If anyone read what I have said many times, I do not hate gays, but do hate their active sexual lifestyle in the sense that whatever we happen to be, straight or gay, we are to be chaste according to the Commandments. God commanded humans and other life forms to increase and multiply – something gays cannot do.

What I do hate is when the gay lobby tries to jam their lifestyle down everyone’s throat, including exposing and promoting homosexuality even to kids in the lowest grades. Recently I wrote about Father Vic, the only best-friend I had that I could totally confide in with my deepest, darkest secrets, and we were in close contact by phone even after he moved to Florida.

My wife and I often had Vic as a house guest in Maryland and Florida that he enjoyed so much he did not want to leave, and often he shared his culinary skills with us with his delightful Italian dishes. Over the years we had extended stays at Vic’s historic bed and breakfast, while in turn he was invited and did participate in some of our family parties and gatherings as everyone liked him. I helped Vic in his addiction therapy business, and taught him how to use the computer, etc.

Vic died suddenly a few years ago and I did not even know right away because my phone messages went unanswered, then the phone went out of service, and my emails just sat there, until finally his grand-daughter caught up to me and belatedly told me what happened – that Vic died due to breast cancer.

No, I do not hate gays. Vic was gay, became a priest on a lark along with two or three other friends, studied at the Vatican in Rome, taught school, married one of his students, had four kids, split from his wife, and reverted back to or continued his gay lifestyle. And now Vic is gone, and I miss him as whenever I HAD to talk to someone, he was there for me.

As to Muslims, I do not hate them personally either, but I do have close to a hate for Islam itself because I believe Islam is a false religion and their Allah is not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Old Testament, but is in fact the fallen angel Lucifer.

I do not hate Muslims because they are Muslims but I hate what they stand for and what they believe at the behest of Islam and who actively can do anything and everything to destroy the infidel which is Christianity, Israel, and the US. Islam’s holy book Qur'an permits and encourages atrocities against infidels who refuse to convert to Islam.

One more thing a reader states: “Divide ourselves to supposed righteousness?” That does not mean everyone who disagrees must buy-into the gay lifestyle concept since that is supposed righteousness as well. On the other side of the coin, gays do not buy into the heterosexual straight lifestyle either.

Disagreement based on principle does not necessarily constitute division as implied. If our progeny robs banks, it does not follow that the parent must support bank robbery. That statement, “supposed righteousness” may itself be supposed righteousness, assuming that one side other has not.

“Love the sinner; Hate the sin,” is a good philosophy to live by, dating back to the Old Testament Bible, Jude 1:23, “Rescue others by snatching them from the flames of judgment. Show mercy to still others, but do so with great caution, hating the sins that contaminate their lives.” The essence of this verse is “Love the sinner while hating the sin.”

That saying was later adopted by St. Augustine in his Letter 211 (c. 424) containing the phrase “Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum,” which translates roughly to “With love for mankind and hatred of sins.” The phrase has become more famous as “Love the sinner but hate the sin” or transposed, “Hate the sin and not the sinner,” which appeared in the new-age icon Mohandas Gandhi 1929 autobiography.

But if we love the sin, regardless of what it is, as well as the sinner, we enable the sin, and that is what is wrong with the culture of the day that permits any and every expression of love, desire, and emotion in the name of love. What are not tolerated, particularly by federal government, are God, Christianity, and the Ten Commandments.

Another saying that is at least partially true, “Love is blind,” meaning the feeling of love can be so overwhelming that one does not realize what else is at stake, or that the person or object loved is not without fault or harm, and is not quite the perceived image in one’s own heart and mind.

Alcohol is good but bad alcoholism actions like DUI can result in all types of harm, injury, and death, from abusive use of alcohol. The Bible advises to chastise the children who err on moral and God-given principles. Hebrews 12:6 in the Bible teaches that discipline and love are very much connected: “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”

America today is on the path of gay and straight promiscuity wherein the sins are celebrated and praised to the high heavens while ridiculing those trying to follow the precepts of God. Modern day culture has no shame except that of being God-fearing Christians.

Christ did not promise all love all the time, but Matthew 10:34-36 states, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.”

As the song says, “I never promised you a rose garden,” but the thorns are there for sure. Life is a hard never-ending struggle, pitting good against evil, struggles against ourselves as well as against the world. As simple as it sounds, the first grade catechism says we are in this life to love and serve the Lord God, and then to forever be happy with him in heaven.

God’s commandments are the road-map and guide to eternal love where overflowing love will never stop. Yes, all humans sin and fail but that is why Christ died on the cross, to save ALL because mankind cannot save itself but that does not mean we should not at least try to do our part.

Intentionally, continuously, and often maliciously defying God cannot be a good gamble and is a recipe for disaster. All must stay true to the faith, and keep trying until the end, but as is common knowledge and conventional wisdom, that is easier said than done, but certainly there must be an “A” for effort.