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killaguhrilla replied to your post: I really enjoyed your post about homosexuality and the bible - thank you. I have had many conversations with my mother about this. I usually try to point out the things that are in the bible that we no longer abide by (ie: shellfish, football, etc). Her answer is ALWAYS that those things are in the Old Testament, not in the New Testament, but that there are passages in the the NT against homosexual activity and the NT is the relevant law. Do you have advice for how to deal with this argument?

My pastor always said, “hate the sin but love the sinner.” He welcomes homosexuals in the church as people who need God, just like everyone else.

But that tells people who are gay/lesbian that their sexual orientation is a sin, that there is something wrong with them, that they are somehow “lesser” and that, ideally, what they really should be is heterosexual because that’s the way that God wants everyone to be.

A central teaching of Christianity is that the things that we identify as “sins” in our lives are things that we are supposed to try to resist or overcome. Can someone “overcome” their sexual orientation? Well, that’s what the Exodus International folks believe, but I don’t know many people who take them seriously.

Granted, the “hate the sin, lover the sinner” attitude is one that a lot of denominations have tried to take, with some going to far as to say “Oh, well, it’s fine for you to be gay/lesbian as long as you are celibate.”

How would a person who is gay/lesbian ever really feel welcome in a church which tells them that they are fundamentally sinful? (And not some sort of abstract “original sin” or “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” kind of sinful.)

While I guess I’d rather have someone take the “hate the sin/love the sinner” attitude rather than an attitude which demonizes people who are gay/lesbian, it leaves gay/lesbian people are “separate but equal” which, as history has shown us time and time again, really isn’t equal at all.