Permission To Hate

What makes a person hate? Who gives the permission to hate to hate? Some claim God gives the permission; others claim hatred stems from oppression, or society. Leonard Pitts, a syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald believes that the third, society, grants the authorization to hate. However, what is society? Is society an individual or a group of individuals? What form of society bestows the consent to hate?

The major White Supremacy Groups: the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and the Aryan Nation, both claim the Bible, thus God, gives them the permission to hate. The Klan and Aryan Nation’s members proclaim themselves Christians, and followers of the teachings of the Bible, they declare, "Do not practice homosexuality; it is a detestable sin…Whoever does any of these detestable things will be cut off from the community of Israel.” (The New Living Translation, Leviticus 18:22,29) or "The penalty for homosexual acts is death to both parties. They have committed a detestable act and are guilty of a capital offense.”(The New Living Translation, Leviticus 20:13). They claim God justifies their actions against homosexuals in the previous passages. Yet, they overlook the other laws entailed in the same chapters of Leviticus, claiming they are outdated. Examples of these laws include, “do not eat meat not drained of its blood.” (NLT, Leviticus 19:26), “you must not defile yourself by eating any animal or bird or creeping creature that I have forbidden (i.e. pork).”(Leviticus 20:25) or “Never cut your bodies…or mark your skin with tattoos.”(Leviticus19:28). However, even if the KKK and Aryan Nation did follow all the laws of the Bible, they still would have no right to condemn homosexuals, because as written in the gospel of John, “They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, ‘All right, stone her. But let those who have never sinned throw the first stones!’” (John 8:7) No one, no matter how holy, is without sin. Furthermore, when the KKK refers to non-whites, they assume they are “an unholy coalition of anti-white, anti-Christian, liberal socialists” and imply that they are “savage…killers and rapists” (The Church of the American Knights, para. 1, 3) they break the cardinal rule, “Never seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.” (Leviticus 19:18). Finally and most importantly, they have forgotten kindness and forgiveness mandated in the words of the Bible, “Be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.