Faith, Family & Community
Remember the Love Only Signs?
Love Only originated in Macomb as a counter protest. An organization (some might call cult…few would call church) was coming to town to protest a football player, who happened to be gay. The group hates these folks—if you know you know. I will not use the name. No publicity here.
This was not my first interaction with this group’s protest. As a youth minister in the late 90’s I took my youth group from Kentucky to the General Assembly of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Kansas City. We traveled all day and had just enough time to check in to our hotel, change clothes, eat dinner and make our way to opening worship. We were chatting and laughing as we walked the sidewalk to the convention center. And then we turned a corner. There were people standing across the street from the convention center. I’m not sure how many, more than 50. Old people. Young people. Children. Holding signs that showed stick figures mimicking 2 men having sex—there was of course a circle around the men and then a line through the drawing so we’d know it was wrong. There were other signs with horrible sayings. 6 yearolds were holding these signs.
There was a lot of confusion for those of us who were just trying to go and worship God. Many of those on “our” side got angry and yelled back. With a large group of youth of varying ages, I was more worried about safety. As a group we hustled in to the convention center and found our seats and waited for worship to start. At the beginning of the service, someone stood at a microphone to explain what was happening outside. He or she, I can’t remember, but this person let us know that “they” thought “we” were too open, too affirming, too welcoming. The difference between love and hate. They protested while we worshipped.
