Last week, America honored both the life and noble work of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a Bible-believing Christian minister who did more to advance the cause of race-based civil rights than perhaps any other person in recent history.

Regrettably – and as they do each year – the same flock of opportunist “LGBT”-activist vultures quickly swooped in, picking the live flesh from MLK’s character-based “dream,” to advance their own behavior-based nightmare.

In what amounts to a sort of soft racism, this mostly white left-wing faction has, over the years, disingenuously and ignobly hitched its little pink wagon to a civil rights movement that, by contrast, is built upon the genuine and noble precepts of racial equality and humanitarian justice.

What was MLK’s position on the homosexual lifestyle and so-called “gay rights”? While he said little in public on the issue, what he did say made his viewpoint abundantly clear. Unlike the “LGBT” lobby, I’ll let Dr. King speak for himself.

In 1958, while writing an advice column for Ebony Magazine, Dr. King responded to a young “gay” man looking for guidance. To avoid being accused of “cherry-picking,” here is the exchange in its entirety:

Question: My problem is different from the ones most people have. I am a boy, but I feel about boys the way I ought to feel about girls. I don’t want my parents to know about me. What can I do? Is there any place where I can go for help?

Answer: Your problem is not at all an uncommon one. However, it does require careful attention. The type of feeling that you have toward boys is probably not an innate tendency, but something that has been culturally acquired. Your reasons for adopting this habit have now been consciously suppressed or unconsciously repressed. Therefore, it is necessary to deal with this problem by getting back to some of the experiences and circumstances that led to the habit. In order to do this I would suggest that you see a good psychiatrist who can assist you in bringing to the forefront of conscience all of those experiences and circumstances that led to the habit. You are already on the right road toward a solution, since you honestly recognize the problem and have a desire to solve it.

No amount of leftist spin can muddy Dr. King’s lucid position on the homosexual lifestyle. He recognized it as a “culturally acquired” “problem” in need of a “solution” – a “habit” stemming from a series of negative “experiences and circumstances.”

Although homosexual activists desperately cling to the fact that, after his death, Dr. King’s wife, Coretta Scott King, did voice some level of support for the homosexualist political agenda, the undeniable reality remains that, based upon his own words, Dr. King supported neither homosexual conduct nor “LGBT” political activism.

Indeed, it strains credulity to suggest that MLK would have thrown his weight behind a political movement hell-bent on justifying sexual appetites and behaviors that he properly identified as “a problem” demanding a “a solution” – a “type of feeling” that requires “careful attention” – up to and including “see[ing] a good psychiatrist.”

No, MLK was a Christian minister who both embraced and articulated the biblical “love the sinner, hate the sin” model on homosexuality. Every Christian should follow his lead. After all, it is the lead set by Christ Himself.

Gary Glenn is a candidate for the Michigan State House. He is also president of the pro-family group AFA Michigan. Of Dr. King’s public position on homosexuality, Glenn recently noted a glaring – if not utterly twisted – irony: “If homosexual activists had been holding awards ceremonies back in 1958,” wrote Glenn, “they would have labeled Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a bigot for his published views on homosexual attraction.

“And under today’s Orwellian ‘hate crimes’ laws in Britain and other countries of Europe,” he concluded, “Dr. King would have faced criminal investigation, or worse, for publicly expressing those views.”

Indeed, were he still alive today, and when judged against today’s empty, politically correct standards, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – quite literally the “King” of civil rights – would be perpetually smeared as a “bigot,” “hater” and “homophobe” by the ever-”tolerant” left.

The polls are unequivocal. The vast majority of African-Americans resent the left’s comparison of sexual sin to the color of their skin. They understandably find such dishonest parallels both repugnant and highly offensive.

And well they should.

The left has hijacked MLK’s dream. For decades now, this pleasure-based, sex-centric political movement – delineated by deviant sexual appetites and behaviors – has ridden his coattails. They’ve dared to equate demands for celebration of bad behavior to Christian notions of racial equality. They’ve perverted the genuine civil rights movement to fit their own disingenuous designs.

It’s disgusting and it needs to stop.

Dr. Alveda King is the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She agrees. Alveda has picked up her like-minded uncle’s civil rights mantle, dedicating her life, primarily, to achieving equality for pre-born children.

Still, in the years since his death, Alveda has poignantly articulated how, arguably, based upon his published position on homosexuality, Dr. King might feel about “LGBT” activists’ misappropriation of his Christian legacy for their counter-Christian purposes.

“To equate homosexuality with race is to give a death sentence to civil rights,” said Alveda in 1997. “No one is enslaving homosexuals … or making them sit in the back of the bus.”

In 1998 at the University of North Carolina, she said, “Homosexuality cannot be elevated to the civil rights issue. The civil rights movement was born from the Bible. God hates homosexuality.”

And in 2012, Alveda publicly chastised the NAACP for abandoning its founders and constituents, saying, “Neither my great-grandfather, an NAACP founder, my grandfather Dr. Martin Luther King Sr., an NAACP leader, my father, Rev. A. D. Williams King, nor my uncle Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. embraced the homosexual agenda that the current NAACP is attempting to label as a civil rights agenda. …”

Indeed, it is high time that all supporters, from all races, of the historical civil rights movement stand together and demand that “progressive” propagandists stop misusing and abusing the language of genuine civil rights to propagate self-interested moral wrongs.

It’s time for the left to begin honoring the true beliefs, work, life and legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dear Father Jenkins,

I work for the Illinois Family Institute on the board of which sits a Notre Dame alumnus. In addition, we have a number of Notre Dame alumni subscribers.

I want to thank you for your efforts to obtain an exemption from the contraception mandate of the Affordable Care Act and urge you to pursue these efforts with vigor and tenacity. If institutions like yours do not oppose every effort that chips away at the religious liberty of faith-centered organizations, what possible hope do individuals have to preserve their First Amendment religious rights—rights that are daily under assault (particularly from those seeking to normalize homosexuality).

I also want to express my disappointment that Notre Dame has chosen to recognize a “student organization” initiated and shaped by those who affirm homosexual acts and acts related to gender confusion as normative and morally defensible. In permitting an organization that affirms subjective moral propositions that defy Catholic (as well as orthodox Protestant) doctrine, Notre Dame’s distinct Catholic identity has been weakened. Would Notre Dame recognize other “student organizations” initiated by those who affirm other sin predispositions (e.g. polyamory, consensual adult incest, or the “sexual orientation” recently designated “minor-attracted persons”)?

If the Notre Dame-recognized “LGBT” organization had been initiated by those who were committed to helping “LGBT” students live lives that embody Catholic beliefs on sexuality and gender, such an organization would be a service to Notre Dame students. Unfortunately, the central goals of students who affirm a homosexual or “transgender” identity are contrary to Catholic doctrine and as such can bring nothing but temporal and eternal harm—intellectual, emotional, physical, and/or spiritual harm—to “LGBT”-identifying students and the larger Notre Dame community.

On the profoundly significant dimensions of human nature that reflect the very foundations of God’s created order (i.e., sexuality and gender) the homosexuality-affirming community has little to say that reflects truth and much to say that violates Scripture, Catholic doctrine, and Notre Dame’s mission statement:

A Catholic university draws its basic inspiration from Jesus Christ as the source of wisdom and from the conviction that in him all things can be brought to their completion….There is…a special obligation and opportunity, specifically as a Catholic university, to pursue the religious dimensions of all human learning.

I would urge your administration to reconsider the wisdom and biblical justification for recognizing an “LGBT” organization, all such organizations of which are based on false, anti-biblical assumptions about the nature and morality of homosexuality.

Sincerely,

Laurie Higgins

The cacophonous voices of homosexual activists and their ideological allies are getting louder as the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia approach. They’re protesting Russia’s new federal law pertaining to homosexuality. Surely, this law must be draconian, reasonable people think, to generate this degree of heat from the ever-fevered “LGBTQQIAA” (that is, “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, Ally”) community.  

What is often reported in the mainstream press is simply that the law is “anti-gay” followed by reports of anti-“gay” brutality. Few articles include any details of the text of the law and its inoffensive—some would argue wholly appropriate—content. The omission of the text of the law with the concomitant reporting on already illegal physical attacks is a strategic decision intended to distract attention from the actual intent of the law.

In order to put into perspective this newest manifestation of outrage from homosexual activists, let’s look at the pertinent parts of the actual law:

The Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offences… shall be amended as follows:

…

Propaganda of homosexualism among minors –

is punishable by an administrative fine for citizens in the amount of four thousand to five thousand rubles; for officials –forty thousand to fifty thousand rubles; for legal entities – four hundred thousand to five hundred thousand rubles”;

…

EXPLANATORY NOTE
…Propaganda of homosexualism in Russia took a wide sweep. This propaganda is delivered both through the media and through active social actions that promote homosexualism as a behavioral norm. It is especially dangerous for children and youth who are not yet capable of a critical attitude to the avalanche of information that falls upon them every day. In this regard, it is necessary to primarily protect the younger generation from the effects of homosexual propaganda, and the present bill pursues this goal.

    Family, motherhood and childhood in the traditional, adopted from the ancestors understanding are the values ​​that provide a continuous change of generations and serve as a condition for the preservation and development of the multinational people of the Russian Federation, and therefore they require special protection from the state.

    Legitimate interests of minors are an important social value, with the goal of the public policy toward children being to protect them from the factors that negatively affect their physical, intellectual, mental, spiritual,and moral development. Paragraph 1 of Article 14 of the Federal Law № 124-FZ of24.07.1998 “On Basic Guarantees of Child Rights in the Russian Federation” directly states the obligation of public authorities of the Russian Federation to take measures to protect children from information, propaganda and campaigning that harm their health and moral and spiritual development.

    In this connection it is necessary to establish measures to ensure intellectual, moral and mental security of children, including the prohibition onto perform any act aimed at the promotion of homosexuality. By itself, the prohibition of such propaganda as an activity of purposeful and uncontrolled dissemination of the information that could harm the health and moral and spiritual development, as well as form misperceptions about the social equivalence of conventional and unconventional sexual relationships, among individuals who, due to their age, are not capable to independently and critically assess such information cannot be regarded as violating the constitutional rights of citizens.

    Given the above, a bill suggesting amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences was prepared to introduce administrative responsibility for propaganda of homosexuality among minors. In this case, administrative responsibility is established not for the sheer fact of the person’s homosexuality, but only for propaganda of homosexualism among minors. (emphasis added)

(There is also a local St. Petersburg law that is similar to the federal law but also prohibits the dissemination of resources to minors that affirm pedophilia.)

To further put things in perspective, note that the consequences of violating this law are only fines of $120-150 for individuals, $1,200-1,500 for “officials,” and $12,000-15,000 for “legal entities.” Hardly sounds unreasonable to fine adults $150 for trying to inculcate other people’s children with their subjective beliefs about sexual morality, but nothing angers homosexual activists quite like being denied access to the hearts and minds of other people’s minor children.

Don’t be deceived, the outrage of homosexuality-affirming activists has nothing to do with concern for critical thinking, free speech, or intellectual diversity. Proof for that claim comes from a perusal of resources presented to American teens in their government schools on the topic of homosexuality. The suppression of conservative ideas on issues related to homosexuality is virtually absolute, and the consequences for violating the de facto bans on conservative resources are far more draconian and insidious than those imposed by the Russian law. Paying a $150 fine is small potatoes compared to the kind of personal and professional repercussions that would redound to any teacher in a public school who dared to present resources to minors that articulated conservative beliefs about homosexuality.

To assault people because of their beliefs or feelings is beyond the pale, as is making inflammatory statements that express a desire that others die, experience eternal damnation, or f**k themselves (things that are hurled at any public figure who dares to express moral propositions about homosexuality with which “progressives” disagree). Prohibiting the distribution of homosexuality-affirming resources to minors is both reasonable and wise.

Join us and many other great pro-life advocates at the annual SpeakOut Illinois Conference. This year’s event will be held on Saturday, February 1 at Crowne Plaza O’Hare Hotel in Rosemont. The topic will be “Empowered for Life: Putting Truth into Action.”   Click HERE for more information.

A new book released this week for teens and parents that seeks to address questions about sexual orientation has quickly brought out the long knives of the far left.    As author Linda Harvey observes:

I figured my new book, “Maybe He’s Not Gay,” would create a stir among Christians, but also among the homosexual media. Well, they wasted no time in launching attacks, saying it’s “hateful,” bigotry, will harm kids, etc.  Imagine the place we are at in America that telling our kids heterosexuality is a good thing is supposedly harmful!  

And these hysteria-generators dredged up every fabrication about Mission America that’s ever been written, and then the pink mob descended on the book page on Amazon and without having read the book, wrote vicious, insulting reviews. 

Linda is one of my heroes in the pro-family Christian movement.  She is a former journalist and media executive who now is a sought after speaker and hosts a national radio show based out of Ohio.  Hidden within this attractive, professional woman, is a real stick of dynamite. She has more courage in one pinky finger than many people have in their whole body.  She isn’t easily intimidated and doesn’t back away from a debate over truth with anyone.  Linda chose to pull her book from Amazon.  Homosexual activists have quickly twisted that into a lie that Amazon pulled the book because of its harmful or inaccurate content. 
 
You can learn more about this helpful book and still purchase a copy of it here at a very affordable price:   http://www.nextcenturystore.com/maybe-he-s-not-gay-paperback.html

Apparently, “sexual orientation” is not as set in stone as homosexual activists and their ideological allies would have us believe. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has been married for nineteen years to a woman who self-identified as a lesbian for twelve years prior to marrying de Blasio.

The story of de Blasio’s formerly lesbian wife was in the NY Daily News way back in May. Why, one wonders, did it not hit the national news with the fervor that any story about famous and semi-famous people “coming out” enjoys? Of course, queer theorists have been saying that “sexual orientation” is fluid for decades, but that doesn’t fit the narrative that homosexual activists use to deceive the ignorant masses, and when homosexual activists dislike an idea, suppression is sure to follow.

One of the stars of the popular A & E show Duck Dynasty, Phil Robertson, has been indefinitely suspended from the program. His crime was making some politically incorrect statements about homosexuality in a condescension-dripping interview with GQ magazine that rendered the homosexual community apoplectic. Hell hath no fury like homosexual activists who encounter dissent.

Here are some of the offending comments, which he offered in response to GQ’s question, “What, in your mind, is sinful?”:

“Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” [The writer explained that that Robertson then paraphrased Corinthians]: “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.”

…

“We never, ever judge someone on who’s going to heaven, hell. That’s the Almighty’s job. We just love ’em, give ’em the good news about Jesus—whether they’re homosexuals, drunks, terrorists. We let God sort ’em out later.” 

Robertson may have answered in his own imitable voice, but much of what he said reflects the mind and will of God as revealed in the word of God.

And here’s how the contemporary founts of biblical exegesis, wisdom, truth, non-judgmentalism, non-condemnation, and tolerance, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), responded:

GLAAD: some of the vilest and most extreme statements uttered against LGBT people in a mainstream publication,…his quote was littered with outdated stereotypes and blatant misinformation….Phil and his family claim to be Christian, but Phil’s lies about an entire community fly in the face of what true Christians believe….He clearly knows nothing about gay people or the majority of Louisianans—and Americans—who support legal recognition for loving and committed gay and lesbian couples. 

HRC: Phil Robertson’s remarks are not consistent with the values of our faith communities or the scientific findings of leading medical organizations….We know that being gay is not a choice someone makes, and that to suggest otherwise can be incredibly harmful. We also know that Americans of faith follow the Golden Rule—treating others with the respect and dignity you’d wish to be treated with. As a role model on a show that attracts millions of viewers, Phil Robertson has a responsibility to set a positive example for young America—not shame and ridicule them because of who they are.

A red-faced, stomping Rumplestiltskin’s got nothing on homosexual activists who unexpectedly hear truth when they expect obsequious silence.

Just a couple of brief responses to GLAAD’s and HRC’s statements:

1. What specifically were Robertson’s lies?
2. “True Christians” believe what Scripture—both Old and New Testaments—as well as most theologians in the history of the church teach.
3. Experiencing same-sex attraction is, like virtually all other sin inclinations, not chosen. How one responds to such inclinations, however, is a choice.
4. If homosexual acts are not moral, adults are not setting “a positive example” by affirming homosexuality as good.
5. We ought not “shame or ridicule” particular individuals, but all satire and joking involves making light of some aspect of the human condition, including our sins. Did the narrow-minded dogmatists at GLAAD and the HRC scold the television program Will and Grace, which made its bread and butter out of ridiculing and stereotyping homosexuals? Do they take umbrage at the satirical paper The Onion or at Saturday Night Live? What about the writing of Aristophanes, Juvenal, Chaucer, Jonathan Swift, George Orwell, H. L. Mencken, Dorothy Parker, Jack Paar, David Steinberg, Tom and Dick Smothers, P.J. O’Rourke, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, David Sedaris, Sarah Silverman, and Matt Stone and Trey Parker (South Park creators) who ridicule people mercilessly?

There are increasing numbers of Christians who believe our sole task as Christians is to love homosexuals—and by “love,” they mean, just be nice—and that we should never say anything to anger or offend them. These Christians fail to understand that this would certainly require that Christians refrain from ever saying publicly that homosexuality is an abomination in God’s eyes. But it’s not just Old Testament language that is too indelicate for the delicate sensibilities of “progressives” that must be silenced.

It’s any idea about homosexuality with which “progressives” disagree that must be silenced. We can’t say that same-sex attraction is disordered, or that homosexual acts are immoral, or that God did not create men and women to experience same-sex attraction, or that Jesus affirms marriage only as a union of one man and one woman, or that Paul teaches that homosexuals (among others) will not see the kingdom of Heaven. And we certainly can’t point out the indelicate truth that the primary sex act of homosexual men is a pathogenic nightmare that results in countless sexually transmitted infections (including shigellosis) and untold suffering.  

The Left is caterwauling about Phil Robertson’s “judging” and “condemning,” all the while, of course, judging and condemning Phil Robertson. Either out of their own ignorance or Macchiavellian political expedience, the Left fails to make the distinction—publicly, at least—between judging the eternal destination of individuals and “judging” which behaviors are right and which are wrong. Everyone judges in that sense. Everyone does it every day. Every time the Left becomes indignant about the beliefs or political actions of conservatives, they have judged. A society that refuses to make judgments about what constitutes moral conduct could not make laws and would not long exist. A society that refuses to “condemn” wrong actions as wrong will collapse in moral anarchy.

What “progressives” condemn is any condemnation directed at any behavior of which they approve. And this is what leads to the hypocrisy virtually everyone can see in their laughable claims to value “diversity,” “tolerance,” free speech, and the First Amendment (which protects the free exercise of religion and says nothing about the free exercise of homo sex).

Ah, but “progressives” cleverly contrive an out for themselves by saying there is no moral imperative to tolerate intolerance or any statements that “harm” others. But notice two things: First, that this statement itself reflects a moral “judgment.” And second, it presumes agreement with the Left’s definition of harm.

I thought the destruction of marriage would be the cultural event that awakened the slumbering Christian masses. Perhaps it will instead be a hoary, hairy, much beloved Louisianan duck call-maker who loves Jesus Christ and fears God more than man.

The halcyon days for Christians in America are over, my friends. Religious liberty is fast-diminishing—well, for orthodox Christians it is, not for fundamentalist Mormons who want multiple wives.

Prepare for persecution, and consider it joy to encounter trials for Christ who suffered the ultimate trial—the one that heaped scorn on him, cost him his life, and saved ours. 

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send an email or fax to the executives at A&E Network, to let them know what you think of their intolerance, religious bigotry, and viewpoint discrimination.

Help us reach our goal of raising a total of $50,000 by the end of the month – Donate today! 

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An interview can get you into big trouble. Remember General Stanley McChrystal? He was the commander of all U.S. forces in Afghanistan until he gave an interview to Rolling Stone magazine in 2010 and criticized his Commander in Chief. Soon thereafter, he was sacked. This time the interview controversy surrounds Phil Robertson, founder of the Duck Commander company and star of A&E’s Duck Dynasty. Robertson gave an interview to GQ (formerly known as Gentlemen’s Quarterly), and now he has been put on “indefinite suspension” from the program.

Why? Because of controversy over his comments on homosexuality.

Phil Robertson is the plainspoken patriarch of the Duck Dynasty clan. In the GQ interview, published in the January 2014 issue of the magazine, Robertson makes clear that his Christian faith is central to his identity and his life. He speaks of his life before Christ and actively seeks to convert the interviewer, Drew Magary, to faith in Christ. He tells Magary of the need for repentance from sin. Magary then asks Robertson to define sin. He responded:

“Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” he says. Then he paraphrases Corinthians: “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers—they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.”

Christians will recognize that Robertson was offering a rather accurate paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 6:9-10: “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.”

To be fair, Robertson also offered some comments that were rather crude and graphically anatomical in making the same point. As Magary explained, “Out here in these woods, without any cameras around, Phil is free to say what he wants. Maybe a little too free. He’s got lots of thoughts on modern immorality, and there’s no stopping them from rushing out.”

Phil Robertson would have served the cause of Christ more faithfully if some of those comments had not rushed out. This is not because what he said was wrong; he was making the argument that homosexual acts are against nature. The Apostle Paul makes the very same argument in Romans 1:26. The problem is the graphic nature of Robertson’s language and the context of his statements.

The Apostle Paul made the same arguments, but worshipers in the congregations of Rome and Corinth did not have to put hands over the ears of their children when Paul’s letter was read to their church.

The entire Duck Dynasty enterprise is a giant publicity operation, and a very lucrative enterprise at that. Entertainment and marketing machines run on publicity, and the Robertsons have used that publicity to offer winsome witness to their Christian faith. But GQ magazine? Seriously?

Not all publicity is good publicity, and Christians had better think long and hard about the publicity we seek or allow by our cooperation.

Just ask Gen. McChrystal. In the aftermath of his embarrassing debacle, the obvious question was this: why would a gifted and tested military commander allow a reporter for Rolling Stone such access and then speak so carelessly? Rolling Stone is a magazine of the cultural left. It was insanity for Gen. McChrystal to speak so carelessly to a reporter who should have been expected to present whatever the general said in the most unfavorable light.

Similarly, Phil Robertson would have served himself and his mission far better by declining to cooperate with GQ for a major interview. GQ is a “lifestyle” magazine for men, a rather sophisticated and worldly platform for the kind of writing Drew Magary produced in this interview. GQ is not looking for Sunday School material. Given the publicity the interview has now attracted, the magazine must be thrilled. Phil Robertson is likely less thrilled.

Another interesting parallel emerges with the timing of this controversy. The current issue of TIME magazine features Pope Francis I as “Person of the Year.” Within days of TIME’s declaration, Phil Robertson had been suspended from Duck Dynasty. Robertson’s suspension was caused by his statements that homosexual acts are sinful. But Pope Francis is riding a wave of glowing publicity, even as he has stated in public his agreement with all that the Roman Catholic Church teaches, including its teachings on homosexual acts.

Francis has declared himself to be a “son of the church,” and his church teaches that all homosexual acts are inherently sinful and must be seen as “acts of grave depravity” that are “intrinsically disordered.”

But Pope Francis is on the cover of TIME magazine and Phil Robertson is on indefinite suspension. Such are the inconsistencies, confusions, and hypocrisies of our cultural moment.

Writing for TIME, television critic James Poniewozik argued that Robertson’s error was to speak so explicitly and openly, “to make the subtext text.” He wrote:

Now, you’ve got an issue with those of us who maybe just want to watch a family comedy about people outside a major city, but please without supporting somebody thumping gay people with their Bible. Or a problem with people with gay friends, or family, or, you know, actual gay A&E viewers.

By speaking so openly, Robertson crossed the line, Poniewozik explains.

A&E was running for cover. The network released a statement that attempted to put as much distance as possible between what the network described as Robertson’s personal beliefs and their own advocacy for gay rights:

We are extremely disappointed to have read Phil Robertson’s comments in GQ, which are based on his own personal beliefs and are not reflected in the series Duck Dynasty. His personal views in no way reflect those of A&E Networks, who have always been strong supporters and champions of the LGBT community.

So, even as most evangelical Christians will likely have concerns about theway Phil Robertson expressed himself in some of his comments and wherehe made the comments, the fact remains that it is the moral judgment he asserted, not the manner of his assertion, that caused such an uproar. A quick look at the protests from gay activist groups like GLAAD will confirm that judgment. They have protested the words Robertson drew from the Bible and labeled them as “far outside of the mainstream understanding of LGBT people.”

So the controversy over Duck Dynasty sends a clear signal to anyone who has anything to risk in public life: Say nothing about the sinfulness of homosexual acts or risk sure and certain destruction by the revolutionaries of the new morality. You have been warned.

In a statement released before his suspension, Phil Robertson told of his own sinful past and of his experience of salvation in Christ and said:

My mission today is to go forth and tell people about why I follow Christ and also what the Bible teaches, and part of that teaching is that women and men are meant to be together. However, I would never treat anyone with disrespect just because they are different from me. We are all created by the Almighty and like Him, I love all of humanity. We would all be better off if we loved God and loved each other.

Those are fighting words, Phil. They are also the gospel truth.

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

It happened Dec. 2, 2013, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. LifeSiteNews.com broke the story with the headline: “Violent mob of topless pro-abort feminists attacks praying men defending cathedral.”

The raw footage is disturbing to the extreme (warning: viewer discretion advised for nudity, lesbian lewdness and violence. A censored version is available here.)

Both the video and the story have since gone viral. WorldNetDaily.com (WND) summarizes the attacks as follows: “Chanting, ‘Get your rosaries out of our ovaries,’ a mob of pro-abortion feminists – many of whom were topless with Nazi swastikas on their chests and foreheads – attacked and sexually molested a group of Roman Catholic men who were praying as they stood outside a cathedral in Argentina to protect it from threats of vandalism.”

WND managing editor David Kupelian called the siege a “display of demonic fury.”

Indeed, it’s hard to watch the footage without discerning the palpably dark spirit that possesses many of the estimated 17,000 lesbian, pro-abortion and feminist assailants (but I repeat myself).

Thousands of painted, topless pagans prancing a ring around the pope burned in effigy – for the chief purpose of celebrating a “right” to sacrifice, alive, their own children to goddess abortion – is eerily redolent of ancient Baal worshipers dancing about the inferno and live-roasting, in burnt offering to Moloch, their own children.

For liberals, although the means may change, the ends remain the same.

Still, equally disturbing are a number of comments posted about the incident on at least one award-winning “gay”-activist blog. Ironically, the site, “JoeMyGod,” a serial Christian-defaming cyber-rag, won the award for “Outstanding Blog” in 2011 at the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) Media Awards.

While Joe Jervis – the blog’s militant atheist and “gay” sadomasochist founder – refused to denounce the Argentinian “hate crimes” outright, he at least begrudgingly admitted: “I really can’t see how this advances the cause of abortion rights.”

Ya think?

Even so, Jervis, whose blog has a long history of anti-Christian extremism and violence-charged rhetoric, nonetheless permitted several of his regular posters to not only condone the feminist attacks, but to illegally call for a steep escalation in anti-Christian violence in general (up to and including church bombings, and both the castration and even murder of Christians in the U.S.).

(Update: Jervis has now scrubbed his blog of the post. Screenshots have been taken.)

Poster “mike moore” kicked off the bloodlust: “BRAVA! I wish this happened all the time, particularly here is the U.S. … It’s LONG past time for women to violently react to [being] … denied birth control and then forced to carry a never-wanted child to term.”

“Jeff Chang” offered specific suggestions as to what such violence might look like: “How about destroying the oppresive regims (sic) of the church. To that end would you support firebombing a church? How about removing the clergy (sic) from power? Perhaps a ultra radical (sic) hit squad can use lead pipes and beat the clergy to death. How about just creating FEAR for all male Catholics? A bomb during there (sic) planning meeting would work, do you support that?”

Chang then answered his own questions: “As far as I’m concerned, those quasi-religious, hypocritical bastards should have been castrated on the steps of the cathedral they so pompously took it upon themselves to ‘protect’ – talk about your bulls–t grand-stand plays. That’s right. We should get rid of ALL of them in one fell swoop. I say that we firebomb the next planning meeting.”

“Hands off my uteris!!” agreed: “They should have burned their f–-ing church to the ground!”

So did “Rolf”: “They were lucky they didn’t start castrating them.”

Poster “Seamus Ruah” justified the violence and sexual assault, comparing it to the similarly violent Stonewall Riots of 1969. Stonewall is largely credited for launching today’s increasingly aggressive “gay rights” movement: “When you push a segment of the population too far,” wrote Ruah, “they have a tendency to fight back. /Stonewall.”

In the aforementioned WND report, David Kupelian recalled a similar “1989 attack on New York City’s famed St. Patrick’s Cathedral in which hundreds of ‘gay’ activists stormed the church and terrorized its parishioners during Mass.”

JoeMyGod’s “BudClark” recalls it too: “I HAD a problem with Act Up’s ‘Die-In’ in the middle of High Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in NYC, back in the day,” he wrote. “I DON’T, anymore. The Catholic HIERARCHY deserve (sic) anything and everything they have coming to them, including JAIL.”

Poster “Vel” had a suggestion for Christians and conservatives: “I hope the right wingers come here and take note of these comments. … Assaulting and humiliating people and interfering with their nonviolent expression is OK if done for the right political cause. So the right wingers should note all of this. …”

Rather than lamenting the anti-Christian violence itself, poster “zhera” instead worried: “My only problem with this video is that the Catholics are now able to use it as proof for how they are victims.”

Proof indeed, zhera. And with the burgeoning success of radical “LGBT” and pro-abortion legislation worldwide – especially in countries like Argentina and the good ‘ol USA – we can expect a rapid increase in similar such “proofs” of systemic anti-Christian persecution both at home and abroad.

In its story, LifeSite reported that “some of the women chanted a song, with the lyrics: ‘To the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, who wants to get between our sheets, we say that we want to be whores, travesties and lesbians. Legal abortion in every hospital.’”

Nice. There you have it: The heart of “gay rights” activism, left-wing feminism and “pro-choice” savagery distilled in one angry rant.

“During the attack some men were visibly weeping,” continued LifeSite. “None of them retaliated against the abuses heaped on them.”

Indeed, to borrow from Madonna, it seems Argentina has much to cry for.

And so does America.

But as for “JoeMyGod,” the question is this: Will GLADD now publicly disavow Joe Jervis for allowing (and perhaps tacitly condoning) such violent (and very likely illegal) rhetoric? Will this self-styled “anti-defamation” group rescind its “Outstanding Blog” award?

Don’t hold your breath.

Even still, a bigger question remains: Will federal authorities investigate these threats? If it were Christians threatening “gays,” Eric Holder himself would kick-in the door with MSNBC in tow. Every newspaper in America would give it above-the-fold coverage.

But it wasn’t Christians threatening “gays.” It was “gays” threatening Christians.

And that just doesn’t fit the false “gay victimhood” narrative.

Written by Jennifer Thieme

Some Republican leaders recently announced their support of gay marriage, and some others claim they are following Abraham Lincoln’s legacy by supporting it. Lincoln is one of the most famous Republicans and is most well known for freeing the slaves. I was disappointed by these modern-day Republicans, because certain features that look like slavery are beginning to emerge in gay custody disputes.

Most people in our country know that the iconic story of Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a novel published in 1852 about slavery. At one point it describes the plight of a slave mother, Eliza, who found out her son Harry had been sold. Lacking any legal recourse, she took him and ran away from her master in order to keep her child. What was the specific aspect of the law that allowed the government to side with a non-parent against a parent?

It was because the government was not required to honor the biological connections of slave mothers to their children. It was as if the biological connections did not even exist between them.

How does this relate to gay marriage? Gay marriage is a Trojan horse — it’s not what it claims to be. Gay marriage really means, “gender-neutral marriage,” and gender neutral marriage means that we must erase the concept of biological connections within the legal code.

Let’s examine a well known gay custody case: Lisa Miller and Janet Jenkins.

Lisa Miller is a former lesbian. She was involved in a civil union with Janet Jenkins. During that time, they decided to use a sperm donor to conceive a child. Lisa is the natural mother, and we don’t know why, but Janet never adopted the child.

Their union broke up. Janet was awarded status as a parent and given visitation. The child started having problems, and Lisa tried to block contact. The courts then gave Janet full legal custody, even though Lisa was never accused of being a bad parent, nor did she ever consent to giving the child up for adoption. In order to keep her daughter, Lisa escaped with her to Central America. Her name appears on the INTERPOL Wanted List for parental kidnapping. A Mennonite pastor, Kenneth Miller (no relation to Lisa), helped her escape. He was convicted of “aiding an international parental kidnapping of a minor,” and recently sentenced to 27 months in prison.

There is something unique about gay custody disputes that allows the government to treat a natural parent like a slave and their child like chattel. Look at these features. They are just like what happened under slavery:

– The government can give a child to somebody who is not related to the child by blood or adoption
– the natural parent did not consent to an adoption (adoption requires consent or being found unfit)
– the natural parent was never found unfit or even accused of being a bad parent
– the natural parent wanted the child

We don’t see all of these features in custody disputes involving only a father and a mother. Why are gay custody disputes triggering an experience that resembles slavery?

Remember when I said that under slavery, the government didn’t have to acknowledge the biological connections of the family members?

The same thing is happening when we make changes to the legal code that are gender-neutral. State by state, we have been erasing the concept of biological differences from how we describe marital parties and parenthood.

If judges had been forced to respect biological connections of parents to their children in the days of slavery, it would have disrupted that institution for the better. This tells us that respecting biological connections of parents to their children is a characteristic of a free society and cannot be undermined. Remember that adoption does not undermine biology. The biological parent must consent or be found unfit. Removing biological connections from the legal code is not the same as adoption, and is legally cracking open the door to modern day parents and children to be treated like slaves.

Which Side Would Abraham Lincoln Take?

Would Lincoln support:

– erasing biological connections of family members in the legal code
– thereby transferring power from all biological parents to the government
– which begins to create situations that resemble slave children being legally taken from their biological parents by force
– so that a very small percentage of the population can start receiving federal benefits, tax breaks, and improved social recognition?

This is not an equal trade. In fact, it sounds very much like a small, powerful elite trying to leverage power away from ordinary people.

Regardless of victories by the opposition, I believe history will count the defenders of traditional marriage as the true defenders of freedom.

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

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.

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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 Jim Finnegan, IFI Board Member

Bishop Thomas Paprocki, exhibiting the true traits of a descendant of the original disciples of the Lord, responded with force to the sacrilegious “approval” of homosexual “marriage” here in Illinois. 

Bishop Paprocki has scheduled Prayers of Supplication and Exorcism in reparation for the serious sin of same sex “marriage” at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception at Sixth and Lawrence.

Streets in Springfield on Wednesday, November 20 from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m.  This is approximately the same time that Governor Pat Quinn will sign into law the redefinition of marriage. Sadly, Quinn, who calls himself a Catholic, has by his actions on marriage separated himself from the Catholic faith. 

The context for this prayer service can be understood by recalling the words of Pope Francis when he faced a similar situation as Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 2010. On June 22, 2010, then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio wrote:

At stake is the identity and survival of the family: father, mother and children. At stake are the lives of many children who will be discriminated against in advance, and deprived of their human development given by a father and a mother and willed by God. At stake is the total rejection of God’s law engraved in our hearts….Let us not be naive: this is not simply a political struggle, but it is an attempt to destroy God’s plan. It is not just a bill (a mere instrument) but a ‘move’ of the father of lies who seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God….[T]oday the country, in this particular situation, needs the special assistance of the Holy Spirit to bring the light of truth on to the darkness of error, it need this advocate to defend us from being enchanted by many fallacies that are tried at all costs to justify this bill and to confuse and deceive the people of good will.

Bishop Paprocki said that same-sex marriage is contrary to the plan of God as expressed in sacred scripture (Genesis 1:27 and 2:24, Matthew 19:4-6, and Mark 10:6-9) and accordingly, those like Patrick Quinn, Michael Madigan, and all other politicians who enacted same-sex “marriage” legislation “are morally complicit as co-operators in facilitating this great sin….All politicians now have the moral obligation to work for the repeal of this sinful and objectionable legislation….We must pray for deliverance from this evil which has penetrated the state of Illinois and our churches.

The saying “unless we hang together at terrible times such as this, we will hang separately,” could not be more relevant. Bishop Paprocki’s efforts should be supported by all people of faith and good will. Let’s pray for a huge ecumenical gathering at Mass tomorrow. Make plans to attend as the first step in showing all that the correction of the misguided effort to redefine marriage and family has just begun. We must not be silenced in the face of such an affront to dignity and truth. 

Location:  

Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
524 E. Lawrence Avenue
Springfield, Illinois 62703

Phone: (217) 522-3342
Fax: (217) 522-1151

Time:  Between 4-5 PM

Written by Robert Carle

The governors of California and New Jersey have recently signed bills into law that violate First Amendment protections of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. These new laws ban licensed counselors from engaging in talk therapies that reduce the level of same-sex attractions in minors for whom such reduction is a personal goal. Strikingly, these bills apply to all minors except those who wish to change their sex (“gender identity”) altogether, via hormones and surgery. Legislators in New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania are pushing for similar talk-therapy bans. Such legislation usurps the rights of parents and children to seek counseling that conforms to their values. They are also based on faulty premises.

When signing these bills, Governor Jerry Brown dismissed sexual orientation modification as “quackery,” and Governor Chris Christie said that “people are born gay.” Both these statements ignore empirical evidence that, for many teenagers, sexual orientation is unstable and malleable. The most comprehensive study of sexuality to date, the 1992 National Health and Social Life Survey, found that, without any intervention whatsoever, three out of four boys who think they are gay at sixteen don’t think they are gay by the age of twenty-five.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2007 report, Adolescent Health in the United States, surveyed 10,000 teenagers and found that the vast majority of sixteen-year olds who reported only same-sex sexual attractions reported only opposite-sex sexual attractions one year later. Because these surveys produced such unexpected results, similar studies were soon replicated all over the Western world. The outcomes were almost identical, with population-based samples now reaching into the hundreds of thousands.

Nicholas Cummings, a former president of the American Psychological Association, writes that “contending that all same-sex attraction is immutable is a distortion of reality.” As chief psychologist for Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco, Cummings oversaw hundreds of patients who were successful in changing their sexual orientations. Cummings was selective in recommending therapeutic change only to those who were highly motivated to change and who were clinically assessed as having a high probability of success.

The vast majority of Cummings’s gay and lesbian patients didn’t want to change their sexual orientations, and Cummings offered them therapy to attain happier and more stable homosexual lifestyles. Dr. Cummings writes, “Attempting to characterize all sexual reorientation therapy as ‘unethical’ violates patient choice.” Instead, Cummings believes that lawmakers should respect a patient’s inalienable right to self-determination.

Sexual Orientation Therapies

For the last two decades, many cultural conservatives have been troubled by the way in which mainstream psychologists and psychiatrists have been pushing teenagers to prematurely identify themselves as gay, and they have been seeking out therapists with more traditionalist perspectives on sexuality.

In 1998, Stanford Professor Dr. James Lock published a controversial article in the American Journal of Psychotherapy entitled “Treatment of Homophobia in a Gay Male Adolescent.” The subject of this article was a fourteen-year-old boy (J.) who was deeply conflicted about his sexuality. Lock reports that J.’s mother “doted on him and clearly had difficulty limiting him.” J.’s father was distant from the entire family, but especially from J. Although J. was troubled by his inability to make male friends and to play team sports, Dr. Lock made no effort to help integrate J. into normal, age-appropriate social activities.

Instead, Dr. Lock quickly diagnosed J. as having a problem with “internalized homophobia,” and he worked to set J. on a path to gay self-acceptance. He encouraged J. to join a gay support group, which left J. feeling acutely depressed. At the age of sixteen, J. began having sexual encounters with a man in his late twenties, after which J. felt “empty, unhappy, dissociated.” Dr. Lock interpreted these encounters as J.’s way of “avoiding real relationships.” He also cited homophobia as a reason for J.’s starkly negative reaction to these encounters. Dr. Lock advised therapists to work with “homophobic” gay teenagers (1) by helping gay teens to explore sexual fantasies through films, books, and magazines, and (2) by supporting appropriate exploration of same-sex romantic and sexual interactions.

Dissatisfied with gay-affirmative therapeutic models, clinical psychologist Joseph Nicolosi began to offer talk-only “reparative” therapy to help build up a heterosexual identity in sexually-conflicted teenagers. Nicolosi believes that homosexual feelings are, in many cases, a result of childhood sexual abuse, dysfunctional parenting, and the failure of boys to form adequate friendships with other boys.

One of Nicolosi’s clients, Dave, had been molested by an uncle between the ages of eight and eleven. Dave’s parents divorced when he was twelve, and Dave lived with his mother and his stepdad. Although Dave felt same-sex attractions, he did not want to live his life as a gay man because of his devout Christian faith. Dave sought out a therapist who shared his values. Dr. Nicolosi, who is Catholic, worked with Dave’s pastor and youth pastor to help him develop healthy male friendships.

Dave went away to a church summer camp and joined the church’s basketball team. Although Dave is not athletic, his counselor encouraged him to push himself past his discouragement and persist in his involvement in sports. The church’s recreation center became for Dave a refuge from some of the tensions at home. In counseling, Dave came to see that his stepfather was capable of giving him some of the male affirmation he craved.

Patients who benefit from reparative therapy report that they enhanced their gender identities; learned how to integrate with peers at school; and found solutions that were in keeping with their beliefs. Critics of reparative therapy feel that they were misinformed about realistic outcomes and misled with unsubstantiated theories. They felt pressure to be heterosexual, and they blamed themselves for not changing.

Catholic theologian Joshua Gonnerman warns that the “offer of orientation change can be an . . . idol in which all of one’s hope is placed” and that “the failure to change sexual orientations can easily shatter someone who placed her hope in heterosexuality.” Gonnerman reminds us that chastity is the sexual ethic that the church demands, not heterosexual functioning.

Wanting to protect clients from false hopes of change that may never happen, Warren Throckmorton, who won an award in 2002 for supporting reparative therapy, helped develop a new framework for managing sexual identity conflicts called sexual identity therapy (SIT). SIT creates therapeutic space for the self-acceptance of clients who are unable or unwilling to change their sexual orientations. It also guards against the simplistic misconception that all gay people did not bond with their parents or were sexually abused.

According to Throckmorton, our sexual preferences are not hard-wired but rather a result of temperament, environment, and life experiences. In therapy, Throckmorton helps clients distinguish between identity (chosen self) and attractions (feeling). “Feelings and desires are not standards or commands,” Throckmorton writes, “they are reactions to whatever environment we find ourselves. Feelings often change as we change our environments and make commitments to chosen values.”

However, sometimes feelings do not change. In these cases, we must decide whether or not we want to act in accord with our beliefs. For some clients this will mean choosing to be celibate; others will modify or abandon traditionalist religious beliefs. 

Banning Speech

Unfortunately, the subtleties of these Christian approaches to therapy are lost in the drama of legislative hearings. At the three-hour hearing in Trenton that preceded the vote to ban conversion therapy, lead witness James “Brielle” Goldani testified that in 1997 he had been sent by his parents to a religious camp in Ohio run by the Assemblies of God Church called “True Directions.” Goldani said that he was subjected to electroshock therapy and nausea-inducing IV injections to cure him of homosexuality.

In the wake of the hearing, Ohio’s Secretary of State and Attorney General launched investigations, and they found that no such camp called True Directions ever existed in Ohio. The Assemblies of God had never heard of True Directions and would never have sanctioned such barbarism.

Goldani’s horror story was lifted from a 1999 film titled “But I’m a Cheerleader,” starring RuPaul. In the film, the parents of the main character send their daughter to a “conversion therapy” camp called True Directions where she receives the kind of treatment that Goldani describes. Unfortunately, it is quite common for proponents of bans on conversion therapy to circulate urban legends like “True Directions” to vilify therapists and pastors who disagree with them.

Lesbian cultural critic Camille Paglia writes, “Responsible scholarship is impossible when rational discourse is being policed by storm troopers . . . who have the absolutism of all fanatics.” Paglia believes that it is a perfectly worthy aim to help gays function heterosexually, if they so wish. Paglia asks, “Is gay identity so fragile that it cannot bear the thought that some people may not wish to be gay?”

It is unclear how people of faith will resolve the internal debates about pastoral care for teenagers with same-sex attractions, but sweeping bans on all therapeutic efforts to reduce homosexual feelings in teenagers will have a chilling effect on religious counseling and set a dangerous precedent for psychotherapy of all kinds.

The bans will certainly make clinicians reluctant to work with teens to explore a range of sexual and gender identity issues for fear of legal ramifications. Indeed, we may be entering a strange new era in which therapists can freely help teenagers manage heterosexual attractions and behaviors but are fearful of helping teenagers manage homosexual attractions and behaviors.

In response to the therapy bans, the American Academy of Christian Counselors wrote: “What does alarm us is the blatant disregard for faith values and the unnecessary restrictions that will be placed on clients and their families.” A teenager like Dave will no longer have the option of seeking out a counselor who shares his goals for himself. He will, instead, be stuck with a therapist who will be fearful of pursuing ethical treatments that run afoul of the law. Or Dave may seek treatment from an unlicensed, untrained counselor. For teenagers who are trying to balance the demands of their faith with the demands of their sexuality, this will certainly make their journey to adulthood even more difficult and lonely.

The bans on talk therapy have consequences for the freedoms of speech and religion of all Americans. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was only able to uphold this ban in California by defining one-on-one counseling as “conduct” rather than “speech.” The court held that talk-only sexual re-orientation therapy is more like administering electroshock treatments than communicating a message.

Paul Sherman and Robert McNamara, who represent the Institute for Justice, warn that if “speech” can be relabeled “conduct” in this way, then governments can begin regulating teachers who engage in the “conduct” of instructing, actors who engage in the “conduct” of entertaining, and consultants who engage in the “conduct” of strategizing. “Whatever one’s view of the merits or evils of ‘reparative’ talk therapy,” McNamara and Sherman write, “it consists entirely of spoken communication,” and this should bring it within the scope of First Amendment protection. The Ninth Circuit’s ruling represents a radical break from the American tradition of protecting unpopular speech that offends the sensibilities of a powerful interest group.

Robert Carle is a professor of theology at The King’s College in Manhattan. He is an editor of Signs of Hope in the City and a contributor to Society, Human Rights Review, World Magazine, and Touchstone.

My random thoughts following the vote on marriage:

1.)  Tuesday, cowardly and/or ignorant Illinois lawmakers in defiance of truth, history, logic, compassion, and in some cases, their own religious traditions voted to legally recognize non-marital unions as marriages. In so doing, they have expanded the role of government in the lives of Americans, diminished religious liberty, rendered inevitable the legalization of plural unions, and harmed children in incalculable ways. They have given their stamp of approval on the practice of denying children’s inherent right to have both a mother and father. And they have assured that public schools will teach about sexual perversion in positive ways to children from kindergarten on up.

2.)  The voices of tolerance, truth, compassion, and love did not win. The voices of ignorance and the father of lies won. Here are emails I received from ardent supporters of genderless faux-marriage:

Robert Fracassa sent these three emails to me:

“You Lose. Loser!!!!!!!!” 

“How does it feel? Really bad? Imagine a lifetime of people as evil as you against birth of a child living in misery. No more!  Retire, all your work did nothing and means nothing!!! Marriage equality wins!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yayyyyyy, slam dunk in your face, freak!!!! 

“Reminder, Score: equality 1…Illinois Family Institute and NOM – ZERO!!!!! F U !!!!”

Homosexual activist Scott Rose  (aka Scott Rosenweig or Rosensweig) who writes for the New Civil Rights Movement and filed the challenge to University of Texas Professor Mark Regnerus’ important study of homosexual families, sent this email:

Ha ha!  Ha ha, Laurie.  You do still have the blood of gay-bashing victims dripping off of your bigot fingers, yet you live in a state where the gay people are going to have federal level equality. 

Your life is a waste. 

I think it would be a good idea for you now to kill yourself. 

Go ahead and tell the public…that  I said that. 

I could care less if the public knows that I said it would be a good idea for an anti-LGBT bigot to kill themselves. 

Yes, I am gloating over your defeat. 

Your life is a waste. 

3.) Of course, this transmogrification of marriage has nothing whatsoever to do with equality, which demands that we treat like things alike. Homosexual unions and heterosexual marriage are not alike. They’re as different as night is from day and men are from women.

4.) The Left makes the non-sequitur claim that because heterosexual marriages are failing, homosexual unions should be recognized as marriages. By that “logic,” one could argue that because marriages composed of two people are failing, we should legally recognize plural unions as marriages. Or because marriages composed of biologically unrelated people are failing, we should legalize incestuous marriages. Or because marriages between people of major age are failing, we should legalize marriage between adults and children.

5.) Far too many Christians and their religious leaders were missing in action on this battle and have been for a very, very long time. Churches are not educating either their adult members or their youth on the issue of homosexuality in general and marriage in particular, and this dereliction of duty leaves Christians either confused or, worse, persuaded by the lies of the world.

Our children are growing up in a culture suffused with the poison of sexual perversity, the advocacy of which is propelled by the manipulation of their feelings and thoughts. Who will teach are children the flaws in the arguments proffered by progressives to normalize homosexuality and pervert marriage, if not the church? Most of their parents can’t critique and refute the specious secular arguments used by the Left. And teens aren’t spending their time reading First Things and Touchstone magazines or visiting the website Public Discourse.

So, where, pray tell, will kids be taught how to think through the plethora of fallacious messages with which the culture is slowly being poisoned? One of God’s many gifts in creating us in His image is that we enjoy the gift of reason. Rationality is not a sphere separate from the sacred.

6.)  Far too many religious leaders claim the church should not be involved in “political issues.” But what if political issues are first biblical issues? During the slave era, should churches have remained silent as Scripture was twisted to justify slave-holding (just as it is twisted today to justify same-sex pseudo-marriage)? Was it right that so many Christians refused to stand for truth during Hitler’s reign of terror? Should Christians have refrained from participating in the Civil Rights marches in the 1960’s?

7.)  Listening to the floor “debates” in Springfield, I was reminded of Neil Postman’s prophetic words in Amusing Ourselves to Death, in which he warns about our television-based culture losing its capacity to reason. Instead, appeals to emotion will rule.

The manipulative non-arguments in Springfield included reading a letter from a ten-year-old girl who, prior to being adopted by two homosexual men, had been in foster care. Two thoughts: First, adoption by a similarly compassionate mother and father would have been a better option. Second, the compassionate nurturance of these two men does not mean that their union constitutes a marriage. Although this is a perfect example of a manipulative appeal to emotion, it makes no sense as an argument. If five people of assorted sexes were to take this young girl in and fulfill all the responsibilities of a father and mother, their union would still not constitute a marriage.

8.)  It’s easy for the Left to vilify as hateful bigots people like me as long as there are only a handful of us around the country. If Christendom would come alive with the desire to protect children, preserve religious liberty, expose the deeds of darkness, and suffer for Christ, the Left would be unable to marginalize them all. The Left’s deliberate strategy of vilification and marginalization of those who serve as the tip of the spear works because the church slumbers—or hides. It’s easy to mock and demonize 100 people. It’s not so easy to malign 100,000.

9.)  What does the vote count really tell us in this heavily blue state in which the corrupt Democratic Party controls Springfield and in which House Speaker Mike Madigan for 10 years refused to allow a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman even to have a hearing?  The speaker had to arm-twist members of his own party to get their votes on Tuesday. This close vote in this corrupt blue state may tell us that there are fewer Americans in love with this queer form of marriage than the press would have us believe.

Finally, thank you from the bottom of our weary but at peace hearts! Thank you to all who helped through emails and calls to and meetings with their state representatives, by attending marriage lobby days and pastors breakfasts, for financial support, for prayers, and for emails of support to us.

Thanks you to every state representative who through their votes defended true marriage, an act which is becoming a counter-cultural act of courage.

Thank you too for the emails we received Tuesday night thanking us and offering encouragement and eager support for the next step in our work to preserve liberty and protect children. Those were balms to our souls.

God’s work in this period of redemptive history is far from over. Teaching our youth; making it possible for parents to exit public schools; booting out foolish and cowardly lawmakers; awakening Christians, particularly clergy, who with the exception of a relatively small group, were largely and unconscionably absent; and alerting other states that will soon see their marriage laws attacked to the critical importance of every Christian speaking out boldly for truth are our next tasks.

In all things, we give thanks.

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Illinois lawmakers are headed back to Springfield for the second half of the fall veto session, which runs today through Thursday this week.   I will be  join our lobbyists and other marriage advocates at the Capitol to continue our work to defend the institution of marriage.

There is a very good chance that Springfield lawmakers will be voting on SB 10, the bill to redefine marriage. This is an all-hands-on-deck emergency! We need your voice and prayers now more than ever. It can be stopped if we are willing to stand up and speak out to our elected officials. 

Take ACTION: Send an email or a fax to your state representative to ask them to vote NO to SB 10, the same-sex “marriage” bill. Please also call the Capitol switchboard at (217) 782-2000 and ask to be connected to your state representative. Tell his/her legislative aide that you want him/her to vote NO to SB10, the bill to redefine marriage and family. Call every day this week.   

Same-sex marriage will do great harm to our children, our churches, and our religious freedom. It is not the design God instituted for marriage and family. Marriage is the fundamental building block for all of human civilization. Marriage promotes healthy, natural families for the common good today and for future generations.  We redefine it at our peril. 

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight. ~Isaiah 5:20 

IFI is deeply concerned about the social and spiritual ramifications of passing SB 10. God has established the boundaries within which the gift of sex is to be enjoyed and the best environment in which to raise children. Marriage benefits society—especially children—in ways that no other relationship can. Marriage promotes the truth that children need a mom and a dad and fosters the establishment of homes with both. Upholding God’s design for marriage is the best way to bless children with a mom and a dad. 

God has shown mercy by holding back this terrible legislation thus far—mercy which isn’t deserved. Perhaps He is giving us one last chance to act as salt and light in a dark and decaying world. We need to pray and fast, but we also need to act! God sees faith without action as no faith at all. (“…faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” ~James 2:17) 

Marriage redefinition must be stopped!  

Please call your state lawmaker today at the State Capitol switchboard at (217) 782-2000 and tell him/her to vote NO to SB 10. We need a huge outpouring of calls if we hope to avert this tragedy.  

Please keep this in your prayers.

 Please, click HERE to to support our work to defend marriage.