I am Catholic, and I don’t hate people. My beliefs sometimes entail disagreeing with them, but that shouldn’t be confused with “hate.”
Let me introduce you to some people that I don’t hate.
Polygamists
I don’t hate people who have multiple wives … I don’t hate them even though I am against polygamy. I believe that they are in love, but I don’t think “love makes a family” should apply in their situation. Believing that does not cause me to irrationally fear or dislike them; it just means I stick to a traditional view of marriage they have rejected.
I don’t hate gay people who want to marry, either … even though I believe that “marriage is as it always has been, between a man and a woman,” as Hillary Clinton put it in 2000. I believe that gay people are in love, but I don’t think “love makes a family” should apply in their situation (more on that in a second). There are wonderful people who are in gay relationships.
Contracepting Couples
I don’t hate people who use contraception … even though I think contraception is wrong. The sexual acts of contracepting couples are closed to life and closed to true unity of self-giving, I believe. I think they are wrong and, hey, contraception opposed me first. But I do not reject in any way the people who use contraception.
I also don’t hate gay people who are involved sexually … even though those sexual acts are also closed to life and closed to the true unity of self-giving. There is no reason this should make me hate them any more than my views make me hate contracepting couples.
Cohabitating Couples
I don’t hate people who cohabitate … even though I am against cohabitation. I do not believe marriage is a social construct we can ignore. I think marriage is the God-sanctified way for men and women to live together. But I don’t therefore reject people who cohabitate.
I don’t hate gay people who marry, either … even though I am against gay marriage. I believe that “Marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman,” as Barack Obama said in 2004, not a social construct we can redefine. But I don’t reject the people who believe or act otherwise.
Bigots
I also don’t hate bigots … even though I am against bigotry.
The funny thing about hating bigots is that it makes you a bigot, because you are hating someone rather than simply disagreeing with someone and trying to better them.
You can disagree with me, and try to convince me, but don’t hate me for my positions, and please don’t assume I am a bigot.
None of these positions I hold is anything like racism.
People who opposed interracial marriage did so because they wanted to keep the race pure. I do not want to purify the population of anyone or any kind of person.
People who wanted to ban interracial marriage wanted to redefine marriage such that it wasn’t “the lifelong relationship of a man and woman” but “a man and woman of the same race.” I don’t want to redefine marriage. I want to keep that original definition (and you should too)!
I simply want the institution of marriage to be what it has always been for: the protection of couples that exist for child-bearing and child-rearing.
I am fully aware that some married heterosexuals cannot or will not fulfill the purpose of the institution of marriage.
This happens in many institutions: The police force is a crime-fighting institution, and yet there are some members of this institution who cannot contribute to fighting crime. The education system is a teaching institution, yet there are some members of the institution who cannot contribute to teaching. Any institution carries those who are the rule, along with those who are the exception: The disabled cop, the teacher who makes minimal impact; the back-office workers whose contribution is not the ordinary kind. The point is that the institution doesn’t define itself by the exception, but by the rule.
And if candidates for the police come forward who cannot fight crime, the police H.R. director who bars them does not hate them. And if candidates who cannot contribute to education come forward, the school H.R. director who bars them does not hate them.
I do not hate the people who, by definition, are barred from marriage. I just see the purpose of the institution, and think it is vital to society; so vital that it is worth preserving.