This is a piece I wrote in the early fall of 2001, shortly after the attacks of 9/11... With all the recent state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriages, I think it's still relevant.
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Events in our world recently have brought to mind a single word: intolerance. It is this word that has driven the attacks on the United States and, in some ways, has also driven our response. I'm not saying that everyone feels this way, but large numbers of people do and it's, at best, disturbing.
We've learned that someone wrote a letter to the hijackers, in copies found in the luggage of one of the hijackers at the airport in Boston and at the crash site in Pennsylvania. The letter was part prayer book, part instruction manual. It told each of the hijackers how they were to prepare themselves for the attack, making sure that they were clean, as well as their clothes and shoes, and that they should make sure they were not followed to the airport. They were told that they were doing God's work and that, by carrying out this mission, they would be earning everlasting life in paradise.
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