I get this all the time, not just from the activists on the other side, but rather from confused believers as well: 'Bill, you are being hateful when you speak against homosexuality,' or 'Bill, you are showing hate to others when you warn them about what they are doing.'

The homosexual activists parrot this "hate" foolishness all the time. I guess we expect them to do so. But it is quite woeful when clueless Christians say the same thing. They really ought to know better. To warn a sinner about his ways and to plead with him to avoid the path of destruction is the height of love, not hate.

The opposite of love is indifference, not hate.

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Equally unhelpful is the line about the church making homosexuals feel guilty. Well of course they feel guilty - because they are guilty. They, like all other sinners, know what they are doing is wrong, and they get angry when this is pointed out to them.

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As mentioned, how is telling the truth about what the activists are up to - or anything for that matter - hating?

To warn of the dangers of, say, drug addiction does not mean you hate the addicts. You can rightly hate the drugs which are destroying people and sending them to an early grave, while loving the individual trapped in this mess.

We all can hate the damage alcoholism does to a person - while still loving the alcoholic at the same time. And what is hateful about telling individual homosexuals that their lifestyle is dangerous, high risk, and possibly life-threatening, and that they need to flee from it?

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Those pushing this line might as well say opposing the criminal gangs wanting to hook kids on drugs is being hateful. They might as well say Wilberforce was "hating on" the slave owners as he stood up for blacks. Sorry, but to love people means resisting what enslaves them.

By this unhelpful advice, Wilberforce should have just shut up about abolition, and not make people feel guilty about their sinful activities. Loving people always means telling them the truth. Loving homosexuals means telling them they don't have to be homosexual.

And those who claim that talking about a "cure" for homosexuality is harmful and hateful are also unbiblical and unhelpful. They might as well tell a murderer: "Hey, Jesus loves you, but I certainly won't try to cure you of your desire to kill. Feel free to keep on doing it. I don't want you to feel guilty after all, or hated on."

Clearly we don't love homosexuals or any other sinners very much if we don't give a rip about them staying trapped in their dead-end sinful lifestyle. We want them to be set free. That of course is exactly why Christ came, to set the captives free.