Jean Guerrero: Can the LGBTQ community fight hate with love?
Last month's killing of Laura Ann Carleton for flying a rainbow flag in Lake Arrowhead came shortly after the fatal stabbing of O'Shae Sibley, a Black gay man who was dancing to Beyoncé at a Brooklyn, N.Y., gas station.
In this climate of hate and attacks on LGBTQ+ people, loving the enemy can seem worse than a cliche. In some far-left and far-right circles, it's immoral.
How can we respond? Will hating the haters help?
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a prophet of nonviolence, was deeply influenced by his out gay mentor Bayard Rustin, who convinced him to live by Gandhi's philosophy. Can their tactics of nonviolent resistance work against a surge in anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes, laws and propaganda promoted by GOP leaders?
LGBTQ+ resistance hasn't always been nonviolent. San Francisco's 1966 Compton's began after a trans woman threw a cup of coffee in a cop's face, and became the turning point that triggered a groundswell of national activism.
