It fails to address the crucial point that homosexual activity, like egregious immorality generally, threatens to mar the image of God stamped on people, dishonoring and degrading what God created in his image by treating another’s gender as only half intact in relation to its own sex.

On Jan. 27, The Christian Post put out an article by Nicola Menzie entitled, “Can Another ‘Gay-Friendly’ Faith Group Help Steer the Conversation for Christians on Homosexuality?” Menzie writes in glowing terms about the “Imago Dei Campaign” that is calling on all sides of the culture war to recognize that both “straight and gay” people are made in God’s image.

I appreciate the fact that this “campaign” apparently continues to view homosexual practice as sin (though in extremely muted tones) and that it wants to promote love for those who engage in it. However, its half-orbed message that “the image of God exists in all human beings: black and white; rich and poor; straight and gay; conservative and liberal; victim and perpetrator; citizen and undocumented; believer and unbeliever” is flawed.

It lumps together very different categories. There is nothing intrinsically immoral about ethnicity, social status, party affiliation, citizen status, or even the mere experience of sexual attractions to do what God forbids.

I have a suggestion: In order to make clearer the message that affirmation of one’s creation in the image of God does not lead to support for all behaviors, the organizers of the campaign should add something more explicit like: “serial pedophiles, rapists, murderers, and the people they victimize.”

Those who might react viscerally against the proposed addition make my point. “How dare you compare people in homosexual relationships to serial pedophiles, rapists, and murderers?” But if the list is not constructed to convey that all the groups on the list are morally equal, why would there be any problems with adding serial pedophiles, rapists, and murderers? After all, they too are made in God’s image, as are all humans that live today and have ever lived.

By reacting negatively to my proposed addition people confirm that the list does give a false impression of a certain moral parity among the various groups. It also confirms that there is something a tad askew in using the Imago Dei as a rubric for calling on people to end the “polarizing rhetoric” and “rhetorical bullying.” If all people are made in God’s image but some people are doing and/or promoting destructive behaviors, it is not “polarizing rhetoric” or “rhetorical bullying” to take a strong public stance against such behaviors.

Other front-and-center messages at the “campaign” website appear to add additional encouragement to refrain from public messages against the coercive imposition of homosexualism in society. “Our challenge is to see the image of God in the … marginalized [and] the oppressed,” which so far as it applies to persons who engage self-affirmingly in homosexual practice sounds like a line straight from a “gay” advocacy playbook.

False antitheses are repeatedly put forward. “Christianity stands measured not by the variable of rhetorical eloquence, but rather by the constant of loving actions,” as if the proclamation of God’s design for marriage is antithetical to love (and note the ironic attempt at rhetorical eloquence). “Followers of Christ should be known not by what we oppose but rather by what we propose; a personal relationship with God through … Christ,” as if the social message against homosexual practice (or racism or violence or greed) is at odds with the proclamation of the gospel.

Although the site states that “the Imago Dei campaign does not sacrifice truth on the altar of cultural or political expediency but rather it elevates it on the catalytic stand of grace and love” (yet another transparent attempt at rhetorical eloquence) one will look in vain on the website for any truth about the negative aspects of engaging in and promoting homosexual practice.

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