TODAY, WHEN DEATH CAME CALLING In The Gay Community, I asked the dying man, "Do you know Jesus?"
TODAY, WHEN DEATH CAME CALLING In The Gay Community, I asked the dying man, "Do you know Jesus?"
He was leaning against a trash can directly across the street from the San Diego Gay and Lesbian Center. As I walked past the 60 year-old man with a dirty back pack and an even dirtier face, I noticed that he did not look well. He was leaning with great difficulty against the trash container in front of Babbo Grande. I had just finished with my doctor's appointment at the AIDS clinic and was not in the mood to dwell too long around the Gay and Lesbian Center or Babbo Grande, a restaurant which had treated me terribly as a customer last year when the waitress realized I was an ex-homosexual Christian activist. Yet, I could not ignore the man at the trash can.
"Are you alright?" I inquired.
"No, I can't breath," he replied.
"I'm going to get you help," I told him.
My only choice for assisting him was to go inside of the rainbow flag covered Babbo Grande restaurant. "Call 911! There's a man outside who has collapsed," I told the manager at the cash register.
I then returned outside to sit with the suffering man who had turned purple and was fading quickly. I could hear the siren blaring in the distance.
I grabbed his dirty hand and I asked him, "Do you know Jesus?"
He only mumbled in response.
As he drifted away from my voice, I declared to him, "Jesus is going to help you, that's why I'm here."
As the fire engine pulled up, I noticed it was from Fire Station #5. Fire Station #5 had been home to four firefighters who had successfully sued the City of San Diego in February because the firefighters had been forced to march against their wills in the 2007 San Diego Gay Pride Parade.
Within minutes of the 911 call, an ambulance arrived. The last thing that I heard about the man, a man whose name I did not know, was that he had been taken to the emergency trauma center at Mercy Hospital.
After the firefighters arrived, I kept praying as I simply walked away. No man from the Gay Center came across the street to help this man as he collapsed, perhaps in his last minutes upon the earth. A former homosexual did reach out to him as he lay on a dirty sidewalk gasping for life. God knew which man He could count on to ask a dying man at the moment of eternal consequence, "Do you know Jesus?" Jesus: That's My King.
Comments
The people at the Center are too busy helping people and do not spend their time staring out the window to see if someone across the street needs help. The people at the Center reach out to thousands of people in need and do not spend their time condemning others.
They follow the advice of Jesus who said, “do not judge, lest you be judged”.
James, please tell us what YOU are doing to make Hillcrest a better community besides condemning everyone you do not like. The gay community in Hillcrest has a record that they can be proud of and we will continue to make progress. Your ranting and raving is having no effect and even the churches will not support your efforts.