Hate Free Zone – Pink Triangle (Rainbow Heart) – Gay Pride Rainbow Store BUTTON

Hate Free Zone – Pink Triangle (Rainbow Heart) – Gay Pride Rainbow Store BUTTON

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This simple design with a pink triangle declares a hate free zone.  Of course, the pink triangle signifies gay pride which is a reclaiming and redemptive response to the evil and hateful symbol that was used by the Nazis to mark persons as homosexuals in society and in concentration camps.  Some folks, typically religious folks, say that they can condemn people such as homosexuals without hating them, and in fact, love them while condemning them.  I think that this is a tricky a nuanced position the ultimate comes down to one big rationalization: we have the right to condemn others.  This rationalization comes easy because it’s hard to imagine a society with its many orders and stratifications that is not built somehow on condemning one another in one way or the other.  From a religious perspective, I think this boils down to one’s conception of hell.  Many religious folks believe that God condemns people to eternal damnation in some form of hell.  Gladly, I am not one of those folks.  I believe that hell is a totally human creation that completely misrepresents an all-loving and unconditionally loving God.  Hell is a convenient notion to justify one’s own hate and fear of others, and have a justifiable place to condemn those we dislike.  Don’t get me wrong, I believe in hell.  I just believe in hell on earth.  Not the Earth is necessarily a hellish place, but humans certainly do have a capacity to create hell on earth, and there’s more than enough of it to go around. It’s hard to imagine why God would have to add to the hells we’ve created.  I find it quite ironic that John 3:16, probably the most quoted biblical scripture on the planet, is immediately followed, in verse 17, about how Jesus’ purpose on this planet is not to condemn the world but to save it.  Maybe these two things are actually tied together; perhaps salvation is living in the reign of non-judgment and being free from condemning others and what I believe to be the necessary hate and fear that comes with that. Unfortunately, hate and fear are much easier to sell.  Thus, the difficult job and challenge of religion is to demonstrate non-judgment in such a profound way that we don’t have to “sell” it, because we’ve already paid for it with our lives, or how we live our lives.  I think Jesus freed us from fear of death, not from being persecuted unto death.  Both hate and love have a cost to them.  I supposed  the only real question is which of them is worth paying for.