Looking over a list of Christian conferences coming up in 2023 I ran across one that states it is for: “LGBTQ+ Christians who have committed to celibacy as a personal call in their spiritual journeys.”

Here are some of the bios of the speakers:

“(Speaker A) identifies as cis/gay/queer and is the mom of a grown son from a 25-year mixed-orientation marriage.”

“(Speaker B, He/Him) is passionate about the intersection of faith, sexuality, and… facilitates conversations among Christian sexual and gender minorities.”

“(Rev. Speaker C, she/her) is…an outspoken advocate for youth ministry and social justice, (she/her) has worked as a youth leader, Children, Youth and Family Pastor, (has used) theatrical and improvisational elements in services but also to respond to God as a worship light and (has been)…a drag king, and occasional amateur DJ.”

“(Speaker D) was raised in a Christian home that was heavily involved in addiction recovery ministries. While leading in a large evangelical campus fellowship her first two years of college, (she) had a crisis of faith and ultimately joined a new group specifically created for Queer people of faith on campus. Attending (this same conference) in 2019 was a huge turning point for her, where she felt able to fully embrace her identity. She has gone through a long period of deconstructing her faith and continues to ponder the liberating potential of faith. She frames Jesus as her earliest example of what a revolutionary can look like.”

It goes on.

Where the Battle Fiercely Rages

This issue reminds me of the following quote:

“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christianity.  Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace to him, if he flinches at that one point.” — A follower of Martin Luther, 2 April 1526, quoted in Chronicles of the Schönberg-Cotta Family (New York, 1865), page 321.

The front-line of the battle in Evangelicalism today is that of sexual ethics: Marriage, divorce, remarriage, fornication, adultery, pornography, abortion, same-sex attraction, “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” “gender fluidity,” “non-binary,” “non-conforming,” transgender, and of course, the entire alphabet soup of titles and “preferred gender pronouns.”

In 2014, the liberal Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) published an article promoting the acceptance of “gay” as a category for Christians but offering the suggestion of celibacy for those who are not “married.” The United Methodist Church (UMC) also led with this path.

Christian colleges and university are also impacted by this movement. For instance, Calvin University (a school in Grand Rapids, MI that is connected to the Dutch Reformed tradition) has (in 2022) denounced premarital sex and defined marriage as between a man and a woman, however it still allows a support group for LGBTQ students on campus. In the 2020-21 academic year, the school allowed a bisexual student to be elected as student body president.

Matthew Vines, a self-identified “gay” man, and a Presbyterian authored the popular book God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships. Vines promotes celibacy outside of marriage but believes “gay Christians” have a theological case for same-sex marriage.

He has helped to shift the nature of the dialogue on this issue among Evangelicals. He says, “It’s a subtle but significant shift. (People are now) saying, ‘There’s nothing wrong with being gay in and of itself,’ and that is a big change.”

Moving the Goalpost

It is believed by many activists that the way to normalize all LGBTQIA+ issues is to take the path of least resistance with Evangelicals. If you claim to be celibate or “non-practicing,” then everyone drops their guard and chills out. Pragmatically, their theory seems to work. This approach has been repeatedly attempted in the more conservative Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) denomination, who so far has withstood the acceptance of those into positions of leadership who self-identify as “gay Christian,” “homosexual Christian,” or even “same-sex attracted Christian.” Even some Southern Baptists are moving in this direction. Some of their top seminary faculty have spoken at conferences that affirm the acceptance of “identity” as long as the individuals are non-practicing.

The Law of Identity

Many LGBTQIA+ advocates claim Jesus never taught on the matter, and they infer from this that He must have approved of such ideas. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Jesus said, regarding sexuality:

“Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So, they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matt. 19:4-6, ESV).

The first law of formal logic is “The Law of Identity.” This very basic law asserts that “whatever a thing is, it is.” This kind of thesis also presents a “Classical Negation.” If something is true, the opposite is false (the Law of Non-Contradiction), and truth cannot in this sense be both true AND false (the Law of the Excluded Middle). So, when Jesus says there are two sexual categories of humans (male and female) in the original creation, He is describing a Universal Elimination all other possibilities.

A New Identity

One of the churches the Apostle Paul founded in the middle of the first century had many of the same sexual problems that exist in America today. Rather than teaching them to see themselves as “Christian swindlers” “Christian adulterers,” or such, Paul emphasized their rebirth and new identity in Christ.

“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:9-11, ESV, emphasis added).

Paul encouraged them to identify their past sins and struggles but to look forward, not back. You will never overcome a sin or habit that you believe you ARE. If something defines your very existence, you will never move past it because it controls you. You may be a male or female who struggles with same-sex attraction (or illicit heterosexual attraction), but rather than defining yourself by a temptation, you should not only abstain from sin, but pursue righteousness instead.

“We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin” (Rom. 6:6).

This issue of identity is not just a side issue. It is the dam that holds back the floodgates of immorality in the Church. If you ARE something other than God says He made you to be, that makes Him out to be a liar. That makes humans, not God, the arbiters and definers of sexuality. The original argument in the garden from that serpent was, “Hath God REALLY said?” That is the enemy’s same approach today. God did not make anyone “gay” or “transgender.” He made them male and female. Sin has made them all these other things by which they self-identify. The solution is the same one the Church has been preaching for 2,000 years: The gospel of Jesus Christ that forgives sin and changes sinners.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is a man for such a time as this. He has a titanium spine, a precisely tuned moral compass, and an intellect that makes him a worthy foe of leftist sophists and dissemblers in the legacy media. His tenacious willingness to challenge destructive ideas through word and deed terrifies and enrages leftists who fear he may one day be president of the United States. Their response to truth and courage is—as usual—lies and epithets.

The latest act of DeSantis to cause conniptions among the brittle leftist masses was his signing a bill into law to protect the parental rights of children, focusing primarily on ages 5-9. This is the summary of the “Parental Rights in Education” law that leftists have deceitfully renamed the “Don’t Say Gay” law:

Requires district school boards to adopt procedures that comport with certain provisions of law for notifying student’s parent of specified information; requires such procedures to reinforce fundamental right of parents to make decisions regarding upbringing & control of their children; prohibits school district from adopting procedures or student support forms that prohibit school district personnel from notifying parent about specified information or that encourage student to withhold from parent such information; prohibits school district personnel from discouraging or prohibiting parental notification & involvement in critical decisions affecting student’s mental, emotional, or physical well-being; [and] prohibits classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in certain grade levels [K-3].

This new law is intended to stop or prevent leftist activists/re-educators from interfering in the relationship between parents and their children.

In addition to prohibiting classroom discussions of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” in kindergarten through third grade, the law also prohibits age or developmentally inappropriate discussions of those topics in older grades. This section of the law really enrages the worker bees who want to use their publicly subsidized jobs to gather the minds of other people’s children into the regressive hive mind. Leftists are buzzing cacophonously because in Florida they will no longer be free to colonize the minds of young children.

The Walt Disney Company released a statement condemning the law and declaring war on all Floridians whose elected representatives passed it, saying,

Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that. 

So, Disney—purveyor of “entertainment” for young children—wants to ensure the indoctrination of young children in government schools.

If huge corporations with bulging bank accounts can repeal duly enacted state laws, are we any longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people?

Ryan Thoreson writing for the leftist Human Rights Watch bemoans the requirement that in grades 4-12, discussions of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” must be “age appropriate.” He ironically complains,

[The law] does not specify what would be considered age-appropriate, or who decides.

This complaint is ironic in that leftists continually assert that every piece of deviant and obscene material to which they expose children is “age” and “developmentally appropriate.” And they rarely if ever specify what would be considered age-appropriate and who decides.

As I have urged for over a decade, parents should be asking those questions and demanding specificity in the answers. If schools say an external organization established the criteria used to determine age and developmental- appropriateness, parents should ask for the name of the organization. Parents should find out whether the organization has an ideological bias or if its members are evenly balanced between “progressive” and conservative views. And parents should demand to know what the specific criteria are.

If an in-district committee was formed to establish criteria for determining appropriateness of material, parents should ask who specifically formed it and how was it formed? What are the names of the members? Is the committee evenly balanced between “progressive” and conservative members? What are the specific criteria used to determine the appropriateness of material?

Thoreson, like countless other sexual deviance advocates, frets that school staff will no longer be free to keep secrets from parents:

It would significantly limit the ability of counselors and teachers to be a confidential resource for students, including LGBT students who may not feel safe or comfortable asking questions about sexual orientation or gender identity to family members. 

It is astonishing that any faculty members or administrators ever arrogated to themselves the right to keep secrets from parents.

Take a look at the contrast between “progressive” and conservative beliefs pertaining to sexuality. You decide which set of beliefs are taught and promoted in public schools and which are banned:

• Leftists believe there is no child too young to expose to ontological and moral beliefs about “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” and that public school teachers should do the exposing. Conservatives believe that children ages 5-9 are too young to expose to complex ideas about homosexuality and gender dysphoria and that parents—not teachers—should be addressing these issues or not with their own young children.

• Leftists think conservative views make people “unsafe,” by which they mean uncomfortable. Conservatives think leftist beliefs lead to suffering.

• Leftists believe that homosexuality is analogous to race, while never identifying any points of correspondence between homoerotic desire per se and race/skin color per se. In contrast, conservatives believe homosexuality is analogous to other phenomena constituted by disordered erotic desires and volitional acts, like close-kin “love,” polyamory, and zoophilia.

• Leftists believe that homoerotic acts are as morally acceptable as heterosexual acts. Conservatives believe homoerotic acts are intrinsically immoral.

• Leftists believe any numerical and sexual configuration of parental relationships are equally respectable and equally good for children. Conservatives believe that homosexual (and poly) family structures harm children and society.

• Leftists believe the desire to be the opposite sex is a good and properly ordered desire and that chemically and surgically altering one’s body to appear to be the opposite sex are ethically justifiable acts. Conservatives believe such desires are disordered and that such acts are exercises in futility that deny reality and jeopardize physical, emotional, and mental health.

• Leftists believe that if there is a mismatch between one’s thoughts/desires about one’s maleness or femaleness and one’s healthy properly functioning body, the error is in the body. Conservatives believe the error is in the mind.

Leftists are not angry that discussions of homoeroticism and gender dysphoria can no longer take place in K-3 classrooms in Florida. Leftists have long supported censorship of conservative views of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” in the classroom.

Rather, devotees of diversity, equity, and inclusion are angry that their assumptions about “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” can no longer be promoted in early elementary school.

Leftists defend their de facto censorship of conservative views of homoerotic acts and cross-sex identification by claiming that such views are signs of conservative hatred of persons. But the belief that conservatives hate those who identify as “LGBTQ” is a leftist, socially constructed and imposed belief. Most people are fully capable of loving those who hold different beliefs and who live in accordance with those beliefs. Most people do that every day. It is leftists who hate those who hold different beliefs and make life choices consistent with those beliefs.

What conservatives hate is leftists using government schools to impose their beliefs on the children of conservatives. Governor DeSantis and Florida lawmakers hope to stop the scourge of leftists using schools and taxpayer funds to ideologically groom other people’s children.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/DeSantis-Leads.mp3

How far gone is Illinois? And by “gone,” I mean arrogantly and divisively leftist.

Well, despite statewide and even nationwide condemnation of the proposed “Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards,”  the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) failed to stop the controversial standards.

In a vote delayed by one day, JCAR voted 6-5 along partisan lines to, in effect, approve these standards, which will infuse the assumptions of Critical Race Theory/ identity politics/BLM into 1. all teacher-training programs, 2. all Professional Education Licensing (PEL), and 3. indirectly into all public school classrooms.

Not even yesterday’s plea from the left-leaning Chicago Tribune Editorial Board to JCAR not to pass these controversial standards—standards that the editorial board described as politicized—was sufficient to stop the Democrats in JCAR from further exploiting government schools for leftist propaganda purposes.

Ideological diversity—already a rare commodity in government schools—will be now be further diminished in favor of promoting arguable leftist beliefs about identity, “systems of oppression,” “sex and gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, racism, sexism, homophobia, unearned privilege,” and “Eurocentrism.”

The standards were created by a committee hand-picked by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), which is controlled by leftists. While having the effect of law, these standards constitute an amendment to existing school code, so they did not have to go through the normal lawmaking process, which would involve more transparency, floor debates in Springfield, and every Illinois lawmaker publicly voting.

In the wake of nationwide criticism of the “woke” standards, the ISBE issued a statement with this chuckle-worthy, chuckleheaded claim:

The standards were developed by a diverse group of educators from around the state.

Just curious, how many in this “diverse group of educators” are critics of Critical Race Theory and BLM, or find fault with the ideas of Ibram X. Kendi, Ta-Nehesi Coates, and Robin DiAngelo?

The ISBE’s statement also said the following:

The Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards apply to teacher preparation programs, not to K-12 school curricula. ISBE also will offer optional professional development on the standards to current educators. Educators and school districts maintain local control over what professional development they choose.

This is a transparent effort to mollify and silence critics of the infusion of leftist beliefs on race, American history, homosexuality, and “trans”-cultism into curricula. But “deplorables” are not stupid. We all know that “teacher preparation” is intended to and will shape both professional development and curricula.

As a result of the widespread condemnation of the leftist-created standards, the ISBE begrudgingly tossed an insignificant sop in the direction of Illinoisans who oppose the divisive politicization of education. Nervous ISBE leftists changed the word “progressive” to “inclusive.” For example, here is an original pre-condemnation sentence from the standards:

The culturally responsive teacher and leader will … Embrace and encourage progressive viewpoints and perspectives that leverage asset thinking toward traditionally marginalized populations.

Here is the worthless, one-word, post-condemnation change ISBE wokesters threw to Illinois serfs:

The culturally responsive teacher and leader will … Embrace and encourage inclusive viewpoints and perspectives that leverage asset thinking toward traditionally marginalized populations.

As I wrote last week, the unelected wokesters on the ISBE committee that created these radical standards think Illinois conservatives are stupid. They think we don’t realize that their definition of “inclusive” excludes conservative viewpoints.

They also think conservatives won’t notice the inclusion of the adverb “traditionally,” which necessarily excludes contemporary marginalized populations, like the theologically orthodox Christian population, which is today excluded, hated, and cancelled.

This is what’s called a distinction without a difference—a distinction intended to dupe the deplorables.

In another document, the ISBE makes another chuckle-worthy, eye-roller of a statement about the effects of these new ideological diktats:

The standards will help combat the teacher shortage. They will help educators become better teachers and experience higher job satisfaction, which makes them more likely to stay in the profession.

No acknowledgment of the teachers who will leave the profession or of those future teachers who will no longer consider teaching in Illinois because they know that Illinois schools are places of oppression that require ideological submission.

Here are just a few of the controversial ideas that Illinois will now force teacher-training programs and professional licensure to impose on all future “teachers, school support personnel” and administrators. Please note, that “identities” include homosexuality, cross-sex impersonation, and “gender fluidity”:

• Value the notion that … there is not one “correct” way of doing or understanding something.

• “Assess how their own biases and perceptions affect their teaching practice and how they access tools to mitigate their own racist, sexist, homophobic, Eurocentric behavior or unearned privilege.”

• Be aware of the effects of power and privilege and the need for social advocacy and social action to better empower diverse students and communities.

• Encourage and affirm the personal experiences … students share in the classroom.

• Consistently solicit students’ input on the curriculum.

• Co-create, with students, the collective expectations and agreements regarding the physical space and social-emotional culture of the classroom.

• Create a risk-taking space that promotes student activism and advocacy.

• Invite family and community members to teach about topics that are culturally specific and aligned to the classroom curriculum or content area.

• Intentionally embrace student identities and prioritize representation in the curriculum.

• Implement and integrate the wide spectrum and fluidity of identities in the curriculum.

• Ensure text selections reflect students’ classroom, community, and family culture.

• Ensure teacher and students co-create content to include a counternarrative to dominant culture.

• Promote robust discussion with the intent of raising consciousness that reflects modern society and the ways in which cultures and communities intersect.

• Consider a broader modality of student assessments [i.e., grades and testing], such as … “social justice work.”

In my mind’s eye, I see more Illinois families planning their exit from public schools and more families planning their exit from this politically “woke,” intellectually slumbering, and morally vacuous state.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Illinois-Passes-Controversial-Leftist-Teacher-Training-Mandate.mp3

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Written by John Stonestreet and Roberto Rivera

Many Christians, especially when it comes to LGBT-related issues, have bought into what might be called “the inevitability thesis.” Nearly everything in our culture has convinced them to assume that it is futile for anyone to resist their same-sex attractions. And, any attempt to help someone, especially young people, reduce their behaviors and attractions is just as futile, and probably even illegal. 

After all, many believe, legislatures have adopted and courts have upheld bans on such things. Pastors, youth pastors, Christian-school teachers, entire counseling degree programs at Christian colleges and seminaries, and plenty of parents have embraced the “inevitability thesis” when it comes to LGBT issues, and now refuse either to address these questions at all, or, if they do, they still refuse to counter the cultural consensus they assume has been settled.

A ruling last month from the 11^th Circuit court challenges the inevitability thesis. 

In 2017, the city of Boca Raton and the county of Palm Beach in Florida joined a growing list of jurisdictions that have adopted bans on “Sexual Orientation Change Efforts.” By ordinance, licensed professional counselors are prohibited from treating minors with the goal of “changing [their] sexual orientation or gender identity.” When Robert Otto and Julie Hamilton, two licensed counselors, challenged the ordinances in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, their chances of success seemed slim to none. After all, similar bans had already been challenged and upheld in the 9th and 3rd Circuit Courts. 

Judge Britt Grant of the 11th Circuit, however, sided with Otto and Hamilton. The counselors told the court that the ordinances “infringe on their constitutional right to speak freely with clients,” including those who have sought counseling because of “sincerely held religious beliefs conflicting with homosexuality.” Judge Grant found these free-speech restrictions of the ordinances to be “presumptively unconstitutional.” 

While Judge Grant acknowledged that the kind of therapy Otto and Hamilton practice to be “highly controversial,” which is why dozens of states and municipalities have banned it, the ordinances applied only “to particular speech because of the topic discussed or the idea or message expressed.” The First Amendment, Judge Grant clarified, “has no carveout for controversial speech.” Despite the government’s “legitimate authority to protect children,” speech, no matter how controversial, “cannot be suppressed solely to protect the young from ideas or images that a legislative body thinks unsuitable for them.”

 “If the [therapists’] perspective is not allowed here,” Grant concluded, “then the [government’s] perspective can be banned elsewhere.” In other words, what’s sauce for the goose could easily become sauce for the gander. Thus, speech should not be restricted merely because some people object to what is being said. 

Not only does Grant’s decision create what’s called “a conflict in the circuits,” making it all the more probable that the U.S. Supreme Court will have to consider the issue, there is an implicit lesson for anyone tempted by the inevitability thesis. After California and other jurisdictions passed laws restricting what counselors could discuss with their clients, many Christians and Christian institutions chose to conform to ideas and practices they knew to be wrong, so as not to put their licensure, accreditation, or some form of the state’s blessing, at risk. The pressure they felt was, of course, real, but they were mistaken to think there was no further legal recourse available. A similar mistake was made a couple years ago by a Christian adoption agency who had been told they had to place children with same-sex couples. A judge decided against the state in that case as well.

Of course, it’s not clear what decision a newly remade U.S. Supreme Court may return on any of these issues. That’s why the best advice in times like ours remains that given by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, advice we were all reminded of by Rod Dreher: We must not live by lies. While there may be no call for us to stand on every street corner or counter-protest every pride march, the greater challenge for every mom, dad, pastor, professor, youth pastor, or professional counselor, is never, ever to allow ourselves to say or go along with what is not true. Especially when it comes to what it means to be human.

This article was originally published at Breakpoint.org.

One of the most effective ways that Marxists advance their agenda is to change how we talk about things.   When clever rewordings replace the truth, it’s easier to fool people.

For example, the Washington Post this past week said a transgender plaintiff “was designated female at birth, but identifies as male.”

In the blink of an eye, a biological fact – that someone was born a girl – is brushed aside and replaced with a term that implies that male or female sex is assigned, not a natural phenomenon.

In fact, the idea that your sex is “assigned at birth” is an increasingly common description. It validates the Gnostic-based insanity that one’s sex has nothing to do with physiology, just what goes on in people’s heads.  By this reasoning, birth records can be altered to distort reality, which is a way to lie officially.  And to force others to do so as well.

Gavin Grimm, who is now 21, sued the Gloucester County, Virginia school district in 2015 to force them to allow her to use boys’ facilities.  Two years later, the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court but was set aside when President Donald Trump overturned a Barack Obama gender identity school mandate.

But last Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled 2 to 1 that the school board had violated Grimm’s 14th Amendment right against sex discrimination. The high school had offered a gender-neutral bathroom, but the plaintiff’s attorneys rejected that solution, as did the two Obama appointees who sided with Grimm. A George H.W. Bush appointee dissented.

They drew from the bizarre Bostock opinion in June written by, of all people, Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch, which expanded the definition of “sex” in the Civil Right Act of 1964 to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”  Just like that, the Court put every institution in America that won’t kneel to the LGBTQ gods in jeopardy of ruinous lawsuits or even governmental sanctions.

Given the Court’s reasoning, how could any sex-based distinctions, predicated on real and important differences between the sexes, be maintained? Sports teams? Locker rooms? Bathrooms at any business of any size? Private schools?

The transgender movement, for all its caring rhetoric, is not really about eliciting compassion for sexually confused people – something we should embrace. It’s part of the Marxist Left’s campaign to overhaul society and force people to lie.

Anyone not toeing the line, which keeps changing, is “canceled.”  That means being censored, fired, shut out of promotions or jobs, and de-platformed on social media.

Over the years, the Left has peppered our discourse with advocacy-filled descriptions. “Choice” long ago replaced abortion, “gay” replaced homosexuality, and “hater” and “racist” became all-purpose descriptors for anyone dissenting from the Left’s worldview. Erasing biology is just more of the same.

Sometimes, the ideologically-driven changes are more subtle. Journalists now capitalize racial terms, as in Black people and White people. The adjectives, which describe merely one important aspect of the human race, instead become the whole. No more thinking about people just as fellow human beings created in the image of God. Race must be first and foremost in everyone’s minds.

Herded into identity groups, we’re more easily divided and manipulated. Regardless of the impressive racial progress that America has achieved since eradicating slavery and Jim Crow, the media are utterly obsessed with race as the only aspect of humanity worth talking about.

But if America’s “systemic racism” is the main driver of the riots that have raged for the last three months, why are mobs beheading or defacing statues of Jesus and Mary and black heroes like Frederick Douglass or Arthur Ashe, burning churches and Bibles, and looting stores in Chicago’s Magnificent Mile?

There’s method to this madness. Racism is an excuse to pour gasoline on a larger cause – that of taking down America as we know it and replacing it with a socialist utopia. The founders of Black Lives Matter, after all, admit to being “trained Marxists.”

During the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s (which is still with us), activists began forcing journalists and medical professionals to use the term “living with HIV,” as a way to de-stigmatize the disease. You could get kicked out of a medical conference for talking about “AIDS infections” or the “AIDS disease.” They’d not hesitate to beat the drums for “living with covid” if they thought it would advance their cause.

Language is a formidable instrument for human progress when used properly.  But, all too often it can be abused, destroying souls, families, or even entire societies.

The most profound and positive use of language in history was when Jesus offered Himself to everyone on Earth, saying, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life,” and when the Gospel writer John referred to Him as simply The Word.

Amid the current chaos, we need to work hard to preserve America. And, we need to pray that the Marxist-inspired madness and abuse of language will crack up, a victim of its own hostility to truth.

This article was originally published at Townhall.com. You can follow Robert Knight on Twitter @RobertKnight17 and his website is roberthknight.com.

Much of what the homosexual community (i.e., those who choose to place their unchosen homoerotic desires at the center of their identity) claims is false, and increasingly they’re being forced to admit their claims are false. Some of these claims may have been born out of ignorance, others out of a deliberate strategy to deceive. For example, for decades the myth that homosexuals constitute 10 percent of the population continued to be disseminated by homosexuals and their ideological allies long after the statistic had been thoroughly discredited. It was used to promote implicitly the idiotic and destructive idea that the number of people engaging in an act or affirming an “identity” indicates something about the morality of the act or “identity.”

Perhaps the most destructive myth still being promoted has two parts, both false. The first part is that homosexuality is a fixed and heritable condition. The second part says that since homoerotic interest is fixed and biochemically determined, it cannot be transmitted via the environment. Only those born with the determinative biochemical factors will experience homoerotic attraction—or so the homosexual community asserts. This false belief resulted in homosexuals mocking conservatives for their concern that exposure to positive ideas about and images of homosexuality may result in an increase in homoerotic activity.

Now, however, we know there is no single gene for homosexuality. A “genome-wide association study” published in the professional journal Science on August 30, 2019 has made a big media splash for confirming what has long been assumed by scientists: There is no “gay” gene. Unlike skin color or biological sex, homoerotic desire is not biologically determined.

In fact, the researchers (apparently reluctantly) made two interesting admissions. First, they admitted that the genes that may influence same-sex attraction also influence other predispositions:

These aggregate genetic influences partly overlapped with those on a variety of other traits, including…. smoking, cannabis use, risk-taking, and the personality trait “openness to experience.”

Might cannabis-use, risk-taking, and openness to experience lead to experimentation with diverse forms of sexual deviance?

Second, they admitted the influence of environment:

Our study focused on the genetic basis of same-sex sexual behavior, but several of our results point to the importance of sociocultural context as well. We observed changes in prevalence of reported same-sex sexual behavior across time, raising questions about how genetic and sociocultural influences on sexual behavior might interact.

The prevalence of homosexuality in ancient Greece and Rome and in Japan during the Tokugawa period was not a function of an altered gene pool or other biochemical differences but, rather, of differences in cultural views.

Sara Reardon writing in Scientific American explained in layman’s terms more about what the research team did and what their study reveals:

They asked more than 477,000 participants whether they had ever had sex with someone of the same sex, and also questions about sexual fantasies and the degree to which they identified as gay or straight.

The researchers found five single points in the genome that seemed to be common among people who had had at least one same-sex experience…. But taken together, these five markers explained less than 1 percent of the differences in sexual activity among people in the study. When the researchers looked at the overall genetic similarity of individuals who had had a same-sex experience, genetics seemed to account for between 8 and 25 percent of the behavior. The rest was presumably a result of environmental or other biological influences.

Despite the associations, the authors say that the genetic similarities still cannot show whether a given individual is gay. “It’s the end of the ‘gay gene,’” says Eric Vilain, a geneticist at Children’s National Health System in Washington, D.C., who was not involved in the study….

The authors say that they did see links between sexual orientation and sexual activity, but concede that the genetic links do not predict orientation.

Here’s an odd bit of political rhetoric highlighted in the scientific study itself:

The topic explored in this study is complex and intersects with sexuality, identity, and attraction and potentially has civil and political implications for sexual minority groups. Therefore, we have… [e]ngaged with LGBTQIA+ advocacy groups nationally and within our local institutions…. We wish to make it clear that our results overwhelmingly point toward the richness and diversity of human sexuality. Our results do not point toward a role for discrimination on the basis of sexual identity or attraction, nor do our results make any conclusive statements about the degree to which “nature” and “nurture” influence sexual preference.

Why would politically neutral, objective hard science researchers engage with “LGBTQIA+” activists about their research at all? And why include references to intersectionality, “sexual minority groups,” “richness,” and “discrimination”? They explained that the reason for their momentary deviation from science was that “there is a long history of misusing genetic results for social purposes.”

I couldn’t agree more. The homosexual and anti-life communities have long misused genetic results and theories to advance their pernicious cultural agendas.

Many academicians, including homosexual scholars, also claim that the long-promoted notion that “sexual orientation” is fixed is false. Dr. Lisa Diamond, lesbian professor of psychology at the University of Utah (who received her degrees from Cornell University and the University of Chicago) is just one homosexual scholar who argues that “sexual orientation” is fluid. And “Queer Theory” has long affirmed the fluidity of “sexual orientation.”

But mainstream journalists either haven’t been aware of these ideas about “sexual orientation” or realized the political implications of them and feared the response from the tyrannical “LGBTQ” community if they exposed them.

We know that ideas and images can influence desire and volitional acts. Homosexuals have been wrong, and conservatives have not been concerned enough about the influence of pro-homosexual ideas and the pervasiveness of positive images of homosexuality in network and streaming shows, movies, advertising, newspapers, magazines, pornography, and government schools.

The misdirection or disordering of the sex drive can result from abuse as well as exposure to both ideas and images. The extirpation of the taboo against homoerotic acts opened the door to intellectual exploration of the desirability of homoerotic acts as well as experimentation. We will see more homosexual activity and relationships in “civilized” countries that have exalted subjectivism, radical autonomy, sexual libertinism, and rebellion against social norms, while undermining the nuclear family, theological orthodoxy, the notion of a common public good, and sexual taboos.

Let’s look at pornography for a better understanding of the effect of culture on the spread of body-, soul-, and family-destroying sexual deviance.

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation reports that

Fraternity men who consumed mainstream pornography expressed a greater intent to commit rape if they knew they would not be caught than those who did not consume pornography. Those who consumed sadomasochistic pornography expressed significantly less willingness to intervene in situations of sexual violence, greater belief in rape myths, and greater intent to commit rape.

Men were not born with a biochemically determined predilection for rape. Men, like women, are born with a fallen nature that makes them vulnerable to all sorts of sinful desires and acts. Ideas and images can shape the direction of our sinful acts. The sex drive is a powerful impulse that can be misdirected toward diverse inappropriate objects and activities.

Now that the culture at large has embraced first homosexuality as an immutable “identity” that can’t be judged and then homoerotic activity as morally benign, it won’t easily relinquish the pleasures of hedonism when foundational lies that led to acceptance are exposed. That this anti-culture movement has flourished based on a foundation of lies won’t matter to a non-rational society.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Can-Homosexuality-Spread-Via-Culture.mp3

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-and, please-

Readers may have noticed that each of these posts has begun with a citation from one or more articles on the topic of identity politics and then closes by highlighting a paraphilia. This time we will only excerpt two of my favorite writers – the Illinois Family Institute’s Laurie Higgins and Pastor Scott Lively.

These were first posted back in 2014, I began the article with this introduction:

The term “sexual orientation” is a fictitious socio-political construct invented by the left to promulgate the non-scientific idea that homosexual proclivities and temptations are somehow neutral, immutable characteristics that define a same-sex attracted person’s identity. Two well-respected cultural analysts shared their thoughts on the subject.

Laurie Higgins:

The term “sexual orientation” is a biased, political term created to equate heterosexuality and homosexuality. While homosexual activists and their ideological allies believe that homosexuality and heterosexuality are flip sides of the sexuality coin, others believe–rightly–that homosexuality is a disordering of the sexual impulse.

“Sexual orientation” also connotes the idea that homosexuality is biological determined, immutable in all cases, and inherently moral, all of which are controversial assumptions.

Whereas homosexuality is constituted merely by subjective desire and volitional sexual acts that many consider immoral, heterosexuality is constituted by subjective desire, volitional acts that no one considers inherently immoral, and by biology and anatomy. And in terms of biology and anatomy, everyone is heterosexual.

Homosexuality is not merely one of several healthy and moral manifestations of sexuality. Rather, it is a disordering or perversion of the sexual impulse.

Our side needs to understand this and stop using the term “sexual orientation.”

Scott Lively:

Sexual orientation” is a highly ambiguous term loaded with hidden false assumptions. So-called ‘sexual orientation’ is just a theory that lets people pretend that sexuality is a subjective state-of-mind and not an objective truth based on our self-evident physiological reality.

Sexual orientation” is a fictional socio-politcal construct invented by homosexual activists, and is their religious doctrine.

Another purpose of “sexual orientation” theory is to create a context in which homosexuality and heterosexuality hold equal status.

The notion of equivalency between homosexuality and heterosexuality is very important to pro-“gay” arguments. For one thing, it neutralizes health and safety arguments against the legitimization of homosexuality. For example, it is an uncontested fact that homosexual conduct spreads disease and dysfunction.

When reminded of this, “gay” sympathizers say, “heterosexuals do the same things.” This isn’t a logical defense of homosexuality per se, since two wrongs don’t make a right, but even so, the medical data shows that heterosexual behavior, even when promiscuous, really doesn’t result in nearly as many negative health consequences. However, it is an argument for treating homosexuality equally with heterosexuality, if the two were truly equivalent. But they are not.

A second reason for espousing the demise of equivalency is that equivalency allows “gay” activists to exploit the civil rights doctrines, which otherwise would not apply.” Discrimination, in the civil rights context, means treating equal parties unequally.

An anti-discrimination policy based upon “sexual orientation” is always the first step in the homosexual takeover of an organization, because it locks in pro-“gay” assumptions. From the adoption of this policy, the organization must accept as fact that homosexuality is immutable, equivalent to heterosexuality, and deserving of special protections without regard to public health considerations. Criticism of these positions, or even failure to affirm them, can be considered violations of the policy. Where such a policy is enacted, adoption of the rest of the homosexual political agenda is virtually inevitable. The conclusions are assured by these (false) premises. The takeover process varies slightly depending on the type of organization, but is predictable and easily recognized.

In summary, “sexual orientation” is a term that is used by homosexual activists to deceive both policy makers and the public about the nature of homosexual behavior. It frames the debate about homosexuality in such a way that the average person is tricked into accepting pro-“gay” presuppositions without challenge. This is even true of those people who continue to oppose the homosexuals’ political goals.

Once the presuppositions have been accepted, especially when they become “law” in anti-discrimination policies, resistance to the rest of the homosexual agenda becomes much, much more difficult.

The only effective strategy is to reject and refute the false assumptions of the fictitious “sexual orientation” socio-political theory, and re-frame the issues on a truthful foundation. “Sexual orientation” must be exposed for what it is: a nonsensical theory about sexuality invented by “gay” political strategists to serve their own selfish interests at the expense of the welfare of society as a whole.

Up next: Man’s Search for Meaning.

Articles in this series, from oldest to newest:

Identity Politics and Paraphilias: Introducing a Series

Identity Politics and Paraphilias: Incest

Identity Politics and Paraphilias: Body Integrity Identity Disorder

Identity Politics and Paraphilias: Impact & Transgenders

Transgenderism a Choice or Disorder?

Why the Term “Sexual Orientation” is Nonsense

COMING SOON: Identity Politics and Paraphilias: Man’s Search for Meaning

COMING SOON: Identity Politics and Paraphilias: LGBT is Not a Color