Once upon a time the evangelical Christian\u2019s typical response to homosexuality was that gay people are just messed up straight people who need to become better Christians so that God can stop them from being gay.<\/p>\n
The complete failure of the \u201cpray away the gay\u201d movement, however, in conjunction with endless evidence that people are simply born gay, has succeeded in finally tossing that hoary argument onto the ash heap of history. But has that stopped evangelicals from arguing against homosexuality? Of course not. They just needed a new argument, is all.<\/p>\n
And they found one. Today the Christian argument against gay people is typically \u2026 well, this, taken from an email recently sent me:<\/p>\n
Would you support a serial adulterer who leaves his wife, but is just attracted to other women, because that\u2019s who he is and how he was born?\u00a0 How about an alcoholic who just can\u2019t help himself? Would you support him as he leaves his wife for alcohol? Would you support a glutton? A man of extreme pride? Why does homosexuality get a pass, and not any other sin?<\/i><\/p>\n
A person with homosexual desires who resists temptation is exactly the same as a married man who resists temptation to carry on affairs with other women\u2014which is to say, a human being battling the temptation to sin. The most compassionate thing that we could tell someone struggling with homosexuality (or any other sin for that matter) is to keep resisting temptation. Keep battling. Don\u2019t give in. This is your badge as a Christian, that you fight temptation.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Now<\/i> the argument is that a gay person struggling against the temptation to be who they really are is no different from anyone else struggling to resist a \u201csinful\u201d temptation. Now, in other words, the refrain isn\u2019t that gay people should stop being gay. Now it\u2019s that they should stop acting<\/em> gay.<\/p>\nEvangelicals are positively enamored of\u00a0this new argument. If I\u2019ve heard it once, I\u2019ve heard it ten thousand times. We all have. You whisper \u201cgay\u201d into the ear of a sleeping evangelical, and there\u2019s an excellent chance that he or she will start murmuring in their sleep, \u201cJust like any other sinful temptation. We\u2019re all sinners. Must resist temptation.\u201d<\/p>\n
And putting your brain to sleep before you say that is the very best way to say it, too. Because it\u2019s an argument that could only make sense to a brain-dead person. It\u2019s just too lame for words.<\/p>\n
But lemme try to find some words anyway.<\/p>\n
Virtually all sins share a crucial, defining, common quality. Because that quality, which is present in every other imaginable sin, is utterly absent from being or acting gay, insisting upon putting homosexuality into the same category as every other sin\u2014or in the category of sin at all\u2014is like gluing wings on a pig, and insisting that the result belongs in the category of \u201cbird.\u201d It doesn\u2019t. It can\u2019t. It won\u2019t. Ever.<\/p>\n
Here is that Big Difference between homosexuality and all those other activities generally understood to be \u201csinful\u201d: There is no sin I can commit that, by virtue of my having committed it, renders me incapable of loving or being loved. I can commit murder. I can steal. I can rob. I can rape. I can drink myself to death. I can do any terrible thing at all, and no one would ever claim that intrinsic to the condition that gave rise to my doing that terrible thing is that I am, by nature,<\/i> unqualified for giving or receiving love.<\/p>\n
No one tells the chronic drinker, glutton, adulterer, gambler, or any other kind of sinner that having committed their sin\u2014that being the way they are\u2014means they must stop experiencing love.<\/p>\n
Yet living without love is exactly what anti-gay Christians insist upon for gay people.<\/p>\n
When you tell a gay person to \u201cresist\u201d being gay, what you are really telling them\u2014what you really mean<\/i>\u2014is for them to be celibate. It\u2019s okay for them to be gay; they just can\u2019t live out<\/em> their gayness.<\/p>\nWhat you mean is that you want them to condemn themselves to a life absolutely devoid of the kind of the romantic, long-term, emotionally and physically intimate love that all people, Christians included, understand not only as their birthright, but as just about the greatest part of being human.<\/p>\n
Be alone, you\u2019re demanding. Live alone. Don\u2019t hold anyone\u2019s hand. Don\u2019t snuggle on your couch with anyone. Don\u2019t cuddle up with anyone at\u00a0night before you fall asleep. Don\u2019t have anyone at your table to chat with over coffee in the morning.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t have or raise children.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get married. Live your whole life without knowing that joy, that sharing, that fulfillment.<\/p>\n
Be alone. Live alone. Die alone.<\/p>\n
The \u201csinful temptation\u201d that Christians are forever urging LGBT people to resist is love. [Tweet that<\/a>.]<\/p>\nNow isn\u2019t that funny, given that love is the one thing<\/i>\u00a0that Jesus was most clear about wanting his followers to extend to others? It\u2019s just so funny it makes you want to laugh till you cry.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Being gay isn’t like other “sins” at ALL. And here’s why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1528,"featured_media":10209,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[330],"class_list":["post-10207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christianissues","tag-lgbt-and-christianity"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a><\/p>\n