Our family is Christian, but we keep our faith really simple: love people, hold yourself personally accountable, do your best to be a good human, and leave everything else to God. I'd like to pretend that's the way all Christians are going about things, but I'd have to have my head in the sand to believe that a large percentage of Christians out there aren't doing things differently and actively weaponizing the faith.

My goddaughter had to move in with us earlier this year. She is attending a nearby college. There is a "Christian" group that regularly shows up on campus and screams at the kids that they are going to hell because they are "fornicators". They also like to yell about the LGBTQ community and other cherry-picked topics. Their behavior is dangerous and I can't imagine the number of students they've hurt with their vile rhetoric. But no one seems to be worried about what they, and those like them, are doing. You don't hear about other churches protesting and yelling them down. Instead, too many "churches" and other "Christians" are out there living their bigoted lives, having the brass gonads to displace Christ and put themselves in the seat of judgment, and run their mouths about whatever political soapbox their church has decided to build itself upon. Whatever topic of the day they decide to champion is "what is causing the downfall of our nation and destroying the fabric of society."

The right claims it's the left's fault. The left claims it's the right's fault. We pick up our soapboxes and batter the people next to us with them. Our nation is not being destroyed by people making meaningful contributions to society as they go about their lives raising their families and attending to their jobs. Be they straight or gay, cis or trans, white or Black, or any other race, ethnicity, gender, or sex, political affiliation, etc., none of that is the problem. What's destroying our nation is the hate that the loud mouths in every group spew towards another. It's our failure to live and let live and communicate with respect and civility with people who don't look, think, love, or pray like us. It is the loudest voices in the room whose sound bites are blasted throughout the worldwide media, and who we allow to color our judgment instead of refusing to view every group like a monolith and form our own opinions based on the individuals we meet. We need to hold our government, our media, our academia, and our places of worship accountable for the discord and strife they sew amongst us. It's really not that complicated. Stop being an asshole and letting the world tell you that everyone deserves it.