Love the sinner, hate the sin.

Apparently, there have been buses in Toronto carrying advertising from a company called Bus Stop Bible Studies that asks, "Does God care that I'm gay?" including a link to a website (which has since been replaced with a whiny rant about how persecuted Christians are).

However, I read on Box Turtle Bulletin that the original content of the page stated that while being gay is a sin, it's a sin no less terrible than being a murderer or a adulterer. This sounds reasonable at first blush, right?

Actually, no, it doesn't. People choose to murder or be unfaithful; people don't choose to be gay. Drawing a parallel like this is misleading and untrue.

I'm personally offended that something like this was allowed in Canada. We have a very good track record with the GLBTQ community; we were the first country in the Western hemisphere to both pass hate crime legislation and legalize same-sex marriage, and we're still the only country to have the latter country-wide. With the exception of Alberta, all of Canada seemed to accept (and in some parts of the country, welcome) these changes; to have something anti-gay like this posted on a bus for all to see angers and frustrates me. While I understand that Christians have as much of a right to free speech as I do, when you compare me being in a loving, devoted relationship with another man to someone who sleeps around on his wife it's bound to piss me off.

Not only that, but all an advertisement like this would do is confuse vulnerable gay men and women. Gay men and lesbians who have been indoctrinated into Christianity by their parents are already confused, and seeing an article such as this, comparing them to killers and cheaters, would bruise their damaged psyches even further.

It really hurts me to see that the whole "Christian" notion of "love the sinner, hate the sin" is still in effect, because it's patently false. There's no such thing as loving the sinner when it comes to homosexuality; America, the so-called "Christian Nation", proved this. If that was true, then why would Oklahoma be trying to nullify the Matthew Shepherd Hate Crimes Bill in their state? (Hilarious story, by the way. They picked the wrong part of the U.S. code and ended up removing all hate-crime protections except the ones for gay people.)

At any rate, I'm frustrated that Toronto allowed these ads to be placed on their buses and am happy that the page has been replaced, even if these so-called Christians are now pissing and moaning about how their free speech is being trodden upon. They may have had the best intentions in mind, but in reality it came across as condescending.

Comments are always welcome, and I very much appreciate the ones I've already received! Thank you Lou, Angela and Jayden!