Welcome sinners

Gays serving openly in the military will have unintended consequences! Well, yeah. Such as this: On New Year's Eve in Neighbor's Bar, a gay hangout, in Seattle someone poured gasoline on the stairwell and set it on fire. A couple soldiers, who happen to be gay and visiting the bar, sprang into action to start putting the fire out while the patrons evacuated safely. A commenter muses that here we are dealing with being firebombed and the Fundies whine that they're being persecuted.



Timothy Kincaid of Box Turtle Bulletin has long been annoyed with the phrase, "Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin." His objection has been with the "sin" part -- the speaker is the one who defines what is sin. In addition, the speaker's actions make it clear the sinner is hated as much as the sin.

Micah Murray of Huffington Post gives another reason why that phrase is so vile. The target is never allowed to shed the label of sinner, never becomes part of "us." He also notes the phrase targets only gays. He sums it up this way:

We embrace them with arms full of disclaimers about how all the sinners are welcome here. And yet, they’re the only ones we constantly remind of their status as sinners, welcome sinners.

Alvin McEwen of the blog Justice For All is annoyed with the way Fundies lie about us, twist science to support their claims, and even propose gay genocide. Then when challenged they claim their faith permits (requires) them to say such nasty things. This vile talk did not begin with the persecution of gay people. Similar things were used in support of slavery and Jim Crow.