HOMOSEXUALITY: HATE THE SIN, LOVE THE SINNER

Christians often claim that their condemnation of homosexuality is an act of “loving the sinner, but hating the sin.” Such a statement necessarily assumes, however, that the person judging the “sin” is somehow qualified to make such a distinction to begin with. That separating the action from the actor first requires condemning both is overlooked by such Christians who, prohibited from throwing stones at the one, cast them instead with righteous abandon at the other. 

While this bifurcated standard protects people from physical injury, it can produce deep wounds psychologically and emotionally. It also allows those who accept the standard to, however unintentionally, assume a position of moral righteousness – at least with regards to sexual morality - which allows them to impose judgement on others while immunizing themselves from having to take any responsibility for the fruit of their claims, by passing all personal responsibility for making such judgements to God. And by so doing, only ensure that they never have to acknowledge the true "fruit" of the tree they worship.

First: This allows the heterosexual Christian who invokes this phrase to automatically assume they hold a superior, or ‘divinely preferred,’ sexual orientation, despite that sexual orientation being something they claim they were simply born with. This, then, is like white slave masters arguing they were born with a superior or ‘divinely preferred’ pigmentation. Hence, to “love the sin but hate the sinner” regarding sexuality is like telling plantation owners in the antebellum south to “love slaves but hate their skin color.” If only that poor soul had not be born with such a deformed disposition, either of skin color or sexual preference, they would not have been sentenced by God to a life in which they can only wish they were born different, be it white or heterosexual.  

Second: To assume that different sexualities are inherently unequal is to invert the focus of attention on sexuality that heterosexuals tend to apply to themselves. When a heterosexual thinks about them self or other heterosexuals, for example, their sexuality is often the last thing they notice, if indeed, like a fish in water, they ever notice it at all. If they do happen to notice it, it is usually only after they notice themselves as everything else. When thinking about the homosexual, however, this view is inverted, and the homosexual is seen as homosexual before being seen as anything else. This inversion of focus serves to perpetually reinforce the belief in the superiority of heterosexuality and the inferiority of homosexuality, while unwittingly promoting ideas of fear, prejudice, and discrimination.

Third: It allows the Christian-heterosexual to bask in the sun of their own magnanimity for having the benevolence to forgive the “sinner” their “sin.” Aside from the judgmental stance that such forgiveness necessarily depends on and promotes, it also amounts to pity, and only reinforces the underlying superior-inferior paradigm of sexuality being used as the standard. While the heterosexual admits they may have just as many sexual urges as the homosexual, and that both must exercise a degree of control over those urges to please God (or even keep a spouse or a job), the sexual desire of the heterosexual is considered “natural” and “normal” while for the homosexual, it is considered “unnatural” or “abnormal.” 

This solidarity of self-denial is therefore a ruse, for it is like a free man claiming solidarity with someone serving a life sentence without an opportunity for parole. For one, the sentence of self-denial being practiced by the pious heterosexual is a temporary fast that can be ended voluntarily simply by uttering the matrimonial words, “I do.” Secondly, the homosexual, being denied the reprieve of marriage because of such beliefs, is expected to suffer in the starvation of sexual self-denial for the rest of their life. And lastly, by claiming that such moral standards come from God, all those who support, advance, and impose such beliefs avoid taking any responsibility for their cruelty by blaming it on a universal natural law, God, and the Bible. And by so doing, to borrow a line from H. L. Mencken, moralists like Phil Robertson and the Westboro Baptists are able to impose cruelty with a clear conscience, while feeling as righteous in their condemnations as Torquemada.