Within twenty-four hours of last week\u2019s Orlando attack, I saw\u00a0an evangelical Facebook friends post\u00a0that this is the difference between Christians and Muslims on LGBT issues\u2014that Christians\u00a0love<\/em>\u00a0gay people while Muslims try to kill them.\u00a0In a sick, twisted\u00a0way, last week\u2019s brutal attack on a gay nightclub in\u00a0Orlando is a boon to evangelicals. Now every time someone calls them out for their opposition to gay rights or their homophobia, evangelicals\u00a0can now point to Orlando and say \u201cno no, that<\/em> is what hating gays looks like, we don\u2019t hate gays\u201d or \u201cwe\u2019re not the ones who are killing you, go deal with Muslims, we\u2019re not like them, we love<\/em> gay\u00a0people.\u201d<\/p>\n People often try to get a pass for something sketchy they\u2019re doing by pointing to someone who has done something worse and and insisting that they\u2019re not like them<\/em>.\u00a0The Orlando shooter has given evangelicals that in spades.\u00a0Amethyst Marie made this same point<\/a> in 2014 when she wrote a post about Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church, of\u00a0the\u00a0infamous anti-gay funeral protests and \u201cGod Hates Fags\u201d signs. Here is how Amethyst put it in her post, which she titled \u201cYou Are Better Than Fred Phelps (and that\u2019s why he was so\u00a0dangerous)\u201d:<\/p>\n I\u2019ve heard people say that we can\u2019t grant homosexuals the right to marriage and families because we have to protect the institutions of marriage and family. But they would never say \u201cGod hates fags.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ve heard people say that, while they believe in reaching out to unsaved homosexuals, they couldn\u2019t continue to fellowship with unrepentant homosexual Christians as believers. But they would never say \u201cGod hates fags.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ve heard people go out of their way to find something, anything, in someone\u2019s past to which they can attribute the \u201cbrokenness\u201d of same-sex attraction, to explain away as dysfunction something they\u2019d see as beautiful and healthy if it were between two people of the opposite sex. But they would never say \u201cGod hates fags.\u201d<\/p>\n I could go on for a hundred pages. If you think I\u2019m saying that all these people are really no better than Fred Phelps, you\u2019ve completely missed the point. These people\u00a0are<\/em>\u00a0better than Fred Phelps. These are nice people. These are people who don\u2019t want to hurt anyone. These are people who sincerely want the best for their neighbors, for their nation, for the poor broken homosexuals. These people feel sincerely torn over how to discriminate in the kindest way possible. They might be you. They have been me. You, most likely, are better than Fred Phelps. I was and continue to be better than Fred Phelps. And that\u2019s his true danger.\u00a0Fred Phelps and others like him let us believe that being better than them is good enough.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n I recently attended my parents\u2019 solidly anti-gay evangelical megachurch for a service.\u00a0Oh, I\u2019m sure both my parents and the church leadership would\u00a0say the church isn\u2019t\u00a0\u201canti-gay.\u201d That sounds so mean, after all, and they love<\/em> gay people! They\u2019d probably say the church is\u00a0\u201cpro-marriage\u201d or \u201cpro-family,\u201d but by that of course they mean pro-heterosexual<\/em> marriage, and pro-heterosexual<\/em> family. Actually, there\u2019s a way to check this\u2014hang on\u2014oh hey, the church\u2019s online \u201cwhat we believe\u201d section condemns both homosexuality and transgender identities, both in the context of their section on creation and marriage. Classy.<\/p>\n Anyway,\u00a0halfway through the worship period, loaded down with praise choruses with highly repetitive phrases like \u201cHe loves me\u201d and \u201cI love Him,\u201d I stopped to wonder what it would be like to attend this church as a gay person. I was immediately struck by the insistence\u2014both in the music and in the announcements\u2014that we are loved by God. I remember hearing this refrain over and over as a child\u2014God loves<\/em> us, God loves<\/em> us, God loves<\/em> us\u2014and I remember finding it comforting, this feeling that I was loved by an all-powerful supernatural entity, that this entity actually cared about me and my wellbeing. But then, I\u2019m not gay.<\/p>\n What would it be like, I wondered as I stood there, to\u00a0be gay in an evangelical church? What would it be like to be gay and to grow up being told that God loves you, but also that God hates sin, and that homosexuality is sin? What would it be like to grow up believing that your love, your romantic and sexual attractions, were disordered, condemned, and forbidden, but that somehow, despite that, God loves<\/em> you? What would it be like to grow up to realize that you could never have what everyone else has\u2014romantic love, companionship, and a family\u2014but that God loves<\/em> you? What does love<\/em>\u00a0even mean, in that context?<\/p>\n As I wondered all this, I became\u00a0angry. I became\u00a0angry because I am completely certain\u00a0that some of those sitting in that worship center with me are gay. I became angry because evangelicals preach that gay people must live celibate lives, or else they are engaging in sin and separated from God forever, and then claim that they love<\/em> gay people, and that God<\/em> loves gay people. I recently watched an evangelical woman explain on Facebook that she loves her lesbian neighbors and their young children, but that she hates their homosexuality and sin. She loves<\/em> them\u2014she just doesn\u2019t believe they should be a family. She loves<\/em> them\u2014but she believes their love is wrong. The cognitive dissonance is overwhelming.<\/p>\n What does this have to do with the Orlando shooting, or with Fred Phelps? Namely, evangelicals have increasingly sought to find a path across a culture war fast turning against them by claiming that they love<\/em> gay people, and having individuals actively claiming to hate gay people (i.e. Fred Phelps) or engaging in acts of terror against gay people (i.e. the Orlando shooter) allows them to point to and differentiate themselves from those who hate<\/em> gay people.\u00a0But what does that love<\/em> look like, exactly? And are evangelicals aware that hate\u00a0doesn\u2019t always come at the point of a gun?<\/p>\n I\u2019ve written before about evangelical opposition to marriage equality. Evangelicals have also opposed gay adoption and the very existence of gay-straight alliance clubs<\/a> in public schools, despite the importance these clubs have in safeguarding LGBT teens against suicide. In some cases, prominent evangelicals have openly called for bringing the\u00a0\u201cyuck factor\u201d back into<\/a> discussions of homosexuality. It\u2019s no wonder a former coworker of mine attempted to commit suicide as an evangelical teen. How many other evangelical teens have toyed with the idea that that might be their best option, all things considered? Is this what love looks like, really?<\/p>\n In a recent post, blogger Samantha Field took on evangelicals\u2019 contention<\/a> that they hate the sin, but love the sinner. As usual, Samantha is deeply insightful.<\/p>\n Not only have they twisted the definition of hatred into something so deformed it\u2019s beyond recognition, they\u2019ve done the same thing to\u00a0love<\/em><\/a>. Here\u2019s the thing, though: when Jesus said\u00a0they shall know you by your love<\/em>, it comes with the pretty basic assumption that your \u201clove\u201d should be\u00a0recognizable\u00a0<\/strong>to people who don\u2019t share all your pet theories. If people who don\u2019t share your interpretation or your faith look at your actions and say \u201cthat looks an awful lot like hate to me,\u201d your response shouldn\u2019t be \u201coh, it only looks that way to you because you\u2019re not a conservative evangelical like me!\u201d It doesn\u2019t make any sense.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n