Opinion: Bigotry isn’t Christian, plain and simple. What would Jesus do?

To celebrate Pride Month this June, the Tampa Bay Rays were given hats with rainbow-colored logos and had rainbow patches sewn onto their uniforms. However, at least six players, including their starting pitcher, peeled off the logos and wore their regular hats. This is exceptionally notable as Bryan Ruby, the only openly gay active pro baseball player, plays for Tampa Bay. Pitcher Jason Adam’s excuse? His Christian beliefs, of course.

On June 2, the North Carolina State Senate passed its Parental Bill of Rights, the North Carolina version of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, that’s patently homophobic and targets already vulnerable youths, which I covered in an op-ed last week. The bill was introduced by Sen. Phil Berger, who blamed his bigotry on, you guessed it: traditional Christian values.

Then there’s North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who’s given numerous homophobic sermons ostensibly in the name of the lord, including one at the Asbury Baptist Church in Seagrove where he called homosexuality “filth.”

California congressman Ted Lieu gave a speech last week on what he noted was “the historic wave of bills targeting LGBTQ teens, children, and their families.”

“I thought I would now recite what Jesus said about homosexuality,” Lieu states before standing in silence for 20 seconds, illustrating that the son of God, the cornerstone of the Christian faith, never addressed homosexuality as a sin. Passages are all from old testament books, which my Jesuit-college mandated theology studies taught me are largely accepted to be allegories not to be taken literally. Still, bigots have long been twisting interpretations of the bible to warrant their hate.

I recently watched a September 2019 online sermon by Biltmore Church pastor Bruce Frank on  the church’s YouTube channel. Frank admits early on in the sermon that Christians are “selectively outraged” by gayness (while, say, coveting thy neighbor’s wife never seems to be an issue). Still, Frank spends the rest of the time going through various interpretations from various Christian thinkers to point out that while yes, we should love our neighbors, being gay is still very much a sin.

Madison Cawthorn attends the Biltmore Church. Nowhere on its website or YouTube channels are any interpretations or discussions about his rampant lying, sexual misconduct allegations, false idolatry (for Trump, natch), violent rhetoric, or divorce addressed. 

Cawthorn gave a 2019 sermon, saying, “[Religion] is the basis of all of my experience and everything I’ve learned, everything that I believe in, how I’ve formed all of my worldview.” I relate to him here. My Catholic upbringing informed my worldview too, which is why the jarring juxtaposition of religious-sanctioned hate, bigotry, and selective hypocrisy, with what I believed were the tenets of Christianity, always confused me.

As a gay man, I’m not a practicing Catholic — they’d rather protect pedophiles than let me receive communion — but the teaching of Jesus, loving your neighbor, radical acceptance, empathy, compassion, and doing what you can to lift up the downtrodden, always resonated with me as the right way to live. The Jesuit ideal of being “men and women for others” still largely governs how I move through the world.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox recently demonstrated what I’ve always believed to be actual Christian behavior when he vetoed a ban on transgender students playing girls’ sports. In his veto, Cox points out that out of 75,000 high school students playing sports in Utah, four of those students are transgender, and 86% of trans youth report feelings of suicide. “Rarely has so much fear and anger been directed at so few. I don’t understand what they are going through or why they feel the way they do. But I want them to live. And all the research shows that even a little acceptance and connection can reduce suicidality significantly,” Cox wrote.

I hope if you identify as Christian and historically have been anti-LGBTQ, you’ll think long and hard about why you’ve never interrogated the bigoted, anti-Christian nature of those views. I encourage you to think for yourself and do what you think is moral, despite what your church and influential Christian leaders tell you — remember that Jesus was a free thinker, constantly at odds with “The Pharisees,” the wealthy, influential religious leaders of Jerusalem who twisted scriptures to empower and enrich themselves. Bigotry isn’t Christian, plain and simple. What would Jesus do? Definitely not make laws targeting marginalized kids to make himself feel less small. I’m sure of that.

Pat Brothwell is a former high school teacher, and current writer and marketing professional living and working in Asheville. 

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Opinion: Bigotry isn’t Christian, plain and simple