Saturday, December 4, 2010

The problem with "hating the sin"

I've heard the term "love the sinner, hate the sin" for some time now. Usually it comes up when Christians discuss homosexuality. Shoot, there was probably even a time when I either said the same thing or something very similar. Basically, it's a way for Christians to handle the cognitive dissonance that they experience when they know that it's wrong to discriminate against people, yet they feel that they should follow the rules of their holy book which tells them that dudes shouldn't do it with dudes.

It sounds kind of nice, right? Love the sinner? Who can be against love? Christians will tell you that we're all sinners, and according to their mythology, we are. It's impossible to not be a sinner, really. Homosexuality is just one more sin, kind of like lying, cheating, or stealing. In this light, homosexuals aren't any better or worse than anybody else.

Here's the problem - it's bullcrap, and it's still hateful. If you have a son/daughter who tells you that he/she is gay, are you going to say this to them? Of course, you love your kid, but are you going to say that you "hate" their "sin"? Do you really think that's somehow better?

Most people in the world want to do the right thing. We want to do what our parents think is right. It's good to know that they still love us when we screw up, but there's a serious problem with calling homosexuality a sin. We've learned a few things over the past few decades. We understand that it is not chosen. Calling it a sin is telling somebody that they're doing something bad just for being who they are. Sure, this is better than telling them that you hate them, but what if my son is left handed and I told him that I loved him even though he was a southpaw? What the hell kind of love is that?

If you use that phrase in the case of homosexuals, you're not "loving" anybody. Maybe it makes you feel better, but I doubt that it does a whole lot of good for gay people out there. How about we just accept them and don't get too concerned over what some ancient book of mythology tells us? You know, the same book that can't be bothered to tell us that it's not okay to own people as property.

4 comments:

Ingrid said...

Now if you or Kirsti were homosexual you wouldn't have Logan, and that would really be a sin.

Lance Christian Johnson said...

But you'd never know the difference.

Ingrid said...

No I wouldn't, but by you being straight I got something good which I would not have gotten otherwise. So what is better? That is the final argument.

Lance Christian Johnson said...

But perhaps if I was gay I would have adopted a child that you would have loved just as much.