The truth of who we are is that we are because we belong.

We have an incredible capacity for the worst possible evil, all of us, it was that we also have this incredible capacity for good. And that is why we are all of us appalled when something bad happens. Because if the bad was the norm, we would just shrug our shoulders and say "well tough luck, this is how the cookie crumbles" kind of thing but none of us does that.

God's love is too great to be confined to any one side of a conflict or to any one religion.

Forgiveness does not mean condoning what has been done. It means taking what happened seriously...drawing out the sting in the memory that threatens our entire existence.

Of course, you've got to reckon with the burden of the past. You can't just easily dismiss it. It is a legacy and often you have to carry an albatross. And it won't happen until people are able to have a certain level of trust and try to speak to each other, not as caricatures but as people.

God says "I have given you this gift, and it is a real gift. I want you to love me freely, and I will do anything, anything up to giving up the most precious thing I could say I have, my son, to prove I love you. Please come back."

I'm absolutely, utterly, and completely certain that God wouldn't be homophobic. I'd much rather go to hell - I really would much rather go to hell - than go to a homophobic heaven.