You either see me as equal or you don't

Terrence Heath has another part of his essay on homophobia in the black community (I wrote about the earlier part here). He didn't explain the title of this essay -- The Master's Tools -- (at least not that I understood) until the end where he wrote:

We can start by choosing to put down the master's tools, and see that once they're no longer in our hands they look more like weapons than tools. And seeing that, we can chose not to wield them against one another anymore.

It seems the master's tool is bigotry.

Terrence has a heartfelt story about rejecting his church and essentially losing his birth family when left home to attend the university, one chosen because there was a gay student organization. But that's not why I am writing about this essay.

I've ranted before (though I don't remember if I've done that in my blog) about how the phrase "Hate the sin, love the sinner" doesn't work. My answer is that if you loved me, even though you hated homosexuality, you would at least do things like find out the success rate of ex-gay programs. My list was long, but I won't go into it now.

Terrence has another reason why he doesn't like that phrase. He wrote:

From a religious perspective, is it really possible to love someone that you don't see as an equal? Is it possible to see someone as less than equal without hatred, or without at least contempt? If so, how?

From my perspective, either you see me as equal or you don't. If you don't, as far as I'm concerned it amounts to hate - and the actions taken to maintain inequality stem from hatred.

We can see one another's humanity, and act accordingly. Or we can see another's difference as a weakness we can exploit.

And that exploitation is hate, not love. This is a valid point for anyone, especially a Christian, even if the difference is race or economic condition.