Mr. scheeper...

How exactly do you hate the "sin" without hating the "sinner" ?

Without discriminating I mean.

While I don't necessarily prescribe to this notion, anyone who has family knows the feeling (or should).  If your brother has a drinking problem you know what it it to hate the bottle but love your brother.  You hate that he is doing something that you believe is wrong but you love him all the same.  It's not a great analogy but it is the best I can think of.

Mr. piepgrass...

Theres a big difference between being an alchoholic and being heterosexual or homosexual.

Also...Alchohlicism is a habit while sexual orientation is just one of the many aspects of us humanoid beings.

Mr. McHugh

You are missing the point.  The anology is about your feeling towards anothers actions and how it is possible to still care for a person and not approve of their actions.

No mr. piepgrass...I dont believe I missed anything.

Unlike alchoholisim...When folks disaprove of homosexuals...They try to legislate against them.

Also...Alchoholism kills.

Homosexuality doesnt.

Mr. McHugh

You are fixated on being right more than you seem to be on understanding the point of view.  Obviously you have a strong emotional investment in your point of view but don't ask the question if you might not like the answer.  You asked how people could "love the sinner and hate the sin".  I provided an example.  You chose to pick apart the analogy rather than engage further in the discussion. 

Here is the problem, you want people to fully accept and endorse you with no reservation.  Fine, that is a great goal but it will never happen without honest conversation.  Picking at examples and refusing to engage in anything but nit-picking burns bridges and in the end you are the one who looses out.   

Why should people like me and those that support us like Thomas McHugh agree with you about what is a sin and not. Calling us a "sin," which you are doing, is saying that we are sick, broken, demented, etc. However the only sick, broken, demented people are the those that wont accept reality for what it is. Gay people and homosexuality is normal, natural, and homosexuality is a positive variant of sexual orientation.

I find it very funny that you are not willing to accept the science, or McHugh's arguments but you expect him and us to understand and accept yours. Such a sad puppet you are. You further make yourself out to be an idiot by telling Thomas that he is picking examples and refusing to listen when you are by in large doing the same thing.

As a scientist and as a psychology student for many years I can tell you homosexuality is nothing like alcoholism.I know many people who are and were alcoholics, my mentally ill mother being one of them. You are dangerously merging together examples based on false pretenses, misconceptions, blatant ignorance and arrogance of what sexual orientation is, and false stereotypes passed on by misinformed, bias, and mainly evil people who wish to see harm befall innocent and positive contributors to society.

Gay people are not broken, however your circular rationality that perpetuates the hate and denigration of my people IS what breaks them down as human beings and makes them turn to alcohol, drugs, and un-safe sex, to medicate themselves from people like you and the problems you create for us. I hope you feel proud for being complicit with murder, because your actions and words are what cause many LGBT teens take their lives each day.

Mr. piepgrass...

Unless a person's actions are causing harm to me or anyone else...It doesnt matter whether I aprove of them or not...For the simple reason that we all have the right to do as we will with harm to none.

Ok this is going to be a long one...

Mr. Marshall, keep the comments to the scope of this thread.  The science of sexual orientation, not in the thread, any notion that those in the LGBT community are somehow sick, broken, or demented, not mentioned. I have not stated such and as I have explained the example was not to equate the two but rather to communicate the point of view that one has when one says "love the sinner but hate the sin".  For many people (again since I have to spell it out I am not in this camp, said that from the get go but why read a thread when you can just react to it...) they honesty believe the two are exactly the same.  They believe that predispositions are the same as sexual orientations and just as one is predisposed to be an alcoholic one can be predisposed to be a homosexual. For the lay man the distinction is understandably easy to overlook. 

You are engaging in reaction formation so I will throw some cognitive dissonance your way to jog you out of it.  I am the son of a preacher, a libertarian, and a psych major.  I understand both the evangelical point of view and have too many friends that are gay to believe that anyone would choose a life that could potentially alienate them from their family or put them in danger.  I support the idea that marriage is between you and the person you want to spend the rest of your life with (and God if you are so inclined) and not the state.  I believe that there is a biological component to homosexuality but as I believe in a mixture of nature and nurture as a general underlying principal of human development. I believe there is more to it than just DNA, much of which we aren't at a technological stage to fully grasp on a scientific or psycho-social level.  I could go on but I hope this is sufficient.  I might add this is not the first time I have had to go over my life history with you just to communicate that you need to look into your assumptions of others before reacting so strongly.

Now as to the topic at hand....

Mr. McHugh

I think we are getting closer to an understanding.  I would say though that in the abstract I totally agree (being libertarian this is pretty much my whole political philosophy).  We are however not talking a (for most people) about someone in the abstract.  From an evangelical perspective (again just to keep from avoiding flame wars not my POV but one I am familiar with) most of the time you aren't talking about someone in the abstract when you "love the sinner, hate the sin".  You are most likely talking about someone you have an emotional connection to.  For Evangelicals there is a need to separate the person from what they perceive to be sin, and I think this is a good thing.  It allows people to be more than a stereotype.  It counteracts the black and white thinking that a lot of groups tend to gravitate to.  More than anything else it opens up dialogue.  Dialogue leads to understanding, understanding to real acceptance.  I'll admit the example wasn't the greatest (something I said from the get go) but the emotional connection to another person was what needed to be communicated.

But you fail to state exactly how he is wrong.  A mere assertion of wrongness carries no weight.  Desmond Tutu is a bishop, a highly respected position in his church, a church known for having more reading of the Bible in its services than most churches have.  He has done the work of God for decades, and has suffered in prison for it.  Some self-called Christians condemned him for opposing apartheid...this carries more wieght for argument than a mere assertion of wrongness from somebody I do not know.

Nope mr. berg...

Its you and every other homohater thats wrong.