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Who is LGBT?

LGBT typically stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. Sometimes other letters or a plus sign are added to include everyone who is not heterosexual or cisgender. In the context it's being used here, LGBT means anyone who does not fit into the expected norms of sexuality or gender. Those norms are: being exclusively attracted to the opposite sex (straight) and identifying as your biological sex (cisgender). Anyone not fitting that has faced the same condemnation seen here, whether asexual, intersex, or any other variations. However, since the main focus of "sin" is aimed at those attracted to their own sex, that is the main issue addressed here.

Is being LGBT a sin?

A surprising number of Christians believe that being LGBT is a sin. But sin is an action, not a person. For example, if I were to suddenly punch you in the face, that would be a sin, but neither my fist nor your face would be a sin. Similarly, planning in my brain to commit a crime would be a sin, but my brain itself would not be. Both my hands and brain are just as capable of doing loving things.

All people can and do sin, but simply existing or being different can not be a sin. Still, since this is such a common belief, let's explore the primary reason that some Christians cite for believing being LGBT is a sin: the belief that the Bible condemns being LGBT.

Adam and Eve

The story of Adam and Eve in the Bible and is an account of the first two humans. Some Christians have argued that the existence of Adam and Eve as the earliest humans somehow invalidates the existence of anyone who is not called to be heterosexual and procreate. You may have heard this stated as "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve."

However, Adam and Eve's children intermarried, Abraham married his sister and another woman, Jacob his two cousins at the same time, etc, but does that mean that the Bible says we should all practice incest and polygamy? No, of course not. The Bible is simply telling the story of certain people at certain points in history. Readers often insert their own bias into scripture when they make history into something it clearly is not, such as the argument that because Eve was made from Adam's rib that transgender people don't exist.

Most of what the Bible says is simply retelling of events. For example, many argue that the command "be fruitful and multiply" speaks against not being heterosexual, but that command is only stated twice in the Bible; when there was only Adam and Eve's family on earth and then when there was only Noah's family on earth. It is never commanded again, so this can not be used as an argument for why everyone must find a mate of the opposite sex and breed.

The truth is that the Bible is clear that we all have different paths in life, as seen in statements like Paul's in 1 Corinthians 7, that it is better not to have sex ever. Obviously this doesn't mean no one should ever have sex, but in context that celibacy is a gift for some people. It's like the argument "if everyone were gay, people would stop existing". No one is arguing everyone should be LGBT, but some argue everyone should be straight cisgender and forced to breed against their will. There is no biblical evidence that we are all called to be like the first humans and in fact many verses say the opposite. So many men, women and children continue to suffer because of being pressured into heterosexual relationships and breeding because we've made an idol out of a biological instinct to procreate and justify it by falsely claiming it's really God commanding it.

The attempt to take some parts of the Bible out of context and ignore the rest, such as to say God made Adam and Eve period or God made male and female period doesn't work, because the Bible also says God made everyone else, which naturally includes Steve and another guy named Adam. God made Adam and Eve and Adam and Steve too.

The New Testament also says there is no male and female but we are all one in Christ (Galatians 3), so one should always be skeptical of "the Bible says this period and that's why I believe it" when really it's "this is the part of the Bible I'm going to take out of context and apply to everyone because that way I can make the Bible fit what I believe."

Sodom

The story of Sodom and it's destruction in Genesis 18-19 is the oldest and most famous biblical account used to condemn homosexuals. In fact, it's where the word sodomite and the idea of sodomy laws comes from. The specific part referenced is when angels visit Lot and a mob attempts to gang rape what they think are invading strangers.

Some have argued that Lot saying the attempted gang rape is "a wicked thing" shows homosexuality or even homosexual people are "wicked", but there's no getting around that it was attempted rape. The mob threatens Lot directly that they'll treat him "worse" if he doesn't move aside, meaning they knew it was an act of cruelty, not consent or even desire. It was a punishment. The verses have been there plain as day for millennia, but yet the prejudice has been so prevalent that they were ignored.

While this may seem odd today, rape of outsiders and enemies was actually a common practice in ancient times. Conquering soldiers would often rape the men of the conquered villages, sometimes to humiliate them and sometimes with sticks covered in spikes to torture them. Being a receptive participant in anal sex has long been seen in patriarchal cultures as "feminine" and therefore "weak". The rapists would of course still consider themselves heterosexual.

This is also illustrated in the later passages that mention Sodom, repeatedly referring to its inhabitants as inhospitable to strangers. Although many reasons are given for its destruction, including being wealthy but ignoring the poor and being unkind to widows and orphans (Ezekiel 16), no passages mention homosexuality or male-male intercourse, let alone attractions or loving relationships. In fact, none mention the attempted gang rape, implying that it was merely a part of the often repeated inhospitality to strangers. So, it's completely unbiblical to claim that what the Bible doesn't say about Sodom is actually the sin of Sodom and not what the bible really says.

A similar event to this occurs later in Judges 19-20, however this time a female outsider is actually gang raped and, since no angels intervene this time, she is gang raped to death. Interestingly, this event is never mentioned by those who believe that Sodom was destroyed because of homosexuality. Gibeah was also destroyed following the gang rape, so would it not be logical to conclude that, if attempted gang rape of angels condemns homosexuals, the gang rape of the Levite woman would condemn heterosexuals? After all, if gang rape that results in a city's destruction is the same as a person falling in love with someone of the same sex, surely it cuts both ways and condemns opposite sex couples too. Anything else would be hypocritical and downright deceitful.

Even if someone sincerely does not understand the difference between consent and rape or is so biased that they can't figure it out in this case and they are in need of a serious education before they excuse rape, there is absolutely no excuse for comparing someone attracted to someone else to a rapist. Yet, throughout history parents have used Sodom as a reason to condemn their own children when they confess having a crush on someone of the same sex. People rarely choose their feelings. People choose to commit rape.

Old Testament Laws

There are over six hundred Jewish laws listed in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Of these, only two are used to condemn LGBT people. One is that men should not wear women's clothing and women should not wear men's clothing (Deuteronomy 22). The other is that men should not lay together in beds of women, typically translated as to have sex with each other as they do with a woman, generally assumed to refer to penetrative anal sex (Leviticus 18).

Some English translations use the word "abomination" or "detestable" to describe these acts, but those exact same translations also call pigs, shrimp, being a shepherd and a whole host of things the exact same words because the original Hebrew is the same word in each case, which literally means unclean and, by itself, an idol, as referenced in the previous and almost never mentioned verse in Leviticus 18, which shows the context is temple prostitution. Old Testament laws also forbid simply wearing mixed fabric and call Jewish customs "abominations" and "detestable" to the Egyptians and, when referenced in the New Testament, the term "unclean" is used.

While crossdressing or wearing mixed fiber blends is distinctly different than being transgender and same-sex attractions or relationships are not the same as having unprotected anal sex or treating a man like a woman sexually, which was considered degrading in ancient patriarchal cultures, many Christians still cite these verses to condemn people who have done none of those things. In fact, many often say God finds being LGBT "detestable" or an "abomination" and claim that means God "hates" being LGBT, yet would never call eating shrimp, bacon, or wearing their husband's shirt "detestable" or an "abomination" or claim playing football is "hated" by God even though the exact same words are used to describe each case.

While some people admit the actual meaning is "unclean" and that changing it in English translations to "detestable" or "abomination" while also ignoring what the New Testament says about unclean things being made clean, may be somewhat dishonest, most people are still unaware that the original Hebrew prohibitions of incest in Leviticus also changed, specifically to eliminate the possibility of perceiving it as being accepting of same-sex relationships.

We can see this in how the original text states not to uncover the nakedness (how the Old Testament often describes sex) of various relatives, including your mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, etc. Yet we then see how the wording was changed, saying things like "Do not have sex with your mother, she is your mother. Do not have sex with your father's wife, he is your father." and likewise saying "aunt" but then "uncle's wife" instead of the original "uncle." Adding "'s wife" was a rather cheap way to make it seem less accepting of non-incestuous same-sex relationships by making it all about heterosexuality. After all, you can't claim forbidding opposite-sex incest doesn't condemn all opposite-sex relationships while also claiming forbidding same-sex incest condemns all same-sex relationships, so it had to change to uphold the myth that the Bible condemns same-sex relationships. In fact, the Hebrew word describing the actual act seen as sex between two men in Leviticus 18 is only used elsewhere to describe incest, specifically in Genesis 49.

These changes mean that just two supposedly anti-LGBT Old Testament laws are mentioned by those who claim the Bible is anti-LGBT. Moreover, those laws are singled out with no mention of their context because they are next to laws that forbid planting two types of crops in a field, eating or touching a variety of animals, getting a haircut, and hundreds more. In fact, just three verses before the prohibition of unprotected anal sex is a prohibition of a man having sex with his wife too close to her menstruation cycle. Yet, how many Christians preach against having sex for a week and a half each month the way they do against "homosexuality"?

Also, many of these laws may sound mild today yet were punishable by exile or even death. So, unless someone is willing to advocate that the Bible says we must kill a woman who isn't a virgin on her wedding night, taking those two laws out of context to condemn LGBT people is extremely hypocritical.

It's no wonder Christ spent much of His ministry replacing Old Testament laws, including eye for an eye, hating your enemy, dietary restrictions, working on the Sabbath, divorce, adultery, acquiring wealth, and much more, by measuring them against love to follow the only true law, to love God and everyone as yourself. Many Christians believe that, when the Bible says Jesus fulfilled the law, Christians are no longer bound to the old law, as described in Paul's letter to Rome, but to the law of love.

Romans

The first chapter of Romans, which is a letter written by Paul to the church in Rome, is another popular passage used to condemn LGBT people. The section in question describes people in the temples of Rome worshiping idols in the shape of reptiles and birds. Those familiar with temple worship and sex orgies in ancient Rome may not find this surprising, but what follows is.

Each practice in the temples is described as a punishment, using language such as "for this reason" or "therefore, God gave them over". The progression starts with the first few commandments, including having other gods and making graven images, but progresses to heterosexual and homosexual sex acts and eventually murder. It is of course the brief mention of "unrestrained lust" or "all lust but no love" in these orgies, specifically for the same sex, that is used to condemn homosexuals, but more interesting still are the conclusions that many Christians draw.

In order to believe the first chapter of Romans condemns homosexuals, you must believe that homosexuality is 1) a punishment from God for worshiping idols and graven images in the shape of animals, 2) starts out as unrestrained heterosexual lust, 3) is solely about lust and orgies, 4) results in every sin imaginable, including murder, and 5) anyone who doesn't condemn them "is deserving of death." So, it should not be surprising that some Christians conclude that people turn gay when they abandon God and worship creation, do not feel genuine love, that they are murderers, possibly by spreading sexually transmitted diseases, and that anyone who supports them is damned to hell.

This view of Romans 1 is also why there are a number of Christians who believe that people with same-sex attractions are "reprobates" and were made gay as a punishment from God and can therefore never be saved. This mindset is also why suicide rates increase among LGBT youth if they are in households that believe people are made gay as a punishment from God.

However, people are born LGBT, homosexual included. Direct observation, witness testimonies and scientific data all support this. However, even if this were not true, not only do people not choose their sexuality, but the turning away from God happens after the rejection and condemnation. They turn away because they are rejected and condemned simply for being different. Also, LGBT people are capable of the same range of feelings as anyone else, including both love and lust. Although, they are more likely to be murdered than be a murderer.

If someone is going to condemn a whole group of people because the Bible says lust without love is wrong, surely all heterosexuals should be condemned, since the Bible condemns opposite-sex lust without love as well, in fact only a couple verses prior to the one cherry-picked to condemn gay people in Romans 1.

Why not say Romans 1 condemns opposite-sex couples too since it also condemns the same exact lust and practices between them too? Anything else would again be hypocritical and as deceitful as the way this passage is often twisted. In fact, the very next chapter of Romans condemns the previous chapter being used to single out others as worse sinners and the rest of Romans goes on to explain we are all equally sinful and in need of Christ. Singling out a verse and making up its context doesn't make that truth go away.

Marriage

Before same-sex marriage was legalized in the US, a common argument as to why same-sex couples are sinning by being together was the argument that sex outside marriage is wrong and same-sex couples can't marry, so therefore if they have sex in their relationship then their relationship is wrong.

Of course, not only did this reduce such relationships to sex acts and invalidate the vows same-sex couples made in private just between them and God, but it was dependant on constantly fighting to forbid same-sex couples from marrying just to keep claiming they're sinning. Yet, who was sinning, the couple who had been together decades finally able to legally marry or those fighting to prevent people from a union that promotes monogamy and faithfulness? This is why the argument was changed to how marriage is defined in the Bible once there was a prospect of same-sex marriage becoming legal.

At first this was done by talking about "traditional marriage" and saying two people of the same sex falling in love and wanting to spend their lives together shouldn't be allowed to marry because it wasn't traditional. However, since the "traditional" form of marriage throughout most of the Bible was a property arrangement where a man bought a wife from her father and could have as many wives as he could afford, the "traditional marriage" argument was scrapped in favor of marriage being defined as "between one man and one woman."

Since the Bible never explicitly defines marriage and the majority of marriages in the Bible are polygamous, it may seem odd that so many Christians today claim the Bible defines marriage as exclusively "between one man and one woman." To do this, they use Christ quoting Genesis 2 in Matthew 19 and Mark 10 and then say what Christ "really meant to say" since the Bible doesn't say what they want it to. There is no "one man and one woman" to quote from after all.

Of course, Christ was actually talking about why divorce and remarriage is wrong and the part taken out of context literally says that humans should not separate a couple that God has brought together. Yet, do those quoting this use it to condemn remarriage as adultery like Christ really said? No, instead they twist and misuse scripture to claim it's actually condemning same-sex couples instead. Moreover, they are using a message that explicitly says not to separate couples in order to separate any couple that doesn't fit what they believe God intended. They believe Christ saying not to separate couples through divorce really means to separate same-sex couples through forbidding marriage. So, at best they're being hypocritical and at worst deliberately deceptive.

While some admit Christ was talking about divorce when speaking of divorce, they argue that the quoted part, specifically Genesis 2, still defines marriage as between one man and one woman. However, the context of the verse in question is when God created Eve from Adam's rib and how men and women originating from one flesh is why they become one flesh again to procreate. For this to be the foundation of "biblical marriage," marriage literally becomes a sex act. Weddings, asexual or older people marrying without having sex, people seeking companionship, etc, would suddenly be outside "biblical marriage" and any man leaving his home to go hook up with a girl, married or not, would be "biblical marriage" since they become "one flesh" and that happening between a man and a woman supposedly defines marriage for everyone. Since this is obviously not true, then taking the passage out of context to claim it defines biblical marriage can't be true either.

Most Christians will agree that the first half of the quoted sentence in Genesis 2 is a generalization. After all, not every man leaves his father and mother to go off and become one flesh with a woman. Maybe he's already on his own or doesn't have living parents or only one parent, but we can all agree it doesn't invalidate their relationship. In fact, when this part of Genesis 2 is quoted again in Ephesians 5, it's immediately preceded by Paul saying no one hates his own flesh but instead nurtures it. This is obviously a generalization, as self harm and body dysphoria exists in some people. So why admit the Bible is filled with generalizations, even in the very sentence, but then claim one part is not only universal but that it defines a word not even mentioned in the sentence? This is obviously an attempt to twist the Bible to fit the belief that scripture enslaves us to all live a certain way rather than sets us free to live how God has called us to, loving one another not as a sex or gender, but as a person.

Some who acknowledge the limitations of this argument say that because Paul gave instructions to husbands and wives means he was forbidding any marriage that isn't a husband and a wife. However, they make this claim by taking small bits of what Paul wrote on marriage out if context and ignoring the rest. Paul was actually much more adamant that men and women shouldn't marry, as they tend to focus more on their physical spouse than serving God, and that even a man can be a bride and should live accordingly. Of course, you won't hear those arguing against same-sex marriage bring this up.

And, when Paul instructs husbands to love their wives and leaves out telling wives to love their husbands, does anyone really believe women shouldn't also love their husbands? If not, why limit the rest of what Paul wrote on marriage to reserved for the opposite sex, especially when so much is for families in general with no mention of gender or sex?

The ironic part is that the wedding vows that state that everything that is one spouse's is also the other's are stated between two men into the Bible and the wedding prayer that has been used for generations by countless of opposite-sex couples is from a vow made between two women in the Bible. To then turn things upside down and claim that not only do opposite-sex couples get to claim these vows for the own but that the Bible somehow forbids people of the same sex from using them when they too want to share their lives together is insulting to both LGBT people and to the Bible.

There are many Christians who have been taught to believe that because creation was perfect before the Fall, anything outside the confines of what is seen as "God's original intent" during creation is automatically a sin. For example, claiming that because the first humans were male and female and that is traditionally seen as the first married couple, anything else is therefore outside "real" marriage and God's plan and therefore wrong. Yet, Adam and Eve didn't have a wedding ceremony or exchange vows as we do today, so is it wrong that heterosexual couples mimic the same-sex vows from the Bible today? Adam and Eve didn't wear clothes and only ate plants. That was clearly God's original intent with creation, so are we sinning if we don't follow His intent by all becoming vegan nudists?

The problem is that this same argument has been used for generations to single out and condemn people as not being part of God's creation simply for being different or loving someone others say they shouldn't. Whether it's for being left handed, being gay, being trans, or just looking different, people naturally react out of fear and distrust toward differences and try to justify their reaction by saying they just don't approve because it's not perfect or not the original design. But there wasn't originally all these breeds of cats and dogs, yet their variety is no less amazing. Did God really have no part in that simply because the variety appeared so long after that perfect creation?

Some people fall in love with someone of the same sex instead of the opposite sex. They want to share their lives, their families, their hopes and dreams, and their future with that one person and grow old together abiding in love. Yet some people try so hard to stop them when truly they don't know if God has brought them together. They simply assume God is absent because a relationship doesn't fit what they've been taught is the only "right" relationship. Yet one only has to skim the Bible and see all the variety of relationships and realize everyone is different and that God obviously loves variety. Just look at the variety of creation. To try to limit that is what is truly against God's design.

The truth is that marriage is not simply some physical act of becoming one flesh but so much more. In fact, it's not just that polygamous and incestuous relationships were called marriage even by Christ using a parable of a man marrying many virgins, but we're told there's no male or female but all are one in Christ and Christians are even called the bride of Christ. That means that a Christian man is married to the male human form of God. Yes, two men are married and that's biblical. So, to obsess over the physical gender of people and over marriage being about sex is raising the physical too high. To pretend the Bible defines marriage as some limited physical union reserved for certain people rather than a spiritual connection for all God calls is definitely not biblical and no amount of redefining scripture can ever change that.

Other Verses

There are a small handful of verses that are also used to condemn LGBT people, but those passages discuss temple prostitution or child kidnapping in all but the recent anti-homosexual Bible translations. For this reason, many Christians avoid them unless they believe their modern translation represents the only version or they're just searching for condemnation on the internet and that's what comes up.

For example, in 1 Corinthians 6, after a long period of claiming it condemned masturbation, several modern interpretations now claim the two Greek words currently translated into English as "men who have sex with men" or "effeminate" and "those who defile themselves with mankind" are the active and passive partners in anal sex between men, but admit in the notes of those bibles that the word they claim is the passive partner actually refers to boys kidnapped for sex and the word they claim is the active partner actually refers to a man who organizes prostitution. This can be seen clearly in 1 Timothy 1, when the Greek word translators claim is the "passive" partner (kidnapped sex slaves) is missing and instead "kidnappers" appears next to "active" partner (literally pimp).

Some people claim the Bible doesn't condemn child molestation, but it turns out it actually originally did. The Greek word arsenokoites appears twice in the Bible and most historians agree Paul probably made it up. In 1 Corinthians it is paired with malakos, which the NJKV notes says means catamite or boys kidnapped into sex slavery, and in 1 Timothy is paired with kidnappers. In both cases kidnapping children into sex slavery is condemned. While it's possible scribes felt the wording of the Greek Corinthians passage could be used to condemn boys who are raped rather than the rapists themselves and so felt the need to change it, there is really no excuse to change it to "homosexuals" as in the NIV or "effeminate" as in the KJV.

Many people are under the false impression that molestation by priests is some recent phenomena that has plagued the Catholic Church, but it actually dates back before the Reformation that led to the split of Christianity into Catholic and Protestant. In fact, in 1521 and nearly a full century before the KJV, Martin Luther argued in "The Misuse of the Mass" that because priests were forbidden to marry, they would have sex in other ways, such as what he called "Ganymedes", which is a reference to the Greek myth of a young boy taken up to live with the gods because of his beauty.

This is just one example of how a few in the church who exploited children replaced the Bible's clear condemnation of their actions with one against a convenient scapegoat, be it feminine men, transgender women, or gay men. Other translators simply followed suit. So, in many bibles, modern translations simply put "homosexuals", so as to include not just men who don't have anal sex and so don't even fit into the easily discredited theory of the Greek words but also women who happen to be homosexual. They apparently believe God's Word needs to be "fixed" of it's oversights. Maybe they thought God is sexist and needed more female inclusion in His Word? Either way, it's a direct insult to God and His Word.

Interestingly enough, although the Bible clearly describes female sexual desire, sometimes graphically such as in verses like Ezekiel 23:20 or in the Song of Solomon, some modern translators translate male temple prostitutes as "homosexual" but leave female temple prostitutes alone, even when they appear in the same verse. This is because patriarchal culture has long believed that women have no sexual desires, only men. This is why, in the 1950s, Alfred Kinsey, after receiving praise for his studies revealing the diversity of male sexuality, was nearly blocked from studying female sexuality. Women and children were considered to be sexually innocent and the men in power feared seeing their wives and girls differently.

It wasn't until recently that Christians began using Romans 1 to condemn lesbians, as the original texts describe intercourse, possibly with animals or anally with men since women can't have intercourse with each other. Because of an unwillingness to see women as sexual, to this day that passage remains one of the only verse argued to condemn same-sex relations between women in its original form.

Studying Scripture

Since Jesus never spoke against homosexual people or relationships and the only interaction with someone in a same-sex relationship was positive, some claim that all mentions of "sexual immorality" or "fornication" are condemnations of homosexuality by saying that the Greek word porneia that Jesus used condemns all sinful sex acts. The idea is that homosexual sex is wrong because Jesus said sexual immorality is wrong and therefore Jesus really said being homosexual is wrong. But, not only is this a circular fallacy presenting a conclusion claiming to be it's own proof, but the Greek word it's translated from actually means prostitution and was used for sexual infidelity. This is yet another example of deliberately twisting scripture, this time raising the bar on deception by inserting words Jesus never said just so they can condemn one group of people and claim it's not really them but Christ.

Because of the gay rights movement, some translations that added "homosexual" after its invention changed it to "homosexual offenders" to narrow the meaning and seem less condemning. Many modern Christians believe that people being born LGBT is like being born with a temptation to sin, but if they act straight and cisgender their entire lives, they are remaining pure.

Therefore, to maintain the belief that the Bible condemns LGBT people to a life of lies, lies about the Bible's content are necessary. Moreover, it requires not mentioning all the verses that speak positively about LGBT people, such as the role of eunuchs, which would today be called LGBT. It also means avoiding positive portrayals of relationships between people of the same sex, such as the story of Jonathan's love for David and it being "greater than the love of women", the tender love of Daniel and Ashpenaz, Jesus praising the Roman centurion for his faith before healing his male partner, the familial love and commitment between Ruth and Naomi that led to the most often used wedding prayer of all time, and more.

In fact, as early as the first century translation of the Hebrew Bible (the Septuagint) that Paul uses in his letters to the early churches that make up much of what became the New Testament, references to same-sex relationships, including much of David and Jonathan's, were missing. And, since even the now quite old King James Bible deliberately added the invented word "sodomite" to replace words that have nothing to do with either Sodom or gay people solely in an attempt to perpetuate the myth that Sodom was a gay city and that the Bible condemns being gay, LGBT people are often forced to study the origins of the Bible and read texts in their original language in order to find the truth, whereas anti-LGBT Christians have centuries of special made bibles altered and ready for condemnation.

However, because the focus is on adding condemnation for one group, that's often the only part that has changed. Millennia worth of Bible versions exist, including those discovered through archeology to have been penned a thousand years before the invention of the printing press a few hundred years ago, so proof the Bible has been selectively altered specifically wherever condemnation of LGBT people was added is abundant. Anyone who denies the Bible has been changed in order to condemn gay people is either deceived or lying, because the proof is overwhelming.

Thanks to the internet, someone can read different versions of the Bible and ask themselves why only one part changes and then research the origins of that passage for themselves. Someone can even take an online course to learn ancient Hebrew and Greek and then learn the true meaning of the verses for themselves. Since these changes are often made with no alteration to the other passages that teach loving people and being honest about who they are, this means a deep study of scripture is always LGBT affirming.

See, when Christians try to condemn LGBT people, they do so by going to scripture to search for any possible condemnation. However, when other Christians go to scripture with an open mind and heart, they read it in context and study it before coming to a conclusion. One group looks for proof for what they already believe so they can justify their negative feelings, while another group reads and studies the Bible and it's history and let's that shape what they believe.

That's why so many of those who intensely study the Bible and it's origins for years are not condemning, because they reach that conclusion from scripture instead of having a conclusion already and looking for proof, as those who are anti-LGBT do. That's also why the anti-LGBT arguments require so much twisting and misreading of scripture and why it's the LGBT affirming Christians who encourage everyone to read and study for themselves while anti-LGBT Christians tell people what to believe and attack them if they try to find out the truth for themselves.

"Cherry Picking" and "Twisting Scripture"

Some Christians become angry with attempts to "twist" scripture or "insert perversion" (as if being LGBT makes someone more of a pervert) into the Bible by including LGBT people into God's plan. They argue that Satan wants churches to welcome LGBT people so that they have a chance to know Christ (as if Satan wants people to come to know Christ) and that forcing LGBT people out of churches and deliberately twisting scripture for generations is fighting Satan (despite it resulting in many LGBT people abandoning their faith, which would be Satan's real goal).

Yet, those same Christians calmly explain away slavery and polygamy or women being required to cover their heads in the New Testament as cultural or alterations to the Bible as improvements, when all LGBT affirming Christians argue is to stop the generations of twisting scripture to condemn one group of people. We realized it was wrong for slavery, segregation, sexism, being left handed and much more, so maybe it's time to study the Bible with a fresh perspective yet again. The biblical context has been there all along, just ignored in favor of selective condemnation.

The irony is that those who deliberately "cherry pick" verses accuse LGBT affirming Christians of doing so. Those who claim the Bible is anti-LGBT, anti-gay, or anti-transgender are quick to condemn not just LGBT people but Christians who argue the Bible should be read in context and not cherry picked to try to single out a group of people by taking a few verses out of context and distorting their meaning.

Yes, these are the same people who cherry pick attempted gang rape in Sodom but refuse to acknowledge all references to Sodom's sins or gang rape not being a sexuality, who claim Romans 1 speaks about gay people but deliberately refuse to acknowledge what most of the chapter says or read the next chapter, who literally say half a verse in Leviticus applies today but refuse to acknowledge the rest of the verse or the other laws, who carefully pick the modern translation that says what they want while ignoring the rest or the original Hebrew and Greek, who take Jesus talking about divorce and apply it to everything while ignoring the context or the rest of what He said, and on and on.

They'll also often argue that reading the LGBT affirming passages as they were originally written is "inserting perversion." This is because they see LGBT people as innately perverse, so that's what they imagine. We can see this whenever someone compares Jonathan's love for David to two people of the same sex in love today. They see no connection at all to two people of the same sex in the Bible falling in love and professing that love and making lifelong vows with two people of the same sex in modern times falling in love and professing that love and making lifelong vows because they have an image in their minds of gay people being perverts and so they put that image into the Bible and rightly say it doesn't fit. But, rather than admit they are projecting it there from their own perverse imagination, they blame the people saying a loving relationship is a loving relationship and falsely claim it's they who want to insert perversion, which is truly insulting.

A common argument against those who expose all the lies and manipulations used to condemn LGBT people is to say that removing the condemnation will open the door to every sin imaginable. For example, they may claim that if two people of the same sex can form a monogamous committed relationship and not have that condemned by twisting scripture, then sin is being encouraged. Yet think about that for a moment. Why would combatting lies encourage sin? Obviously it doesn't. But it does expose hypocrisy and make people realize that their own sexual sins that they constantly excuse aren't wrong because of the gender but because they hurt or use others, including themselves. LGBT people being held to the same moral standard as them is the real fear, as no longer being able to look down on LGBT people means they are held to the same moral standard they hold others to. And facing one's own hypocrisy can be hard.

The "Traditional" Interpretation

While some non-affirming Christians admit that at least some of the verses used to single LGBT people out have been taken out of context and twisted, there are still many Christians who believe the "traditional" interpretation must be correct simply because it has been around so long. But the "traditional" interpretation of holy wars, herecy, justifiable murder, slavery, sexism and more existed for a long time too, as did the practice of forbidding people from reading the Bible for themselves before the Reformation. Just because a lot of people believe something doesn't make it true. Truth must be verifiable and, to be biblical, it must be founded in love (1 Corinthians 13 and 1 John).

Imagine for a moment using the the "it's traditional" argument to condemn any other group of people as being morally inferior. People who came up with the anti-LGBT interpretations are well documented to have looked down on and despised LGBT people. In fact, when these views first became "traditional", anyone suspected of being gay was killed. Would we trust the interpretation of someone who looks down on one race of people and practices enslaving them when it comes to how we should read the Bible's view on races and slavery? No of course not. So why believe the interpretations of people known to have despised and killed the very group of people they tell us we should see as morally inferior? We shouldn't.

The truth is that these same Christians are only able to read the Bible at all because centuries ago some Christians stood against the traditional view that only priests should be allowed to read the Bible because the commoners would realize they were being lied to about scripture. So much mistreatment of people who were different only ended because some people stood up to tradition and acted out of heroic compassion.

In fact, many Christians who still believe the Bible is "anti-homosexuality" (rather than "anti-homosexual") have moved away from the long held tradition of the story of Sodom being about homosexuality and toward what the Bible actually says. This shows that what was once "tradition" was questioned and the truth was found instead even on this exact issue.

Again, the truth is that Christians' views do change and that can be a wonderful thing. For example, just as Christians who find the idea of gay sex "gross" try to claim it's actually God who does since they know their feelings are not authoritative, many Christians used to do the same for those who happened to be left handed. Since most people are right handed, before the invention of toilet paper, cultures around the world exclusively used their left hand to clean themselves. So, using one's left hand dominantly was considered a horrible sin. This led to Christians picking out any seemingly negative references to being left handed and using it to justify their disgust, torment or even murder of left handed people, just as they did for gay people.

And, just as modern Christians moved beyond murdering gay people as they felt the Bible allowed to do to simply condemning them, historical Christians moved toward simply claiming that the Bible says God made everyone to be right handed and that having a desire to use one's left hand isn't a sin but engaging in the behavior of using it for anything but dirty tasks was a sin. They'd even point to the ambidextrous or those who tormented themselves trying to be right handed as "proof" that God saved people from the "sinful lifestyle" of being left handed, just as they do today with calling bisexuals and those who try to pretend to be straight "ex-gays." Just like with left handed people, they falsely claim God saves people from being LGBT by pointing to those who consistently are shown to be lying in order to appease judgmental Christians. It's calling lies truth and truth lies and saying it's okay because it's "traditional".

Christ taught that we can judge good teachings from bad ones by their fruits, that is the results of those teachings. If the history of anti-LGBT teachings were good then the result wouldn't be what it is: twisting scripture, LGBT people feeling pushed from their faith, LGBT people feeling forced to lie about themselves in order to be accepted by Christians or even for their own personal safety, Christians feeling emboldened to mistreat and discriminate against LGBT people, and Christians mocking fellow Christians who are loving toward LGBT people.

In fact, every poll on the subject consistently shows that the church's anti-LGBT teachings push more people away from Christianity than any other modern issue and that while being Christian in general reduces suicide it increases it specifically in LGBT people, which of course is Satan's goal. And the history of condemning same-sex relationships has been shown to be responsible for the promiscuity of same-sex relationships in the past because long-term relationships were too easy to spot and thus risk exposure when the church had more social influence and that meant the persecution and even murder of those found out to be gay. The irony is that so many Christians used promiscuity and sexually transmitted diseases in the gay population as proof being gay is sinful when it only became prevalent because of the persecution and fear of gay people.

Those who condemn LGBT people are responsible for what they condemn LGBT people for.

Instead, it is the LGBT affirming teachings that bring about good by drawing LGBT people to Christ, empowering LGBT people to be open and honest about themselves, promoting monogamous and faithful relationships such as through the legalization of same-sex marriage, encouraging Christians to be more loving, and being honest about scripture. There is no good in lies, only in truth.

Conclusion

While some anti-LGBT Christians admit that people are born LGBT, they still deny it's part of God's plan, saying it's the result of sin entering the world. However, there is no biblical evidence for this and in fact it contradicts Jesus' teaching on differences from the norm not being the result of sin but of God's love and glory (John 9) and Paul's teaching that such things help glorify God (2 Corinthians).

It could easily be argued that heterosexuality and cisgender was God's original design for human kind, but the fact that we are not all perfect does not invalidate God's original design or make those who don't fit it sinners. For example, are people born with parts of both sexes (intersex people) sinners simply because they do not fit that perfect mold? Of course not. So why condemn people attracted to their own gender or who identify as another gender if they too never chose such things?

Christians who condemn LGBT people do not necessarily claim to hate them and some admit there is no direct evidence that being LGBT is wrong, only indirect appeals to "natural law" that being straight and cisgender is "normal", but they still ask what the harm is in condemning them.

The Bible is very clear that we will be judged by God based on how we treat others. In fact, that's stated as part of salvation. We're taught that helping others, welcoming them and not hypocritically judging them is how we will be seen to have treated Christ Himself.

Jesus Christ was incredibly clear that Christians must love everyone and hate no one and to treat everyone with kindness, even those who are considered "enemies". The famous teaching in the gospels to treat others as you would want to be treated rather than how you are treated is actually preceded by teaching to walk twice as far with someone than asked and give twice as much to everyone who asks, even also giving your shirt to someone who asks for your coat. A true follower of Christ would bake two wedding cakes for someone asking for one, not deny even the one. And, since Christ judges others by how they welcome strangers, they would welcome someone to use their own bathroom, not deny them from a public one.

For too long, many Christians have singled out LGBT people and held them to standards that they hold no one else to, especially not themselves. And then, when LGBT people leave their faith or kill themselves, they blame them rather than reflecting on their own harmful beliefs that are so clearly not God's will.

According to the Bible, not only is treating LGBT people any differently than non-LGBT people a sin, it's a grave sin. When discussing the topic of murder, Jesus teaches that someone who calls someone else worthless condemns himself and that someone who calls someone evil damns himself. The original Greek word used in Matthew 5 is the same used for the most grievous offenses. Yet many Christians condemn being LGBT as not part of God's plan, making their existence worthless and, more than that, call them "abominations" and "evil sinners". Thus, as Christ teaches, by the measure they judge others, they are also judged and condemned. If they sentence someone to hell and claim to speak for God, they actually sentence themselves (Matthew 7).

While only a small percentage of the population is LGBT, nearly half of all homeless youth are LGBT. If a Christian's response to finding out their child is LGBT is to disown them because of "the Bible's clear stance against it", not only are they demeaning their own children as an "it" instead of a person, but they are also defying the Bible's much clearer stance against their actions. 1 Timothy 5 says that if someone will not provide for members of his family, he has denounced his faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

Jesus regularly condemned the hypocrisy of the religious majority of His time and yet the Christian religious majority of this time regularly fail to learn from their predecessors' failings. They hold LGBT people to standards that would anger them to be held to, from gang rape equalling consent to idolatry and prostitution equaling attractions or love. Christ could not have been clearer: Doing this is a great sin that condemns the person who does it.

But there is good news! No matter how anti-LGBT someone is or how much they commit blasphemy by claiming God hates LGBT people, God is willing to forgive them if they open their hearts to God's unconditional love through Christ. It begins and ends with love because God is love, so if you love everyone unconditionally, you have God within you. If not, it's never too late to change and become a follower of Christ.

No one is perfect and many Christians have been misled and honestly don't know they are being deceived or sinning against God and His creation, so LGBT Christians should forgive them with patience and love. People can change, learn and grow, with the help of the Spirit of God within them. Many already feel the tug on their hearts but are told by their church to ignore it. They are lied to by Christian leaders and told Satan is tricking them using love and compassion, something impossible according to the Bible because anyone who lacks love does not know God and anyone who knows love knows God (1 John). To lie and claim this is of Satan is obviously Satan's real work.

Even with the long history of constant negative attacks against God, love and biblical truth by anti-LGBT Christians, many Christians are still opening their hearts and many more already had them open, so acceptance of LGBT people as equal is destined to continue. Also, acceptance toward those Christians who support LGBT Christians as equal is destined to continue.

See, centuries ago, Christians slaughtered each other over variations in beliefs about when to baptize someone and yet today those who believe differently about baptism, which is an issue considered fundamental to the concept of salvation, can get along fine and rarely does anyone even consider this a huge dividing issue anymore the way they do being LGBT today. Therefore, this difference in how people view others based sexuality and gender, concepts that are not even salvation issues at all, will one day be seen as a minor issue that doesn't divide Christians any longer.

And, even if someone still believes marriage and sex was originally made by God for opposite sex couples or that people should not have sex change surgery because God intended them to be born one way or another, they can still learn that simply being LGBT is not a sin and that we are all individuals with special gifts from God and a unique path in life. It's not some choice, but how LGBT people live their lives and how they are treated is a choice.

Being LGBT is not a sin. Condemning LGBT people is a sin. But Christ forgives sin.

More on this topic:

A Non-Hypocritical Perspective: The Bible Condmens Homosexuals and Heterosexuals Equally (stamp)

Speak Truth In Love: Can Christians Be Loving and Oppose LGBT Rights? (essay)

People Are Born LGBT (stamp)

The Heterosexual Agenda: A Message To Christians About Homosexuals (essay)

Christianity Is About Love (stamp)

God Loves LGBT People And So Do Christians (essay)

Pro-LGBT Equality and Religious Freedom (stamp)

Love the Person, Forgive their Imperfections (stamp)

What Does the Bible Say About Homosexuality? (external link)

Description
Who is LGBT?

LGBT typically stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. Sometimes other letters or a plus sign are added to include everyone who is not heterosexual or cisgender. In the context it's being used here, LGBT means anyone who does not fit into the expected norms of sexuality or gender. Those norms are: being exclusively attracted to the opposite sex (straight) and identifying as your biological sex (cisgender). Anyone not fitting that has faced the same condemnation seen here, whether asexual, intersex, or any other variations. However, since the main focus of "sin" is aimed at those attracted to their own sex, that is the main issue addressed here.

Is being LGBT a sin?

A surprising number of Christians believe that being LGBT is a sin. But sin is an action, not a person. For example, if I were to suddenly punch you in the face, that would be a sin, but neither my fist nor your face would be a sin. Similarly, planning in my brain to commit a crime would be a sin, but my brain itself would not be. Both my hands and brain are just as capable of doing loving things.

All people can and do sin, but simply existing or being different can not be a sin. Still, since this is such a common belief, let's explore the primary reason that some Christians cite for believing being LGBT is a sin: the belief that the Bible condemns being LGBT.

Adam and Eve

The story of Adam and Eve in the Bible and is an account of the first two humans. Some Christians have argued that the existence of Adam and Eve as the earliest humans somehow invalidates the existence of anyone who is not called to be heterosexual and procreate. You may have heard this stated as "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve."

However, Adam and Eve's children intermarried, Abraham married his sister and another woman, Jacob his two cousins at the same time, etc, but does that mean that the Bible says we should all practice incest and polygamy? No, of course not. The Bible is simply telling the story of certain people at certain points in history. Readers often insert their own bias into scripture when they make history into something it clearly is not, such as the argument that because Eve was made from Adam's rib that transgender people don't exist.

Most of what the Bible says is simply retelling of events. For example, many argue that the command "be fruitful and multiply" speaks against not being heterosexual, but that command is only stated twice in the Bible; when there was only Adam and Eve's family on earth and then when there was only Noah's family on earth. It is never commanded again, so this can not be used as an argument for why everyone must find a mate of the opposite sex and breed.

The truth is that the Bible is clear that we all have different paths in life, as seen in statements like Paul's in 1 Corinthians 7, that it is better not to have sex ever. Obviously this doesn't mean no one should ever have sex, but in context that celibacy is a gift for some people. It's like the argument "if everyone were gay, people would stop existing". No one is arguing everyone should be LGBT, but some argue everyone should be straight cisgender and forced to breed against their will. There is no biblical evidence that we are all called to be like the first humans and in fact many verses say the opposite. So many men, women and children continue to suffer because of being pressured into heterosexual relationships and breeding because we've made an idol out of a biological instinct to procreate and justify it by falsely claiming it's really God commanding it.

The attempt to take some parts of the Bible out of context and ignore the rest, such as to say God made Adam and Eve period or God made male and female period doesn't work, because the Bible also says God made everyone else, which naturally includes Steve and another guy named Adam. God made Adam and Eve and Adam and Steve too.

The New Testament also says there is no male and female but we are all one in Christ (Galatians 3), so one should always be skeptical of "the Bible says this period and that's why I believe it" when really it's "this is the part of the Bible I'm going to take out of context and apply to everyone because that way I can make the Bible fit what I believe."

Sodom

The story of Sodom and it's destruction in Genesis 18-19 is the oldest and most famous biblical account used to condemn homosexuals. In fact, it's where the word sodomite and the idea of sodomy laws comes from. The specific part referenced is when angels visit Lot and a mob attempts to gang rape what they think are invading strangers.

Some have argued that Lot saying the attempted gang rape is "a wicked thing" shows homosexuality or even homosexual people are "wicked", but there's no getting around that it was attempted rape. The mob threatens Lot directly that they'll treat him "worse" if he doesn't move aside, meaning they knew it was an act of cruelty, not consent or even desire. It was a punishment. The verses have been there plain as day for millennia, but yet the prejudice has been so prevalent that they were ignored.

While this may seem odd today, rape of outsiders and enemies was actually a common practice in ancient times. Conquering soldiers would often rape the men of the conquered villages, sometimes to humiliate them and sometimes with sticks covered in spikes to torture them. Being a receptive participant in anal sex has long been seen in patriarchal cultures as "feminine" and therefore "weak". The rapists would of course still consider themselves heterosexual.

This is also illustrated in the later passages that mention Sodom, repeatedly referring to its inhabitants as inhospitable to strangers. Although many reasons are given for its destruction, including being wealthy but ignoring the poor and being unkind to widows and orphans (Ezekiel 16), no passages mention homosexuality or male-male intercourse, let alone attractions or loving relationships. In fact, none mention the attempted gang rape, implying that it was merely a part of the often repeated inhospitality to strangers. So, it's completely unbiblical to claim that what the Bible doesn't say about Sodom is actually the sin of Sodom and not what the bible really says.

A similar event to this occurs later in Judges 19-20, however this time a female outsider is actually gang raped and, since no angels intervene this time, she is gang raped to death. Interestingly, this event is never mentioned by those who believe that Sodom was destroyed because of homosexuality. Gibeah was also destroyed following the gang rape, so would it not be logical to conclude that, if attempted gang rape of angels condemns homosexuals, the gang rape of the Levite woman would condemn heterosexuals? After all, if gang rape that results in a city's destruction is the same as a person falling in love with someone of the same sex, surely it cuts both ways and condemns opposite sex couples too. Anything else would be hypocritical and downright deceitful.

Even if someone sincerely does not understand the difference between consent and rape or is so biased that they can't figure it out in this case and they are in need of a serious education before they excuse rape, there is absolutely no excuse for comparing someone attracted to someone else to a rapist. Yet, throughout history parents have used Sodom as a reason to condemn their own children when they confess having a crush on someone of the same sex. People rarely choose their feelings. People choose to commit rape.

Old Testament Laws

There are over six hundred Jewish laws listed in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Of these, only two are used to condemn LGBT people. One is that men should not wear women's clothing and women should not wear men's clothing (Deuteronomy 22). The other is that men should not lay together in beds of women, typically translated as to have sex with each other as they do with a woman, generally assumed to refer to penetrative anal sex (Leviticus 18).

Some English translations use the word "abomination" or "detestable" to describe these acts, but those exact same translations also call pigs, shrimp, being a shepherd and a whole host of things the exact same words because the original Hebrew is the same word in each case, which literally means unclean and, by itself, an idol, as referenced in the previous and almost never mentioned verse in Leviticus 18, which shows the context is temple prostitution. Old Testament laws also forbid simply wearing mixed fabric and call Jewish customs "abominations" and "detestable" to the Egyptians and, when referenced in the New Testament, the term "unclean" is used.

While crossdressing or wearing mixed fiber blends is distinctly different than being transgender and same-sex attractions or relationships are not the same as having unprotected anal sex or treating a man like a woman sexually, which was considered degrading in ancient patriarchal cultures, many Christians still cite these verses to condemn people who have done none of those things. In fact, many often say God finds being LGBT "detestable" or an "abomination" and claim that means God "hates" being LGBT, yet would never call eating shrimp, bacon, or wearing their husband's shirt "detestable" or an "abomination" or claim playing football is "hated" by God even though the exact same words are used to describe each case.

While some people admit the actual meaning is "unclean" and that changing it in English translations to "detestable" or "abomination" while also ignoring what the New Testament says about unclean things being made clean, may be somewhat dishonest, most people are still unaware that the original Hebrew prohibitions of incest in Leviticus also changed, specifically to eliminate the possibility of perceiving it as being accepting of same-sex relationships.

We can see this in how the original text states not to uncover the nakedness (how the Old Testament often describes sex) of various relatives, including your mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, etc. Yet we then see how the wording was changed, saying things like "Do not have sex with your mother, she is your mother. Do not have sex with your father's wife, he is your father." and likewise saying "aunt" but then "uncle's wife" instead of the original "uncle." Adding "'s wife" was a rather cheap way to make it seem less accepting of non-incestuous same-sex relationships by making it all about heterosexuality. After all, you can't claim forbidding opposite-sex incest doesn't condemn all opposite-sex relationships while also claiming forbidding same-sex incest condemns all same-sex relationships, so it had to change to uphold the myth that the Bible condemns same-sex relationships. In fact, the Hebrew word describing the actual act seen as sex between two men in Leviticus 18 is only used elsewhere to describe incest, specifically in Genesis 49.

These changes mean that just two supposedly anti-LGBT Old Testament laws are mentioned by those who claim the Bible is anti-LGBT. Moreover, those laws are singled out with no mention of their context because they are next to laws that forbid planting two types of crops in a field, eating or touching a variety of animals, getting a haircut, and hundreds more. In fact, just three verses before the prohibition of unprotected anal sex is a prohibition of a man having sex with his wife too close to her menstruation cycle. Yet, how many Christians preach against having sex for a week and a half each month the way they do against "homosexuality"?

Also, many of these laws may sound mild today yet were punishable by exile or even death. So, unless someone is willing to advocate that the Bible says we must kill a woman who isn't a virgin on her wedding night, taking those two laws out of context to condemn LGBT people is extremely hypocritical.

It's no wonder Christ spent much of His ministry replacing Old Testament laws, including eye for an eye, hating your enemy, dietary restrictions, working on the Sabbath, divorce, adultery, acquiring wealth, and much more, by measuring them against love to follow the only true law, to love God and everyone as yourself. Many Christians believe that, when the Bible says Jesus fulfilled the law, Christians are no longer bound to the old law, as described in Paul's letter to Rome, but to the law of love.

Romans

The first chapter of Romans, which is a letter written by Paul to the church in Rome, is another popular passage used to condemn LGBT people. The section in question describes people in the temples of Rome worshiping idols in the shape of reptiles and birds. Those familiar with temple worship and sex orgies in ancient Rome may not find this surprising, but what follows is.

Each practice in the temples is described as a punishment, using language such as "for this reason" or "therefore, God gave them over". The progression starts with the first few commandments, including having other gods and making graven images, but progresses to heterosexual and homosexual sex acts and eventually murder. It is of course the brief mention of "unrestrained lust" or "all lust but no love" in these orgies, specifically for the same sex, that is used to condemn homosexuals, but more interesting still are the conclusions that many Christians draw.

In order to believe the first chapter of Romans condemns homosexuals, you must believe that homosexuality is 1) a punishment from God for worshiping idols and graven images in the shape of animals, 2) starts out as unrestrained heterosexual lust, 3) is solely about lust and orgies, 4) results in every sin imaginable, including murder, and 5) anyone who doesn't condemn them "is deserving of death." So, it should not be surprising that some Christians conclude that people turn gay when they abandon God and worship creation, do not feel genuine love, that they are murderers, possibly by spreading sexually transmitted diseases, and that anyone who supports them is damned to hell.

This view of Romans 1 is also why there are a number of Christians who believe that people with same-sex attractions are "reprobates" and were made gay as a punishment from God and can therefore never be saved. This mindset is also why suicide rates increase among LGBT youth if they are in households that believe people are made gay as a punishment from God.

However, people are born LGBT, homosexual included. Direct observation, witness testimonies and scientific data all support this. However, even if this were not true, not only do people not choose their sexuality, but the turning away from God happens after the rejection and condemnation. They turn away because they are rejected and condemned simply for being different. Also, LGBT people are capable of the same range of feelings as anyone else, including both love and lust. Although, they are more likely to be murdered than be a murderer.

If someone is going to condemn a whole group of people because the Bible says lust without love is wrong, surely all heterosexuals should be condemned, since the Bible condemns opposite-sex lust without love as well, in fact only a couple verses prior to the one cherry-picked to condemn gay people in Romans 1.

Why not say Romans 1 condemns opposite-sex couples too since it also condemns the same exact lust and practices between them too? Anything else would again be hypocritical and as deceitful as the way this passage is often twisted. In fact, the very next chapter of Romans condemns the previous chapter being used to single out others as worse sinners and the rest of Romans goes on to explain we are all equally sinful and in need of Christ. Singling out a verse and making up its context doesn't make that truth go away.

Marriage

Before same-sex marriage was legalized in the US, a common argument as to why same-sex couples are sinning by being together was the argument that sex outside marriage is wrong and same-sex couples can't marry, so therefore if they have sex in their relationship then their relationship is wrong.

Of course, not only did this reduce such relationships to sex acts and invalidate the vows same-sex couples made in private just between them and God, but it was dependant on constantly fighting to forbid same-sex couples from marrying just to keep claiming they're sinning. Yet, who was sinning, the couple who had been together decades finally able to legally marry or those fighting to prevent people from a union that promotes monogamy and faithfulness? This is why the argument was changed to how marriage is defined in the Bible once there was a prospect of same-sex marriage becoming legal.

At first this was done by talking about "traditional marriage" and saying two people of the same sex falling in love and wanting to spend their lives together shouldn't be allowed to marry because it wasn't traditional. However, since the "traditional" form of marriage throughout most of the Bible was a property arrangement where a man bought a wife from her father and could have as many wives as he could afford, the "traditional marriage" argument was scrapped in favor of marriage being defined as "between one man and one woman."

Since the Bible never explicitly defines marriage and the majority of marriages in the Bible are polygamous, it may seem odd that so many Christians today claim the Bible defines marriage as exclusively "between one man and one woman." To do this, they use Christ quoting Genesis 2 in Matthew 19 and Mark 10 and then say what Christ "really meant to say" since the Bible doesn't say what they want it to. There is no "one man and one woman" to quote from after all.

Of course, Christ was actually talking about why divorce and remarriage is wrong and the part taken out of context literally says that humans should not separate a couple that God has brought together. Yet, do those quoting this use it to condemn remarriage as adultery like Christ really said? No, instead they twist and misuse scripture to claim it's actually condemning same-sex couples instead. Moreover, they are using a message that explicitly says not to separate couples in order to separate any couple that doesn't fit what they believe God intended. They believe Christ saying not to separate couples through divorce really means to separate same-sex couples through forbidding marriage. So, at best they're being hypocritical and at worst deliberately deceptive.

While some admit Christ was talking about divorce when speaking of divorce, they argue that the quoted part, specifically Genesis 2, still defines marriage as between one man and one woman. However, the context of the verse in question is when God created Eve from Adam's rib and how men and women originating from one flesh is why they become one flesh again to procreate. For this to be the foundation of "biblical marriage," marriage literally becomes a sex act. Weddings, asexual or older people marrying without having sex, people seeking companionship, etc, would suddenly be outside "biblical marriage" and any man leaving his home to go hook up with a girl, married or not, would be "biblical marriage" since they become "one flesh" and that happening between a man and a woman supposedly defines marriage for everyone. Since this is obviously not true, then taking the passage out of context to claim it defines biblical marriage can't be true either.

Most Christians will agree that the first half of the quoted sentence in Genesis 2 is a generalization. After all, not every man leaves his father and mother to go off and become one flesh with a woman. Maybe he's already on his own or doesn't have living parents or only one parent, but we can all agree it doesn't invalidate their relationship. In fact, when this part of Genesis 2 is quoted again in Ephesians 5, it's immediately preceded by Paul saying no one hates his own flesh but instead nurtures it. This is obviously a generalization, as self harm and body dysphoria exists in some people. So why admit the Bible is filled with generalizations, even in the very sentence, but then claim one part is not only universal but that it defines a word not even mentioned in the sentence? This is obviously an attempt to twist the Bible to fit the belief that scripture enslaves us to all live a certain way rather than sets us free to live how God has called us to, loving one another not as a sex or gender, but as a person.

Some who acknowledge the limitations of this argument say that because Paul gave instructions to husbands and wives means he was forbidding any marriage that isn't a husband and a wife. However, they make this claim by taking small bits of what Paul wrote on marriage out if context and ignoring the rest. Paul was actually much more adamant that men and women shouldn't marry, as they tend to focus more on their physical spouse than serving God, and that even a man can be a bride and should live accordingly. Of course, you won't hear those arguing against same-sex marriage bring this up.

And, when Paul instructs husbands to love their wives and leaves out telling wives to love their husbands, does anyone really believe women shouldn't also love their husbands? If not, why limit the rest of what Paul wrote on marriage to reserved for the opposite sex, especially when so much is for families in general with no mention of gender or sex?

The ironic part is that the wedding vows that state that everything that is one spouse's is also the other's are stated between two men into the Bible and the wedding prayer that has been used for generations by countless of opposite-sex couples is from a vow made between two women in the Bible. To then turn things upside down and claim that not only do opposite-sex couples get to claim these vows for the own but that the Bible somehow forbids people of the same sex from using them when they too want to share their lives together is insulting to both LGBT people and to the Bible.

There are many Christians who have been taught to believe that because creation was perfect before the Fall, anything outside the confines of what is seen as "God's original intent" during creation is automatically a sin. For example, claiming that because the first humans were male and female and that is traditionally seen as the first married couple, anything else is therefore outside "real" marriage and God's plan and therefore wrong. Yet, Adam and Eve didn't have a wedding ceremony or exchange vows as we do today, so is it wrong that heterosexual couples mimic the same-sex vows from the Bible today? Adam and Eve didn't wear clothes and only ate plants. That was clearly God's original intent with creation, so are we sinning if we don't follow His intent by all becoming vegan nudists?

The problem is that this same argument has been used for generations to single out and condemn people as not being part of God's creation simply for being different or loving someone others say they shouldn't. Whether it's for being left handed, being gay, being trans, or just looking different, people naturally react out of fear and distrust toward differences and try to justify their reaction by saying they just don't approve because it's not perfect or not the original design. But there wasn't originally all these breeds of cats and dogs, yet their variety is no less amazing. Did God really have no part in that simply because the variety appeared so long after that perfect creation?

Some people fall in love with someone of the same sex instead of the opposite sex. They want to share their lives, their families, their hopes and dreams, and their future with that one person and grow old together abiding in love. Yet some people try so hard to stop them when truly they don't know if God has brought them together. They simply assume God is absent because a relationship doesn't fit what they've been taught is the only "right" relationship. Yet one only has to skim the Bible and see all the variety of relationships and realize everyone is different and that God obviously loves variety. Just look at the variety of creation. To try to limit that is what is truly against God's design.

The truth is that marriage is not simply some physical act of becoming one flesh but so much more. In fact, it's not just that polygamous and incestuous relationships were called marriage even by Christ using a parable of a man marrying many virgins, but we're told there's no male or female but all are one in Christ and Christians are even called the bride of Christ. That means that a Christian man is married to the male human form of God. Yes, two men are married and that's biblical. So, to obsess over the physical gender of people and over marriage being about sex is raising the physical too high. To pretend the Bible defines marriage as some limited physical union reserved for certain people rather than a spiritual connection for all God calls is definitely not biblical and no amount of redefining scripture can ever change that.

Other Verses

There are a small handful of verses that are also used to condemn LGBT people, but those passages discuss temple prostitution or child kidnapping in all but the recent anti-homosexual Bible translations. For this reason, many Christians avoid them unless they believe their modern translation represents the only version or they're just searching for condemnation on the internet and that's what comes up.

For example, in 1 Corinthians 6, after a long period of claiming it condemned masturbation, several modern interpretations now claim the two Greek words currently translated into English as "men who have sex with men" or "effeminate" and "those who defile themselves with mankind" are the active and passive partners in anal sex between men, but admit in the notes of those bibles that the word they claim is the passive partner actually refers to boys kidnapped for sex and the word they claim is the active partner actually refers to a man who organizes prostitution. This can be seen clearly in 1 Timothy 1, when the Greek word translators claim is the "passive" partner (kidnapped sex slaves) is missing and instead "kidnappers" appears next to "active" partner (literally pimp).

Some people claim the Bible doesn't condemn child molestation, but it turns out it actually originally did. The Greek word arsenokoites appears twice in the Bible and most historians agree Paul probably made it up. In 1 Corinthians it is paired with malakos, which the NJKV notes says means catamite or boys kidnapped into sex slavery, and in 1 Timothy is paired with kidnappers. In both cases kidnapping children into sex slavery is condemned. While it's possible scribes felt the wording of the Greek Corinthians passage could be used to condemn boys who are raped rather than the rapists themselves and so felt the need to change it, there is really no excuse to change it to "homosexuals" as in the NIV or "effeminate" as in the KJV.

Many people are under the false impression that molestation by priests is some recent phenomena that has plagued the Catholic Church, but it actually dates back before the Reformation that led to the split of Christianity into Catholic and Protestant. In fact, in 1521 and nearly a full century before the KJV, Martin Luther argued in "The Misuse of the Mass" that because priests were forbidden to marry, they would have sex in other ways, such as what he called "Ganymedes", which is a reference to the Greek myth of a young boy taken up to live with the gods because of his beauty.

This is just one example of how a few in the church who exploited children replaced the Bible's clear condemnation of their actions with one against a convenient scapegoat, be it feminine men, transgender women, or gay men. Other translators simply followed suit. So, in many bibles, modern translations simply put "homosexuals", so as to include not just men who don't have anal sex and so don't even fit into the easily discredited theory of the Greek words but also women who happen to be homosexual. They apparently believe God's Word needs to be "fixed" of it's oversights. Maybe they thought God is sexist and needed more female inclusion in His Word? Either way, it's a direct insult to God and His Word.

Interestingly enough, although the Bible clearly describes female sexual desire, sometimes graphically such as in verses like Ezekiel 23:20 or in the Song of Solomon, some modern translators translate male temple prostitutes as "homosexual" but leave female temple prostitutes alone, even when they appear in the same verse. This is because patriarchal culture has long believed that women have no sexual desires, only men. This is why, in the 1950s, Alfred Kinsey, after receiving praise for his studies revealing the diversity of male sexuality, was nearly blocked from studying female sexuality. Women and children were considered to be sexually innocent and the men in power feared seeing their wives and girls differently.

It wasn't until recently that Christians began using Romans 1 to condemn lesbians, as the original texts describe intercourse, possibly with animals or anally with men since women can't have intercourse with each other. Because of an unwillingness to see women as sexual, to this day that passage remains one of the only verse argued to condemn same-sex relations between women in its original form.

Studying Scripture

Since Jesus never spoke against homosexual people or relationships and the only interaction with someone in a same-sex relationship was positive, some claim that all mentions of "sexual immorality" or "fornication" are condemnations of homosexuality by saying that the Greek word porneia that Jesus used condemns all sinful sex acts. The idea is that homosexual sex is wrong because Jesus said sexual immorality is wrong and therefore Jesus really said being homosexual is wrong. But, not only is this a circular fallacy presenting a conclusion claiming to be it's own proof, but the Greek word it's translated from actually means prostitution and was used for sexual infidelity. This is yet another example of deliberately twisting scripture, this time raising the bar on deception by inserting words Jesus never said just so they can condemn one group of people and claim it's not really them but Christ.

Because of the gay rights movement, some translations that added "homosexual" after its invention changed it to "homosexual offenders" to narrow the meaning and seem less condemning. Many modern Christians believe that people being born LGBT is like being born with a temptation to sin, but if they act straight and cisgender their entire lives, they are remaining pure.

Therefore, to maintain the belief that the Bible condemns LGBT people to a life of lies, lies about the Bible's content are necessary. Moreover, it requires not mentioning all the verses that speak positively about LGBT people, such as the role of eunuchs, which would today be called LGBT. It also means avoiding positive portrayals of relationships between people of the same sex, such as the story of Jonathan's love for David and it being "greater than the love of women", the tender love of Daniel and Ashpenaz, Jesus praising the Roman centurion for his faith before healing his male partner, the familial love and commitment between Ruth and Naomi that led to the most often used wedding prayer of all time, and more.

In fact, as early as the first century translation of the Hebrew Bible (the Septuagint) that Paul uses in his letters to the early churches that make up much of what became the New Testament, references to same-sex relationships, including much of David and Jonathan's, were missing. And, since even the now quite old King James Bible deliberately added the invented word "sodomite" to replace words that have nothing to do with either Sodom or gay people solely in an attempt to perpetuate the myth that Sodom was a gay city and that the Bible condemns being gay, LGBT people are often forced to study the origins of the Bible and read texts in their original language in order to find the truth, whereas anti-LGBT Christians have centuries of special made bibles altered and ready for condemnation.

However, because the focus is on adding condemnation for one group, that's often the only part that has changed. Millennia worth of Bible versions exist, including those discovered through archeology to have been penned a thousand years before the invention of the printing press a few hundred years ago, so proof the Bible has been selectively altered specifically wherever condemnation of LGBT people was added is abundant. Anyone who denies the Bible has been changed in order to condemn gay people is either deceived or lying, because the proof is overwhelming.

Thanks to the internet, someone can read different versions of the Bible and ask themselves why only one part changes and then research the origins of that passage for themselves. Someone can even take an online course to learn ancient Hebrew and Greek and then learn the true meaning of the verses for themselves. Since these changes are often made with no alteration to the other passages that teach loving people and being honest about who they are, this means a deep study of scripture is always LGBT affirming.

See, when Christians try to condemn LGBT people, they do so by going to scripture to search for any possible condemnation. However, when other Christians go to scripture with an open mind and heart, they read it in context and study it before coming to a conclusion. One group looks for proof for what they already believe so they can justify their negative feelings, while another group reads and studies the Bible and it's history and let's that shape what they believe.

That's why so many of those who intensely study the Bible and it's origins for years are not condemning, because they reach that conclusion from scripture instead of having a conclusion already and looking for proof, as those who are anti-LGBT do. That's also why the anti-LGBT arguments require so much twisting and misreading of scripture and why it's the LGBT affirming Christians who encourage everyone to read and study for themselves while anti-LGBT Christians tell people what to believe and attack them if they try to find out the truth for themselves.

"Cherry Picking" and "Twisting Scripture"

Some Christians become angry with attempts to "twist" scripture or "insert perversion" (as if being LGBT makes someone more of a pervert) into the Bible by including LGBT people into God's plan. They argue that Satan wants churches to welcome LGBT people so that they have a chance to know Christ (as if Satan wants people to come to know Christ) and that forcing LGBT people out of churches and deliberately twisting scripture for generations is fighting Satan (despite it resulting in many LGBT people abandoning their faith, which would be Satan's real goal).

Yet, those same Christians calmly explain away slavery and polygamy or women being required to cover their heads in the New Testament as cultural or alterations to the Bible as improvements, when all LGBT affirming Christians argue is to stop the generations of twisting scripture to condemn one group of people. We realized it was wrong for slavery, segregation, sexism, being left handed and much more, so maybe it's time to study the Bible with a fresh perspective yet again. The biblical context has been there all along, just ignored in favor of selective condemnation.

The irony is that those who deliberately "cherry pick" verses accuse LGBT affirming Christians of doing so. Those who claim the Bible is anti-LGBT, anti-gay, or anti-transgender are quick to condemn not just LGBT people but Christians who argue the Bible should be read in context and not cherry picked to try to single out a group of people by taking a few verses out of context and distorting their meaning.

Yes, these are the same people who cherry pick attempted gang rape in Sodom but refuse to acknowledge all references to Sodom's sins or gang rape not being a sexuality, who claim Romans 1 speaks about gay people but deliberately refuse to acknowledge what most of the chapter says or read the next chapter, who literally say half a verse in Leviticus applies today but refuse to acknowledge the rest of the verse or the other laws, who carefully pick the modern translation that says what they want while ignoring the rest or the original Hebrew and Greek, who take Jesus talking about divorce and apply it to everything while ignoring the context or the rest of what He said, and on and on.

They'll also often argue that reading the LGBT affirming passages as they were originally written is "inserting perversion." This is because they see LGBT people as innately perverse, so that's what they imagine. We can see this whenever someone compares Jonathan's love for David to two people of the same sex in love today. They see no connection at all to two people of the same sex in the Bible falling in love and professing that love and making lifelong vows with two people of the same sex in modern times falling in love and professing that love and making lifelong vows because they have an image in their minds of gay people being perverts and so they put that image into the Bible and rightly say it doesn't fit. But, rather than admit they are projecting it there from their own perverse imagination, they blame the people saying a loving relationship is a loving relationship and falsely claim it's they who want to insert perversion, which is truly insulting.

A common argument against those who expose all the lies and manipulations used to condemn LGBT people is to say that removing the condemnation will open the door to every sin imaginable. For example, they may claim that if two people of the same sex can form a monogamous committed relationship and not have that condemned by twisting scripture, then sin is being encouraged. Yet think about that for a moment. Why would combatting lies encourage sin? Obviously it doesn't. But it does expose hypocrisy and make people realize that their own sexual sins that they constantly excuse aren't wrong because of the gender but because they hurt or use others, including themselves. LGBT people being held to the same moral standard as them is the real fear, as no longer being able to look down on LGBT people means they are held to the same moral standard they hold others to. And facing one's own hypocrisy can be hard.

The "Traditional" Interpretation

While some non-affirming Christians admit that at least some of the verses used to single LGBT people out have been taken out of context and twisted, there are still many Christians who believe the "traditional" interpretation must be correct simply because it has been around so long. But the "traditional" interpretation of holy wars, herecy, justifiable murder, slavery, sexism and more existed for a long time too, as did the practice of forbidding people from reading the Bible for themselves before the Reformation. Just because a lot of people believe something doesn't make it true. Truth must be verifiable and, to be biblical, it must be founded in love (1 Corinthians 13 and 1 John).

Imagine for a moment using the the "it's traditional" argument to condemn any other group of people as being morally inferior. People who came up with the anti-LGBT interpretations are well documented to have looked down on and despised LGBT people. In fact, when these views first became "traditional", anyone suspected of being gay was killed. Would we trust the interpretation of someone who looks down on one race of people and practices enslaving them when it comes to how we should read the Bible's view on races and slavery? No of course not. So why believe the interpretations of people known to have despised and killed the very group of people they tell us we should see as morally inferior? We shouldn't.

The truth is that these same Christians are only able to read the Bible at all because centuries ago some Christians stood against the traditional view that only priests should be allowed to read the Bible because the commoners would realize they were being lied to about scripture. So much mistreatment of people who were different only ended because some people stood up to tradition and acted out of heroic compassion.

In fact, many Christians who still believe the Bible is "anti-homosexuality" (rather than "anti-homosexual") have moved away from the long held tradition of the story of Sodom being about homosexuality and toward what the Bible actually says. This shows that what was once "tradition" was questioned and the truth was found instead even on this exact issue.

Again, the truth is that Christians' views do change and that can be a wonderful thing. For example, just as Christians who find the idea of gay sex "gross" try to claim it's actually God who does since they know their feelings are not authoritative, many Christians used to do the same for those who happened to be left handed. Since most people are right handed, before the invention of toilet paper, cultures around the world exclusively used their left hand to clean themselves. So, using one's left hand dominantly was considered a horrible sin. This led to Christians picking out any seemingly negative references to being left handed and using it to justify their disgust, torment or even murder of left handed people, just as they did for gay people.

And, just as modern Christians moved beyond murdering gay people as they felt the Bible allowed to do to simply condemning them, historical Christians moved toward simply claiming that the Bible says God made everyone to be right handed and that having a desire to use one's left hand isn't a sin but engaging in the behavior of using it for anything but dirty tasks was a sin. They'd even point to the ambidextrous or those who tormented themselves trying to be right handed as "proof" that God saved people from the "sinful lifestyle" of being left handed, just as they do today with calling bisexuals and those who try to pretend to be straight "ex-gays." Just like with left handed people, they falsely claim God saves people from being LGBT by pointing to those who consistently are shown to be lying in order to appease judgmental Christians. It's calling lies truth and truth lies and saying it's okay because it's "traditional".

Christ taught that we can judge good teachings from bad ones by their fruits, that is the results of those teachings. If the history of anti-LGBT teachings were good then the result wouldn't be what it is: twisting scripture, LGBT people feeling pushed from their faith, LGBT people feeling forced to lie about themselves in order to be accepted by Christians or even for their own personal safety, Christians feeling emboldened to mistreat and discriminate against LGBT people, and Christians mocking fellow Christians who are loving toward LGBT people.

In fact, every poll on the subject consistently shows that the church's anti-LGBT teachings push more people away from Christianity than any other modern issue and that while being Christian in general reduces suicide it increases it specifically in LGBT people, which of course is Satan's goal. And the history of condemning same-sex relationships has been shown to be responsible for the promiscuity of same-sex relationships in the past because long-term relationships were too easy to spot and thus risk exposure when the church had more social influence and that meant the persecution and even murder of those found out to be gay. The irony is that so many Christians used promiscuity and sexually transmitted diseases in the gay population as proof being gay is sinful when it only became prevalent because of the persecution and fear of gay people.

Those who condemn LGBT people are responsible for what they condemn LGBT people for.

Instead, it is the LGBT affirming teachings that bring about good by drawing LGBT people to Christ, empowering LGBT people to be open and honest about themselves, promoting monogamous and faithful relationships such as through the legalization of same-sex marriage, encouraging Christians to be more loving, and being honest about scripture. There is no good in lies, only in truth.

Conclusion

While some anti-LGBT Christians admit that people are born LGBT, they still deny it's part of God's plan, saying it's the result of sin entering the world. However, there is no biblical evidence for this and in fact it contradicts Jesus' teaching on differences from the norm not being the result of sin but of God's love and glory (John 9) and Paul's teaching that such things help glorify God (2 Corinthians).

It could easily be argued that heterosexuality and cisgender was God's original design for human kind, but the fact that we are not all perfect does not invalidate God's original design or make those who don't fit it sinners. For example, are people born with parts of both sexes (intersex people) sinners simply because they do not fit that perfect mold? Of course not. So why condemn people attracted to their own gender or who identify as another gender if they too never chose such things?

Christians who condemn LGBT people do not necessarily claim to hate them and some admit there is no direct evidence that being LGBT is wrong, only indirect appeals to "natural law" that being straight and cisgender is "normal", but they still ask what the harm is in condemning them.

The Bible is very clear that we will be judged by God based on how we treat others. In fact, that's stated as part of salvation. We're taught that helping others, welcoming them and not hypocritically judging them is how we will be seen to have treated Christ Himself.

Jesus Christ was incredibly clear that Christians must love everyone and hate no one and to treat everyone with kindness, even those who are considered "enemies". The famous teaching in the gospels to treat others as you would want to be treated rather than how you are treated is actually preceded by teaching to walk twice as far with someone than asked and give twice as much to everyone who asks, even also giving your shirt to someone who asks for your coat. A true follower of Christ would bake two wedding cakes for someone asking for one, not deny even the one. And, since Christ judges others by how they welcome strangers, they would welcome someone to use their own bathroom, not deny them from a public one.

For too long, many Christians have singled out LGBT people and held them to standards that they hold no one else to, especially not themselves. And then, when LGBT people leave their faith or kill themselves, they blame them rather than reflecting on their own harmful beliefs that are so clearly not God's will.

According to the Bible, not only is treating LGBT people any differently than non-LGBT people a sin, it's a grave sin. When discussing the topic of murder, Jesus teaches that someone who calls someone else worthless condemns himself and that someone who calls someone evil damns himself. The original Greek word used in Matthew 5 is the same used for the most grievous offenses. Yet many Christians condemn being LGBT as not part of God's plan, making their existence worthless and, more than that, call them "abominations" and "evil sinners". Thus, as Christ teaches, by the measure they judge others, they are also judged and condemned. If they sentence someone to hell and claim to speak for God, they actually sentence themselves (Matthew 7).

While only a small percentage of the population is LGBT, nearly half of all homeless youth are LGBT. If a Christian's response to finding out their child is LGBT is to disown them because of "the Bible's clear stance against it", not only are they demeaning their own children as an "it" instead of a person, but they are also defying the Bible's much clearer stance against their actions. 1 Timothy 5 says that if someone will not provide for members of his family, he has denounced his faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

Jesus regularly condemned the hypocrisy of the religious majority of His time and yet the Christian religious majority of this time regularly fail to learn from their predecessors' failings. They hold LGBT people to standards that would anger them to be held to, from gang rape equalling consent to idolatry and prostitution equaling attractions or love. Christ could not have been clearer: Doing this is a great sin that condemns the person who does it.

But there is good news! No matter how anti-LGBT someone is or how much they commit blasphemy by claiming God hates LGBT people, God is willing to forgive them if they open their hearts to God's unconditional love through Christ. It begins and ends with love because God is love, so if you love everyone unconditionally, you have God within you. If not, it's never too late to change and become a follower of Christ.

No one is perfect and many Christians have been misled and honestly don't know they are being deceived or sinning against God and His creation, so LGBT Christians should forgive them with patience and love. People can change, learn and grow, with the help of the Spirit of God within them. Many already feel the tug on their hearts but are told by their church to ignore it. They are lied to by Christian leaders and told Satan is tricking them using love and compassion, something impossible according to the Bible because anyone who lacks love does not know God and anyone who knows love knows God (1 John). To lie and claim this is of Satan is obviously Satan's real work.

Even with the long history of constant negative attacks against God, love and biblical truth by anti-LGBT Christians, many Christians are still opening their hearts and many more already had them open, so acceptance of LGBT people as equal is destined to continue. Also, acceptance toward those Christians who support LGBT Christians as equal is destined to continue.

See, centuries ago, Christians slaughtered each other over variations in beliefs about when to baptize someone and yet today those who believe differently about baptism, which is an issue considered fundamental to the concept of salvation, can get along fine and rarely does anyone even consider this a huge dividing issue anymore the way they do being LGBT today. Therefore, this difference in how people view others based sexuality and gender, concepts that are not even salvation issues at all, will one day be seen as a minor issue that doesn't divide Christians any longer.

And, even if someone still believes marriage and sex was originally made by God for opposite sex couples or that people should not have sex change surgery because God intended them to be born one way or another, they can still learn that simply being LGBT is not a sin and that we are all individuals with special gifts from God and a unique path in life. It's not some choice, but how LGBT people live their lives and how they are treated is a choice.

Being LGBT is not a sin. Condemning LGBT people is a sin. But Christ forgives sin.

More on this topic:

A Non-Hypocritical Perspective: The Bible Condmens Homosexuals and Heterosexuals Equally (stamp)

Speak Truth In Love: Can Christians Be Loving and Oppose LGBT Rights? (essay)

People Are Born LGBT (stamp)

The Heterosexual Agenda: A Message To Christians About Homosexuals (essay)

Christianity Is About Love (stamp)

God Loves LGBT People And So Do Christians (essay)

Pro-LGBT Equality and Religious Freedom (stamp)

Love the Person, Forgive their Imperfections (stamp)

What Does the Bible Say About Homosexuality? (external link)