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[sagebrushlady]

Conversation with my high school students this week about a transgendered student who just transferred to our school:

Me to them: "How would you say he's being treated so far?"

Student: "Mostly well."

Other student: "But some people are jerks."

Me: "Why do you think that is?"

Answers:

"Ignorance."

"Insecurity."

"Some of the boys want to prove how manly they are."

"Fear of anything different."

Bottom line: hate breeds hate. Love breeds love. Extremism breeds extremism. Ignorance breeds ignorance. And acting out of fear shrivels our souls. If Christ had wanted to come with a sword, he would've come with a sword. He chose otherwise, for the sake of the least among us. Violence, and violent rhetoric, is the refuge of cowards. We don't need, as Tea Partier Sharon Angle put it, "Second Amendment remedies." In a democracy, we have other means: conversation. Compassion. Charity. Voting. Protesting without screaming or hyperbole or hysteria.