I was part of an extended Facebook conversation with Chuck Colbert, a homosexual journalist from the Boston area who graduated from Notre Dame University but has renounced his Catholic faith and converted to Reform Judaism. He expressed virtually every fallacious claim that homosexual ideologues everywhere express—claims that conservatives should be prepared to refute. In the service of helping to equip IFI readers for such conversations, here are some of his claims (in boldface) followed by rebuttals.

1.) “Jesus said nothing about gay people.”

First, Jesus also says nothing about pedophilia, incest, rape, polyamory, sadomasochism, voyeurism, or infantilism. Are we to assume that Jesus, therefore, approved of these types of acts?

Second, arguments from silence are considered weak—if not fallacious—arguments. Anyone who has as much academic training as Colbert claims to have should know that. The fact that Jesus says nothing on a topic tells us nothing about what he thinks on that topic. We do know that Jesus said this:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 

Jesus does not abrogate any of the transcendent, eternal moral prescriptions and proscriptions found in the Old Testament.

2.) “There are more than a few biblical scholars who interpret the passages [about homosexuality] much differently.”

Not until the last quarter of the 20th Century did a single scholar in the history of the church interpret any passage in Scripture in such a way as to imply God approves of homosexual activity. Radical reinterpretations of Scripture passages that address homosexuality were not driven by new discoveries. They were driven by the sexual revolution and the sexual desires of same-sex attracted persons. That said, even today, there are homosexual scholars who admit that Scripture is clear that God condemns homosexual activity.

Biblical scholar and expert on the topic of the Bible and homosexuality, Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon cites two homosexual scholars, historian Louis Crompton and professor of Christian Studies, of Women’s and Gender Studies, of Classical Studies, and of Religious Studies at Brandeis University, Bernadette Brooten—both of whom affirm homosexual marriage—who argue that such a position is not consistent with Scripture.

3.) “There was no such thing in biblical times of a positive LGBT identity. The modern understanding of same-sex marriage is different from the biblical times.”

There was “no positive LGBT identity in biblical times” because God condemns homosexual activity. God’s condemnation of homosexual acts is categorical—no exceptions. Paul tells us that those who affirm such sin as righteousness will not see the kingdom of Heaven.

The hubris of this argument is astonishing. It suggests that there is something that Jesus—who is God, and, therefore, omniscient—didn’t know about human nature, human activity, or human experience.

4.) “The fact is that many, many LGBTs have been married within their various faith communities; their children are doing just fine. Take some time to get to know real LGBT people.”

Though homosexuals may be “married” legally, they are not in reality married because marriage has a nature, which Jesus himself said is the union of one man and one woman.

Getting to know those in faux-marriages does not change the Word of God.

How we feel about people has nothing whatsoever to do with a moral assessment of volitional acts. Colbert’s suggestion “to get to know real LGBT people” reveals that to him the experiences of fallen humans supersede Scripture when it comes to homosexuality.

Does he apply that principle consistently? Would he, for example, recommend that people who disapprove of consensual adult incest take some time to get to know two brothers who are in love and raising kids together as a means to eradicate their disapproval? Would he suggest “getting to know” the five people of assorted sexes in a poly union as the means by which to assess the morality of polyamory or poly-parenting?

Intentionally denying children either a mother or father is unconscionable no matter how nice the two parents are. In addition to the intrinsic right of children to be raised whenever possible by a mother and father, there are a number of studies that indicate children being raised by homosexuals are not fine—and some of these studies are far better studies than those worshipped by the homosexual community. The “LGBTQ” community savages these studies by applying standards that they never apply to studies whose results they like.

For example, homosexuals—including Colbert—frequently tout a study on lesbian parenting without citing the serious structural problems with the study including small sample size, method of selecting participants (i.e., “convenience sampling” vs. far superior “random sampling”), self-reporting nature of responses, absence of a control group, and failure to do long-term follow-up testing.

For research that contradicts the claim that children raised by homosexuals fare as well as children raised by mothers and fathers in intact families, click here, here, here, and here.

5.) “LGBTs are active and productive members within their communities. As more and more people get to know and understand gay people, they see that we are just as good as everybody else. I am sure God is fine with ‘their behavior.’”

The fact that homosexuals do good things tells us precisely nothing about God’s view of homosexual acts. Virtually all sinners do good things as well.

No one is good. Romans 3: 10-12: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

6.) “Why would you care anyway? LGBT life has no adverse effect on your life anyway.”

The homosexual and “trans” community really must stop disseminating the patent lie that widespread cultural approval of homosexual activity, the legal recognition of intrinsically non-marital unions as marriages, and acceptance of the “trans” ideology affect only the parties involved. Here are just some of the adverse effects that harm countless lives:

• Lies that destroy temporal and eternal lives are being disseminated as truth.

• Children are being denied their intrinsic right to be raised by a mother and a father.

• Children are being fed the lie that either mothers or fathers are dispensable.

• Government schools are teaching implicitly and explicitly the lie that disapproval of homosexual activity constitutes hatred of persons.

• Schools are now teaching kindergartners about homosexual relationships—rather, they’re teaching children leftist ideas about homosexual relationships.

• Schools are teaching that biological sex has no intrinsic or profound meaning, including regarding feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy in private spaces.

• A feckless school board (April 27, 2018 Brabrand Briefing.pdf) in Fairfax, Virginia has proposed replacing the term “biological sex” in the health curriculum for grades 8-10 with the nonsensical, science-denying term “sex assigned at birth.” Apparently, board members aren’t “woke” to the fact that doctors don’t assign sex. They identify it.

• Government schools are mandating that faculty lie, ordering them to refer to students who masquerade as the opposite-sex by incorrect pronouns.

• Government schools are engaging in absolute censorship of resources that dissent from “LGBTQ” dogma even as they present resources that affirm it. That’s not education. That’s indoctrination.

• Professors are losing their jobs for expressing conservative or theologically orthodox views on sexuality and marriage.

• Christian owners of wedding-related businesses are being sued.

• The Boy Scouts of America was forced to accept openly homosexual scouts and leaders, and then girls who pretend they’re boys.

• Public libraries now have drag queen story hours for toddlers, and little boys dressed in drag march in the shameful “pride” parades that deface our once-great cities every June.

• “Progressives” like New York Times writer Frank Bruni have reinterpreted First Amendment religious protections to be limited to pew, home, and heart.

• Adoption and foster care agencies have been forced out of business for refusing to place children in the homes of homosexuals.

• Corporate America, professional medical and mental health organizations, the mainstream press, and the arts promote the pro-homosexual/pro-“trans” ideology.

• While leftists express their views of homosexuality freely at work, even starting pro-homosexual clubs and slapping silly safe space stickers on work spaces, conservatives risk loss of employment for expressing their views.

• Brendan Eich was forced out of his job at Mozilla, the company he founded, for donating to Prop 8—the California proposition that would have banned homosexual marriage.

• Minors are being surgically mutilated and chemically sterilized in a futile quest to mask their sex.

The homo/“trans” ideology not only affects but also harms everyone.

7.) “Gay people are in nature so how can they be against natural law. There have been gays throughout history.”

There are diverse definitions of the word “natural.” Colbert seems to be using it in the sense of “found or existing in the world,” which is not how it’s used in natural law theory. Natural law refers to the design of humans which points to their intended purposes (i.e., teleology).

All manner of disordered desires and deviant activities exist in nature, including all sorts of “paraphilias.” Would Colbert argue that because some humans exist who desire to be hurt or hurt others, to expose their genitals, or to have sex with toddlers that these phenomena are natural—in the natural law sense—and worthy of affirmation?

8.) “Your view for LGBT Christians is pretty judgmental. Take a look at the planks in your eyes before you go after the specks in LGBTs’ eyes.Judge not, or you will be judged.”

The erroneous claim that the Bible prohibits making judgments between right and wrong must be examined in light of the following verses: “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment” (John 7:24), and “The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks justice” (Psalm 37:30).

The verse that says, “Judge not, that you be not judge” means that we are not to engage in unrighteous judgment. We are not to condemn hypocritically a sin that we are engaging in. We’re to recognize the universality of sin and offer forgiveness as we have been forgiven. This verse does not entail a refusal to judge between right and wrong behavior. It does not prohibit humans from making distinctions between moral and immoral conduct.

It’s absurd to claim that the Bible prohibits Christians from making statements about what constitutes moral conduct (i.e., to judge). If it did mean that, we could not say that slavery, racism, bestiality, polyamory, selfishness, fornication, adultery, aggression, incest, lust, or gossip is immoral, for surely those moral propositions constitute the kind of judging that repels critics like Colbert.

Everyone does and should judge right from wrong. Every civilized human makes judgments every day between right and wrong actions. Christians have no moral authority to judge the salvific status of others, but Christians have every right to discriminate between right and wrong actions and to express those beliefs publicly. The ethical legitimacy of public speech is not dependent on the subjective response of those who hear such expressions.

As he railed against judgmentalism, here are some of the terms Colbert used to describe those who disapprove of homosexual acts: “self-righteous,” “sanctimonious piety,” “condescending attitude,” “rabid,” “bigoted,” “prejudiced,” and “hateful.”

9.)  “I did not choose to be gay anymore than you chose to be, presumably, straight. Being gay has nothing to do with a choice.”

While erotic attraction to persons of the same sex is not chosen, acting on those feelings is, indeed, chosen. Humans experience myriad powerful, persistent, unchosen feelings. Our task as moral beings is to determine on which of those feelings we are morally justified to act. And that task requires some arbiter of morality—some basis on which to judge right from wrong.

10.)  “I am not defying God. God does not condemn gay people, our lives and our love. God is fine with his creation of gay people.”

On what basis can Colbert make the claim that he is not defying God? He can’t rationally make such a claim based on either the plain words of the Old or New Testament.

God does, indeed, condemn homosexuals as well as many others. God condemns anyone who rejects the work of Christ on the Cross. One of the clearest signs of being saved from God’s wrath is repentance. Doing the will of the Father and confessing when we fail are signs that we are saved. Perpetual embrace of that which God condemns and calling that which God condemns “good” are sure signs that one will not see the kingdom of Heaven:

Or know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)

God creates men and women. Through the fall of Adam, all of us are born with a fallen nature and are in need of redemption. While God for a time allows the disordering of his creation, he no more created in humans homoerotic desire than he created in humans adulterous desire, polyamorous desire, incestuous desire, “minor-attraction,” murderous desire, the desire to be an amputee, the desire to gossip, pride, covetousness, or physical anomalies.

If Christians truly love their neighbors as themselves, they should be prepared to respond courageously to claims like Colbert’s. Authentic love depends on knowing first what is true.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Conversation-with-Homosexual-Journalist.mp3

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There’s a troubling piece titled “Time for a Compromise on Transgenderism” posted on National Review online and written by purportedly conservative, “gay vegetarian”  J. J. McCullough. In condescending language, McCullough argues that it’s time for Americans to hop on the fast train to the Shangri-La of polymorphous perversity. In McCullough’s view, now that Americans have ceased “judging” homosexuality, they should cease “judging” the science-denying “trans” ideology.

He engages in the worst kind of demagoguery in his unholy effort to normalize the “trans” ideology by insulting those who find the ideology destructive and the demands of its advocates tyrannical.

McCullough makes this myopic statement about the cultural transformation of America on the issue of homosexuality:

Disinterest in judging homosexuality is not an attitude government has coerced Americans into, it is the product of a free people’s informed knowledge.

In McCullough’s presumptuous worldview, “informed knowledge” leads inevitably to “disinterest in judging homosexuality.” For clarity—something in which McCullough seems little interested—let’s establish from the outset that judging homosexuality is distinct from judging homosexuals. Judging homosexuality means to make a judgment about the moral status of homosexual activity. Informed, knowledgeable, wise, and loving people can, do, and should make the judgment that homosexual activity is not moral and jeopardizes the temporal and eternal lives of those who engage in and affirm it.

McCullough goes on:

To the extent that America is still having any political debate about homosexuality, it has evolved into a more substantial conversation about religious liberty…. These are difficult debates but are also far more useful than those of earlier eras, which mostly centered on demagogic judgment of the gay ‘lifestyle’ untethered to any tangible constitutional principle or policy objective.

His description of the debates of earlier eras makes me wonder how much he knows about those debates. Countless debates of earlier eras were both useful and substantive.

Surely McCullough is aware that there are non-demagogic bases other than “tangible constitutional principles or policy objectives” on which to debate or to which to tether debates on homosexuality. In fact, debates tethered to ontology, epistemology, theology, and philosophy are far more substantive and essential than those tethered to tangible constitutional principles and policy objectives. And these are the bases on which a free and informed people should be debating.

But “progressives” aren’t interested in debates so-tethered when epithet-hurling, bad analogies, and false claims work effectively to change public views and silence dissent. You know the epithets commonly hurled, like “hater” and “bigot.” McCullough raised epithet-hurling to an art form, calling those who still make moral judgments about sexual behavior immature, unfair, dishonest, ostentatious, insensible, boorish, petty, cruel, and regressive.

Can anyone claim—I mean, with a straight face, truth-telling lips, and a small, perky nose—that Americans have freely arrived at their “informed,” non-judgmental view of homosexuality? Government schools advance the leftist sexuality ideology and censor dissenting views. Corporate America advances the leftist sexuality ideology (look at which organizations they support and look at their ads) and punishes dissenters. Remember Brendan Eich? The mainstream press is in the tank for homosexuality, celebrating as “heroic” those who announce their predilection for erotic activity with persons of the same sex and scorns those who come to reject their prior “gay” identities. The politicized professional medical and mental health communities are controlled by leftists, and small committees create homosexuality-affirming policies that they imply to the public are uniformly embraced by all members. Let’s not forget the arts and Madison Ave, or the wolves in sheep’s clothing who are infiltrating churches. Just try saying in any public forum that you believe homosexuality is immoral. You’ll likely end up on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hate list and out of a job. Freedom doesn’t taste so free anymore.

McCullough then moves on to a harsh indictment of anyone who rejects the “trans” mythology, criticizing as “theatrical” the natural and wholly sound repulsion people feel about barbaric amputations of healthy breasts and castrations. McCullough evidently believes that the perduring presence of a human phenomenon is some sort of argument in favor of its normalization:

[M]ost adults could admit [transgenderism] does seem like a rather persistent aspect of humanity…. If we concede that transgenderism is not going away, and is not something anyone intends to exert effort toward ending, then Americans, especially conservative ones, should reflect on our culture’s honest and fair attitude toward homosexuality and acknowledge that the most sensible path out of the present acrimony will probably require similar compromise. Some degree of cultural ceasefire and consensus seems the only path for both sides to maintain a degree of pride while avoiding a more radical, disruptive societal transformation.

McCullough doesn’t explain how unwavering commitments to sexual truth and morality are inconsistent with maintaining a “degree of pride.” Assertions without evidence are more his gig.

Here McCullough is tilting in the direction of a “naturalistic fallacy,” which suggests that because something exists, it’s good. Does he believe Americans should “compromise” on every “persistent aspect of humanity” that isn’t going away? If not, on what basis does McCullough decide which persistent aspect of humanity ought not be accommodated? What sorts of compromises are Americans obliged to make and who decides? So many questions untethered from tangible constitutional principles or policy objectives.

I would argue that radical, disruptive societal transformation has been caused by the “trans” ideology and will be exacerbated in intensity and extent by further compromise, resulting in incalculable harm to countless lives.

McCullough then again ridicules conservatives in his morality-untethered effort to compel acquiescence to compromise:

Part one of the compromise will be borne by cultural conservatives and traditionalists. It asks for broad tolerance for the reality that transgender men and women exist, and are entitled to basic human dignity, just like everyone else. This… impl[ies] that acts like ostentatiously calling people by pronouns they don’t want… are boorish and petty. It means acknowledging that arbitrary discrimination against transgender people is a cruel bigotry like any other.

Can I get a “wowzer”?

1.) Conservatives have never denied that “transgender men and women exist” (and by “transgender men and women,” McCullough means men and women who pretend to be the sex they are not).

2.)  Conservatives agree that those who embrace a “trans” identity are entitled to human dignity—which their embrace of a “trans” identity undermines. McCullough’s implied proposition—which is wholly untethered from tangible constitutional principles and policy objectives—is that respect for the dignity of “trans”-identifying persons requires silence on the “trans” mythology.

3.)  Without warrant, McCullough characterizes as “ostentatious” opposition to bearing false witness (i.e., calling “trans”-identifying persons by incorrect pronouns). Maybe he could tell conservatives how they can live in accordance with their belief that lying is wrong without acting “ostentatiously”?

4.)  What is “arbitrary” discrimination? Would prohibitions of objectively male persons in women’s private spaces be arbitrary discrimination? If so, how is it more “arbitrary” to believe that access to private spaces should correspond to objective, immutable biological sex than to believe it should correspond to subjective, internal feelings about one’s “gender identity”?

Perhaps McCullough doesn’t believe sex-segregated private spaces are arbitrary. Perhaps his claim that “Tolerance does not necessitate a purge of any and all public manifestations of the gender binary in the name of extreme exceptions to the rule,” means he approves of sex-segregated private spaces. The problem is we don’t know, because he doesn’t say.

Unfortunately, his maybe-sop to conservatives was followed by yet another insult:

Transgenderism seems to be the issue on which many on the right prefer to let loose their inner reactionary, which then further rationalizes petty tyranny on the left.

McCullough believes that opposition to the science-denying myth that men can, in reality, be women or vice versa is “reactionary,” and that any who cling to that rational belief are responsible for “trans” tyranny. Conservatives just can’t win. Refuse to embrace irrationality and they’re reactionary and culpable for the unethical responses of the irrational.

On one aspect of this debate, McCullough demonstrates a modicum of wisdom:

[T]he risk of psychologically and physically damaging children by encouraging or enabling them to embrace transgender identities before pubescence must be acknowledged as a valid concern backed by credible evidence. Protecting children from the confusing, anxious, dangerous world of adult sexuality and sexual identity before their developing minds can fully conceptualize its complexities is not bigotry, it is good sense, and the sovereign right of every parent. It should be the responsibility of the public education system as well.

But read carefully: McCullough applies this sound warning only to pre-pubescent children—not to all minors.

McCullough concludes with more manipulation, this time employing two types of fallacies (i.e., chronological snobbery and appeal to emotion):

American history teaches that it is neither the radical nor the regressive who are ultimately vindicated in their response to cultural disruption, but rather those cautious conservatives who assign themselves the difficult task of thoughtfully working through the new and unexpected in the cause of preserving a social order as peaceful and free as the one that came prior.

Who will now rise to that task?

Well, history teaches lots of things. It also teaches that not everything new and unexpected is good or can contribute to preserving a peaceful, free social order. It teaches that cultural disruption often follows the embrace of false, destructive ideologies and that people can be mightily influenced to acquiesce by propaganda, sophistry, peer pressure, and coercive policies untethered from sound ontology, epistemology and morality. And it teaches that cautious thoughtfulness can include courageous commitment to transcendent, enduring moral truth.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/National-Review-Online-Demagogue-Taunts-Conservatives.mp3

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Written by Jonathan V.Last

“Progressives,” always plagued by inconsistency and hypocrisy, have been for years waxing self-righteous about their deep commitments to diversity, to “honoring all voices,” and to “critical thinking.” They’ve also been devotees of relativism, subjectivism, radical autonomy, and deconstructionism. But when it comes to homosexuality and gender confusion, all liberal principles are abandoned in their voguish, slavish devotion to absolute, transcendent, eternal pro-perversion orthodoxy. They will abuse academic institutions to censor and mock assumptions that they have ordained by the power invested in themselves to be ignorant, prudish, biased, hateful, false, or oh-so-uncool. Their declarations are often unaccompanied by reason and evidence, but chock ‘o’ block full of feelings, nothing more than feelings.

Since the 1960s, secular colleges and universities as well as colleges and universities affiliated with liberal religious denominations have slowly moved away from a commitment to help students know truth. Homosexualist ideologues have for decades controlled academia and, therefore, are culpable for the  corruption of public elementary, middle, and high schools through their “education” of public school teachers.

Liberals exult in the sad reality that younger Americans—including Evangelicals—increasingly affirm homoerotic activity and relationships as morally equivalent to heterosexual activity and relationships. These same liberals rarely (if ever) examine the reasons for this troubling affirmation of sexual perversion as normative and good. Princeton law professor Robert George illuminates the reasons:

The [homosexual] lynch mob came for the brilliant mild-mannered techie Brendan Eich.

The lynch mob came for the elderly florist Barronelle Stutzman.

The lynch mob came for Eastern Michigan University counseling student Julea Ward.

The lynch mob came for the African-American Fire Chief of once segregated Atlanta Kelvin Cochran.

The lynch mob came for the owners of a local pizza shop the O’Connor family.

The lynch mob is now giddy with success and drunk on the misery and pain of its victims. It is urged on by a compliant and even gleeful media. It is reinforced in its sense of righteousness and moral superiority by the “beautiful people” and the intellectual class. It has been joined by the big corporations who perceive their economic interests to be in joining up with the mandarins of cultural power. It owns one political party and has intimidated the leaders of the other into supine and humiliating obeisance.

…

[I]t is certainly true that the political, economic, and cultural power now arrayed against people of faith and their rights and liberties is formidable.

It is not reasoned argument that has allowed folly and ignorance to metastasize within the culture, destroying temporal and eternal lives, children’s rights, parental rights, and First Amendment protections. Rather, self-serving desire, appeals to emotion, censorship, propaganda, and intimidation are incrementally destroying American “culture”—if such a thing even exists anymore.

Here are just three recent examples of the insalubrious excrement served on gilded platters to our children by self-righteous, hubristic “intellectuals”:

• Omar Currie , a 25-year-old homosexual, 3^rd-grade teacher from Efland Cheeks Elementary School in North Carolina read the homosexuality-affirming picture book King & King to his class without parental notification or parental permission. This was his presumptuous effort to address bullying. Imagine a teacher reading a pro-polyamory book to 3^rd-graders in order to address ridicule of “consensual non-monogamy.” Or imagine a teacher reading a book that presents promiscuity positively in an effort to end ridicule of those whose parents may be swingers. The issue isn’t whether polyamory or promiscuity per se is ontologically or morally equivalent to homoeroticism. The issue is whether government employees have the right to promote their personal feelings and beliefs about sexual deviance to other people’s minor children.

• In February, the University of Chicago held its annual Sex Week during which students could choose from a smutty smorgasbord of freakish workshops designed to appeal to the baser instincts of adolescents and perverts, including the following:

“Dirty Talking, Etc.”: They say the most powerful sex organ is the one that resides between your ears! Keep your mind engaged during awesome sex with this peer-led how-to on dirty-talking, role-play and fantasy.
“Positions 101”: Tea Time and Sex Chats presents a tutorial on different ways to spice up your sex life. Covering a variety of positions, you’re guaranteed to find one to suit your fancy.
“Taste of Kink”: Ever wonder what people get out of floggers, wax, electricity, and more? Intrigued by the possibilities but don’t know where to start? Try our smörgåsbord of sensation, where you’ll be able to safely sample a variety of props and toys in a low-key setting and at your own pace. 18+, bring ID.
“A Consumer’s Guide to Sex Toys”: Come learn about sex toys from the owner of one of the most popular sex toy shops in Chicago! Searah Deysach, owner of Early to Bed, will answer all your questions on the best toys to buy, the questions to ask when purchasing, and the best way to care for your toys once you take them home.
“Trans 101 Panel”: Students Anaïs (she), Amalia (they), Devon (they), and Hex (it) talk about life as trans people and trans issues as they affect them.

It doesn’t matter how many or few students attend this annual sexuality freak show. What matters is that the University of Chicago administration permits it. Thankfully, Mortimer Adler isn’t around to witness this pseudo-intellectualized bacchanalia. (Well, perhaps “pseudo-intellectualized” grants too much.)

• Smith College is following in the disoriented footsteps of purportedly all-women’s colleges Mill’s College, Mt. Holyoke, Simmons, Scripps, Bryn Mawr, and Wellesley. Smith will now admit men who pretend to be women, but, forced to accommodate an ontologically incoherent ideology, Smith will not admit actual women who pretend to be men.When announcing the change, Smith president, Kathleen McCartney said, “In the years since Smith’s founding, concepts of female identity have evolved.” Clearly.

According to the pontificating panjandrum of liberal academia, female identity has nothing whatsoever to do with XX chromosomes and their accompanying biochemistry and anatomy. But if objective biological sex has no inherent meaning, then the very idea of “women” and women’s colleges have lost their meaning as well. The fixed lodestar of objective biological sex has been devoured in this tangled ideological web. The doctrinaire and absurdist gender ideology embodied in these admissions policies is like the “black swallower” fish that ingests prey so large that it decomposes before the swallower can digest it. The object the black swallower ingests for sustenance kills it.

From kindergarten through college, cultural regressives control education, manipulating the feelings of other people’s children and filtering out ideas (otherwise known as censorship) that dissent from pagan sexuality dogma. It is mind-boggling that so many orthodox (small “o”) Christians allow  secular academicians (as well as the “beautiful” people)—who are lost in spiritual and intellectual darkness—to inform or deform their hearts and minds and to determine what they say publicly about homoeroticism and marriage.

While “progressives” claim to honor diversity, free speech, and intellectual freedom, the reality is their commitment ends at the bedroom and dungeon doors. Societal health and welfare were enhanced through the influence of Judeo-Christian sexual ethics that rejected the sexual perversion embraced by prior pagan cultures. This cultural health is eroding as Americans embrace pagan sexual perversity and profligacy.

We are witnessing the tragedy of frogs blithely simmering in fetid cultural water, thinking it’s the rejuvenating, liberating water of life.

Written by Laurie Higgins

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Written Professor Robert P. George

The lynch mob came for the brilliant mild-mannered techie Brendan Eich.

The lynch mob came for the elderly florist Barronelle Stutzman.

The lynch mob came for Eastern Michigan University counseling student Julea Ward.

The lynch mob came for the African-American Fire Chief of once segregated Atlanta Kelvin Cochran.

The lynch mob came for the owners of a local pizza shop the O’Connor family.

The lynch mob is now giddy with success and drunk on the misery and pain of its victims. It is urged on by a compliant and even gleeful media. It is reinforced in its sense of righteousness and moral superiority by the “beautiful people” and the intellectual class. It has been joined by the big corporations who perceive their economic interests to be in joining up with the mandarins of cultural power. It owns one political party and has intimidated the leaders of the other into supine and humiliating obeisance.

And so, who if anyone will courageously stand up to the mob? Who will resist? Who will speak truth to its raw and frightening power? Who will refuse to be bullied into submission or intimidated into silence?

I’m not asking, which leaders? Though that, too, would be good to know. Are there political or religious leaders who will step forward? Are there intellectual or cultural leaders who will muster the courage to confront the mob?

No, I’m asking what ordinary people will do. Are there Evangelical, Catholic, and Orthodox Christians who will refuse to be intimidated and silenced? Are there Latter-Day Saints, Orthodox and other observant (or even non-observant) Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs? Buddhists?

Oh yes, the mob came first for the Evangelicals and the Catholics and the Latter-Day Saints; but do not be deceived: it will not stop with them. It’s true that many in the mob have a particular animus against Christians, but the point of destroying the reputations and livelihoods of the initial victims is pour encourager les autres. If you believe you belong to a group that will be given a special exemption or dispensation from the enforcement of the new orthodoxy—by any means necessary—you will soon learn that you are tragically mistaken. No one who dissents will be given a pass.

We have seen how swiftly the demands have moved from tolerance to compulsory approbation of behavior historically rejected as contrary to morality and faith by virtually all the great religious traditions of the world. And now it is not only approbation that is demanded, but active participation. And do you honestly think that we have now reached the endpoint of what will be demanded?

Of course, some will say—indeed some are saying—that the battle is over, the cause is lost. All we can do is seek the best terms of surrender we can get, knowing that at this stage they will not be very good.

What should we say to that? Well, it is certainly true that the political, economic, and cultural power now arrayed against people of faith and their rights and liberties is formidable. No question about it: This is David against Goliath.

But then, we know how that contest ended, don’t we?

If we refuse to surrender, we will certainly be demonized; but everything will depend on whether we refuse to be demoralized. Courage displayed in the cause of truth—and of right—is powerful. And it will depend on whether ordinary people—Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Mormons, Muslims, others—inspired by their faith to stand firm, will also be willing to stand shoulder to shoulder, and arm-in-arm, with their brothers and sisters of other traditions of faith to defy the mob.

This article was originally published on the First Things blog.

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In this cultural moment in which half of Americans work in large corporations and the Internet disseminates information in the blink of a blinkered eye, and in light of the absolutist demands of homosexual activists for either ideological conformity or silence, what are the employment and First Amendment implications for theologically orthodox Christians?

The First Amendment guarantees the right of Americans to speak freely. This right was guaranteed in order to protect political speech without which Americans effectively lose their right to govern themselves.

Americans on both sides of the political aisle correctly assert that the right to speak freely does not guarantee the right to be free of consequences—which sounds reasonable enough.

It sounds reasonable until one notices how it’s working out in the sullied hands of homosexual activists and their ideological accomplices. The possibility that public speech on a controversial topic may result in unpleasant consequences is transmogrifying into the possibility that those who  express conservative views of homosexuality, “gender,” and marriage will have difficulty finding a job in America. “Progressives” are demanding submission to their subjective moral and political assumptions about homoeroticism and gender confusion or risk the loss of employment.

Large corporations infected by homosexual activism

Mozilla founder and CEO Brendan Eich lost his job following the revelation that he donated a pittance to the effort to protect true marriage in California. The amount of money is irrelevant. Even if he had donated $10 million to the campaign to stop the perversion of real marriage into faux-marriage, he should have been able to keep his job.

I can’t remember conservative groups pursuing a strategy that seeks to “influence” political opinion on controversial topics by targeting citizens’ employment. Did conservative groups ever demand the firing of someone who in his free time or with his own money expressed support for the redefinition of marriage?

Did defenders of life argue that CEO’s of large corporations who donate to “pro-choice”/anti-life causes be fired? And let’s remember that donating to such causes means advocating the right of one human to murder another human being.

Homosexuality-affirming activists believe that opposing the legal recognition of same-sex unions as marriages warrants firing because they presume such opposition is motivated by hatred. Protectors of life believe that preborn babies have an inherent right to live that is not lost simply because they are not fully developed, or because they suffer from physical abnormalities, or because they’re not wanted by their mothers. Conservatives believe that those who support legalized abortion are supporting murder, and yet they don’t demand that supporters of abortion be fired from their jobs. Perhaps in the twisted world of homo-activism, presumed hatred is worse than actual murder.

About half of Americans are employed by large corporations. According to an article in the Washington Post, “Over the past two decades….companies with more than 500 workers employed about 45 percent of the workforce yet contributed 65 percent of the jobs created since 1990.”

The New York Times writes this:

[I]f you define “small” as fewer than 500 people (as the federal government does, basically), you still find that half the work force is employed by large businesses. It’s even more stunning when it comes to payrolls: 57 percent of total compensation is paid out by companies of 500 or more employees, with most of that coming from the largest, those with at least 10,000 employees. And new research by the Treasury Department finds that small businesses—defined as those with income between $10,000 and $10 million, or about 99 percent of all businesses—account for just 17 percent of business income, and only 23 percent of them pay any wages at all.

Now that large corporations like Target, Apple, Nike, Facebook, eBay, Alcoa, Intel, and Morgan Stanley are taking formal, public positions in support of redefining marriage and are treating homoerotic desire (and gender confusion) as equivalent to behaviorally neutral conditions like race in their anti-discrimination policy, how long will it be before employment practices will take into account public statements in support of true marriage (or restroom usage policies that recognize biological differences)? These companies are not merely creating ad campaigns geared toward the purchasing practices of homosexuals; they’re filing amicus briefs in courts to influence judicial decisions.

Will corporate policies on sexual deviance affect First Amendment rights?

In the near future if an employee of Target or Apple (or a public high school) were to sign a petition or donate to a political campaign or organization that supports the view that marriage is a sexually complementary union, will her job be jeopardized? If she writes a letter to her local press expressing her view that marriage is inherently sexually complementary (or that public restrooms should correspond to objective biological sex), will she risk her employment? If someone forwards her letter to the busy beavers at Change.org who then start a petition urging Target to purge their organization of such a wicked letter-writer who surely must be motivated by animus that will make all lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and gender-fluid patrons of Target  feel “unsafe,” will she be fired? (If “LGBT” people must be spared from ever feeling unsafe—by which they really mean uncomfortable—how do speech protections even work? And shouldn’t orthodox Christians whose biblical beliefs are central to their identity be similarly protected from hearing ideas that make them feel uncomfortable unsafe?)

Interracial marriage ≠ same-sex pseudo-marriage

The Left argues that businesses have no more obligation to hire or retain an employee who publicly opposes the legalization of same-sex “marriage” than they do to hire or retain an employee who opposes interracial marriage. There are two problems with this argument:

First, those who opposed interracial marriage did not argue that such unions were not marriages. They argued that such marriages were not proper. And their opposition to interracial marriage was motivated by false ideas about racial superiority and by actual hatred. While it is appropriate to make moral distinctions among volitional behaviors (e.g., homoerotic activity vs. heterosexual activity), it is inappropriate to posit some people as ontologically superior to others or to hate people.

Supporters of true marriage are making a wholly different argument—one which has nothing to do with hatred. They’re making the argument that marriage has a nature central to which is sexual difference. They’re arguing that a union of two people of the same sex is in reality not a marriage—even if the law permits it. They’re arguing that the law can no more make a non-marital same-sex union into a marriage than it can make a wholly human African American into 3/5 a person.

Most “progressives” argue that marriage is essentially and immutably binary. Conservatives argue that sexual difference is as central to marriage as the number of partners. In fact, conservatives argue that the twoness of marriage makes sense only because there are two sexes. While arguing that marriage is inherently binary,  most “progressives” fail to offer any justification for the immutable, essential magical number two.

Since the central (and most enduring, cross-cultural) constituent feature of marriage is sexual complementarity, prohibitions of interracial marriage were wrong because they prevented actual marriages from being legally recognized. Anti-miscegenation laws arbitrarily prevented the societal good of uniting men and women in true marriages.

Laws that prevent the unions of two people of the same-sex from being recognized as marriages affirm the true belief that marriage has a nature that humans don’t create but, rather, recognize and regulate. Laws that prevent two people of the same-sex from “marrying” recognize that sexual differentiation is even more integral to marriage than is blood kinship or numbers of partners. Homoerotic unions exist; they’re simply not marital unions.

The second problem with the comparison of opposition to same-sex faux-marriage to opposition to interracial marriage is that its analogical foundation is flawed. Homosexuality per se bears no points of correspondence with race (or skin color) per se.

Race per se has no subjective constitutive features (e.g., feelings), no behavioral implications, and no relevance to the public purpose of marriage that justifies government involvement. In contrast, homosexuality per se is constituted by subjective feelings and behaviors which are legitimate objects of moral assessment and which are relevant to the only purpose that justifies government involvement in marriage: children.

Though not all marriages result in children, all children have parents. Children have an inherent desire to be connected with their biological parents, and they have needs that are best fulfilled by being raised whenever possible by their biological mothers and fathers. If humans did not procreate sexually (in other words, if all the erotic activities of humans were inherently sterile), there would exist no such thing as civil marriage. If humans procreated asexually, the idea of civil marriage would no more have developed than the absurd idea of government recognition of bff’s.

Counter-insurgency needed

Post-modernism, the sexual revolution, and a television-dominated culture created the wormy subsoil into which two other cultural phenomena have taken root and grown into a felicitous political environment for homo-activism. With large corporations dominating employment in America and the Internet disseminating information, disinformation, and demagoguery with lightning speed, homosexual activists are able to advance their doctrinaire and dogmatic ideology while undermining both religious liberty and speech rights. This is a stealth insurgent assault on the First Amendment, and it’s being opposed by a feeble, emasculated counter-insurgency effort.

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Written by Ryan T. Anderson

What is the state of tolerance of free speech these days?

Mozilla co-founder, Brendan Eich resigned under pressure over his support of the campaign to pass a constitutional amendment that outlawed same-sex “marriage” in 2008.

Condoleezza Rice declined the invitation to speak at Rutgers University Commencement after some antiwar students threw a hissy fit calling her a war criminal.

Brandeis University decided not to give Ayaan Hirsi Ali an honorary degree because she has written books critical of Islam’s treatment of women.

And HGTV cancelled a show starring the Benham brothers when it was discovered that David Benham protested outside of the Democratic National Convention in 2012 and he protested outside of an abortion clinic in 2013. Oh, and they’re both Christians.

Transgressive sexuality trumps–well, everything

Last week liberal Slate Magazine writer William Saletan made a semi-effective attempt at satire, proposing that all employees in corporate America who donated to Prop 8 in California six years ago be fired like Mozilla’s CEO Brendan Eich. The problem with his piece was that his proposal wasn’t outrageous enough. In fact, many on both the political Right and Left believed it was a sincere proposal.

Now, Jonathan Swift knew how to write satire. To criticize the callousness of the Irish to the extreme poverty in their midst, he proposed the inconceivable idea of devouring Irish children. Saletan, in contrast, proposed an idea of which the Left has not only conceived but executed. Saletan’s proposal just increases the scale.

As further evidence that Saletan’s satirical proposal was not outrageous enough, look west to California where transgressive sexuality politics nearly always trumps constitutional principles—oh, and truth.

The California Supreme Court Advisory Committee on the Code of Judicial Ethics seeks to prohibit all California judges from being affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) because—in the supreme committee’s view—the BSA engage in “invidious discrimination” by prohibiting homosexuals from serving in leadership positions. Of course, this whole house of cards is built on the foolish and unproven assumption that homoerotic desire and volitional homoerotic activity are analogous to skin color or other behaviorally neutral conditions.

In a letter to the Advisory Committee, Catherine Short, legal director of the pro-life group Life Legal Defense Foundation, warned about the real effect of such a draconian policy:

[B]y promoting a hierarchy of politically-favored ‘victim’ status through pointlessly impugning the integrity of members of a venerable American institution, the proposed Amendment will communicate to the public that judges are being told by the California Supreme Court what to think, whom they may associate with, and what are permissible opinions to hold, and that only those who toe the line will be allowed to sit on the bench. The public can hardly expect impartiality from the judiciary in such a climate of intolerance.

Roger Pilon, vice president for legal affairs with the libertarian Cato Institute points out the inconsistency in the “progressive” position. He writes that if, as “progressives” argue, it is unfair to presume that homosexuals are unfit to serve in leadership positions in the BSA, then it is similarly unfair to presume that judges who volunteer to work with the BSA are unfit to serve as judges:

[C]ritics say that the concerns (about potential sexual abuse of boys by homosexual leaders) of the BSA and of scout parents should be set aside and that gay would-be scout leaders must be given the benefit of the doubt. That may or may not be a fair point, substantively, but it cuts both ways, of course. Are judges who volunteer to work with scouts presumptively unfit to serve on the bench?

Pilon goes on to argue, moreover, that the status of the BSA as a private organization grants it the right to establish its own policies regarding membership (which includes leaders):

The BSA is a private association. Agree or disagree with the presumption it has applied, it has a right to set the conditions for membership, which it has done by deciding, in part, that it does not want to run the risk, whether reasonable or not, of allowing gay scout leaders into the group. The courts, by contrast, are public institutions, which may discriminate only for compelling reasons.

This is another portent of things to come. Why stop with state judiciaries? Why not prohibit federal judges and U.S. Supreme Court justices from belonging to any private organization that makes moral distinctions between natural sex between men and women and homoerotic activity?

But why stop there? Why not prohibit anyone from serving in state legislatures or U.S. Congress who belongs to or volunteers for an organization that prohibits homoerotic activity?

And why should anyone be permitted to serve as president of the United States who belongs to an organization that believes volitional homoerotic activity (like polyamory, consensual adult incest, and paraphilic activity) is illicit and constitutes a character flaw?

These are not satirical proposals. Homosexual activists and their ideological allies believe that normalizing voluntary homoerotic activity and relationships trumps First Amendment protections of association, speech, and religious liberty.

Conservatives better start looking at the darkening forest that these trees are creating before all light is eclipsed.

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Written by Rod Dreher

Nick Zukin, a Portland restaurateur who believes in same-sex marriage but who publicly criticized the boycott of the Chauncy Childs store (for background, see yesterday’s post), writes to say:

A couple comments and corrections:

1) The business owners did not make their opinions known on their business Facebook page. The woman had posted on her personal page and the author of the video had been investigating her and found it out. I’m not sure why he was investigating her. I believe he said in the video that he had heard rumors. I don’t know if those rumors were about her comments on gay marriage or about her being Mormon or what. In fact, the only reference they originally made to the controversy on their Facebook page was to say that they do not and will not discriminate in any way. I think some people are still under the impression that this battle is over discrimination, but the leaders of the movement to boycott their business clearly know that this is over her beliefs about gay marriage, not about any actions on her part or the part of her business — other than her quasi-public statement on her Facebook page.

2) I was very clear throughout this mess that I was a strong proponent of marriage equality. It didn’t matter. It was enough that I thought a boycott was excessive to be deemed an enemy. Today I had someone leave a 1-star review on my restaurant’s Facebook page saying that they were regular customer who liked the food, but they don’t like the “hate” that comes with it. Here is how the Oregonian quoted me:

“The idea of blacklisting and boycotting people for their thoughts and beliefs, as opposed to their actions leads to a world that is less tolerant, less caring and more segregated,” Zukin told The Oregonian. “I don’t think the results will be the ones that people want.”

He went on to say that if a business was actively discriminating, “if it wasn’t serving gays, or people were disrespectful to gays in their store, I would be there protesting and boycotting.”

3) Since taking down his video, the author has been attacked as well on the boycott’s Facebook page and in the comments sections for local news stories. They’re now calling him a “sell out” for trying to make something positive out of this and for being willing to meet with the people he disagreed with and vilified.

4) The restaurant I used to work for and still own a part of posted on their Facebook page that they find my position “appalling”. I posted in response merely the two paragraphs from the Oregonian above and my response was deleted and I was banned from commenting.

This has gotten so out of proportion. It really is sad and counter-productive. I don’t think anyone is being helped by this. I wrote this on Facebook in response to someone attacking me today:

Certainly there have been horrible crimes against individual homosexuals and the gay community in general throughout history and even recently in the United States. People still do and probably will do terrible acts against LGBT people here in the United States and elsewhere. And if they do, they should be punished for it. Hardly seems fair to lay all of that at the feet of this woman, though, even symbolically.

Only 2 years ago, Barack Obama’s stated position was the same: against gay marriage. As was probably 95% of Congress, including Democrats. It was not the right position, but it didn’t prevent well over 60% of Portlanders voting for him in 2008. That’s actually less than the national average for the percentage of gay Americans that voted for Obama in 2008, which was 70%.

So apparently being leader of the free world is not important enough to keep the gay community from supporting him despite his failings for their community, but a woman with little or no political power who doesn’t believe in gay marriage owning an organic grocery store is a bridge too far?

And what’s the end result? Now you have people sympathetic to gay rights thinking that rights aren’t enough, but that they’ll be punished if they don’t share the same beliefs. They go from feeling sympathetic to feeling threatened. Maybe you think that you’ve galvanized the gay community and left-leaning activists? I don’t think that’s true. I received Facebook messages from a local LGBT leader saying that she supports me and not to let this get me down. I got several emails and messages from gay friends condemning what you guys are doing. My Facebook page is filled with gay friends echoing and supporting my position. People like Andrew Sullivan and Bill Maher are coming out against the efforts to purge businesses of those that differ in their beliefs, as well. You’re not bringing communities together, you’re tearing them apart, creating competing factions within the community and losing sight of the prize: equal rights.

I remember my mom telling me stories about this boy she liked in grade school. She didn’t know how to get his attention, so one time while he was at the drinking fountain, she came by and hit him in the head. He smacked his teeth on the faucet and started bleeding everywhere. The boy never liked her. I think she would have been better off talking to him and showing him kindness.

Brendan Eich is deemed unfit to run the company he helped found, not because he would discriminate in the workplace, but because six years ago he gave money to the Prop 8 campaign, which was supported by a majority of Californians. The Childs family will almost certainly lose their investment in what was an empty storefront they were rehabilitating to open an organic food store, not because they have mistreated gay customers, but because of Chauncy Childs’ personal disapproval of same-sex marriage. Nick Zukin strongly believes in same-sex marriage rights, but because he publicly stated his objection to punishing a business owner for her privately held opinions, his business is now the target of a boycott.

A gay reader of this blog (I leave it up to him to identify himself if he likes) who has campaigned for same-sex marriage and gay rights in general e-mailed last night to say he’s being called a “self-hating homosexual” and a “coward” for objecting to these tactics.

Nice movement for tolerance, diversity, and acceptance you have there. Is this what America has to look forward to? Will America become a place where people are denied their livelihoods because they support traditional marriage, or even, as in Zukin’s case, when they simply express disagreement with the more radical edge of the gay rights movement? Because it looks like this is where we’re headed.

This article was originally posted at TheAmericanConservative website.

It shouldn’t have taken the forced resignation of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich for the Left to admit that homosexual activists and their water-carrying ideological servants have no interest in dialogue, diversity, or tolerance. Jack-booted homosexualists demanded that Eich, co-founder of Mozilla and inventor of JavaScript, be fired for his $1,000 donation to the Prop 8 campaign in California six years ago.

I guess it’s semi-official: American citizens who believe marriage is inherently sexually complementary cannot work in America—not even in their own companies. Remember this the next time someone condescendingly asserts that the legalization of same-sex “marriage” couldn’t possibly affect society at large in any negative way.

I wonder how many of those who drove Brendan Eich out of his job voted for Barack Obama when he publicly opposed the legalization of same-sex “marriage”—you know, before his “evolution.”

For those with short memories, Prop 8 was the ballot initiative that was passed in California that defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and then was overturned by a homosexual activist judge whose “reasoning” has been widely criticized.

Now the story Eich story is shifting a bit. Unpleasant homosexual activist and radio personality Michael Signorile asserts that it wasn’t merely that Eich donated to Prop 8 that led to his compulsory resignation. His additional crimes are that 22 years ago Eich supported Pat Buchanan’s presidential campaign and then more recently Eich supported (horror of horrors) Ron Paul.

So now corporations large and small will have ideological litmus tests for upper management? “Affirm sodomy and cross-dressing or look for employment elsewhere–preferably on another planet. Oh, and we will need to see your voting record for your entire life as well.”

Some liberals are trying to argue that Eich’s compulsory resignation is merely a business decision resulting from liberal efforts no different from conservative boycotts of Home Depot or Starbucks for their homosexuality-affirming commitments. But there’s a huge difference between boycotting a business for their corporate policies and practices and boycotting a business because of the personal beliefs of an employee. Can liberals not see the difference?

Even homosexual writer Andrew Sullivan condemns the “hounding” of Eich:

The guy who had the gall to express his First Amendment rights and favor Prop 8 in California by donating $1,000 has just been scalped by some gay activists….Will he now be forced to walk through the streets in shame? Why not the stocks? The whole episode disgusts me—as it should disgust anyone interested in a tolerant and diverse society. If this is the gay rights movement today—hounding our opponents with a fanaticism more like the religious right than anyone else—then count me out. 

The Left tries to ennoble their ignoble pursuit of ideological purity on matters related to volitional sexual acts by recasting it as the “new civil rights movement.” Of course, along the way, they never actually make a case for the soundness of the comparison of sexual feelings and acts to skin color. No matter, just keep shouting “equality” and screaming “bigot” at all dissenters, and they win the day. And why do they win? Lots of reasons, none of which involve the arc of the moral universe bending toward justice.

The reasons include the de facto control of the mainstream press, academia, and the arts (including the publishing industry). The other reasons are that many Americans are non-thinkers (read Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death), and many conservatives are cowards.

We should be afraid of a holy God, not the names hurled by those lost in spiritual darkness. And we should be deeply concerned about the loss of freedom that Eich’s “resignation” portends for our children and grandchildren. The fact that so many conservatives continue to assert that all that matters is the economy and radical Islam is testament to conservative ignorance. 

Eich is the pale featherless canary gasping for breath in the coal mine. Unless conservatives stiffen up those Gumby spines and grow some thick man-skin (as I have been doing in my basement laboratory), they’ll find they won’t be able to make a living unless they genuflect to all things homosexual. One small consolation: bootlicking is easier for those without spines.

Come on, people, walk upright.

Speak the truth in love; Expose the fruitless deeds of darkness; Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds; Be anxious for nothing; Remember that the wisdom of this world is folly with God; And share boldly with others the good news that through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life can set them free from the law of sin and death.