What if You Are Wrong?

It happens every June like clockwork, but this year feels different. Over the last few weeks of this LGBTQIA+ Pride Month, I have witnessed an incredible increase in "Christian hate speech" - a phrase that by all rights should be an absolute oxymoron. The vitriol aimed at queer people seems louder, sharper, and more relentless than before.

Maybe it has always been this bad and I am just seeing it clearly now. As an intern at the Cathedral of Hope - the world’s largest LGBTQIA+ church - my own ministry has gained significantly in passion and intensity. Because of that, I’ve stepped a little deeper into the online fray, putting myself right on the front lines where this digital warfare plays out. Armed with placards, social media commentary, and an arsenal of select bible verses, a specific faction of the church has made it their annual mission to condemn, alienate, and judge.

Under the guise of "truth," these critics claim they are trying to change and control human behavior. But let's be honest about the actual fruit of their labor: all they are really doing is breaking spirits and driving people away from God.

As I watch this unfold from the heart of a faith community built on radical inclusion, a terrifying question keeps coming to mind - a question I want to pose directly to those who spend their energy opposing Pride:

What if you are wrong?

Have you ever stopped, even for a moment, to consider the sheer weight of that possibility? Have you looked at the real-world consequences of your words and actions? The anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric spewed from pulpits and typed out in comment sections isn’t just harmless theological disagreement. It causes profound, measurable trauma. It tears families apart, drives teenagers to homelessness, and pushes vulnerable people to the brink of despair.

So, I have to ask: Do you even care about the harm you are causing?

If you see the pain, the broken spirits, and the devastated lives resulting from your crusade, and your response is to shrug your shoulders and call it "collateral damage" in the name of truth or "God's word", then we need to ask a much deeper question: Are you really even acting as a Christian at all?

Let me be perfectly clear: it is not sexual orientation or gender identity that separates people from God. Cathedral's 4000 LGBTQIA+ members are living, breathing proof of that truth every single week. What actually separates people from the church - and from a relationship with their Creator - is the "Christians" who persecute us in the name of a handful of ancient verses that are being taken grossly out of context.

Following Jesus cannot be reduced to robotic programming - parroting back what an ignorant pastor told you or "prooftexting" the Bible to suit your own preexisting prejudices. That isn’t a living, breathing faith. It is a rigid ideology that actively defaces God’s creation.

We see this most clearly in the way the so-called "clobber verses" are weaponized. Take Leviticus, for example, where ancient holiness codes are dragged out of their Bronze Age context to condemn modern loving relationships - all while the same people ignore the surrounding verses about eating shellfish, wearing blended fabrics, or charging interest. Or look at how Romans 1 is ripped out of context, ignoring that Paul was addressing specific pagan idolatry and exploitative practices of the Roman empire, not committed, monogamous same-sex couples.

To take ancient texts, written 2000 to 3000 years ago in vastly different cultures and languages, and pretend you have absolute, infallible certainty about how they apply to 21st-century identities isn't faithfulness. It’s hubris. None of us can fully know God’s infinite intentions from ancient text alone.

You would be far better Christians by abandoning this false certainty. True faith requires the humility to admit that our understanding is finite. When we trade our rigid dogmatism for the actual message of Jesus, everything changes. Jesus didn't leave us a checklist of people to exclude; He left us a commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. He explicitly stated that the entire law is summed up in love.

If you are worried about the state of the world, remember this fundamental truth: the behavior of others does not imperil your own salvation. You are not responsible for policing the lives of God's children. You are, however, responsible for how you treat them.

This Pride Month, step away from the culture wars. Put down the clobber verses. If you must err, err on the side of grace, mercy, and radical love. Because if you stand before God one day and find out you were wrong, wouldn't you rather be guilty of loving people too much than harming them in God's name?

Jeremiah 29:11-13 (NIV)

¹¹ "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ¹² Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

Queer people have tried to "pray the gay away" based on societal prejudice and normativity for centuries. It doesn't work. We went to God and tried. We sought God with all our hearts.

And you know what? God listened to us.

God told us that God had plans for us to prosper and to give us a future. By continuing this relentless persecution, you are standing directly in the way of those plans. Worse yet, you are standing in the way of your own salvation - which only comes from loving yourself, loving God, and loving ALL of God's children. THAT is what matters most in our faith. That is the ONLY thing that is separating you from God this Pride Month.