Dear Brandon Sanderson - A Letter About His LGBT Views

This is in response to the post Sanderson wrote on homosexuality

I have read and loved your books, and even before reading you books, I knew that you were a member of the LDS church, which was a flag to me that your views on homosexuality would likely not be as liberal as mine. You never spoke out about homosexuality before so this was fine because you did not use your platform to speak out against what I believed therefore my support of your works would not be increasing the voice of those who oppose various aspects of homosexuality.

Now that you have spoken out, I have to reassess the situation.

From what I've read, it seems like your stance follows something like this: Gay sex is a sin although being gay is not because we do not know how being gay comes about. You also don't think being gay is something that can be cured, but acting on being gay by sleeping with someone of the same gender is a sin. I am garnering this from your statement:
"No, I don't believe that homosexuality can—in many cases, at least—be treated and 'cured.' I do believe, however, that impulses of attraction between people of the same gender are something that can and should be resisted, in the same way that my impulses of attraction toward women who are not my wife can and should be resisted."

Now, how I interpret your comments are as follows: You can be gay, but you must remain celibate or you will go to hell because you have committed a sin.

This, while seeming to be a stance that tries to satisfy all the parties involved by not calling gay people inherently bad and also still subscribing to the fact that homosexuality is unacceptable, results in something really stupid. Even those who have dedicated their lives to celibacy fall off the bandwagon, and you expect lay people who happen to be gay to be celibate?

Let me clarify how I come to the conclusion that you think gays must be celibate. Gay people (I'm not going to go into a discussion on bisexuals) want to have sex with people of the same gender. This means that they do not want to have sex with people of the opposite gender. Now, you are saying that they should completely refrain from having sex with people of the same sex so that option is out. They don't want to have sex with people of the opposite sex, and forcing them to do so would be the equivalent of RAPE so that option is also out. Since the only two options for not remaining celibate are out, it follows that they must be celibate.

So, you expect gays to be celibate, which is quite honestly a very unrealistic expectation for anyone. I would really like to know how you expect something like that to play out because given that people are terrible at remaining celibate, gays will go to hell. Essentially, this stance is no different from saying being gay is a sin because of reality (I don't think this is an unfair accusation because we live with reality, and our beliefs need to take that into account).

I'm still not entirely sure where I stand on supporting your works in the future, but I hope you continue to think about these issues as you mentioned you were doing. I will wait to see what you decide before making a final judgement.

Sincerely,
Sniffly Kitty
I do still think that you write awesome books

Edit: FYI, to any authors reading this, I take special consideration of review requests which include gay main/major characters. Books that fall under this category are still subject to the same strictness for what I consider to be quality, but I will be more willing to accept such a review request if you state in your request that your book has gay main/major characters.

Edit 2: I will grant that Sanderson is a lot more respectful to the situation than some others, and I'm glad that he accepts gays as human beings.