“In my experience, conservative Christians often think they are accepting others, but then they undermine that alleged acceptance by saying that they, “Love the sinner, but hate their sin.” Genuine empathy doesn’t mean, “accepting” the person while criticizing everything about that person. As Thomas Merton put it, “The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”