Recently I saw a Twitter thread that resulted in a lot of childish debate sparked by queer Christians. In it, a trans Christian posted, “I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it. We don’t need everyone to hold an affirming theology. It doesn’t make them anti-queer. Would it be nice? Sure, but we can have legitimate theological disagreement on this topic. Good people can disagree respectfully and with love.”
In the comments, people disagreed with this poster and, ironically enough, her responses refused to engage with the idea that people might disagree with her on this. She says she was on edge due to people being cruel to her for a long time, which is understandable. People can be awful. No one deserves harassment and cruelty.
But. That being said. She’s wrong. What her post is attempting to do is to give space for queerphobic people to be queerphobic without having to deal with that knowledge. So. Let’s talk about it, and let’s talk about the absolute need for certain queer Christians to ignore and protect the bigotry of their fellows. Spoiler alert: it comes down to fear.
Definitions
In one of the responses to that tweet, someone asked if the bashlash against it might be because some people simply don’t understand the terms being used, and someone else suggested there’s a difference between secular meaning and religious meaning. Unfortunately for them, none of the potential definitions helps their case that says you can think being gay is wrong without being anti-gay, which, you might realize, is a stupid statement on the face of it, this video doesn’t need to be this long, you only need to think five seconds to understand they’re wrong.
Anyway.
Definition one: queer. When I say this, I mean anyone who is LGBTQ+, and I vehemently do not mean so-called “political queers” who are not themselves LGBTQ+ view us as a politic against the system.
Definition two: Non-affirming, version 1. The belief that one cannot be a Christian while either being queer or not believing being and/or acting on being queer is a sin. In other words, that there is no potential for one to interpret scripture in a different way and believe differently than them. There is no being in sincere error and still holding faith.
Definition three: Affirming, version 1. The belief that one can be a Christian regardless of their views on queer people and regardless of whether or not they are queer.
Definition four: Non-affirming, version 2. This version has nothing to do with whether or not one can still profess to be of any religion or not. Instead, it means the following:
Being gay or trans in and of itself is a sin.
Being gay or trans in and of itself is morally wrong.
Being gay or trans in and of itself is a choice one can make.
Being gay or trans in and of itself is a temptation of hell.
Gay sex is a sin.
Gay relationships are a sin.
Gay marriage is a sin.
Gay marriage doesn’t exist.
Social transition for trans people is a sin.
Any gender non-conforming action or self-concept is a sin.
Gender affirming surgery is a sin.
Gender affirming hormone replacement therapy is a sin.
In other words, it is the belief that either being or acting upon being queer is a sin. It is not within God’s plans. It is a product of the Fall and of sin. There is no queerness in a perfect world.
Definition five: Affirming, version 2. Being and acting upon being queer is not a sin.
Definition six: Non-affirming, version 3. Your exact specific interpretation of theology surrounding queer people is incorrect.
Definition seven: Affirming, version 3. Your exact specific interpretation of theology surrounding queer people is correct.
Now. Let’s try to substitute into this statement: You can be non-affirming without being anti-queer. Version 1: “You can think queer people and their allies are excluded from being Christians without being anti-queer.” Version 2: “You can think it is a sin and morally wrong to be queer or act upon being queer without being anti-queer.” Version 3: “You can think someone’s exact interpretation of scripture in a pro-queer way is incorrect without being anti-queer.” That last one seems vague. What does it mean? People disagree on exact interpretations even when they fundamentally agree on the outcome. I don’t really think it’s a useful definition. But really, that split of “being right or wrong” in interpretation doesn’t explain one’s actual views. In that case, you also can’t be broadly affirming or non-affirming, only on a denominational or person-by-person level. So let’s try re-wording that: “You can think the only correct interpretation of scripture is one that is anti-queer without being anti-queer.”
Which of those potential definitions allows you to be non-affirming and somehow not anti-queer? The answer is: none of them. “It is wrong to be gay” is an inherently anti-gay statement. “It is wrong to be trans” is an inherently anti-trans statement. “It is wrong to be queer” is a belief that is itself anti-queer.
Interestingly, one defense in levied out was the idea that one can hold to a personal ethic and belief while still, politically speaking at least, be pro-LGBT. These would be like people who view abortion as a horrible sin but don’t want the government legislating based on their personal religious conviction. Now, when compared to people who are personally anti-queer and politically anti-queer, of course that’s better. But does that make them not anti-queer? No. Because they still believe it is incorrect to be LGBT. That belief is inherently anti-queer. Espousing that belief in inherently anti-queer. One of the reponses levied to someone pointing that out was to say some non-affirming people are nice, and some affirming people are actually anti-queer assholes. But being anti-queer means you cannot be affirming, regardless of whatever label you pretend to apply to yourself. And yes, people who are homophobic can be nice. People who are racist can be nice. People who are murderers can be nice. People who spend their lives dedicated to helping and healing people can be absolute assholes. That does not change the core of their beliefs.
In the brief back and forth about definitions, a well-meaning person brought up that there are non-affirming people who believe that celibacy is the best option for queer people, and he wasn’t going to label them homophobic. Yet, that belief, that it is wrong to act on being gay, is literal homophobia. When I pointed this out, neither he nor the OP responded. But a non-affirming person did. And his response is that homophobia is a -phobia and that fear obviously doesn’t fuel people who think being queer or acting on being is against God’s will. He insisted that queerphobia is only when people are advocating for discrimination or violence. And this is the semantic game that homophobes love to play. I was once told by a woman advocating for the biblical stoning of gay people that she wasn’t being homophobic because she wasn’t scared of gay poeple. They play this little game because they think it’s a fun little gotcha. By making fun of the language, they play off its actual definition and are able to distance themselves from the negative connotation of their bigotry. When you say you can be non-affirming without being anti-queer, you’re avoiding using their synonyms. “You can be queerphobic without being queerphobic” is a phrase that means nothing.
The OPs responses to disagreements I think are also illuminating. Over and over comes the idea that non-affirming people believe queer people are living in error, but that’s not queerphobia, which is the belief that it’s wrong to be queer. Which is nonsense. One person said that disagreeing on matters of theology is fine, but not on matters of personhood. You cannot lovingly disagree with someone being gay. The OP disagreed and responded that “the gays are not beyond reproach.” While constantly whining about bad faith, that seems to be a bad faith interpretation of that response. Any individual person is capable of critique and being wrong or being kind. Being gay and being trans are not things that one can lovingly disagree with. They are not choices, not that they’d be wrong if they were, and there is nothing to reproach unless you think it’s fine to say that being gay is an inherent wrong. It’s in that response that I think the OPs actual belief comes out: there’s nothing wrong with being anti-queer. It’s fine. As long as it’s a sincere belief, bigotry is fine.
Someone else brought up the idea of saying you can be non-affirming and not be anti-queer is like saying you can be against interracial marriage and not be racist. OP rolled her eyes. The guy who who dishonestly played games with the definition of homophobia resented that. Of course being gay and being Black are not the same historic political struggle, though they are deeply entwined, and a lot of racism is based on ideas of Black people being wrongly gendered somehow. The point in this comparison was to say that being against interracial marriage is obviously racist. The theology you espouse to get there doesn’t matter; you’re still racist. Being against gay marriage makes you inherently homophobic. The theology you espouse to get there does not change that. You do not choose your race. You do not choose whether or not you’re queer. But this comparison was mocked because the only way to get around it is to mock the very idea rather than engage with it.
Of course, someone who wasn’t mocked and eyerolled was someone who’s response was “Yeah! Saying being homophobic is homophobic alienates Black churches.” Which. There are homophobic Black Christians. They don’t get a pass on homophobia because they’re Black. What kind of infantalizing nonsense is that? Black people also aren’t more susceptible to anti-queer bigotry than white people. That was just a weird response.
So what happens when people push back against this idea and calling being anti-queer being anti-queer? We start talking about kindness and grace. So here’s my position: You should always try your best to not be an asshole. We are all human beings. We all are capable of great good and great harm, and it’s up to us to grow and try better and extend grace when we’re capable of it. So, do I think you’re irredeemable and incapable of loving if you’re a homophobe? No. But you’re still a homophobe. Your beliefs are still shameful.
But saying that then gets interpreted by OP and others as fundamentalism. “You can’t critique the in-group and its beliefs. You’re using shame.” So okay. I agree, shame isn’t the best, it’s generally not useful. So instead: queerphobic beliefs harm people. It is wrong to harm people. And no, you cannot critique the state of being queer. That is plain bigotry, and your beliefs, your anti-queer beliefs, do not deserve respect. You, as a human person, deserve empathy and kindness. Your beliefs, which are anti-human, anti-empathy, anti-queer, do not deserve empathy and kindness. A sincere belief in bigotry does not remove the bigoted aspect of the belief.
But the counter is that there is a negative connotation to the words “homophobe” and “anti-queer” and “transphobe” and so on. Using them, then, one might argue, isn’t showing kindness. But here’s the thing: why are we playing this game? Why is the OP so dedicated to running defense for queerphobes under the pretense of simply advocating humility?
It’s because we love people who harm us. We love people who believe harmful things about us. We love homophobes and transphobes, and recognizing that they are queerphobic is painful. It makes that love complicated and messy. That’s scary. So we downplay it.
Speaking of downplaying anti-queer bigotry:
2. Revoice
June of 2023 saw the annual Revoice Conference take place in St. Louis, Missouri. Hundreds of LGBT Christians gathered together to worship and revel in having a space to be able to talk about their faith whilst being safe in acceptance and community with their fellows.
Right?
Right???
Imagine a box. Inside of the box, imagine spikes. Large ones line the floor. Medium ones line the left wall. Small spikes line the right wall, but there are none on the ceiling and none on top of the box. Now, if you will, imagine a connection between the right and top lines. Maybe it’s a loose rope. Walk across the box. You’re going to choose to walk the top of the top line.
There are, generally speaking, four perspectives when it comes to views on sexuality in Christian circles. Those views are called Sides. We have Side A, Side B, Side X, and Side Y. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, have a fun guessing game and imagine how you would label the spiky box. Got it?
Let’s lay out the box as a line. From left to right, we can go in alphabetical order. A, B, X, Y. That’s how I would label the box.
So what do they all mean? For those who don’t know, let’s, again, define some terms:
Side A is the easiest to remember. A for Affirming. It’s the position that being LGBT+ is not a sin, and our relationships are not sin. There’s a lot of assumption that Side A must be progressive or deconstructed Christianity. While I can imagine that, likely, progressives make up a large amount of Side A, simply being affirming doesn’t prevent someone from believing in things such as purity culture and other conservative Christian ethics that I personally believe are harmful but aren’t truly relevant to this discussion.
Side B encompasses the belief that being LGBT is not a sin and neither is using identifying language. A Side B person can call themselves gay, and that’s fine. What they cannot do, however, is pursue any non-straight sexual relationship or marriage. Acting on being LGBT, in their minds, is a sin. You may be asking, does this affect trans people? Side B doesn’t seem to have a definitive answer, many people on twitter for instance simply dodging the question, but my assumption would be the view is being trans is not a sin, yet transtitioning is. Whether that means surgery or social transition is anyone’s guess.
Side Y, the next step, also, generally speaking, does not view being LGBT as a sin. It is simply a state of being. Or, as they might put it, a specific temptation towards disorder or towards sin. Unlike Side B, though, Y does not like identity language. You cannot call yourself gay. That would be identitfying with sin. Besides TERFs, they’re the most likely group to use the term SSA, which stands for same-sex attraction. Someone “has” SSA rather than “is” gay. Or, more likely, they “struggle” with it.
Side X, the far end of the spectrum, is also pretty easy to remember. X for EX-gay. For them, being LGBT is sin. It’s also a choice. It can change. It should change. They’re proponents of conversion therapy, removal from public life, and so on.
So we have our box. A. B. Y. X. No spikes, little spikes, spikes, big spikes. Now, if you’re Side B yourself, you might be bristling at being associated with spikes at all. That’s okay. But I hope you’ll stick around. Because though I think your theology is harmful and cruel, I do only have good wishes for you. I only have good wishes for everyone. And maybe, just maybe, you’re the only ones who can change Revoice for the better.
Because Revoice is not what it claims.
And neither is Side B. Because while some conservatives may critique Side B for being too gay, the truth is, they operate within the same toxic beliefs and systems. They’re the Log Cabin Republicans of religious homophobia.
One thing you’ll see if you look into conversations with Side B people on social media is a continual statement that Side B is not a monolith.
One person who makes this clear over and over on his twitter is Grant Hartley, a Side B Christian who hosted a breakout event this year at the Revoice conference. Hartley discusses how he dislikes the “affirming vs non-affirming” labels because he feels they don’t entirely encapsulate the experience of Side B people. He says Side B affirms your ability to exist as a queer person. That being queer is not wrong. It affirms that God made you holy and inspired. You are loved. It simply says you can’t get gay marriage. And you can’t have gay sex. Which is, funnily enough, homophobia. Because Side B, like a record, is the flip side of A. It is, by definition, non-affirming. You may be gay, but your relationships must never go as far as straight people’s. Because it is lesser. Because they think being queer and acting on it is wrong. But acknowledging that is painful, because non-affirming is a negative statement. It’s like a gentle, clinical way of calling someone a homophobe.
I’ve seen Grant’s tweets for a few years now. By all means, he seems like a joyful, positive soul. I actually pretty well like him as a person, and his persona seems genuine and good. It’s simply too bad that he’s a homophobe.
In one thread on Twitter discussing the different beliefs amongst the Side B crowd, Hartley said that some queer Christians might be called to marriage. Only, not gay marriage. He talks about a thing called “mixed-orientation marriages.” For those not used to the term, you might think it applies to any mixture of sexualities, but that’s not accurate for this conversation. It specifically applies to a gay or primarily gay person marrying someone of the opposite gender. A gay man marrying a woman or vice-versa. Celibacy or straight marriage, Hartley says. If you’re very old like me, you might remember “just marry a woman” from the marriage equality debates when people like notorious bigot Antonin Scalia argued that gay people have the right to marry: the right to get straight married. Mixed-orientation marriages do not work. That’s not to say the marriage won’t be good. Maybe it will. But it doesn’t make you straight. What it does do is function as a well-known form of attempted and failed conversion therapy. But because acknowledging that history would be to connect Side B to Side X, many people choose to pretend that connection isn’t there.
Hartley does talk about the joys of queer culture. He talks about how some queer romantic things can be good. But only some. And some might tempt you to wanting sex. Or marriage. Which are bad. Because God doesn’t like gay matrimony. Oh. And while he doesn’t advocate for conservative queerphobic politicians, he espouses a theology that is anti-queer. But it hurts, so he pretends it’s something else.
But Grant was merely a host of a breakout conference at Revoice. That’s one person.
Revoice founder Nate Collins is a self-described gay man in a mixed orientation marriage. Well. Bigoted asshole Bethel McGrew wrote a homophobic and transphobic screed against Revoice. In it, though, one of her complaints is that Collins doesn’t distinguish gay relationships as uniquely bad compared to opposite sex marriages. Instead, according to her, he argues that all relationships that aren’t a husband and a wife are disordered. What we can take away from that is he’s a gay man who views gay relationships as wrong and against the natural order of things.
In a May 25th tweet this year, Collins said “It will suffice to say that I believe all sin–including gay sex–is a perversion.” So, for Collins, it’s fine for gay people to exist. But our relationships are disordered and acting upon our orientations is a sin. That makes him non-affirming, and non-affirming is anti-queer, because he is homophobic.
How about Bekah Mason, Director of Care & Content? Well, in a 2013 blog about the fight for gay marriage, she response was that Christians should stop participating in legal marriage. She says that marriage should be a church thing and the government should do legal unions. “The gays are doing it, which is wrong, but we should be consistent and stop doing it,” is her argument. She also said, “I don’t agree with same-sex relationships because I do believe that they do not fall in line with God’s designed purpose for intimate, sexual relationships.”
In a 2018 post before speaking at the first Revoice, Mason says gay people who are like “don’t be a bigot” and bigots who are like “gay people are bad and should disappear” are extremists who hurt people like her, who think acting on be gay is bad and should disappear and acting upon homosexuality closes off your soul from finding true love with Jesus and also you can’t be an affirming Christian. In other words, Mason says, “I’m non-affirming, and anti-queer, but I’m not a homophobe. I’m reasonable.” Does that sound familiar from the tweet that started this video? It’s dishonesty. It’s hiding bigotry by pretending that saying it’s okay to be queer and have queer relationships is just as harmful and bad as employing conversion therapy tactics.
So we’re two for two on their board for being homophobes. Revoice’s website only lists one other person. Who is that? Director of Community Care, Art Pereira. Art appeared on the YouTube channel of transphobic moron Preston Sprinkle to talk about being a celibate gay Christian. Art’s story is heartbreaking. He discusses his history of religious trauma, his parents’ homophobia, and his experience with conversion therapy. As he was pulling away from the horrors of ex-gay brain washing that fundamentalism and conversion torture had done to him, Art struggled with his sexuality and the undeniable fact that he is gay. God won’t change him. He says he read a book by Wesley Hill and then sat with the Bible. He hoped to be affirming, but he didn’t end up there because he thinks God disapproves of queer relationships. To properly love and serve Jesus as a gay person, to Art, you have to be celibate. Because gay relationships are wrong. Because moving all the way to affirmation would alienate the community Art had built in the days when he was captured entirely by religious anti-queer bigotry, and accepting himself and his potential relationships would be too difficult. It would be accepting that all of that pain had no reason. It was only pain. He says that if God is good, then what God wants must be good, and so therefore celibacy must be good. But that’s not logical. If God is good and what God wants must therefore be good, then the conclusion is not “this thing must be good.” The conclusion is: if this thing produces good results, then it’s what God wants. If it does not, it is not. The ideas of eternal celibacy broke Art’s heart. Telling queer people they are broken and disordered harms them. It kills them. There is no good fruit. Side B theology is not good, and therefore, using their own logic, cannot be what God wants.
So that’s what the three named board members of Revoice think. All three are homophobic. They’re non-affirming. But maybe that doesn’t translate directly into Revoice.
There’s a section on the Revoice website, “Our Beliefs,” with a page called “Sexual Ethics & Christian Obedience” that’s just a continuous homophobic screed. Revoice says marriage is only for one man and one woman and they mean that with so-called “biological sex” in mind. They say, “any inward cultivation or outward expression of sexual desire apart from one-flesh bond between husband and wife is out of accord with God’s creational intent, and therefore against his good and gracious will.” You may pause and say: wait. Isn’t this purity culture? Isn’t this shaming people for having sexual thoughts? Isn’t it implying that masturbation and self-exploration are wrong? Isn’t it saying that fantasizing is wrong? What does inward cultivation really mean in terms of sexuality? “Anything that isn’t homophobic is bad,” is what it seems like. But let’s reverse engineer the last bit about being against God’s good will using Art’s logic. If God is good so what he wants is good and thereby celibacy is good, then queerness, which isn’t what he wants, must thereby be bad.
Maybe I’m moving too fast. They can still identify as being gay! There’s no statement about conversion therapy. Well. Just wait.
Here’s a purely homophobic statement from revoice. It’s their third paragraph. It’s eliminationist and professes a holy conversion therapy that will be forced when the glorious Rapture comes.
“We believe that sin entered the world as a result of the rebellion of Adam and Eve and now permeates every aspect of creation, including human sexuality. Along with every form of sexual desire apart from the one-flesh bond between husband and wife, we believe that same-sex sexual desire experienced by gay, lesbian, bisexual, and other same-sex-attracted people is a product of the Fall; that same-sex sexual desire was not a pre-Fall reality; and that same-sex sexual desire will not exist in the new creation, after the return of Christ.”
Translation: our human attempts at conversion therapy have failed. But when Jesus comes, he’ll use his divine power to destroy queerness. If that’s what your God will do, then your God deserves nothing, least of all worship. Revoice doesn’t simply believe that acting on being gay is wrong. No one does, because that doesn’t make any sense. Here they reveal their actual core belief: being queer is wrong. God does not like it. It was never intended, and if there was no sin, there would be no queerness. In the Christian utopia of Revoice, there will be no queer people. We will be “cured.”
They say:
“We believe that Christians must actively resist and turn away from every thought, action, desire, or behavior that does not align with God’s revealed intentions for human sexuality, since we are not our own, but belong–body and soul, both in life and in death–to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.”
That is the core thought of people who proclaim they “struggle” with same-sex attraction, a phrase you’ll generally only ever seen used by anti-gay religious assholes or by anti-trans TERF assholes. They see queerness as a burden. They see it as a sin that must actively be fought against. Gay thoughts are wrong and must be resisted. Not just for sex, but for romance. For marriage. To be gay is to constantly struggle against a desire that is Sinful and Bad. This is the conference for Side B Christians, a group of people who constantly complain about getting attacked from both sides, bigots upset that they’ve moved an inch towards affirmation and from queer people who are upset that they’re embracing fucking anti-queer bigotry. “Won’t people please see us as the moderates, we who think being queer is wrong and sinful and hated by God who will relieve of us this desire at the End?” To agree with Revoice is to say, “I still long to be straight. One day, this pain will have been worth it, because I will be straight.”
But you won’t be. Because if there is a God, and if that God is good, that god is not a goddamned conversion therapist.
But they have to label it this way, because the alternative is too painful for them. The alternative is that their pain is not holy. That suffering has no greater purpose. And that this whole time, they could have chosen love and joy.
3. The Painful Love of Asceticism
One previous speaker of Revoice is Pieter Valk. Valk is the Director of Equip, a LGBT church outreach group who alos believes being queer is a wrong and sinful development that God doesn’t like and is a symptom of a broken world. They say God can do conversion therapy, but we silly humans are bad at it. They say all gay sex AND explicitly gay marriage is a sin.
So Pieter runs a homophobic hate group guiding churches on how to better pretend their bigotry is nicer now than it used to be. But Pieter also wrote an article for Preston Sprinkles website “The Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender,” where he decries the documentary Pray Away. Pray Away focuses on the ex-gay movement and it’s tremendous harm. In the article, Pieter reveals that he went through conversion therapy, and his parents even asked once if he was “fixed.” Pieter correctly sees how conversion therapy is a horrid practice that does not work. He’s sad and upset though that the documentary displays the opposite of conversion therapy, affirming, as good. “There’s Side B, too!” he wants to shout though without mentioning that he leads a group that believes God can do conversion therapy and would maybe even like to and that he has spoken at a group that believes God WILL do conversion therapy on all the queers in the future. He thinks affirmation is harmful, because some people stop being conservative trads. Some even stop being Christians. Some deconstruct. That’s terrible, he thinks, so therefore all queer people must eternally be celibate. It’s “the middle way.”
Valk sees the separation from tradition as bad and painful. To affirm queer people will be to say, “People have suffered for hundreds of years under this teaching for no reason.” It is to say, “People currently suffering under this teaching are hurting for no reason.” It is to say, “There’s no reason for this struggle to be a struggle.” The ex-gay movement harmed him. But he has built a life surrounded by people who love him who cannot accept queerness, so therefore it is too scary to believe that it’s okay to be gay. There must be a way to be homophobic without getting the label of homophobe. He would love that tweet from the start of the video.
Let’s also consider David Bennett, a Side B Christian who freaked out over the Church of England becoming marginally less bigoted earlier this year. In an article for Premiere Christianity, David says that gay marriage is bad and stupid and that acting on being queer is a sin. The options for gay people are celibacy or mixed-orientation marriage, that bullshit “just get straight married” conversion therapy nonsense, because David is a bigot. For David, the Church of England blessing gay couples is a rejection of him. It harms him. It’s wrong and evil and rejects God and reality and no Christian can be affirming and be a Christian.
In that article and a bunch of tweets, David went on and on about feeling like Jesus, persecuted and spending such heavy unappreciated sacrifices. David believes that allowing other options invalidates his choice, because he does not view celibacy as a choice. He thinks he must be celibate or marry a woman by his very nature and presenting another option means he has suffered for no reason. He cannot abide by that. To provide that he is not forced to be celibate to be holy means that he could have chosen not to be. That God did not demand his supposed martyrdom. That he suffered for no reason.
I’ve talked about this before, but I think it’s really important to understanding a lot of things going on in the world, especially in regards to religion and philosophy. Valk, Bennett, and Side B practitioners in general are ascetisicts. They believe that self-denial is a holy act. I had a Catholic queer friend once upon a time who vehemently disagreed with me when I said that suffering is wrong. She equated suffering with self-denial, to “suffer like Christ.” The basis for a lot of beliefs is that we are inherently evil, and joy is not good. Obedience is good. Sacrifice is good. Self-denial is good. Suffering is good. Because ultimately you do not belong to yourself. You are a sinner.
To say that suffering is simply suffering, nothing more and nothing less, calls into question their entire reasons for believing what they do. If God is Good, what he wants must be Good. If what he wants results in suffering, that suffering must be good. But that’s the wrong flow of logic. If God is Good and therefore what he wants must be Good, then what he wants must bear good fruit. Suffering is not good fruit. It’s only suffering.
4. God is Dead
Let’s go back to that original question. Can you believe that is a sin to either be queer or act on being queer without being anti-queer? No. “Non-affirming” is the opposite of affirming. The opposite of accepting being and expressing queerness is being anti-queer. The original tweeter is simply incorrect and is attempting to redefine homophobia and transphobia to mean “outwardly hateful in their bigotry.” But that’s not what queerphobia is. Queerphobia is the idea that it is wrong to be LGBT. It is the idea that it is wrong to act on being LGBT. You cannot be unaffirming without being anti-queer. I’m sorry that that is hard for her and other people who have to pretend elsewise.
In the defense of that position, there’s the conclusion over and over again that there are kind non-affirming people. Therefore, they can’t be anti-queer. They then claim that this is adding nuance, but it’s actually papering over nuance. Nice people can still hold bigoted beliefs. That does not mean their beliefs are value neutral. Being anti-queer is still harmful. It still drives depression and suicidality. “Your existence is in error by the nature of your ability to love without harming others and by your conception of self,” is not a statement one can make without causing harm. Non-affirming is anti-queer. It harms queer people. Nice people can still harm others.
There was a belief there that kindness and grace must mean that calling out homophobia in all its forms is ridiculous. It is laughable to point to anti-queer beliefs and call them harmful. The people who hold those harmful beliefs are sincere and capable of love, afterall. It’s likely we all have people important to us who have anti-queer sentiments, religious or otherwise. They might still love us. We might still love them. Calling out the harm they do is scary because “You are harming me” is a statement that risks a relationship. “Your homophobia harms me,” might make the homophobic person feel bad and defensive. And that is difficult and hard to think about. It’s like coming out all over again after we’ve established some sort of fragile peace.
We pretend that people preaching Side B Christianity, the Revoices of the world who think God will rid all queerness from humanity one day, aren’t queerphobic. But they are. Pretending elsewise is just that, pretending. It alleviates some of the tension of loving people despite the harm they cause us. But denying the harm doesn’t evaporate it.
Side B Christians are homophobes. Side Y Christians are homophobes. Side X Christians are homophobes. Christians who believe transitioning is wrong are transphobic. Christians who believe there is only male and female are enby-phobic. Christians who hold that there are gendered souls and complimentarianism are transphobic. And, when it boils down to it, being queerphobic makes you sexist.
Suffering is bad. That’s the end of the story.
If your God cannot tolerate queer love, then you and your god are homophobic. If they cannot tolerate trans people, then they are transphobic. If your God is queerphobic, you don’t have to follow them. Because that is a bad god. If your God leads you to believe that you should suffer, that suffering is holy, that is a bad god.
And if your God is non-affirming, they are anti-queer. And if your God is anti-queer, then get a better one.
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