In 1998 a gay college student was beaten, tied to a fence, and murdered outside Laramie, Wyoming. The crime outraged the gay community and many other people across North America. One sad thing about this murder was that Christians received much of the blame for the crime.
Recently a lawyer from New York stated that “the anti-abortion movement in the United States follows up . . . with violence.” Abortion opponents, most of them professing Christians, regularly picket abortion clinics and otherwise protest the destruction of the unborn. Four doctors and two clinic workers have been killed by anti-abortion activists since 1993. In this case pro-abortionists are blaming conservative Christians.
Are true Christians guilty of hate crimes because they practice the Biblical view of family and marriage or because they believe that an unborn child is a real person, created by God, for a purpose in this world? Certainly Christians should be known as those who love others, even those they disagree with. The Bible says “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).