Why Christians Become LGBTQ+ Allies: How The Christian Post Gets it Wrong

What if it’s because God leads us?

Writing for the Christian Post, Samuel Sey asks why do Christians become LGBTQ+ allies. He puts “Christian” in scare quotes in the title and says “supposedly Christian” in the first sentence, implying that affirming Christians are not “real Christians.”

Relationship evangelism

Sey claims that “one of the reasons why many professing Christians have become allies with LGBTQ people is because many of their friends and family have become members of the LGBTQ community.”

Studies show that this is statistically the biggest reason why people become LGBTQ affirming. For instance, a 2013 study from Pew Research Center shows that 32% of Americans changed their minds on gay marriage because they “know someone who is homosexual.”

Okay, fair enough. This is the same technique I was taught in the evangelical church. They called it “relationship evangelism.” Show your family and friends the love of Jesus and they will see how wonderful it is to be a Christian by the witness of your life.

However, Sey has a problem with this “powerful, manipulative argument” when used by LGBTQ+ people to show their “Christian parents, siblings, and friends” that they are just people too. Sey claims they “do not have courage or integrity to resist” what he sees as sin.

Many of us love and fear our friends and family more than we love and fear God. We’re more afraid of becoming enemies with our loved ones than becoming enemies with God. Therefore for every person who becomes a member of the LGBTQ community, many more of their friends and family will become LGBTQ allies.

When someone asked Jesus which commandment was greatest, he replied,

“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Oops, did I love my neighbour too much? Do I need to get a measuring device out to ensure I’m loving God more than I love anyone else? How would I even measure that?

I became affirming before I knew anyone in real life who was LGBTQ+, before I realized I was LGBTQ+ myself.

Movies, TV shows, and books

Sey goes on to condemn the “popular movies, TV shows, and books today [that] feature characters and storylines designed to normalize LGBTQ sexuality.” He claims this is meant to “indoctrinate” people into seeing “sin” as normal.

After all, if your favorite character on TV has a gay best friend, why wouldn’t you accept your own friend who’s LGBTQ?

Why not indeed? Sey thinks this is a bad thing, of course.

Somehow, pornography is also to blame?

Sexual sins create apathy and support for other sexual sins. Pornography is a sexual sin that normalizes and endorses other kinds of sexual sin like rape, incest, and LGBTQ sexuality.

One of these things is not like the other. Rape and incest are things you do while LGBTQ+ is something you are.

I grew up in the 90s, so I hardly saw any positive portrayals of LGBTQ+ people in fiction before I became an affirming Christian.

Public school

And then, of course there is the “unrelenting indoctrination in public schools.”

Seriously?

In Canada, where I work for a public school board, we steadfastly support LGBTQ+ students, but the Christian Post writes for a predominately US audience, and US schools are definitely relenting on this lately.

In the 90s, when I was in high school, “gay” was an insult and there was not a single person in my school who was openly LGBTQ+. I never met any openly LGBTQ+ people at university either.

Race and racism

And then Sey tries to tie it all to critical race theory:

This is why many of your supposedly Christian friends have become LGBTQ allies. Critical race theory compelled them to become “allies” with black people, then through intersectionality — they’re now compelled to become LGBTQ allies.

So what now? Is it Christian to be racist? Is it sinful to be “allies” to Black people (with scare quotes around ‘allies’ of course). Is support for racism and segregation coming back to the forefront in the church?

That’s terrifying.

Here’s a hint: if you feel that you’re “compelled” to be an ally to someone in order to be a good person, it is probably not a bad thing to do so. When I was growing up, church leaders taught me that your conscience was created by God to work along with Holy Spirit to nudge you to do what is right.

If your church says you have to be racist and/or homophobic in order to be a Christian, they are wrong. Find a new church.

There are multiple churches around the world that accept, love, and affirm LGBTQ+ people as made in God’s image. You don’t have to hate LGBTQ+ people in order to be a real Christian.

My parents taught me that racism is bad, but I thought being gay was a sin until I was an adult.

Why did I become an LGBTQ+ ally?

I joined Tumblr in May of 2014. I started following and interacting with fandom blogs, especially Star Wars, Once Upon a Time, Sherlock, and Doctor Who, and I discovered there were a lot of LGBTQ+ people in those circles. I slowly grew to respect and admire them for their strength, though I clung to my conviction that same-sex sexual activity was sinful.

I don’t remember when I changed my mind, but I remember that it was a Tumblr post about the New Testament story of the centurion’s servant. For the first time, I encountered the interpretation that the centurion and his servant were in a sexual relationship, and it was like a light came on in my soul.

Before I realized that I am LGBTQ+ myself, I was convinced by LGBTQ+ people just being people, and by intellectual Biblical interpretation. I believe that Holy Spirit prepared my heart and led me to accept the truth in my own time.

I became an LGBTQ+ ally because I believed it was the right, good, and loving thing to do, and because I no longer believed that anything about being LGBTQ+ was sinful.

Esther learned to read when she was four years old, and began writing shortly thereafter. She is a queer Christian poet, crafting with words to create art and music.

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