The Pain Caused by Hatred

I have noticed a destructive "my team/their team" mentality that seems to surround every difficult issue. It polarizes people, drawing them to such ends of an extreme that they no longer see those on the other side as even human. They criticize and punish and abuse and hate and destroy each other. Whether it's a political party, religious affiliation, or opinion on any myriad of subjects, we as human beings tend to do this.

Why? On one issue in particular I feel trapped in the middle. I look to the extreme ends of both and see violence and hatred. Why?! Why won't they listen to each other and acknowledge the concerns and struggles and pains and humanity of their fellow human beings? I KNOW that many issues are incredibly difficult, but we're never going to solve ANYTHING if we keep letting the extremes dominate the whole. We get so caught up in our own paradigms that we completely forget (and disregard) the realities of humanity and love and suffering that surrounds everyone else, especially those to whom we have a hard time relating. Stop the finger pointing!

You might wonder what has spurred this sudden outburst, and my answer is that these thoughts have ricocheted around my head for a while, particularly concerning a certain issue, but I think absolutely applicable to many.

This issue is gay marriage, and a recent facebook update reminded me of it. I LOVE my gay friends and I LOVE my church, and both people for gay marriage and against gay marriage are fighting for what they believe to be right, but the accusations and hatred proliferated by some people -though certainly not all or even most- from both sides deeply sadden me. I already went through the anger stage and it's over. Now when I hear someone say something hurtful I just want to sit down and cry because we as humans are destroying each other with our hate and I don't know what I can possibly do to fix it.