I final­ly got my com­put­er back and as I sat at my aun­t’s house re-down­load­ing all my soft­ware an old episode from “The Gold­en Girls” came on. In this episode Blanch’s broth­er came out of the clos­et. This episode aired 26 years ago. Seri­ous­ly?  Thir­ty years lat­er and we are still judg­ing and dis­crim­i­nat­ing against peo­ple because of  sex­u­al orientation.

When will, we as a peo­ple, stop look­ing at our dif­fer­ences. When will peo­ple stop find­ing rea­sons to hate? I get frus­trat­ed because I can’t help but imag­ine what the world would be like if all these peo­ple who spent their time and ener­gy on dis­crim­i­nat­ing against those who are dif­fer­ent would take that same time and ener­gy and instead spend it on mak­ing sure that peo­ple and ani­mals have clean drink­ing water, fresh air, food, shel­ter, sanctuary.

Not only do I have a lot of friends who are LBGT indi­vid­u­als, but as a pagan I’ve also had to watch out for “Reli­gious Free­dom,” laws. When I was in high school I remem­ber con­gress con­sid­ered pass­ing a “Reli­gious Free­dom Amend­ment,” that would put reli­gion back in the school. Sure, in the­o­ry it would have allowed all reli­gions to be hon­ored, but in real­i­ty that isn’t how it would have worked. Just like despite what the Indi­ana Gov­er­nor would like us to believe this is basi­cal­ly a law allow­ing peo­ple to dis­crim­i­nate against alter­na­tive lifestyles.

What does it say about peo­ple that they believe that their reli­gious free­dom is being threat­ened if they can’t dis­crim­i­nate against others?

While I am appalled that a law like this is still pos­si­ble in this day and age, I am encour­aged by the out­cry. Peo­ple and busi­ness­es all over the coun­try are stand­ing up and telling Indi­ana and its law mak­ers that this behav­ior isn’t acceptable.

They’ve lost the fight against mar­riage equal­i­ty in Indi­ana and decid­ed to throw a tem­per tantrum. They passed this law to let us all know that they are going to hold on to their hate and judge­ment. That they won’t stand by while alter­na­tive lifestyles are accept­ed and embraced. I take some solace in the fact that these behav­iors are the acts scared and angry peo­ple, fight­ing a tide that is car­ry­ing them out to sea.

Now I know how far I still have to come in learn­ing to accept peo­ple. Because I kind of hope they drowned out there.