I saw reaction to an obituary

Context
Sally Ride died yesterday. I didn't know this until I was looking at The Huffington Post for another reason and saw the headline to this article. I didn't read the article, but understood from the headline that Sally Ride was a lesbian. About 15 seconds later, I saw the headline to this article about some reactions in the LGBTQ community to a memorial tweet by Mitt Romney. This time I actually clicked through to the article in question.

Commentary
My first response to the Twitter fight referenced above was puzzlement. I thought that the fact that people were getting angry meant that Romney had said something derogatory about Sally Ride's sexual orientation on his Twitter account. But no, just the standard, "We've lost an American hero today" stuff. So the retweets seemed to be saying, "Because you haven't fully supported equality for homosexuals, you don't get to honor them when they die."

On the face of it, I though the reaction was crazy for two reasons:

1) It was unfair. I don't know the exact timing of Romney's tweet, but I get the impression that Sally Ride did not come out of the closet to the general public while she was alive. There is every reason to believe the presumptive Republican nominee didn't even know she was gay when he tweeted about her. And if you're going to blame him for that, you're too far gone for me to even talk to you.

2) It was ungracious. When someone says he admires you or holds a door open for you, you thank him politely. You don't spit in his face.

My husband contends that the offended members of the LGBTQ might have been saying that tweeting about someone's death is somewhat self-aggrandizing, unlike sending a private note of condolence to the family. It's kind of like mentioning Sally Ride's death at the beginning of your stump speech for the day. It acknowledges the loss, sure, but also ties it to your current endeavors. So the retweeters respond, "Nuh-uh, you don't get to hitch your wagon to our star!" and that might be a reasonable response.

We have so many ways of communicating these days and mass communication is becoming increasingly massive in both its reach and its accessibility. Telling everyone how you're feeling has become simple, as has gathering everyone's response. Even things that really should be private, like letting someone know you're breaking up with him, end up happening through Facebook.

Which brings me to God. Generally speaking, although I'm pretty sure He can, God does not engage in mass communication, except in the person of Jesus. Usually, when the Almighty speaks from a place of divinity, He gives a personalized message to one person. Now, that person often passes the message on to a crowd, in which case we call him/her a prophet, but some of the best Bible stories derive from private communication between an individual and her/his Lord: the Magnificat; Jesus telling the woman, "Your sins are forgiven;" even Jonah's argument with God about job satisfaction. I'm not saying I know why God chooses to communicate this way, but I think it does bring home the idea the manner in which we deliver a message can be as telling as its content.

What did you see today?