Sorry, it assumes God hates the sin, not the sinner, which WBC does not agree with:

“The notion that God hates the sin, not the sinner, is not found in either of those historical accounts; that lie came from the cow-worshiper Gandhi. Like the rest of doomed america, you have a pastiche religion where you pick and choose crap-talk and crap-think from a variety of human sources, and pretend that is the religion of the Bible. It’s a lie. Christ told the woman taken in adultery, “Go and sin no more.” That’s the relevant message today: Stop your proud filthy sinning, stop glorying in your sin, stop using the name of Christ to justify your sin, and obey. Both women’s hearts were known to Christ, the Son of God; he knew they were God’s elect; he knew they would heed his words; and they stopped sinning and started obeying. The brutish religious leaders in the room were complicit in her adultery; guilty of their own adultery; and utterly without standing to say a word about her sin; just like the whores called preachers and all the churches full of proud sinners are today. ”

http://blogs.sparenot.com/index.php/workmen/?title=we-have-testimony-to-give-against-platts&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

Try again.

Westbro Baptist Church is a cesspool of hypocrites and pharisees.

By the way, the above statement in NO WAY should lead you to thinking that I condone Homosexuality. I ardently oppose it.

But saying that G-d hates Fags is not right. It is totally unbiblical to approach this issue with hate. Love always wins.

After a bit more research and talking with my dad (Thanks, Dad), I’m going to refine my position a bit here. I’m going to agree with you, Tyler, and disagree with you. Ok, everyone ready? Let’s go.

I browsed through a search on “hate” at BibleGateway.com. Included are verses that show hate between people, hate toward God, some instruction as what to hate, and a few verses on what God hates. To that point, I think there are a few verses that would better suit your argument, Tyler. Here they are:

Ps. 5:5 “…You hate all who do iniquity.”

Ps. 11:5 “…And the one who loves violence His soul hates.”

So, from those verses, I agree with you; there are people whom God hates. Let’s keep on digging.

Deut. 1:27 In this case, the Israelites are complaining and in that, saying that God hates them. So, miraculously taking the Israelites out of Egypt, then miraculously providing for them in the desert for 40 years is hate? It is possible to wrongfully ascribe hate to God.

A different angle on hate:

Prov. 8:13 Those who fear the Lord (believers), are to hate evil. (also Psalm 97:10).

Psalm 31:6 Compares hating “those who regard vain idols” to trusting in God.

Psalm 101:3 Here we are to hate the works “of those who fall away”, and thus keep from doing the same works.

Psalm 119:104 An excellent passage (Psalm 119) on God’s word. Here, we are to hate “every false way”, because we gain understanding from God’s word. Psalm 119:113 compares hating “those who are double-minded” to loving God’s word.

Jeremiah 12 Let’s look at the second half of the chapter. Here, God is detailing his judgment on Israel, and He has “come to hate her [Israel]“. How is this shown? In His removing His protection from them and punishing them with the heathen nations around them.

Let’s switch gears a bit here again.

Luke 21:17 As believers, we can expect to be hated. To put that in perspective, John 15:18 the world’s hate of us is predated by the world’s hate of God. In fact, we will be hated because of the world’s hate of God, Matthew 10:22.

And how are we to respond to the world’s hate? Luke 6:27 says we are to love them and do good to them.

I covered God’s love to some depth in my earlier post. Putting together what we have looked at so far, we know that God hates the wicked, yet He loves them. A contradiction? No. God’s treatment of the wicked demonstrate this. As unbelievers, God hates them because they are contrary to His character (being ruled by sin) and this will result in their eternal condemnation. However, God sent His Son to die on the cross, thus paying the penalty for all sin (past, present, future) in His death on the cross. This shows God’s love for unbelievers and believers in total. Thus, no contradiction.

My dad made a good point, and I will borrow from his words a bit.
“God loves the world in general, otherwise He would not have sent His
unique Son. But He loves believers in a way He does not love
unbelievers. Eph. 2:2-4 speaks of God’s great love for us
experienced in the salvation experience; obviously the unbeliever has
not experienced this. Heb. 12:6 points out that God loves those He
disciplines, and the rest of the verse makes clear these are the
people He receives. 1 John 3:1 separates believers from the world in
that God’s love for them results in them being called His children.
Rev. 1:5 speaks of God in His love for us releasing us from our sins,
something the unbeliever has not experienced.”

God’s love for believers is on a different level than His love for believers, His adopted children.

One last point: on the Esau verse (Malachi 1:3 and Romans 9:13), I still maintain that this verse should be viewed more as a contrast between God’s love (choice of Jacob) and God’s hate (by not choosing Esau). Another verse may shed some light on this: Luke 14:26. This verse says that those who follow Christ must hate their own family. Now, a person’s family could very well be made up of believers. The hate used here is to put into perspective the believer’s commitment to his family compared to his commitment to God. I love my family, but compared to what my love for God should be, it looks like hate. God comes first, even over family.

To borrow from the Princess Bride “Let me ‘splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.”

Tyler, I agree with you that there are people whom God hates. Along with that, we are to hate evil. However, God also does love those whom He hates, to a certain extent. He loves His family more, which is understandable. And we are not to return hate to those who hate us, but love.

To bring this back to the discussion at hand:  when you boil it down, God does hate some fags, if they fit the constraints of what God hates.  But, how does that jive with what the group at Westboro is doing?  Are they showing love and doing good?  No.  So, even if they can be the slightest bit correct in their slogan, they are wrong in what they are doing.
Thanks for the discussion; I needed to go back and check out my position, which turned out to need a bit of fine tuning.

cetroyer

P.S. It is rather frustrating when forgetting a ” or writing a/ when doing links…

God's love, when spurned, turns to hate.

There are no opportunities, after you have drawn your last breath, to receive the love of God that one has rejected during his earthly life.

I'm on skype (Ronalfy) if you're interested. I'll leave it to cetroyer if he would be interested in continuing this debate via that medium.

I do not mean to "welcome" you and close down the topic. Unfortunately, it is rather easy to go down a rabbit hole in these types of topics. In my effort to keep the comments focused on the topic of the hand it is necessary.

One thing I have been unable to get out of your comments is whether you are actually for or against the argument that "God hates fags." Perhaps we can continue the debate publically there.

Tyler: May grant you understanding!

Understanding is a relative term. My understanding of a subject will always differ from someone else's. I'd rather have wisdom.

Tyler: And John 3:16 does not say God loves every person, it says he loved the WORLD

To interpret this verse correctly, God's character must be called into question. When the Bible makes a blanket statement such as this, God's love is implied absolute, since God is absolute. God created the world, and all the creatures that reside in it. How could God not love his own creations? If God didn't love the world and all in it, then that would imply that God doesn't love something he created. On a sidenote, God's love of the world and man's love of the world are different in context. A man who loves the world is worshipping the world and its sin. God obviously could not be worshipping something he created (especially sin, which He did not create), so His love towards the world is righteous and holy.

Tyler: as we’ve seen God hates those who are not his, but there are some that are to be his that are not yet his, the yet to be saved elect

In Mark 10:17-26 (NIV) Jesus looks upon an unbelieving rich man and "loves" him. He tells the rich man what he must do to inherit eternal life. The unbelieving rich man was worshipping the wrong god and was worshipping worldly riches and relying on works to get into heaven. Jesus said to put those riches down and to follow Him. Instead, the rich man walked away. It is implied in this verse that the rich man never chose salvation in Jesus. Yet, Jesus still loved the unbeliever who wasn't the "elect."

With regards to the "elect" and back to my argument that "God doesn't hate fags", there is no real way to tell who is elect and who isn't. Only God knows. Perhaps according to Tyler's logic, God doesn't hate all fags, since some who commit homosexual acts are indeed the elect. However, I stand by my original argument that God doesn't hate any homosexuals.

Whether Jesus died for all sinners, or just the elect is outside the scope of this article. There are many books written on the subject and I encourage this debate to occur in a group setting (in person) with pastors present. There are many verses that support both stances, but the real truth is that we'll never know for sure until we are called home.

If this debate starts leaning towards the theological foundation of who Jesus actually died for, then comments on this post will be turned off. Please keep the debate on the topic at hand, which was "God Doesn't Hate Fags."

By the way, welcome to the site Tyler. You are most welcome.