So, some of my fellow Christians are making a fuss over “Dancing with the Stars” inviting Chaz Bono, the transgendered child of singer Cher, to participate in the popular ABC TV show’s next season.

Some are even calling for a boycott.

This almost makes me want to laugh — at the moral irony implicit in watching this show in the first place, if one claims to be a “moral” Christian. It definitely makes me sad that some people who profess to be dedicated to the love of Christ cannot fathom even an inkling of the pain, and yes the desperate courage involved in Bono’s decision to undergo gender-changing surgery and treatments.

We are not called to agree or disagree with the choice the child born Chastity Bono made to become, after years of personal struggle, Chas Bono. And this has nothing to do with the “gay agenda,” folks. To be transgendered is not the same as being homosexual, any more than a potato is an apple.

That aside, as a Christian I’ve come to the stunning conclusion (!) that trying to sit in God’s judgment seat is both a foolish and dangerous proposition. So, it irks me when fellow “followers of Christ” presume to do just that — render judgment on matters they can neither explain nor understand, like people who feel trapped in the wrong gender, or those who struggle to make sense of same-sex attractions.

Simply put, playing God is way above my pay grade. The way I read my Bible, I’m called to love as Christ, and to the best of my ability, to live Christ in my relationships with others.

Oh yes, I know about the scriptures condemning homosexual conduct. But I also know God never rejects the “sinner,” something we all are — whether we go to church or not.

One of those scriptures so often quoted is this one: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10 ESV)

So, clearly, Paul is saying homosexual conduct is a transgression against God’s design. It says what it says.  But I wonder, though, how many of us are innocent of those other sins — listed both before, and after the Big H ? Ever cheat on your spouse, even in thought (Jesus said that, too was a sin), or steal, get drunk, cheat someone in a business deal?

If DWTS or any show on television banned the above list of sinners, we’d all be stuck watching a test pattern. Just saying.

So, if you read 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, read the following verse as well: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

I’m afraid, though, that too many of my self-righteous brothers and sisters still feel qualified to be the wagging finger of their concept of God. The proverbial plank in their own eye  is keeping them from seeing the speck in the vision of others.

ABC’s online comments for DWTS have been punctuated with such opinions as these:

 “…when Chaz Bono is on I will not watch his/her segment. All these people who think it’s a choice – if you don’t like being the sex you’re born, just go change to the sex you wanna be…oh no! Sorry! As the old commercial used to say, ‘It’s not nice to mess with Mother Nature!’ If God had meant for her to be a him, that’s what she would have been born.”

“Chaz Bono was born a girl. What she/he has done is her/his decision to change God’s plan for her. It makes me sad to think that what was once valued as morals has so deteriorated as people have gotten so oblivious to what is right and wrong.”

There it is, again. If you’re going to raise the “morals card,” be prepared to defend your own choices of entertainment. DWTS, for all its artistic and meticulous coreography, fumes with sensuality, from scantily clad dancers to routines that range from being at least sexually suggestive to the kind of bump-and-grind that once was confined to strip joints.

So, really? You are going to dispute that your choice to watch DWTS to begin with isn’t in some fashion a moral compromise with your Christian standards, and yet puff up in righteous zeal because a competitor is now a different gender than that he or she was born?

Sorry, but to me that’s no different in God’s eyes – and at least not in my opinion — than a “good Christian” who brags about slipping a fast one past the IRS on the latest income tax returns – and then spouts indignation upon hearing news of an acquaintance being busted for drugs or a friend’s daughter becoming pregnant out of wedlock.

One other commenter from the ABC forum put it this way:

“ Until you have walked in his shoes you have no right to judge. What would Jesus do? You are mostly all a bunch of hypocrites. Clean up your own backyard.”

Amen.

Jesus loves Chaz Bono, too.