I have been advocating for my child and LGBTQ people as a whole for a while. I love this community with all my heart. They know far too much about suffering, rejection, self-harm, damaging campaigns and calls for their extermination and yet can still manage to love, support and advocate for others. Many are attempting to break down closet doors, educate society and live in authenticity even though that can be dangerous. Others are simply trying to live their lives and want everyone else to peacefully do the same. They are united by an atypical bond, shared experiences and public dissection that too often includes ridicule, rage, discrimination and violence yet their motto remains Love is Love.

There is a section of our society that refuses to accept anyone who doesn’t look, sound or behave exactly as they do and no amount of truth or logic will change that bent. I have no words or time for them.

It’s the people of faith or those that consider themselves to be of good character. The ones that participate in society and help people in need. The ones that listen compassionately and try to have open minds. The people that claim to hate no one. The people that raise their families to be a positive light in this world and yet still refuse to acknowledge LGBTQ people’s basic human rights. How do I understand them?

Family members who are reluctant to welcome us into their home because it complicates their lives. Longtime friends who say they love our family and yet openly defend measures that exclude my child from society. Why should I trust my evangelical friends’ counsel on anything regarding God, faith and love knowing they are judging my child for how they were born and judging me for loving them unconditionally?

We live in an age of discovery, technology and innovation. How can generally well educated people completely discount studies in genetics, physiology, sexuality and gender? How can they ignore painstaking theological examination that suggests biblical clobber verses don’t hold up to scrutiny? I am not saying they need to agree. I am asking why, when there are so many lives at stake do they refuse to educate themselves? Why, when there is so much evidence to the contrary do they suggest that being LGBTQ is a choice and a lifestyle?

It is hateful to say or condone the idea that gay and transgender people are a public threat and should conform to societal norms or tenuous biblical standards.

I no doubt offended someone because I suggested that their beliefs are hateful and yet they will continue to endorse governmental discrimination, religious exclusion and potentially fatal conversion therapy methods. There are few actions more hateful than rejecting a person’s humanity, insisting they live a life devoid of loving companionship and implying their death is preferable to their existence. Yes, hate is the right word.

I find the rebuttals “apparently diversity doesn’t go two ways” and “we’ll just agree to disagree” laughable. It implies there is an equal dichotomy in relation to gain and loss.

LGBTQ people can lose love, family, relationship, self-worth, mental health, marriage, employment, housing, legal and consumer rights. In the face of such loss and hate they can lose their lives by their own hand or another’s.

What is the other side losing? Their right to tell people that they will not accept them and that they are going to hell?

When they choose to reject scientific, psychological and biblical research to continue on a course that inflicts only pain and suffering, they are the ones making the choice. An ugly choice that I will never understand.