Like all Unitarian Universalists, my week has been overshadowed by the horrible shootings in Tennessee last Sunday. I think the shock was intensified for me as the week played out because of the sudden awareness that my liberal beliefs pose such a threat to others. Oh, I knew Ann Coulter and her tribe made fun of me, but I figured much of it was just political theater. So, it was a real eye opener when I heard about the “liberal hunting license” that is available on the web. (Sorry, unlike some of my liberal brethren, I refuse to link to these kinds of hateful things. You’ll just have to google it yourself.) And, then I discovered that killing liberals has been a pretty standard joke on Fox News. Really? Someone, anyone, finds it funny to talk about killing people like me because of my political views. I might find Russ Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly offensive but I would never wish their death.
And I found myself wondering how we got here…where hateful rhetoric like this is not only accepted but seemingly encouraged. While I wouldn’t want to blame people like Sean Hannity for what happened last Sunday, his ongoing war against liberals certainly didn’t help. For someone who is mentally unbalanced, these relenting attacks become an underlying soundtrack to a tragic life and offer up an easy target. Tom Friedman says that while he was sleeping, the world got flat. While I was sleeping, the world got ugly.
There has been a positive side for me, and I suspect for others. I very much took my religious faith for granted, that I had a place where I could worship freely, no matter my beliefs. I knew that there were martyrs like Michael Servetus, burned at the stake for his beliefs. But that was ancient history. We live in an enlightened era, in a country that espouses freedom of religion, right? The shootings in Tennessee shook my trust in that freedom and made me think hard about my own faith. When I walk into the sanctuary on Sunday morning, it will be with a new-found gratitude and a prayer for those who are now suffering for their beliefs.
