For Christian progressives like myself, this appeal to Scripture and God to justify anti-gay teachings is both tragic and appalling. But our reasons aren’t rooted in some treasonous embrace of the perceived individualistic permissiveness of secular culture. They’re rooted in the law of love. To wear the cloak of biblical righteousness while promulgating the categorical condemnation of homosexuality is, as we see it, unloving.But why think that? The knee-jerk response of Christian conservatives is to say that it is always possible to love the sinner while hating the sin. Now, since sin is by definition toxic, I actually agree that one can’t love sinners without hating what really is a sin. But sometimes it’s unloving to take something to be a sin in the first place. Sometimes it’s the condemnation of a behavior, rather than the behavior itself, that’s toxic and should be called sin.
Consider a father who forbids all childhood play. Such a prohibition is devastating to the healthy development of children. Even if the father means to promote his children’s welfare, he’s seriously misguided, and his actions reveal a sharp disconnect between what the father means to do and what he’s actually doing. No loving person would endorse this prohibition if he or she knew the truth.
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