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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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

---

Subscribe to the IFI YouTube channel
and never miss a video report or special program!

Judge Richard Posner, a federal judge with the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, recently become a hero to the pro-”gay marriage” left when, by way of a “legal analysis” free from the troublesome constraints of logic, case precedent, biology, tradition and reality in general, he managed to somehow divine a long-hidden constitutional “right” for two dudes to get “married.” “How can tradition be a reason for anything?” an incredulous Posner demanded last month of attorneys defending marriage protection amendments in both Wisconsin and Indiana.

It would seem that Posner’s contempt for tradition extends to all things sexual, up to and including the puritanical presupposition that it’s always wrong for a man to rape a woman. This idea, according to Posner in his 2011 book “Economic Analysis of the Law” (8th edition), is evidently an equally archaic tradition that, like the institution of natural marriage, needs a significant overhaul.

Posner’s suggestion? Perhaps it’s time the government begin issuing “rape licenses” (I kid you not) since, and based upon an exclusively utilitarian and morally relative cost-benefit analysis, the “right to rape,” for some men at least, “exceeds the victim’s physical and emotional pain.”

On page 216, Posner, a Reagan appointee considered “conservative” in “progressive” circles, writes, “Rape bypasses the market in sexual relations (marital and otherwise) in the same way that theft bypasses markets in ordinary goods and services, and it should therefore be forbidden.”

OK, while this is an oddly detached and clinical start to a discussion on rape, it is, so far, not entirely unreasonable. Posner would have been well served to stop here. But, and much like those who are the subject of his rape analysis, he does not stop.

“But,” continues Posner – I didn’t know there were any “buts” when it comes to rape – “But some rapists derive extra pleasure from the fact that the woman has not consented. For these rapists, there is no market substitute … and it could be argued therefore that, for them, rape is not a purely coercive transfer and should not be punished if the pleasure to the rapist (as measured by what he would be willing to pay – though not to the victim – for the right to rape) exceeds the victim’s physical and emotional pain. There are practical objections [No, really? Practical objections to rape?] … [b]ut the fact that any sort of rape license is even thinkable [what kind of bigoted rape-o-phobe would suggest otherwise?] … is a limitation on the usefulness of that theory.

“What generates the possibility of a rape license,” he persists (hold off, fellas, they’re not available yet), “is the fact that the rapist’s utility is weighted the same as his victim’s utility. If it were given a zero weight in the calculus of costs and benefits, a rape license could not be efficient. The only persuasive basis for such a weighting, however, would be a moral principle different from efficiency.”

And herein lies the rub. We all know what Posner thinks about “moral principles.” He’s a moral relativist. There are no moral principles, most especially “traditional” moral principles. I mean, “How can tradition be a reason for anything?”

But wait, there’s more. You gals trapped in one of those “traditional” marriages needn’t fret. Posner’s got you covered, too. “Marital rape?” C’mon, is there really such a thing?

“In a society that prizes premarital virginity and marital chastity [I know, sheesh, right?], the cardinal harm from rape is the destruction of those goods and is not inflicted by marital rape,” he writes.

“… The nature of the harm to the wife raped by her husband is a little obscure,” he continues. “If she is beaten or threatened, these of course are real harms inflicted by an ordinary assault and battery. Especially since the goods of virginity and of chastity are not endangered, the fact of her having intercourse one more time with a man with whom she has had intercourse many times before seems peripheral to the harm actually inflicted but is critical to making the offense rape.

“Most of the reasons for not making marital rape a crime have lost force with time,” he laments.

Of late a fanciful meme has taken root among the “progressive” left. It’s one that imagines ours as a patriarchal “rape culture,” which fosters an environment wherein women are systematically raped with impunity (especially on our nation’s college campuses).

Apparently, the solution is for chicks to pierce and tattoo themselves, declare “slut pride” and parade nude in “slut walks” across the globe. But that’s an outlier.

I finally get it. Posner is the “rape culture.” I wonder how these mouth-frothing “marriage equality” lefties will react to his permissive approach to rape. In much the same way, I suppose, they reacted to myriad accusations of sexual harassment and assault lodged against Bill “depends-on-what-is-is” Clinton. With total silence and self-serving hypocrisy.

None of this should surprise anyone. Richard Posner is a faithful disciple of Alfred Kinsey, the anti-science, anti-morality left’s sexual messiah. Kinsey was a bug doctor turned “sexologist.” Though married to a woman who took part in his many filmed “scientific” orgies, Kinsey was a promiscuous homosexual and sadomasochist. He managed to completely upend and twist the world’s perception of human sexuality in the 1950s and ’60s with his world famous “Kinsey Reports.”

Even today, most are completely unaware that during his tenure at Indiana University, Kinsey facilitated, with stopwatches and ledgers, the systematic sexual abuse of hundreds, if not thousands, of children and infants – all in the name of science. His research also “found” that rape doesn’t really hurt women. In his 1953 volume “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female” at page 122, Kinsey wrote, “Among the 4,441 females [reporting rape] on whom we have data, there was only one clear cut case of injury … and very few instances of vaginal bleeding, which however, did not appear to do any appreciable damage.”

Starting to see what makes Posner click? “His Honor” is a dyed-in-the-wool Kinseyite.

Though Kinsey’s “research” has long since been completely debunked and discredited, the elitist left, to include Judge Posner, even still relies on it to push its own sexual anarchist worldview. Writing in his 1992 book, “Sex and Reason,” for instance, Posner gushed, “The two Kinsey reports remain the high-water mark of descriptive sexology.” He calls Kinsey the “central figure” in the “scholarly science” of sexology.

Raped? Well, suck it up, walk it off and congratulate yourself.

You’ve reached Posner’s “high-water mark.”

Written by Kristan Hawkins, Executive Director, Students for Life of America

I remember when I was a “newbie” pro-lifer. I had accepted the basic premises of our movement: that life begins at conception, that life is intrinsically valuable, and that abortion hurts women and families, not just children. However, as most “new” pro-lifers often believe, I thought abortion in the case of rape and incest was morally “okay.” I didn’t like saying abortion was ever “okay,” but I knew that saying abortion is always wrong, even in cases of rape and incest, would make me sound like an extremist who didn’t care about women and that wasn’t me. I had gotten into the pro-life movement to help women not hurt them.

Today, many of the students our team members work with are new to the pro-life movement and are just beginning to think about these difficult issues and how being pro-life means they will have a different response. The day that a person accepts that the pre-born human child is intrinsically valuable and should not be thrown away in an abortion, is the day they will have to start thinking about some tough things.

It has now been over a decade since I chose to be “pro-life,” and my view of abortion is those most awful of circumstances, rape and incest, is different. I’m opposed to all abortions. And let me share with you, not shout at you, about how I got here and I hope it helps you when making your own decisions:

• Being “pro-life” means that at the moment of fertilization you believe an unique whole, living human person is created. Thus abortion, no matter what the tragic circumstances, is always wrong because it is the deliberate killing of an innocent unique, whole, living pre-born human being.
  
  
• I have met and become friends with people who were conceived during a rape. These adults were once pre-born children at the mercy of their traumatized mother. I don’t see these friends as less human, less of person, less valuable because of who their father was.
  
  
• As pro-lifers, we believe that all human life should be treated with dignity and respect, no matter what your parentage may be. If my father goes out today and commits an act of mass murder, does that justify someone killing me? If the mother, a victim or rape, chooses to carry her child through her pregnancy and then decides at age 2 that the child reminds her too much of the rapist, should she be then allowed to kill the toddler?
  
  
• Pope John Paul II wrote, “Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create. Violence and war can never resolve the problems of men.” It is insensitive to say to a woman who has been raped that the horrific violence of rape can be eased or erased by simply aborting the child convinced during the rape. One act of violence cannot erase another.
  
  
• Our abortion society has pitted a woman against her child instead of a woman against her rapist.
  
  
• Pregnancies resulting from rape are extremely rare and are used by those on the other side to advocate for abortion for any reason, in all nine-months of pregnancy, funded by U.S. taxpayers. The other side uses this tragedy, this act of war against a woman, as a red herring, to promote their radical agenda. Read from one physician about how rare pregnancy from rape really is and how almost half of all women who become pregnant because of rape choose to allow their child to live HERE. 

Now, there are some anti-abortion advocates and many politicians who are opposed to abortion except in cases of rape, incest, and the life of the mother. Even though I disagree with their rape and incest stances, I don’t believe in attacking these folks, because I just see them at a different place down the “pro-life path.” I believe pro-life politicians today especially feel they must say abortion should be legal in cases of rape and incest because of the 15-second media culture we live in. Talking about the horrific violence of rape and the personhood of all human beings in a way that is compassionate and sensitive to all cannot be achieved in a 15-second sound byte.

Before we end all abortions, our movement must do more to educate Americans and ourselves about the personhood of all human beings, only then will politics and policies follow.

Originally posted on September 4, 2012 at StudentsforLife.org.

In the past week, two troubling comments regarding abortion caught my attention—one of which justifiably caught the attention of the entire country. Once again much heat but little light was generated in the ensuing brouhaha.

The first troubling comment was a particularly inept and painful statement from U.S. Representative Todd Akin, which included the phrase “legitimate rape.” Akin’s unfortunate comment could have provided an opportunity to explore with greater clarity and depth a philosophical and moral question of supreme importance, but instead what followed was superficial, dishonest, and exploitative noise. Our feckless talking heads and political leaders chose to use Akin’s comment for political jujitsu rather than enlightened discourse.

Some random thoughts on the Akin debacle:

• There exists no such thing as “legitimate rape.” “Legitimate rape” is an oxymoron.
• Akin’s disastrous sentence construction, which implies that some rapes are legitimate, communicated an idea that he does not believe and did not mean to say. The correct phraseology would be something like “legitimate claims of rape,” meaning that some claims are false, which of course is true. Some women claim to have been raped when actually they have not been raped.
• This clumsily expressed fact—that some women falsely claim to have been raped—could have provided an opportunity to discuss the pragmatic, intellectual, and moral problems with the position of those who oppose abortion except in cases of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest.
• The pragmatic problem of permitting abortions (or federal funding of abortions) for pregnancies resulting from rape is that such exceptions put the government in the thorny position of determining whether claims of rape are legitimate, that is to say, true. Rebecca Kiessling,  who was conceived in rape and is now a pro-life attorney, explains:

Rape exceptions in the law actually put the government in the position of having to ascertain when the child was conceived, who the father is, whether the child was conceived during the alleged rape or during intercourse with her husband or boyfriend, and if the child was conceived during the time frame of the alleged rape, then the government would need to determine whether the sexual intercourse was consensual or not….So rape exceptions serve to perpetuate the injustice against rape victims that their accounts are to be viewed with skepticism…

• But more important are the inextricably linked intellectual and moral problems with rape and incest exceptions. If the product of conception between two humans is a human, and if human life—including inchoate human life—is deserving of protection, then the manner of a baby’s conception is irrelevant to a determination of whether that inchoate life has the right to continued existence.
• Certainly the manner of conception has meaning to the victim of rape or incest. And society should have compassion for these victims, offering as much help as possible. But the ends of alleviating suffering do not justify the means of exterminating the innocent life growing inside rape victims. The mother’s right to control her reproductive processes and parts does not supersede the right of a baby simply to exist. Just as a rape victim had no control over the criminal act that resulted in a pregnancy, neither had the baby so conceived. The suffering of rape victims does not justify the further and more horrifying victimization of preborn babies.
• It is intellectually inconsistent and morally bankrupt to argue that life begins at conception, that all human life has intrinsic value and rights, but that society has the right to exterminate the life of another if its temporary dependency status is painful to another.

The second troubling comment came from Kay Bailey Hutchison, retiring Republican senator from Texas who said this on a Sunday morning news program:

Mothers and daughters can disagree on abortion, and we shouldn’t put a party around an issue that is so personal and also, religious-based. I think we need to say, “Here are our principles, and we welcome you as a Republican. We can disagree on any number of issues, but if you want to be a Republican, we welcome you.”

Several thoughts:

• How many times have you heard Democrats beseech the Democratic Party to abandon their position on abortion in order to accommodate pro-life Democrats?
• The arguments in support of the pro-life position are not exclusively religious.
• When using the “personal” nature of abortion as a defense, Hutchinson needs to remember that there are two persons involved. Who speaks for those who can’t?
• Hutchison’s statement is quintessential political double-speak: While asserting in one sentence that opposition to abortion should not be a party position, she asserts in the next sentence that “here are our principles.” Is Hutchison saying that opposition to abortion should or should not be one of the Republican principles?

It seems that Republicans like Kay Bailey Hutchison are again calling for the  infamous “Big Tent” that allows for the destruction of marriage and the unborn—you know, those trivial issues that can’t hold a candle next to fiscal issues. Apparently, the Republican tent is supposed to become big enough to accommodate a herd of donkeys.

Stand With Us

Your support of our work and ministry is always much needed and greatly appreciated. Your promotion of our emails on Facebook, Twitter, your own email network, and prayer for financial support is a huge part of our success in being a strong voice for the pro-life, pro-marriage and pro-family message here in the Land of Lincoln.  Please consider standing with us.

Click here to support Illinois Family Action (IFA). Contributions to IFA are not tax-deductible but give us the most flexibility in engaging critical legislative and political issues.

Click here to support Illinois Family Institute (IFI). Contributions to IFI are tax-deductible and support our educational efforts only.

You can also send a gift to P.O. Box 88848, Carol Stream, IL  60188.