“You are a sinner. We all are.”

The ridiculousness of the alleged uproar over “Duck Dynasty” personality Phil Robertson hinges largely on the denial, among those who criticize Robertson for his remarks, of the very existence of a thing called “sin.”

Of course, this is in itself contradictory, because the criticizers are compelled to purge Robertson from the community of right-thinking people for the sin of believing in a conception of sin which the criticizers do not wish to recognize.

If you’re having trouble wrapping your head around that last sentence, don’t worry too much about it–that just means that you’re fundamentally a sensible person. That’s because the position of Robertson’s criticizers makes no logical sense, except as a naked appeal to a blatantly bigoted anti-Christian agenda. Which of course puts to the lie the criticizer’s attempt to claim the moral high ground of anti-discrimination, since they’re fully engaged in religious discrimination–against Christians in this case, and their beliefs–among which is the belief that homosexuality is a sin against God.

What Robertson’s criticizers want to say, but don’t dare to say quite yet anyway, is that the uncritical acceptance of deviant lifestyles is mandatory in order to participate in civil society–according to the criticizers, anyway. (And please, don’t insult my intelligence by trying to claim that homosexuality is not a deviant lifestyle. Biology itself, let alone religion, argues against that. Saying that a behavior is deviant is not in itself a value judgment, by the way. it is simply a slightly more contentious way of stating what is and is not normal behavior–i.e. heterosexual behavior is normal behavior for any species–versus homosexual behavior which for any species, human or otherwise, is not normal behavior. If science bothers you, then that’s your problem, not mine.)

Let’s move on to some other things that Robertson said, that his criticizers are bound and determined to ignore. Let’s have a look, shall we?[*1]

“We never, ever judge someone on who’s going to heaven, hell. That’s the Almighty’s job. We just love ’em, give ’em the good news about Jesus—whether they’re homosexuals, drunks, terrorists. We let God sort ’em out later, you see what I’m saying?”

Now, most people will see what they want to see in that quote, but try very, very, very hard to focus on the first two sentences, and the first clause of the third sentence.

Yeah.

The words of a hater, obviously.

So forgive me if I don’t join the lynch mob. One side is screaming for somebody’s hide. The other side is saying “we’ll just try to love people and let God sort things out.” One side is for the worst sort of ideological purity tests, the other side is for tolerance and compassion. One side says “We’re all sinners”[*2] and the other side seems hell-bent on proving them right.

Which side you really want to be on?