Our ability to love is not our downfall

Last year, theologian Doug Wilson — a big, homophobic name in the world of Christianity — came to campus to lecture, and I wrote a column titled, “I’m a survivor, alright?” that identified him as an example of an adult bully facilitated by Christian apologism and those on the worse side of the spectrum.

It’s unfortunate that as far as Christian voices in media go, the loudest ones are always the bigoted ones — the intolerant, irrational and ignorant.

Speaker R.C. Sproul is no exception. Falling in this category, the speaker is coming to Ballantine Hall on Friday to give a lecture so quaintly called “Abortion: America’s Holocaust,” thanks to Clearnote Campus Fellowship.

But when it comes to people like this — people who misrepresent the Christian community — it’s important not to respond with a hatred that would be no better than theirs. They are wrong, but they are not all bad.

Sproul, however, believes homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God and that homosexuality is, as he puts it, “a gross and heinous sin.”

Just thinking about language here, I’d like to point out that he discredits his own standpoint, as I think I stopped using the word “gross” to win my arguments when I was in third grade.

What’s more upsetting, though, is that Sproul preaches that if an LGBT person would like to go to heaven, he must revoke his own sexual orientation.

This makes about as much sense as me prompting Sproul to join me for a night at Boystown so long as he dresses in full drag and takes a boy home for the night.

Homosexuality is irrevokable. It is inherent. You cannot pray the gay away.

I should know. I spent six years of my life trying to do so — trying to come to terms with the monster I was led to believe I was thanks to religious figures in my life like Sproul.

If you are gay and Christian, I urge you not to listen to bullies like Sproul. LGBT-friendly churches and pastors are littered across the world, in public and in hiding, adapting an old book to a new social climate (a book that is predated by marriage, mind you, and therefore has no say in defining it).

If your religion is associated with hatred, it is in your power to shift that identity. It’s not Christians vs. gay people but love vs. hate. Both are on either side.

We’re on the right side of history, and Sproul is left in ancient times — times without Internet.

In his own words, “A curious combination of fiber optics and silicon has given us a technology that has carpet bombed the last great defense against sexual perversion, shame.”

The Human Rights Campaign devotes a whole branch of its organization to mobilizing LGBT people of faith.

In light of a diverse world, we cannot essentialize. We cannot assume that Christians hate gays and that gays should hate Christians.

I have the most conservative, religious parents you can imagine, but they’ve loved meeting my boyfriends, and they’ll be the first to support me in my LGBT endeavors.

Sproul is an essentialist, and he is wrong. He says God made marriage between man and a woman, but he fails to take into account 3.8 percent of the population.

He fails to consider men who like to dress up as women and vice versa, men and women trapped in the wrong bodies, and the 200 or so intersex children born every single day.

If you are gay, transgender, intersex or queer, I can tell you that you too can inherit the kingdom of God, whether you want to or not.

Your ability to love is not your downfall, and I urge queer people across the spectrum to be more open-minded to Christian ideals that are not like Sproul’s.

And the ones that are, well, let’s hope that God bestows on him a gay child so that he can learn to love and grow up.

­— ftirado@indiana.edu