Several weeks ago, I covered a congressional debate at Muhlenberg College between U.S. Rep. Susan Wild and her challenger Lisa Scheller that was sponsored by the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce.

I anticipated disagreement between the candidates. After all, that’s what a debate is about. I didn’t anticipate the outbursts and heckling from the audience.

In a room full of adults mostly dressed in professional attire, I heard plenty of people heckling Wild and Scheller, and outbursts of loud cheers and clapping from each of their fans. The commentator even had to ask them to stop shouting out swear words before they resumed taping for the second half of the show “Business Matters.”

Maybe I’m the one with my head in the sand, but I actually thought people would respectfully listen to what each candidate had to say.

What has happened to our country? Why are people so angry? Why do we think that the right way is our way and the rest can go to H-E-double hockey sticks?

I believe we are a country that aspires to be strong and brave and admires these qualities. We are willing to sacrifice and protect loved ones or even a stranger in need. We are patriotic, but patriotism should never involve being a bully.

I don’t care if you’re Republican or Democrat; we both love this country and don’t argue with me to say they don’t. I am so tired of this mentality that “THEY” are out to take away your: guns, faith, privacy, traditions, freedom. Do you realize just how dangerous this paranoid mentality of “Us against Them” is to the solvency of our country?

I believe in God. And I believe that for whatever reason He had for giving this country independence, He did. The enormous hurdles George Washington, the founders of this country, and the soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary War overcame is mind boggling to me. They put everything on the line. Their fortunes and their lives. They knew they had two choices: win or be executed for treason against the king. They also knew that this theory of democracy might not actually work or last very long.

It is believed that Benjamin Franklin answered the question about if we have a monarchy or a democracy, he said, “A democracy, if you can keep it.”

John Adams is noted as saying, “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide,” according to the Center for Civic Education.

Is our divisive anger on the verge of killing our democracy?

There are people who really think a civil war is the best way to preserve this country. Their way of thinking is the only way, because it is being the true American. They don’t want to hear about homosexuality every time they turn on the television. A family is a mother and a father with children - period. A person is whatever sex they were born with - period. Life begins at conception - period.

For most of my adulthood, I agreed, and still do to some degree, with “traditional beliefs.” But the reality is that homosexuality has always existed, we just didn’t know it.

For most of humanity, LGBTQ people stayed hidden in the closet. Well, they aren’t anymore, and they aren’t going back, so deal with it.

I have met some amazing, caring, empathetic, just truly beautiful souls who are gay people. That means something to me, and I can’t ignore that.

I have met way too many angry, hateful heterosexuals who wallow in their anger and spew it onto anyone who will listen to them.

For anyone who thinks their anger is patriotic and justified, anger is a sin, too.

Kristine Porter can be reached at kporter@tnonline.com