U.S. senator Chuck Schumer of New York called Russian president Vladimir Putin a “schoolyard bully” and urged counties to hold rainbow flags during the opening ceremonies of the 2014 Sochi Olympics to support LGBT athletes.
With his use of a single term: “schoolyard bully,” Schumer is reaching down and accessing the deepest and darkest childhood memories for gay men and women: the endless taunting on the play-yard. He wants to exploit the pains and sufferings that many have endured during their childhoods – for completely political reasons. He wraps himself in the safety of the rainbow flag, yet, for myself, it is not a symbol of freedom, but a funeral shroud. Although it has been repeatedly used with great effectiveness by the gay lobby, it’s still spattered with blood: from those who died of AIDS, alcoholism and drug abuse, suicide, broken hearts, and damaged minds. For the young, it’s a propaganda tool – promising a warm and gentle blanket of love, for the old –it’s a shield of protection from the world…but its only cloth. True safety can only be found in the arms of Christ.