My feeling, generally, is that people who say "love the sinner, hate the sin" usually don't really mean that: they don't like either the sinner or the sin.

However, with response to your particular argument, while I agree that homosexuality isn't sinful, "love the sinner, hate the sin" could still be valid with respect to other sins. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that one of my daughters stole a car. I would still love my daughter, but I would hate what she'd done. So it's a perfectly valid phrase in general, it just doesn't work for being gay since that's not a sin.

Well let me tell you, I speak for THE MOST POWERFUL FICTITIOUS CHARACTER IN ALL THE MULTIVERSE, and I say, er...the fictitious character says that your debate partner is fulla Scheiße.

Seriously, when you strip away the unprovable, sin is merely a repackaged appeal to authority (one of the logical fallacies), and you're left with little to argue about.

It goes something like this: "It's not me who hates you, it's god that hates you. Yes, god, the most powerful entity ever imaginable--the entity that created everything there is in just seven days, yet can't seem to speak for himself/herself/itself/themselves.... This most powerful entity now relies on some average schmuck to do his/her speaking, and prior to that, relied upon dozens of "scribes" to take unbiased dictation...because, yaknow, 'all-powerful' doesn't necessarily include having the strength to pick up a pencil."

In the end, what we really end up arguing about with such things is nonsense along the lines of how many fairies can dance on the head of a pin or whether we should follow the rules of Dungeons & Dragons or Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. To be sure, there's a lot of good stuff in the bible, but along with that comes piles of pretty bad things masquerading as good things that would get anybody locked away for life if they followed "the word of god." If you're gonna eat that apple, it's a good idea to know where the razor blades are hidden.

One of my favorite passages from the bible:
"And if you find a city where the people worship a different god, go to that city and kill every one of them, even the animals."
Deuteronomy 13:15

Makes the ISIS / ISIL guys look pretty sane by comparison.

I am a gay Christian. What does that mean? It means I have a religious, ritualistic (rites and worship), and spiritual (prayer and devotions and meditation) practice. What is the value of such practice? Only this: does my Christian practice help me to treat others as I would have them treat me and not to treat others as I would have them not treat me? God does not care if I hear him speak to me. He cares if I am kind and compassionate.

In m parish is a young man who is frequently in and out of jail. We get exasperated at the stupid and sometimes scary things he does. We don't "hate" the sin. We don't even know what that would mean. We feel sad when Ted (not his real name) does things that are what a Buddhist teacher I once knew wold call "unskillful."

As a Christian I have to practice deepening my love for others. When Jesus says that at the end times he's going to ask who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and gave drink to the thirsty, he does not add, "Who believes in God?" The great Christian mystics often wrote about the impossibility of even saying God exists since God's being is beyond categories of any kind, including existence/non-existence.

You simply cannot hate the sin without hating the sinner. To do so means you see the sin as primary, and no Christian should ever do this. You start by seeing Christ in the people you meet, and that makes it impossible for you to see them as sinners but only, rather, as creatures of light who suffer and need your prayers and love.

Yes, in real time I suck at it. But I get a little better from time to time, and even tiny bits of improvement make it worthwhile for me.

Yes, I'm tempted to say to some of these evangelists, "I don't hate you. I hate the fat that's hanging off your grotesque body." But, of course, I'd have to look in the mirror, wouldn't I?

I think any real Christian who reads all of the Bible will find him or herself sickened by the parts that endorse genocide, when God commands armies to kill all the men, women, children, and animals and then punishes them for not doing so. The use of these texts for many of us is to understand in a horrifying and deep way that our *interpretation* of what God is telling us to do doesn't always sync with a belief in what God actually is, at least as the teacher Jesus tried to make clear.

Christian faith is a practice. One who practices accepts at the start his or her own imperfections and tries to become a better person. That's pretty much an impossible thing to do if you imagine you're better than the people you interact with, unless you're dealing with known pedophiles, child abusers, and the like. But even then you have to suspend some judgment, for you can never know what produced the behavior. I, personally, believe in mercy; but I also believe there is no mercy without justice. I suffered terrible abuse as a child. Can I forgive the man who did it? Not if I don't take justice seriously. He could be out there doing it to other kids. That's why it has to be a *practice.* We have to keep open the possibility, always, that we may be right or wrong. This is a clear example where the law should prevail in some way. But most of our dealings have to do with petty issues we have with people. We need to practice getting over ourselves, and I find meditation and prayer help *me* with that.

I can't simply declare that I am *now* saved and free of error and understand everything. I have to be willing to be wrong so that I can stop making other people wrong.

Hate the sin, not the sinner, is simply a hateful way of being in the world. Better to adopt an attitude of compassion for yourself and all people, and compassion demands listening and entering into their suffering, and once you do that, there aren't a lot of sins left in the equation, and you start to see the nonsense of hating the things that you now see are clearly not evil. Like all of us here.

As the French say, Bingo!