LIB,MR BEARS said:
Hate the sin
Love the sinner
Go and sin no more. This could be said to the drunks, the liars, the cheats, the proud, the greedy, the selfish and yes, even the gays.
Society has accepted many sinful things. That doesn't make them less sinful
Hate the sin, love the sinner should never be said to any gay person. I think the church has screwed up their messaging and actions to gay individuals (distinguishing between gay individuals and LGBTQ organizations) so bad over the decades that we are reaping what we sowed.
When you say hate the sin, love the sinner - a gay person hears hate the sin, love the sinner, hate the sinner. Gays are so tied up in their gay identity that they cannot separate their homosexuality from who they are as a person. They just hear hate the sinner. That's why Christians are getting into the cross hairs as a hate group.
We are also terrible at making homosexuals feel unwelcome in the church. If there was a place that you would want homosexual individuals, it is in the church around people who (ideally) love as Jesus modeled it. And for the baptists, it is possible to distinguish between an attender and a member. Surely, you've heard the term that a church is a hospital for sick people. Homosexuals should be in your church.
We don't seem to have the same problem with divorced people who divorced for reasons other than spousal infidelity. We don't seem to have as much of a problem with single millenials having sex outside of marriage.
Why did we pick out homosexuals as such a different class?
Jesus touched the woman at the well. He showed her love before he told her to go and sin no more. He earned her trust first. He claimed the moral authority with his actions of love and healing. But what to Christians do? We go straight to go and sin no more while skipping over the love and healing.
editing: grammar