The hate machine

Evangelical Christian Frank Schaeffer has apologized for his part in the hate-mongering of the far right. He rightfully acknowledged that demonizing people like Dr. George Tiller leads to violence.

I'm no fan of abortion -- I refused to have one in 1974 when I contracted a virus that could cause birth defects. I've never regretted that decision. But it was my decision to make. My son Mike's life was a blessing to me from the moment I knew I was pregnant until he died.

Dr. Tiller was performing a legal service, as repulsive as it was to many. Women who went to him included women whose babies had died in utero and they had not gone into labor, children as young as 10 who were pregnant because of rape or incest, women who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, women whose babies wouldn't survive after birth because of severe birth defects.

I know people who are against abortion believe a fetus is a living human being at conception, but not everyone shares that view, and the law says abortion is legal. Working to change the law is OK -- violence is not.

But the media circus calling him a Nazi and a murderer led people like Scott Roeder to believe the only way to end the "murder" is to commit murder.

I understand the rhetoric and how it's intended to work. I grew up in a very fundamentalist church that preached we were "doing God's work in Vietnam, killing all those Godless (racial epithet)s."

It was OK to lie, steal, cheat, even kill, for Jesus. We had to turn the country around, even if it was by force.

I rejected that when I was 17 and stayed away from church for many years because of it. If you read Jesus' words, his message is about love and acceptance, not hatred and murder.

The Sixth Commandment (Thou shalt not kill.) has a period at the end of it. It doesn't say, "Thou shalt not kill unless you disagree."

Whether the hard right wants to take responsibility for its violent rhetoric or not, it is, in part, responsible for the murder of Dr. Tiller.

Frank Schaeffer has the courage to admit he was part of the hate machine and to apologize for it.