Love the sinner, hate the sin

[kaberett]

So I seriously need to work this out some more, but given that I'm still struggling to make words happen, here's a sketch:

I grew up as a small queer Catholic, who had to be closeted about both the queerness and the Catholicism, and was made very ill indeed by fighting my way clear of love the sinner, hate the sin.

And my sticking point with rehabilitative justice is routinely "okay, but what about the people who know exactly what they're doing and are doing it for fun and are categorically uninterested in stopping?" Of whom I have known... several. And I think at least part of my problem there is my pseudo-allergic response to anything that looks even superficially like love the sinner, hate the sin, where if you're just kind and loving and gentle with people for long enough they will Realise The Error Of Their Ways and that They Were Wrong All Along, because of how toxic and gaslighting that can be.

Which brings me back around again to the thing I've been attempting to write a post about and failing since shortly after my "I am twitchy as fuck about the rhetoric I'm seeing around antifa, here's why" (thank you for your engagement and input on that, various, it was enormously helpful and I haven't stopped thinking about it), in the general vicinity of talking at cross purposes, and I haven't managed to actually pin it down yet but I'm still intending to. But this I can sketch, around ideas-that-turn-toxic and abusers-will-abuse-anything and baby-and-bathwater and examining-my-motivations, so. Here's a sketch.

Comments

[kaberett]

(I am aware that using "closeted" with respect to a Christian religious identity in a Western social context is contentious, I have reasons for so doing that I'm satisfied with, if you're not familiar with my backstory I am willing to go into detail but please be aware that this is all Very Trauma for me and my terminology is thoughtfully and deliberately and consciously chosen.)

[child_of_the_air]

While I am sort of curious, I don't want to dig up trauma by asking you for an explanation. I certainly have seen enough Catholicism-phobia from American Protestants to know that it's something one can have to be closeted from, though I'd hoped England was better. (I was not raised in the Church but sort of next-to it? Catholicism was clearly the specific religion my family didn't practice, and most of my extended family were practicing Catholics, so we went to Mass when visiting them for holidays and such.)

Also, I would like to have a conversation with you some time about reclaiming Catholicism in a pagan/polytheist context.

*offers hugs*

[ewt]

As someone who has spent significant time in non-Christian religious contexts in the West, I affirm that yes, it's possible to live in e.g. London and need to be closeted about one's Christian beliefs and/or religious identity. The privilege that Christianity has in general in the West does not mean that there are no contexts in which it is contentious and/or risky for an individual to be out as Christian.

(I would be interested in knowing more of your backstory, but not at cost of unease for you, and certainly not as some kind of justification for your use of the term "closeted".)