How do we know that Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn is foolish? Well, let’s take a look at Sunday’s column and count the ways:

1.) He believes that the same-sex marriage debate will “fade into history.” 

2.) He believes that “ten years from now, when a betrothed or married couple is same-sex, it will be just as matter of fact as to a couple today being interfaith or interracial.” 

3.) He apparently thinks the elimination of sexual complementarity from the legal definition of marriage can change non-marriages into real marriages as opposed to merely unions recognized as marriages. 

4.) He has a fanciful notion that it is “progress” for the government to recognize same-sex unions as “marriages.”  

5.) Zorn’s belief that if six, or seven, or 40 judges overturn the will, knowledge, and collective wisdom of thousands of Americans—many of whom could likely run intellectual circles around these hubristic judges—means next to nothing in regard to the ontological reality of marriage. What judicial hubris tells us is that we’re fast becoming a nation untethered to either the Constitution or truth. And in the process, we the people are losing both our freedoms—chief among them the free exercise of religion—and our capacity to govern ourselves. 

6.) Those former supporters of true marriage who, in Zorn’s words, “have quietly folded up their tents” should be ashamed and are as culpable for the cultural damage done, including the impending persecution of dissidents and the suffering of children, as Zorn and his accomplices. While Zorn and his ideological ilk foolishly gloat, children, like the “banished babies of Ireland” are intentionally severed from their mothers or fathers. Christians have a responsibility to stand boldly for the rights of children no matter the personal cost. 

More important, any church leader or lay person who folds up his tent, either abandoning God’s design for marriage and sexuality or abandoning a persistent and courageous explication of them will eventually lose respect for the authority of Scripture in other areas of life. And the abandonment of faith in the authority of Scripture undermines the entire American project which, as Eric Metaxas and others explain, depends on virtue, which in turn depends on faith.

Here are some other truths of which Zorn (and scores of foolish Americans like him) seems profoundly ignorant:

• Homosexuality per se bears no points of correspondence to skin color. In other words, they are not analogous. 

• Legalized same-sex “marriage” per se bears no points of correspondence to interracial marriage. In other words, they are not analogous. 

• The belief that marriage is inherently sexually complementary is no more hateful than the belief that marriage is inherently binary. 

• The government’s legal recognition of only sexually complementary unions as marriages no more denies citizens the “right” to marry than does the government’s legal recognition of only unions between two people not closely related by blood denies citizens the right to marry. 

• Claiming that marriage is solely about who loves whom with no connection to reproductive potential  necessarily means legalizing plural marriages and incestuous marriages. Actually, if marriage is solely constituted by the presence of intense loving feelings with no connection to reproductive potential, then there is no reason for government involvement at all. The government has zero vested interest in recognizing, affirming, regulating, or promoting deeply loving inherently non-reproductive types of relationships. 
  
  There is no more government interest or public value in affirming and recognizing as marriages those sterile homoerotic unions than there is in affirming other deeply loving relationships like platonic friendships. Homosexual couples cannot suddenly justify their unions as “marriages” simply based on the presence of children, because they’ve already argued that marriage has no connection to children. There are many people in all sorts of relationship configurations that are raising children. If it’s the mere presence of children that makes a union deserving of being called a “marriage,” then any two or more people raising children together should be allowed to marry—or at least any two or more who really love each other.

No, the debate will never go away. Legally recognizing homoerotic unions as marriages is as profoundly wrong as were legal prohibitions of interracial marriage. While prohibitions of interracial marriage were based on the false belief that blacks and whites are inherently different, prohibitions of same-sex “marriage” are based on the true belief that men and women are different and that those differences have meaning for the public good.

No, the debate over the nature of marriage and the government’s recognition and regulation of marriage will never go away. If “progressives”—our current public censors—don’t ban dissent on issues related to homoerotic identity politics, this debate, like the one over legalized feticide, will persist.

Protecting true marriage is second only to protecting the lives of the least among us in terms of its importance to the health and welfare of this once great nation. The twin moral crimes of legalizing the slaughter of the unborn and legally recognizing homoerotic unions as “marriages” are dramatic manifestations of the enmity between unsaved man and God.  

This issue will remain until the end of this great nation or the end of redemptive history, whichever comes first. 

Stand with Illinois Family Institute! 

It seems there isn’t a news cycle which goes by without someone “making history” these days. Everyone and everything is making history everywhere at all times, apparently. It’s hard to pinpoint when this trend started, but the “historic” election of Barack Obama certainly brought the fascination with history-creation into vogue. Now it seems that a story isn’t worth covering unless some history has been made. What is behind this trend? Why the fascination with making history? Does the predictive power of potential importance really imply worth and meaning?

History was apparently made during two significant events recently. The first was Oregon becoming the 18th state to recognize so-called gay marriage. This change was achieved by adherence to the same playbook which has brought so-called gay marriage advocates success over the past year: they brought a case against the state, challenging the constitutionality of a so-called gay marriage ban, and found themselves arguing the case in front of a highly-sympathetic federal judge. Much like the judge who ruled on Proposition 8 in California, Judge Michael McShane found himself in a situation where he could grant a ruling from which he stood to reap the benefits. Judge McShane is himself in a same-sex relationship and could not resist the opportunity to make history by overturning the will of the people, as it had been expressed via the legislative process.

In 2004, Oregonians had voted overwhelmingly to define marriage as being solely between a man and a woman. This had never been rescinded by subsequent legislation, despite claims that a majority of the state now supports so-called gay marriage. For some reason, the judge was not forced to recuse himself in this case, despite his own subjective position on the matter. Would a self-professing Christian judge be allowed to overturn a ban on teaching intelligent design in the public school classrooms? One can almost hear liberal pinheads popping in angst over the thought of such history in the making.

The second significant history-making event recently was the crowning of Towson University’s debate team during the 2014 Cross Examination Debate Association National Championship. The topic was the War Powers Resolution, which Towson’s team used as an opportunity to launch into a jarring cacophony littered with racist slurs and college-speak. (Just the mention of “otherness” provokes the desire to stop by the student union for a pick-up drum circle, amiright?) The debate performance was unpalatable and awful, yet the Towson team walked away with the trophy in what was called by one reporter—wait for it—an “historic victory”.

Why this fascination with making history? It’s clear that progressives and social do-gooders get a tangible thrill up the leg from being a part of history in the making. So much so that they look for opportunities to recreate the feeling by forcing radical change on the rest of us in increasingly drastic ways; much the same way a junkie isn’t born overnight but moves from an occasional joint to popping pills to quivering in line at the methadone clinic, always moving in search of a higher high. They got such a buzz from foisting the first Marxist President on the rest of us that they’ve had to look for more drastic means to “make history”.

“Override the political wishes of the citizenry, while bypassing the legislative reform process? HECK YEAH! Roll out those rainbow limos, it’s so-called wedding time!!!”

“What do you mean, why are we rewarding a slur-ridden, incoherent screed with the National Debate Championship?!? Because it will be HISTORIC! Duh…”

And let’s not neglect to highlight a favorite nuance of progressives here. By putting these unnatural abrogations of the rule of law in the context of history-being-made, they are subliminally implying that this is a one-way street. History cannot be un-made and so, if they are truly making history by forcing the acceptance of their worldview, they are planting the theme of inevitability and immutable change in our minds. To quote network television, they hope that this is now “the new normal”.

Progressives have been using this technique for ages, attempting to draw us into knocking down one social foundation after another, always in the name of progress and history. This has been readily apparent in the admonitions surrounding the global warming debate. If the “science is settled” and the “debate is over” then we should get straight to the business of buying government Yugo’s and tugging a forelock in Algore’s general direction.

What Oregonian matrimony and Towson U’s championship demonstrate is that for leftists, feeling good is better than doing good. It feels good to give someone something they don’t deserve. But the very act of bestowing undeserved favor on the unworthy necessarily creates injustice. God is able to bestow salvation on the unworthy because He placed the resultant injustice of the act upon His Son, Who carried it willingly. The difference being that when man does it, he usually seeks to ignore the injustice or define it away.

Towson University wins the championship despite turning in a terrible performance. This is unjust and unless the adjudicating body acknowledges the injustice and atones for it, the injustice is allowed to thrive and grow, until the criteria of merit is so unbalanced and unrecognizable that the very definitions of
“good” and “bad” in debate performances are meaningless.

None of this is lost on those who are making it so. It is, in fact, their goal. They seek to strip our cultural institutions of all meaning so that we are left rudderless and vulnerable to their reprogramming. Sadly, the feel-good sheeple are more than willing to carry the water to their own drowning.

Stand with Illinois Family Institute! 

For the homosexuality-affirming movement to hold culture tightly in its foul grip, those for whom same-sex attraction and activity define “identity” must capture the hearts and minds of children who are our future. Hence the unholy clutching and scrabbling to rule public schools, even at the expense of intellectual freedom, diversity, and exploration.

They must also capture the hearts and minds of men—who are by nature leaders of culture. Hence the unholy scrabbling and clutching to transmogrify bastions of masculinity: the Boy Scouts of America, the military, and sports.

Those who find the video of homosexual NFL draftee Michael Sam “endearing” have had their consciences seared and values deformed. While it is a good thing that the rigid taboo against men expressing emotion has weakened, the image of a man tearfully stroking the arm of a weeping male lover and a celebratory homoerotic kiss between two men should provoke strong reactions—none of which should be “aw, isn’t that sweet.”

While pundits and the worldly wise celebrated the homoerotic predilections of Sam, Miami Dolphins defensive back Don Jones tweeted “OMG” and “horrible.” For those quickly deleted politically incorrect words, Jones is being fined and sent to re-education camp. “Horrible” means “dreadful; very unpleasant; and disagreeable.” Sentiments properly ordered should find homoerotic kissing “horrible.” God destroyed a city in large part because of homosexual activity, and God calls homosexual activity “abominable” and “detestable.” We should not find such acts “endearing.”

And a society that values diversity, tolerance (which means to endure that which offends you), religious liberty, and freedom of speech should not punish and “re-educate” those who dissent from “progressive” dogma or tweet one politically incorrect adjective

Click here to read this important article by English professor Robert Oscar Lopez who was raised by two lesbians. In it he provides a truthful overview of the history of and damage done by the homosexuality-affirming movement. This movement’s  disproportionate influence within our culture-making institutions accounts for the perverse cultural response to the Michael Sam video.  

Lopez predicts that a phenomenon as profoundly anti-nature and anti-culture as this one cannot last forever. One day the scales will fall from the eyes of America, and they will see what their ignorance and cowardice have birthed. The suffering of children who are being sacrificed on the altar of adult sexual desires will finally become known. There will be more tragic stories like that of 66-year-old French attorney who specializes in humanitarian law, Jean-Dominique Bunel, who shares what he thinks about being raised by two lesbians:

It is not therefore the taboo against homosexuality that made  me suffer, but rather, gay parenting….[E]quality cannot be applied rashly to the ‘right to a child’ which exists nowhere and can be drawn from no text at all.
…

I suffered from the indifference of adults to the intimate sufferings of children, starting with mine. In a world where their rights are each day rolled back, in truth, it is always the rights of adults that hold sway. I also suffered from the lack of a father, a daily presence, a character and a properly masculine example, some counterweight to the relationship of my mother to her lover. I was aware of it at a very early age. I lived that absence of a father, experienced it, as an amputation.

Divorce does not deprive a child necessarily of its parents, who normally are given shared or alternate guardianship of the child. Especially, divorce does not replace the father with a second woman, exacerbating even more the affective imbalance, both emotional and structural, for the child. All psychiatrists ought to recognize that the latter does not depend on a woman the way it depends upon a man, and that the ideal for the child is that the two accompany each other in an equal, complementary way.

…My father, who had abandoned my mother when I was three, precisely due to the [lesbian] relation she was engaged in, was never around, notably when I needed him. Also I turned as much as possible to the men of my surroundings, who begged for an oversized and sometimes unhealthy place in my life.

…All my life as an adult was thrust out of whack by this experience…. I doubt that many children of gay couples will open themselves up easily and honestly to journalists on this very delicate matter. It’s traumatizing to speak of suffering that one would rather silence.”

…As soon as I learned that the government was going to officialize marriage between two people of the same sex, I was thrown into disarray…. by the fact that we would be opening, necessarily, this code to adoption, institutionalizing a situation that had scarred me considerably. In that there is an injustice that I can in no way allow.

…I oppose this bill [to legalize same-sex “marriage” in France] because in the name of a fight against inequalities and discrimination, we would refuse a child one of its most sacred rights, upon which a universal, millenia-old tradition rests, that of being raised by a father and a mother. You see, two rights collide: the right to a child for gays, and the right of a child to a mother and father. The international convention on the rights of the child stipulates in effect that “the highest interest of the child should be a primary consideration” (article 3, section 1). Here this ‘higher interest’ leaves no doubt.” But it is the wounded man who concludes: “If two women who raised me had been married prior to the adoption of such a bill, I would have jumped into the fray and would have brought a complaint before the French state and before the European Court of the rights of man, for the violation of my right to a mom and a dad.”

Those whose inherent right to a mother and father is being stripped from them will someday tell their stories. It is hoped that when that day comes, there will remain some with a conscience to feel sorrow and shame.

 Stand with Illinois Family Institute!

Beginning on Tuesday, April 21st, Dan Haseltine, front man for the popular Christian band Jars of Clay, took to Twitter to announce his apparent support for same-sex “marriage.” And for the life of him, he can’t figure out a single good reason to oppose it.

It is for reasons like this that we have been sounding the alarm these last 10 years.

In a series of tweets posted over a three-day period, and prompted by a movie he watched while in flight, he wrote: “The treatment of people as less than human based on the color of skin is crazy… Or gender, or sexual orientation for that matter.”

Of course, to compare skin color with “sexual orientation” is to compare apples with oranges, as has been demonstrated many times before.

But that was only the beginning. He added, “Not meaning to stir things up BUT… Is there a non-speculative or non ‘slippery slope’ reason why gays shouldn’t marry? I don’t hear one.”

This really boggles the mind.

When you’re sliding down a dangerous slippery slope, you don’t say, “Give me one good reason we’re in danger, other than the fact that we’re careening down this deadly slope.”

No. You grab hold of something to stop your fall and then figure out how to climb back to solid ground.

Does this gifted artist not realize that the only reason we’re talking about redefining marriage today is because we are well down that slope already?

This is the day of full-blown incestuous relationships on popular TV shows like Game of Thrones; of other shows glorifying polyamory (married and dating!), polygamy (from Big Love to Sister Wives to My Five Wives), and teen pregnancy; of news reports about the “wedding” of three lesbians. It is the day of almost half of all first-time American mothers having their babies out of wedlock, with cohabitation rates up more than 700 percent since 1960, and it is against this backdrop that talk of same-sex “marriage” has become prominent.

Do we really want to accelerate the destruction of marriage?

Dan also tweeted, “I’m trying to make sense of the conservative argument. But it doesn’t hold up to basic scrutiny. Feels akin to women’s suffrage. Is the argument born of isolated application of scripture or is it combined with the knowledge born of friendship with someone who is gay? I just don’t see a negative effect to allowing gay marriage. No societal breakdown, no war on traditional marriage. ?? Anyone?”

Assuming Dan’s sincerity, let me reply to his questions.

First, for years now, Christian leaders have been articulating many good reasons why it is not good for society to redefine marriage, quite apart from the (very valid) slippery slope argument, and some of them have not even used the Bible to prove their points. Important books on the subject include those of Frank Turek, Matthew D. Staver, Erwin Lutzer, and, most recently, Robert P. George, Sherif Girgis, and Ryan T. Andersen, among others.

My YouTube debate on the subject is readily available, and there are fine books outlining the biblical definition of marriage and sexuality, including studies by Andreas Kostenberger and Richard M. Davison. Second, while there is strong biblical support for gender distinction, there is no support for the oppression of women, which is why the spread of Christianity around the world has had a liberating effect on women over the centuries. In stark contrast, the Bible condemns all forms of homoeroticism (as is recognized by many gay scholars as well), while every single example of God-blessed marriage or romance takes place between a man and a woman.

I have an online lecture that addresses this issue, and I tackle the subject at length in my new book as well. There is simply no comparison between women’s rights and sanctioning homosexual practice.

Third, the argument against same-sex “marriage” is based on the consistent testimony of Scripture, affirmed by Moses, Jesus, and Paul, and it is never contradicted a single time from Genesis to Revelation. Again, I demonstrate this in my new book, and other scholars, most notably Robert A. Gagnon, have argued this persuasively in depth. (Despite many attacks on his work, his arguments stand strong.)

Fourth, many of us have gay friends or relatives, and our positions are motivated by love. But what does having a gay friend or relative have to do with understanding God and his Word? I have dear friends who are very religious Jews, and they are some of the finest people I know, yet I still believe they are lost without Jesus. (And they, of course, see me as gravely deceived.)

Do we rewrite the Bible to accommodate our sentiments towards others, just because they are nice people?

Fifth, as articulated in the books cited in the first point, above, there are many negative consequences to redefining marriage, including: The assault on the freedoms of conscience, speech, and religion of those who do not accept this redefinition; the establishing of households that guarantee that a child will have either no father or no mother; the transformation of children’s education to include the validation of all forms of “marriage”; the continued deconstruction of gender distinctions, leading to all kinds of societal confusion; and much, much more.

It is for good reason that gay activists have long declared that if they can redefine marriage, the rest of their goals will inevitably be realized.

In short, yes, redefining marriage declares a massive war on “traditional marriage” (better framed as “true marriage” or “natural marriage”) and yes, it leads to all kinds of societal breakdown.

Put another way (and this is a question for you, Dan), Do you think that God’s order for marriage and family, established plainly in the Word and recognized by virtually all societies in history, can be thrown aside without consequences?

Dan, you wrote, “Never liked the phrase: ‘Scripture clearly says…(blank) about… Because most people read and interpret scripture wrong.”

Perhaps this is the root of your problem? Is the Bible not clear about anything? Sin? Salvation? Forgiveness? Jesus being the only Savior and Lord? Adultery being bad? Fidelity being good? Shall I list 100 more items that are abundantly clear in Scripture?

But it appears you’re not really certain about many moral issues, based on your tweet that said, “I don’t think scripture ‘clearly’ states much of anything regarding morality,” and, “I don’t particularly care about Scriptures stance on what is ‘wrong.’ I care more about how it says we should treat people.”

Did you really mean to write this? Is it possible to spend 5 minutes reading God’s precious Word without recognizing that Scripture clearly states a tremendous amount regarding morality and that, without his moral standards, we will never treat others rightly?

You also sked, “Just curious what ‘condoning a persons [sic] homosexuality’ does. Does it change you? Does it hurt someone? What is behind the conviction?”

Do you not realize that couples involved in consensual adult incest (and other relationships) are asking this exact same question? What do you say to them?

Perhaps it is a Jesus-based, Spirit-led, scripturally-grounded morality that is behind our convictions? And if we condone something God opposes – which means that it is not good for the people involved – how are we showing them love? To the contrary, we are actually hurting them.

My brother, as an influential Christian leader, you have a tremendous responsibility before the Lord to those who follow you, especially to impressionable, young believers, and you have not acted wisely by opening up a volatile discussion like this on Twitter.

Were there no godly leaders you could counsel with privately? Was it good stewardship of your popularity and influence to announce your views on Twitter and then expect a substantive dialogue delimited by 140 character tweets? Are subjects like the meaning of marriage and the authority of God’s Word in the life of a Christian now decided by who can come up with the catchier sound bite?

You probably don’t know me from Adam, but I’ll be glad to spend time with you to help you address these issues from the position of grace and truth. My door is open to you, and as one who greatly appreciates the culture-impacting power of music and song, it would be my privilege to meet with you.

That being said, if these tweets expose the soft, scripturally weak underbelly of the contemporary Christian music scene, then let’s put on our seatbelts and expect the worst.

The good news is that this will separate the wheat from the chaff, and in the end, the light will outshine the darkness.

This article was originally posted on the ChristianPost.com website.

Evangelical Christians in the United States now face an inevitable moment of decision. While Christians in other movements and in other nations face similar questions, the question of homosexuality now presents evangelicals in the United States with a decision that cannot be avoided. Within a very short time, we will know where everyone stands on this question. There will be no place to hide, and there will be no way to remain silent. To be silent will answer the question.

The question is whether evangelicals will remain true to the teachings of Scripture and the unbroken teaching of the Christian church for over two thousand years on the morality of same-sex acts and the institution of marriage.

The world is pressing this question upon us, but so are a number of voices from within the larger evangelical circle — voices that are calling for a radical revision of the church’s understanding of the Bible, sexual morality, and the meaning of marriage. We are living in the midst of a massive revolution in morality, and sexual morality is at the center of this revolution. But the question of same-sex relationships and sexuality is at the very center of the debate over sexual morality, and our answer to this question will both determine or reveal what we understand about everything the Bible reveals and everything the church teaches — even the gospel itself.

Others are watching, and they see the moment of decision at hand. Anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann of Stanford University has remarked that “it is clear to an observer like me that evangelical Christianity is at a crossroad.” What is that crossroad? “The question of whether gay Christians should be married within the church.”  Journalist Terry Mattingly sees the same issue looming on the evangelical horizon — “There is no way to avoid the showdown that is coming.”

Into this context now comes God and the Gay Christian, a book by Matthew Vines. Just a couple of years ago Vines made waves with the video of a lecture in which he attempted to argue that being a gay Christian in a committed same-sex relationship (and eventual marriage) is compatible with biblical Christianity. His video went viral. Even though Matthew Vines did not make new arguments, the young Harvard student synthesized arguments made by revisionist Bible scholars and presented a very winsome case for overthrowing the church’s moral teachings on same-sex relationships.

His new book flows from that startling ambition — to overthrow two millennia of Christian moral wisdom and biblical understanding.

Given the audacity of that ambition, why does this book deserve close attention? The most important reason lies outside the book itself. There are a great host of people, considered to be within the larger evangelical movement, who are desperately seeking a way to make peace with the moral revolution and endorse the acceptance of openly-gay individuals and couples within the life of the church. Given the excruciating pressures now exerted on evangelical Christianity, many people — including some high-profile leaders — are desperately seeking an argument they can claim as both persuasive and biblical. The seams in the evangelical fabric are beginning to break and Matthew Vines now comes along with a book that he claims will make the argument so many have been seeking.

In God and the Gay Christian Vines argues that “Christians who affirm the full authority of Scripture can also affirm committed, monogamous same-sex relationships.” He announces that, once his argument is accepted: “The fiercest objections to LGBT equality — those based on religious beliefs — can begin to fall away. The tremendous pain endured by LGBT youth in many Christian homes can become a relic of the past. Christianity’s reputation in much of the Western world can begin to rebound. Together we can reclaim our light” (3).

That promise drives Vines’s work from beginning to end. He identifies himself as both gay and Christian and claims to hold to a “high view” of the Bible. “That means,” he says, “I believe all of Scripture is inspired by God and authoritative for my life” (2).

Well, that is exactly what we would hope for a Christian believer to say about the Bible. And who could fault the ambition of any young and thoughtful Christian who seeks to recover the reputation of Christianity in the Western world. If Matthew Vines were to be truly successful in simultaneously making his case and remaining true to the Scriptures, we would indeed have to overturn two thousand years of the church’s teaching on sex and marriage and apologize for the horrible embarrassment of being wrong for so long.

Readers of his book who are looking for an off-ramp from the current cultural predicament will no doubt try to accept his argument. But the real question is whether what Vines claims is true and faithful to the Bible as the Word of God. But his argument is neither true nor faithful to Scripture. It is, nonetheless, a prototype of the kind of argument we can now expect.

What Does the Bible Really Say? 

The most important sections of Vines’s book deal with the Bible itself and with what he identifies as the six passages in the Bible that “have stood in the way of countless gay people who long for acceptance from their Christian parents, friends, and churches” (11). Those six passages (Genesis 19:5; Leviticus 18:22; Leviticus 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9; and 1 Timothy 1:10) are indeed key and crucial passages for understanding God’s expressed and revealed message on the question of same-sex acts, desires, and relationships, but they are hardly the whole story.

The most radical proposal Vines actually makes is to sever each of these passages from the flow of the biblical narrative and the Bible’s most fundamental revelation about what it means to be human, both male and female. He does not do this merely by omission, but by the explicit argument that the church has misunderstood the doctrine of creation as much as the question of human sexuality. He specifically seeks to argue that the basic sexual complementarity of the human male and the female — each made in God’s image — is neither essential to Genesis chapters 1 and 2 or to any biblical text that follows.

In other words, he argues that same-sex sexuality can be part of the goodness of God’s original creation, and that when God declared that it is not good for man to be alone, the answer to man’s isolation could be a sexual relationship with someone of either sex. But that massive misrepresentation of Genesis 1 and 2 — a misinterpretation with virtually unlimited theological consequences — actually becomes Vines’s way of relativizing the meaning of the six passages he primarily considers.

His main argument is that the Bible simply has no category of sexual orientation. Thus, when the Bible condemns same-sex acts, it is actually condemning “sexual excess,” hierarchy, oppression, or abuse — not the possibility of permanent, monogamous, same-sex unions.

In addressing the passages in Genesis and Leviticus, Vines argues that the sin of Sodom was primarily inhospitality, not same-sex love or sexuality. The law of Moses condemns same-sex acts in so far as they violate social status or a holiness code, not in and of themselves, he asserts. His argument with regard to Leviticus is especially contorted, since he has to argue that the text’s explicit condemnation of male-male intercourse as an abomination is neither categorical or related to sinfulness. He allows that “abomination is a negative word,” but insists that “it doesn’t necessarily correspond to Christian views of sin” (85).

Finally, he argues that, even if the Levitical condemnations are categorical, this would not mean that the law remains binding on believers today.

In dealing with the most significant single passage in the Bible on same-sex acts and desire, Romans 1:26-27, Vines actually argues that the passage “is not of central importance to Paul’s message in Romans.” Instead, Vines argues that the passage is used by Paul only as “a brief example to drive home a point he was making about idolatry.” Nevertheless, Paul’s words on same-sex acts are, he admits, “starkly negative” (96).

“There is no question that Romans 1:26-27 is the most significant biblical passage in this debate,” Vines acknowledges (96). In order to relativize it, he makes this case: “Paul’s description of same-sex behavior in this passage is indisputably negative. But he also explicitly described the behavior he condemned as lustful. He made no mention of love, fidelity, monogamy, or commitment. So how should we understand Paul’s words? Do they apply to all same-sex relationships? Or only to lustful, fleeting ones?” (99).

In asking these questions, Vines makes his case that Paul is merely ignorant of the reality of sexual orientation. He had no idea that some people are naturally attracted to people of the same sex. Therefore, Paul misunderstands what today would be considered culturally normative in many highly-developed nations — that some persons are naturally attracted to others of the same sex and it would be therefore “unnatural” for them to be attracted sexually to anyone else.

Astonishingly, Vines then argues that the very notion of “against nature” as used by Paul in Romans 1 is tied to patriarchy, not sexual complementarity. Same-sex relationships, Vines argues, “disrupted a social order that required a strict hierarchy between the sexes” (109).

But to get anywhere near to Vines’s argument one has to sever Romans 1 from any natural reading of the text, from the flow of the Bible’s message from Genesis 1 forward, from the basic structure of sexual complementarity, and from the church’s faithful reading of the Bible for two millennia. Furthermore, his argument provides direct evidence of that Paul warns of in this very chapter, “suppressing the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18).

Finally, the actual language of Romans 1, specifically dealing with male same-sex desire, speaks of “men consumed with passion for one another” (Romans 1:27). This directly contradicts Vines’s claim that only oppressive, pederastic, or socially mixed same-sex acts are condemned. Paul describes men consumed with passion for one another — not merely the abuse of the powerless by the powerful. In other words, in Romans 1:26-27 Paul condemns same-sex acts by both men and women, and he condemns the sexual desires described as unnatural passions as well.

In his attempt to relativize 1 Corinthians 6: 9, Vines actually undermines more of his argument. Paul’s careful use of language (perhaps even inventing a term by combining two words from Leviticus 18) is specifically intended to deny what Vines proposes — that the text really does not condemn consensual same-sex acts by individuals with a same-sex sexual orientation. Paul so carefully argues his case that he makes the point that both the active and the passive participants in male intercourse will not inherit the kingdom of God. Desperate to argue his case nonetheless, Vines asserts that, once again, it is exploitative sex that Paul condemns. But this requires that Paul be severed from his Jewish identify and from his own obedience to Scripture. Vines must attempt to marshal evidence that the primary background issue is the Greco-Roman cultural context rather than Paul’s Jewish context — but that would make Paul incomprehensible.

One other aspect of Vines’s consideration of the Bible should be noted. He acknowledges that he is “not a biblical scholar,” but he claims to “have relied on the work of scholars whose expertise is far greater than my own.” But the scholars upon whom he relies do not operate on the assumption that “all of Scripture is inspired by God and authoritative for my life.” To the contrary, most of his cited scholars are from the far left of modern biblical scholarship or on the fringes of the evangelical world. He does not reveal their deeper understandings of Scripture and its authority.

The Authority of Scripture and the Question of Sexual Orientation

Again and again, Vines comes back to sexual orientation as the key issue. “The Bible doesn’t directly address the issue of same-sexorientation,” he insists. The concept of sexual orientation “didn’t exist in the ancient world.” Amazingly, he then concedes that the Bible’s “six references to same-sex behavior are negative,” but insists, again, that “the concept of same-sex behavior in the Bible is sexual excess, not sexual orientation.”

Here we face the most tragic aspect of Matthew Vines’s argument. If the modern concept of sexual orientation is to be taken as a brute fact, then the Bible simply cannot be trusted to understand what it means to be human, to reveal what God intends for us sexually, or to define sin in any coherent manner. The modern notion of sexual orientation is, as a matter of fact, exceedingly modern. It is also a concept without any definitive meaning. Effectively, it is used now both culturally and morally to argue about sexual attraction and desire. As a matter of fact, attraction and desire are the only indicators upon which the modern notion of sexual orientation are premised.

When he begins his book, Matthew Vines argues that experience should not drive our interpretation of the Bible. But it is his experience of what he calls a gay sexual orientation that drives every word of this book. It is this experiential issue that drives him to relativize text after text and to argue that the Bible really doesn’t speak directly to his sexual identity at all, since the inspired human authors of Scripture were ignorant of the modern gay experience.

Of what else were they ignorant? Vines claims to hold to a “high view” of the Bible and to believe that “all of Scripture is inspired by God and authoritative for my life,” but the modern concept of sexual orientation functions as a much higher authority in his thinking and in his argument.

This leads to a haunting question. What else does the Bible not know about what it means to be human? If the Bible cannot be trusted to reveal the truth about us in every respect, how can we trust it to reveal our salvation?

This points to the greater issue at stake here — the Gospel. Matthew Vines’s argument does not merely relativize the Bible’s authority, it leaves us without any authoritative revelation of what sin is. And without an authoritative (and clearly understandable) revelation of human sin, we cannot know why we need a Savior, or why Christ died. Furthermore, to tell someone that what the Bible reveals as sin is notsin, we tell them that they do not need Christ for that. Is that not exactly what Paul was determined not to do when he wrote to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11? Could the stakes be any higher than that? This controversy is not merely about sex, it is about salvation.

Matthew Vines’s Wedge Argument — Gender and the Bible

There is another really interesting and revealing aspect of Matthew Vine’s argument yet to come. In terms of how his argument is likely to be received within the evangelical world, Vines clearly has a strategy, and that strategy is to persuade those who have rejected gender complementarity to take the next logical step and deny sexual complementarity as well.

Gender complementarity is the belief that the Bible’s teachings on gender and gender roles is to be understood in terms of the fact that men and women are equally made in God’s image (status) but different in terms of assignment (roles). This has been the belief and conviction of virtually all Christians throughout the centuries, and it is the view held by the vast majority of those identified as Christians in the world even today. But a denial of this conviction, hand in hand with the argument that sameness of role is necessary to affirm equality of status, has led some to argue that difference in gender roles must be rejected. The first impediment to making this argument is the fact that the Bible insists on a difference in roles. In order to overcome this impediment, biblical scholars and theologians committed to egalitarianism have made arguments that are hauntingly similar to those now made by Matthew Vines in favor of relativizing the Bible’s texts on same-sex behaviors.

Matthew Vines knows this. He also knows that, at least until recently, most of those who have rejected gender complementarity have maintained an affirmation of sexual complementarity — the belief that sexual behavior is to be limited to marriage as the union of a man and a woman. He sees this as his opening. At several points in the book, he makes this argument straightforwardly, even as he calls both “gender complementarity” and denies that the Bible requires or reveals it.

But we have to give Matthew Vines credit for seeing this wedge issue better than most egalitarians have seen it. He knows that the denial of gender complementarity is a huge step toward denying sexual complementarity. The evangelicals who have committed themselves to an egalitarian understanding of gender roles as revealed in the Bible are those who are most vulnerable to his argument. In effect, they must resist his argument more by force of will than by force of logic.

Same-Sex Marriage, Celibacy, and the Gospel

Matthew Vines writes with personal passion and he tells us much of his own story. Raised in an evangelical Presbyterian church by Christian parents, he came relatively late to understand his own sexual desires and pattern of attraction. He wants to be acknowledged as a faithful Christian, and he wants to be married … to a man. He argues that the Bible simply has no concept of sexual orientation and that to deny him access to marriage is to deny him justice and happiness. He argues that celibacy cannot be mandated for same-sex individuals within the church, for this would be unjust and wrong. He argues that same-sex unions can fulfill the “one-flesh” promise of Genesis 2:24.

Thus, he argues that the Christian church should accept and celebrate same-sex marriage. He also argues, just like the Protestant liberals of the early twentieth century, that Christianity must revise its beliefs or face the massive loss of reputation before the watching world (meaning, we should note, the watching world of the secular West).

But the believing church is left with no option but to deny the revisionist and relativizing proposals Vines brings to the evangelical argument. The consequences of accepting his argument would include misleading people about their sin and about their need for Christ, about what obedience to Christ requires and what faithfulness to Christ demands.

Matthew Vines demands that we love him enough to give him what he desperately wants, and that would certainly be the path of least cultural resistance. If we accept his argument we can simply remove this controversy from our midst, apologize to the world, and move on. But we cannot do that without counting the cost, and that cost includes the loss of all confidence in the Bible, in the Church’s ability to understand and obey the Scriptures, and in the Gospel as good news to all sinners.

Biblical Christianity cannot endorse same-sex marriage nor accept the claim that a believer can be obedient to Christ and remain or persist in same-sex behaviors. The church is the assembly of the redeemed, saved from our sins and learning obedience in the School of Christ. Every single one of us is a sexual sinner in need of redemption, but we are called to holiness, to obedience, and to honoring marriage as one of God’s most precious gifts and as a picture of the relationship between Christ and the church.

God and the Gay Christian demands an answer, but Christ demands our obedience. We can only pray — with fervent urgency — that this moment of decision for evangelical Christianity will be answered with a firm assertion of biblical authority, respect for marriage as the union of a man and a woman, passion for the Gospel of Christ, and prayer for the faithfulness and health of Christ’s church.

I do not write this response as Matthew Vines’s moral superior, but as one who must be obedient to Scripture. And so, I must counter his argument with conviction and urgency. I am concerned for him, and for the thousands who struggle as he does. The church has often failed people with same-sex attractions, and failed them horribly. We must not fail them now by forfeiting the only message that leads to salvation, holiness, and faithfulness. That is the real question before us.

This article was originally posted at the AlberMohler.com blog.

Written by Rod Dreher

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

A couple comments and corrections:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This article was originally posted at TheAmericanConservative website.

World Vision, in one of the most abrupt turnarounds in modern history, has done a complete about-face on its embrace of sodomy-based marriage.

Less than 48 hours after saying the organization was just fine hiring couples who were in same-sex “marriages,” the organization has repudiated that stance, acknowledging that the board “made a mistake,” and admitting they had failed “to be consistent with World Vision U.S.’s commitment to the traditional understanding of Biblical marriage.”

Says its president and board chairman, “We…humbly ask your forgiveness.”

Forgiveness is hereby granted, as Jesus instructed us to do.

One very encouraging part of this debacle is that the evangelical church and other pro-family organizations stood firmly, directly, and unanimously against this apostasy. World Vision’s decision was opposed by thousands upon thousands of donors who called World Vision to complain. Perhaps the sleeping giant that is the evangelical church has finally been awakened.

WV’s heretical decision was also publicly opposed by Franklin Graham, the American Family Association, the Family Research Council, the Assemblies of God, and the Southern Baptist Convention. This united stand for truth and against sexual debauchery got World Vision’s attention and got their minds right.

However, there is a pronounced difference between forgiveness and trust. Trust, once shattered, cannot be rebuilt with just a letter of apology. Rebuilding trust and confidence requires change and action.

One key question that must be answered is whether this repentance represents what Paul, in 2 Corinthians 7, calls “godly grief” or “worldly grief.” The sorrow that is according to the world is a sorrow that I got caught, a sorrow that my twisted plans blew up in my face. The sorrow that is according to God, on the other hand, is deep-seated and produces “what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment!” (2 Cor. 7:11).

Luke 3:1-14 contains a thorough account of the ministry of John the Baptist. When individuals, tax collectors and soldiers came to John to receive baptism at his hands, a baptism of “repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” there was one question on everyone’s lips. This question is the hallmark of genuine, biblical repentance.

The people all said, “What then shall we do?” The tax collectors all said, “Teacher, what shall we do?” The soldiers, to the last man, said, “And we, what shall we do?”

John’s answer was simple and direct: “Bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance.”

What does this mean for World Vision, if its leaders also ask the question, “What then shall we do?”

The minimum change that is in keeping with professed repentance is a sweeping change in leadership.

The larger issue here is that an environment has been fostered in the upper echelons of World Vision that made it possible for its leaders even to entertain an option that should have been absolutely unthinkable for anyone committed to God’s design for marriage. There is something diseased in the the boardroom of World Vision, and that diseased tissue must be cut out if this organization is once again to fulfill an evangelical mission.

President Richard Stearns must step down immediately. He is the leader of this organization, and he led it straight into a ditch. He must be replaced.

But that’s not enough. Every board member who voted for the original apostasy from the Word of God must likewise resign. Stearns made it clear in his original communication, announcing the embrace of homosexual marriage, that the World Vision board’s decision was not a unanimous one. Although the vote for embracing sin was overwhelming, there were board members who objected and voted to uphold biblical standards. They get to stay, the rest need to go. ASAP.

I anticipate that World Vision’s mettle will soon be tested. I predict that the Obama administration will now pull some or all of the $330 million it sends to World Vision, in order to punish them for being hatemongering homophobes.

Also, the state of Washington will likely sue them for violating its anti-Christian employment discrimination laws. If the attorney general will sue a florist in the Evergreen State for not embracing same-sex “marriage,” you can bet it won’t be long before he sets his sights on one of the largest Christian organizations in the world.

In other words, this is not the end of testing for World Vision but the beginning. They had better make sure they have leaders who are up to the task. Right now, they don’t.

This article was originally published at the RenewAmerica.com webiste.

World Vision, a well-known, well-regarded, and well-funded Christian charity has decided to abandon its policy that prohibits the hiring of those who engage in homosexual activity. World Vision U.S. will now hire homosexuals as long as they are in a legal (but false) “marriage.” While allowing employees who affirm homosexuality to work for World Vision, they will continue to prohibit the hiring of those who engage in fornication or adultery despite the fact that adultery is no more serious a sin than is homosexuality.

World Vision president, Richard Stearns, describes this stunning abandonment of biblical truth as “a very narrow policy change…symbolic of… [Christian] unity” and analogous to doctrinal differences over modes of baptism and beliefs on evolution.

The liberal shibboleth of “unity” rears its ugly head again. Unity, however, never trumps truth, and on the issue of homosexual relations, the Bible is unequivocal in its condemnation.

Are different views of homosexual “marriage” analogous to other doctrinal differences?

Both Theologian Russell Moore and Pastor Kevin DeYoung argue against the view that Steans appears to defend. Both argue that homosexual “marriage” is a concept which no church can biblically defend.

Moore illuminates  the gravity of the theological issue that Steans attempts to trivialize by comparing it to other denominational and doctrinal differences:

At stake is the gospel of Jesus Christ. If sexual activity outside of a biblical definition of marriage is morally neutral, then, yes, we should avoid making an issue of it. If, though, what the Bible clearly teaches and what the church has held for 2000 years is true, then refusing to call for repentance is unspeakably cruel and, in fact, devilish.

DeYoung elaborates on this point arguing that there exists no justification for viewing differences on homosexual “marriage” as analogous to denominational disagreements on a host of other issues. In other words, all theological differences are not created equal:

To be sure, like many evangelical parachurch organizations, World Vision allows for diversity in millennial views, sacramental views, soteriological views, and any numbers of doctrinal issues which distinguish denomination from denomination. Stearns would have us believe that homosexuality is just another one of these issues, no different from determining whether the water in baptism can be measured by liters or milliliters. But the analogy does not work. Unlike the differences concerning the mode of baptism, there is no long historical record of the church debating whether men can marry men. In fact, there is no record of the church debating anything of the sort until the last forty or fifty years. And more to the point, there is nothing in the Bible to suggest that getting the mode of baptism wrong puts your eternal soul in jeopardy, when there are plenty of verses to suggest that living in unrepentant sexual sin will do just that (Rom. 1:26-27; 1 Cor. 6:9-10; Jude 5-7).

What is marriage?

In rationalizing this policy change, Steans digs an even deeper, darker, more tortuous theological hole:

Changing the employee conduct policy to allow someone in a same-sex marriage who is a professed believer in Jesus Christ to work for us makes our policy more consistent with our practice on other divisive issues….It also allows us to treat all of our employees the same way: abstinence outside of marriage, and fidelity within marriage…. This is simply a decision about whether or not you are eligible for employment at World Vision U.S. based on this single issue, and nothing more. (emphasis added)

Nothing more? What else is left once you’ve gutted biblical truth about marriage?  Marriage is not a creation of man to “solemnize” consensual romantic/erotic unions. Marriage is picture of the union between Christ and his bride, the church. Marriage is not a union of two identical partners. It is the union of God and man and reflects the ontological difference between the marriage partners. One would expect World Vision’s leaders to understand better the relationship between earthly marriage–central to which is sexual complementarity–and the gospel story of creation and redemption.

When Steans says this policy allows World Vision to treat legally “married” homosexual couples the same as married heterosexual couples, he is acceding to the proposition that two men or two women can in reality be married.  But our secular government’s legal recognition of same-sex unions as “marriages” does not marriages make.

Steans should know what John Piper makes clear in a sermon on marriage:

The point is not only that so-called same-sex marriage shouldn’t exist, but that it doesn’t and it can’t. Those who believe that God has spoken to us truthfully in the Bible should not concede that the committed, life-long partnership and sexual relations of two men or two women is marriage. It isn’t.

The Implications of World Vision’s Worldly Change

Kevin DeYoung warns what this “about face” by World Vision portends:

The about face in World Vision’s hiring policy deserves comment both because their reasons for the switch will become terribly common and because the reasons themselves are so terrifically thin. Serving in a mainline denomination, I’ve heard all the assurances and euphemisms before: “We still affirm traditional marriage. We aren’t taking sides. This is only a narrow change. We are trying to find common ground. This is about unity. It’s all about staying on mission.” But of course, there is nothing neutral about the policy at all. The new policy makes no sense if World Vision thinks homosexual behavior is a sin, which is, after all, how it views fornication and adultery. There are no allowances for their employees to solemnize other transgressions of the law of God.

DeYoung asks if the following assertions are true:

Jesus Christ is coming again to judge the living and the dead (Acts 17:31; Rev. 19:11-21). Those who repent of their sins and believe in Christ (Mark 1:15; Acts 2:38; 17:30) and those who overcome (Rev. 21:7) will live forever in eternal bliss with God in his holy heaven (Rev. 21:1-27) through the atoning work of Christ on the cross (Mark 10:45; Rom. 5:1-21; Cor. 5:21). Those who are not born again (John 3:5), do not believe in Christ (John 3:18), and continue to make practice of sinning (1 John 3:4-10) will face eternal punishment and the just wrath of God in hell (John 3:36; 5:29). Among those who will face the second death in the lake that burns with fire are the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, the murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars (Rev. 21:8), and among the sins included in the category of sexual immorality is unrepentant sexual intercourse between persons of the same sex (Rom. 1:26-27; 1 Cor. 6:9-10; Jude 5-7).

He then asserts that “If the Bible does not teach these things, or if we no longer have the courage to believe them, let us say so openly and make the case why the whole history of the Christian church has been so wrong for so long. But if the Bible does teach the paragraph above, how can we be casual about such a serious matter or think that Jesus would be so indifferent to the celebration of the same?”

Steans claims that World Vision leaders are “not caving to some kind of pressure. We’re not on some slippery slope. There is no lawsuit threatening us. There is no employee group lobbying us….This is not us compromising.” The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.

What to do about current sponsorship

World Vision will lose donors, as it should. For many who are currently sponsoring a needy child, this decision is difficult. The ultimate cause for the suffering of children who lose sponsors rests not, however, with donors who cannot in good conscience support the efforts of an organization that abandons foundational biblical principles, the adherence to which was what led them to support the organization in the first place. The ultimate cause is the foolish decision of World Vision’s leaders.

For those sponsors who decide to cease donating immediately, there are other options, one of which is Compassion International. Compassion International works with impoverished children all around the world and currently, has over 4,500 children in need of support.

Other World Vision sponsors, however, may believe they should complete their sponsorship of a particular child, which ends when the child reaches age 21 or earlier for a variety of reasons. In such cases, IFI recommends informing World Vision that after sponsorship of their current child ends, they will no longer be supporting World Vision.

 Become a monthly supporter of IFI.

Click HERE for more information. 

What’s next?

That’s the question the citizens of Illinois should be asking themselves. Now that our state lawmakers have decided to redefine marriage, legalize “medical” marijuana and teach “comprehensive” sex-education to young children in our government schools,  what’s next?

Let’s put aside for the moment the fact that our state lawmakers didn’t listen to us–we the people–in their feckless decisions. As for same-sex “marriage,” they decided to make the decision without us, our input or our approval, caving in to the political pressure of Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) and the multi-million dollar homosexual lobby. But as frustrating as this is, what is of more concern right now is what will happen next?

Well, the day after the Illinois House voted to redefine marriage, we may have been given a preview of things to come. As I was waiting to be interviewed by Tony Sarabi of Chicago’s Public Radio (WBEZ), I listened to him interview Tracy Baim, the publisher and executive editor of Windy City Times, a homosexual Chicago newspaper.  During the interview, she revealed that the true goal of the radical LGBTQ agenda is to silence and punish any moral opposition to their lifestyle–even pastors and priests:

...the problem with Religious Freedom [and Marriage Fairness] Act is that there are all these exemptions on religion, and believe me, I don’t believe that a church should be forced to perform a same gender wedding.  But if you continue down those exemptions after a legitimate church what happens is you have other people that say on religious grounds that they don’t want to serve people, they don’t want, literally, to serve them at their breakfast counter or serve them in their B&B, or provide wedding photography. And while that is really an emotional issue, and I can understand why the right-wing is very upset about B&B owners being sued, we have to look at this through historical lens–and that is so offensive that people could just decide who to serve and who not to serve based on characteristic of who they are, including their religion. [emphasis added.]

Baim continued:

…this new law that just passed yesterday has a whole series of things in it that are questionable of what is a religious institution. So they bent over backwards to try to be accommodating , but in many ways it is a violation of–well it will be played out in court–of what really can be considered.  So can a club, like the Rotary or the Kiwanis or whatever say based on their religious beliefs they don’t want to do something.  Well they can say they don’t want to serve someone who is of a different race or who is Muslim, etc. So it will be interesting to see how this will play out…  [emphasis added.]

Five law professors who favor same-sex “marriage” identified Illinois’ law (SB 10) as the absolute worst in the nation in protecting religious liberty and freedom of conscience, and still Baim and other radical activists in her community will not rest until all exemptions are eliminated and all opposition is punished.

Baim demonstrates an utter lack of respect for religious liberty, which, unlike “sexual orientation,” is actually included in the U.S. Constitution. Religious beliefs and conscience objections to being involved with an activity–not a person–but an activity we believe is immoral is irrelevant to activists like Baim. All rights are subordinate to their purported right to engage in homosexual acts. Our First Amendment civil rights to freely exercise religion be damned.  

That is exactly what is happening in Colorado where a Christian-owned bakery was ordered by a judge from the Colorado Civil Rights Commission to make cakes for same-sex ceremonies or face fines. The baker didn’t refuse to serve homosexuals. He refused to participate in a ceremony that celebrates a union that his faith teaches is an abomination to God. Baim is either dishonest or ignorant when she claims that people of faith will seek to refuse “literally to serve” homosexuals, or “to serve them at their lunch counter.” There is no evidence that Christians seek to refuse to provide lunch to homosexuals at their lunch counters or to sell them donuts on their way to work. Some Christians refuse to use their gifts to provide goods and services for activities (e.g., weddings, civil ceremonies, or sleepovers) that violate their religious convictions.  

And remember how many of our “tolerant” liberal political officials treated the religious views of Chick-Fil-A’s CEO Dan Cathy when he dared to speak in favor of natural marriage? His company was threatened with being blacklisted and forbidden to do businesses in Chicago. Mayor Rahm Emanuel went so far as to say that “Chick-fil-A’s values are not Chicago’s values,” (a strange claim in light of the fact that he worked for Obama when Obama opposed same sex “marriage”).  Elected officials in Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington DC said the same thing: Chick-Fil-A was not welcome because the owner holds a traditional view of marriage. 

We have been warning our subscribers for years now:  The end goal of the radical LGBTQ agenda isn’t “marriage equality.” The end goal is to silence any and all moral opposition to homosexuality. And they plan to use the heavy hand of government to censor and punish conservative and Judeo-Christian views on sexuality and marriage. How long before they tell our churches, our ministries and our families that our values are not their values? It’s coming faster than you realize.

Further, if the government redefines marriage for homosexuals, it must continue to redefine marriage for other groups or risk being guilty of the same kind of discrimination of which natural marriage supporters stand accused. So, what will be the next legal battle facing marriage?

Already efforts are under way to legalize plural unions in order to protect the “rights” of polygamists and polyamorists. Late last week, a federal judge in Utah struck down part of a Utah law that outlawed plural marriage. This is the logical and inevitable next step after eliminating sexual complementarity from the legal definition of marriage. After all, it is far more radical to jettison sexual complementarity from the legal definition of marriage than it is to jettison the requirement regarding number of partners. 

These “alternative lifestyles” further reduce marriage to any group of people that want to live together and have sexual relations. They also place the desires of adults above what is best for children while ignoring recent studies showing that kids are better raised in a home with a mother and a father.

Now more than ever we need you to stand with the Illinois Family Institute in defending the Judeo-Christian worldview. As we actively defend the traditional, conservative values upon which our country was built, we recognize that we can’t do it without your support.

The attacks our values face are many. They are well-funded, well-organized attacks aimed at destroying our shared values–values that are essential to the continued health of the nation. But we have something that our opposition doesn’t: the majority. Our numbers are far greater than theirs as recent studies continue to show a strong support for natural marriage, life and religious freedom.

Though our adversary is well-funded, politically connected and speaking loudly, we the people have greater numbers that can make an incredible impact if we stand together. Will you commit right now to stand with the Illinois Family Institute in defending our shared values from the attacks of a few people that want to fundamentally change our country?

Whether you can commit to sending a one-time gift, become a monthly donor or help underwrite the cost of specific needs we have right now, every person, and every effort makes a difference.

Please stand with the Illinois Family Institute by donating right now!

Now is not the time to sit back and wait for someone else to get involved. Now is the time to stand up and become a proactive force in defending the values we cherish. Imagine what could be accomplished if you, your family and your friends each decided to get involved. The momentum we could create would be an unstoppable force.

IFI will be leading the charge in 2014 educating voters throughout our state with our Voter Guide, standing up to those seeking to attack the family, continually standing for innocent human life and opposing those seeking to undercut our family values in our government schools.

Our mission at Illinois Family Institute is to stand for biblical, Judeo-Christian values, and in doing so, help bring Illinois back to a state in which religious liberty flourishes, families prosper and every human life is valued. Your support by the end of the year will ensure that we have the resources necessary to fulfill our mission in 2014.

I want to remind you that we have a $25,000 Year-End Matching Grant offered by a group of generous benefactors.  Any donation given or mailed by December 31st will go toward this matching challenge and will be fully tax-deductible, lowering your 2013 tax burden.

Any donation received by (or postmarked on) December 31st will be matched. If you contribute $50 IFI will receive $100, if you give $1,000 we will receive $2,000 and so forth.  No amount, whether a monthly or one-time gift, is too small or too large. We appreciate all of your donations more than we can possibly say.

Please partner with us and make a tax-deductible gift today.

May God bless you and your family this Christmas season.

Sincerely,

David E. Smith
Executive Director 

P.S. Help us reach our goal of raising a total of $50,000 by the end of the month – Donate today!  To make a credit card donation over the phone, call the IFI office at (708) 781-9328.  

You can also send a gift by mail to:

Illinois Family Institute
P.O. Box 88848
Carol Stream, IL  60188

Yesterday I wrote about the question Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn posed to me regarding the potential effects of legally recognizing same-sex unions as marriages. He asked for specific research on which to base “gloomy” predictions and asked what “animated” groups like ours to oppose same-sex “marriage.” It’s important to note that his question was premised on the implicit assumption that predictions about the effects of changing the legal definition of marriage should only be justified by sociological or objectively-measured research. But such an assumption must itself be justified. There are other warrants or justifications for predictions, including both those that derive from logic or history.

It’s not only arbitrary to say predictions should be justified only by sociological research or data, but it’s also an idea not widely or consistently held by the Left. For example, lesbian attorney and former Georgetown University law professor, Chai Feldblum has predicted that once same-sex “marriage” is legalized, conservative people of faith will lose religious rights. And she did not base her prediction on sociological research. She based her prediction on her knowledge of the law and how the establishments of legal precedents under one set of facts are later used to expand into other areas of the law. I included that in my email to Mr. Zorn, but that wasn’t a quote he chose to include in his column.

The Left has made fervid claims about the salubrious (i.e., favorable to health or well-being) cultural effects of the legalization of same-sex “marriage” with very little evidence. In fact, they made those claims long before there was any evidence.

Zorn seems concerned solely about marriage and divorce rates, whereas conservatives are “animated” by a whole host of cultural effects. He spends some time exploring marriage/divorce statistics from Massachusetts which has had legalized same-sex marriage for a mere nine years. He also mentioned Europe. Zorn might want to look at the sobering marriage and divorce rates  in the European Union, in which a number of countries legalized same-sex “marriage” or civil unions prior to Massachusetts. I’m certainly not suggesting that the legalization of same-sex marriage is the cause of these dispiriting rates, but it may be a contributing factor.

One of my reasons for writing this follow-up to yesterday’s article is that an attorney wrote me, disagreeing with my assertion that “the legalization of same-sex marriage will not affect my marriage.”  He felt that I left out something important. Here’s an excerpt from his email:

Every citizen in the country is harmed by the erosion of personal rights such as the freedom of religion, which includes the freedom to choose—based on religious beliefs—not to partake in celebrating gay marriages by choosing not to do business related to them. It is much the same way that all Americans are harmed when a person of color is discriminated against. Our country is less free and less what it was intended to be when such things happen. 

It’s surprising that “progressives” claim they can’t see any potential negative cultural effects from the legalization of same-sex “marriage.” In the corporate world, it’s easy to express the view that marriage has no inherent connection to sexual complementarity. If an employee expresses a dissenting view, professional repercussions are possible if not likely. Human resources and the ironically named “diversity officer” assert that such views make homosexuals feel “unsafe”—(another proposition inconsistently applied). So already, we’re seeing the loss of religious freedom and speech rights.

It’s one thing to say, “Yes, those liberties will be diminished, but they’re justifiable losses,”—a claim with which I would disagree. It’s entirely different to say there will be no ill effects, which seems to be the view of Zorn and his ideological compeers.

I’ve not yet heard “progressives” offer reasons why their newfangled definition of marriage that says marriage is just about love would allow for the retention of the requirement that marriage be composed of only two people. Already polygamists of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints variety and polyamorists are using the very same definition to fight for their “equal marriage rights.”

Finally, I think it would be helpful to public discourse and, therefore, the common good, if the Left would refrain from asserting that the only reason to oppose the legal recognition of same-sex unions as marriage is animus toward homosexuals. It’s simply a false claim. It’s no more true than claiming that the only reason for opposition to the legalization of plural unions is animus toward Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints or animus toward polyamorists.

Those on both sides of the same-sex “marriage” debate believe marriage has a nature that the government merely recognizes but does not create out of whole cloth. Conservatives assert that central to marriage is sexual complementarity (which accounts for the “twoness” of marriage), without which it’s not marriage.

Most “progressives,” on the other hand, claim that marriage is centrally constituted by the presence of erotic/romantic love between two people of any sex (of course, they can’t account for the “twoness” that they claim is essential to marriage and should not be jettisoned).

We would do much better at discussing this issue, which (like abortion) will never go away, when the Left ceases to impute false and ugly motives to their opponents—motives that they don’t impute to themselves as they seek to maintain marriage as a binary institution. Continuing to spew poison for political gain is the sole cause of the new form of bullying that is emerging and is described by a father in this email I received yesterday:

My family, specifically my daughter, has been verbally attacked by friends and classmates accusing her and our family as being Christian bigots because of our position that marriage is between one man and one women and should not be redefined by politicians, many of whom have been elected in a corrupt political environment.

 Some liberal and “progressive” friends state that we are anti-gay and bigoted because we choose to exercise our 1^st Amendment rights to express these beliefs in the public square.

My older children who attend a public school are being labeled as “narrow-minded” freaks. Would these “enlightened” public officials allow my family to file an anti-bulling claim and seek damages against the school district?

Unfortunately, these are the signs of the times that we face today and the more reason that we must pray for those who ‘hate’ Christians for our beliefs. They will come to know the truth only by our love and how we live our faith.

The Left mistakenly believes this issue will eventually go away because they mistakenly believe homosexuality is analogous to race. And it is this foolish and indefensible analogy that they use to justify intolerance, censorship in schools, the usurpation of parental rights, and the diminution of First Amendment speech and religious protections.

Click HERE to make a tax-deductible donation to support IFI.

In response to the passage of Illinois’ same-sex “marriage” law, Francis Cardinal George wrote a letter that appeared in church bulletins in which he said that “there will be consequences for the Church and society that will become clearer as the law is used to sue for discrimination …It will contribute over the long run to the further dissolution of marriage and family life, which are the bedrock of any society.” 

In preparation for today’s column on same-sex  “marriage,” Mr. Zorn emailed me this question: “What if any practical, difference will this make to those of us who are happily married mothers and fathers? I can’t think of any, but given the animation of groups like yours I thought you surely can.”

Here is my response:

Hi Eric,

With all due respect, the question, “How will the legalization of same-sex ‘marriage’ affect any particular existing marriage” is a silly question. Of course, the legalization of same-sex marriage will not affect my marriage. Similarly, the legalization of plural marriages or marriages between close blood relatives would not affect my marriage.

Some of us have concerns about the radical redefinition of marriage that go beyond the personal and parochial. We’re concerned about the rights of all children, the rights of parents five, ten, or twenty years in the future. And we’re concerned about religious liberty for our children and our children’s children. What “animates” us—to use your term—is far greater than our immediate self-interests.

But jettisoning the central constituent feature of marriage will affect society’s understanding of marriage. It will affect how and what public education teaches about marriage (and homosexuality). It will affect children, in that the redefinition of marriage necessarily and implicitly denies that children have a right to a mother and father.

Obama has issued multiple Mother’s and Father’s Day proclamations in which he asserts that mothers and fathers are essential to the lives of their children, and then he incoherently endorses a form of marriage that embodies the fanciful assumptions that mothers or fathers are interchangeable or irrelevant.

Predictions can be based on research—and by research, I assume you mean sociological research—but they  can also be based on reason. One of the problems with not just “progressives” but many on both the Left and Right is their failure to think philosophically. We don’t take the time to think through the logical outworkings of an idea (as opposed to a fallacious slippery slope).

For example, those who argue that marriage has a nature but that nature does not include sexual complementarity and further that marriage is centrally or solely constituted by intense romantic feelings have to offer reasons why plural unions should not be legal. In fact, they need to justify with reasons why marriage should be limited to only those in romantic relationships.  Why should government-sanctioned marriage recognize only romantic unions as marriages? What is the relevance to the common good of inherently sterile romantic/erotic unions? If marriage has no inherent connection to reproductive potential and it’s constituted solely by love, then there is no more reason for the government to be involved in it than there is in the government being involved in recognizing other types of non-reproductive loving relationships. There is a logical outworking of the idea that marriage has nothing to do with reproductive potential and is only constituted by love.

Predictions about the future of marriage, family life, and religious liberty can be based both on sociological research and logical thought. So, for example, there are decades of studies that show that children fare best when raised in an intact family with a mother and father. The Left likes to say that the sex of caretakers is wholly irrelevant and that all that matters is the number of parents, but that’s an assumption based on virtually nothing. Why is the number two essential to marriage while sexual complementarity is not?

It’s frustrating to see the poor research the Left trots out in support of, for example, homosexual parenting or the etiology of same-sex attraction, while they trash much larger better constructed studies that arrive at conclusions that don’t suit their political ends. No social science research is flawless, but the studies that homosexual activists and their many friends in the media extol are by and large much worse than the studies that contradict their biases.

Chai Feldblum who is a lesbian, former Georgetown University Law professor, and current member of the EEOC, has written—that is to say, predicted—that when same-sex marriage is legalized conservative people of faith will lose religious rights She argues that this is a zero-sum game in which a gain for homosexuals means a loss for conservative people of faith (“Moral Conflict and Liberty: Gay Rights and Religion”). In her prediction, she used as an illustration, Christian bed and breakfast owners who will suffer a loss of religious liberty for their refusal to rent their facilities out to homosexuals, an issue we’re seeing right here in Illinois.

It seems reasonable to predict that encoding in law the idea that marriage has no inherent connection to sexual complementarity or reproductive potential will increase the practice of homosexuals creating children to be intentionally motherless and fatherless. It seems reasonable/logical to predict that some years from now, these children will feel the kind of sorrow and resentment at being denied their birthrights that adults who were products of anonymous sperm or egg donations now feel. We are commodifying children, and that is fraught with tragic cultural implications. Read what Alana Newman says in her article, “What Are the Rights of Donor-Conceived People?”

Here’s a NY Times article on free speech case that provides evidence for the claim that the legalization of same-sex “marriage” will affect society negatively–well, that is if you value free speech.

I know that you believe religious discrimination is justifiable and permissible once someone enters the marketplace, but there are two important distinctions that must be addressed: First, providing services to homosexuals is different from providing services for a same-sex union ceremony. It is an inconvenient truth for “progressives” that the elderly baker in WA who is being sued by the state because she wouldn’t provide a cake for a homosexual “wedding” had sold baked goods to the homosexual man who had sought her services for his “wedding.” She didn’t refuse to serve a homosexual. She refused to use her goods and gifts in celebration of something that violates her religious convictions.  

Second, it is profoundly foolish ever to have included “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” in anti-discrimination policies and laws. “Sexual orientation” is merely a rhetorical invention of the Left created to render equivalent homosexuality and heterosexuality, which are not equivalent. The idea that homosexuality and heterosexuality are flipsides of the sexuality coin is an assumption that homosexuals and their ideological allies hold. That assumption is not a fact. 

Heterosexuality has an objective biological/anatomical component, which homosexuality does not. Homosexuality (unlike race) is constituted solely by subjective feelings and volitional (sexual) acts. Are “progressives” willing to add all other conditions similarly constituted to the list of protected categories?

In addition, since homosexuality (unlike race) is constituted by feelings, desires, and volitional acts, it is perfectly legitimate to assess morally.

There is zero evidence that same-sex attraction is genetically determined, and even homosexual researchers say there never will be a gene for a complex behavior like sexual attraction. But let’s hypothesize that there may be some biochemical influences in some cases for the development of same-sex attraction. Is it your argument that any behavior that is driven by an impulse or desire that is shaped to some degree by biochemistry is necessarily moral? That strikes me as a very dangerous proposition, but that’s precisely the assumption that inheres the Left’s central argument. 

Here are some other predictions based on logic:

• Once marriage is severed from any inherent connection to reproductive potential, once the revisionist view of marriage as a private relationship constituted solely by the deep feelings of those seeking to marry, it becomes meaningless as a public institution. Eventually even heterosexual investment in it will decrease as Scandinavian countries have found. Read some of the work of Stanley Kurtz on this topic.

   

• As fewer heterosexuals choose to marry and increased numbers of children are raised by single mothers or lesbians, greater numbers of children will grow up fatherless, which will increase the myriad and tragic harms that result from being deprived of fathers (click HERE  and HERE  for more information). 

   

• The law will support and propagate the radical, destructive, and fallacious idea that children have no inherent right to know and be raised by their biological parents. 

   

• The law will support and propagate the radical, destructive, and fallacious idea that mothers and fathers are interchangeable and that mothers or fathers are expendable.  Increasing numbers of children will be deliberately deprived of either a mother or father, which will harm children in incalculable and numerous ways.

   

• Public schools —including elementary schools—will expose children to non-objective homosexuality-affirming beliefs about homosexuality. 

   

• Public schools will censor all competing (i.e., conservative) views of homosexuality.

   

• Children will be taught that traditional beliefs about what marriage is are hateful, bigoted, and ignorant.

   

• Parents of children in public schools will lose the right to be the sole determiner of what their children learn about homosexuality and when they learn it. 

   

• Laws currently presume that the spouse of a woman who has given birth is the father. When homosexuals are allowed to marry that presumption becomes irrational. The government will become ever more entangled in issues related to legal parentage. Economist Jennifer Roback Morse has written extensively about this effect.

   

• For many homosexual couples, particularly male couples, sexual monogamy isn’t part of marital fidelity—not even in theory. Their ideas about what marriage is will permeate the culture. Homosexuals like Andrew Sullivan and the morally vacant Dan Savage have explicitly stated that heterosexual couples should learn from homosexual couples about the value of non-non-monogamy.

Years ago we were fed another deceit about marriage. We were told that no-fault divorce would be good for marriages and good for children. It has been disastrous for both. As Richard Weaver wrote, “Ideas have consequences.”

On what basis does the Left predict that severing marriage from sexual complementarity and reproductive potential will have no deleterious effects on marriage, children, or religious freedom?

Those who don’t believe that radical ideas shape culture over time in profound ways don’t read enough history or philosophy.

One final comment: The Left continually spews the ugly and destructive lie that everyone who believes homosexual acts are immoral hates homosexuals. Not only is that false, it’s pernicious, especially when told to children or teens. It destroys any possibility for relationships and dialogue between people of good will who disagree on what leads to human flourishing. Most of us who live in a diverse world are fully capable of enjoying the company of, admiring the good qualities of, and loving those who hold beliefs or make life choices with which we disagree. Most of us do it every day.

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Written by Robert Gilligan

This week, the Illinois House of Representatives completed a mission started by its Senate counterparts in February by redefining what is outside of its authority: a nature-ordered union of one man and one woman, the institution of marriage.

Come June 1, 2014 marriage in Illinois will be defined as “between two persons.”

During floor debate, lawmakers threw out words such as “equality” and “fairness.” But one important term was glossed over — religious freedom.

It’s in the title of the bill, lawmakers said, the “Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act.” They further noted that no church or clergy will be forced to solemnize any same-sex marriage or rent their parish or fellowship halls for any type of same-sex wedding recognition.

It’s all good, lawmakers assured faith groups and religious organizations. Your religious freedom is secure.

Where have we heard that before?

How about three years ago, when Illinois lawmakers promised during floor debate on civil unions legislation that no faith-based social service organizations would be affected. But within six months of civil unions becoming law, all Catholic Charities in the state were pushed out of their longtime mission of caring for abused, abandoned, and neglected children. The state refused to renew contracts for foster care and adoption services because of Charities’ religious belief of not placing children with unmarried couples, be they heterosexual or homosexual.

We know better this time. We know our religious freedom is not protected. And when we asked for more protection, our pleas for fairness were rebuffed and spurned.

Senate Bill 10 offers no specific protection regarding employment practices. If a current church employee chooses to “marry” a same-sex partner, the legislation offers no specific protection regarding the church being forced to pay — from funds collected every Sunday from faithful church-goers in the pews — for benefits for the “spouse.”

The legislation offers no conscience protections to health-care facilities, educational facilities, or social service agencies. So, faith-based hospitals, colleges, and universities that own and operate venues for rent are not protected.

Individuals and independent business owners whose religious beliefs do not condone same-sex marriage are also left in the dust. There are the stories about the photographers, bakers, florists, and bed-and-breakfast owners who have come under fire for refusing to serve same-sex weddings. What about the county judge asked to perform a same-sex wedding, or a public school teacher forced to teach about a family with two moms, two dads, or some other permutation?

They get nada.

Is this fairness, or tolerance?

As other states grapple with redefinition of marriage efforts, we urge them to learn from Illinois. Hold on to the natural order of marriage as one man and one woman joining together to form a union of body, mind, and spirit, with the intent and hope of creating children with whom to share their love.

Hold on to marriage as the only institution that ties children to their biological mother and father, and serves as the cornerstone of the family and society.

And hold on to the religious freedom that allows us to practice our faith beyond the four walls of a church.

Robert Gilligan is the Executive Director of the Catholic Conference 

How did they vote?

On Tuesday afternoon, the Illinois House of Representatives recklessly voted 61-54 in favor of genderless marriage (SB 10) with 2 representatives voting present and 1 not voting.
 
The debate raged for over two hours with SB 10 with supporters of the bill filling the time with a constant stream of emotion, personal testimony, and accusations of discrimination. Those who spoke out in favor of natural marriage included State Representatives Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton), David Reis (R-Olney), Rep. Dwight Kay (R-Edwardsville), Tom Morrison (R-Palatine), Mary Flowers (D-Chicago), and David Harris (R-Mount Prospect).
 
Former House minority leader Rep. Tom Cross joined two other Republicans, Ron Sandack (R-Downers Grove) and Ed Sullivan (R-Mundelein)  in breaking with the party platform and supporting this radical liberal bill.
 
Responding to the many references to the Civil Rights movement, Rep. Flowers stated, “When I was discriminated against, it is not because of who I love, but because of the color of my skin…Homosexuality has nothing to do with race.” Flowers continued, “Even if the legal definition of marriage was changed, those two people will never be married in God’s eyes.”
 
Rep. Kay declared, “I’ve heard nothing today about the Scriptures. The only thing I’ve heard is about human rights. So I guess we’ve backed away from our heritage in this nation which we seem to do quite regularly for the expediency of what we wish to do at the moment. And ladies and gentlemen, that’s pride. That’s a belief that you’re better than the very foundation…which we find in the Scriptures.”
 
The vote came less than two weeks after an estimated 4,000 people descended upon Springfield supporting the definition of marriage as being between one man and woman on October 23rd.

SB 10 will go to the desk of Governor Pat Quinn who has publicly expressed his eagerness to sign the bill.
 
How Did Your Representative Vote?

CLICK HERE for the roll call.

 

To see the full video or separate segments of the debate, CLICK HERE.

Over the weekend, I was made aware of the Facebook comments of two of Illinois’ elected lawmakers in response to my article on the impending marriage redefinition vote in which I examined the appeals to emotion that are relentlessly exploited by the Left to divert attention from the intellectual shallowness and inconsistency of the Left’s poor arguments.

These Facebook responses illustrate both the dishonesty and lack of maturity that also inform the movement to normalize homosexuality and pervert the legal definition of marriage.

The first was a comment from the bill’s chief sponsor State Representative Greg Harris (D-Chicago) who either completely misunderstood one of the central points of my article or, more likely, intentionally misrepresented what I actually said.

Harris wrote that I believe:

Family values don’t include church going, homemaking, raising children, doing chores together or helping your spouse go through cancer if you happen to be a lesbian.

What I actually argued is that caring for children, managing finances, attending church, doing chores, and caring for one another during an illness does not mean the adults engaged in those activities are married. Note, I never claimed that those activities are unrelated to family life or family values. I said the presence of those activities does not mean that those engaged in them are in a marital union. I said that the presence of those activities does not mean that marriage is wholly unrelated to sexual complementarity. My point was clear that marriage is not constituted solely by those activities.

It is neither honest nor helpful to misrepresent an opponent’s argument. The public deserves more from the elected employees whose salaries they pay.

Moving from the dishonesty of politicians to the lack of maturity of politicians, we can look to the Facebook post of lesbian State Representative Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago) who wrote this about me:

This is the same woman who described me [Cassidy] as a ‘perfervid promoter of all things homosexual.’ She [Higgins] definitely got a word of the day calendar for Christmas last year.

The response of this public servant who is pushing to radically change the legal definition of society’s bedrock social institution—a change that will diminish religious freedom; undermine the inherent right of children to be raised by a mother and father, preferably their own; inevitably lead to the legalization of plural unions—is to mock the fact that I know words that she apparently does not.

What Harris, Cassidy, Alderman Deb Mell, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and Governor Patrick Quinn should do is respond to the questions about marriage that IFI has posed: What is marriage? Why is the government involved? If marriage is constituted solely by intense loving feelings, why should it be limited to two people? What is the origin and reason for the requirement that only two people may marry? If marriage is constituted solely by love with no inherent connection to reproductive potential, why shouldn’t close blood relatives or platonic friends be permitted to “marry”? Do children have an inherent right to be raised by a mother and father—preferably their own biological mothers and fathers?

Mockery, dishonesty, appeals to emotion, and a relentless refusal to respond to these central questions about marriage do not reflect well on our public servants and do not well serve the public.

We need to fight for marriage with intelligence, honesty, seriousness, tenacity, courage, conviction, and prayer.

 Please, click HERE to to support our work in the public square.

Politicians and pundits are making mincemeat of marriage, faith, and religious liberty.

Rumors are circulating that Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) and homosexual activist, State Representative Greg Harris (D-Chicago) may call for a vote on the marriage redefinition bill (SB 10) next week. Because their ideological accomplices in the political and punditry spheres are promoting this effort with fervor and tenacity, it’s essential that Illinoisans understand the specious nature of the arguments that animate them. The Chicago Tribune once again provides a cornucopia of lousy — that is to say, false and destructive — ideas about marriage, ideas which, unfortunately, extend beyond the narrow boundaries of the Tribune and the narrow minds of newly installed Chicago Alderman Deb Mell, Tribune columnist Eric Zorn, and Governor Pat Quinn.

Lesbian activist Deb Mell’s recent Tribune commentary isn’t actually a rational argument for the redefinition of marriage. Rather, it’s an extended piece of demagoguery that embodies and conceals a troubling set of assumptions and an absurd conclusion. And it’s the only thing Mell’s got, so she repeats it ad nauseum.

To summarize her “argument”: She and her partner have been together for nine years, they own a home together, they do household chores together, they are raising a child together, they assume extended familial roles together, they attend a church that rejects orthodoxy together, they care for one another during illness, and they manage their finances together. Therefore, marriage has no inherent connection to sexual complementarity.

Yes, folks, that’s what passes for an argument in the alternate universe called “progressivism.” No attempt to define marriage. No attempt to justify why marriage is restricted to two people. No attempt to explain why platonic friends, siblings, or polyamorists — all of whom can do all the things listed above — should not have their unions legally recognized as marriages. No attempt to justify the deliberate denial of children’s inherent right to be raised by both a mother and father, preferably their own biological mother and father. No attempt to explain what the government interest is in inherently non-reproductive types of relationships.

While Mell replaces sound logic with appeals to emotion, Eric Zorn replaces it with ad hominem arguments and condescending dismissals, starting with calling business owners who make distinctions between right and wrong actions “intolerant.” To business owners like the Christian photographers who have been fined $6,637 for declining to photograph a lesbian commitment ceremony, Zorn offers these tolerant and compassionate responses: “Tough,” “Please,” “Yawn,” and “Then don’t open a business.”

Zorn believes that anyone who makes moral judgments with which he disagrees is intolerant. One wonders, would Zorn similarly malign a photographer who refused to photograph a commitment ceremony between a father and his 30 year-old consenting daughter? And let’s complicate the question by hypothesizing this refusal comes during a time when laws prohibiting incestuous acts between consenting adults have been repealed. After all, the government has no business in our bedrooms.

Out of either ignorance or dishonesty, Zorn fails to address the fact that the photographers did not decline to photograph homosexuals. They declined to photograph a homosexual ceremony. They were not discriminating against people. They were making legitimate ethical distinctions among types of activities—an inconvenient truth for “progressives.”

Zorn seems to believe that the ultimate arbiter of all matters moral is THE LAW. Yes, laws like the Illinois Human Rights Act, which was created by Left-leaning Illinois politicians in cahoots with homosexual activists, are the ultimate arbiters of moral truth. Regarding religious liberty, Zorn says:

“You want to open a business that serves the public? Then you can’t practice discrimination on the basis of…religion…sexual orientation and so on….The law [the IL Human Rights Act] doesn’t care what you think about customers in these protected categories.”

Zorn doesn’t seem to see his inconsistent application of both a principle and a law. He uses the law that prohibits discrimination based on “sexual orientation” and religion to compel business owners to engage in an activity that violates their religious beliefs.

Further, “sexual orientation” is merely a dishonest term concocted to disguise the fact that a condition constituted by subjective sexual desires and volitional sexual acts has no similarity to other protected categories. Zorn with unequivocal eagerness subordinates religious liberty to the newly minted sexual “rights” of homosexuals. Methinks there’s some rollicking grave-rolling roiling the cemeteries of our Founding Fathers.

Zorn harrumphs that the religious protections in the proposed marriage revision bill that protect the right of churches to refuse to solemnize homosexual “weddings” are all the protections conservative people of faith deserve. This exposes Zorn’s ignorance of what it means to be a Christian and what the First Amendment was intended to protect. The totality of the life of a Christian is informed by his or her faith. There is no distinction between the sacred and the secular spheres for true followers of Christ, a point Martin Luther King Jr. eloquently expressed in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

Governor Quinn, who claims to be a Roman Catholic, reveals, like Zorn, a troubling measure of theological ignorance. Quinn defends his defiance of the teachings of the Catholic Church on marriage by stating that he is acting in accordance with his “conscience.” Zorn and Quinn share a strange and stunted view of faith, doctrine, and religious liberty. Zorn wants to keep religion out of the public square. Quinn wants to keep it out of the public square and his conscience.

IFI is extending an urgent plea to our readers to take a few moments to express your opposition to SB 10, the bill that will permit the government to recognize non-marital unions as marriages, will harm children, and will further undermine religious liberty. It’s not just homosexual activists in Illinois who are watching this vote. Homosexual activists and their ideological allies throughout the country are watching Illinois. So too are conservatives in other states in which marriage is now or soon will be under attack. Defeat of this bill will offer hope to them.

Take ACTION: Send an email or a fax to your state representative.  Encourage your him/her to uphold marriage, family and religious freedom in Illinois by voting against SB 10.  Then take a moment to call the Capitol switchboard at (217) 782-2000 and ask your state representative to vote NO to SB 10.

 Please help your Illinois Family Institute remain strong in this fight.  
Please, click HERE to contribute what you can today.

Thank you.