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\u00a0 the sudden awareness that my liberal beliefs pose such a threat to others.\u00a0 Oh, I knew Ann Coulter and her tribe made fun of me, but I figured much of it was just political theater.\u00a0 So, it was a real eye opener when I heard about the “liberal hunting license” that is available on the web.\u00a0 (Sorry, unlike some of my liberal brethren, I refuse to link to these kinds of hateful things.\u00a0 You’ll just have to google it yourself.)\u00a0 And, then I discovered that killing liberals has been a pretty standard joke on Fox News.\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 Someone, anyone, finds it funny to talk about killing people like me because of my political views.\u00a0 I might find Russ Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly offensive but I would never wish their death.<\/p>\n
And I found myself wondering how we got here…where hateful rhetoric like this is not only accepted but seemingly encouraged.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 For someone who is mentally unbalanced, these relenting attacks become an underlying soundtrack to a tragic life and offer up an easy target.\u00a0 Tom Friedman says that while he was sleeping, the world got flat.\u00a0 While I was sleeping, the world got ugly.<\/p>\n
There has been a positive side for me, and I suspect for others.\u00a0 I very much took my religious faith for granted, that I had a place where I could worship freely, no matter my beliefs.\u00a0 I knew that there were martyrs like Michael Servetus<\/a>, burned at the stake for his beliefs.\u00a0 But that was ancient history.\u00a0 We live in an enlightened era, in a country that espouses freedom of religion, right?\u00a0 The shootings in Tennessee shook my trust in that freedom and made me think hard about my own faith.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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\u00a0 the sudden awareness that my liberal beliefs pose such a threat to others.\u00a0 Oh, I knew Ann Coulter \u2026 Continue reading