If the superficial, silly, ad hominem non-arguments that constitute the sum total of Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg‘s indictment of conservative positions on homosexuality were not so dangerous, they would be laughable.

In a rant in the Sunday Feb. 14 Sun-Times, Mr. Steinberg describes opposition to faux same-sex marriages and civil unions as “sick,” “twisted sexual” obsessions, “creepy, fixated” fundamentalism, “religious prejudice,” “intolerant,” and “inhuman.”

He compares opposition to the radical, subversive, a-historical effort to jettison the central defining feature of marriage–sexual complementarity–to teeth flossing and clean underwear checks.

Ah, yes, I can hear the mellifluous tones of tolerance wafting through his rhetoric.

One wonders if Mr. Steinberg applies these same epithets and feckless analogies to opposition to jettisoning any of the other defining features of marriage, like the binary requirement, or the blood kinship requirement. Are those who oppose adult consensual incest or polygamy sick, twisted sexual obsessives, and creepy, fixated fundamentalists?

Mr. Steinberg’s cliche non-arguments lead me to wonder if he has ever engaged with the substantive arguments of real intellectuals, either in person or through a thorough study of the best writing of conservative scholars. I think not because nary a substantive counter- argument can be found in his thicket of epithets.

Here are some questions for the moral philosopher, Mr. Steinberg:

• Is homosexuality ontologically equivalent to race or skin color? If so, what is your evidence for that claim?
• Is homosexuality morally equivalent to heterosexuality? If so, what are your justifications for that belief?
• What is the basis of the government’s involvement in marriage?
• Is the government in the business of simply affirming affection and sexual desire?
• If so, why not affirm through legal mechanisms like marriage or civil unions the affection and sexual attraction some siblings feel for each other, or the affection and sexual attraction polyamorists feel for multiple people?
• Is marriage an utterly private institution, or does it impact the public good?
• If marriage is an utterly private institution with no impact on the public good, then why is the government involved at all?
• If the government’s involvement in the marriage business is wholly severed from supporting the type of relationship into which children may be born, why limit it to two biologically unrelated people. (After all, in Mr. Steinberg’s moral universe, no one should be permitted to impose his intolerant, inhuman moral views on others. How very sick and prejudiced it is for anyone to prohibit those who love and want to express that love sexually to their siblings or multiple people. Moreover, how could a marriage between two siblings or five people hurt anyone else’s marriage?)

Islam, Orthodox Judaism, The Roman Catholic Church, and many Protestant denominations believe that volitional homosexual acts are immoral, and that marriage is by nature a heterosexual union. Before writing another anti-religious screed devoid of intellectual substance, it would behoove Mr. Steinberg to spend some time studying the work of the following scholars:

Hadley Arkes, Francis Beckwith, Henri Blocher, Joseph Bottum, Michael L. Brown, Don Browning, D.A. Carson, Charles Chaput, Mark Dever, Anthony Esolen, Douglas Farrow, John S. Feinberg, David F. Forte, John Frame, Robert Gagnon, Robert George, Arthur Goldberg, Wayne Grudem, John Finnis, Harold James, Stanton Jones, Walter Kaiser, Meredith Kline, Peter Kreeft, Daniel Lapin, Al Mohler, Douglas Moo, Russell Moore, Jennifer Roback Morse, Mark Noll, David Novak, J.I. Packer, John Piper, Patrick Henry Reardon, Leland Ryken, Thomas Schreiner, Roger Scruton, Janet E. Smith, Katherine Shaw Spaht, John Stott, Seanna Sugrue, Bruce Ware, Thomas Weinandy, W. Bradford Wilcox, Christopher Wolfe, N.T. Wright, and Ravi Zacharias.

Chicago Tribune reporter Rex Huppke recently wrote an article titled “Marriage benefits costly for gay couples” in which he addresses the economic costs for gay partners to legally protect their relationships. The article failed to address the underlying issue in this debate: the public purpose of marriage.

Marriage is not a relationship that society created in order to give some people benefits and deny them to others. Marriage is the institution that societies worldwide have recognized and encouraged because this unique relationship between a man and a woman provides particular benefits to society, chief among them, the procreation and nurturing of the next generation.

If marriage were centrally or solely about affirming love between individuals, the government would have no reason to be involved in the business of sanctioning marriage. Government sanctions the type of relationship into which children may be born and raised because the government recognizes that that institution which best serves the needs and rights of children is the institution that best serves a healthy society.

Of all the criteria that define marriage — number of partners, blood kinship, minimum age, and sexual complementarity — the one that has been historically and cross-culturally the most fixed is sexual complementarity.

The social science is clear and irrefutable: children do best in stable, healthy homes with both a mom and dad. The government acts in the interest of children and society when it protects the institution of marriage through legal benefits.

Imagine if this Scenario Were Reversed: One might suppose that homosexual militant Wayne Besen would be the last fellow to question the idea that “gay” activism threatens religious freedom in America. At right, Besen is photographed harassing a Boston church hosting an ex-“gay” conference – by yelling through a bullhorn into the window of the church during the conference. (Click HERE for MassResistance’s full story on the homosexual protest, and HERE for a report on a much larger and more violent pro-homosexual protest against another Boston church in 2005.) What if a bunch of Christian activists terrorized a meeting at a homosexual church in a similar manner? We suspect that Besen and fellow “gay” advocates might accuse them of using fascist tactics, and rightly so. Besen also wrote a hate-filled screed against Christian activist Michael Brown and his “God Has a Better Way” Gospel outreach at the Charlotte, NC “gay pride” festival.

Homosexual activist Wayne Besen of the oddly named Truth Wins Out described Dr. Michael Brown’s group of evangelists (the “God Has a Better Way” campaign responding to the Charlotte, N.C. “gay pride” parade) as “uninvited locusts” descending on Charlotte. With that description in mind, I wonder how conservatives should describe the thousands of participants in “pride” parades and “fairs” who pollute our streets with illegal nudity and public sex acts to which law enforcement agents, who are paid by the public to enforce laws, turn a blind eye.

When Besen said that “the notion that gay people in conservative North Carolina needed Brown to educate them about religious fundamentalism was farcical,” he revealed his ignorance about Biblical and Historical Theology. Although the belief that homosexual acts violate God’s will is a belief held by “fundamentalists,” it also integral to all orthodox theological traditions and has been since the beginnings of the church. His ignorance is not surprising, however, since Besen is a member of the homosexual activist movement that regularly makes numerous ludicrous exegetical claims, including the claims that Ruth and Naomi and David and Jonathan had homosexual relationships.

Then Besen makes a patently false assertion when he states that homosexual activists are “falsely accused of working to undermine freedom of religion.” He may want to read the words of Georgetown University lesbian law professor, Chai Feldblum who writes that when same-sex “marriage” is legalized, conservative people of faith will lose religious rights.

Besen’s clouded vision is manifest in this description of a group of Christians engaged in evangelism: “Most alarming are these charlatans’ deliberate perpetuation of paranoia by trumpeting alleged religious persecution that exists only in their warped minds.” Perhaps Besen should talk to the Christian infertility doctors in California whom a lesbian sued when their religious convictions prevented them from inseminating a lesbian. Or perhaps he should talk to the Christian owners of a New Mexico photography studio who were sued and fined for “discrimination” when their religious beliefs prevented them from photographing the commitment ceremony of two homosexuals.

Perhaps Besen (left) should talk to the Christian mother in Alameda, Cal., whose public school is introducing pro-homosexual resources to first-graders next year. The school is refusing to notify parents prior to the presentation of these resources and is refusing to allow parents to opt out. Or perhaps he should talk to me about the efforts of change.org to get a hotel to break a legal contract with Illinois Family Institute because of our religious conviction that homosexual acts are immoral. Sounds remarkably like religious persecution to me.

What is confusing in Besen’s diatribe are these two seemingly contradictory claims: first, he said, “Brown tries to cover his tracks by sprinkling his apocalyptic rhetoric with calls for non-violence. Good orators, however, understand the principle of ‘layering’ messages. If in one sentence you speak of violence and in the next of non-violence, the listener will almost always embrace the words that support his or her belief system.” This clearly implies that Dr. Brown “spoke of violence in one sentence.”

But shortly thereafter, Besen said, “Brown, of course, doesn’t actually have to make an overt pitch for mayhem,” which seems to imply that Dr. Brown did not, in fact, “speak of violence.”

Besen takes issue with the proposition that the movement to normalize homosexuality tampers “with the foundations of human society.” Surely, he knows that this belief is not unique to Dr. Brown. It is widely held by theologians from most denominational traditions and by many legal scholars, philosophers, political commentators, sociologists, psychologists, and ordinary people of all educational backgrounds and walks of life. Many, many people view heterosexual marriage between one man and one woman who together produce and nurture future generations of children to be the foundational institution of any healthy society. Once society divorces marriage from children and marriage from gender, the institution becomes meaningless and the culture dies.

Besen goes on to say in his apoplectic way that “It is time for Brown and his comrades to abort their increasingly hostile and combative tactics before it leads to more wanton death.” This tactic of misrepresenting any public opposition to the ideologies and political actions of homosexual activists and their supporters as hate mongers, fomenters of violence, and bigots is the stock-in-trade of the “LGBT” movement. The logical implication of the argument that the expression of opposition to one group’s moral claims represents hatred, bigotry, and incitement to violence, however, would be that Besen’s words represent hatred, bigotry, and incitement to violence against Christians, and Orthodox Jews, and Muslims, and secular conservatives.

Besen’s screed is laden with overheated, inflammatory, intolerant rhetoric. Kudos to Dr. Brown for doing what faith leaders should have done decades ago. Let’s hope more brave men step forward.

One last point on another topic: I noticed that Besen (shown with the bullhorn at right) refers to Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth as “Porno Pete” which I also find ironic in light of the homosexual community’s purported opposition to name-calling. It’s not just ironic; it’s hypocritical. It’s just one more revelatory sign of the intellectual and ethical vacuity of the homosexual movement.

President-elect Barack Obama claims to desire to unify the country. In one of his notable speeches, he said, “So I ask you to walk with me, and march with me, and join your voice with mine, and together we will sing the song that tears down the walls that divide us, and lift up an America that is truly indivisible … .”

And how does he seek to do this? He invites V. Gene Robinson, pivotal figure in the ongoing dramatic disunification of the Episcopal Church in America, “to deliver the invocation at a concert held at the Lincoln Memorial. The concert, which will be held on Sunday, January 18th, is the first inaugural event the president-elect will attend.” (Source: http://www.hrc.org/11873.htm.)

For those who may not be familiar with Vicki Gene Robinson, he is the divorced, “first openly gay, non-celibate priest to be ordained a bishop” in the Episcopal Church. His ordination was the precipitating event in the decision of dozens of conservative Episcopal dioceses to split from the national denomination.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Robinson has said that “he would not use the Bible in his address because “‘While that is a holy and sacred text to me, it is not for many Americans. . . . I will be careful not to be especially Christian in my prayer. This is a prayer for the whole nation.'” Someone may want to inform the bishop that, though there are many gods, there is only one God, and He is the God of the Old and New Testaments.

If ever there were a divisive character in American church life, V. Gene Robinson is one. His open and unrepentant engagement in homosexual conduct and his public defense of homosexuality in defiance of Scripture render Robinson not merely divisive, but dangerous. Our next president, the unifier, has invited a heretic to deliver the invocation at the Lincoln Memorial.

The McDonald’s Corporation has recently joined and contributed $20,000 to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, a radical homosexual activist organization working toward homosexual “marriage.” In so doing, McDonald’s has taken a public position on a very divisive issue– a position with which the majority of Americans disagree.

The Illinois Family Institute (IFI) believes that McDonald’s vigorous support of the NGLCC undermines essential societal institutions– particularly, the natural family– while violating the deeply held convictions of many. Through both funding and corporate policies, McDonald’s affirms and supports radical and culturally divisive anti-family principles.

In a recent letter, McDonald’s “Global Chief Diversity Officer,” Pat Harris, wrote that, “We have a well-established and proud heritage of associating with individuals and organizations that share in the belief that every person has the right to live and work in their community free of discrimination.”If Ms. Harris means that those who identify as homosexual should be able to live and work without harassment, we’re in complete agreement. No one should be harassed anywhere anytime.

Unfortunately, IFI is well aware that organizations committed to homosexual activism believe that “free from discrimination” means free from cultural disapproval. By supporting the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), McDonald’s supports their efforts to render it socially unacceptable and illegal to express publicly one’s convictions about what constitutes moral sexual behavior. The NGLCC, and evidently McDonald’s, seek to silence all expressions of moral disapproval of homosexual conduct. 

In a written response, McDonald’s Customer Response Center spokesperson wrote, “We believe that by embracing our differences we are better enabled to value and respect other people as well as understand differing points of view.”

“Ironically, McDonald’s ‘diversity’ policy leaves people of faith and traditional values out in the cold,” said IFI Executive Director David E. Smith. “I have to wonder if McDonald’s view of ‘diversity’ will also extend its embrace to other groups, such as bisexuals and polygamists. If sexual behavior is the only qualification — why not include these groups too? One would hope that McDonald’s would serve the needs of their customers irrespective of their behaviors-sexual or otherwise.”

Moreover, does McDonald’s embrace the differences that distinguish Orthodox Jews, Muslims, Roman Catholics, and Evangelical Protestants? If so, how does this embrace manifest? In order to honor their commitment to diversity and inclusion, and to better value and respect the differing viewpoints of diverse groups, will McDonald’s embrace the differences that distinguish these groups? 

What the global diversity officers at McDonald’s fail to understand is that by embracing the philosophical commitments of the LGBTQ community, they repudiate the philosophical commitments of Orthodox Judaism, Islam, Roman Catholicism, the Orthodox Church, and many Protestant denominations. The diversity officers don’t seem to grasp the simple truism that no individual or organization can “embrace” mutually opposing principles. It is a logical impossibility.

IFI believes that those who self-identify as homosexual have a right to live and work in their communities free from harassment. IFI believes that those who self-identify as homosexuals are equal in dignity and worth to heterosexuals. But IFI believes that homosexual conduct is immoral, unsafe, and destructive to individual lives and society. IFI expects that McDonald’s, as a business enterprise, would refrain from taking positions on arguable, divisive cultural issues. The solution should be obvious: conduct business and leave the transformation of public sentiments on controversial moral issues to others.

Just as every human has a right to live and work free from harassment, every human has a right to hold and articulate beliefs about which behaviors, sexual and otherwise, constitute moral behaviors. McDonald’s can ensure a workplace free from harassment without supporting organizations whose central mission is not to end harassment but to impose radical socio-political views on America through demagoguery, judicial tyranny, rhetorical manipulation, and censorship.

As long as McDonald’s affirms the destructive deceit that homosexuality is morally equivalent to heterosexuality, IFI will support the AFA boycott of McDonald’s.