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

Off topic

[haggis]

For me, "we are all sinners" was the gaslighting phrase because it is used to a) undermine anything you know or believe that is inconvenient for the church or in conflict with their position and b) to gloss over any wrongdoing by authority figures in the church because it is so mean and judgemental to hold them accountable. It's a brilliant way of containing/deflecting criticism *rage*

Re: Off topic

[sebenikela]

oh yes that one is toxic for me too, because ALSO no, sorry, "was (occasionally, in isolated incidents) mean to someone I care about" is not the same as abuse/assault/whatever. There really are degrees here and pretending everything's fine because nobody's perfect is so unhelpful.