Taylor, you need to calm down.

I, like many others, was eagerly waiting to hear Taylor Swift’s newest song when it came out at midnight on June 14th. In the past, when new music was released, I would listen excitedly and maybe dance in my seat a little. But, “You Need to Calm Down” left me feeling, quite frankly, irritated and slightly frustrated. However, real frustration set in when I saw the music video.

In the video, Taylor is seen partying and living it up with several LGBT+ icons in her colorful trailer park community in honor of Pride month. Just outside of the trailer park, we see a group of protesters. They’re missing teeth, have messy hair, and are buck-toothed, just like your typical “trashy redneck” stereotype. They’re holding signs like, “Adam + Eve NOT Adam + Steve,” a misspelled “Get a brain, MORANS!” and “Homosekuality is sin!” along with two picture signs— a rainbow with a circle-backslash symbol over it and the word “HELL” with fire underneath it.

These people are obviously supposed to represent Christians, and I am frustrated that so many people view the majority of us Christians that way. Yes, there are Christians out there who act like that, and it saddens me to no end. The truth is that I can write this article as delicate and loving as I know how, and there will probably still be someone out there that will accuse me of being hateful. That’s a risk I’ll gladly take to share the truth and love found in God’s Word, though.

If you haven’t heard this from anywhere else yet, please hear it from little ol’ me. True Christians don’t hate the LGBT+ community. The love of our Savior simply does not allow us to do that. However, we disagree with sinful lifestyle because of what our Lord has said.

One line from Swift’s new song is, “control your urges to scream about all the people you hate.” As a Christian, I am to reflect the love of Christ on every single person, regardless of their lifestyle (John 13:34-35). Yes, I do realize that some people are not so great at that, but it is still our mission as Christians nonetheless, and I pray that we all become better at it. I disagree with the homosexual lifestyle because God disagrees with it. If I am a true follower of Christ, I must support what God supports and not support the things God doesn’t support.

Love and acceptance in today’s world seems to be a thin line. Love meets a person where they are, regardless of their sin, and gently guides them to the truth found in God’s Word. The beauty of a relationship with God is that we can love those around us without approving of the sin in their life.

Yes, homosexuality is a sin. So is murder, adultery, stealing, lying, and yes, even gossip, which so many of us fall victim to. A lifestyle in any of these will cause a person to not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Romans 1:18-31). Any and all sin separates us from God. The truth is that no one sin is greater than another and that seeing people we love living sinful lifestyles is absolutely heartbreaking. But this is where God’s grace and love breaks through.

If you’re not aware of this yet, you’re incredibly loved. God sent His only Son, pure and precious in His sight, to be the sacrifice for every single shortcoming we have had and will ever have in our lives. He did this for every. single. person. Every single person that has lived, every single person living now, and every single person that will ever live. Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Yes, God loves you just as you are, but He doesn’t want you to stay that way. Yes, He sent His Son for you while you were living in sin, but He doesn’t want you to stay that way. You cannot stay as you are (in a sinful lifestyle) and be called His child. This is true of anyone who willfully practices sin.

Being His child means fully submitting to Him and His ways. To submit to God, we must completely turn from our old life– “the old man,” and allow Him to make us a new creation, being buried with Him in baptism and then raised to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:1-7, Colossians 2:11-14). From the moment we come out of the waters of baptism as a new person, we are choosing to be obedient and faithful to God, no matter how hard it becomes.

Although we have God’s grace, we still have to do our part. We can’t just lay down and expect God to be gracious to us when we’ve disobeyed everything He’s told us to do. We can’t live lives as the old man and expect God to view us as a new creation. We must ask God for forgiveness and do a 180° turn from the old life. 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

If we proclaim Christ as our Lord, we must commit ourselves to living in a way that shows our great love for our Savior. 1 John 1:7 says, “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” We are to be light-bearers to this world– people who show God’s love and reflect His truth in our lives.

Honestly, a lot of Christians today want to just avoid this issue, so they think, “well, as long as I don’t practice it, I’ll be fine.” Please be careful with this thinking. Sitting back and being okay with sin is not the answer. But Romans 1:32, after a long list of sinful practices, says, “Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” Approval is sin, and love doesn’t equal approval. You can have love without approval, and as God’s people, we must find a good way to love and to show love to these people without accepting their lifestyle. Even in the midst of a frustrated mood towards Taylor Swift’s video, I must rise up and find a good way to love and guide people to the truth found in God’s Word above all else, just like John 3:11 says: “For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.”

This is an issue that I truly believe will never change. People will hate you for standing up for what you believe in. People will hate me for writing this article, and you know what? That’s okay. With these things in mind, I find no better comfort than the words of our Lord Jesus in John 15:18-19: “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

There is no difference in lumping all of us Christians into one big group of hateful bigots than Christians grouping all of the LGBT+ community into one group of evil people. Both of these instances are not at all equal to me, and Taylor, I think you’re the one who needs to calm down.

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A word about the Equality Act:

At the end of the video, Taylor shares a message to her fans. It says, “Let’s all show our pride by demanding that, on a national level, our laws truly treat all of our citizens equally,” and it is a plea for your signature on the Equality Act from change.org. Taylor’s post on change.org says that the Equality Act “would protect LGBTQ people from discrimination in their places of work, homes, schools, and other public accommodations.”

While this may seem like a good thing for LGBT+ supporters, the Equality Act is a bill that would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as protected classes under federal civil rights law, and it would actually diminish your personal freedoms and viewpoints. Here’s what this means:

The Equality Act would force employers and workers to submit to new sexual norms or they would lose their businesses and jobs. For example, a baker who has a religious obligation against creating a wedding cake for a same-sex couple would lose his license and not be able to operate his business at all. This reflects the fact that we, as U.S. citizens, are now going to be punished for our views on biological sex.

The Equality Act would also hurt charities, volunteers, and the thousands of people they serve. State and local sexual orientation and gender identity laws have already shut down many faith-based adoption and foster care agencies across the country. Some of these states include Pennsylvania, New York, Illinois, California, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia. The reason why these places are being closed down is because they hold the belief that children function best with both a mother and a father. Those in favor of the Equality Act have ruled this as discriminatory, and our nation’s children are the ones paying the price.

(side note: People who are crying to legalize abortion often make the argument to us that we need to get kids out of adoption and foster care…but, a lot of these same people support the Equality Act as well…so how are we supposed to do that if adoption and foster care centers are being closed through this law? There are currently over 438,000 children in foster care nationwide. We need more of these agencies working to place children in good homes, not fewer.)

Charities that admit to the reality of biological sex are also under attack. This includes shelters for women who need to get back on their feet physically, monetarily, and emotionally.

The Equality Act, while seemingly enacting “change” in the hearts of Americans, actually furthers inequality in the nation by punishing anyone who does not affirm a single viewpoint of marriage and biological sex. It forces people to go against their 1st Amendment right of religious freedom and conform to things they do not agree with. Overall, this bill is dangerous to American freedoms, and people (especially those of faith) need to know this.

As a Christian, I cannot and will not support it.

info taken from www.heritage.org/gender/heritage-explains/the-equality-act