"Love the sinner, hate the sin." It's a tediously repeated and obnoxious message promulgated by nearly every church I can think of and as a policy it's a breeding ground for bigotry, hatred and worse. At best it's a cop-out for the mainstream churches who try to convince us all that they harbour no grudge against glbt people. They love us, they really, really love us! They somehow believe it's possible to hide their religious distaste for expressions of love between people of the same sex or whose sexuality does not fit in with the endless begatting scenarios the Bible bangs on about. It's pious, patronising, pompous and hair-splitting to say the least. "Love the sinner, hate the sin" somehow enables them to believe they're succesfully walking the tightrope between acceptance of human diversity on one side and sticking to the hand-me-down sexual philosophies they claim to find in the Bible on the other. It's quite a tricky, well-nigh impossible, balancing act. Frankly, it's a cop-out. But "Love the sinner, hate the sin" is a much more malignant philosophy in the hands of the arguably mad, bad and power-crazy leaders of the rash of fundamentalist churches springing up around New Zealand. It assumes that church adherents can distinguish between the two and leave their hatred of the "sin" behind when they confront the sinners. It assumes they can think it through and understand the nuances implied. It comes as no surprise that the maladjusted, low-achieving, socially inept and/or easily led adherents of the likes of Destiny Church and its brethren cannot perform this act fs subtle reasoning. Hyped up by their pastors' rantings about glory, riches and free entry to heaven, hearing the hate part all to readily and having trouble comprehending the love part, they lash out in a frenzy of biblical viciousness. Hate... raised fists! Hate... die in hell! Hate... attack the perverts! Hate... we will rule! Of course their pastors say they simply preach "Love the sinner, hate the sin." They say their churches and ministries have no messages of confrontation or denigration, but this is sophistry of the worst kind. Their snake-tongued "Love the sinner, hate the sin" message feeds their flocks' need for an enemy and the upshot is two lesbians waking up to a sickening anti-lesbian poster in a neighbour's window facing their dining room and bedroom windows... or the sort neo-Nazi thug-like behaviour seen on the sidelines of Destiny church's march on parliament and even more sickeningly at the Big Gay Out. Here at GayNZ.com we would welcome even one verifiable report of a fundamentalist pastor this coming weekend chastising any of his followers in case they were involved in religious thuggery at the weekend. One report of a pastor standing up to the brainless bigots amongst the adoring faces turned to their pulpit and with genuine compassion and love explaining why it's wrong to scream hellish threats to same-sex parents in front of their children, to brutalise and bully teenage men and women just setting out on independent lives. My guess is that it won't happen because, despite all the mush talk about "Love the sinner, hate the sin," the scum who scream abuse and hatred in the name of their god are doing the exact work their pastors have carefully brainwashed them into doing. If we ever wanted wanted a glimpse of our country as envisaged by the politicised religious organisations, cults and coalitions now jockeying for a voice in parliament at election time - just nine or so months away - then the sickening scenes at the Big Gay out and the march on parliament are just that vision of the future. Jay Bennie - 15th February 2005