One - Introduction

Recently, I came across a Twitter thread sparked by queer Christians that led to a lot of childish debate. In it, a trans Christian posted, “I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it. We don’t need everyone to hold an affirming theology. It doesn’t make them anti-queer. Would it be nice? Sure, but we can have legitimate theological disagreement on this topic. Good people can disagree respectfully and with love.”

In the comments, people disagreed with this poster, and, ironically enough, her responses refused to engage with the idea that reasonable people might disagree with her on this. She claims to have been on edge due to people being cruel to her for a long time, which is understandable. People can be awful. No one deserves harassment and cruelty.

That being said, she’s wrong. What her post is attempting to do is give space for queerphobic people to be queerphobic without having to confront that knowledge. 

So. Let’s talk about the need certain queer Christians have to ignore and protect the bigotry of their fellows Christians. Spoiler alert: it comes down to fear.

Two - Definitions

In one of the responses to that Tweet, someone asked if the backlash against it might be because some people simply don’t understand the terms being used. Someone else suggested there’s a difference between the secular meaning and the religious meaning of those words.

Unfortunately for them, none of the potential meanings helps their case. After all, they’re saying you can think being gay is wrong without being anti-gay, which, you might realize, is a stupid statement on the face of it.

Definition One: Queer — When I say this, I mean anyone who is LGBTQ+, and I vehemently do not mean so-called “political queers,” those who are not themselves LGBTQ+ but view “queerness” as a label of anti-system politics.

Definition Two: Non-Affirming, Version 1 — The belief that one cannot be a Christian while also being one of the following, dependent on the flavor of the non-affirming person: 1) a queer person, 2) a queer person who uses any LGBT identity label, or 3) one who does not believe being or acting on being queer is a sin. They do not believe one can be in sincere disagreement with them and still be a Christian.

Definition Three: Affirming, Version 1 — The belief that one can be a Christian regardless of their views on queer people and regardless of whether or not they are queer.

Definition Four: Non-Affirming, Version 2 — This version has nothing to do with whether or not one can profess to be a Christian. Instead, it means any of the following, either in isolation or in some combination:

1. Being gay or trans in and of itself is a sin.

2. Being gay or trans in and of itself is a choice one can make.

3. Being gay or trans in and of itself is a temptation of hell.

4. Gay sex is a sin.

5. Gay relationships are a sin.

6. Gay marriage is a sin.

7. Gay marriage doesn’t exist.

8. Social transition for trans people is a sin.

9. Any gender non-conforming action or self-concept is a sin.

10. Gender affirming surgery is a sin.

11. Gender affirming hormone replacement therapy is a sin.

In other words, it is the belief that either being or acting upon being queer is a sin. It is not “within God’s plans.” It is a product of the Fall and of sin. For them, there is no queerness in a perfect world.

Definition Five: Affirming, Version 2 — Being and acting upon being queer is not a sin.

Definition Six: Non-Affirming, Version 3. Your exact theological interpretation re: queer people is incorrect.

Definition Seven: Affirming, Version 3 — Your exact theological interpretation re: queer people is correct.

Now. Let’s try to substitute those definitions into the following statement: You can be non-affirming without being anti-queer. 

Version 1: You can think queer people and their allies are excluded from being Christians without being anti-queer. 

Version 2: You can think it is a sin and morally wrong to be queer or act upon being queer without being anti-queer.

Version 3: You can think someone’s exact interpretation of scripture in a pro-queer way is incorrect without being anti-queer. 

That last one seems vague. What does it mean? People disagree on exact interpretations even when they fundamentally agree on the outcome. I don’t think it’s a useful definition. But really, that split of “being right or wrong” in interpretation doesn’t explain one’s actual views. So let’s try rewording that: You can think the only correct interpretation of scripture is anti-queer without being anti-queer.

Which of those statements makes sense? Which definition allows you to be non-affirming and somehow not anti-queer? The answer is: none of them. “It is wrong to be gay” is an inherently anti-gay statement. “It is wrong to be trans” is an inherently anti-trans statement. “It is wrong to be queer” is a belief that is itself anti-queer. It is bigoted. There is no getting around that.

Interestingly, one defense levied in the many threads the original Tweet caused was the idea that one can hold to a personal belief while, politically speaking at least, being pro-LGBT. These would be similar to people who view abortion as a horrible sin but do not want the government legislating based on their personal religious convictions. 

When compared to people who are personally and politically anti-queer, that is an obviously better position to hold. But does that make them not anti-queer? No. Because they still believe it is incorrect to be LGBT. That belief is inherently anti-queer. Espousing that belief is inherently anti-queer. 

In response to someone pointing out what I just said, the pro-non-affirming camp said some non-affirming people are nice, and some affirming people are actually anti-queer assholes. The last bit was strange, as being anti-queer means you cannot be affirming, regardless of whatever label you pretend to apply to yourself. The first bit was, at best, intensely naive and, at worst, ridiculously dishonest. Yes, people who are homophobic can be nice. People who are racist can be nice. People who are murderers can be nice. People who spend their lives dedicated to helping and healing people can be absolute assholes. A person’s ability to behave in kind ways does not change the core of their beliefs. It does not prevent them from being cruel in other areas.

In the brief back and forth about definitions that took place on Twitter, a well-meaning person brought up that there are non-affirming people who believe that celibacy is the best option for queer people, and he wasn’t going to label them homophobic. Yet, that belief, that it is wrong to act on being gay, is homophobia. 

When I pointed this out, neither he nor the OP responded. But a non-affirming person did. His response was that homophobia is a phobia, so it’s obviously bullshit because fear doesn’t fuel people who think being queer or acting on being queer is against God’s will. He also insisted that queerphobia is only when people are advocating for discrimination or violence. This is the semantic game that homophobes love to play. 

I was once told by a woman advocating for the biblical stoning of gay people that she wasn’t being homophobic because she wasn’t scared of gay people. They play this little game because they think it’s a fun gotcha. By making fun of the language, they play off the actual definition of their choice bigoted -phobia. It lets them distance themselves from their own cruelty. 

When you say you can be non-affirming without being anti-queer, you’re avoiding using the proper words. You’re using synonyms for the purpose of obfuscation. “You can be queerphobic without being queerphobic” is a phrase that means nothing. Yet that is what that sentiment means. It is nonsense meant to justify bigotry.

The OPs responses to disagreements were illuminating. Over and over, she pushed the idea that while non-affirming people believe queer people are living in error, that’s not queerphobia, which is the belief that it’s wrong to be queer. It’s a nonsense idea. 

One person told her that disagreeing on matters of theology is fine, but not on matters of personhood. You cannot lovingly “disagree” with someone being gay. The OP disagreed. She said that “the gays are not beyond reproach.” It’s incredibly bad faith to respond with that. Any individual person is capable of critique and being wrong or being kind. 

Being gay and being trans are not things that one can lovingly disagree with. They are not choices, not that they’d be wrong if they were, and there is nothing to reproach unless you think it’s fine to say that being gay is an inherent wrong. It’s in that response that I think the OPs actual belief comes out: There’s nothing wrong with being anti-queer. It’s fine. As long as it’s a sincere belief, bigotry is fine.

Someone else brought up the idea that saying you can be non-affirming and not be anti-queer is similar to saying you can be against interracial marriage and not be racist. OP rolled her eyes at this. The guy who played dishonest games with me over the definition of homophobia resented the comparison. 

Of course, being gay and being Black are not the same. They are different historic political struggles (though they are deeply entwined). The point in this comparison was to say that being against interracial marriage is obviously racist. The theology you espouse to get there doesn’t matter; you’re still racist. Being against gay marriage makes you inherently homophobic. The theology you espouse to get there does not change that. You do not choose your race. You do not choose whether or not you’re queer. 

But this comparison was mocked because the only way to get around it is to mock the very idea. Otherwise, you have to deal with how incredibly obvious your bigotry is.

Of course, someone who wasn’t mocked and eyerolled was someone whose response was “Yeah! Saying being homophobic is homophobic alienates Black churches.” Now, yes, there are homophobic Black Christians, just like there are homophobic Christians of every race. They don’t get a pass on homophobia because they’re Black. What kind of infantalizing nonsense is that?

So what happens when people push back against this idea? What happens when we call being anti-queer being anti-queer? Well, those who defend homophobes immediately pivot to talking about kindness and grace.

Here’s my position: You should always try your best not to be an asshole. We are all human beings. We all are capable of great good and great harm, and it’s up to us to extend grace when we’re capable of it. Do I think you’re irredeemable and incapable of loving if you’re a homophobe? No. But you’re still a homophobe. Your beliefs are still shameful.

But saying that then gets interpreted by those like the OP as “fundamentalism.” They start complaining along the lines of, “Oh, so you can’t critique the in-group and its beliefs? You’re using shame.” I agree that shame isn’t the best. It’s generally not a useful emotion.

However.

Queerphobic beliefs harm people. It is wrong to harm people. And no, you cannot critique the state of being queer. That is plain bigotry, and your beliefs, your anti-queer beliefs, do not deserve respect. You, as a human person, deserve empathy and kindness. Your beliefs, which are anti-human, anti-empathy, and anti-queer, do not deserve empathy and kindness. A sincere belief in bigotry does not remove the bigoted cruelty.

The counter used here is that there is a negative connotation to the words “homophobe” and “anti-queer” and “transphobe” and so on. Using them, one might argue, isn’t showing kindness. But here’s the thing: Why are we playing this game? Why are we pretending this is a worthy debate? Why is the OP so dedicated to running defense for queerphobes under the pretense of simply advocating for humility?

It’s because we love people who harm us. We love people who believe harmful things about us. We love homophobes and transphobes, and recognizing that they are queerphobic is painful. It makes that love complicated and messy. 

That’s scary. So we downplay it.

Speaking of downplaying anti-queer bigotry…

Three - Revoice

June of 2023 saw the annual Revoice Conference take place in St. Louis, Missouri. Hundreds of LGBT Christians gathered together to worship and revel in having a space to be able to talk about their faith whilst being safe, accepted, and in community with their fellows.

Imagine a box. Inside of the box, imagine spikes. Large ones line the floor. Medium ones line the left wall. Small spikes line the right wall. There are none on the ceiling. Pick a side to cling to. 

You’re obviously going to to pick the top of the top.

There are, generally speaking, four perspectives when it comes to views on sexuality in Christian circles. Those views are called Sides. We have Side A, Side B, Side X, and Side Y.  Starting at the top of the box and going clockwise, we can label the box in alphabetical order. A, B, X, Y.

So what do they all mean? For those who don’t know, let’s, again, define some terms.

Side A is the easiest to remember. A is for Affirming. It’s the position that being LGBT+ is not a sin, and our relationships are not inherently sinful. Many seem to assume that those on Side A must be progressive or have deconstructed their Christianity. While I imagine that progressives make up a large amount of Side A, simply being affirming doesn’t prevent someone from believing in things such as purity culture and other conservative Christian ethics that I personally believe are harmful but aren’t truly relevant to this discussion.

Side B encompasses the belief that being LGBT is not a sin and neither is using identifying language. A Side B person can call themselves gay, and that’s fine. What they cannot do, however, is pursue any non-straight sexual relationship or marriage. Acting on being gay, in their minds, is a sin. You may be asking, does this affect trans people? Side B doesn’t seem to have a definitive answer. Many people on Twitter simply dodge the question, but my assumption would be they view being trans as non-sinful, yet view transitioning as sinful. Whether that means surgery or social transition is anyone’s guess.

Side Y, also, generally speaking, does not view being LGBT as a sin. It is simply a state of being. Or, as they might put it, a specific temptation towards disorder or towards sin. Unlike Side B, though, Y does not like the usage of identity language. You cannot call yourself gay. That would be identitfying with sin. Besides TERFs, they’re the most likely group to use the term SSA, which stands for same-sex attraction. Someone “has” SSA rather than “is” gay. Or, more likely, they “struggle” with it.

Side X, the far end of the spectrum, is also pretty easy to remember. X for EX-gay. For them, being LGBT is sin. It’s also a choice. It can change. It should change. They’re proponents of conversion therapy, removal from public life, and so on.

So we have our box. A. B. Y. X. No spikes, little spikes, spikes, big spikes. 

Now, if you’re Side B yourself, you might bristle at being associated with spikes at all. That’s okay. But I hope you’ll stick around. Because, though I think your theology is harmful and cruel, I do only have good wishes for you. I only have good wishes for everyone. And maybe, just maybe, you’re the only ones who can change Revoice for the better.

Because Revoice is not what it claims.

And neither is Side B. Because while some conservatives may critique Side B for being too gay, the truth is they operate within the same toxic beliefs and systems as all other homophobes. They’re the Log Cabin Republicans of religious homophobia.

One constant thing you’ll see if you look into conversations with Side B people on social media is an insistence that Side B is not a monolith.

One person who makes this clear over and over on his Twitter is Grant Hartley, a Side B Christian who hosted a breakout event this year at the Revoice conference. Hartley dislikes the “affirming vs non-affirming” labels because he feels they don’t entirely encapsulate the experience of Side B people. He says Side B affirms your ability to exist as a queer person. It affirms that being queer is not wrong. It affirms that God made you holy and inspired. You are loved. It simply says you can’t get gay married. You can’t have gay sex. 

Fun fact, those are the positions of… homophobia. Side B, like with a record, is the flipside of A. It is, by definition, non-affirming. You may be gay, it says, but your relationships must never go as far as straight people’s can. Because our relationships are lesser. Our loves are lesser. God does not approve of them. They think to act on your queerness is wrong. They are non-affirming. But for those like Hartley, acknowledging that fact is painful, because non-affirming is a negative statement. It’s a gentle, clinical way of calling someone a homophobe. But it is still calling them homophobic. Which, well, they are.

I’ve seen Grant’s tweets for a few years now. By all means, he seems like a joyful, positive soul. I actually pretty well like him as a person; his persona seems genuine and good. It’s just too bad that he’s a homophobe.

In one thread on Twitter discussing the different beliefs amongst the Side B crowd, Hartley said some queer Christians might be called to marriage. Ooh! Yay! Only, uh-oh, not gay marriage. He talks about a thing called “mixed-orientation marriages.” 

For those not used to the term, you might think it applies to any mixture of sexualities, but that’s not accurate for this specific conversation. It applies to a gay person marrying someone of the opposite gender. A gay man marrying a woman or vice-versa. The gays must choose celibacy or straight marriage, Hartley argues. 

If you’re very old like me, you might remember “just marry a woman” from the marriage equality debates when people like notorious bigot Antonin Scalia argued that gay people already had the right to marry: the right to get straight married. It’s classic homophobia. 

Mixed-orientation marriages do not work. That’s not to say the marriage won’t be good. Maybe it will. It functions as a well-known form of attempted and failed conversion therapy. But because acknowledging that history would be to connect Side B to Side X, many people choose to pretend that connection isn’t there. Oh well. It is.

Hartley does talk about the joys of queer culture. He talks about how some queer romantic things can be good. But only some. And some might tempt you to wanting sex. Or marriage. Which are bad. God doesn’t like gay matrimony. While he doesn’t advocate for conservative queerphobic politicians, he espouses a theology that is anti-queer. But ackonowledging that hurts, so he pretends it’s something else.

Revoice founder Nate Collins is a self-described gay man in a mixed-orientation marriage. Yikes. Bigoted asshole Bethel McGrew wrote a homophobic and transphobic screed against Revoice. In it, though, one of her complaints is that Collins doesn’t distinguish gay relationships as uniquely bad compared to opposite sex marriages. Instead, according to her, he argues that all relationships that aren’t a husband and a wife are disordered. What we can take away from that is he’s a gay man who views gay relationships as wrong and against the natural order of things.

In a May 25th Tweet, Collins said, “It will suffice to say that I believe all sin–including gay sex–is a perversion.” So, for Collins, it’s fine for gay people to exist. But our relationships are disordered and acting upon our orientations is a sin. That makes him non-affirming. He is homophobic.

How about Bekah Mason, Director of Care & Content? Well, in a 2013 blog about the fight for gay marriage, she declared the solution was for Christians to stop participating in legal marriage. Marriage should be a church thing and the government should only do legal unions. She also said, “I don’t agree with same-sex relationships because I do believe that they do not fall in line with God’s designed purpose for intimate, sexual relationships.”

In a 2018 post before speaking at the first Revoice, Mason says that both gay people who are like, “Don’t be a bigot,” and bigots who are like, “Gay people are bad and should disappear,” are extremists who hurt people like her, who think acting on be gay is bad and closes off your soul from finding true love with Jesus. Oh, also you can’t be an affirming Christian. In other words, Mason says, “I’m non-affirming and anti-queer, but I’m not a homophobe. I’m reasonable.” Does that sound familiar from the Tweet that started this video? It’s dishonesty. It’s pretending that saying, “It’s okay to be queer and have queer relationships” is just as harmful and bad as employing conversion therapy tactics.

So we’re two for two on their board for being homophobes. Revoice’s website only lists one other person. Who is that? Director of Community Care, Art Pereira. 

Art appeared on the YouTube channel of transphobic moron Preston Sprinkle to talk about being a celibate gay Christian. Art’s story is heartbreaking. He discusses his history of religious trauma, his parents’ homophobia, and his experience with conversion therapy. As he was pulling away from the horrors of ex-gay brain washing caused by fundamentalism and conversion torture, Art struggled with the undeniable fact that he is gay. God won’t change him.

He says he read a book by Wesley Hill and then sat with the Bible. He hoped to be affirming, but he didn’t end up there because he thinks God disapproves of queer relationships. To properly love and serve Jesus as a gay person, to Art, you have to be celibate. Honestly, it seems this came about because moving all the way to affirmation would alienate the community Art had built in the days when he was captured entirely by religious anti-queer bigotry. Accepting himself and his potential relationships would be too difficult. It would mean accepting that all of the pain inflicted on him had no reason. It was only pain. 

He says that if God is good, then what God wants must be good, and so therefore celibacy must be good. But that’s not logical. If God is good and what God wants must therefore be good, then the conclusion is not “this thing must be good.” The conclusion is: if this thing produces good results, then it’s what God wants. If it does not, it is not. The ideas of eternal celibacy broke Art’s heart. Telling queer people they are broken and disordered harms them. It kills them. There is no good fruit. 

Side B theology is not good, and therefore, using Art’s logic, cannot be what God wants. Oops.

So that’s what the three named board members of Revoice think. All three are homophobic. They’re non-affirming. But maybe that doesn’t translate directly into Revoice.

There’s a section on the Revoice website, “Our Beliefs,” with a page called “Sexual Ethics & Christian Obedience.” It’s just a homophobic screed. 

Revoice says marriage is only for one man and one woman, and they mean that with so-called “biological sex” in mind. They say, 

…any inward cultivation or outward expression of sexual desire apart from one-flesh bond between husband and wife is out of accord with God’s creational intent, and therefore against His good and gracious will. 

You may pause and say: Wait. Isn’t this purity culture? Isn’t this shaming people for having sexual thoughts? Isn’t it implying that masturbation and self-exploration are wrong? Isn’t it saying that fantasizing is wrong? What does inward cultivation really mean in terms of sexuality? “Anything that isn’t homophobic is bad,” is what it seems like. 

Let’s reverse engineer the last bit about being against God’s good will using Art’s logic. If God is good, so what He wants is good and thereby celibacy is good, then queerness, which isn’t what He wants, must thereby be bad. Oh. That sounds like saying homosexuality is inherently bad. But I thought Side B is supposed to believe it’s okay to be gay so long as you don’t act on it?

Here’s a purely homophobic statement from Revoice in the same article. It’s eliminationist and professes a holy conversion therapy that will be forced on us all when the glorious Rapture comes.

We believe that sin entered the world as a result of the rebellion of Adam and Eve and now permeates every aspect of creation, including human sexuality. Along with every form of sexual desire apart from the one-flesh bond between husband and wife, we believe that same-sex sexual desire experienced by gay, lesbian, bisexual, and other same-sex-attracted people is a product of the Fall; that same-sex sexual desire was not a pre-Fall reality; and that same-sex sexual desire will not exist in the new creation, after the return of Christ.

Translation: Our human attempts at conversion therapy have failed. But when Jesus comes, he’ll use his divine power to destroy queerness. 

If that’s what your God will do, then your God deserves nothing, least of all worship. 

Revoice doesn’t simply believe that acting on being gay is wrong. No one does, because that doesn’t make any sense. Here they reveal their actual core belief: Being queer is wrong. God does not like it. It was never intended, and if there was no sin, there would be no queerness. In the Christian utopia of Revoice, there will be no queer people. We will be “cured.”

They say:

We believe that Christians must actively resist and turn away from every thought, action, desire, or behavior that does not align with God’s revealed intentions for human sexuality, since we are not our own, but belong–body and soul, both in life and in death–to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.

That is the core thought of people who proclaim they “struggle” with same-sex attraction, a phrase you’ll generally only ever see used by anti-gay religious assholes. They see queerness as a burden. They see it as a sin that must actively be fought against. Gay thoughts are wrong and must be resisted. Not just for sex, but for romance. For marriage. To be gay is to constantly struggle against a desire that is Sinful and Bad. 

This is the conference for Side B Christians, a group of people who constantly complain about getting attacked from both sides, bigots upset they’ve moved an inch towards affirmation and queer people upset they’re embracing fucking anti-queer bigotry. They whine, “Won’t people please see us as the moderates, we who think being queer is wrong and sinful and hated by God who will relieve of us this evil desire at the End?” 

To agree with Revoice is to say, “I still long to be straight. One day, this pain will have been worth it, because I will be straight.”

But you won’t be. Because if there is a God, and if that God is good, that God is not a goddamned conversion therapist. You cannot be cured. You are not ill.

They have to label it this way, because the alternative is too painful for them. The alternative is that their pain is not holy. Their suffering has no greater purpose. And this whole time, they could have chosen love and joy. That can be a heartbreaking realization.

Four - The Painful Love of Asceticism

One previous speaker of Revoice is Pieter Valk. Valk is the Director of Equip, an LGBT church outreach group that also believes being queer is a wrong and sinful development that God doesn’t like and is a symptom of a broken world. They say God can do conversion therapy, but we silly humans are bad at it. They say both gay sex and gay marriage are sins.

So Pieter runs a homophobic hate group guiding churches on how to better pretend their bigotry is nicer now than it used to be. That would be bad enough.

But Pieter also wrote an article for Preston Sprinkles website, The Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender, where he decries the documentary Pray Away. Pray Away focuses on the ex-gay movement and its tremendous harm. In the article, Pieter reveals that he went through conversion therapy, and his parents even asked once if he was “fixed.” Pieter correctly sees how conversion therapy is a horrid practice that does not work. He’s sad and upset though that the documentary displays the opposite of conversion therapy, affirmation, as good. 

“There’s Side B, too!” he wants to shout, conveniently forgetting to mention that he leads a group that believes God can do conversion therapy and would maybe even like to. He has spoken at a conference for a group that believes God will do conversion therapy on all the queers in the future. He thinks affirmation is harmful because it leads some people to stop being conservative trads. Some even stop being Christians. Some deconstruct. That’s terrible, he thinks, so therefore all queer people must eternally be celibate. It’s “the middle way.”

Valk sees separation from tradition as bad and painful. To affirm queer people will be to say, “People have suffered for hundreds of years under this teaching for no reason.” It is to say, “People currently suffering under this teaching are hurting for no reason.” It is to say, “There’s no reason for this struggle to be a struggle.” 

The ex-gay movement harmed him. But he has built a life surrounded by people who, while they love him, cannot accept queerness. Therefore, it is too scary to believe that it’s okay to be gay. There must be a way to be homophobic without getting the label of homophobe. He would love that Tweet from the start of the video. It would make that love less messy and painful.

Let’s also consider David Bennett, a Side B Christian who freaked out over the Church of England becoming marginally less bigoted earlier this year. 

In an article for Premiere Christianity, Bennett says that gay marriage is bad and stupid and that acting on being queer is a sin. The options for gay people are celibacy or mixed-orientation marriage, that bullshit “just get straight married” conversion therapy nonsense. Bennett thinks this because Bennett is a bigot. For him, the Church of England blessing gay couples is a rejection of him. It harms him. It’s wrong and evil and rejects God and reality and no Christian can be affirming and be a Christian.

In that article, and in a bunch of post on social media, Bennett went on and on about feeling like Jesus, persecuted and giving such heavy, unappreciated sacrifices. Bennett believes that allowing other options invalidates his choice, because he does not view celibacy as a choice. He thinks he must be celibate or marry a woman by his very nature, and presenting another option means he has suffered for no reason. He cannot abide by that. To provide that he is not forced to be celibate in order to be holy means that he could have chosen to find love. It means that God did not demand his supposed martyrdom. It means he suffered for no reason.

But he did.

I’ve talked about this before, but I think it’s really important to understanding a lot of things going on in the world, especially in regards to religion and philosophy. Valk, Bennett, and Side B practitioners in general are ascetics. They believe that self-denial is a holy act. 

I once had a Catholic queer friend who vehemently disagreed with me when I said that suffering is wrong. She equated suffering due to self-denial to suffering like Christ. The basis for a lot of beliefs is that we are inherently evil, and joy is not good. Obedience is good. Sacrifice is good. Self-denial is good. Suffering is good. Ultimately, they think, you do not belong to yourself. You are a sinner. You must belong to and obey God, even if He harms you.

To say that suffering is simply suffering, nothing more and nothing less, calls into question their entire reasons for believing what they do. If God is Good, what he wants must be Good. If what He wants results in suffering, that suffering must be good. 

But that’s the wrong flow of logic. If God is Good and therefore what He wants must be Good, then what He wants must bear good fruit. If it doesn’t, it must not be what He wants. Suffering is not a good fruit. It is only suffering.

Five - God is Dead

Let’s go back to that original question: Can you believe that it’s a sin to either be queer or act on being queer without being anti-queer yourself? No. 

Non-affirming is the opposite of affirming. The opposite of accepting queerness is being anti-queer. The original Tweeter was simply incorrect and was attempting to redefine homophobia and transphobia to mean “outwardly hateful in their bigotry.” But outwardly hateful is not the definition of bigotry. Queerphobia is the idea that it is wrong to be LGBT. It is the idea that it is wrong to act on being LGBT. You cannot be unaffirming without being anti-queer. 

I’m sorry that that is hard for her and other people who have to pretend elsewise.

In the defense of that position, they go on and on about how there are kind non-affirming people. Therefore, they can’t be anti-queer. They then claim that this is adding nuance, but it’s actually papering over nuance. Nice people can still hold bigoted beliefs. That does not mean their beliefs are value neutral. Being anti-queer is still harmful. It still drives depression and suicidality. “Your existence is in error by the nature of your ability to love without harming others and by your conception of self” is not a statement one can make without causing harm. Non-affirming theology is anti-queer. It harms queer people. 

Nice people can still harm others.

The people who hold those harmful beliefs are sincere and capable of love, afterall. It’s likely we all have people important to us who have anti-queer sentiments, religious or otherwise. They might still love us. We might still love them. Calling out the harm they do is scary because “You are harming me” is a statement that risks a relationship. “Your homophobia harms me,” might make the homophobic person feel bad and defensive. And that is difficult and hard to think about. It’s like coming out all over again after we’ve established some sort of fragile peace.

We pretend that people preaching Side B Christianity, the Revoices of the world who think God will one day rid all queerness from humanity, aren’t queerphobic. But they are. Pretending elsewise is just that, pretending. It alleviates some of the tension of loving people despite the harm they cause us. But denying the harm doesn’t make it go away.

Side B Christians are homophobes. Side Y Christians are homophobes. Side X Christians are homophobes. Christians who believe transitioning is wrong are transphobic. Christians who hold that there are gendered souls and complimentarianism is a thing are transphobic. And, when it boils down to it, being queerphobic makes you sexist.

Suffering is bad. That’s the end of the story.

If your God cannot tolerate queer love, then you and your God are homophobic. If they cannot tolerate trans people, then they are transphobic. If your God is queerphobic, you don’t have to follow Them because that is a bad God. If your God leads you to believe that you should suffer, that suffering is holy, that is a bad God.

If your God is non-affirming, they are anti-queer. And if your God is anti-queer, then get a better one.

Bibliography

McGrew, Bethel. “How The Side B Project Failed.” First Things, March 14, 2023. https://firstthings.com/how-the-side-b-project-failed/.

Mason, Bekah. “Christians, Gay Marriage and a REAL Marriage Revolution.” Bekah Mason, March 28, 2013. https://bekahmason.com/2013/03/26/christians-gay-marriage-and-a-real-marriage-revolution/.

Look, Janelle. “The Mystery of Growth | Blog.” Revoice, April 15, 2025. https://www.revoice.org/blog/the-mystery-of-growth.

Mason, Bekah. “Trading Up.” Bekah Mason, March 5, 2018. https://bekahmason.com/2018/03/04/trading-up/.

Revoice. “Staff,” n.d. https://www.revoice.org/staff.

Sprinkle, Preston. “Finding Intimacy and Community as a Celibate Gay Christian: Art Pereira,” March 16, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eth4TmrnJWY.

Revoice. “Our Beliefs: Sexual Ethics & Christian Obedience,” n.d. https://www.revoice.org/sexual-ethics-christian-obedience.

Valk, Pieter. “What Does Equip Believe? Why?” Equip, July 28, 2025. https://equipyourcommunity.org/what-does-equip-believe/.

Valk, Pieter. “Netflix’s ‘Pray Away’: Beware of False Dichotomies.” The Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender, August 12, 2021. https://www.centerforfaith.com/blog/netflixs-pray-away-beware-of-false-dichotomies.

Bennett, David. “As a Gay, Celibate Christian, I Am Heartbroken by the CofE’s Approval of Same-sex Blessings.” Premier Christianity, n.d. https://www.premierchristianity.com/opinion/as-a-gay-celibate-christian-i-am-heartbroken-by-the-cofes-approval-of-same-sex-blessings/14883.article.