Desmond Tutu, both Nobel Peace Prize Winner and Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town South Africa, wrote an Op/Ed piece for the Washington Post on March 12, 2010.  In it, he writes:

Hate has no place in the house of God. No one should be excluded from our love, our compassion or our concern because of race or gender, faith or ethnicity — or because of their sexual orientation. Nor should anyone be excluded from health care on any of these grounds. In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights. We knew this was wrong. Thankfully, the world supported us in our struggle for freedom and dignity.

He’s writing in response to the current situation in Africa whereby some African countries legislation is being proposed to institutionalize hate towards LGBT people and unofficial violence appears to have a blind eye turned to it.   I love Mr. Tutu’s thoughts on God’s mind on who is accepted by God and who isn’t?

“But they are sinners,” I can hear the preachers and politicians say. “They are choosing a life of sin for which they must be punished.” My scientist and medical friends have shared with me a reality that so many gay people have confirmed, I now know it in my heart to be true. No one chooses to be gay. Sexual orientation, like skin color, is another feature of our diversity as a human family. Isn’t it amazing that we are all made in God’s image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people? Does God love his dark- or his light-skinned children less? The brave more than the timid? And does any of us know the mind of God so well that we can decide for him who is included, and who is excluded, from the circle of his love?

This reminds me a bit of the scripture, 1 John 2:2 (NET)

and he [Christ] himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for our sins but also for the whole world.

The key term is whole world.   God’s “box” of who is in the world is considerably bigger than ours and He is regularly challenging us to think about that.

You can read the entire text of Mr. Tutu’s editorial at the Washington Post here, “In Africa, A Step Backwards on Human Rights“