Excellent points, and I might add that being called a sinner can be deeply traumatizing for LGBTQ people, who often associate that label with rejection that they or people they know and love have experienced.

LGBTQ people who have been pushed out of families, congregations, communities, etc, because they are “sinners” taste the judgment of the word, not any potential love.

It’s a matter of perspective, I suppose. A Christian who uses that phrase might feel fairly good about themselves emphasizing love, but the LGBTQ person is inevitably going to flash to something much darker.

There’s a reason a popular saying among us is “There’s no hate like Christian love.” I don’t necessarily endorse that saying, but it is a common perception among us that when a Christian says love they really mean hate. I’d venture to say that’s not an idea Christians would like to reinforce.

Have you seen “It’s a Sin,” the powerful series from the UK that dramatizes the AIDS epidemic among a group of young friends in London in the 1980s?

It’s extremely hard to watch because of how well done it is, how well it brings those desperate days back to life.

I mention it only because the title springs from the LGBTQ aversion to being labeled as sinners, to being judged.

It comes from our collective understanding that Christians delayed responding to HIV and AIDS because we are sinners. (It’s too long a story to get into in this comment, but it was Christian people and activists behind delayed government responses to the HIV crisis.)

So when Christians remind us of that by telling us they love the sinner, our reaction is going to be intensely negative. Many of us are going to be not just angry, but intensely furious.

There just isn’t any way around that.