For the sake of our families and country, let us love those with whom we disagree

By Mary Beth Beacom

To counteract the current pressure to divide families and communities, I don’t think we can state this truth often enough: we can love, and love abundantly, those with whom we do not agree.

“Acceptance” cannot be a litmus test. Disagreement is not hate – and if it is, then each side of the disagreement hates – and we know that’s not true.

Love continues to speak the truth.

Our identity comes from our unique dignity afforded to us by our very creation as a distinct human being – not by the sum of our activities, our wounds, and even our achievements do not “make us who we are”.

We are especially not defined by a series of things we reject or accept. It’s unjust to make caricatures of ourselves, or one another, thereby objectifying , and ultimately reducing our humanity.

We allow rhetoric to divide us, and let’s be clear, there are many entities which profit, and therefore encourage, that division. That doesn’t mean for a moment that we back down from the truth, but it also means we have to be be vigilant, that we do not feed the monster.

[Thanks to pro-life warrior, Mary Beth Beacom, for sharing this reflection on family and national unity.]