We do what we know is wrong, and we enter into a world of hypocrisy. A friend whom I admire once rejected my invitation to go to worship services. "I do not wish to be a part of organized hypocrisy." I answered, and we both laughed. "That's not fair. We're not organized."

We do what we do not know is wrong, and we sometimes are caught, awkwardly realizing in an epiphany that we are wrong, and have been all along.

As Christians, my fellow worshipers and I do have reason for hope: not only for forgiveness, but for redemption. We look to examples from the past. Fearing for his own safety, Simon Peter denied even knowing Jesus. Later on, Saul of Tarsus was widely known and feared for his relentless persecution of Christians. He was on his way to hunt them down when he was struck with ... something.

Simon Peter became the Apostle Peter.
Saul of Tarsus became the Apostle Paul.

More recent examples are not hard to find. "Amazing Grace" was written by John Newton, a slave trader who hunted and took people into captivity, transporting them to a lifetime of slavery. He became an outspoken opponent of slavery.

Those of us who live with the crushing knowledge of lesser wrongs can take some comfort in those who recovered from worse.

Sometimes I wonder if, in their dreams, such icons were still haunted by memories. Was Paul awakened in the night by the vision of Stephen, stoned to death, as a younger Saul held the cloaks of the killers, cheering them on? Was Newton's sleep ever troubled by the faces of those he delivered into a life of servitude?

Forgiven as they were by God, they never had the chance to experience any expression of forgiveness by their victims.

Amid the countless private wrongs committed toward others, those of my generation share a common wrong. We were complicit in the cultural flaws of our upbringing. Accidents of geography or family upbringing gave some of us an unfortunate head start on racism. That mitigates. It does not excuse. Some of us still embrace the sadder teachings of our youth, when experience and history should have given us better.

Almost all of us were part of a more general attitude toward those who had a different sexual orientation. They were not "gays" in those days. They were perverts. We referred to them with casual epithets that we generally don't use today. Yet many of us find our upbringing intruding in unguarded moments. Others continue to embrace a bigotry that traces back to those terrible days, nostalgic for the past. I sometimes recall my reaction as a teenager.

A small article in a 1960s newspaper had reported on the trial of a man arrested in a restroom for soliciting sex from an undercover police agent. The solicitation was the suspect tapping his foot under the wall of an adjoining stall. Police said this was well known by homosexuals as a sexual signal. The judge found the man not guilty. Tapping a foot under a stall did not meet the standard of proof required for a guilty verdict. The man went free.

I remember agreeing with the reasoning and the verdict. How awful that an accusation of something so shameful was based on something so innocent. The poor fellow could have been tapping as some tune ran through his head. Who among us could be the next to be falsely arrested?

It did not occur to me at the time, or for many years thereafter, that the awful crime for which the accused was arrested was not awful and ought not to have been a crime. I did not reject the thought, exactly. It was not even that I did not give it a second thought. I did not give it a first thought. Rejecting homosexuality as perversion seemed at the very core of normalcy.

Many of us like to think we are beyond all that. Growth in mind and spirit sometimes does come with the experience of history. Consciousness is raised. Old bigotries are challenged. Those of us with a faith in redemption are helped by a personal hope.

And yet, there is not much we can say to those who experienced our unthinking rejection in a less enlightened youth. Except, perhaps, to point to the mitigation of growing up in the middle of unexamined bigotry. We should know that mitigation does not excuse.

We can promise to do better. We can try, in little ways and, when opportunities arise, in large ways to stand with our brothers and sisters. We can look to protect today's children from the bigotry that still survives, looming large, threatening young lives.

And we can ask of those we joined in hurting the same as we ask of our Creator: an understanding we did not extend, a forgiveness we do not deserve.

From the San Francisco Police Department: