What Is Love? Baby Don't Hurt Me No More

In Kansas, Idaho, and Tennessee, extremists are trying to pass laws allowing businesses to discriminate against LBGT people. Of course, they are using religion as their excuse.

What religion is this? What religion teaches a hate so strong that it's followers have to have a law making it possible to discriminate against fellow human beings? Do they get extra cool points from whatever god rules over this religion for every LBGT person they discriminate against? How do they know who to discriminate against? Do they base it on the way they look? Do they base it on the names listed on an application or other form?

Just like Veruca Salt, these people want it all and they want it now. They are a bunch of spoiled brats who have been given privilege upon privilege but it still isn't enough. Just like any other bully, they have to make someone else hurt in order to feel righteous themselves.

We have to continue to stand up to the bigots and bullies and let them know these actions and attitudes are not acceptable. But we also have to understand what drives these actions and attitudes. These people, from the time they are little kids, are taught that love is conditional. They are accepted as long as they believe what they are told, follow the rules, look a certain way, or act a certain way.

Many of the bigots who like to justify their bigotry with religion say they love the person but not their lifestyle or love the sinner but hate their sin.That's cute. It's like me telling you I love your new dress but the color is all wrong and it makes you look fat. If I loved you unconditionally, I would care about how your dress makes YOU feel and I would want you to feel beautiful in your new dress, regardless of if I personally would wear it myself.

Just because you feel being gay is wrong for you doesn't make you a bigot. Believing the god you worship thinks being gay is wrong for you doesn't make you a bigot. What makes you a bigot is wanting to deny someone else equal rights, a job, or goods and services because of who they are or because they don't believe what they are "supposed to" believe according to you.

We will overcome this new form of bigotry the same way we overcame the bigotry that forced people to sit at the back of the bus or use a separate drinking fountain. We'll overcome it because at the core of unconditional love is equality and given the choice, most people will choose love over hate.