Is homosexuality a sin? It's an easy question to answer. The Bible indisputably answers yes, and thus no faithful and educated Christian should ever say no. And yet, so many professing Christians, even knowing what the scriptures say, will still suggest that homosexuality is totally fine.
One of the most common excuses, as seen in one controversial interview with singer Lauren Daigle, is one's closeness with a gay person. We have gay uncles and aunts, cousins, brothers, sisters, friends, co workers, and they're all just normal people. And a lot of them are very nice people. So shouldn't we be supportive of them?
But sin doesn't cease to be sin because you know someone who commits it, approves of it or tells you it's totally fine. Sin remains sin even if it is deeply rooted into one's own identity. And in some ways, it always will be. No human being this side of the veil will ever be free of sin. 1 John 1:8 even goes as far as to say that if we say we have no sin, we're deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. Whether homosexuality or some other sin, we all have our sin weaknesses.
This, in itself, reveals the folly of the excuse. The visiting centre of a prison shows that one does not necessarily have to approve of our loved one's sin to love them. As the cliché goes, "hate the sin, love the sinner." To love the sinner means to direct them towards the one who died for those sins, not to approve of the sins for which He died.
One could compare this to a smoking addiction. Most of us will acknowledge the harmful effects of smoking. And yet, it's hard to stop. One cigarette is all it takes to start a seemingly lifelong habit. Is it loving to say "my uncle's a smoker, therefore smoking doesn't have any medical link to cancer"? Of course not. If you love someone who smokes, the loving thing to do is try to help them quit. In the same way, if you love someone who sins (and you do), true love points to the cross.