The Bilerico Project | Daily experiments in LGBTQ

Matt Stolhandske, a gay evangelical Christian and a board member for the newly-launched Evangelicals for Marriage Equality, wants to raise $150,000 for Melissa and Aaron Klein, the bigoted Oregon bakers who refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple (and claimed their homophobic religious beliefs allowed them to violate the state's nondiscrimination law).

If this sounds insane to you, you're not the only one. Stolhandske explained himself in a recent column published in the Washington Post:

To be a gay Evangelical is to live what some may view as a paradox... In the face of intolerance, I am yet called to love... It's impossible to imagine the same Jesus who humbled Himself to the point of crawling on the floor to wash the feet of Judas, today standing in the Klein's bakery and telling them not to bake cakes for gay weddings. Regardless of what you believe Jesus's position would have been on gay marriage, the Bible makes it clear that the posture with which He would approach gay and lesbian couples is infused with love.

I know this is a lot to ask of Christians like Klein; to shower love on people like me who represent something she abhors. So I'm trying to live that challenge myself.

The Kleins say the $150,000 fee will bankrupt her family. I'm raising money to help offset that cost. I'll send whatever we raise along to the Klein family with a message of love and peace. I don't want them to suffer. But I am also pleading with them and other Christians to stop using the name of Jesus to explain to the LGBT community why we don't deserve access to the civil rights afforded to heterosexuals through the legal institution of marriage.

I hope the Kleins will accept this sign of good will. After all, they must see that our goals here are the same - to live our lives as we see fit and be treated equally under the law.

More, after the break.

Stolhandske also addresses critics who say that he's engaging in bigotry apologism and rewarding homophobic behavior:

To them I say: this is what an olive branch looks like. I am not rewarding their behavior, but rather loving them in spite of it. It is time for these two communities, which both cite genuine love as our motivation, to put aside our prejudices and put down our pitchforks to clear the path for progress.

Holy Stockholm syndrome, Batman! Instead of reaching out to these homophobic bakers -- who knowingly broke the law -- Stolhandske should give the money to a homeless shelter that serves the LGBT youth who are kicked out of their homes on a daily basis because of the evil, spiritually abusive teachings this couple took a stand for. Queer kids are being abandoned by their families, and some are even killing themselves.

If this dude wanted to serve Jesus, he'd be helping those kids, not trying to bail these bigots out of the consequences of their self-righteous privilege tantrum.

What do you think? Sound off in the comments section.