No, the title of this piece is not referring to President Barack Obama’s “say what?” comparison of individual action to muskets and militia:

For the American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias. 

Yes, it should trouble Americans of every political stripe to hear that Obama apparently views individualism and bootstrap independence as outmoded, ineffectual means of “meeting the demands of today’s world,” but the analogy to which the title refers is Obama’s audacious (as in demonstating a lack of respect) and fallacious comparison of homosexuality to race and sex:

We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.

“Seneca Falls” refers to the historic women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York. “Selma” refers to the signal event of the civil rights movement when blacks attempted to march to the capitol of Alabama to protest voter registration abuses and state-sanctioned violence against blacks.

And then there’s Stonewall…

The Stonewall Riots are considered by many to mark the beginning of the “gay liberation” movement. The Stonewall Inn was a mafia-owned bar in New York City patronized primarily by homosexuals and cross-dressers and which was regularly raided by police. Over the course of several nights in the summer of 1969, homosexuals rioted in protest of one such police raid.

It is wearying to have to address the comparison of homosexuality to sex or race yet again. But like the emperor’s non-existent clothes, Obama and his court continue to trot it out in public, knowing that the masses still deceive themselves into finding it utterly bedazzling.

Race and sex are 100 percent heritable conditions that are in all cases immutable and have no relation to volitional acts that are legitimate objects of moral assessment.

Homosexuality, on the other hand, is not 100 percent heritable, is not in all cases immutable, and is constituted by volitional acts that are legitimate objects of moral assessment.  A more sound analogy would compare homosexuality to polyamory or pedophilia (or for those who put finer distinctions on the condition currently being renamed “minor-attracted persons,” there is pedophilia, hebephilia, and ephebophilia).

Obama goes on to say that “Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.” (Translated, this means that “same-sex marriage” should be legalized.) Such foolishness from our president should be embarrassing, but we seemed to be losing our capacity to recognize foolishness or be embarrassed.

First, those who choose to place their same-sex attraction at the center of their identity are “treated like anyone else under the law.” They are perfectly free to participate in the sexually complementary institution of marriage. They choose not to. They are not asking to be treated equally. They are demanding to be treated specially. They want the unilateral right to jettison the central defining feature of marriage (i.e., sexual complementarity)—something, by the way, that polygamists, polyamorists, “minor-attracted persons,” and sibling-lovers are not permitted to do.

Second, does our president actually believe the idea he clunkily articulated in his speech, that “surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well”? Does he believe the love polygamists “commit” to their wives “must be equal as well”? Does he believe the love a high school teacher commits to his student “must be equal as well”? Does he believe the love five polyamorists of assorted genders “commit” to one another “must be equal” as well? Does he believe the love a brother and sister “commit” to each other “must be equal as well”?

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive.

Obama audaciously exploits the legacy and faith of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. by linking King’s righteous battle for the civil rights of black Americans to the unrighteous battle to normalize homosexuality and legalize homosexual faux-marriage. While arrogating for his ignoble purposes the name of Martin Luther King, Obama conveniently omits the fact that King said, “How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God.”

While Obama claims to be a follower of Christ (a fact that doesn’t seem to upset the Left nearly as much as George Bush’s Christianity did), he flouts the teachings of Christ. It’s unclear whether Obama’s heretical views of marriage reflect Jeremiah Wright’s teaching, Obama’s spiritual and intellectual laziness, or his political opportunism. What is clear is that his views are destructive.

But while both the Old and New Testaments affirm marriage as a sexually complementary institution, defending marriage as such need not derive from religious belief. Even atheists and agnostics are able to recognize and defend marriage as a sexually complementary institution, which explains why in France recently, there were atheists (as well as homosexuals) joining people of faith to defend the traditional and true understanding of marriage. 

Some will claim in high dudgeon that criticisms of Obama demonstrate a lack of respect for the Office of President. Americans, however, have no ethical obligation to refrain from criticizing ideas that are ignorant, offensive, and destructive—even if those ideas are expressed by the president. In fact, the office Obama occupies provides him with an exceptional degree of influence that requires the pernicious ideas he promotes to be challenged. And the de facto destruction of marriage—which is the idea he was promoting in his inaugural speech—is, indeed, pernicious.

Written by Thaddeus Baklinski, LifeSiteNews.com

A prominent Toronto psychiatrist has severely criticized the assumptions underlying what has been dubbed by critics as the Canadian federal government’s “bathroom bill,” that is, Bill C-279, a private member’s bill that would afford special protection to so-called “transgender” men and women.

Dr. Joseph Berger has issued a statement saying that from a medical and scientific perspective there is no such thing as a “transgendered” person, and that terms such as “gender expression” and “gender identity” used in the bill are at the very least ambiguous, and are more an emotional appeal than a statement of scientific fact.

Berger, who is a consulting psychiatrist in Toronto and whose list of credentials establishes him as an expert in the field of mental illness, stated that people who identify themselves as “transgendered” are psychotic or simply unhappy, and pointed out that hormone therapy and surgery are not appropriate treatments for psychosis or unhappiness.

“From a scientific perspective, let me clarify what ‘transgendered’ actually means,” Dr. Berger said, adding, “I am speaking now about the scientific perspective – and not any political lobbying position that may be proposed by any group, medical or non-medical.”

“‘Transgendered’ are people who claim that they really are or wish to be people of the sex opposite to which they were born, or to which their chromosomal configuration attests,” Dr. Berger stated.

“Some times, some of these people have claimed that they are ‘a woman trapped in a man’s body’ or alternatively ‘a man trapped in a woman’s body’.”

“The medical treatment of delusions, psychosis or emotional happiness is not surgery,” Dr. Berger stated.

“On the other hand,” Dr. Berger continued, “if these people are asked to clarify exactly what they believe, that is to say do they truly believe whichever of those above propositions applies to them and they say ‘no’, then they know that such a proposition is not true, but that they ‘feel’ it, then what we are talking about scientifically, is just unhappiness, and that unhappiness is being accompanied by a wish – that leads some people into taking hormones that predominate in the other sex, and even having cosmetic surgery designed to make them ‘appear’ as if they are a person of the opposite sex.”

He explained that cosmetic surgery will not change the chromosomes of a human being in that it will not make a man become a woman, capable of menstruating, ovulating, and having children, nor will it make a woman into a man, capable of generating sperm that can unite with an egg or ovum from a woman and fertilize that egg to produce a human child.

Moreover, Dr. Berger stated that the arguments put forward by those advocating for special rights for gender confused people have no scientific value and are subjective and emotional appeals with no objective scientific basis.

“I have read the brief put forward by those advocating special rights, and I find nothing of scientific value in it,” Dr. Berger said in his statement. “Words and phrases, such as ‘the inner space,’ are used that have no objective scientific basis.”

“These are the scientific facts,” Dr. Berger said. “There seems to me to be no medical or scientific reason to grant any special rights or considerations to people who are unhappy with the sex they were born into, or to people who wish to dress in the clothes of the opposite sex.”

“The so-called ‘confusion’ about their sexuality that a teenager or adult has is purely psychological. As a psychiatrist, I see no reason for people who identify themselves in these ways to have any rights or privileges different from everyone else in Canada,” he concluded.

REAL Women of Canada asked Dr. Berger for a statement on the issues surrounding Bill C-279 after the organization appeared before the review committee hearings on the bill.

Gwen Landolt of REAL Women told LifeSiteNews that after being initially refused permission to present their perspective on the bill to the review committee, the group was accepted, but found that all other groups and individuals who had been accepted to appear before the committee were supporters of Bill C-279.

“It can scarcely be an impartial review of any bill if only the witnesses supporting the bill are invited to speak to it,” Landolt said.

Landolt explained that after passing second reading on June 6, 2012, Bill C-279 went to the Justice and Human Rights Committee for review.

At the review committee hearings, REAL Women of Canada presented a 12 page brief setting out the harms created by the bill, and pointing out that the terms “gender expression” and “gender identity,” as written in Bill C-279, were so broad that they could be used to protect pedophilia along with other sexual perversions, if passed into law.

REAL Women provided the committee with evidence that post-operative trans-gendered individuals suffer substantially higher morbidity and mortality than the general population, placing the so-called “sex reassignment” surgery and hormone treatment under continued scrutiny.

They pointed out that a pioneer in such treatment, Dr. Paul McHugh, distinguished professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, stopped the procedures because he found that patients were no better adjusted or satisfied after receiving such treatment.

McHugh wrote in 2004 that “Hopkins was fundamentally cooperating with a mental illness” by catering to the desires of people who wanted surgery to change their biological sex.

“We psychiatrists, I thought, would do better to concentrate on trying to fix their minds and not their genitalia,” he stated, adding that “to provide a surgical alteration to the body of these unfortunate people was to collaborate with a mental disorder rather than to treat it.”

Landolt noted that the committee hearings ended in confusion over the terminology presented in the bill, and that even the bill’s sponsor, NDP MP Randall Garrison (Esquimalt – Juan de Fuca), was not clear as to who is included and who is excluded in these terms.

“The definition for ‘gender identity’ proposed by Mr. Garrison is a subjective one that he defined as a ‘deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex that the individual was assigned at birth’,” Landolt said, adding that “The committee engaged in extensive discussions on the meaning of “gender identity” and “gender expression” without much clarification.”

“As a result, instead of a smooth, orderly dispatch of this bill through the Committee orchestrated by Garrison, Conservative MP Shelly Glover (St. Boniface, Manitoba) and Conservative MP Kerry-Lynne Findlay (Delta-Richmond-East, BC), the committee hearings broke down in confusion at the final hearing on December 10th. The result is that the bill will be reported to the House of Commons as originally written without amendments,” Landolt stated.

Following this state of confusion over terms at the review committee, REAL Women sought out an expert in order to provide the scientific and medical evidence relating to “transgenderism” and the other terms used in the bill.

Gwen Landolt told LifeSiteNews that REAL Women of Canada will be including Dr. Berger’s statement in an information package to be sent to MPs before the bill comes to final vote.

“It is crucial that MPs know that this legislation is harmful, not only to those who think themselves transgendered but also to society, and should not be passed into law,” Landolt said. “We must therefore write to our MP’s to request that they speak against this troubling bill.”

Dr. Berger is certified as a specialist in Psychiatry by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and is an elected Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He is also a past Chairman of the Toronto district of the Ontario Medical Association and past President of the Ontario branch of the American Psychiatric Association.

Berger has been an Examiner in Psychiatry for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology for twenty five years, has taught as Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, and is the author of many published papers on different aspects of Diagnosis and Independent Psychiatric Assessments, as well as author of the book “The Independent Medical Examination in Psychiatry” published by Butterworth/Lexis-Nexis.

Poll Support for ‘Gay Marriage’ Plummets

Who would have thought that an anti-”gay marriage” rally in France would draw at least 340,000 people and possibly much more — and that support for homosexual “marriage” would drop precipitously in the polls? (French support for same-sex “marriage” reportedly fell from 65 percent to 52 percent — though I don’t trust polls and suspect that most surveys overstate support for the pro-homosexual agenda.)

Beneath the YouTube video (after the jump) there is an excerpt from an AP report on the rally, which includes a police estimate of 340,000 people attending the massive rally (organizers claimed 800,000 marchers).

Note too that the organizers of the rally folded a message of opposing “homophobia” into their pro-natural-message campaign (e.g, see the marcher holding the “Friend of Marriage Not Homophobia” sign at 1:09 of this 3-minute video). This viewpoint is far from one that AFTAH would put forward, but nevertheless the rally shows how unpopular the dominant LGBT goal of homosexual “marriage” is even in highly secularized countries like France.

PS. The huge rally in socialist-run France and the plummeting “gay marriage” poll numbers speak volumes about the “gay” activist propaganda line that LGBT victories are “inevitable.” They are not.

YouTube URL: http://www.youtube.com/embed/LUeFZcCdpGE

Gay Marriage Protest Converges on Eiffel Tower

PARIS (AP) [Jan. 13, 2013] — Holding aloft ancient flags and young children, hundreds of thousands of people converged Sunday on the Eiffel Tower to protest the French president’s plan to legalize gay marriage and thus allow same-sex couples to adopt and conceive children.

The opposition to President Francois Hollande’s plan has underscored divisions among the secular-but-Catholic French, especially more traditional rural areas versus urban enclaves. But while polls show the majority of French still support legalizing gay marriage, that backing gets more lukewarm when children come into play.

The protest march started at three points across Paris, filling boulevards throughout the city as demonstrators walked six kilometers (3 miles) to the grounds of France’s most recognizable monument. Paris police estimated the crowd at 340,000, making it one of the largest demonstrations in Paris since an education protest in 1984.

“This law is going to lead to a change of civilization that we don’t want,” said Philippe Javaloyes, a literature teacher who bused in with 300 people from Franche Comte in the far east. “We have nothing against different ways of living, but we think that a child must grow up with a mother and a father.”

Public opposition spearheaded by religious leaders has chipped away at the popularity of Hollande’s plan in recent months. About 52 percent of French favor legalizing gay marriage, according to a survey released Sunday, down from as high as 65 percent in August.

French civil unions, allowed since 1999, are at least as popular among heterosexuals as among gay and lesbian couples. But that law has no provisions for adoption or assisted reproduction, which are at the heart of the latest debate.

Hollande’s Socialist Party has sidestepped the debate on assisted reproduction, promising to examine it in March after party members split on including it in the latest proposal. That hasn’t assuaged the concerns of many in Sunday’s protest, however, who fear it’s only a matter of time.

“They’re talking about putting into national identity cards Parent 1, Parent 2, Parent 3, Parent 4. Mom, dad and the kids are going to be wiped off the map, and that’s going to be bad for any country, any civilization,” said Melissa Michel, a Franco-American mother of five who was among a group from the south of France on a train reserved specifically for the protest…. [click HERE to continue reading full AP article]

More background on French opposition to ‘gay marriage’

The growing coalition against “gay marriage” in France is made up of traditional religious and irreligious (including pro-”gay”) forces. See THIS LifeSiteNews story describing previous rallies in Paris in November 2012 — one secular, the other religious.

Photos: Facebook page of “La Manif Pour Tous”: http://www.facebook.com/LaManifPourTous

Earlier this week, the presidential inaugural committee announced that President Obama has chosen Richard Blanco to be the 2013 inaugural poet. Blanco, it just so happens, is Hispanic and homosexual. Liberals would label a choice like this “tokenism” if made by a conservative, but let’s  just call it fealty to two of Obama’s critical constituencies.

But that’s not all Obama did this week to pay obeisance to the all-powerful homosexual lobby. He also pressured the evangelical pastor whom he had invited to give the benediction at his inauguration to withdraw.

By now many are aware of what Dr. Al Mohler has colorfully deemed the “Giglio imbroglio.” Rev. Louie Giglio was asked to give the benediction at President Obama’s inauguration as a result of his work to end human trafficking. But yesterday homosexual activists apoplectic over his invitation exposed Giglio’s dark secret, which led the White House to compel him to withdraw from participating in the inaugural ceremony.

And what was Giglio’s sin? His “sin” was preaching a sermon fifteen years ago that expressed theologically orthodox views of homosexuality (gasp). (The more serious issue to the theologically orthodox faith community is why Rev. Giglio has not preached about such an important scriptural issue for  almost two decades, particularly when biblical truth about homosexuality is under sustained assault from virtually every quarter of American public life. And why is he distancing himself now from the words he spoke fifteen years ago?)

Giglio’s compulsory withdrawal wasn’t enough, however, to soothe the savage breasts of homosexual activists—you know, those lovers of tolerance and diversity. The White House had to perform some public penance by tacitly apologizing for ever having invited such a morally flawed man.

Not only has the White House in effect disinvited Giglio, but infamous and unpleasant homosexual activist Wayne Besen has arrogantly demanded that Giglio reveal whether he has “evolved on gay rights.” Dr. Mohler warns us to see to writing on the wall:

The Presidential Inaugural Committee and the White House have now declared historic, biblical Christianity to be out of bounds, casting it off the inaugural program as an embarrassment….[A]nyone who has ever believed that homosexuality is morally problematic in any way must now offer public repentance and evidence of having “evolved” on the question…This is what is now openly demanded of Christians today. If you want to avoid being thrown off the program, you had better learn to evolve fast, and repent in public.

Dr. Russell Moore, Dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, addresses  the serious constitutional issues that this inaugural dust-up reveals:

The statement Giglio made that was so controversial is essentially a near-direct quotation from the Christian Scriptures. Unrepentant homosexuals, Giglio said (as with unrepentant sinners of all kinds) “will not inherit the kingdom of God.” That’s 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. Giglio said, “it’s not easy to change, but it is possible to change.” The Bible says God “commands all people everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30), the same gospel, Giglio says, “that I say to you and that you would say to me.”…

When it is now impossible for one who holds to the catholic Christian view of marriage and the gospel to pray at a public event, we have a de facto established state church.  Just as the pre-constitutional Anglican and congregational churches required a license to preach in order to exclude Baptists, the new state church requires a “license” of embracing sexual liberation in all its forms….

Notice that the problem is not that this evangelical wants to “impose his religion” on the rest of society.  The problem is not that he wants to exclude homosexuals or others from the public square or of their civil rights. The problem is that he won’t say that they can go to heaven without repentance. That’s not a civil issue, but a religious test of orthodoxy….

We don’t have a natural right to pray at anyone’s inauguration. But when one is pressured out from a previous invitation because he is too “toxic” for simply mentioning once something universal in the Christian faith, we ought to see what we’re looking at: a state church.

Obama’s unflappably cool demeanor and “can’t we all just get along” rhetoric are exposed for the deceits they are by his relentless in-your-face assault on conservative values and religious liberty. He’s not liberal; he’s radical. And he’s not an irenic unifier; he’s a presumptuous and aggressive divider. He’s now using the ceremonial occasion of his inauguration, which should be a moment of national unity, to slap conservatives in the face—no, make that stomp on their faces with mud-encrusted jack boots.

“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!”
~Isaiah 5:20

On January 3, 2013, the state legislators of Illinois were warned about the documented consequences of legalizing same-sex marriage. The Thomas More Society, a public interest law firm focused on protecting constitutional rights, sent letters to each member of the Illinois General Assembly, encouraging them to oppose the “Illinois Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act.”

The missive, signed by Thomas Brejcha, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Society, and Peter Breen, Executive Director and Legal Counsel, advised the lawmakers that voting “yes” to the proposed same-sex marriage bill will harm, rather than support, constituents. If passed, explains the letter, the discriminatory act will declare Illinoisans who support traditional marriage to be bigoted and prejudicial. As in other states that have passed this type of legislation, public children as young as kindergarten may be taught about same-sex sexual activity, and parents who disapprove will have no right to opt their children out.

The Thomas More Society communique points out that the deceptively titled “Illinois Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act” will actually strip away the meager religious liberty protections of the 2010 civil union law. The current law allows faith-based adoption agencies, hospitals, and schools to follow their deeply held convictions in regard to employment, facilities rental, and other decisions. Under the proposed act, threat of being charged with Illinois Human Rights Act violations will unconstitutionally coerce acceptance of same-sex unions.

The only documented benefit to Illinois’ same-sex couples, assert Brejcha and Breen, would be a change in wording from “civil union license” to “marriage license,” a vanity not worth the disenfranchisement of large segments of the state’s population. The current law already provides same-sex couples the rights of married couples.

They contend that the proposed act will do great harm to the religious liberty all Americans are guaranteed under the Constitution of the United States. Rather than promote civic tolerance, the “Illinois Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act” will legalize intolerance.

Click to read the full Thomas More Society letter to the members of the Illinois General Assembly.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

About the Thomas More Society
The Thomas More Society is a national not-for-profit law firm that exists to restore respect in law for life, marriage, and religious liberty. Headquartered in Chicago, they foster support for these causes by providing high quality pro-bono professional legal services to clients across the nation. Some of their clients include leading pro-life and pro-family organizations such as National 40 Days for Life, Lila Rose and Live Action, Catholic Bishops, religious orders, priests, nuns, pregnancy crisis centers, Joe, Ann, and Eric Scheidler’s Pro-Life Action League, homeschoolers, elected officials, and many others. For more information or to support the work of Thomas More Society, please visit www.thomasmoresociety.org. 

Christian Newswire

Over the Christmas weekend, you may have seen or heard the reports from the media  extolling the news that 260 clergy — mostly from the Chicago area — signed a petition in support of redefining marriage.  In response to this story, IFI’s Laurie Higgins had some very good quotes in a New York Times article, while I had a short quote in the WGN-TV report that aired four days ago.

It is important that we keep this “news” in perspective.  In the state of Illinois, there are over a thousand Roman Catholic churches, over a thousand Southern Baptist churches, more than 500 Missouri Synod Lutheran churches, and there are thousands of other churches of various denominations — including Reformed, EV Free, Nazarene, Assemblies of God, COGIC, Charismatic, Baptist, Eastern Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Seven Day Adventists, Pentecostal, Mennonite, Independent — all of whom officially and publicly acknowledge that God ordained marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and that sexual activity outside the bonds of natural marriage is sinful.

It is no surprise to learn that a tiny fraction of religious leaders would compromise, distort, and misuse the Word of God for the praise of man and/or to achieve a political goal.  Kara Wagner Sherer of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Chicago was quoted in the New York Times article saying, “It doesn’t have to be a faith issue… We understand our Scripture in a different way.”  That statement really says it all.  She is correct, their stand is not a faith issue.  Divorcing God from the equation and dismissing thousands of years of Christian teaching, thought and understanding reveals their motives as distinctly humanistic and political.

Despite the holiday season, our state lawmakers need to hear from us — in person, by phone or by email.  Proponents of marriage redefinition are engaged in a full-court press right now, and they are planning to use the upcoming lame duck session (January 2-8) to accomplish their goal.

This past Saturday morning, I spoke to a state lawmaker — a Democrat — who expressed to me his concern.  He has been receiving more calls and emails in favor of same-sex marriage than he has been receiving against it.  I explained to him that the vast majority of Illinoisans were busy with family, church, shopping, cooking and traveling.  I assured him that after the Christmas weekend, that opposition to redefining marriage would certainly ramp up.  

Please prove me right!

Take ACTION: Click HERE to email your state lawmakers today, urging them to uphold natural marriage and not to cave to the politically correct and culturally destructive groups who are intent on altering society’s understanding of marriage.  Be assured, your calls and emails are important!  Legislators take very seriously the letters and the numbers of calls they receive – particularly letters that are written by their constituents (as opposed to pre-written form letters.) 

THANK YOU!

P.S.  Would you consider helping meet our $20,000 end-of-year matching challenge? It is vital that we raise these critical funds so that we are able to go into next year to fight marriage redefinition and many other anti-family proposals. 

Any donation given or mailed by December 31st will go toward this matching challenge and will be fully tax-deductible, lowering your 2012 tax burden.

Click HERE to support IFI and have your donation doubled!

 To make a credit card donation over the phone, call the IFI office at (708) 781-9328.  You can also send a gift to P.O. Box 88848, Carol Stream, IL  60188.

Written by Carol Kuruvilla, New York Daily News

The Pope sent a clear message to gay rights activists who are celebrating gains made this year – the Vatican still thinks same-sex marriage is a ‘manipulation of nature.’ 

Pope Benedict XVI, right, made it clear during his Christmas speech that the Vatican believes marriage should only be between a man and a woman. Pope Benedict used his annual Christmas message to denounce gay marriage, saying that it destroyed the “essence of the human creature.” 

In one of his most important speeches of the year, the Pope stressed that a person’s gender identity is God-given and unchangeable. As a result, he sees gay marriage as a “manipulation of nature.” 

“People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given to them by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being,” he said at the Vatican on Friday. “They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves.” 

The Pope has said that gay marriage, like abortion and euthanasia, is a threat to world peace. 

In response, LGBT activists staged a protest at St. Peter’s Square. Equally Blessed, a coalition of Catholic organizations in the U.S. that supports gay marriage, repudiated the Pope’s claims. In a joint press release, the groups said that Benedict’s “rigid and outmoded” view of gender identity contrasted sharply with the reality they were witnessing in America – same-sex couples creating happy homes for their kids and transgender people living “healthy, mature, and generous lives.” 

“Catholics, following their own well-formed consciences, are voting to support equal rights for LGBT people because in their churches and communities they see a far healthier, godly and realistic vision of the human family than the one offered by the pope,” said the joint statement from Call to Action, DignityUSA, Fortunate Families and New Ways Ministry. 

As Pope, Benedict sets both tone and theology for the Catholic Church. Officially, the church still considers homosexuality an “intrinsically disordered” act. 

However, 59 percent of Catholics in America favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry, according to a poll released this year by the Public Religion Research Institute. 

That’s exactly what is worrying the Pope. He fears the opinions people form in their own consciences will lead them away from the doctrines set forth by the church. 

“When freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God,” Benedict said. 

The Pope’s Christmas message comes during a time when advocates for same-sex marriage are gaining ground in the U.S. and Europe. American voters in Maine, Maryland, and Washington endorsed gay marriage at the ballot box in November. A total of nine states now allow marriage between two men or two women. Three additional states officially recognize marriages that were performed outside of state lines, according to the Religion News Service. 

Efforts to legalize gay marriage, though controversial, are also being pushed by politicians in several European countries. The Constitutional Court in Spain, where a majority of citizens are Catholic, upheld a law that legalized same-sex marriage last month. The British government will introduce a legalization bill next year. French President Francois Hollande has said that he will enact his “marriage for everyone” plan within a year of taking office last May. 

This week, thousands marched in Paris in support of the Socialist government’s plan to legalize same-sex marriage. However, the French LGBT rights movement still faces strong opposition from religious leaders like Gilles Bernheim, France’s chief rabbi. 

On Friday, Pope Benedict quoted Bernheim, saying that the movement to grant rights to lesbian or gay couples to marry and adopt children was an “attack” on the traditional family unit. 

For Pope Benedict, the image of traditional family has not and will not mean anything more than a man, a woman and their children.

Multiple media sources are cheerfully reporting that supporters of marriage-redefinition may try to pass their same-sex “marriage” bill during the lame duck session of the General Assembly next month (January 3-9).

State Representative Greg Harris (D-Chicago), who identifies as homosexual and is the chief sponsor of this anti-family legislation, used the lame duck session in 2010 to ram through a same-sex “civil unions” bill.  It passed by razor-thin margins in part because many proponents of civil unions dishonestly promised lawmakers that the legalization of “civil unions” was all they wanted. 

The ethically-challenged ACLU lobbied heavily for civil unions in 2010, but then in 2012 filed a lawsuit in Cook County on behalf of homosexual activists, complaining that the very civil union law they lobbied to create is unconstitutional.

The liberal activists who pushed for civil unions, including Representative Harris and State Senator David Koehler (D-Peoria), also promised their colleagues that religious liberty and freedom of conscience would not be affected by the passage of “civil unions.”  We have seen how empty those promises were. 

One month after the act was signed into law, homosexual activists went after the Christian owner of a bed and breakfast in Paxton, Illinois.  The owner, Jim Walder, wanted to operate his business for the glory of the Lord.  Not wanting to violate his conscience, Mr. Walder refused to rent his bed and breakfast to a homosexual couple for their civil union ceremony and reception.  (Read more HERE.)

Then in July of 2011, because Catholic Charities would not violate its religious convictions by placing needy children in the homes of homosexual “civil union” partners, the state of Illinois forced Catholic Charities out of adoption and foster care work, thereby affecting the lives of 2,500 innocent children.

The promises of homosexual activists turned out to be utter deceits, as were the religious liberty “guarantees” that were built into the civil union bill, ironically titled “The Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act.” 

Perhaps thinking Illinoisans can be duped again, Representative Harris has named his marriage-redefinition bill the “Religious Freedom and Marriage Act.”

Take ACTION: Click HERE to email your state lawmakers today, urging them to uphold natural marriage and to support a state constitutional amendment by allowing Illinois voters to permanently define this foundational societal institution.  Be assured, your calls and emails are important!  Legislators take very seriously the letters and the numbers of calls they receive — particularly letters that are written by their constituents (as opposed to pre-written form letters.)

We can stop this destructive policy from moving forward, but we must take up the fight again and be willing to make our voices heard.  And this time, we need every conservative in Illinois to make his and her voice heard. We need you to respond to every action alert we send out as the Left moves forward with this and other pernicious legislation.

Click HERE to support the work and ministry of IFI.

Andrew Marin, the controversial founder and president of the Marin Foundation, is speaking next week at Park Community Church in Chicago. This is surprising in that from its website Park Community appears to be a theologically orthodox church.

Marin promotes himself as a bridge-builder between the Christian community and the homosexual community and has written a book on the subject titled Love is an Orientation. It is not Marin’s desire to reach the unsaved that is troubling. We should all seek to bring the good news of Christ’s redemptive work to those who identify as homosexual. Rather, it is his approach and his theology that generate controversy and trouble many Christians.

One of the serious problems with Marin is that when asked directly about his biblical beliefs regarding homosexuality, he is troublingly evasive. In addition, his book has received a devastating critique from Dr. Robert A. Gagnon, Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics. 

If Park Community Church is a theologically orthodox church rather than a church that embraces “emergent” theology, they will likely be troubled by both Marin’s theology and obfuscation. Many Christians, including orthodox theologians, have serious concerns about Marin’s theology on a number of issues, most particularly homosexuality. Dr. Gagnon, arguably the preeminent biblical scholar on this topic, has written a two-part critique of Marin’s poor exegesis and his heretical theological positions, which every church that is considering working with Marin should read thoroughly:

http://robgagnon.net/articles/homosexmarinloveisorientation.pdf

http://robgagnon.net/articles/homosexmarinsreaction.pdf

Several years ago, it appeared that Marin was either trying to conceal his orthodox positions from his friends who identify as homosexual or that he was trying to conceal his unorthodox theological views from those who hold orthodox biblical views. Increasingly it appears that he is moving toward open heresy in line with “emergent” thinkers like Brian McClaren. 

My intent is not to indict Marin personally but rather to warn theologically orthodox church leaders about his deceitful, dangerous, and heretical beliefs. Marin’s purported desire to build bridges relies on rejecting inconvenient Scripture and obfuscating such rejection when talking to orthodox Christians. 

There is only one true theology regarding homosexuality. Orthodox theologians throughout the history of the church and today hold one singular view on what Scripture teaches on homosexuality. It wasn’t until the late 20th Century that any theologians could be found who reject the historical interpretation of Scripture on this issue. 

Many Christians share a concern that false prophets are coming into our churches in sheep’s clothing. Christian leaders should substitute any other serious sexual sin for homosexuality and consider whether Mr. Marin’s theology and approach are biblically justified. We all come to Christ as sinners in need of God’s grace and mercy, but the church has no business affirming or even appearing to affirm believers in their embrace of sin as central to their identies. And no Christian has the right when directly asked what the Bible teaches about homosexuality to answer ambiguously or equivocally. 

Some chastise critics of Marin’s work, like Dr. Gagnon, spuriously claiming that criticizing Marin’s work is tantamount to unbiblical judging. They and Marin himself claim that such criticism hurts Marin’s feelings. In so claiming, they seem to be doing what the secular culture does, which is conflate two distinct meanings of judgment. Dr. Gagnon has critiqued Marin’s exegesis, which is not only legitimate but essential. Mr. Marin has written a book and promotes his ideas all over the country on radio programs and in churches. The church must judge, that is to say, evaluate, the soundness and truth of his propositions. Marin’s feelings are far less important than biblical truth. 

No one likes to be confronted with his or her error, but imagine if this strange definition of judgment were to be applied consistently. How would Christians be alerted to the false prophets or heresies in the church? Should Christian scholars be prohibited from critiquing the work of, for example, John Shelby Spong because doing so would constitute unbiblical judgment and hurt his feelings? Although Marin may find criticism of the ideas he publicly promotes to be unpleasant, such criticism cannot reasonably be called unloving. Determining what constitutes a loving act depends on first knowing what is true.

Marin should publicly answer these questions:

• Is homosexual practice a sin?
• Can followers of Christ embrace and affirm a homosexual identity and be involved in homosexual relationships?
• At what point after a self-identifying homosexual becomes a Christian should his or her church practice biblical church discipline regarding his or her homosexual practice?

A writer for the Moody Church Venue blog wrote this following Marin’s 2010 visit: “[Andy] said, ‘We have to earn the right to communicate the truth first.’” 

What other sins do Christians have to “earn the right” to identify as sins? Do we have to “earn the right” to identify porn use, adultery, fornication, incest, drunkenness, or gossip as sins?  And how do we earn the right to communicate biblical truth? 

Marin is fond of citing this quote from Billy Graham: “It is the Holy Spirit’s job to convict, God’s job to judge, and it’s my job to love.” It is, indeed, the Holy Spirit’s job to convict, but it is the job of Christians, particularly Christian leaders, to teach what God’s Word says in its entirety, which includes teaching about what constitutes sinful behavior. Articulating what the Bible teaches about homosexuality no more constitutes unscriptural judging than does articulating what the Bible teaches about idolatry, blasphemy, or adultery. And sharing what God’s Word says about morality is a loving act. 

When Marin spoke at the Venue, he referred to the fight for civil rights for blacks. I wonder, did Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. believe that Christians have to “earn the right” to communicate the truth about the sinfulness of racism? Did he ever say that before Christians condemn racism, racists must be converted? Why should the serious sin of homosexuality be treated so differently than other sins? 

Everyone should be welcome in our churches, but welcoming sinners—which all of us are—must never involve affirming sin. God loves us despite our sins, and through the work of the Holy Spirit, God mercifully grants believers freedom from bondage to sin. It is the task of the church to teach the entirety of Scripture, and it is the privilege and duty of Christians to come alongside one another as we daily strive to deny ourselves as we live for Christ.

“And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it’” (Mark 8: 34-35).

“Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.  For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom. 6:12-14).

“And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:24).

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (II Cor. 5:17).

For more on Marin, watch these two short videos: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOQQPC_SsEs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2L-B1mHIeI

Written by:  Nancy Guthrie

Rosaria Champagne Butterfield. The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert.  A poignant testimony of one woman who, in losing everything, found everything that really matters.  Pittsburgh: Crown & Covenant, 2012. 154 pp. $12.00.

What is conversion? Theologian Wayne Grudem defines it as “our willing response to the gospel call, in which we sincerely repent of sins and place our trust in Christ for salvation.” True as this definition may be, somehow it seems colorless in light of conversion not so much defined but demonstrated in Rosemarie (sic) Champagne Butterfield’s coming-to-faith memoir, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikey Convert. Conversion for Butterfield is a thoroughly disrupting transformation—a whole-life, whole-person turn toward Christ. 

Though I understand why one online bookseller features books about homosexuality as related resources on the webpage for this book, this isn’t a book about homosexuality. It doesn’t address the debates regarding whether one is born this way or chooses this life or whether same-sex attraction can be “cured.” Neither does it offer strategies for arguing against or evangelizing someone in the lesbian lifestyle. While the book does illumine these issues, it just isn’t about them. It is about one woman’s becoming convinced that the claims of the gospel are true, and the thorough reordering of her life around them.

Butterfield was certainly not searching for God when he found her. She felt no great void or desire for change. Instead, she was working on a book on the rise of the Religious Right in America and the “hermeneutic of hatred that the Religious Right uses against their favorite target: queers, or at the time, people like me” (6). After her critique of Promise Keepers appeared in the local newspaper, she received a stack of hate mail and fan mail, as well as a kind and inquiring letter from a local pastor that she just couldn’t throw away. So began a conversation that continued for two years before Butterfield ever stepped foot in a church. “I couldn’t come to church—it would have been too threatening, too weird, too much. So Ken was willing to bring the church to me” (11). As we read the story, our desire grows to be as hospitable and humble as the pastor and his wife who loved and listened to her. And what was her experience when she did finally go to church? “These people with their complete marriages, their kind children, their well-spent lives, cast a reflection on the legacy of my choice making” (71). Once again, as we read it, we find ourselves wanting to make sure that the awkward outsiders who come to our churches feel welcomed and wanted instead of shunned and condemned.

Conversion Is Comprehensive

“I did not perceive conversion to be ‘a blessing,’” Butterfield admits. She writes with refreshing honesty and straightforwardness that permeates the entire book. “It was a train wreck. . . . Conversion put me in a complicated and comprehensive chaos. I sometimes wonder, when I hear other Christians pray for the salvation of the ‘lost,’ if they realize that this comprehensive chaos is the desired end of such prayers” (27).

Butterfield came to the realization that she’d spent some of her best years steeped in the wrong worldview. “God saved me, but hadn’t lobotomized me. My deep patterns of thinking and interpretation were also suspect to sin. That [became] painfully evident to me” (80). Readers are invited into the interior of the transformation of what she thinks and how she feels, which she describes as settling “into the hard work of turning the pages of my heart, holding each one open and naked for spiritual scrutiny” (74). And, of course, this is the comprehensive process of sanctification each of us is called to, the hard work of working out our salvation (Phil. 2:12-13). 

Conversion Is All-Encompassing

Butterfield sets out to find the root of her sin so that she might repent of it, a search across the terrain of Scripture. Her exposition of the root sin of Sodom, which she delineates as pride, wealth, entertainment-driven focus, lack of mercy, and lack of modesty, leads her to the conclusion that “sexuality isn’t about what we do in bed. Sexuality encompasses a whole range of needs, demands, and desires. Sexuality is more a symptom of our life’s condition than a cause, more a consequence than an origin” (31).

Her insight invites readers to share in her repentance rather than merely observe it from a distance. “My sexuality was sinful not because it was lesbian per se but because it wasn’t Christ-controlled. My heterosexual past was no more sanctified than my homosexual present” (33).

Conversion Is Costly

While voyeuristic details on life “before” are appropriately limited, Butterfield’s experience of “coming out” as a believer is vivid and compelling. Butterfield had been a lesbian postmodernist when the graduate school that employed her as a tenured English professor asked her to deliver the opening lecture to all incoming graduate students. But six months later, when she delivered the lecture, she was a fledgling follower of Jesus Christ. Butterfield not only includes the fascinating text of her lecture but also takes readers into the personal and professional crisis of giving the lecture that made her a “traitor” and “turncoat.” Butterfield writes, “I lost my community when God saved my soul (49),” and readers feel the loss with her.

Though Butterfield lost her old community when she was claimed by Christ, it is clear she has been fully embraced into a new community, particularly the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America. And if there is one aspect of the book that perhaps weakens it, it is Butterfield’s investing half-a-chapter in defending the denomination’s commitment to exclusive Psalm-singing in worship, writing, “God commands us to sing Psalms in worship to the exclusion of man-made hymns” (94). To Butterfield it is simple: “If God gave us a book of praise songs, who are we to add to them?” (92) But, of course, to many other it is not quite this simple.

Laughter and Wincing

This book made me laugh. Butterfield’s agility with words and ideas evidences her history as a tenured English professor, yet is never off-putting. Speaking of her life now as a pastor’s wife and mother to several adopted children, she writes:

We have a minivan that Kent has christened the Traveling Garbage Can. I have been known to clean out this van by sending in my trusty Golden Retriever, Sally, to fetch old PB&J sandwiches, juice boxes, and pizza crusts. Sally is the same age as my youngest daughter; it was like having twins separated by species. Sally was housebroken with then-3-year-old Knox, because in my world, that is what summer and backyards are for (131).

This book also made me wince. Preparing to give her “testimony” for the first time, Butterfield wonders:

Did anyone else get lost in fear when counting the costs of discipleship? Did anyone else tire of taking up the Cross daily? Did anyone else grieve for death to one life that anticipates the experience of being “born again”? Did anyone else want to take just one day off from the command that we die to ourselves? (82)

Here the book indicted me for taking many days off from dying to self. How tragically we tame the call of the gospel, swallowing a religion of fitting God into our lives rather than making him our life. The nutshell version of Butterfield’s conversion and the heart of the book is this: “I lost everything but the dog” (63). But it is clear that in losing everything, she has found everything that really matters.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Nancy Guthrie and her husband, David, and son, Matt, make their home in Nashville, Tennessee, where they are members of Christ Presbyterian Church. She and David are the co-hosts of the GriefShare video series used in more than 8,500 churches around the country and host Respite Retreats for couples who have experienced the death of a child. Nancy is the author of numerous books, including Holding on to Hope and Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow and is currently working on the five-book Seeing Jesus in the Old Testament Bible study series.

Written by:  Christy McFerren

After sharing my story of overcoming homosexuality with the Prodigal community last month, I have been approached by more people than ever whose stories and struggles are similar to mine asking for more specifics about how I went from being attracted to women to legitimately being attracted to men.

Also interesting, I have been approached by heterosexual people who have never struggled with same sex attraction wanting to know more about the mystery that is homosexuality and seeking to understand its dynamics and how a person can “get there”.

Regardless of the background of those who inquire about my struggle, the conversation that follows both angles of questioning is mostly the same, and I find it to be a place where bridges are being built. Up to now, the inability to understand our differences has given place for anger and hostility to rise between the two perspectives, but I believe a new conversation is unfolding where compassion will take root.

I have a special place of compassion for people who want to love those who share my struggle but can’t relate.

With no frame of reference within themselves, it’s sometimes difficult for those who have never experienced same sex attraction to understand, and it’s a challenge for their spiritual growth to actively love and choose not to view those who do struggle as intentionally deviant.

Those who are attracted to the same sex usually can’t fathom an existence where it’s not at least something of a perfectly natural temptation, and struggle not to view those who say they can’t relate to them as unenlightened bigots. From their perspective, it is really hard to get your head around the lack of sympathy.

I want to share more details about my process here in the name of bridge building.

The roots of attraction may be a little different for everyone,

–so this is not intended to be an oversimplified answer that is applicable to everyone, but I’ve seen evidence that the more people who have been on both sides of the issue and are willing to share their perspectives, the better off our culture will be.

Because I fought my sexuality so adamantly, I was not in many long-term relationships with women. But there were a few women I was especially attracted to – enough so that I was willing to suspend my convictions and attempt to form a relationship. These usually lasted just a few months. The relationships were characterized by a kind of manic excitement at first, with undertones of fear of abandonment and jealousy in place from the start.

Over a short period of time the undertones would become defining marks of the relationship, and I would hold the person tightly to myself with the sense that letting go would be losing not only them, but part of me.

The relationships would become either a highly dysfunctional tug of war of control and jealousy or a symbiotic existence of codependency and expectations that mounted too high for either person to achieve. In either scenario, disappointment and heartache were certain to follow. In reflecting on the way my relationships went when I gave in to my same sex attractions,

–over time I began to realize that the women I was drawn to were women who had either physical characteristics or personality traits that I felt were inadequate in my own expression of womanhood.

For example, I was mostly drawn to bubbly personalities because I am a quiet and serious person much of the time. Or I was drawn to petite women because with my larger frame, I never felt I fit the bill for what a woman should look like to be considered attractive in our society. When this first occurred to me, it didn’t seem that wrong because even heterosexual couples seek people who complement their weaknesses. Opposites attract.

But I began to realize that I was seeking the rest of my womanhood from the women I was with.

Then I saw that anytime I was hurt by my partner, the pain was so deep it was as if my sense of womanhood was being threatened. I was controlling, possessive and expressed a strong need for agreement and affirmation because I had somewhere in the process looped this person into my identity as an inseparable part of me.

Any action they took that indicated a distinction between us as people resulted in a fight. I felt either legitimized as a valuable person or completely worthless based on their everyday responses to me. When I first began to see and understand that this is what was at work in me, I started to rise up a little bit against it. The foundations of my faith gave me the understanding that I could and should call out to God for completion and identity in these areas instead of trying to draw it out of a relationship with a woman, or any human for that matter.

The revelation came that I was engaging in idolatry, expecting wholeness and fulfillment from something and someone that wasn’t designed to give it to me, and I was valuing that as primary to God. It was angering and humiliating when I saw that I was underestimating my own womanhood and allowing some other woman to define what was rightfully and uniquely mine to express.

This marked my freedom from the bondage of looking to women for affirmation in my womanhood,

–and I started looking for that affirmation in the mirror – the one I dressed in front of each day and the one in the Word of God. I wasn’t immediately changed entirely. The habits of my emotions and sexuality were forces to be reckoned with for sure (that’s where the “fight” came in), but I was free from the trappings that would draw me back in with any real level of expectation.

Freedom introduced a new level of logic I had not experienced in my struggle before, and as a result I never engaged the idea of a same sex relationship again with any sense of merit or as a legitimate option for my life.

With serious gaps in my identity closing quickly, I began to see the appeal of having a man in my life.

As time went on and my expression of womanhood became more clear and defined in me, I grew in confidence, and began to look at men with new eyes. Over time I began to evaluate what I would want in a man, and it became very clear to me that I was certain my attraction to women had ended I was in fact sexually and emotionally attracted to men.

Today I am married to the man God chose to give me and as you read this we’re on the road for a little anniversary getaway.

In addition to a beautiful marriage, God has added to my life the joy of godly, healthy friendships with other women. I couldn’t imagine my life another way. Here are the concerns that bring questions to my heart as I continue to live this story:

How can we be about the business of building bridges between those who experience same sex attraction and those who don’t?
How can we begin to have this conversation in healthy and productive ways in our culture?
Are we digging deep, as Christians, finding honor for all people?

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Christy is a blogger, designer and speaker covering the topics of faith, technology, and business ideas that create cultural revolution. She lives in Austin, TX, with her husband Dan. Together they run a brand development firm called Thoughtful Revolution. They are passionate about humbly bringing change and inviting people to ask the questions Jesus came to answer. You can read her blog and receive updates on her upcoming ebook, First Steps Out, at ChristyMcFerren.com.

Written By Denny Burk

Christy McFerren shares her gut-wrenching testimony in a recent post at the online Prodigal Magazine. The story is gut-wrenching because she has experienced powerful attractions to other women throughout her life, yet she has never given in to a homosexual identity. In fact, her whole testimony is aimed to communicate that it’s okay to fight if you’re a homosexual. It took her years to come to this conclusion, but that is where she ended up. For me the most powerful part of her testimony is in the following lines. Pay special attention to the underlined portion:

Sometimes I agreed with God about my sexuality because He is Lord, and love is a choice, and that is all. My emotions were left out of the equation so many times because I had to believe either my feelings were lying to me or God was. I purposed in my heart to honor God’s design no matter how it felt, for a very, very long time. I could feel in the waiting that Life was at work in me. Hope was at work in me.

There was never a pinnacle moment when I knew, “I’m not gay anymore. I feel different.” My liberation was unceremonious. Freedom matured in me through a process, from the seeds of truth that God planted and people watered along the way. It wasn’t one decision I made not to be gay, there were many. Like Proverbs 4:18 says, “… the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter until the full day.”…

—but its brightening from morning to noon happens in indiscernible progression. Yet noon is undeniably brighter than the dawn. In the same way I can say with confidence today that I am free.

I am a testimony that homosexuality can be a choice. It was a fight, but it was worth every tear I cried and every drop of blood Jesus shed. We won this thing together. It was a fight for honor. For dignity. For agreement. Out of that agreement comes the power that overtakes the impossible, and if you’re struggling with this, I’m here to tell you…

It’s OK to fight.

I don’t know anything about Ms. McFerren except what I’ve read in this article and on her website. But what I see here is glorious. I hope and pray that some of you who struggle with this issue will be strengthened by McFerren’s testimony to believe God that it’s okay to fight against a homosexual orientation (Rev. 12:11). It’s not a fait accompli that you have to give in to. You don’t have to give in to voices that are telling you otherwise. Read the whole thing, and see that God can do the impossible (Matt. 19:25-26).

By Nancy French 

Spoiler Alert

When we lived in Philadelphia, one of my daughter’s acquaintances was being raised by two women in a lesbian relationship. My friend explained the girl had two mothers and – essentially – two fathers, due to the circumstances surrounding the insemination. It was a bit much for my kindergartner to properly process, so I didn’t address the issue with my daughter. After all, I wasn’t going to tell her that “all families are the same” which was the message the public schools in Philadelphia were pushing. Instead my family’s Christian faith informs how we view sex, marriage, and parenthood, so I figured I’d answer questions only as they came up. At the time, I wasn’t ready to talk to her about heterosexual romance and definitely wasn’t ready to explain our position on homosexual relationships.  

When we moved from Center City to Tennessee, we didn’t encounter similar family situations at Zion Christian Academy, a private Christian school near our house. This allowed us to discuss our beliefs about sex and marriage with the children when the kids were mature enough to understand it. We currently have three children – a teenager, a pre-teen, and a 4 year old. We’ve had “the talk” with the older two, but the pre-schooler is still asking probing questions about the etiquette of spitting and hair pulling at school. (Our family is anti-spitting and anti-hair pulling, we keep reminding her.)

However, parents who take children to the new movie ParaNorman might have to answer unwanted questions about sex.

ParaNorman centers around an 11-year-old outcast Norman who sees ghosts everywhere and must stop the dead from rising. (This is related to a witch’s curse put on his hometown hundreds of years ago, making him the only person to save his town.) Zombies, ghosts, witches… how can a parent go wrong?

There are reportedly two scenes parents need to know about. In one scene, the dad asks his son what he’s watching. Norman responds, “sex and violence.” These irritating one-line remarks frequently pop up in kids’ animated movies, a wink-wink from the producers to the invariably bored parents. Normally, kids don’t notice them and parents get a chuckle.

However, the second scene involves one of the subplots. Norman’s sister has a crush on a kid she tries desperately to impress throughout the movie. After she fails to turn his head, she finally asks him out.

“Sure,” he responds. “You’re gonna love my boyfriend. He’s like a total chick-flick nut.”

My friend saw the film in a “red state” and she reported that “you could hear the gasps in the theatre from parents” at the unexpected line. “I should have known something was up when the theatre manager made a huge disclaimer and offered refunds if we did not like the movie,” she wrote.

This line might not raise parental eyebrows in larger cities, but I thought I’d let parents know about this sexual orientation “reveal” at the end in case you want to avoid these types of conversations in the car on the way home.

ParaNorman is rated PG for “scary action and images, thematic elements, some rude humor and language.”

Originally posted at patheos.com on August 21, 2012

It’s probably too much to hope for, but perhaps the day of reckoning for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has come. Perhaps the shooting last week at the Family Research Council headquarters in Washington D.C. will bring scrutiny to and condemnation of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s pernicious “hate group” list on which the Family Research Council (FRC), American Family Association (AFA), and we, the Illinois Family Institute (IFI), are included.

All three organizations are included on the SPLC’s ever-expanding list of hate groups that also includes “neo-Nazi” groups, ”racist skinhead” groups, and the Ku Klux Klan. FRC, AFA, and IFI are listed as “anti-gay hate groups.”

News reports revealed that shortly after the FRC shooting, the FBI contacted the Traditional Values Coalition, another conservative Christian organization on the SPLC’s “anti-gay hate group” list to notify them that the shooter, Floyd Corkins, had its address in his backpack. The Traditional Values Coalition is so small that very few conservatives have even heard of it, so where might Corkins have learned about  it? Hmmmm, let’s see… Could it be from the SPLC’s hate group list?

In an interview following the shooting, FRC President Tony Perkins said, “I believe the Southern Poverty Law Center should be held accountable for their reckless use of terminology.” While Mark Potok, editor-in-chief of the SPLC’s ironically named “Intelligence Report” and “Hatewatch” blog continues to spew defamatory lies, he takes umbrage at this criticism of the SPLC’s ethics.

Countless liberal bloggers, political pundits, and the mainstream press repeat the SPLC’s specious designation of conservative Christian groups as “hate groups.” But one wonders how many of those who repeat the SPLC’s fallacious claims bother to read the criteria that the SPLC uses to determine who goes on its “hate group” list. Do any journalists, law enforcement agencies, or gullible acolytes of the SPLC bother to analyze the soundness of the evidence the SPLC provides for the inclusion of groups on their “hate group” list?

And do disciples of the SPLC know that it included groups on its “anti-gay hate group” list prior to the establishment and publication of any criteria to determine which groups would go on it?

SPLC’s “hate group” criteria center on social science research and policy speculation with which the SPLC disagrees.

The SPLC has been harshly criticized for its anti-religious bias, even—irony of ironies—its hatred of orthodox Christians. In an obvious attempt to distract attention from the truth of that criticism, Potok and his accomplices Heidi Beirich, Evelyn Schlatter, and Robert Steinback manufactured a set of criteria in 2010 that would enable them to include groups like the FRC, AFA, and IFI on their “anti-gay hate group” list. They apparently counted on Americans not noticing that their criteria bear no resemblance to actual hatred: no expressions of hate, no calls for violence, no claims that those who identify as homosexual are less valuable as human beings.

What the SPLC has done is create an elastic definition of hatred that centers on social science research,  facts, or propositions that the SPLC doesn’t like.

One criterion that the SPLC uses to establish “hate group” status is whether an organization makes any predictions that the SPLC doesn’t like about the potential legal consequences of law or policy related to homosexuality.

The SPLC claims that groups warrant inclusion on its “hate group” list if they propagate “known falsehoods” about homosexuality. I’m not sure if Potok and his compeers actually understand what a “known falsehood” (also called a lie) is. A known falsehood is a statement that is objectively, provably false and is known to be false when made.

The SPLC has said, for example, that if an organization argues that hate crime legislation may result in the jailing of pastors who condemn volitional homosexual acts as sinful, the organization is guilty of “anti-gay” hatred and will be included on the SPLC’s “hate group” list.

And any organization that argues that allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military will damage the military in some way merits inclusion on its “anti-gay hate group” list.

How can Potok sensibly claim that speculating that hate crimes legislation may lead to the jailing of pastors who condemn homosexuality is a known falsehood? It is a prediction of possible future events that may result from the logical working out of a law. This prediction may not come to fruition, but at this point it cannot reasonably be deemed a “known falsehood.”

And how can a prediction about the effects of allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military be a known falsehood. Certainly, there are differences of opinion on the effects of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, but liberal speculation that such a change will not damage the military is not a known truth.

Another criterion used by the SPLC to determine whether an organization is a “hate group” is whether the organization cites any social science research that the SPLC doesn’t like.

According to the SPLC, if an organization says that “gays are more prone to mental illness and to abuse drugs and alcohol,” it goes on the SPLC’s hate groups list. I’m sure this is not news to Potok, but there is a lot of research showing just that.

The SPLC engages in some tricksy rhetoric to defend this intellectually and ethically bankrupt criterion. Schlatter and Steinback argue that mental health organizations no longer consider homosexuality a mental disorder, which is true, but has no relevance to the fact—which even the SPLC concedes—that homosexuals experience much higher rates of mental illness and drug and alcohol abuse.

What really sticks in the craw of the SPLC is that conservative organizations don’t agree with the unproven speculation by the  SPLC and some social scientists that the reasons for the increased incidence of mental disorders and drug use are social stigma and “discrimination.”

The SPLC deems hateful the claim that same-sex parents harm children. Of course, Potok and his minions don’t feel any obligation to define harm and apparently reject a whole body of social science research that claims that children fare best when raised by a mother and father in an intact family. Even President Obama in his Mother’s Day and Father’s Day proclamations argued that both are essential to the welfare of children.

While homosexual activists revel in even the most poorly constructed social science research if it reinforces their presuppositions, they reject better constructed studies that undermine them. The truth is that if organizations don’t accept the ever-fluid, controvertible, and highly politicized social science research that the SPLC favors, they go on the “hate group” list.

“Hate group” designation relies on the redefinition of terms

In addition to marshaling only that social science research that fits their subversive sexual worldview, the SPLC does what virtually every homosexuality-affirming organization does, which is redefine terms to silence dissent and enable them to promote fallacious charges of hate with carefree abandon.

Among the many terms that homosexuality activist organizations like the SPLC have redefined are “hatred,” “tolerance,” “acceptance,” “bias,” “discrimination,” and “safety.” What the new definitions share in common is their utility in humiliating, intimidating, and silencing those who believe that same-sex attraction is disordered, that homosexual acts are immoral, and that  marriage is the inherently procreative union between one man and one woman.

The SPLC is continually telling people who identify as homosexual that those who believe homosexual acts are immoral hate them. The tragic effect of propagating that ugly lie is not only that it may lead unstable people to commit acts of violence. The truly tragic effect is that it undermines the potential for relationships between people who hold diverse moral views and effaces the potential for dialogue.

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