On monkeypox, do you love LGBT people?
Many of the people who say they love LGBT people hate them. The biggest enemies of LGBT people are actually their “allies.” The most homophobic people in the world are people who are afraid of telling LGBT people the truth.
Monkeypox is evidence of this. The “allies” of LGBTQ people in politics and media are refusing to tell gay men the truth about monkeypox.
According to the World Health Organization, 95% of people infected with monkeypox are gay men.
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However, though this current outbreak has been mostly transmitted through sexual acts between gay men, the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say monkeypox isn’t a sexually transmitted disease.
Nevertheless, though Joe Biden declared monkeypox as a public health emergency on Thursday — like the media and other Democratic politicians, he refused to tell gay men the truth about monkeypox.
In fact, in response to the World Health Organization urging gay men to stop participating in orgies, Scott Wiener — a California state senator who represents San Francisco — said, “If people want to have sex, they are going to have sex … People will make their own decisions about their own risk levels.”
Naturally, Wiener’s words received significant attention on social media, especially over his contradictory reactions to COVID. However, the most important thing about Wiener’s words isn’t what it implies about his views on COVID — it’s what it implies about his views on gay people.
In reaction to politicians refusing to tell the truth about monkeypox, one prominent gay activist said, “It was devaluing gay men’s lives and health not to warn gay men … Now, here we are, really on the verge of monkeypox being endemic in gay communities all over the world, and how is that for stigma.”
In other words, it’s not homophobic to warn gay men about monkeypox — It’s homophobic to not warn gay men about monkeypox. People who refuse to warn gay men about monkeypox are not their “allies,” they are their enemies. People who refuse to protect gay people do not love them, they hate them.
But this is what happens when society redefines the meaning of love. When Wiener said, “If people want to have sex, they are going to have sex”, he was essentially saying “love is love.”
However, that description of love is a circular argument that gives people an opportunity to label evil as good or hate as love.
But as the Bible says in Isaiah 5:20-21: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!”
Many of us are familiar with the first part of verse 20. Most of us, however, rarely quote verse 21. But verse 21 explains verse 20, meaning that the reason why some people label evil as good or hate as love is because they are wise in their own eyes. In other words, the reason why some people label hate as love is because, in their arrogance, they refuse to believe and submit to what God has said about love.
As I said in an article last year, God loves LGBTQ people more than we do. God is love. Therefore if we hate what God says in the Bible about identity and sexuality, we do not love LGBTQ people. Love is an attribute of God and it’s an attribute from God. We cannot separate love from God. Therefore if we do not love God, it distorts what it means to love our LGBTQ neighbors as ourselves (Mark 12: 28-31).
Therefore, when God says love “does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6), it means it’s hateful, not loving to withhold the truth from LGBTQ people. It means it’s loving to tell LGBTQ people the truth — the truth about monkeypox, the truth about sin, the truth about the wrath of God in hell, and the truth about the grace of God in Jesus Christ.
So, do you love LGBTQ people?
Do you love LGBTQ people enough to tell them the truth? Do you love LGBTQ people enough to tell them the truth about the consequences of their sins in this life and the next? Do you love LGBTQ people enough to tell them the truth about the horrors of hell and justification by faith in Jesus?
If you are a Christian and you tell LGBTQ people the truth, some people will say you are homophobic and transphobic. But that’s because they say evil is good, and hate is love. If you love LGBTQ people, tell them the truth.
Originally published at Slow to Write.
Samuel Sey is a Ghanaian-Canadian who lives in Brampton, a city just outside of Toronto. He is committed to addressing racial, cultural, and political issues with biblical theology, and always attempts to be quick to listen and slow to speak.
