c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Frances Coleman is editorial page editor for the Mobile (Ala.) Register.)

UNDATED _ I have not been slapped off a horse lately while on the road to Damascus. Nor have I gone into a trance, heard voices or even seen any ghostly handwriting on the wall.

But I have had a personal revelation of sorts, and it is this: People who presume to tell the rest of us what heaven is or isn’t like, and especially to proclaim who is or isn’t going there, are a disgrace to their creator and an insult to every person who believes in the afterlife.

The revelation came to me as I sat in front of a television set watching scenes from the funeral of Matthew Shepard, the gay man who was beaten to death in Wyoming. Perhaps he was killed because his murderers were looking for someone to rob, as police suggest; or perhaps he was killed because of his homosexuality, as homosexual-rights advocates suggest. Does it matter? Dead, after all, is dead.

But back to the revelation. Snow was falling steadily in Laramie when Matthew’s family was in church, attempting to celebrate his life and understand the reality and finality of his death. Before the funeral, his parents had held a press conference to say “thank you” for the thousands of cards, letters and e-mail messages they’d received since their son died Oct. 12.

Most poignantly, they had entreated the public to respect their privacy so that they could “say their farewells to him in a peaceful, dignified and loving manner.”

Surely, anyone with a modicum of compassion _ even someone who believes homosexuals make a conscious choice to live sinful lives _ would be touched by grieving parents’ heart-wrenching plea for kindness. Yet, across the street from Matthew’s funeral, protesters claiming to be Christians assailed the mourners with words and placards:

“No tears for queers”

“No fags in heaven.”

And, in case the Shepards were clinging to the mistaken hope that their son’s soul had gone on to a kinder, gentler place: “Matthew is going to hell.”

If the sight of people marching in the snow, shouting and toting messages of hate in the name of an all-seeing, all-loving God had not been so repulsive, one could have almost _ almost _ laughed at their self-caricature, their living-and-breathing parody of hypocrisy.

This Jesus they claim to worship lived among the weak, the weary, the oppressed and the sinful. He ministered to them, he chastised them, he nurtured them and he forgave them. He talked about the importance of loving God and one’s neighbor. He also talked about sin, repentance and the choice that people are given between eternal life and eternal death.

But he didn’t call people names, or try to disrupt funerals or shout at parents that their dead son was an evil, godless “queer” or “fag.”

Instead, he took the hardest of the hard cases and turned their lives around. An embittered tax collector became an apostle. A coward who denied knowing him became the leader of his church. A vicious persecutor who was thrown from his horse on his way to Damascus became the world’s greatest evangelist.

Their conversions were inspired by examples of heavenly love, not examples of earthly hate. The hypocrites outside the church in Laramie, Wyo., would do their fellow Christians a favor if they would spare the world their example of religious zeal gone awry.

I used to wonder why the late humorist James Thurber said of the afterlife: “If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.”

Now, in the aftermath of Matthew Shepard’s funeral, I understand all too well.

DEA END COLEMAN