What do you do in the face of ignorance? I do not know. They circled around and around with signs and amplifying their hate and narrow definitions of love. Love had a form, a shape and a vow steeped in a puritan tradition. Someone walked by and said, “Stop the hate, man”, but he kept throwing his words. As if love taking some other shape or form lessened his notions of love. His love was caged and mine was free, but that was not what hurt me. What hurt me was the face of his ignorance looked like mine.

I reacted. I knew better. My words reached out like the wild arms of a child feeling powerless against a bully. Yet every fist word I threw, I felt until he stopped amplifying his hate and I stopped throwing my defenses and we stared at each other in silence. I wonder if I looked as hurt as he did?

Finally, he turned away from me and kept walking in his closed circle. I stared off in the distance until a realization came and kicked me in the stomach. The perfectly manicured finger nails, the perfectly curled hair and the clothing he wore. Why didn’t I see it? He felt powerless too. While I fought his homophobic words, he was fighting who he was. The words escaped from my mouth and I said, “Oh, he’s gay.” A black woman sitting next to me said, “What?” I said, “He is a closeted gay, projecting his own self-hatred onto others.” She nodded and said, “That makes sense.”   I was not sure if it did or not.