The New Rules of the Secular Left

The vast high-velocity moral revolution that is reshaping modern cultures at warp speed is leaving almost no aspect of the culture untouched and untransformed. The advocates of same-sex marriage and the more comprehensive goals of the LGBT movement assured the nation that nothing would be fundamentally changed if people of the same gender were allowed to marry one another. We knew that could not be true, and now the entire nation knows.

The latest Ground Zero for the moral revolution is the state of Indiana, where legislators passed a state version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which Gov. Mike Pence then signed into law. The controversy that followed was a free-for-all of misrepresentation and political posturing. Within days, the governor capitulated to the controversy by calling for a revision of the law — a revision that may well make the RFRA a force for weakening religious liberty in Indiana, rather than for strengthening it.

Business, political, and civic leaders piled on in a mass act of political posturing. The federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act became law in 1993 in a mass act of bipartisan cooperation. The Act passed unanimously in the U.S. House of Representatives and with 97 affirmative votes in the U.S. Senate. President Bill Clinton signed the bill into law, celebrating the Act as a much needed protection of religious liberty. Clinton called religious liberty the nation’s “first freedom” and went on to state: “We believe strongly that we can never, we can never be too vigilant in this work.”

But, that was then. Indiana is now.

Hillary Clinton, ready to launch her campaign for President, condemned the law as dangerous and discriminatory — even though the law in its federal form has not led to any such discrimination. Apple CEO Tim Cook took to the pages of The Washington Post to declare that the Indiana law “would allow people to discriminate against their neighbors.” For its part,The Washington Post published an editorial in which the paper’s editorial board condemned a proposed RFRA in the state of Georgia because the law would prevent the state government “from infringing on an individual’s religious beliefs unless the state can demonstrate a compelling interest in doing so.”

So, The Washington Post believes that a state should be able to infringe on a citizen’s religious liberty without a compelling interest? That is the only conclusion a reader can draw from the editorial.

The piling on continued when the governor of Connecticut, Dannel Mulloy announced that he would even forbid travel to Indiana by state officials, conveniently forgetting to mention that his own state has a similar law, as does the federal government. The NCAA piled on, as did a host of sports figures from across the country. More than one pundit pointed to the irony of the NCAA trying to posture on a question of sexual morality, but the pile-on continued.

Law professor Daniel O. Conkle of Indiana University stated the truth plainly when he said: “The reaction to this law is startling in terms of its breadth–and to my mind–the extent to which the reaction is uninformed by the actual content of the law.” Similarly, University of Virginia law professor Douglas Laycock, a proponent of gay marriage, stated: “The hysteria over this law is so unjustified.” He continued: “It’s not about discriminating against gays in general or across the board . . . it’s about not being involved in a ceremony that you believe is inherently religious.”

Nevertheless, the real issue here is not the RFRA in Indiana, or Arkansas, or another state. The real issue is the fact that the secular Left has decided that religious liberty must now be reduced, redefined or relegated to a back seat in the culture.

The evidence for this massive and dangerous shift is mounting.

One key indicator is found in the editorial pages of The New York Times. That influential paper has appointed itself the guardian of civil liberties, and it has championed LGBT causes for decades now. But the paper’s editorial board condemned the Indiana law as “cover for bigotry.” The most chilling statement in the editorial, however, was this:

“The freedom to exercise one’s religion is not under assault in Indiana, or anywhere else in the country. Religious people — including Christians, who continue to make up the majority of Americans — may worship however they wish and say whatever they like.”

There you see religious liberty cut down to freedom of worship. The freedom to worship is most surely part of what religious liberty protects, but religious liberty is not limited to what happens in a church, temple, mosque, or synagogue.

That editorial represents religious liberty redefined before our eyes.

But the clearest evidence of the eagerness of the secular Left to reduce and redefine religious liberty comes in the form of two columns by opinion writer Frank Bruni. The first, published in January, included Bruni’s assurance that he affirmed “the right of people to believe what they do and say what they wish — in their pews, homes, and hearts.” Religious liberty is now redefined so that it has no place outside pews, homes, and hearts. Religious liberty no longer has any public significance.

But Bruni does not really affirm religious liberty, even in churches and in the hiring of ministers. He wrote: “And churches have been allowed to adopt broad, questionable interpretations of a ‘ministerial exception’ laws that allow them to hire and fire clergy as they wish.”

The ability of churches to hire and fire ministers as they wish is “questionable.” Remember that line when you are told that your church is promised “freedom of worship.”

But Bruni’s January column was merely a prelude to what came in the aftermath of the Indiana controversy. Now, the openly-gay columnist demands that Christianity reform its doctrines as well.

He opened his column in the paper’s edition published Easter Sunday with this:

“The drama in Indiana last week and the larger debate over so-called religious freedom laws in other states portray homosexuality and devout Christianity as forces in fierce collision. They’re not — at least not in several prominent denominations, which have come to a new understanding of what the Bible does and doesn’t decree, of what people can and cannot divine in regard to God’s will.”

Bruni issued an open demand that evangelical Christians to get over believing that homosexuality is a sin, or suffer the consequences. His language could not be more chilling:

“So our debate about religious liberty should include a conversation about freeing religions and religious people from prejudices that they needn’t cling to and can jettison, much as they’ve jettisoned other aspects of their faith’s history, rightly bowing to the enlightenments of modernity.”

There you have it — a demand that religious liberty be debated (much less respected) only if conservative believers will get with the program and, mark his language, bow to the demands of the modern age.

Christianity and homosexuality “don’t have to be in conflict in any church anywhere,” Bruni declared.

He reduced religious conviction to a matter of choice:

“But in the end, the continued view of gays, lesbians and bisexuals as sinners is a decision. It’s a choice. It prioritizes scattered passages of ancient texts over all that has been learned since — as if time had stood still, as if the advances of science and knowledge meant nothing. It disregards the degree to which all writings reflect the biases and blind spots of their authors, cultures and eras.”

So the only religion Bruni respects is one that capitulates to the modern age and is found “rightly bowing to the enlightenments of modernity.”

That means giving up the inerrancy of Scripture, for one thing. The Bible, according to Bruni, reflects the biases and blind spots of the human authors and their times. When it comes to homosexuality, he insists, we now know better.

This is the anthem of liberal Protestantism, and the so-called mainline Protestant churches have been devoted to this project for the better part of a century now. Bruni applauds the liberal churches for getting with the program and for revising the faith in light of the demands of the modern age — demands that started with the denial of truths such as the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection of Christ, miracles, the verbal inspiration of Scripture, and other vital doctrines. The liberal churches capitulated on the sexuality issues only after capitulating on a host of central Christian doctrines. Almost nothing is left for them to deny or reformulate.

It is interesting to see how quickly some can get with the program and earn the respect of the secular gatekeepers. Bruni cites David Gushee of Mercer University as an example of one who has seen the light. “Human understanding of what is sinful has changed over time,” Bruni quotes Gushee. Bruni then stated that Gushee “openly challenges his faith’s censure of same-sex relationships, to which he no longer subscribes.”

But David Gushee agreed with the church’s historic condemnation of same-sex relationships, even in a major work on Christian ethics he co-authored, until he released a book stating otherwise just months ago. Once a public figure gets with the program, whether that person is David Gushee or Barack Obama, all is quickly forgiven.

Bruni also notes that “Christians have moved far beyond Scripture when it comes to gender roles.” He is right to understand that some Christians have indeed done so, and in so doing they have made it very difficult to stop with redefining the Bible on gender roles. Once that is done, there is every reason to expect that a revisionist reading of sexuality is close behind. Bruni knows this, and celebrates it.

Taken together, Frank Bruni’s two columns represent a full-throttle demand for theological capitulation and a fully developed reduction of religious liberty. In his view, stated now in full public view in the pages ofThe New York Times, the only faiths that deserve religious liberty are those that bow their knees to the ever most costly demands of the modern age.

It is incredibly revealing that the verb he chose was “bowing.” One of the earliest lessons Christians had to learn was that we cannot simultaneously bow the knee to Caesar and to Christ. We must choose one or the other. Frank Bruni, whether he intended to do so or not, helps us to see that truth with new clarity.

Sources:

Frank Bruni, “Your God and My Dignity,” The New York Times, Sunday, January 11, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-religious-liberty-bigotry-and-gays.html

Frank Bruni, “Bigotry, the Bible, and the Lessons of Indiana,” The New York Times, Sunday, April 5, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-same-sex-sinners.html

This article was originally posted at the AlbertMohler.com website.

Only six of 54 Republican members of the U.S. Senate signed a pro-traditional marriage legal brief to the U.S. Supreme Court that was submitted on Friday. USA Today noted, “By contrast, 44 Democratic senators and 167 Democratic House members filed a brief last month urging the court to approve same-sex marriage. The brief included the full House and Senate [Democratic] leadership teams.”

These developments strongly suggest that while the homosexual movement remains solidly in control of the Democratic Party, the tactics of harassment and intimidation that we saw wielded against the religious freedom bill in Indiana last week are taking their toll on the Republican Party as a whole.

In the Indiana case, a conservative Republican governor, Mike Pence, abandoned the fight for religious freedom in the face of homosexual and corporate pressure.

It appears that more and more elite or establishment Republicans are simply deciding to give up on the fight for traditional values and marriage.

While this may seem politically expedient, this dramatic move to the left by the GOP could result in millions of pro-family conservatives deciding to abandon the Republican Party in 2016, a critical election year.

USA Today also noted that “…while some members of the 2012 Republican National Convention platform committee filed a brief against gay marriage Friday, it notably did not include GOP Chairman Reince Priebus.”

The Republican senators signing the brief included:

• U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas
• U.S. Senator Steve Daines of Montana
• U.S. Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma
• U.S. Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma
• U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky
• U.S. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina

Fifty-one members of the House of Representatives signed the brief. But U.S. House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) name was not on it.

Taking the lead for traditional marriage in the House was U.S. Representative Tim Huelskamp (R-KS), who not only signed the pro-marriage brief but has also introduced U.S. House Joint Resolution 32, the Marriage Protection Amendment, to amend the United States Constitution to protect marriage, family and children by defining marriage as the union between one man and one woman. The resolution has 33 co-sponsors and has been referred for action to the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary.

Huelskamp is the only Member of Congress who has authored one of the 30 state constitutional amendments that prohibits homosexual marriage and polygamous marriage. In 2005, when he was a state senator, 71 percent of Kansans voted for the state constitutional amendment that he authored.

In reintroducing the federal marriage amendment, Huelskamp said, “In June 2013 the Supreme Court struck down section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which had defined marriage for federal purposes as the union of one man and one woman, but upheld the right and responsibility of states to define marriage. Since then, though, numerous unelected lower court judges have construed the U.S. Constitution as suddenly demanding recognition of same sex ‘marriages,’ and they struck down state Marriage Amendments—including the Kansas Marriage Amendment—approved by tens of millions of voters and their elected representatives.”

However, on April 28 the U.S. Supreme Court will review the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which upholds marriage laws in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee. A ruling is expected in June.

USA Today noted that scores of prominent Republicans last month joined a brief on the homosexual side filed by former Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, a former lieutenant to Karl Rove who came out of the closet and announced in August of 2010 that he was a homosexual. He has since launched a “Project Right Side” to make the “conservative” case for gay marriage.

Big money Republican donors such as Paul Singer, David Koch, and Peter Thiel have either endorsed homosexual rights and same-sex marriage or funded the homosexual movement. Thiel is an open homosexual.

A libertarian group funded by the Koch brothers, the Cato Institute has been in the gay rights camp for many years and its chairman, Robert A. Levy, wrote a “moral and constitutional case for a right to gay marriage.”

Other signatories to the Mehlman brief included Governor Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, U.S. Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Mark Kirk of Illinois, and former presidential candidates Rudolph Giuliani and Jon Huntsman.

The signers of this brief at the U.S. Supreme Court in support of same-sex marriage were described as “300 veteran Republican lawmakers, operatives and consultants.” Some two dozen or so had worked for Mitt Romney for president.

One of the signatories, Mason Fink, who was the finance director of the Mitt Romney for president campaign, has signed on with a super PAC promoting former Florida Republican governor Jeb Bush for president. In another move signaling his alignment with the homosexual movement, Bush has reportedly picked Tim Miller, “one of the most prominent gay Republicans in Washington politics,” as his communications director.

A far-left media outlet known as Buzzfeed has described Bush as “2016’s Gay-Friendly Republican,” and says he has “stocked his inner circle with advisers who are vocal proponents of gay rights.”

But some conservative Christians are fighting back against the homosexual movement.

A brief to the court filed by Liberty Counsel notes that, in the past, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld marriage as “a foundational social institution that is necessarily defined as the union of one man and one woman.” It cites the case of Skinner v. Oklahoma, in which marriage was declared to be “fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race,” and Maynard v. Hill, in which marriage was declared “the foundation of the family and of society, without which there would be neither civilization nor progress.”

Liberty Counsel said the court is being asked to affirm a false notion of marriage based upon fraudulent data about homosexual activity in society. It said, “For the past 67 years, scholars, lawyers and judges have undertaken fundamental societal transformation by embracing Alfred Kinsey’s statistically and scientifically fraudulent ‘data’ derived from serial child rapists, sex offenders, prisoners, prostitutes, pedophiles and pederasts. Now these same change agents, still covering up the fraudulent nature of the Kinsey ‘data,’ want this Court to utilize it to demolish the cornerstone of society, natural marriage.”

The homosexual movement has long maintained that Kinsey validated changes in sexual behavior that were already taking place in society. In fact, however, the evidence uncovered by Dr. Judith Reisman shows that Kinsey deliberately exaggerated those changes in a fraudulent manner by using data from pedophiles and prisoners.

Commenting on the impact of the acceptance of the fraudulent Kinsey data, Accuracy in Media founder Reed Irvine noted, “Gradually over the years, acceptance of the Kinsey morality has grown to the point where premarital and extramarital sex raise no eyebrows, where, in some communities, out-of-wedlock births are in the majority, homosexuality is glorified and aggressively promoted in our schools and the last taboo—adults having sex with young children—is now under attack in some of our institutions of higher learning.”

The Mattachine Society, a gay rights organization started by communist Harry Hay in 1950, cited the flawed Kinsey data in an effort to convince the public that homosexual behavior was widespread in American society.

The book, Take Back! The Gay Person’s Guide to Media Action, said the Kinsey Report on male sexuality “paved the way for the first truly positive discussion of homosexuality in the mainstream media.”

Today, this same Kinsey data is being used to convince the Supreme Court to approve homosexual “marriage” as a constitutional right.

This article was originally posted at the Accuracy in Media website.

Written by Kevin D. Williams

In Indiana, in Arkansas, and in the boardroom

There are two easy ways to get a Republican to roll over and put his paws up in the air: The first is to write him a check, which is the political version of scratching his belly, and the second is to call him a bigot. In both cases, it helps if you have a great deal of money behind you.

Tim Cook, who in his role as chief executive of the world’s most valuable company personifies precisely the sort of oppression to which gay people in America are subjected, led the hunting party when Indiana’s governor Mike Pence signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, while Walmart, a company that cannot present its hindquarters enthusiastically enough to the progressives who hate it and everything for which it stands, dispatched its CEO, C. Douglas McMillon, to head off a similar effort in Arkansas, where Governor Asa Hutchison rolled over immediately.

There are three problems with rewarding those who use accusations of bigotry as a political cudgel. First, those who seek to protect religious liberties are not bigots, and going along with false accusations that they are makes one a party to a lie. Second, it is an excellent way to lose political contests, since there is almost nothing — up to and including requiring algebra classes — that the Left will not denounce as bigotry. Third, and related, it encourages those who cynically deploy accusations of bigotry for their own political ends.

An excellent illustration of this dynamic is on display in the recent pronouncements of columnist and gay-rights activist Dan Savage, who, in what seems to be an effort to resurrect every lame stereotype about the shrill, hysterical, theatrical gay man, declaimed that the efforts of those who do not wish to see butchers and bakers and wedding-bouquet makers forced by their government at gunpoint to violate their religious scruples is — you probably have guessed already — nothing less than the consecration of Jim Crow Junior. “Anti-black bigots, racist bigots, during Jim Crow and segregation made the exact same arguments that you’re hearing people make now,” Savage said. Given the dramatic difference in the social and political position of blacks in the time of Bull Connor and gays in the time of Ellen DeGeneres, this is strictly Hitler-was-a-vegetarian stuff, the elevation of trivial formal similarities over dramatic substantial differences. The choices for explaining this are a.) moral illiteracy; b.) intellectual dishonesty; c.) both a and b.

Adlai Stevenson famously offered this definition: “A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.” We do not live in that society.

Originally published at NationalReview.com

In the wake of a pro-LGBTQ, media-driven campaign against Indiana’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), Gov. Mike Pence and leaders of the Indiana legislature are backtracking to appease the liberal political mob that has cynically recast the law as the “License to Discriminate.”

Good people everywhere are now intimidated from speaking plain truths about the homosexual-bisexual-transgender agenda. Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) is not. The distortions and media hype attacking Indiana’s religious freedom law are obfuscating some key fundamentals in this debate. It is not the purpose here to dig into the “legaleze” about the law (for that, see this Reason.com piece) but rather to expose the core hypocrisy of pro-LGBTQ progressives on “discrimination.”

Homosexual activists and their sycophants in the media (e.g., CNN’s homosexual anchor/activist Don Lemon) are cunningly building upon their distortions of the RFRA to demand a pro-homosexual special-rights law in the Hoosier State.

It would be the cruelest of ironies if the media-driven backlash against Indiana’s religious freedom law were used to push through a statewide “gay rights” law in Indiana. Such pro-homosexual laws and corporate policies have been the engine driving PRO-LGBT DISCRIMINATION against people of faith for decades—all in the sweet-sounding name of “equality.” For example, the “gay” movement’s bullying of the Boy Scouts of America began with a lawsuit that relied upon New Jersey’s pro-homosexual “sexual orientation” law.

The pro-family movement has long referred to so-called nondiscrimination laws based on “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as “special rights” because genuine civil rights are not based on disordered, immoral sexual behavior and gender confusion. These Orwellian laws and corporate policies actually foment discrimination in the name of “non-discrimination.” That’s liberalism for you.

Our cherished American freedoms come ultimately from God, as recognized by our national charter, the Declaration of Independence, which appeals to “Nature and Nature’s God.” Homosexual behavior–which cannot produce life–is against both. Witness the grossly disproportionate STD rates linked to “men who have sex with men.”

It is ludicrous to posit “civil rights” based on homosexuality and gender rebellion as “constitutional.” But it is downright un-American to argue—as many LGBTQ activists do—that in a nation founded by people fleeing religious oppression, “rights” based on sexual sin should trump Americans’ freedom to uphold biblical sexual morality and real marriage between man and woman.

The LGBT Lobby and the media have raised the issue of potential discrimination in Indiana. Let’s talk about discrimination.

With the rise of “gay power” in the West has come an abundance of victims of pro-homosexual Political Correctness. All over the world, Christians and moral-minded citizens have been victimized by a liberal, elitist pro-homosexual orthodoxy that increasingly brooks no dissent. The media have trivialized the zero-sum conflict between “gay rights” and freedom of conscience as being merely about wedding cake bakers–but the escalating “LGBTyranny” goes far beyond that:

–> People are losing their jobs or being denied entry into their desired profession (e.g., counseling) because they espouse truth that homosexual behavior is immoral. Allstate Insurance Co. fired Christian Matt Barber (founder of Barbwire.com) after he wrote a column—on his own time—critical of the militant “gay” agenda.

–>  Christian students have been denied entry into college counseling programs simply because their conscience does not permit them to affirm homosexual relationships. In the United States today you are more likely to be punished or fired for OPPOSING homosexuality than you are for “being gay.” (Meanwhile, many corporations and colleges—egged on by the “gay” lobby–are now engaging in pro-homosexual Affirmative Action—giving special preference to homosexuals. So much for LGBTQ victimhood.)

–>  Homosexual activists have successfully lobbied for laws in California, New Jersey and the District of Columbia that BAN minors with unwanted same-sex attractions from pursuing healthy, heterosexual change through therapy. The leftists at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) are using their bevy of lawyers to sue a tiny Jewish ex-“gay” group called JONAH — to drive them out of business. The LGBT activists’ animus toward EX-homosexuals belies their phony rhetoric touting “diversity” and “inclusion.”

–>  In the name of transgender “rights,” “non-discrimination” laws are allowing biological men to use public women’s restrooms, and boys to use girls restrooms and locker rooms in schools. Thus women and girls are losing their safe spaces and their right to privacy.

–>  Homosexual activists and the Religious Left are demanding that even Catholic schools hire (or not fire) openly homosexual and even “gay-married” teachers whose lifestyles defy historic Catholic teachings.

If government can compel a Christian or Orthodox Jewish businessman to participate in a ceremony that attaches sinful homosexuality to “marriage,” then the State can compel ANY American citizen or institution to violate ANY of their cherished beliefs. That is the essence of tyranny.

Disagreeing morally with homosexuality is not “bigotry,” “hate” or “animus.” Since when did sodomy—which has been taboo for centuries; is condemned unequivocally in Scripture; and is defined by American wordsmith Noah Webster as “a crime against nature”—become sacrosanct?

Legalized homosexual “marriage” is a grave moral evil and an unprecedented sign of decadence in the West. It is the right and duty of every true Christian to oppose it. But no small business owner—whether religious or not–should be compelled to participate in a same-sex “wedding” that not only glorifies homosexual sin but often does it in God’s name.

Liberals and homosexual activists love to cry “Bigot!” but there is plenty of anti-Christian bigotry on their side: see this nasty Tweet by influential Indiana LGBTQ activist Bil Browning mocking “Jeebus” (Jesus Christ) and this article about the National LGBTQ Task Force celebrating a documentary about a play that portrays Christ as “gay” and the one-time homosexual lover of Judas.

Politically speaking, it seems bigotry is OK as long as it advances the “progressive” agenda to impose mandatory acceptance of homosexuality and gender confusion on everyone.

First Annual IFI Worldview Conference
featuring Dr. Del Tackett
April 10-11, 2015

CLICK HERE for Details

Angie’s List, the online service that provides consumer reviews of service professionals, publicly endorsed anti-Christian bigotry by opposing an Indiana law designed to protect religious liberties and freedoms.

Last week, Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) after the state legislature overwhelmingly supported it. Twenty states now have passed the law, with Arkansas and Georgia currently considering it.

The Indiana law is identical in all fundamental respects to the 1993 federal RFRA signed into law by President Bill Clinton after it passed the U.S. House unanimously and the Senate 97-3.

Unfortunately, Angie’s List has joined with thousands of homosexual activists (including lesbian Ellen DeGeneres) in opposing religious freedom for all people in Indiana.

In response Angie’s List CEO Bill Oesterle announced the company is immediately putting plans “on hold” for a $40 million expansion of its headquarters in Indianapolis.

Angie’s List implies support for the concept that Christian business owners should be prosecuted by law if they don’t violate their deeply and sincerely held religious beliefs by bowing to homosexual activist demands, as is already happening in states without RFRA:

• Washington: Florist Barronell Stutzman fined by the state for not providing flowers for a “gay” wedding. Now her home and personal savings are at risk.
• New Mexico: Photographer Elaine Huguenin was ordered by the state to give a lesbian $7,000 for declining to take pictures of a lesbian wedding.
• Oregon:  Aaron and Melissa Klein were fined $150,000 by the state for refusal to bake a cake for a lesbian wedding based on religious objections.
• Kentucky: Blaine Adamson was ordered by the city of Lexington to undergo ‘sensitivity training” for refusing to print T-shirts for a gay pride festival.

Angie’s List is a bully, plain and simple. They have chosen to bully the city of Indianapolis, the state of Indiana and Christians everywhere by financial intimidation and threats.

TAKE ACTION:  If you have an account with Angie’s List, we urge you to cancel it right away in defense of religious liberty in America. Be sure to let them know why you’re leaving.

Even if you don’t have an account, click HERE to send an email to Angie’s List CEO Bill Oesterle. Or you can call them at (888) 944-5478.  Let them know that his company’s support for religious discrimination is an affront to Christians.

First Annual IFI Worldview Conference
featuring Dr. Del Tackett
April 10-11, 2015

CLICK HERE for Details

Intellectual frustration is boiling over—mine, that is.

Opponents of RFRA laws would like these laws to protect religious liberty as long as religious liberty protections never trump the wishes of those who affirm a homosexual identity. Homosexual activists seek to effectively neuter the First Amendment. They seek to enshrine in law the right to discriminate based on religion and then have the audacity to say—as Apple CEO Tim Cook has—that RFRA laws “go against the very principles our nation was founded on.” Say what? Last time I checked, this nation was founded on religious liberty—not homoerotic privilege.

“Progressives” fret with feigned hysteria that Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act is really about homosexuality, which points to the unsavory truth that the only current threat to religious liberty in America is posed by the social and political movement to normalize homoeroticism. If the jackboot fits, homosexual activists should just wear it.

Here are my responses to two of the fatuous arguments that the Left produces in their effort to amend the Constitution without having to go through the work of amending the Constitution. Getting rid of that pesky First Amendment Free Exercise Clause would be oh so tedious and intellectually challenging. It’s much easier to hurl epithets, concoct absurd analogies, and redefine terms trusting that few will bother to think carefully about the glittering new redefinitions.

Bad argument 1. This law is designed to discriminate against “gays.”

Christian owners of wedding-related businesses are not refusing to serve homosexuals, nor do they desire to refuse to serve homosexuals.  Some are refusing to use their gifts, labor, and time in the service of a type of event that God they serve abhors.

Barronelle Stutzman, the elderly florist in Washington state who is being sued because she wouldn’t make floral arrangements for a same-sex “wedding,” had served the homosexual man who requested flowers for his faux-wedding. In fact, she was friends with him and had sold him flowers on multiple occasions knowing that he was homosexual.

There is a huge difference between discrimination against persons and discrimination between types of events or actions—a difference liberals refuse to acknowledge for strategic reasons.

Refusing to sell pastries or tulips to a customer who happens to be homosexual or bisexual (or black or white or a man or a woman) would constitute an immoral, unbiblical, indefensible act. Refusing to create and provide a cake or floral arrangement for an event that celebrates a union that your faith teaches is abhorrent to the God you serve is a biblically warranted, morally defensible act.

The Left claims that since both homosexual couples and heterosexual couples are requesting the same product, the discrimination present in the refusal to provide goods or services for a homosexual “wedding” constitutes discrimination based on their “sexual orientation.” But such a claim requires assent to the embedded, unspoken proposition that a homosexual “marriage” is, in reality, identical to a sexually complementary marriage. Orthodox (small “o”) Christians reject that claim as false.

What “progressives” are really claiming is that outside their homes and pews, orthodox Christians may enjoy religious liberty, but they, “progressives,” get to define all the terms of the debate. If they, “progressives,” claim that there are no ontological differences between non-marital, same-sex “weddings” and marital, sexually complementary weddings, then abracadabra, there are no ontological differences. In the faith-based, presuppositional, totalitarian universe of “progressives,” refusal to provide goods or services for the celebration of non-marital, same-sex “weddings” is not discrimination between two different types of events (because the Left has ordained them identical), but, rather, discrimination against persons. Very tricksy rhetorical game.

Homosexual “weddings” are not identical or equivalent to true weddings. In reality, they are the anti-thesis of true weddings. Homosexual “weddings” imitate or, rather, mock true weddings. When two men asked Baronelle Stutzman to make floral arrangements for their “wedding,” they were asking her to make a product she had never made before: an anti-wedding floral arrangement.

Bad argument 2. (ad nauseum) This RFRA law is the equivalent of Jim Crow laws that permitted restaurants to refuse to serve blacks.

For the umpteenth time, homosexuality is not analogous to race. Race is 100 percent heritable and immutable in all cases. Most important, race is not constituted by subjective desire or volitional acts.

In contrast, homosexuality is not 100 percent heritable, is in some cases mutable, but most important, homosexuality is constituted centrally by subjective desire and volitional activity, which is perfectly legitimate to assess morally. Much better analogues for homosexuality are polyamory or consensual adult incest.

Therefore, if homosexuality is included as a protected category in anti-discrimination policy and law, shouldn’t other conditions constituted by subjective desire and volitional acts be included in anti-discrimination law? Shouldn’t polyamory and consensual adult incest (or paraphilias which too are constituted by powerful unchosen and seemingly intractable desire and volitional acts) be considered, alongside race, as constitutionally protected categories? Shouldn’t business owners be compelled to use their gifts to help them celebrate their polyamorous and incestuous commitment ceremonies?

And what about bisexuality, which has been deemed a “sexual orientation”? Should Christian bakers, florists, and photographers be compelled to create and provide goods or services for a commitment ceremony between two women and a man who identify as bisexual?

As a fix, some conservatives are recommending that Indiana pass a law that prohibits discrimination based on “sexual orientation.” Such laws are misguided for three reasons:

• First, “sexual orientation” really means homosexuality and bisexuality because in any objective sense, all humans are heterosexual, and, therefore, discrimination based on heterosexuality is nonsensical.
• Second, as mentioned, laws that specifically protect one condition constituted by subjective desire and volitional acts (e.g., homosexuality or bisexuality) open the legal floodgates to other conditions similarly constituted.
• Third, homosexuals will use such laws to prohibit people of faith from discriminating among different types of actions and events, as is happening to Christian owners of wedding-related businesses.

Not including “sexual orientation” in anti-discrimination laws no more constitutes legal carte blanche to refuse service to homosexuals or bisexuals than does the absence of the categories of paraphilias, polyamory, gluttony, or adultery constitute legal carte blanche to refuse to serve frotteurists, zoophiles, polyamorists, gluttons, or adulterers.

As a Christian, I shouldn’t refuse to serve whites, but I should refuse to provide cakes for a celebration of white superiority.

I shouldn’t refuse to sell tulips to a woman who affirms a bisexual identity, but  I should refuse to create and provide floral arrangements for her commitment ceremony to a man and woman.

I shouldn’t refuse to serve Muslims, but I should refuse to photograph a pro-ISIS rally.

I shouldn’t refuse to sell a pastry to a homosexual, but I should refuse to bake a cake for his anti-wedding.

By the way, remember this news story next time someone asks, “How will same-sex marriage hurt you?”

First Annual IFI Worldview Conference
featuring Dr. Del Tackett
April 10-11, 2015

CLICK HERE for Details

It’s Hoosier David versus rainbow-clad Goliath.

Indiana Governor Mike Pence recently signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in a small, humble ceremony—unlike the prideful, garish, gay ceremony that former Illinois Governor Pat Quinn staged for the signing of Illinois’ marriage-deconstruction law (invited 2,300 guests, used 110 pens, imported Abraham Lincoln’s desk from Springfield for the signing, and quoted from the Gettysburg Address.)

The contrast is marked. Pence has acted humbly in the service of truth. Quinn acted pridefully in the service of lies.

In the wake of Governor Pence’s courageous act, he and Indiana have been the recipients of blistering attacks, both verbal and fiscal.

As usual when blustery homosexual activism is involved, ironies abound. Marc Benioff, CEO of San Francisco-based company Salesforce has canceled “all programs that require our customers/employees to travel to Indiana to face discrimination” (while it continues its business dealings in China—the font and source of human rights protections).

Since the Indiana law is similar to the federal RFRA law sponsored in the U.S. House by New York Democrat Chuck Shumer, passed by the U.S. Senate 97-3, and signed into law by President Bill Clinton, what, pray tell, is Benioff worried about? Does he worry that during a business trip, his customers or employees will suddenly decide to order a wedding cake to be transported back to San Francisco?

John McCormack, writing on the Weekly Standard blog clarifies what RFRA will actually protect:

RFRA allows a person’s free exercise of religion to be “substantially burdened” by a law only if the law furthers a “compelling governmental interest” in the “least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.” 

The law does not provide absolute, unfettered freedom to people of faith to do just anything they want. Nor are people of faith seeking absolute unfettered freedom to do just anything they want. This law reinforces First Amendment protections against the increasing encroachment of government impelled most often by homosexual activists.

RFRA laws would permit religious liberty to be limited only if there exists a compelling government interest in doing so and only if the burden on religious liberty is the least restrictive means of furthering that government interest. Court cases have gone both ways. Sometimes courts have decided in favor of religious liberty; sometimes they’ve ruled against it.

Indiana’s RFRA is carefully worded to protect the right of people of faith who are engaged in commerce to allow their business decisions to be informed by their faith. Christians understand what many homosexual activists and their ideological allies seem not to, which is that the totality of life should conform to biblical principles. The free exercise of religion is not limited to hearts, homes, and pews.

Governor Mike Pence has the U.S. Constitution on his side. He has court precedent on his side. He has the precedents set in 19 other states that have RFRA laws, including blue Illinois. But opposition to this law include marauding bands of hate-mongering homosexual activists, arrogant Hollywood lemmings, and feckless captains of industry.

Homosexual activists, fancying themselves the heir apparent to the great civil rights leaders, are in the vanguard of the assault on the Hoosier state.

Following close behind is Hollywood—widely known for arrogance, ignorance, immorality, vanity, and cool-crowd-following.

And then bringing up the rear with powerful reinforcements are business leaders—rarely noted for their deep thinking on matters moral, ethical, or philosophical.  With their pockets lined with lucre, they’re responding to the vitriol from homosexual activists with reflexive knee jerks that enhance their pride in their own pretense of moral courage. Does anyone believe these business leaders have thought deeply about the First Amendment, homosexuality, or marriage? One of the chief goals of business leaders is to make business decisions that increase profits, but no responsible business leader can divorce profit from principle—and by principle, I mean right principle.

What is astounding in this brouhaha is the deceit of the Left. Homosexual activists and their media sycophants continue to proclaim—without evidence—that, for example, Christians owners of wedding-related businesses are seeking to refuse to serve homosexuals. But refusing to use their gifts, labor, and time to produce a product or provide a service for a celebration that violates their religious beliefs does not constitute a refusal to serve homosexuals. In fact, the cases that have been in the press actually expose the Leftist lie, because the owners of the wedding-related businesses have, indeed, served homosexuals on multiple occasions prior to the wedding-related requests.

Religious-owners of businesses should be allowed to discriminate between types of events and products when making business-decisions regarding the provision of their goods and services. Experiencing homoerotic desire and affirming a homoerotic identity does not give men and women absolute dictatorial authority to command what kinds of events religious owners of businesses will serve or what types of products they will make. Homoerotic desire does not supersede religious liberty—or in a sane and moral universe, it would not.

Christians, Jews, and Muslims should be allowed to refuse to provide goods and services for bisexuals’, polygamists’, or polyamorists’ commitment ceremonies or in the near future, weddings (which could be construed as discrimination based on “sexual orientation.”)

Christians and Jews should be allowed to refuse to provide goods and services for pro-Hamas events (which could be construed as discrimination based on religion).

Christians should be allowed to refuse to provide goods and services for events sponsored by eugenics organizations like Planned Parenthood (which in the mad, mad, mad, mad world of feminism that sees a war on women everywhere could be construed as discrimination based on sex).

And Christians should be allowed to refuse to provide services for GLSEN events. Though dogmatic Leftist ideologues would likely construe such refusal as discrimination against homosexuals, it would, in reality, reflect the kind of business decision that Mark Benioff thinks he’s making. Refusing to provide goods and services for a GLSEN event would reflect a principled objection to the event—not the people hosting it.

Other organizations threatening to reconsider their involvement with Indiana include, Eli Lilly, Yelp, Angie’s List, the NCAA, and (irony of ironies) the Disciples of Christ denomination, which apparently supports religious discrimination.

Where do we witness courage? We are witnessing courage through the heroic actions of Mike Pence and every Hoosier who defends him and this law with unwavering steadfastness in the face of withering assaults. Another biblical allusion comes to mind. It appears the citizens of Sodom are clamoring at Lot’s door.

But we can do something.

Take ACTION:  Express with courage, boldness, and grace your support for Governor Mike Pence.

1.)  Call  his office and thank him for standing for religious liberty and freedom.   His office telephone number is (317) 232-4567.

2.)  Get on social media.  Click here to access his Facebook page.  Send this article out by Twitter, include these hashtags in your tweet:  #StandwithIndiana  and  #RFRA

3.)  Contact Eli Lilly; Yelp (415) 908-3801; Angie’s List; the NCAA at (877) 262-1492 ; and, if you’re a member, the Disciples of Christ.

4.)  Support Indiana businesses.

The Truth Project

First Annual IFI Worldview Conference
featuring Dr. Del Tackett
April 10-11, 2015

CLICK HERE for Details

On March for Life, Eve of State of the Union, Pro-Life Leader Calls for Grassroots to Seize Momentum in 112th Congress

WASHINGTON, Jan. 24, 2011 /Christian Newswire/ — Today, in her first annual State of the Unborn video address, Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser called the 38th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision a unique opportunity for pro-life America. The address, available at www.sba-list.org/stateoftheunborn, coincides with the annual March for Life in Washington, DC.

“It’s not just a movement anymore. All the polls show this is pro-life America now,” Dannenfelser said. “It’s time for us to flex the muscle that we just flexed in this election and do everything we can in this Congress to protect human lives… I invite you to go to our website, www.StopAbortionFunding.com, and, if you’re not marching today, please take a moment to pray and act. Then, tomorrow night, watch that State of the Union message. See if the president decides to follow up on his promise [that tax dollars not be used to fund abortion in health care] because right now is the moment, a moment in time which we have not seen since 1973, where we have the momentum. We have the power. We have all the ability to save children’s lives by stopping the funding of their deaths. When he gives his State of the Union message, it should certainly include how he has or has not lived up to that promise.”

Dannenfelser’s address comes on the heels of the introduction of three bills aiming to end taxpayer funding of abortion – the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” sponsored by the Co-Chairs of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, Reps. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Dan Lipinski (D-IL), the “Protect Life Act,” sponsored by pro-life champion Rep. Joe Pitts (PA-16), Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, and the “Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act,” sponsored by Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN).

The “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” creates a government-wide statutory prohibition on taxpayer funding of abortion. The bill also codifies the Hyde amendment which ensures that no federal funds pay for abortion under the Labor Health and Human Services Appropriations Bill along with several other pro-life riders that currently have to be considered every year. The “Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act” ensures that tax dollars are not sent to abortion providers under Title X family planning grants. The “Protect Life Act” amends the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) to ensure that no federal funds pay for elective abortion, prevents any federal agency from mandating abortion and protects the conscience of healthcare workers.

More than 40,000 pro-life activists have signed the SBA List’s Stop Abortion Funding petition lobbying to end taxpayer funding of abortion and abortion providers.

Dannenfelser will be available for comment on-site during the annual March for Life on Monday, January 24. Contact Kerry Brown at 703-470-1926 if you would like to speak with her.

The Susan B. Anthony List spent $11 million during the 2010 midterm election cycle. Overall, the SBA List was involved in 90 races including 62 wins and 28 losses. Successes included: defeating 15 of 20 so-called “pro-life” Democrats who voted for abortion funding in the health care reform bill; increasing the number of pro-life women in the House by 70 percent; filling the void of pro-life women in the U.S. Senate and increasing the number of pro-life women governors from one to four.

For further information, please contact Kerry Brown at (703) 470-1926

Introduce IFI to your friends, church or civic group

Serve as a contact person by receiving information from IFI and distributing it to others or posting it on bulletin boards. You can keep current by signing up for IFI E-Alerts and IFI E-Newsletters and be registering and checking in on our Take Action center.

Host a gathering of friends for a private evening with the IFI team.

Staff members are available to speak at your church or group function about IFI’s work at the Illinois Capitol, with parents working against liberal indoctrination at their public schools, and a variety of other issues including marriage, fatherhood, and current family policy initiatives.