Boundless love.

• Author: Pomper, Stephen
• Position: Book Review

LOVE THE SIN: Sexual Regulations and the Limits of Religious Tolerance by Janet R. Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini New York University, $21.95

A FRIEND OF MINE FOUND HERself on the D train into Manhattan one rush hour not so long ago, sitting there reading the paper when into the car walked one of those subway preachers who, from time to time, annoy captive New York commuters. This preacher had a particular chip on his shoulder against homosexuals. He started into a rant, which involved him unleashing strings of anti-gay invective and punctuating them with the phrase: "That's not the way! Jesus is the way." Finally, my friend looked up from her newspaper and said, "Pardon me, but I think you're giving Jesus a bad name." She went on to make the point that in her tradition (a mainline Protestant faith) God is conceived as loving and tolerant, not angry and hateful. This apparently struck a chord with the other passengers, who shouted out their support. The ranter sputtered and swore, then turned sullen. When the doors opened, he slunk off the train and the commuters returned to their papers.

Regardless of how you feel about religion, this should be an encouraging tale. For it supports the comforting idea that at the core of American religiosity, there beats a big and inclusive heart that has room for all. That's what it means to be a tolerant culture, right?

Not necessarily, according to Janet Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini, the authors of Love the Sin. They argue that the American tradition of tolerance was formed and continues to struggle under the weight of what is essentially a straight, white, male, reformed-Protestant theocracy. Jakobsen and Pellegrini claim that Americans who defy the old Puritan norms--by being gay; for example--are only "tolerated" in a condescending, "how odd" sort of way. And even then, the authors observe that tolerance doesn't really extend to the activities, like having gay sex, which set the outsiders apart from the norm. Slate's Dahlia Lithwick calls this tradition of loving the sinner and hating the sin "Will & Grace (gays are so cute, but don't show me what they do in bed)" homophobia after the characters on the popular TV show. Whether it's homophobia or some lower-order squeamishness is perhaps a judgment call, but Jakobsen and Pellegrindo do a nice job of showing how the love-the-sinner/hate-the-sin tradition falls dramatically short of the higher aspiration to tolerance.

But while the authors are generally very...