Christian

In a conversation in one of my groups about Anne Rice's renunciation of Catholicism because it is, inter alia, very hostile to gays (her son is gay), someone said something startling and thought-provoking:

I have been thinking there should be another term, say "Followers of Christ", for those of us who believe yet don't hate. I am wary of claiming to be Christian and am definitely turned away by any advert for something which uses "Christian" in its description.

I feel that too. I know many Christians who are a credit to their faith: kind, compassionate, likable, honest and decent, who live their lives as Christians without grand-standing, pretence or hypocrisy. Including, as it happens, Anne Rice, whose record of personal generosity and Christian love shows her to be a real Christian. Then there are those filled with hate. They always talk about hating the sin not the sinner, but that's a joke. Mostly, these days their hate is concentrated on gays and gay rights. I call the Christians who would impose their beliefs on everybody the Christian-Fascists. There is nothing appealing or attractive about these people. Thin-lipped, judgmental, filled with hate and spite, they lack humanity and forgiveness.

The irony is that Jesus never mentions homosexuality. Not once. He talks a lot about hypocrisy (which he condemns), and he says, emphatically, that we should love one another, and that this is the most important commandment. In fact, when a Roman came to Jesus asking that his slave-lover be healed, Jesus did it. Without fuss.

Of course there are those poisonous passages in Leviticus. But the Christian-Fascists pick and choose which verses they accept and which they don't. They wear polyester-cotton shirts and lycra-cotton undies despite mixed fibres being forbidden, and they oppose slavery even though Leviticus says it's ok. Divorce is also an abomination. We going to ban divorce? Burn divorcees at the stake? Pshah! St Paul said some stuff about gayness, but firstly, that's open to interpretation, and secondly are we talking about Christianity or Paulism?

The constant Christian-Fascist refrain that God hates gays is like a boil in the body-politic. Its pus leaches into our society making hate crimes acceptable. And tell me, did even one Christian minister condemn the attack on Matthew Shepard? Didn't hear of any. Did you?

The churches once supported slavery and the absence of women's rights. Today they are embarrassed about this. One day they will be as embarrassed about their hatred of gays. And they will acknowledge that God made us too. He made us with our sexuality as it is. And that God is much more hurt by lying and hypocrisy and hate than He is by us loving the "wrong" gender.