This week, I heard the same old rhetoric of “Love the sinner, hate the sin” in reference to homosexuality. Oh boy, is this ever a frustrating statement. Essentially, it’s a pity statement: “Oh, you poor sinner. I don’t agree with what you are doing, but there is hope. I love you, regardless of how awful the things you do are. After all, haven’t we all sinned?” This is just what every person needs: someone who pities them, while still wallowing in misunderstanding. This sentiment perpetuates the misguided heterocentric idea that there is something wrong with gays and lesbians and their “behaviour” is unacceptable.

Look, here is the bottom line: Being gay or lesbian is not a choice. Sure, deciding whether to have sex or to get into a relationship is a choice, but being gay or lesbian is not. It is a reality. In the minds of some people gays and lesbians are just straight people who decide to have sex with people of the same sex. Well . . . No. I mean, there are straight people who “experiment”, but ultimately, if you are gay, you are attracted to someone of the same sex, both physically and emotionally. It’s this emotional part that seems to be forgotten with all of the emphasis being placed on the physical. When someone is insulting someone who is gay or lesbian by saying “Love the sinner, hate the sin,” I think they should be saying “Hate the person and who they are,” because they are one and the same.

If a gay or lesbian person wants to fall in love, have a loving, giving, fulfilling relationship, it is going to happen with someone of the same sex. Should a person be denied love to avoid being seen as “sinners” in your eyes? Is this a fair way to live? If there is a god, is this really what she/he/it/they want? Our understanding of who we are has progressed remarkably over the last 2,000 years. It is a natural state of being, whether some like it or not.

Yet, there are people who still insist that there is something wrong or that being gay is a choice. No, it’s not, and no, there is nothing wrong with gays and lesbians. It is wonderful that there are many religious people who have come to accept these facts and have opened their hearts and their churches to members of the LGBT* community. Others remain, who use religion as a way to discriminate against and demonize gays and lesbians. Thank goodness for the former, and shame on the latter.

Chris Hearn believes we are all deserving of love and respect.