Heaven and hell

So last night we watched "Ice Age 2: The Meltdown." Not to spoil it for you if you haven't seen it, but at the end the squirrel dies (almost). The vision of heaven in the movie (in which paradise--for the squirrel, at least--is represented by a giant nut) reminded me of a thought I had the other night after watching the film "God and Gays," namely: There is no way homosexuality condemns one to hell.

Think about it: Hell, in the traditional view, is supposed to consist of fire and pain. It's usually represented with lots of vibrant reds and oranges, and creative application of torture. This, for a lot of gay men, is not punishment. I'm not into the whole pain thing, but my idea of eternal punishment is a world in which everything is gray. I saw an interview once with a woman who claimed to have visited hell, and she said the pervasive sense was of overwhelming hopelessness. To me, that would be a world completely devoid of variety. A hell in which there is some vision of difference is not hell at all; if that's the afterlife to which gay people are condemned (which of course I don't believe, but just assuming for the sake of argument it is), then someone's not doing a very good job in the damnation department.