dress it in the costume of “different”, give it a victim that you must protect from its evil intents and the people will flock to the cause in hordes. Draw that line of separation, darken it, deepen it, build on it. Stoke the fire till it becomes an inferno and turn it loose. Don’t worry about the deaths, the horrors that follow from it. Use them to feed the cause of hate. There is no need to worry about logic. Fevered hate will burn away any trace of logic or reason.

And the hate machine is now out of control. I have lived through seeing what this kind of hate can do when it becomes law. Sadly, it appears I may have to live through seeing that happen again.