While praying peacefully on a street corner in San Francisco, a Christian group is assaulted by a gay riot.
Then a crowd started gathering. We began to sing “Amazing Grace”, and basically sang that song the whole night. (At some points we also sang “Nothing but the Blood of Jesus” and “Oh the Blood of Jesus”.) At first, they just shouted at us, using crude, rude, and foul language and calling us names like “haters” and “bigots”. Since it was a long night, I can’t even begin to remember all of the things that were shouted and/or chanted at us. Then, they started throwing hot coffee, soda and alcohol on us and spitting (and maybe even peeing) on us. Then, a group of guys surrounded us with whistles, and blasted them inches away from our ears continually. Then, they started getting violent and started shoving us. ...Roger got death threats. As the leader of our group, people looked him in the eyes and said “I am going to kill you.”, and they were serious. A cop heard one of them, and confronted him. (This part is kinda graphic, so you should skip the paragraph if you don’t want to be offended.) It wasn’t long before the violence turned to perversion. They were touching and grabbing me, and trying to shove things in my butt, and even trying to take off my pants - basically trying to molest me. I used one hand to hold my pants up, while I used the other arm to hold one of the girls. The guys huddled around all the girls, and protected them. Soon after, the cops came and stood between us and the mob. When it was getting more heated, the cops were like “You guys should leave.” and Roger said “We want to stay.”
The persecution Christians face in America is nothing like the persecution Christians suffer in other parts of the world, but it's still very real.
I'm conflicted over political efforts like California's Prop 8 (which amended the state constitution to ban gay marriage). On the one hand, I know that cultural acceptance of homosexuality is both a sin and extremely destructive to society itself. On the other hand, these sorts of political movements make it even harder to share the love of Christ with homosexuals, who are among the most in need of the Gospel. On the third hand, gays won't be tolerant of Christians unless we do more than tolerate them and fully affirm their lifestyle as "normal" and culturally edifying, which we can't do.
It breaks my heart to see people so desperately lost. It's difficult to coherently express love for someone while simultaneously trying to explain that the single characteristic they define themselves by (in this case, their sexuality) is offensive to God and needs to be brought into line with his will. The homosexuals I know have built up extremely high walls around their sexuality that make it almost impossible for them to consider anything (especially God) independently from their homosexual identity.
But I take hope in the knowledge that their sins are no more grievous than my own, and that God's grace is sufficient to rescue anyone who is willing to call on the name of Christ.
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