Thursday, we witnessed again an arrogant Leftist lawmaker demonstrate his disregard for constitutional principles—specifically for the First Amendment’s religious protections and the prohibition of a religious test for holding office.

In the U.S. Senate inquisition confirmation hearing for Secretary of State nominee and current CIA Director Mike Pompeo, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) both interrogated and lectured Director Pompeo on sexual ethics.

Here is the astonishing exchange:

Booker: I do want to give you a chance to speak on your comments about gay and lesbians. You said in a speech that morning in America that endorses perversion and calls it an alternative lifestyle.” Those are your words. Is being gay a perversion?

Pompeo: Senator, when I was a politician, I had a very clear view on whether it was appropriate for two same-sex persons to marry. I stand by that.

Booker: So, you do not believe that it’s appropriate for two gay people to marry?

Pompeo: Senator, I continue to hold that view.

Booker: So, people in the State Department… that are married, under your leadership, you do not believe that that should be allowed.

Pompeo: We have married gay couples at the CIA. You should know that I treated them with the exact same set of rights…

Booker [interrupting Pompeo]: Do you believe gay sex is a perversion? Yes or no.

Pompeo: Senator, if I can…

Booker [interrupting again]: Yes or no. Do you believe that gay sex is a perversion, ‘cuz it’s what you said…? Yes or no? Do you believe gay sex is a perversion?

Pompeo: Sir, my respect for every individual regardless of sexual orientation is the same.

Booker: I will conclude by saying, Sir, that you’re going to be Secretary of State of the United States at a time when we have an increase in hate speech and hate actions…. You’re going to be representing this country and their values abroad in nations where gay individuals are under untold persecution, untold violence. Your views do matter. You’re going to be dealing with Muslim states and on Muslim issues. And I do not necessarily concur that you are put foring [sic] the values of our nation when you believe there are people in our country that are perverse….

If you can stomach it, you can watch the inquisition:

It would have served Booker well to watch the speech from which the quote about homosexuality came. The words were not Pompeo’s. They were Pastor Joe Wright’s words and well worth repeating.

Booker did what Leftists everywhere do when discussing conservative views on homosexuality, which is lie by changing someone’s moral claim about volitional behavior to an indictment of people. So, while Pompeo believes that homosexual acts are immoral (i.e., perverse), Booker reframes Pompeo’s claim, saying that Booker thinks people are perverse.

Then Booker suggests the ludicrous notion that the values of America include believing that homoerotic activity is not perverse. How did he arrive at that bizarre belief? From reading the Declaration of Independence? The U.S. Constitution? The Federalist Papers?

Presumably, Booker worships at the altar of diversity—or at least pretends to worship at the altar of diversity. If that’s the case, surely he knows that theologically orthodox Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims believe volitional homoerotic activity is perverse. And surely he knows it’s possible for people of faith to love and respect those who believe differently and act in accordance with their beliefs. Respecting persons does not require affirming all their beliefs, feelings, and actions.

As a professed respecter of “the values of our nation,” does Booker think he should be condemning the theological beliefs of many people of faith?

And what does Booker think about the untold persecution and violence that theologically orthodox Christians experience abroad? Is Booker concerned about how his very public condemnation of theologically orthodox views of sexuality and marriage may affect Christians here and abroad? The Center for the Study of Global Christianity “estimates that between the years 2005-2015, 900,000 Christians were martyred—an average of 90,000 Christians each year.”

Since all theologically orthodox Christians–both Catholic and Protestant–believe that homosexual activity is perverse and that marriage has a nature central to which is sexual differentiation, is Booker suggesting that no theologically orthodox Christians are fit to serve in the Cabinet? What about holding office?

Booker also criticized Pompeo for not challenging Frank Gaffney’s and Brigitte Gabriel’s statements on Islam. Apparently, candidates for high offices now have a moral obligation to not only hold Booker’s views on everything from what constitutes a false religion to sexual ethics but must also criticize anyone who doesn’t hold those views. I wonder if Booker has criticized every person with whom he has spent time for views with which he disagrees.

Ironically, in this self-righteous criticism of Pompeo for not challenging Gaffney and Gabrielle—and presumably every other human with whom Pompeo has come in contact—Booker said this:

Well, I believe that special obligation that you talk about for Americans to condemn things that are attacking our Constitution, our ideals, would obligate you in your own definition to speak out.

Pompeo tried to defend himself against the implied accusation that he hasn’t sufficiently confronted the expression of offensive ideas:

Senator, if I might, I have called out. We had a terrible fellow in Kansas named Fred Phelps [Booker tried to cut Pompeo off], and I called him out.

Booker interrupted him again saying, “Sir, I have a minute left.” It became obvious that all the condescending Booker really wanted to do was scold Pompeo.

Booker said one right thing in his interrogation: Views do matter.

#nooneexpectstheBookerInquisition

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send an email to U.S. Senator’s Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth to urge them to confirm Mike Pomeo’s nomination. Ask them not to ignore the fact that U.S. Constitution specifically forbids religious tests for office.

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This afternoon, we witnessed again an arrogant Leftist lawmaker demonstrate his disregard for constitutional principles—specifically for the First Amendment’s religious protections and the prohibition of a religious test for holding office.

In the U.S. Senate inquisition confirmation hearing for Secretary of State nominee and current CIA Director Mike Pompeo, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) both interrogated and lectured Director Pompeo on sexual ethics.

READ MORE

On Dec. 6, 2011 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a speech in honor of International Human Rights Day which is celebrated on Dec. 10, the date in 1948 when the United Nations formally adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But as we should have expected from a representative of the fervently pro-perversion Obama Administration, Clinton used the occasion to promulgate unproven, liberal assumptions about homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder (GID).

With the usual cunning of the Left, Clinton begins her speech by referring to the “beating, terrorizing, and executing” of homosexuals, but then with some skillful bait-and-switch rhetoric, she starts talking about undefined “discrimination.” Such a speech would be justified if Clinton were actually concerned only with real human rights abuses such as draconian laws that call for the execution of homosexuals or for acts of violence ignored by police. But anyone familiar with the incoherent world of “progressivism,” understands that moral disapproval of homosexual acts becomes “discrimination” which ineluctably results in “bullying” or “terrorizing.”

Clinton’s repeated use of the absurd comparison of race to homosexuality reveals that intelligence is no guarantee of wisdom. Even really smart people often hold ignorant and foolish ideas. Whereas race is 100 percent heritable, in all cases immutable, and has no behavioral implications that are amenable to moral evaluation, homosexuality is not biologically determined, is in some cases changeable, and is constituted by volitional acts that are legitimate objects of moral evaluation. Someone should ask Clinton to explain the ways she believes race is analogous to homosexuality.

Clinton asserts that “Because we are human, we therefore have rights. And because we have rights, governments are bound to protect them.” Of course, she spent little time explaining exactly what rights she believes all people are entitled to because they’re human. She referred ambiguously to “the full measure of liberty, the full experience of dignity, and the full benefits of humanity,” [emphasis added] which sounds benign enough. To progressives, however, such noble phrases don’t mean only freedom from involuntary servitude, free speech, or the right to vote. To homosexual activists and their ideological allies, the “full measure of liberty, the full experience of dignity, and the full benefits of humanity” demands, for example, that they be given the unilateral right to reconstruct the legal definition of marriage.

Since Clinton can’t appeal to reason, she pulls on the heartstrings of those in her audience for whom “feelings” trump moral reason: “We need to ask ourselves, ‘How would it feel if it were a crime to love the person I love?'” If there are laws somewhere in the world that criminalize “love,” I haven’t heard of them. There are countries around the world that have unjust marital laws, but marital laws — just and unjust — prohibit acts, not feelings.

Here in the U.S., we have laws that prohibit polyamorists from marrying all the people they love, but there are no laws that criminalize their love. We have laws that prohibit close blood relatives from marrying, but there are no laws that criminalize their love. And most states have just and reasonable marital laws that prohibit men from marrying men and women from marrying women, but there are no laws that criminalize their love.

Clinton alludes to the Obama Administration’s troubling intention to withhold foreign aid from countries that don’t share the moral views of American “progressives” on homosexuality and cross-dressing and of the Obama administration’s creation of a Global Equality Fund which will use $3 million of taxpayer money to fund homosexuality-affirming efforts around the world. Peter Sprigg aptly describes this as “cultural imperialism.” The Obama Administration is using our taxes to disseminate non-factual, fallacious moral, philosophical, and political propositions throughout the world.

Clinton shared that she has experienced a “deepening” of her convictions about homosexuality as she has “devoted more thought to it, engaged in dialogues and debates, and established personal and professional relationships with people who are gay.” In the past, Secretary Clinton has been open about her Christian faith, and in this speech, she shared that her “religious belief and practice is a vital source of meaning and identity, and fundamental to who” she is. One wonders if in all her dialogues, debates, and thinking, she ever seriously studied the work of scholars throughout the history of the church on the topic of homosexuality. Since prior to the late 20th Century, no Old Testament or New Testament scholar affirmed what some refer to as “gay theology,” it’s surprising to see intelligent people like Clinton (and Obama) embracing what many of the best scholars, including contemporary biblical scholars, would consider heresy.

Clinton concluded with these words: “As it has happened so many times before, opinion will converge once again with the truth, the immutable truth, that all persons are created free and equal in dignity and rights.” Ever the diplomat, Clinton implies without explicitly stating that her beliefs about the nature and morality of homosexuality are “immutable truths.” Whereas it is true that all humans are equal in worth and dignity, it is not true that all beliefs and behavioral choices are equal in worth or dignity. The troubling notion that permeates Clinton’s speech is that a society that honors the dignity and liberty of all must embrace the ontological and moral beliefs of homosexuals.

For progressives, powerful, persistent feelings and volitional acts — at least powerful, persistent homosexual feelings and acts — are constitutive of identity and inherently moral. For progressives, to believe such feelings are disordered and such acts immoral represents an act of illegitimate discrimination against persons. But Christians understand that in this fallen world, our feelings are disordered, our will perverted, and our intellect corrupted — hence the need for laws.

And on that point IFI agrees with Secretary Clinton who accurately stated that “progress comes from changes in laws…. Laws have a teaching effect.” The question is, will America have laws that embody and teach truth — or not?