Written by Cal Skinner

Lakewood resident Steve Willson did the following analysis:

Hate Crimes Up — and Down

The FBI just released their annual report on hate crimes in the U.S. It’s useful to look at the data in more than one way to gain perspective.

First, how serious an issue is “hate crime”?

Well, in 2017, there were 1.2 million violent crimes reported to the FBI and 7.7 million property crimes.

Of these incidents, a little over 7,000 were classified as hate crimes.

Hate crimes constituted 0.04% of all crimes against property and 0.33% of all violent crimes.

Second, what is the trend in hate crimes?

The good news is that hate crimes are far lower than at their historical peaks. The bad news is the last few years have seen a large increase.

FBI statistics go back to 1996. Since then, incidents of hate crimes against blacks have fallen by 45%.

Undoubtedly the fall from earlier periods, before the FBI began tracking such statistics, is much greater.

However, in the three years since 2014, the number of incidents of hate crimes against blacks has increased 24%.

Hate crimes against Jews is down 15% from the peak recorded in 2000 but is up 54% since 2014.

Hate crimes against Muslims jumped in after 9/11, jumping from 28 incidents in 2000 to 481 incidents in 2001.

Fortunately, after that, the number of incidents fell sharply, to 155 the next year. From the peak, incidents involving Muslims has fallen 43%.

However, the increase since 2014 is 77%.

Hate crimes based on sexual orientation peaked in 2001 and has fallen 19% since then.

The increase since 2014 is 11%.

Third, how is hate crime distributed?

Hate crimes against

• blacks constitute about 28% of all incident
• sexual orientation 16%
• Jewish 13% and
• Muslim 4%

This article was originally published at McHenry County Blog.

While media pundits and liberal activists feign “concern” about the prominence of “social issues” in the GOP primary race for president, liberal activists tirelessly work to advance their social agenda. Whether it is the mandate from Washington D.C. that requires all healthcare insurance plans to provide free contraceptives, abortifacients, and sterilization services or the introduction of a “same-sex marriage” bill in Springfield merely nine months after “civil unions” became legal in Illinois, the Left aggressively promotes its social agenda, often with the approval of the mainstream media.

Lesbian activist and recently appointed — not elected — StateRepresentative Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago) is fast becoming Illinois’ champion of all things liberal. Leftwing zealot Cassidy is co-sponsor of the following bills: “same-sex marriage” (HB 5170), universal health care (HB 311), “medical” marijuana (HB 30), “comprehensive” sex education (HB 3027), a two percent sales-tax increase on firearms ammunition (HB 5167), a resolution to support the Occupy protesters (HR 610), and chief sponsor of another onerous “bullying” bill (HB 5290), which I will address in a future IFI E-Alert.

But it is Rep. Cassidy’s sponsorship of a legislative proposal that would add Gender Identity Disorder (euphemistically referred to as “gender identity”) to the existing “hate crime” law in Illinois (HB 4725) that is the subject of this article.

Enumerated “hate crime” laws are intellectually and ethically flawed and dangerous. This proposed amendment would only make a bad law worse.

It is important to remember that opposition to hate crime laws does not constitute endorsement of criminal acts committed against anyone. One can oppose both criminal acts of all kinds and the pernicious purported solution of hate crime laws, which pose a serious threat to liberty.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact your state representative to ask him/her to oppose HB 4725 and the addition of Gender Identity Disorder to existing hate crime law. You can also call the Springfield switchboard at (217) 782-2000 and speak to your local representative’s administrative aide about your concerns with this proposal.

It is interesting to note that this bill was originally heard in the Judiciary II committee last Friday, but failed by a vote of 2 yea, 2 nay and 3 present.  Yesterday, however, two of the lawmakers who voted “present” [Reps. Bill Cunningham (D-Chicago) and Esther Golar (D-Chicago)] were substituted by Rep. Toni Berrios (D-Chicago) and the chief sponsor of the legislation, Rep. Cassidy. Obviously, Rep. Cassidy, who was appointed to the General Assembly last summer, has enough clout with Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) for this kind of maneuvering. This exposes Madigan’s eagerness to cater to the aggressive efforts of homosexual activists to promote their “social issues” in the General Assembly.

Problems with hate crimes laws in general:

• American jurisprudence traditionally and rightly takes into account the mens rea, or state of mind, of perpetrators of crimes. In the prosecution and sentencing of crimes, we take into account whether the perpetrator was negligent, reckless, knowing, or purposeful. These categories reveal that our system takes into account the perpetrator’s mental state or the degree of intentionality with regard to his or her actions.
  
  In contrast, hate crime laws are concerned not with the perpetrator’s mental state with regard to his or her actions, but with the beliefs, feelings, or values that impel a particular criminal act. Hate crime laws depend on an evaluation of what the perpetrator believed to be true of the victim, and whether he or she acted because of that belief. This constitutes the most troublingly intrusive form of Big Brother thought control.
  
  There is no ethical justification for meting out more severe punishments for identical actions based on the beliefs, feelings, or values of the perpetrator. The beliefs, feelings, and values of citizens — even beliefs, feelings, and values that society or some segment of society views as erroneous — should be off-limits to the law.
  
  The enhancement of punishments based on the beliefs, feelings, or values of perpetrators opens the door to unconscionable government intrusion into the minds and hearts of citizens. Such intrusion into and evaluation of the beliefs, feelings, and values of citizens is inappropriate in regard to any conditions, including conditions that have no moral implications, but it’s even more problematic when it pertains to volitional behavioral conditions of which questions of morality are central (e.g., homosexuality, cross-dressing).

• The purpose behind enhanced punishments for particular beliefs, feelings, or values is to eradicate those beliefs, feelings, or values, which is decidedly not the role of government or the law.

• Equality before the law is a principle upon which this country is founded. That principle is undermined by establishing particular groups as more worthy of protection than others. Our legal system is based on punishing behavior, not selecting out particular victims for special treatment. Preferential treatment for one group, particularly a group that is constituted my subjective desires and volition, establishes a troubling precedent.

• Preferential treatment for one group will exacerbate rather than reduce inter-group tensions and hostilities.

• Establishing particular groups as deserving of special protections, preferential treatment before the law or establishing other groups as deserving of harsher punishments for committing the same criminal act because of their beliefs, feelings, or values creates a social and political climate that will affect the administration of justice.Imagine a scenario in which the victim of a mugging is a cross-dresser and the perpetrator is known to hate cross-dressers, but the perpetrator had not committed the crime because of his hatred for cross-dressing. Rather, he had committed it because the cross-dresser was alone and appeared to be wealthy. Could the perpetrator be treated fairly before the law? Should his feelings about cross-dressers be the concern of the government? Would the kind of politically charged legal context we are creating with laws that evaluate feelings ever concede that such feelings did not play a role in the commission of the crime? What crimes are prosecuted, and what sentences are levied become political acts.One writer explains this:

Prosecution is selective. This means that the district attorney or prosecutor decides which cases to pursue and which to dismiss. They also decide which charges to file. In most cases this is mainly about expediency, but there is always an element of politics involved. When it comes to hate crimes, the political element grows immensely in a potential prosecution. This is because the hate crime casts an offense against an individual or small group of individuals as an offense against an entire demographic subset.

Problems with the inclusion of the term “gender identity”:

• The term “gender identity” is a biased, non-neutral, political term that was created to disassociate certain behaviors (e.g., cross-dressing) from the psychological disorder that impels them. The neutral terms are “gender dysphoria” and Gender Identity Disorder. We object to the inclusion of “gender identity” because embedded in it are a number of non-factual assumptions about the nature of gender dysphoria and the morality of particular behaviors associated with gender dysphoria and Gender Identity Disorder.

• This term “gender identity” was invented as a rhetorical tool to legitimate or normalize behaviors that citizens have every right to view as disordered and immoral.

• The term “gender identity” was invented as a rhetorical tool to stigmatize those who view gender aberrant behaviors as disordered and immoral.

• Making possible enhanced punishments for crimes committed against those who experience gender confusion raises the question of whether those who experience other disorders/conditions that have volitional behavioral implications will demand inclusion of their conditions in enumerated hate crimes laws.

• Using laws to make social, moral, and political statements about moral beliefs that one group doesn’t like is unethical and dangerous.

Conclusion:

We are becoming a society increasingly removed from fundamental American principles of justice. The law is being used to treat people differently depending on their group membership and to invade the thoughts minds and feelings of people, all in the service of transforming the social, moral, and political beliefs of Americans.

The Chicago Tribune published an article by Associated Press medical writer Lindsey Tanner which states that a growing number of teenagers and even younger children “who think they were born the wrong sex” are finding doctors willing to give them “sex-changing treatments.” Tanner says the issue “raises ethical questions.”

Tanner tells the story of an 8-year-old girl in L.A. who at 18 months announced “I a boy.” Her parents parents now refer to her as a boy and are “watching for the first signs of puberty.” The child’s mother says that when “he” was told he could get shots to block breast development, “he was so excited.”

Leading the charge to facilitate this cruel deception is Dr. Norman Spack of Boston’s Children’s Hospital, a doctor who is no stranger to media attention for his work. “If you open the doors, these are the kids who come,” Dr. Spack says. He believes  that the psychiatric diagnosis of “gender identity disorder” for children who wish they were born the opposite sex is a “misnomer.”

Dr. Margaret Moon, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ bioethics committee, cites ethical concerns with offering “sex-changing treatment” to kids under the age of eighteen. She says that some kids may get a psychiatric diagnosis when they are just uncomfortable with “narrowly defined gender roles” and that it is harmful “to have an irreversible treatment too early.”

Dr. Spack’s “Gender Management Service” clinic opened in 2007, and he reports a fourfold increase in patients, up to 19 each year, versus four in the late 1990s. Once younger children begin to show signs of puberty, they are given puberty-blocking drugs, in monthly injections or implants imbedded in the arm. Later, teens are given hormones, which can have serious side effects, including blood clots and cancer.

The article concludes with comments from Dr. Jo Olson, medical director of a transgender clinic at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Olson said that reports appearing in the medical journal Pediatrics should help persuade more doctors to offer these kids “sex-changing” treatment or refer them to specialists who will. “It would be so nice to move this out of the world of mental health, and into the medical world,” Olson said.

Gender confusion is not confined to the world of mental health, as Dr. Olson asserts.  It is now a major issue political issue and is on the fast track to normalization in our schools and halls of legislation.  In the Illinois General Assembly, lesbian activist and State Representative Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago) has even sponsored legislation (HB 4725) to add Gender Identity Disorder to the list of “hate crimes.”  (Thanks to IFI’s lobbying efforts, HB 4725 failed to advance out of committee on February 23rd. Two voted in favor, three voted “present,” and two voted no.)

Read IFI’s position paper on HB 4725, authored by IFI’s Laurie Higgins.

Once again, Barack Obama has affirmed his commitment to radical, subversive change; his sycophancy to the homosexual lobby; and, implicitly, his embrace of heresy. He has already signed into law the dangerously flawed “Hate Crimes” bill, declared his intent to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act, and committed to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

Then on May 28, 2010 Obama issued the following proclamation

LGBT Americans have enriched and strengthened the fabric of our national life. From business leaders and professors to athletes and first responders, LGBT individuals have achieved success and prominence in every discipline. They are our mothers and fathers, our sons and daughters, and our friends and neighbors. Across my Administration, openly LGBT employees are serving at every level….

I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2010 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.

Joe Carter writing on the First Things blog seeks further clarity from Obama:

Perhaps he could explain how bisexuals-because of their bisexuality-have enriched America and how transgendered-because or their transgendered orientation-have have strengthened the “fabric of our national life.” In other words, maybe he could explain why alternative forms of “gender identity or sexual orientation” are something we should celebrate at the national level.

Also, I’d really love to see a few names of the transgendered folks-people who may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, or asexual-who are “serving at every level” of his administration. By my count he has exactly one example.

Obama wants all Americans to “recognize the immeasurable contributions of LGBT Americans,” insisting that “LGBT Americans have enriched and strengthened the fabric of our national life.”

No sane person would ever argue that homosexuals have contributed nothing to society. That’s as absurd as claiming that adulterers, porn users, or gossips have contributed nothing to society.

But the sexual impulses and sexual behavior of homosexuals and cross-dressers are irrelevant to their contributions. Therefore, making irrelevant characteristics the central focus of “Pride” month as Obama did is absurd. More important, the particular irrelevant characteristics that Obama has chosen to highlight are, in the view of many, disordered and immoral.

Those who experience, for example, selfish, vain, greedy, gluttonous, deceitful, promiscuous, incestuous, sadistic, pederastic, gossipy, philandering, or polyamorous impulses and engage in behaviors impelled by such impulses have also contributed to society. How would Americans respond if the president were to proclaim June “Polyamory Pride Month”? Substituting another irrelevant and morally questionable characteristic for homosexuality brings into sharper relief the dubious nature of Obama’s proclamation.

Joe Carter emphasizes this point:

Presumably all of these Americans who have “enriched and strengthened the fabric of our national life” have other characteristics besides their sexual orientation. They are men and women, black and Asian, right-handed and left-handed, etc. So what is the purpose of using their sexual identification as a marker if it has no bearing on their accomplishments?

Imagine if we swapped out “LGBT” for “left-handed white people” in his proclamation: “Left-handed white Americans have enriched and strengthened the fabric of our national life. From business leaders and professors to athletes and first responders, left-handed white individuals have achieved success and prominence in every discipline. They are our mothers and fathers, our sons and daughters, and our friends and neighbors. Across my Administration, openly left-handed, white employees are serving at every level.”

Now if Obama has said this you’d probably say it was a bit silly, even a tad bit racist. Why in the world would we need to praise people for traits that have no bearing on either their achievements or their worth as individuals?

All mature people understand that fallen, sinful humans also do good acts and make positive contributions to society because fallen, sinful people are all that the world has. There exists nothing but fallen, sinful people who experience disordered impulses and engage in immoral behaviors. We don’t honor our fellow men and women for those impulses and behaviors; we honor them for their good deeds.

It is justifiable to single out for special attention the accomplishments of a group defined by characteristics that carry no behavioral implications open to moral assessment and whose contributions are overlooked because of society’s ignorance or bigotry, like African Americans or the disabled. But homosexuality is not ontologically equivalent to race or disability, and volitional homosexual conduct is a legitimate object of moral assessment.

Obama is using his power, his position, and this proclamation to make a fallacious association between good deeds and homosexuality. It is an exploitative stratagem to normalize homosexuality. Associate homosexuality with something positive like creativity, compassion, or self-sacrifice, and eventually the good feelings society has for creativity, compassion, or self- sacrifice will be (irrationally) transferred to homosexuality or cross-dressing.

It’s critical to understand the fallacious assumptions embedded in Obama’s declaration because these assumptions are promoted in many societal contexts, including public education. Homosexuals are not a category of humans in the same sense that racial minorities are a category of humans. Homosexuality is a sin disposition–not a morally neutral condition like skin color. When homosexuals have contributed something of value to society, those contributions should be noted. Their sexual predilections, however, are worthy of neither honor nor mention.

My sense and the sense of those who are similarly engaged in the cultural debate about homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder is that far too many conservatives refuse to participate in this critical debate for a number of reasons, including an unbiblical and selfish unwillingness to experience persecution (aka cowardice); an unbiblical unwillingness to experience righteous anger; and a (perhaps willful) ignorance of the cultural implications of their indefensible passivity even as perversion is promoted as righteousness through our public schools, courts, legislatures, news media, entertainment industry–and even the highest elective office in the United States.

Editor’s Note: IFI requested comments or clarifications on the AOL article from Focus on the Family. They did not respond.

There has been much speculation about why James Dobson left Focus on the Family (FOTF). The speculation is that he was, in effect, forced out because some in leadership hope to create a kindler, gentler face for FOTF, which seems strange in that it’s hard to imagine someone kindler or gentler than James Dobson.

Pastor Ken Hutcherson writes that “Focus does have a new focus; an image change designed to make them accepted and well-liked rather than standing for righteousness in an unrighteous society.”

A recent AOL article about the shift in leadership at FOTF, although not providing proof for those rumors, does suggest they may be true.

James Dobson’s replacement Jim Daly said:

“When you look back from a pro-life perspective, what were the gains there?…We don’t see the results for the energy, the money, everything else that’s been poured into the political sphere.”

Daly is simply wrong in his assertion that the pro-life position has seen little or no gains. Because of the perseverance of pro-life warriors, polls show that there has been significant decline in support for the anti-life position, particularly among the younger generation.

Daly also said:

“We as a Christian community need to refocus a bit on what’s important in the culture. For us, it’s family. That’s our mission….I don’t know what will happen with same-sex marriage, but I’m not going to be discouraged if we lose some of those battles, [for] 98 percent of people, traditional marriage will remain relevant.”

This statement reveals a rather surprising naivete. Perhaps Mr. Daly hasn’t read any of the research done by Stanley Kurtz who found that when “same-sex marriage” was legalized in Scandinavia, heterosexual investment in traditional marriage declined. This makes sense. Legalized “same-sex marriage” embodies and promotes the radical and subversive ideas that marriage has no intrinsic connection to heterosexuality and no intrinsic connection to procreation, so why should 98 percent of the population find an institution that is unrelated to heterosexuality and unrelated to procreation relevant? Why should those who do not hold orthodox Jewish, Muslim, or Christian views find traditional marriage relevant?

If the family is FOTF’s mission, then they better figure out how to stop the pro-homosexual juggernaut — nicely, of course — because soon every child from kindergarten through high school will be taught about “diverse family structures” and Heather’s two nice mommies.

What FOTF needs to bear in mind is that while it’s easy for the pro-life position to be advanced through emotional appeals to the heart like the Tim Tebow ad that aired during the Super Bowl, it’s very difficult for the pro-traditional marriage and anti-homosexuality position to do that. The other side has the clear narrative advantage. It’s much easier to create a touching film about a little boy with two mommies or a picture book about cute furry homosexual animals than it is to create heartstring-tugging picture books and films that show the immorality and societal devastation of homosexual practice and “same-sex marriage.”

We live, and move, and have our being in a culture that Neil Postman described as a place where “imagery, narrative, presentness, simultaneity, intimacy, immediate gratification, and quick emotional response” reign supreme and where “logic, sequence, history, exposition, objectivity, detachment, and discipline” resonate little. This means that those who can create compelling stories that pack an emotional punch will win the hearts and minds of Americans. Those who must rely on logic, exposition, and objectivity are at a distinct polemical disadvantage.

As evidence for his claim that a kindler, gentler approach to cultural issues is more effective, Daly claimed that the soft Tebow ad was a “game changer.” What a Barna poll showed was that of those who believe abortion should be legal, 4 percent said the commercial was cause for them to reconsider their opinion about abortion. Oddly, the poll also showed that the ad caused 8 percent of those who believe abortion should not be legal to reconsider their opinion on abortion.

Methinks Mr. Daly overstates the case, but perhaps the ad will be a “game changer.” If so, then FOTF should make a slick and soft game-changing ad about homosexuality.

For the most part the church has long adopted the soft, “We heart homosexuality” approach, dribbling virtually no energy or money into the political sphere, and we see the effects: even as the younger generation of Christians moves to an anti-abortion position, they have moved to a love the sinnerand the sin position on homosexuality.

Mr. Daly also said “I will continue to defend traditional marriage, but I’m not going to demean human beings for (sic) the process.” To whom exactly is Jim Daly alluding? James Dobson? Or is he referring to those relatively few stalwart culture warriors who are willing to endure the malignant lies and obscene epithets that a courageous stand for truth in the public square on this issue elicits? The language employed by Mr. Daly here is the kind of language commonly employed by either homosexualists (i.e., homosexuals and those who support their ontological, moral, and political views) or by those Christians who are unwilling to publicly condemn volitional homosexual practice as immoral, even as our public schools affirm homosexuality to children with public money.

Who defines “demeaning” for FOTF? That’s a critical question because those who affirm a homosexual identity believe that public statements about the immorality of volitional homosexual acts are demeaning. And those who support legalized “same-sex marriage” believe that moral opposition to it is demeaning. If FOTF allows the culture to define what is demeaning, then silence is their only option.

Moving forward, how will FOTF oppose “homosexual marriage”?

How will FOTF oppose the widespread cultural embrace of specious ideas about the nature and morality of homosexuality, even among Christians?

How will FOTF work to stop the exposure of elementary, middle, and high school students in public schools to homosexuality-affirming resources disguised as “anti-bullying” resources?

Mr. Daly rejects being “highly confrontational,” a commitment with which I would wholeheartedly agree — depending on how “confrontational” is defined. If Daly means that he seeks to confront the culture, but without hostility, his goal is admirable. If, on the other hand, he is rejecting not just hostility but also cultural confrontations, then there’s a problem. To confront means to defy or come up against, which is what will be required if we hope to protect the unborn, children, the family, speech rights, religious liberty, and truth.

Shouldn’t we boldly confront the efforts of homosexualists who are working feverishly to expose our littlest ones to homosexuality and “transgenderism” in our public schools? How perverse does the behavior that our public schools affirm have to become and how young the children to whom and in whom it’s affirmed before the church as well as para-church organizations will become willing to confront the unproven, corrupt ideas promoted in public schools?

It certainly has not been any mythical confrontational tactics of serious orthodox Christians that have rendered our Christian youth vulnerable to the specious secular arguments used to normalize homosexuality. Here’s what has led the body of Christ, including our youth, to respect and affirm heresy:

• The cowardice and ignorance of the church which results in a retreat from the public square
• The successful infiltration of homosexual activism in public education through critical pedagogy, Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN)and its satellite Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, the National Education Association, the American Library Association, schools or departments of education that are dominated by “progressives” who train teachers, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “educational” project ironically named “Teaching Tolerance,” and numerous “anti-bullying” curricula and resources
• Hollywood that uses the powerful media of television and film to transform cultural views by idealizing homosexuality and ridiculing traditional views of sexuality without ever having to make a well-supported argument. Hollywood knows that if there’s one thing Americans hate, it’s being uncool.
• Judicial activism
• The biased mainstream news media that celebrates homosexuality through sound bites and imagery
• Advertising that uses imagery to glamorize homosexuality

Far too many churches and para-church organizations are adopting emasculated approaches to the pro-homosexual movement. Not only are we not pro-active in preparing our youth intellectually to understand the specious secular arguments used to normalize homosexuality, but we’re not even sufficiently re-active.

Just when the cultural threat is greatest; when Obama has appointed lesbian law professor Chai Feldblum to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; when he has appointed Kevin Jennings, homosexual founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network to be the Safe Schools “czar”; when the “Hate Crimes” bill has passed Congress; when the Employment Non-Discrimination Act is soon up for a vote; when the Student Non-Discrimination Act has been proposed; when the Safe Schools Improvement Act has been proposed; and when efforts to eradicate marriage continue unabated, we need warriors who are willing to confront lies and protect children.

Let’s hope and pray that Focus on the Family continues to lead courageously, perseveringly, and unambiguously on the critical cultural issues pertaining to life, family, and marriage.

On Saturday night, President Barack Obama delivered his sycophantic, pro-homosexual magnum opus to the nation’s largest homosexual and “transgender” lobbying organization: the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Obama promised attendees a veritable smorgasbord of legislation that will further their anarchical social agenda, while undermining speech rights, parental rights, and religious liberty.

• He declared that he is “committed” to ending the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that prevents open homosexuals from serving in the military.
• He promised to pass a “hate” crimes bill which would allow government intrusion into the thoughts and beliefs of citizens and criminalize beliefs that offend homosexuals.
• He acknowledged that he and his administration are “pushing hard to pass an inclusive employee non-discrimination bill” (ENDA) which will likely prevent even private faith-based organizations and institutions, including churches and schools, from making employment decisions based on legitimate judgments about behaviors that violate their own beliefs.
• He “called on Congress to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and to pass the “Domestic Partners Benefits and Obligations Act” which would result in states having to legally recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states and would further financially burden the federal government by requiring the provision of benefits to relationships that are morally disordered and do not serve the public good. The Domestic Partners Act defines a “domestic partner as an adult unmarried person living with another adult unmarried person of the same sex in a committed, intimate relationship.” How, one wonders, do these partners prove to the government that they are in a committed, intimate relationship?

Obama began by thanking the HRC for the work they do “every day in pursuit of equality on behalf of the millions of people . . . who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.” The HRC does not work for equality. They work to compel societal approval of volitional homosexual acts. Nor do they seek tolerance, which means to put up with something objectionable. Rather, they seek affirmation, and they pursue it by deliberately misconstruing moral claims as bias, bigotry, discrimination, and hatred.

The claim that disapproval of homosexuality is analogous to racial discrimination depends on the utterly fallacious comparison of homosexuality to race or skin color. Race is 100 percent heritable and devoid of behavioral implications. Homosexuality is not 100 percent heritable and is centrally defined by acts that are legitimate objects of moral assessment — and moral disapproval. If society permits this group of people to be defined as a specially protected class based on their subjective feelings and volitional acts and accorded special rights because of those characteristics, then logically other groups must be defined as a specially protected class based on their subjective feelings and volitional acts and accorded special rights because of them.

Homosexualists don’t apply their assumptions regarding what constitutes hatred consistently. They don’t, for example, view moral disapproval of polyamory as hatred of polyamorous people or moral disapproval of paraphilias as hatred of paraphiliacs. The belief that homosexuality, cross-dressing, and elective amputations of sexual anatomy are immoral is the one moral claim that they have successfully misconstrued in the minds of many as hatred.

Obama laughably described the HRC as advocating “on behalf of those without a voice.” To suggest that in the last thirty years homosexuals have had no voice is ludicrous at best, utterly deceitful at worst. It’s hard to defend the claim that homosexuals are voiceless when they are trumpeting their subversive views through the arts and entertainment industry, public education, and myriad organizations like the Human Rights Campaign; the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network; the National Education Association; The Southern Poverty Law Center; the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation; the Safe Schools Coalition; the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association; the American Library Association; and the Transgender Law Center.

Obama fretted about laws that yet remain to be changed and hearts that yet remain to be opened, condescendingly describing “fellow citizens, perhaps neighbors, even loved ones — good and decent people — who hold fast to outworn arguments and old attitudes.” Although the beliefs that same-sex attraction is disordered and that volitional homosexual acts are immoral are most certainly enduring, they’re no more outworn than are the beliefs that sexual attraction to one’s parent is disordered and that sexual engagement with one’s parent is immoral. Moreover, the belief that homosexual acts are immoral does not suggest a “closed heart.” If, in reality, homosexual acts are objectively disordered and contrary to God’s will, telling others that hard truth constitutes an act of genuine love.

And if the arguments in favor of traditional views of sexual morality are outworn, perhaps our enlightened, progressive president should share his wisdom with the many well-respected scholars who hold such antiquated notions, including Hadley Arkes, Francis Beckwith, Henri Blocher, Joseph Bottum, D.A. Carson, Tim Challies, Charles Chaput, Mark Dever, Anthony Esolen, John S. Feinberg, John Frame, Robert Gagnon, Robert George, Wayne Grudem, John Finnis, Stanton Jones, Walter Kaiser, Meredith Kline, Al Mohler, Douglas Moo, Russell Moore, Mark Noll,David Novak, J.I. Packer, John Piper, Patrick Henry Reardon, Leland Ryken, Thomas Schreiner, Janet E. Smith, John Stott, Bruce Ware,Thomas Weinandy, Christopher Wolfe, N.T. Wright, and Ravi Zacharias.

Obama faulted those who see families led by homosexuals as different from families led by heterosexuals. But families led by homosexuals are different from families led by a heterosexual couple. In their preference for their same sex, homosexuals acknowledge that men are by nature different from women. Therefore, a union composed of two people of the same sex must by nature be different from a union of two people of ontologically different sexes, with each bringing to the family that which is distinct to his or her “gender.”

Obama also faults those he claims would deny homosexuals “the rights most Americans take for granted.” We as a society, however, ought never come to the place where we start ascribing rights to people based on their subjective, emotional desires, sexual attractions, and volitional sexual conduct. And we ought never deprive citizens of their right to freely associate or not with those whose public conduct and espoused beliefs they find objectionable and destructive. I should have the right not to rent an apartment in a building I own to an unmarried heterosexual couple, an incestuous couple, a polyamorous union, or a homosexual couple.

Obama disingenuously claimed that it is the “force of the arguments” homosexuals make and “quiet, personal acts of compassion — and defiance” that have brought about change. He’s right. It has been acts of defiance and rebellion that have resulted in the tragic cultural shifts we are seeing. Defiance; rebellion; libertinism; false arguments; judicial activism; censorship; the exploitation of public education, and the use of epithetic language are just some of the behaviors and tactics that have transformed the culture in foolish and destructive ways–ways which Obama calls “progress.”

Obama appealed to foundational American principles when he described a movement to legitimize deviant sex as a “movement for fairness and equality, and not just for those who are gay, but for all those in our history who’ve been denied the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.” But what rights and responsibilities have homosexual men and women been denied? Despite obscurantist arguments to the contrary, all homosexuals have access to marriage. Men who want to have sex with men and women who want to have sex with women do not constitute some particular class of people denied access to marriage. The truth is that they don’t want to participate in the institution of marriage whose cornerstone and central feature is sexual complementarity. The particular sexual proclivities of those who experience same-sex attraction do not entitle them unilaterally to change the definition of marriage to fit their own inclinations.

Softening the image of the riots that sparked another phase of the sexual revolution, Obama referred to the “Stonewall protests, when a group of citizens with few options, and fewer supporters stood up against discrimination and helped to inspire a movement.” He’s right again: we should support those who experience intense, persistent, and seemingly intractable desires: we should support them in their efforts to resist those impulses. We should come alongside them, pray with and for them, and love them through their difficult struggle to submit to God’s will. But we must never support them in their sin or treat their sin as if it’s good, beautiful, or worthy of affirmation.

Nobel Peace Prize-winner Barack Obama declared that he is with homosexuals in their fight to elect candidates who share their values, and he’s with them in their “stand” against those who would enshrine “discrimination” into our Constitution, and he’s with them in their fight for “progress” in our capital and across America. Obama announced that he desires that all Americans would come to view homosexual relationships as just as “admirable” as heterosexual relationships. Clearly, his fight for public affirmation of homosexuality; his unequivocal opposition to historical views of sexual morality; his willingness to aggressively use legislation to promote controversial, unproven sexual theories; and his battle-ready stance to promote heresy prove that he is man committed to public peace.