in which i refer to glee, church, gays, and love. and no, you don't need to brace yourselves. i think.

So I turned on the television and watched Glee. And meh, or not-so-meh, it was okay. Some of the singing is amazing, but really, the auto-tune is over.kill. The people are all very clean, and pretty, and even the bad boy with the poser mohawk is clean and pretty. So meh.

Obviously, I am going somewhere with this. Because I ALWAYS go somewhere with my intensely clever posts.

Der.

Pretty blonde cheerleader girly's parents found out she was knocked up. And being the good, happy, always chipper Christian family, cheerleader girly's daddy kicked her out of the house after saying kind words like, WHO ARE YOU, and I DON'T EVEN RECOGNIZE YOU, and walking away from her when she said she needed her daddy to hold her and tell her everything was going to be okay.

We have a little portion of our church service where we share our joys and also things we would like people to pray about. For example, one time when Auntie Teff was visiting, someone asked for prayer for a man who had been kicked by a cow for the second time, and she just about wet her pants laughing. You can never tell when those cows are going to go all rogue...just look at the former governor of Alaska. That cow went ALL KINDS OF ROGUE, and got a book deal.*

Mooooo-ving on. Yes, people, that is one smoooooth segue there.

So a guy stood up and said he would like prayer for a member of his family who "has decided to go and join the gay community" and he then went on and on about his views of homosexuality, and on and on... and on and on... and he said a number of things that were not really very nice.

My stomach was in a knot, because sitting right behind me were the parents of one of our openly gay church members. Every comment about "the gays" felt like the stab of a knife, and he wasn't even talking about my child. I can't even imagine how it would have felt to listen to him talk if my child was one of "the gays". I was hurt when that stupid old man said my kids were bad last weekend. And that stupid old man wasn't slamming my kids, he was attacking my parenting. I can't imagine how it would feel to listen to someone bash my child.

The gold star goes to me, for making this about me!!!

It is so incredibly frustrating to be around people who claim to love the God who teaches that we should love our neighbors, and with their next breath preach rejection to people who are different from them. I am reading a book by Philip Yancey called What's So Amazing About Grace?, and one of the chapters is about his relationship with a friend who is gay. It's actually about way more, and way deeper points and ideas and stuff, but just try to stick with me on this one. Some Christian media outlet is interviewing the friend's mother, and asks her a question (totally paraphrasing here): You're a Christian, don't you find your son to be an abomination? She replied, He might be an abomination, but he's still our pride and joy.

We all are some sort of abomination, yet each of us is someone's pride and joy. Everyone has some sort of failure going on in their lives, and I'd wager that more often than not? We all suck in way more ways than we're willing to let on. I'm not sure when the free passes to overlook our own abominationosity were handed out, but there's a certain group who received too many.

If we did nothing but treat every person as a person of great value, this world would be a completely different place. Each of us is important. Each of us has worth. Each of us is someone's pride and joy. Never forget that, not even for a second. Act and speak accordingly.**

*In light of my own position in this post, I apologize for mocking the former governor of Alaska. I'm sure she's someone's pride and joy.

**You know I love a healthy debate, but so help me, if any of you are rude, I will delete your asses and close the comments so fast your heads will spin. Even if you are someone's pride and joy.