I think that actively campaigning not just against gay marriage, but any sort of civil unions for gays is treating us like shit. I think that preventing us from adopting is treating us like shit. I think that blocking laws protecting us from workplace and housing discrimination is treating us like shit. I think that advocating that we should lose visitation rights to our own children is treating us like shit. And I think I know you well enough to know that you’d agree with me.
See, those are the sorts of “Christians” who are most likely to break out with “hate the sin, love the sinner.” The Christians who don’t support that sort of crap don’t need to use that phrase, because they’re never put in the position of having to defend their abominable treatment of gays. If you actually treat someone like you love them, you don’t have to justify yourself to them, because they’ll know how you feel about them by your actions.
I think you might likewise recall that, while I’m an atheist, I have no bone to pick with religion. I’ve marched with Franciscan monks in opposition to Proposition 8. I know how many Christians are counted among my allies. Philosophically, “hate the sin, love the sinner,” is a defensible position. In practice, it’s nothing more than a way for moral hypocrites to piss all over people and still look at themselves in the mirror in the morning.
Just because it’s the “philosophy of Christ,” doesn’t justify it. You cannot separate people from their actions. You are what you think, you are what you feel, and you are what you do.
The thing is, hate doesn’t grow in an internal vacuum. You can’t be a totally rational, reasonable, “loving” person who just happens to hate gays or blacks or Jews. An irrational belief needs to be rationalized; it can only survive within an entire supporting system of irrational beliefs.
This is why I can’t accept voting for a homophobic person whom I “agree with” on every other issue. It can’t happen. If you dig deep enough you’ll find crap throughout that person’s beliefs.
Christians believe you can. And since their views are the ones we are talking about, theirs wins.
Personally I find this idea stupid, anyways. I’m sure there are a lot of times where you did something you didn’t want to do, felt something yo didn’t want to feel. And as a freakin’ OCD sufferer, I know you can think thoughts you don’t want to think.
Sure, I’m not arguing that. But the thing is, the legitimate Christians don’t ever have to say that, because they’re behaving in ways that demonstrate that they don’t hate gays. The only Christians who ever actually say that are the ones who are trying to cover for their hateful actions. If a Christian ever needs to tell someone that he only hates the sin, it’s because his actions are otherwise indistinguishable from hating the sinner.
And as a general rule, I truly don’t care what someone thinks about gays. I only care how they treat them. If their actions are hateful, then all the protestations about how much they really “love” me don’t mean shit. There’s no difference between that person and the guy who calls me a fag, except a modicum of honesty.