Mahatma Gandhi said, 'I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.' I used to be very hesitant to call myself a Christian because I didn't want to be what most people thought of when they thought of Christians (read the previous posts to see what I mean). Some Christians can be some of the most closed minded people, all high and mighty with the holier-than-thou spirit of religion. It's no wonder so many people are turned off by it, especially those of us forced to go to church growing up. Simplistically said: People suck. Christians, atheists, muslims, buddhists, etc etc etc, PEOPLE suck sometimes. That's why racism and stereotypes are so huge. On a very basic level, if a purple man beamed down and killed my husband, I'd be very weary of the purple people I'd see from that point on, and I definitely wouldn't want to be associated with purple people. Now, I know that just because that one purple person screwed up, that doesn't mean all purple people are screw up murderers, but what if more and more often I saw murders committed by purple people and what if they claimed to be doing it under command of the mothership? Needless to say, according to the Bible (whether one believes it to be fact or fiction), Jesus was not a closed minded person, but a person who would (and did) reach out and befriend hookers, drunkards, thieves, murderers, and even straight up 'demon possessed' folks. Christians who are passing judgement on others for being gay or in any other 'sinful lifestyle' are wrong. They're not following the example of the Christ they claim to be, and there's not justification for it, except, that Christians, that people, sometimes suck.
There is a singer, Regina Spektor, who has a song called Loveology, and in a sense, you could say that is my religion... not that I worship love, but that maybe the Beatles had it right: All ya need is love.
Then again, the Bible teaches that God is love.
'Love God, Love people. The two should never conflict.'