Conservative friends, if it weren’t clear to you already that the halcyon days for theologically orthodox people of faith in America are over, read the ominous, hostile, and arrogant words of Mark Tushnet, William Nelson Cromwell professor of law at Harvard Law School:

The culture wars are over; they lost, we won…. For liberals, the question now is how to deal with the losers in the culture wars. That’s mostly a question of tactics. My own judgment is that taking a hard line (“You lost, live with it”) is better than trying to accommodate the losers, who—remember—defended, and are defending, positions that liberals regard as having no normative pull at all. Trying to be nice to the losers didn’t work well after the Civil War, nor after Brown. (And taking a hard line seemed to work reasonably well in Germany and Japan after 1945.) I should note that LGBT activists in particular seem to have settled on the hard-line approach, while some liberal academics defend more accommodating approaches. When specific battles in the culture wars were being fought, it might have made sense to try to be accommodating after a local victory, because other related fights were going on, and a hard line might have stiffened the opposition in those fights. But the war’s over, and we won.

Conservatives are the equivalent of racists and Nazis because they believe human beings whose lives begin at conception have a right to exist and that marriage has an intrinsic nature central to which is sexual differentiation. No more need for politically expedient rhetorical deception about tolerance and diversity. Carpe Diem, Tushnet proclaims. To the victors belong the spoils, which to “progressives” like Tushnet just might include the presumptive “right” to abrogate the religious liberty of conservative losers.

What accounts for Tushnet’s cocksureness? Tushnet makes clear that it derives from the current composition of the courts:

Several generations of law students and their teachers grew up with federal courts dominated by conservatives. Not surprisingly, they found themselves wandering in the wilderness, looking for any sign of hope. The result: Defensive-crouch constitutionalism, with every liberal position asserted nervously, its proponents looking over their shoulders for retaliation by conservatives….

It’s time to stop. Right now more than half of the judges sitting on the courts of appeals were appointed by Democratic presidents…the same appears to be true of the district courts. And, those judges no longer have to be worried about reversal by the Supreme Court if they take aggressively liberal positions.

Now that the judiciary is controlled by liberals, Tushnet argues that “Liberals should be compiling lists of cases to be overruled at the first opportunity on the ground that they were wrong the day they were decided,” and that they should “Aggressively exploit the ambiguities and loopholes in unfavorable precedents that aren’t worth overruling” [emphasis Tushnet’s].

Tushnet clerked for Thurgood Marshall and was instrumental in shaping and articulating Marshall’s position in Roe v. Wade which, in turn, influenced Harry Blackmun. Tushnet, in a  “significant letter” written for Marshall and sent to Harry Blackmun said this:

I am inclined to agree that drawing the line at viability accommodates the interests at stake better than drawing it at the end of the first trimester. Given the difficulties which many women may have in believing that they are pregnant and in deciding to seek an abortion, I fear that the earlier date may not in practice serve the interests of those women, which your opinion does seek to serve.

…

It is implicit in your opinion that at some point the State’s interest in preserving the potential life of the unborn child overrides any individual interests of the women. I would be disturbed if that point were set before viability, and I am afraid that the opinion’s present focus on the end of the first trimester would lead states to prohibit abortions completely at any later date.

Professor Tushnet, a prolific writer and non-observant Jew, is the father of Eve Tushnet, a prolific writer and theologically orthodox Catholic who identifies as a lesbian but because of her deep faith, has chosen a life of celibacy. Eve Tushnet was “raised somewhere between atheism and Reform Judaism,” and “entered the Catholic Church in 1998, during her sophomore year at Yale University.”

Is Mark Tushnet’s daughter one of the losers against whom Professor Tushnet seeks a hard line?

The Obama Administration’s executive overreach, criticized even by liberal legal scholar Jonathan Turley, has alerted many conservatives to the imbalance of power between the legislative and executive branches which in theory should be co-equal. “Progressives” are taking their gloves off and putting their jackboots on. They’re hungry and seeking to devour whatever morsels of liberty conservatives yet retain. Perhaps Tushnet’s clanging voice will be the alarm needed to arouse slumbering conservatives before their plate is empty and progressives arrive at our church doors slavering at the cup and gnawing at the host.

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An enormously informative website, The Gospel Coalition, has posted a review of the book Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution by Linda Hirshman, a retired feminist philosopher and law professor who exposes why the movement to normalize homosexuality has been so successful.

The reviewer David P. Murray, a professor of Old Testament and practical theology, argues that as unpleasant as the book is to read, it’s “worth using this book to conduct a post-mortem on why the church has lost so many battles in this fight.”

The author of this book is none other than the infamous Linda Hirshman who in 2005 wrote a much derided article titled   “America’s Stay-at-Home Feminists”  in which she harshly critiqued the decision of bright, well-educated women to stay home and raise families, which she views as a failure of feminism.

Here’s how Hirshman summarized some of her ideas from that article:

Everybody started hating [me], apparently, when I published an article in the progressive magazine the American Prospect…saying that women who quit their jobs to stay home with their children were making a mistake….I said that the tasks of housekeeping and child rearing were not worthy of the full time and talents of intelligent and educated human beings. They do not require a great intellect, they are not honored and they do not involve risks and the rewards that risk brings. Oh, and by the way, where were the dads when all this household labor was being distributed? Maybe the thickest glass ceiling, I wrote, is at home.

Okay, I’m judgmental….But I’m a philosopher, and it’s a philosopher’s job to tell people how they should lead their lives.

Here is an excerpt from Murray’s review of Hirshman’s book:

[W]hile accepting that the church has lost many battles in this arena, I’m not conceding ultimate defeat in this war. There are many worrying signs, and the momentum certainly seems to be against us. But who knows, perhaps the title and message of this book might be a Haman moment that stirs up many Christians at such a time as this to take one last glorious stand for the biblical definition and institution of marriage. As we examine Hirshman’s analysis of “The Triumphant Gay Revolution,” let’s pray that God will use it to teach us and to stir us to action.

Well-Defined Strategy

Hirshman argues that while there are some similarities between the black rights and the feminist movements in terms of tactics, the gay rights movement had a far superior strategy, and therefore achieved much more than these other movements. She argues that while blacks and women sought tolerance and equal rights, they failed to achieve all they could, because they made the great mistake of merely trying to defend their difference. Gay activists’ aims, however, were much higher—not just tolerance but approval of their difference; not separate and equal but integrated and admired.

To achieve this strategy, gay leaders had to make a staggering moral claim: “Gay is good.” Not just acceptable, not just okay, but a moral good. Few Christians have grasped this essential element of the gay agenda. Gay men and women are not like most adulterers and fornicators who know their immorality is bad but still do it anyway. Gays have convinced themselves that their morality is superior to Christian morality and therefore should replace it.

As Hirshman says, “It is the moral certainty of the gay revolution that explains why, unlike the racial and feminist movements, it has been able to stand up to that powerful counterforce [the morally driven religious right] and, slowly but surely, prevail.”

Identify Your Enemies

Standing firmly on this “moral foundation,” gay activists identified four major obstacles to achieving their strategic objective: (1) The churches considered them sinful; (2) The state criminalized their sex acts; (3) Doctors—mainly psychologists—thought they were crazy; and (4) The military feared they would be traitors to the nation. For gays, then, conformity with mainstream norms was not an option. The accepted versions of sin, crime, sanity, and loyalty were mortal enemies that had to be dismantled and replaced.

Hirshman provides a stunning wealth of detail about how the gay movement worked to overcome these “four horsemen of the gay apocalypse”: Sinful, Criminal, Crazy, and Subversive. However, their core moral claim—“Gay is good”—required a ruthless focus on two traditional institutions of heterosexual morality—marriage and the military.

Same-sex marriage guru Evan Wolfson recognized that marriage was “the central social and legal institution in any society.” Barring gays from marriage focused “on the core of what makes them different: their sexual and emotional relationships. Challenging marriage discrimination would challenge the core of gay exclusion.”…

…

Stunning Claim

Despite many political and judicial victories over the years, the gay movement would not stop short of victory over the military and the church. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) was the unacceptable sop that President Clinton offered to the many gay supporters he had cultivated by over-promising during the 1992 presidential campaign.

But tolerance of secret conduct was nowhere near enough to achieve the longed-for moral approbation. Repeal of DADT was finally accomplished in 2011, together with the removal of the ban on gays serving in the military. We can expect the same no-compromise approach to the one remaining bulwark—the prohibition on gay marriage. And we must understand that no amount of “civil partnership” compromises will satisfy the demand for moral approval.

Many thought AIDS would be the end of the gay movement. However, in what is perhaps the most stunning claim in the entire book, Hirshman says, “AIDS was the making of the gay revolution.” When you read of how the gay community leveraged this setback to secure massive funding not just for medical treatment, but also for educational and community initiatives (in a way that blacks and women never did), you cannot but agree with the claim.

Heroism

Hirshman says that gays benefited from the legal profession’s “nostalgia for the heroic role it played during the racial civil rights movement. . . . For young lawyers aspiring to be the next Thurgood Marshall, the gay revolution was the civil rights movement of their generation.” In a section that goes a long way in explaining why the legal culture is so anti-Christian, Hirshman points out that law firms have “become among the best places in America for gay and lesbian employees. . . . The legal sector has the largest number of top-scoring companies in HRC’s Corporate Equality Index, an annual measure of how equitably large private businesses in the United States treat their lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender employees, consumers, and investors.”

So it all looks rather grim for Christians. We are facing opponents with a well-defined strategy and an energizing moral certainty. Their “kill list” has claimed three out of four targets, and they are pursuing the last (“the most resilient horseman of the gay apocalypse—sin”) with a united, uncompromising, never-give-up, laser-like focus on gay marriage. And many lawyers—including our President—are out to make a great name for themselves in this final “triumph.”

Is there anything we can do? I believe there is. We can repent. Yes, let’s begin with ourselves, the Christian church, and our own sin: apathy, cowardice, defeatism, pragmatism, and inconsistency. Let’s confess it and seek the empowering pardon that Christ alone can give.

We can also pray. Despite our failings, we can pray for God’s mercy to his church and the nation. We can plead, “For your name’s sake, for your glory’s sake, intervene for your beautiful and blessed institution of marriage.”

And we can love. Although the majority of the gay movement hold us in contempt—and, make no mistake, they do—let’s not return evil for evil. In our relationships with gays, and in our public words, while holding firmly to biblical morality, let’s do all we can to smash the caricatures of Christians as gay haters. Gays have declared themselves our enemies. As such, they are entitled to our love—especially the love of evangelism.

Last, let’s not give up on the legal and political avenues open to us. Let’s prayerfully and practically support courageous Christian individuals and organizations who can speak truth to power.

IFI is encouraged to hear a Christian leader like Dr. Murray speak truth on the failure of the  church to publicly participate in the war on sexual morality. It’s encouraging to hear a Christian leader accurately characterize as sinful our “apathy,  cowardice, defeatism, pragmatism, and inconsistency.” And it’s encouraging to hear a Christian acknowledge that loving those who hold Christians in contempt does not require either silence or acquiescence in the public square.