La Shawn writes at her corner that a group called Soulforce has organized a 51-day tour of Christian and other conservative colleges on “Equality Rides” to equate phony homosexual “civil rights” with the struggle for blacks to win real civil rights back in the 1960s. Soulforce claims that:

[l]ike the Freedom Rides of the 50’s and 60’s, the Equality Ride is a student-led effort that takes young adults into epicenters of intolerance and oppression to make a better tomorrow. In going on this journey, the Equality Riders draw inspiration from those Freedom Riders over forty years ago.

I’m 45 years old and white, so the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s is only a vague memory to me. Looking back from my Christian perspective though, I cannot imagine prohibiting people, just because of their color, the right to vote, the right to sleep in the hotel room of their choice, and the right to drink out of any water fountain, not to mention even worse things. Those things were wrong, dead wrong, and any American — especially a Christian — who bought into racism should bow to their needs and beg forgiveness from God.

However, even as a young white male, I’m incensed that homosexual groups consider their mission to be on a par with snuffing out racism in the 1960s. It trivializes what happened 40 years ago and makes a mockery out of what was real persecution.

Most Americans are willing to adopt an attitude of “live and let live” toward homosexuals. However, most Americans also believe that homosexuality is a violation of natural law and persons of faith believe that it violates God’s law as well.

Should homosexuals have the same rights as every other American? Sure. But should they have special rights and demand that their lifestyle be portrayed as morally equal (or even morally superior!) to a monogamous heterosexual lifestyle? By no means!

But what about Christians? Well, we are commanded to love the sinner yet hate the sin. No matter how uncomfortable a homosexual’s lifestyle makes us, we need to show them the love of Christ. A very high percentage of homosexual men were either (a) sexually abused as a child; or (b) had an absent or emotionally abusive father. These facts don’t excuse the sin but they can help us understand it. Christians are often willing to understand how early abuses brought about other types of negative behavior but are reluctant to understand how similar abuses can bring out homosexual behavior. The horrible thing is that many of us, deep down inside, know that if our childhood had been different, we could have turned to drugs, abusive lifestyles, or even homosexuality as adults. There but for the grace of God go I.

The homosexual community is a desperately hurting community. There are many people dying of AIDS who are sick, lonely, depressed, and devoid of a relationship with God. Homosexuals are often violent with one another and the rate of drug use is high. I would argue that we Christians need to treat homosexuals, and especially AIDS patients, as we once treated lepers. Yeah, homosexuality is gross. Hugging a gay man can be difficult at first. But our job show them Christ’s love, help them to repent and change their lives, and bring them into a right relationship with God and other people.

I spent years with ties to the periphery of the music and entertainment business. Several years ago I had the honor of being with a homosexual friend when he died. His sister was holding him on his left side and I was holding him on his right side. He had repented and become a Christian several months earlier. His sister had prayed for him for years and the message that she got from God was don’t desert him, but rather love him. It was God’s love flowing through her that made him a changed man.

If you’re a Christian, let God use you to minister to and love homosexuals, not to write them off as beyond God’s help. Yes, the sin is gross but is it any more gross than Paul having Christians murdered or John Newton — the writer of the song “Amazing Grace” — having participated in the slave trade? There is no sin that is too big for God to forgive and no sinner that is beyond hope.