The Gay agenda

[lastcallhall]

This is an article from Jim Daly on Foxnews and it looks like what a few of us conservative christians believe is the gay agenda moving forward to get marriage passed.

I am, naturally, personally opposed to the legalization of same-sex marriage for the simple but profound reason that it violates and contradicts the sacred text of the Bible, which I believe to be true and inspired. But on what basis should I expect people who dont believe as I do to likewise oppose same-sex marriage?

On the basis of logic, reason, common sense and the fact that preservation of traditional marriage is in the best interest of the common good, as evidenced by any number of factors, including reams of social science data and thousands of years of history.

Any discussion on the definition of marriage incites strong emotional reaction. And those of us within the orthodox Christian community understand that many in the culture see this issue very differently, and hold to very passionate views on the subject. We understand that on this matter, in some circles, that never the twain shall meet. Nevertheless, this difference of opinion does not preclude us the privilege of championing a principle we hold dear, especially since its our Christian faith that motivates us to support and defend what we believe to be Gods blueprint for human relationship. In the last half-century, progressives have exercised their own rights of cultural engagement, aggressively championing sweeping cultural changes on numerous levels. Although we may disagree with them, we certainly dont begrudge them the right to engage the process. But in this pursuit to redefine marriage, wouldnt it make sense to consider the outcomes of prior social reengineering efforts?

In the late 1960s, no-fault divorce promised to simplify, streamline and decrease the contentiousness surrounding marital breakup. Instead, it only encouraged struggling spouses to throw in the towel. Fathers abandoned their families in droves. Poverty levels skyrocketed. Prison populations increased at dramatic levels, a consequence of kids now growing up without a father in the home.

A few years later, in 1973, the Supreme Court legalized abortion in all 50 states. Supporters heralded a new era of responsibility, where every child would be a wanted child. Tragically, over 48 million babies have now been aborted and the beauty of life has been cheapened as a result, while child abuse has skyrocketed.

The expansion of welfare promised to alleviate human suffering. While in some ways noble in intent, it disincentivized work, undermined the family unit and created a perpetual cycle of dependency and poverty. Fathers were no longer needed to be an integral part of the family.

Cohabitation is yet another experiment which promised to liberate couples from the burden of marriage. The number of couples living together outside of marriage has increased ten-fold between 1960 and 2000. Over 12 million unmarried partners now live together in the United States. The result? Cohabitation not only decreases a persons appetite for marriage, it also increases the risk of divorce, should the couple ever tie the knot.

Further, a home with two unmarried partners has proven to be the most dangerous place for children in the U.S. Children who live with their mother and boyfriend are 11 times more likely to be sexually, physically, or emotionally abused than children living with their married biological parents.

In each example of social reengineering Ive noted, progressives promised good things. Sadly, the exact opposite has happened. However well-meaning the motivation, reengineering what God has designed is not only unwise, but radical and dangerous, too.

Without evidence of success to which to point, supporters of these ill-fated ventures are left with but one choice: If you cant change unfavorable outcomes, you change the minds of people as to what is considered favorable and good.

Here lies the last great frontier and the last gasp for those determined to re-engineer marriage. Those committed to this form of radicalism have systematically broken down the cultural barrier to same sex marriage by desensitizing people on the issue, stigmatizing those who oppose the movement and potentially criminalizing anyone who stands in opposition to them. The irony in our cultural discussion currently, is if you support traditional marriage, you are the one perceived by the cultural elite to be the radical.

Consider the case of a New Mexico couple who own and operate a photography business. When they kindly refused to shoot a lesbian marriage ceremony, they were summarily brought up on human rights violations by the New Mexico Human Rights Commission. They were fined for not accepting the job. While on the other hand, Christian organizations are now being singled out and suppliers are threatening to no longer supply them with critical support functions like computer technology because of their stand in opposition to same-sex marriage. Those in favor of same-sex marriage do not see the contradiction in these two examples. One group must perform the services and is fined for not doing so (in the name of human rights); the other is allowed to default on their contract because of alleged bigoted behavior on the part of the religious organization (with no regard for religious expression).

If religious liberty is lost in America, we will cease to be the nation our Founders intended us to be. Our rights will no longer be derived from God but from man, and therefore, dangerously beholden to political despots. I dont think Thomas Jefferson intended that to be the outcome for our great nation when he wrote the famous Danbury Baptist Church letter which mentioned the separation of church and state. Contrary to conventional wisdom, President Jefferson was expressing a concern that the church needed to be protected from the state, not the state from the church. It appears his fears are now being realized.

Jim Daly is president and host of "Focus on the Family."


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/05/ ... z1NJdkc5AN


The questions I have for debate are:

1. Is what happened to the New Mexico couple proof that gay marriage will threaten christians and the church from living our faith?

2. If gay marriage is legal in the entire US would churches be forced to recognize gay couples and be forced to hire gay people to positions even if that would be against our beliefs?

[SailingCyclops]

So you really think that a person who was divorced prior to being a christian and then got remarried but now has accepted Jesus as Lord and savior and repented of the sin should get divorced again?

No. Dude, I am asking you if the OT laws were modified allowing re-married people to be saved while living in the sin of adultry? It's a simple question. Please don't dodge it again.

It's really very simple. Since divorce is not allowed in the Bible, and when one divorces (legally) and re-marries, then joins your church. That person is living in un-repentant sin. What am I missing here? If that person is living in adultery, and is forgiven by your church, how is that any different from a gay couple living in the same state of sin?

Please make sense of this if you can.

Bob

[McCulloch]

SailingCyclops comments raises interesting theological questions. Let's debate them in that forum.

[Clownboat]

There are ex- gays but no there are no practicing homosexuals in our church. They would be allowed but only if they quit the lifestyle. We would not let ANYONE living in open sin to continue to be a part of our church. Why would they want to when they can go to a church that will tell them what they want to hear and lead them unknowingly into the fires of hell? Who is doing the sinner the bigger disservice?

Is it safe for me to assume that you picked a church to go to that tells you what you want to hear?

For example, homosexuals are going to hell.

That is evidence to me that you have a problem with homosexuals and picked a church that furthers your anti gay cause. I claim this as evidence only, not an accusation.

[SailingCyclops]

A very interesting article came out in last Tuesday's NY Times, and it is relevant to this discussion:

Living the Good Lie
Should therapists help God-fearing gay people stay in the closet?
By MIMI SWARTZ
Published: June 16, 2011

[...]
Christians of the kind who earnestly believed that the Bible deplored homosexuality were particularly troubled as they tried to reconcile their faith with their sexual orientation. The more Flanigan studied this conundrum, the more he came to see it as intractable. Some gay evangelicals truly believe that to follow their sexual orientation means abandonment by a church that provides them with emotional and social sustenance " not to mention eternal damnation. Keeping their sexual orientation a secret, however, means giving up any opportunity to have fulfilling relationships as gay men and women.

When these clash, what do you do? Flanigan recalled thinking, and when he began to research the topic about a decade ago, he found few answers beyond the obvious. Antigay religious groups would not condone homosexuality; they thought gays should just give up their orientation, and the most extreme among them offered frightening conversion practices. Nonreligious gays thought the conflicted should just walk away from churches that wont accept homosexuals as they are. Which trumps which? Flanigan asked himself. Religion or sexual orientation?

It wasnt until around 2004 that Flanigan found an answer, one that was given legitimacy by the American Psychological Association (A.P.A.) five years later and one that complicated the conventional wisdom about sexual identity and sexual orientation. Is it possible, he wondered, that the most psychologically sound alternative for truly devout gay men and women would be to defy both groups? It is an approach that Flanigan is sure has relieved suffering among his deeply conflicted clients, and yet he sometimes is struck by the method he has chosen. As he explained it to me, The idea that I am helping the client stay in the closet is bizarre to me.
[...]
Despite the undeniable progress " gay marriage in five states; the repeal of dont ask, dont tell; mainstream icons like Ellen DeGeneres " its not all O.K., Flanigan says. There is still discrimination, still bullying of gay kids. In many states you can still be fired for being gay, he says. And an even deeper fear exists for a small but hidden group, those whose faith condemns their orientation. As Judith Glassgold, who was the chairwoman of the A.P.A.s Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation, told me: Back in the 60s and 70s, the people who sought treatment were the ones who struggled with the discrimination and prejudice that they faced, and sensed that they couldnt have a life. But more recently, the people who come to treatment are people who have strong religious beliefs who cannot integrate that identity into their lives.
[...]
One patient, in particular, haunted him. When he was getting his masters in psychology in Florida, he counseled a young woman who was coming to the realization that she was gay but was afraid to tell her evangelical family. In talking with Flanigan, the student became more comfortable with her homosexuality, and although Flanigan suggested moving slowly, she came out to her brother. But then he told their parents, who pulled her out of school and put her in a religious program designed to change her sexual orientation. Stricken, Flanigan brooded for months over what he might have done differently. He felt plagued by a professional contradiction: Psychological ethics say that were supposed to support religious beliefs and support sexual orientation, Flanigan told me. But there was nothing I knew of that says what to do when they conflict. As far as he could tell, the only choice those people had was to give up one or the other.
[...]
That changed, of course, as mainstream attitudes about sexual orientation changed. But even as Flanigan was beginning his professional life as a counselor in the late 1990s, groups on the religious right, like Narth (then called the National Association of Research and Treatment of Homosexuality) and Exodus International were advertising that they could cure homosexuality.
[...]
Throckmorton and Yarhouse are each heterosexual evangelical Christians: Yarhouse teaches at Regent University, a school founded by Pat Robertson; Throckmorton at Grove City College, another Christian institution, just north of Pittsburgh. They were convinced that sexual orientation could be changed and tried to help their clients in that pursuit. Throckmorton accepted an award from Narth in 2002 for his support of the ex-gay movement, and in 2004 he made a video called I Do Exist, in which five people declared they changed their sexual orientation.

But unlike many of their evangelical colleagues, Yarhouse and Throckmorton reconsidered their positions. A pensive, soft-spoken man, Throckmorton still reveals anguish when he speaks of those who proclaimed their conversion worldwide in I Do Exist but later recanted. What I came to find out was those people felt the pressure of the social contract and said they had completely changed when they had not, Throckmorton said. They were in my tradition, so I trusted them. If they said theyd changed, why would I doubt them? That was sloppy scientifically, and I regret that. He had been too caught up in the politics, he said, and assumed that the condemnation of conversion therapy was really an effort to undermine religion. Many theorists in the gay-affirming world have taken a view that religion is a changeable aspect of personality, Throckmorton said. But people dont wake up in the morning and say, Ill be a Baptist instead of a Buddhist. Religion is the way the world makes sense to them, and for them that seems like a pretty stable attribute. He began looking for a less polarized, more nuanced approach.
[...]
Many people who are openly gay or straight and secular cant grasp how desperately evangelicals do not want to be gay or the lengths to which they will go to try to change. Last fall, Jim Swilley, the bishop of the Church in the Now, in Conyers, Ga., gave a moving, hourlong coming-out sermon to his congregation, his response to a spate of suicides by gay teenagers and, perhaps, to rumors in his church about his own sexual orientation. There are two things in my life that I didnt ask for . . . one is the call of God in my life, and the other is my orientation. I didnt think that those two things could ever be compatible, he told his congregation.

There is nothing I havent done, he told the crowd about his attempts to change his orientation. Ive cast out demons, made myself vomit, Ive quoted Scripture. Many in the congregation wept as Swilley spoke. He said he spent years practicing the directive of an evangelical preacher who promised that if you say 1,000 times every day, I like to kiss girls, that will fix it. Swilley also tried marriage " twice; once for five years and then again for 21 " because he desperately wanted a conventional life with a wife and children (he has three sons and a daughter).

In fact, it was his second wife, Debye, who persuaded Swilley to come out. When they started dating, Swilley told her about his attractions to men. Lets get married; well figure it out, Debye said. Once they agreed to divorce, he intended to remain celibate for the rest of his life and to take his secret to his grave, but Debye challenged his hypocrisy. You tell people to experience the real God in the real world, but youre not real, she told him. You dont believe God loves you as you are.
[...]
Swilley is still the bishop of the Church in the Now and has the support of his family; Debye still preaches with him. When closeted gay ministers come to him for advice, he asks if friends and family will stay true. If not, he tells those in hiding to consider the costs carefully. Man, he said, theres quite a few of them out there.
[...]
In the final document, the A.P.A. clearly stated its opposition to conversion therapy and unequivocally described homosexuality as normal. But it also offered a nuanced view of religious gay people who did not want to come out. The A.P.A. considered the kind of identity therapy proposed by Throckmorton and Yarhouse to be a viable option. No effort needed to be expended trying to change a clients religion or sexual orientation. Therapy, in fact, was to have no particular outcome either way, other than to guide the client closer to self-acceptance, whatever the client believed that to be.
[...]

The article is quite long, but worth a through read. I believe most folks who are participating in this thread will learn a lot from it.

Bob

[micatala]

A very interesting and compelling article.

I applaud those mentioned who were self-critical enough to challenge their own assumptions and sought to put the well-being of their clients ahead of ideology. I was also interested to learn that this applied to "both sides." It is a fair point to consider that for some individuals, their religious identity is and always will be more important than their sexual identity.

I am glad to see that evangelicals are coming to see sexual orientation is generally not changeable. Acknowledging this is important. Even if there is not acceptance that homosexuality is OK from a religious standpoint, at least accepting it as a fact and that trying to change that orientation is pointless and even harmful, then we are moving forward to a better place.

[SailingCyclops]

NY is the 6th State to join those who went before in passing anti-discrimination legislation. See? we are truely becoming a more civilized country.

Debates like these, where ideas and prejudices are openly and thoroughly debated, are a fundamental part of our democratic system. Hat's off to NY, and to forums like these!

New York gay marriage bill passes

By REID J. EPSTEIN | 6/24/11 10:40 PM EDT

Striking what advocates believe is a historic victory for gay rights, the New York state senate Friday approved same-sex marriage, New York a promised governors signature away from being the sixth and largest state to allow gays and lesbians to marry.

The 33-29 vote is an enormous victory for first-year Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who pledged during last falls campaign to push for gay marriage. It comes after an intense public and private lobbying campaign from a wide cast of politicians, celebrities and athletes, including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former President Bill Clinton.

Cuomo, whose two daughters attended the vote in the senate gallery, is expected to sign the bill. The bill will become law 30 days after Cuomo signs it.
[...]

Bob

[Goat]

NY is the 6th State to join those who went before in passing anti-discrimination legislation. See? we are truely becoming a more civilized country.

Debates like these, where ideas and prejudices are openly and thoroughly debated, are a fundamental part of our democratic system. Hat's off to NY, and to forums like these!

New York gay marriage bill passes

By REID J. EPSTEIN | 6/24/11 10:40 PM EDT

Striking what advocates believe is a historic victory for gay rights, the New York state senate Friday approved same-sex marriage, New York a promised governors signature away from being the sixth and largest state to allow gays and lesbians to marry.

The 33-29 vote is an enormous victory for first-year Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who pledged during last falls campaign to push for gay marriage. It comes after an intense public and private lobbying campaign from a wide cast of politicians, celebrities and athletes, including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former President Bill Clinton.

Cuomo, whose two daughters attended the vote in the senate gallery, is expected to sign the bill. The bill will become law 30 days after Cuomo signs it.
[...]

Bob

One of the key factors that convinced some of the Republican senators to change their mind is the inclusion of religious protections, so that churches won't be forced to marry gays. On the other hand, they already had the right to refuse anybody. Catholic churches weren't forced to marry people who got divorced

[SailingCyclops]

... On the other hand, they already had the right to refuse anybody. Catholic churches weren't forced to marry people who got divorced

Yes, quelling irrational fears goes a long way sometimes. It was never a substantive issue, only one manufactured by the religious right. I am surprised they did have to include a ban on marrying dogs to cats An issue actually raised right here in this debate. How absurd!

Bob

[micatala]

When I have more time, I might dig up the text of the amendment that was crafted to guarantee religious rights as part of this bill. The details could be interesting, and could to some extent address the concerns expressed in the OP about the NM couple.

[Goat]

When I have more time, I might dig up the text of the amendment that was crafted to guarantee religious rights as part of this bill. The details could be interesting, and could to some extent address the concerns expressed in the OP about the NM couple.

I am sure that the amendment to guarantee religious right probably will be adopted by other states considering it