The "Our Hate is Good Hate" Revolution has been Televised

And it's hurting all of us

Pat Robertson, the fundamentalist Christian who founded the popular "700 Club" network died a few days ago. He was a flawed human being like all people, including me. But he was also a powerful flawed human being who used his power and influence to cause anger and contempt towards entire groups of people, and therefore, deserves all of the criticism that has been coming to him during his time on the Earth and now after his death.

But I am not celebrating his death.

Many who are celebrating his death have spent the last eight years creating a hostile atmosphere against demographic groups that they themselves find repulsive and have actively influenced others to behave in scornful ways and to treat with utter contempt those they believe are beneath them (poor and working class white people, men, non-gay people, "cis" people, Christians... anyone who is not designated as marginalized). They have used their own popularly accepted ideology to hurt people no less than the likes of people like Pat Robertson.

As a gay person (but really as a human with universalist views), I have never supported Pat Robertson’s celebration of the September 11th attacks as God’s vengeance against America’s tolerance for LGBTQ+ people or any other views he has expressed and inspired others to act upon.

But I can’t support today's spiteful culture that tells us we should be continually giving oxygen to the principle of hatred against demographic groups we have been trained to despise. The *principle* itself is the "evil" we should be fighting against, and it's a principle that is alive and active in ourselves—a shadow that we need to acknowledge and work through so that we do not poison the world further.

Now, I am not trying to be a contrarian here. And given the position I am taking, I don't expect to be getting clicks and admiration from any side. I'll just be shunned as a "both-sides-er" or a phony who is trying to be a Gandhi figure.

But I don’t care.

I’m not going along with today's approved-of viciousness. There is too much contempt for perceived adversaries and not enough active caring for those who are genuinely vulnerable.

Am I myself capable of angry and hateful feelings for individuals who have done actual harm to real people in my life that I love?

You betcha.

But the "our hate is good hate" revolution that is going on is something that I can't go along with. It's hurting everybody, including the vulnerable people the "our hate is good hate" revolutionaries are claiming to be speaking for.

Evolution is the mature path. Revolution is the path to nowhere.

Pat Robertson (pictured above) was a human being. Yes, flawed. I disagree strongly with some of the views he promoted to his large number of followers. And he also founded many organizations that actively help those who are suffering, including Operation Blessing, which actively funds the economic, housing, and educational circumstances of people from all ethnicities and genders throughout the world.