You wouldn’t think a North Carolina bill telling biological males to stick to the men’s restrooms would cause a national stir, but it has. Blame the big corporations boycotting the state over the bill. Or blame the Boss. After Bruce Springsteen announced he’s boycotting North Carolina over its “bathroom bill,” things really heated up, as evidenced by a Michael Brown column here at The Stream challenging Springsteen’s move and the article going crazy viral.

Now, I’m with Michael Brown on this one. We can show love and respect to transgenders without insisting that nine-year-old girls go to the restroom in stalls next to large men dressed as women. There has to be a smarter, more unifying legal and societal way through. At the same time I take exactly zero pleasure in the scorn being heaped upon the Boss, since I’ve long been a huge Springsteen fan.

Somewhere I still have my tattered, treasured 1980 tour shirt. (Fans know the one.) My hands are still swollen from clapping through two of his ’84 marathon shows. I stood in a pouring rain overnight at Iverson Mall for tickets to his “Tunnel of Love” tour, only to have the show sell out right in front of me. I kidnapped my nephew from school to drive to Philly for the historic Human Rights Now show. His music got me through a horrible break-up. His version of “Jersey Girl” was the first dance at my wedding.

“Land of Hope and Dreams” still makes me weep.

So as comments on both sides grow increasingly ugly, hostile and infantile, my heart breaks. If there is one thread throughout Springsteen’s 40-plus year career it is dignity. He brought dignity to the colorful characters of the Jersey boardwalk, like the Mission Man and Madam Marie. He brought it to such unsung figures as the mechanic “workin’ all day in my daddy’s garage,” to the Highway Patrolman, to the Vietnam Vet who “ends up like a dog that’s been beat too much,” to the AIDS victim in “Philadelphia” to the iron worker of Youngstown, to the 9/11 widow. It’s tragic so many of his fans today aren’t treating with the same dignity those they think low.

It’s equally sorrowful seeing so many who agree with Dr. Brown that Springsteen has made a mistake, but do not share Dr. Brown’s tone of respect. It is as unwise as it is unchristian. Springsteen has created a multi-ethnic, multi-generational community of fans across political and socio-economic lines that has thrived and survived through disco, new wave, ’80s commercial pop, grunge, rap, American Idol … yes, even the age of auto-tuning. His shows have always included pitches for local food banks and charities, and his quiet, private acts of charity can hardly be measured. His fans have supported those efforts with time and dollars. His children include a Jersey fireman, an Olympic-level equestrian and not a hint of scandal. Bruce has earned the right to be taken seriously, and we have the duty to act with love.

That said, this is hardly the first time Springsteen has stirred the political waters, sometimes in perplexing and divisive ways.

Boss Politics

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is a massive Springsteen fan. He’d seen 122 shows. When elected governor, Christie desperately wanted Jersey’s favorite son to perform at the inaugural. Yet Springsteen refused. Unfortunately, the man whose “Born to Run” is officially the unofficial state song of New Jersey wanted nothing to do with an official state event simply because he doesn’t like Christie’s politics. So much for dignity and tolerance.

Springsteen did, however, campaign for Barack Obama in 2008 and performed at the pre-inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial. His 2012 album Wrecking Ball was a masterful look at the struggles facing average Americans in the Obama age. However, the lyrics only took aim at “bankers,” and other familiar liberal targets, rather than government cronyism, favoritism, or society’s moral decay. He had little to offer the millions who were feeling left betrayed and voiceless by government, and fearful of the destruction of the national foundation. (Interestingly, his 1982 album Nebraska was seen as an indictment of Reagan. But Wrecking Ball, released during Obama’s re-election campaign, wasn’t seen as an indictment of Obama. In fact, he was back campaigning for Obama in 2012.)

Obama wasn’t Springsteen’s first foray into presidential politics. The night after Ronald Reagan’s 1980 election, he called the results “pretty frightening” and launched into a blistering version of his song “Badlands.” Most famously, Bruce Springsteen took issue with Reagan’s use of “Born in the USA” during the 1984 campaign. As Politico noted in 2014, this clash of ’80s icons helped shape the musician’s future public politicking.

While some today are advising Springsteen to just shut up and sing, longtime fans know that was precisely how he used to make his political points. At the height of his Born in the USA fame, ABC’s 20/20 asked for his comments on a story they were doing on the shutting down of factories across the U.S. He sent them a solo rendition of “This Land is Your Land.”

Similarly, in 1988 Bruce didn’t make a big show of his position on gay rights. He let a music video do the talking. His very romantic video for the ballad “Tougher Than the Rest” includes sweet shots of assorted couples at his concert, a handful of which are gay. A pretty radical thing to show at the time.

In 1990, Springsteen began being more vocal in his support of left-wing causes, teaming with Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne for two concerts benefiting The Christic Institute. At the time, the Christic Institute was pushing assorted government conspiracies involving the Nicaraguan contras, the CIA, government-drug running and political assassinations. The Orlando Sentinel described the organization as a “bunch of left-wing hoodlums who specialize in separating gullible Christians from their money.” I certainly wasn’t gullible plopping down money for tickets. Sure, it was a buffet of radical left politics — even for my then-liberal sensibilities. But Springsteen’s was one absolutely spellbinding solo performance.

In 2000, for the first time, Bruce Springsteen received blowback for his politics. The rocker incurred the wrath of the nation’s police officers with a song about the death of Amadou Diallo at the hands of the NYPD called “American Skin (41 Shots).” Bruce and the song were denounced as “anti-cop” by police unions and the city’s mayor Rudy Giuliani.

However, all was forgotten by 2002, with his support of first responders in the wake of 9/11, and his release of The Rising. The Grammy-nominated album told powerful stories of those impacted by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It was an album that spoke of our shared grief and shared humanity, and of the heroes who went “Into the Fire.”

Today, as my inbox is bombarded with hostility, anger and hate in Bruce’s name and against his North Carolina stance, I can’t help but hear that song’s chorus, and offer it up as a prayer to God:

May your strength be our strength.

May your faith be our faith.

May your hope be our hope.

May your love be our love.

Without faith, hope, love — and the strength to respect each other— none of us can reach “The Promised Land.”