Ah, my twitter is already chaos today - let's talk about how being homophobic and transphobic is literally the opposite of what Jesus calls us to do.

I could write a whole book on this, but I've given myself a single twitter thread - so let's focus on one bit of the Bible, eh? And let's pick a decently popular bit so I don't have to give you a hell of a lot of esoteric background... Let's go for Mark 12:28-31

So in this passage a bloke walks up to Jesus and is basically like "There's a lot of rules here. Which is, like, The Most Important?"

And Jesus doesn't offer a single rule. He offers two. Both about relationships and love.

The first commandment is, understandably, about our relationship with God. That we should love Them.

But, unprompted, Jesus offers a second commandment, one more earthly, and in some ways, harder to keep - that you should love your neighbor. Not in a vague way, but "as yourself"

Christian transphobia and homophobia are often excused through "tough love" - that the perpetrators of this abuse are somehow helping and loving their victims. But, if I may use another Jesus quote "you will know them by their fruits" - and what fruit does such treatment bear?

When you treat LGBT people badly, no matter how much you believe you are acting in the name of God, you do not love them, you hurt them. The fruit that such treatment bears is not good fruit. It is depression, anxiety, self-hatred, and even death. By this we know it.

So what does all of this have to do with Mark 12:28-31?

In Mark 12:31Jesus calls us to not just love our neighbors, but to love them as ourselves. He's very specific on that front.

And how are LGBT people to do that, when, through transphobia or homophobia, they have been prevented from loving themselves?

Jesus himself declares that "there is no other commandment greater".

And yet, through many people's bigotry, and misplaced hatred for LGBT people, so many are prevented from following it.

We are, all of us, fearfully and wonderfully made. And we should be free to live in love.