"Hate the sin love the sinner"

No, there is no grey area. They can be against gay rights personally, but they cannot use their religion to justify having it as policy. Not everybody is Christian. Not everybody is religious. And to have anti-gay policy with religion as the justification, you might as well enforce all Americans to attend church. Thing is, too many are so afraid the dominance of their religion will no longer be acknowledged that they are willing to blind themselves to how unjust it actually is.

Same with how they handle the issue of bullying of kids in school. Now keep in mind, when I say "bullying" I'm not only talking about bullying gay kids. I'm talking about the full range of why anybody would victimize another person. Unfortunately, "bullying" has become a bit of a buzz word associated with LGBT kids. So now, anytime "bullying" is brought up, the very conservative religious folk are quick to respond "Oh, bullying is bad, but we can't be ignoring sexual immorality" crap. Instead of doing the responsible thing and- you know- trying to make sure all kids feel safe going to school

"Hate the sin, love the sinner" is, to me, up there with saying "I don't hate gays. Some of my best friends are gay." True friends would want other friends to have the same opportunities that they do.

 

I hate this statement with a passion. Saying that you "hate the sin" is still saying that you hate a part of me. I hear this all the time from my old homophobic church members (most of which do not even know I am gay, they just assume because of how I reacted when they started bashing gay rights. I reacted by saying that we should want people to have rights.) I'll probably get it a lot more on Thursday.. I'm sending my letter via facebook to them..

So.. There is no gray area. Either they accept LGBT people, or the don't. There is no "hate the sin, love the sinner" type of thing.

 

It is possible to love the sinner and hate the sin. Possible. Not easy, not common, but possible. The thing is, most Christians who use that fact with respect to LGBT people run against two problems: the first, being gay, and even having gay sex, is not a sin. To say that you love someone but hate their sin of being gay is like saying you love someone but hate their sin of liking country music. You may personally find country music distasteful, and that's fine, but the mere act of judging listening to country music as a sin is a statement of hatred.

Second, the people who say they love the sinner but hate the sin (wrt homosexuality) have a very queer (pun intended) idea of love. It's a love that says "we're going to make you suffer and suffer until you realize you're wrong." That's not love, that's oppression, that's empire. It is contrary to the key ideas of the Bible, where God is always, always on the side of the oppressed.

More generally, and I think rather more controversially, I do not think someone can be opposed to LGBT rights and not be a homophobe. My focus, to be clear, is on action, not intent. I don't care if someone has all the warm fuzzies in the world towards gay people, if they oppose legislation to give us equal rights, they are acting as homophobes and their warm fuzzies don't excuse them. Likewise, someone who find homosexuality repulsive but believes in full rights for LGBT people and treats those they encounter in daily life with kindness and respect, as far as I'm concerned, they aren't a homophobe. Their inner distaste isn't relevant to me because they are not acting as homophobes. I believe action matters, not intent.

I don't actually think it's possible for someone to completely embody either of the strawmen I erected, but it gives a good idea of my point.

 

No, it's not a grey area, and it's complete bullshit. To be against "the actions" of the queer people is to hate them for who they are. On some level they understand that, which is why they are trying to play a semantic game.

 

With some things, this saying is perfectly reasonable. For example, I love my dad to bits, but I hate smoking, and my dad is an on/off smoker.
But when it comes to being gay, it's an oxymoron. It's saying "I love you, but not this bit that's part of the you I mentioned a second ago", which basically means they love you and yet don't love you. This saying is about as homophobic as you can get, because it's still saying that to be gay is to have something wrong with you.
If someone said, "I love black people, I just hate the sin of being black" it would cause a big uproar and everyone would be talking about how that person is oh-so-racist. And yet gays hear it about themselves all the time, proving that the morals of our world are screwed up. Big time.

 

This is a tough subject to me, because in this case the sin is the sinner. So I would consider this to be homophobic. If it was something else.. something I consciously choose to do.. then it would be understandable I think. I would totally disagree with them, but it is a difference in views. Whereas my orientation, saying you disagree with it, that I'm a sin, well.. I'd sometimes rather not associate with people like that perhaps.

 

These people would get the shunning they deserve if they said "I hate your sin of being black, but I still love you."

 

It's possible and I have a number of Christian friends who go by this when it comes to gay people. They recognise that homosexuality is part of who you are and the Bible says nothing against it in itself, but they also read some verses and determine that same-sex acts are sin. It's no different to having a friend who steals something and still loving them but hating their sin of stealing -- and before you say that stealing is a choice but homosexuality isn't, they're against gay sex rather than being gay, and the former is as much of a choice as straight sex.

"I hate your sin of being black but I still love you" isn't comparable, since being black is part of who you are just like being gay, and they don't hate that. They are against the acting on gay feelings.

 

^ That is true, some people believe only acting on it is sinful.
What is comparable then, is saying that they too should not act on their heterosexual orientation. That they should refrain from love.

 

If you asked them "If you could click your fingers and make me straight, would you?", chances are they'd say yes. Ergo, they have some form of disagreement with being gay, not just with acting on being gay.

I'm not saying that cases you've described don't exist, but I can say with certainty that a fair portion if not the majority have a problem with being gay, not just with gay acts.

edit: the comparison in your friend's case is "I hate black people having sex and producing more black people, but I don't mind that you are black. Just don't procreate."

edit2: yes I edited this like 20 times because I can't type or think

 

I have to ask that to people now. 0_0

 

Love the sinner, hate the pope. So much better.

 

MUCH better. Ugh, Christians are always trying to justify their crap - understand this, you're the only evil on this planet, the devil doesn't have a patch on you.

Hate the sin? If gay is the sin, then you hate me. I don't actively choose to 'sin', the 'sin' is like others have said, a part of me.

I know I sound a little harsh, but I've just had enough. You live your lives and keep your fictional idiocy out of mine.

 

Yep. I've used that card with a couple people already.

They probably would say yes, but their reasoning would likely be more along the lines of "I want to make your life easier by removing the temptation to sin". I admit that some probably do have a problem with simply being gay, but they may not realise that themselves. They are also more likely to think being gay is a choice and therefore don't consider themselves to hate you even though they do.

Hm, I'm not sure about that comparison. Will think on it.

 

The funny thing is, this hypocrisy seems obvious to us, but they might truly believe this is right. It's like with people saying "I'm against gay rights, but I'm not homophobic, I have gay friends and respect them". Ugh. Respecting people, yet thinking they're lower than you, since you don't approve of giving them equal rights, huh? So cute.
.___.

 

Problem with religion is that is has become a “members only” kind of thing, and people use it as an excuse to justify their dislike of gays.

 

that's like saying "Love the free land, hate the Indians?"

 

One of the reasons I'm often pessimistic about the prospect of a homophobe-free society is that we still aren't even a racist-free society.

They don't say it out loud, but the attitude is there. It just goes something more like:

"Oh, I believe that racism is bad. But I wish these lazy black folk would just let the whole slavery thing go. And that these Latinos- who are probably illegal by the way- would just speak English like everybody else. And that all these Chinese people would adopt normal names- not that Chang or Wu nonsense. They're hard to pronounce! And they should all be trying to fit in with our normal white, American society. INTEGRATION, YO!"