Is Christianity Hate Speech?

This is a question that has up until recently never even occurred to me as even a possibility. 

But then a few weeks ago the Facebook feed of the nation blew up with responses of literally everyone to a certain cover of a Vanity Fair magazine.

Being a lifelong Christian and in a pretty small Christian bubble I was immediately bombarded with the expected right wing conservative response of disgust. The only surprise I had was that it seemed like we had never heard of someone getting a sex change before- like Bruce Jenner was the first person to ever go through this procedure. And then I realized that the responses were so prevalent not because we were more offended than ever before but because for the first time in history we all had a megaphone and a soap box personally handed to us by the Internet. And boy did we sure use it.

My Hips Don't Lie

There are very few things that feel as manly as having and old war wound.

Get a bunch of guys together for any period of time and you will inevitably find us comparing scars, injuries, and stories from our past that people tell us we should be ashamed of for how stupid they were but we are actually still proud of. 

I love playing this game as much as the next guy because this is one I usually win. I was a pretty clumsy child who really liked the idea of being a daredevil. Well, I liked the idea of being known as a daredevil more than actually being a daredevil. 

But as cool as it sounded to tell people I was limping around because of "an old track and field injury" it lost it's appeal when it actually started hurting. A lot. All the time.

It was my sophomore year of high school and I was in the middle of my first season running track. I had only recently fallen in love with distance running a few months before so I knew almost nothing about injury prevention. So when I complained to my coach about a constant throbbing pain starting in my hip and shooting its way down to my knee I had no idea what to expect. 

"I'm pretty sure your issue is your IT band, or iliotibial band if you want to know the fancy name for it."

"That's terrible. How did I get an iliotibial band? Will icing it get rid of it?"

"You don't get rid of an ilitibial band, Kyle. It's that really long tendon that connects your hip bone to your knee and can sometimes get inflamed if you don't stretch it right or you put too much stress on it."

"I knew that, just making sure you are staying current the latest innovations in first aid" I said as I twitched the hair out of my face to look cool.

"Whatever. Go sit down and take an Advil."