The following is a conversation between my friend and me that sparked the idea for this article:

“…Yeah, one of my favorite teachers in high school was this super-sassy gay dude.”

“Didn’t you go to a Catholic high school?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

Many people have an idea that people who go to church on Sundays consist of mindless sheep who sit back and eat up hateful propaganda about anyone who is not of the same religion. As someone who went to church every Sunday for the first 18 years of his life, the biggest piece of propaganda I swallowed was “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22: 36-40). That truly is the number-one message of Christianity: love everyone. I have never been told gay or trans people are sinners by virtue of their sexuality or gender; there’s a gay guy in my church’s praise band (I know he’s gay because his boyfriend sits in the pew in front of us).

The priest who said mass and was available for confession and just general counselling at my high school actually talked to a class I was in about what he thought about gay marriage. He told us a story of his female friend who married a woman, and he was so happy she had found someone to share her life with. That’s the Catholic response, told to me by an official representative of the Catholic church and its views: to be happy that your friend has found someone that loves them and makes them happy.

The sign-holders on the news screaming “God hates fags” are not Christians. Those people are ignorant assholes who take advantage of selective, narrow-minded interpretations of the Bible to justify their hateful feelings. Christianity is about spreading love and being happy, not condemning others because they feel more like themselves as a different gender.

For everyone dismayed and frustrated by the hate some people put out to the world, seek comfort in the words of Nelson Mandela: “People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” The fact is, the people holding those signs are not predestined to hate gay people; they were taught by someone older than them that loving someone of the same gender should be punished. So essentially, the best thing we can do -- as teachers of this generation, and the ones to follow -- is spread a message of acceptance and positivity toward people of all lifestyles.

Please understand that these are only the thoughts and feelings of one person, not meant to attack anyone who feels differently.