Today’s saints in the Calendar are what feel like the usual mish-mash of successful suppressors of heretics and those who were brutally executed because their beliefs were at variance with those in power. Stepping back, it’s hard not to see how clearly Christianity transitioned from being a persecuted group on account of holding minority beliefs into becoming a majority that persecuted other minority-held beliefs.

So today, Pope Julius is honored for suppressing those pesky Arian heretics (at a time when Christianity was the dominant religion of the Roman Empire) and Victor of Braga is commemorated for losing his life (beheaded and “baptized” in his own blood) under Roman persecutions when Christianity was a pesky minority sect.

This brings to memory some of the very real pain I experienced at law school from some of my fellow classmates who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (commonly known as Mormons–they comprised almost a third of the law school class at Arizona State University when I was there). There were those LDS classmates who were quite vocal and unequivocal in condemning homosexuality and taking a strong stance against same-sex marriage. They were claiming a moral high ground regarding how familial and sexual relationships should be legally organized in this country–despite the fact that, in their own history, they had been outlawed, persecuted, and even slaughtered in this same country, largely on account of how they had organized their familial and sexual relationships.

This has to stop–this idea of controlling how others think, believe, and act simply because you can…because you have the authority, the money, the troops, the lobbyists, the votes, or the foul humor and a handy sidearm. No, it was not ok that Victor was murdered for being a Christian and it was not ok that people were driven from their communities because they held a different notion of the nature and personhood of Jesus–whom none of them had ever met. Just.. NO.