Daredevil Thinking

How one of the most common sayings of Christian fundamentalists has elevated hate over love. 

And so we arrive at the topic of, you guessed it, sexual diversity. This subject is so vast that I'm going to have to break it down into a three-part study and possibly conclude it all with a Google+ Hangout session interviewing different persons with different voices.

Over the course of several years, going back long before I joined the military, I've seen, on countless occasions, strong and faithful Christians live out their ideologies by the phrase "Love the sinner; hate the sin". Those that use this phrase say it with a charming smile, like a Wal-Mart greeter, and will tell you that they say it to sound nice. Yet, it's one of the biggest insults to outsiders and progressive Christians. How? We'll discuss that today in this first part of the study.

My favorite class in high school was Debate. I was a debater throughout my entire high school career and was allowed the privilege of being the team's captain at the start of my senior year. At the very beginning, when I was a freshman, I entered the class thinking that debating was all about arguing and learning how to develop and use a silver tongue to get what I want, and even manipulate others into thinking how I think. But, as I quickly learned, I was dead wrong. Debating is a form of communication that involves and requires research, learning, understanding, and - above all else - humility in the face of facts and truth, and humility in the realization that sometimes the facts and the truth aren't always readily available or even knowable.

Student Congress was the one debate format that I truly enjoyed in that class. Instead of being pitted against a single opponent, you found yourself surrounded by friends and enemies of all different backgrounds. You would have a quick three minutes to assert or negate whatever piece of legislation was on the floor, and then answer any questions from the rest of round's participants afterward in a small amount of time. This moment of questioning is what debaters call "cross-examination".

One of the first pieces of legislation I spoke on was a bill to legalize same-sex marriage. I was a freshman that year, at the bottom of the high school totem poll, and as naive as a newborn when it came to politics, religion, and, well, everything else. I was a super conservative, middle-class high school student and die-hard Republican that supported then-President George W. Bush one hundred per cent. I was all for the War on Terror, anti-abortion, anti-Islam, and anti-sexual diversity. I'm sure you can guess what my stance on the bill was. Indeed: I was negative.

It was the first - and last - time I would ever give a fire and brimstone sermon as a speech. It would also be one of the few times I would quote the Bible over a politically controversial topic. In hindsight, I was just as cruel as many of the far right fundamental pastors are today: I preached that all the gays and lesbians were going to hell and that America should not allow them marry.

The cross examination became a heated confrontation between myself and a young freshman girl in the back of the classroom. It wasn't evident to me at the time, but I now realize that I had truly upset her. It didn't dawn on me until long after that speech that she was a lesbian, one of the many that I had blatantly said was "going to hell". What happened afterward I can't quite recall other than the fact that we weren't on the best of terms for the rest of the school year. I went on to join the varsity debate team afterward and was promoted to vice captain by the start of the second semester of my sophomore year. I became a quite successful - though very young - politician, and I use the word "politician" loosely as this was high school. While I was enjoying going head-to-head with the most liberal judges of the Dallas circuit, the crisp Van Heusen fashion, teaching the novice debaters about the congressional format and parlimentary procedure, and becoming an all-around favorite with all of my teachers and other school staff, I had completely forgotten about the young girl that I had hurt. She was a human being, just like me; and I drove a knife through her heart.

I had convinced myself that there was no such thing as sexual diversity before I even knew such a term existed. In a matter of months I had turned myself into a bigoted, self-righteous, religious zealot and used a gifted, trained silver tongue to put others under my shoe. Even if I was wrong, I would not admit it, and I would continue arguing until I made my point. If I found myself trapped in a word game, I would slither my way out of it by finding a new point and distract my opponent from winning the argument. And the worst part of it all: I did it with a smile.

Her name elludes me. She will forever be a shadow in one of my most regretful memories, and where she is today or how she's doing, I will probably never know. But I can at least take comfort in the fact that I now know more truth today than I ever did back then; and I started discovering it in the knick of time at the start of my junior year. After going through a time of immense self-reflection (caused by God bringing a 2x4 across my head, as I like to say) I began to learn that there is a lot more to what the Bible says than what "the Bible says". From that point on, I stopped quoting scripture in my speeches and debates. It's not because I didn't trust the Word of God, but because I realized that I did not yet understand it. To explain, I'll tell you another quick story about a time during my military training at the Camp Bullis Military Reservation outside of San Antonio, TX.

By the time we had arrived at this point in training we had all fired military-grade weapons several times; including the M4 carbine, the M9 Beretta, M249 SAW, and M240-B. All of these weapons have different effects on a person's hearing, and even though everyone has a different personal level of hearing, we can all generally agree that when a line of Airmen are all firing an assortment of these weapons at the same time, it becomes quite difficult to hear anything. During the firing, the instructors were trying to shout at the fire team I was in to move over to a particular spot and get ready to run a drill, but we couldn't understand what they were shouting about among the constant firing, let alone be able to even tell that they were shouting or just constantly yawning. Finally, once the vollies of lead stopped and the ringing in our ears died down, the tempered voices of our instructers echoed across the range. It was then that we finally understood what they needed us to do. We could hear them.

Unfortunately, in today's world it's hard to just "tune out the lead" flying around so we can hear what is true, because everyone shouting their politically-inclined opinion is claiming truth. Conservatives insist that homosexuality, in all its forms (which they ignorantly relate to beastiality and pedophilia), is a detestable sin. And though they may not say it to your face, their holier-than-thou attitude and constant insistence upon it being a sin suggests that homosexuals are in a worse boat than murderers. Continuing to insist that they are sinners in the face of scientific evidence to the contrary is suggesting that a gay man is going to hell anyway because of who he is and who he has been since birth.

But they will never tell you this; or very few of them will be so high-handed to outright spit it in your face. Why? Because it's not popular. For a modern church that seems to reject "wordly views", it seems like they're doing their best to conform to how the world actually does things. This, readers, is what is known as a slippery slope. In trying to save themselves from an increasingly negative identity as "anti-homosexual" they are now sacrificing part of their integrity (though a false sense of integrity, which I'll go into more detail about later) for politics. What does this look like? Someone saying "they love the gays" while stuffing their face with a chicken sandwich from Chick-fil-A.

"Love the sinner, hate the sin" is an insult. It's an insult to me, my faith, my lesbian-gay-bi-trans-and-queer friends, and it's an insult to the Commission that Jesus charged us with.

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

-Matthew 28:16-20 ESV

And what were Christ's commandments again?

One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:  “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

-Matthew 22:35-40 NIV

This same conversation is found again in Mark 12:28–34 and Luke 10:25–28. Note that Christ does not simply say, "Love the sinner, hate the sin." He actually says something much more profound: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Place yourself in the shoes of a gay teenager that is being confronted on all sides by Christians that are claiming they love you, but hate "your sin". Being homosexual is not a "lifestyle choice" that many conservatives ignorantly claim; but it's not a pathological disorder either. You're not sick, you're not wrong, you're not a danger to society, and you're not an animal or a criminal. You are a human being, and your sexuality is as every bit apart of you as the color of your skin. And the most amazing part of it all: it's more than just in your DNA, it's in how you love another human being.

But you're an outcast. Why? Because the Bible apparently says so. You're detestable, a low-life scum, unsupported and invisible, unfit to teach, a possible danger to children, a menace to society, unfit to serve in the military, and unloved by God. So tell me... would you love yourself?