Archive for May, 2012

Lets tackle the ‘issue’ pt 3. The Great Myth


This article is another from author Allan Dobras. It was published in 2008 in response to an article in Newsweek (referred to in beginning of article). I have taken this article from Chuck Colson’s BreakPoint website (www.breakpoint.org).

This article takes a different approach from that of the previous two, presenting a more biblically defined case.

Enjoy.

DK

A December issue of Newsweek featured a cover story entitled “Our Mutual Joy” that purported to offer a “religious case” for gay “marriage.” Author Lisa Miller claimed, “Opponents of gay marriage often cite Scripture. But what the Bible teaches about love argues for the other side.” Really?

It is interesting that apologists for the homosexual lifestyle typically say, on the one hand, that religious conservatives don’t really understand Scripture; if they did, they would see that there is no prohibition against homosexual love or marriage. On the other hand, they tell us the Bible is not to be trusted as a modern-day commentary when it speaks on moral issues—particularly sexuality. As Miller put it, “the Bible is a living document, powerful for more than 2000 years because its truths speak to us even as we change through history. In that light, Scriptures give us no good reason why gays and lesbians should not be married.”

Newsweek editor Jon Meacham was even more direct in his commentary on Miller’s article, saying that “to argue that something is so because it is in the Bible is more than intellectually bankrupt—it is unserious and unworthy of the great Judeo-Christian tradition.”

In light of these statements, it is obvious that homosexuals do not want to be held to the biblical standards of faith and practice, yet have no trouble embracing some form of religiosity in order to feel sanctified in the eyes of God. As the apostle Paul put it in 2 Timothy 3:1-5:

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

In her attempt to justify what is scripturally unjustifiable, Miller, either consciously or unconsciously, has made a number of grievous errors:

MARRIAGE IS A HOLY ORDINANCE
First, marriage is not a triviality, but a holy ordinance ordained by God in the Garden of Eden. He declares to Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:24, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh,” which is His model for the union of male and female. Although some patriarchs strayed from this model following the Fall, it was not without consequences. David, for example, lost the son that was born as a result of his affair with Bathsheba.

Jesus is described by Miller as being “indifferent to earthly attachments,” but He reiterates God’s ordinance in Mathew 19:3-5 when questioned by the Pharisees on the matter of divorce:

Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife and they twain [two] shall be one flesh?’ Wherefore, they are no more twain [two], but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder.

Miller further claims that the “fact” that Jesus was single indicates that the Bible has no model for a “how-to” script on marriage. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Jesus was married—to His church (the community of believers), and His life is an allegory of traditional Hebrew marriage rituals.

In the Hebrew ritual, the father or his emissary would pick out the bride for his son. Next, a price was established for the bride to be paid by the groom. When the bride accepted the proposal, they were legally betrothed, but the marriage was not yet consummated. Gifts were exchanged between the bride and groom and the groom departed to prepare a place for his bride—often in his father’s house. The groom may have left for an extended period, but eventually he returned to claim his bride, take her to the place he prepared, and consummate the marriage.

Similarly, God the Father selects the bride (believers) for His Son (“All that the Father gives me shall come to me and I will in no wise cast out”—John 6:37). Jesus pays for His bride by His sacrificial death on the cross. Believers who accept Christ are sanctified, but not yet in His presence.

Upon a believer’s commitment to trust in Christ, he or she is given the Holy Spirit, who provides each believer a gift of the Spirit. Jesus leaves His bride (the church) to go to His Father’s house, but prior to His departure, says, “In my Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:2-3). In the end times, Jesus will return to the earth to gather His church and consummate his relationship with believers, who will then remain in His presence forever.

Accordingly, marriage is reflective of Christ’s relationship with His church and as such, is not a matter of “indifference” to Him, as Miller suggested, but rather has meaning beyond any other earthly institution—it is holy. In a Spirit-guided Christian marriage, the bride and groom mirror in many ways the relationship Christ has with His church. As noted in Ephesians 5:21-25:

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.

For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her.

Therefore, whatever two persons of the same sex wish to call their mutual relationship—partnering, co-habiting, or sharing a household—one thing is certain: It is not a marriage in the biblical sense nor in common sense.

COMPARING SLAVERY TO THE ISSUE OF GAY RIGHTS
Another fallacy of the gay rights movement is comparing America’s experience with slavery with the battle for gay rights. Miller accuses opponents of same-sex “marriage” of using Scripture “as the foundation for their objections,” in similar fashion as 19th-century supporters of slavery. Jon Meacham states this case most succinctly: “The analogy with race is apt, for Christians in particular long cited scriptural authority to justify and perpetuate slavery with the same certitude that some now use to point to certain passages in the Bible to condemn homosexuality and to deny the sacrament of marriage to homosexuals. This argument from scripture is difficult to take seriously.”

The difference is that Scripture does not support slavery and recognizes it as evil, although it was a reality of the times. Persons who looked to the Bible for support on this issue were guilty of the same proof texting as Miller and Meacham. Paul states the biblical view quite clearly in 1 Timothy 1:8-10:

We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.

Those who identify homosexuality as an issue of civil rights and equate it with racial discrimination are both insulting and irrational. Issues of race, ethnicity, national origin, or gender are all real and provable human characteristics. Homosexuality is a behavior that is learned and changeable, unlike the other characteristics, which are innate and immutable. There is not a person on earth that can prove he or she is a homosexual—it is a declaration that can change as evidenced by innumerable persons who have abandoned the lifestyle.

The most common factors in those who have entered the homosexual lifestyle are childhood sexual abuse, a poor relationship with the same-sex parent, or seduction. These classic causes were noted in the story of Lisa Miller (not the author) who left her lesbian relationship with Janet Jenkins convinced that the relationship was sinful. She later repented and reaffirmed her Christian faith. It was also revealed that “her mother sexually and physically abused her as a child and later, forbade her to date, telling her ‘men were evil.’” It is easy to see how she could fall into the homosexual lifestyle.

Miller is not alone in this circumstance. Many gay celebrities have admitted they were victims of childhood sexual abuse including Rosie O’Donnell, Ellen DeGeneres, Anne Heche, Julie Cypher, Melissa Etheridge, swimming star Greg Louganis, and Chastity Bono, who disclosed how she was seduced as a child into the “gay” lifestyle by one of Cher Bono’s lesbian friends. Additionally, many of the young boys seduced by priests were drawn into the homosexual lifestyle by the experience.

Gay-rights activists and their apologists have waged an effective brass knuckles campaign to portray homosexuality as inborn and unchangeable and therefore deserving of acceptance, affirmation, and codification into law. Nevertheless, declaring something to be true doesn’t make it so, nor does it make it right.

SCRIPTURE AND HOMOSEXUALITY
Contrary to the opinion of Newsweek’s Miller, Scripture is clear and distinct about the subject of homosexuality no matter how hard gay activists would like to wish it away. Beyond the Old Testament condemnation of homosexual practice as an abomination (which Miller refers to as “throwaway” lines), Paul writes in Romans 1:25-27:

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.                                                                  

In view of the above, it is interesting to note that Miller claims, “Nowhere in the Bible do its authors refer to sex between women.” Evidently, neither Miller nor her source, the Anchor Bible Dictionary, has ever read Romans.

Miller uses certain peculiar passages in Leviticus, which have no modern application, to suggest that statements condemning homosexuality need not be heeded: “[Leviticus is] a text that devotes verse after verse to treatments for leprosy, cleanliness rituals for menstruating women and the correct way to sacrifice a goat—or a lamb or a turtle dove. . . . Most of us no longer heed Leviticus on haircuts or blood sacrifices. . . . Why would we regard homosexuality with more seriousness than we regard its advice . . . on the best price to pay for a slave?”

It is important to understand that there are three types of laws in the Old Testament: moral laws, ceremonial laws, and codified civil laws. Under the New Covenant, the ceremonial laws were abolished, since Jesus Christ Himself negated the need for the sacrificial system (see Hebrews 9:1-15). The moral laws remain timeless and permanent.

God imposed the codified civil laws on the Israelite nation during its formative years in order that the people not be corrupted by the practices of the pagans.

The punishment these laws invoked were not intended to be permanent, as can be clearly seen in Jesus’ encounter with the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11). Although the Pharisees wanted to stone her to death in accordance with the Mosaic Law, Jesus challenged her accusers to show that they themselves were without sin. Jesus then forgave the woman and sent her on her way with the admonition, “Go and sin no more.” Clearly, her adultery was sinful but not a justification to stone her to death.

As Christians, we are called to follow Jesus’ example and be witnesses—not executioners—for the redemption of sinners through entering into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Allan Dobras is a freelance writer on religious and cultural issues and an electronics engineer. He lives in Springfield, Virginia.

2012
05/19
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Lets tackle the ‘issue’ Pt 2 Genes and Enviroment


Here is the second article I will present, from a doctor who has testified before congressional bodies and written numerous articles on the subject of homosexuality.

For your consideration, enjoy the following.

DK

Excerpted from “The Complex Interaction of Genes and Environment: A Model for Homosexuality”
by Jeffrey Satinover,M.D.

It may be difficult to grasp how genes, environment, and other influences interrelate to one another, how a certain factor may “influence” an outcome but not cause it, and how faith enters in. The scenario below is condensed and hypothetical, but is drawn from the lives of actual people, illustrating how many different factors influence behavior.

Note that the following is just one of the many developmental pathways that can lead to homosexuality, but a common one. In reality, every person’s “road” to sexual expression is individual, however many common lengths it may share with those of others.

(1) Our scenario starts with birth. The boy (for example) who one day may go on to struggle with homosexuality is born with certain features that are somewhat more common among homosexuals than in the population at large. Some of these traits might be inherited (genetic), while others might have been caused by the “intrauterine environment” (hormones). What this means is that a youngster without these traits will be somewhat less likely to become homosexual later than someone with them.

What are these traits? If we could identify them precisely, many of them would turn out to be gifts rather than “problems,” for example a “sensitive” disposition, a strong creative drive, a keen aesthetic sense. Some of these, such as greater sensitivity, could be related to – or even the same as – physiological traits that also cause trouble, such as a greater-than-average anxiety response to any given stimulus.

No one knows with certainty just what these heritable characteristics are; at present we only have hints. Were we free to study homosexuality properly (uninfluenced by political agendas) we would certainly soon clarify these factors – just as we are doing in less contentious areas. In any case, there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the behavior “homosexuality” is itself directly inherited.

(2) From a very early age potentially heritable characteristics mark the boy as “different.” He finds himself somewhat shy and uncomfortable with the typical “rough and tumble” of his peers. Perhaps he is more interested in art or in reading – simply because he’s smart. But when he later thinks about his early life, he will find it difficult to separate out what in these early behavioral differences came from an inherited temperament and what from the next factor, namely:

(3) That for whatever reason, he recalls a painful “mismatch” between what he needed and longed for and what his father offered him. Perhaps most people would agree that his father was distinctly distant and ineffective; maybe it was just that his own needs were unique enough that his father, a decent man, could never quite find the right way to relate to him. Or perhaps his father really disliked and rejected his son’s sensitivity. In any event, the absence of a happy, warm, and intimate closeness with his father led to the boy’s pulling away in disappointment, “defensively detaching” in order to protect himself.

But sadly, this pulling away from his father, and from the “masculine” role model he needed, also left him even less able to relate to his male peers. We may contrast this to the boy whose loving father dies, for instance, but who is less vulnerable to later homosexuality. This is because the commonplace dynamic in the pre-homosexual boy is not merely the absence of a father – literally or psychologically – but the psychological defense of the boy against his repeatedly disappointing father. In fact, a youngster who does not form this defense (perhaps because of early-enough therapy, or because there is another important male figure in his life, or due to temperament) is much less likely to become homosexual.

Complementary dynamics involving the boy’s mother are also likely to have played an important role. Because people tend to marry partners with “interlocking neuroses,” the boy probably found himself in a problematic relationship with both parents.

For all these reasons, when as an adult he looked back on his childhood, the now-homosexual man recalls, “From the beginning I was always different. I never got along well with the boys my age and felt more comfortable around girls.” This accurate memory makes his later homosexuality feel convincingly to him as though it was “preprogrammed” from the start.

(4) Although he has “defensively detached” from his father, the young boy still carries silently within him a terrible longing for the warmth, love, and encircling arms of the father he never did nor could have. Early on, he develops intense, nonsexual attachments to older boys he admires – but at a distance, repeating with them the same experience of longing and unavailability. When puberty sets in, sexual urges – which can attach themselves to any object, especially in males – rise to the surface and combine with his already intense need for masculine intimacy and warmth. He begins to develop homosexual crushes. Later he recalls, “My first sexual longings were directed not at girls but at boys. I was never interested in girls.”

Psychotherapeutic intervention at this point and earlier can be successful in preventing the development of later homosexuality. Such intervention is aimed in part at helping the boy change his developing effeminate patterns (which derive from a “refusal” to identify with the rejected father), but more critically, it is aimed at teaching his father – if only he will learn – how to become appropriately involved with and related to his son.

(5) As he matures (especially in our culture where early, extramarital sexual experiences are sanctioned and even encouraged), the youngster, now a teen, begins to experiment with homosexual activity. Or alternatively his needs for same-sex closeness may already have been taken advantage of by an older boy or man, who preyed upon him sexually when he was still a child. (Recall the studies that demonstrate the high incidence of sexual abuse in the childhood histories of homosexual men.) Or oppositely, he may avoid such activities out of fear and shame in spite of his attraction to them. In any event, his now-sexualized longings cannot merely be denied, however much he may struggle against them. It would be cruel for us at this point to imply that these longings are a simple matter of “choice.”

Indeed, he remembers having spent agonizing months and years trying to deny their existence altogether or pushing them away, to no avail. One can easily imagine how justifiably angry he will later be when someone casually and thoughtlessly accuses him of “choosing” to be homosexual. When he seeks help, he hears one of two messages, and both terrify him; either, “Homosexuals are bad people and you are a bad person for choosing to be homosexual. There is no place for you here and God is going to see to it that you suffer for being so bad;” or “Homosexuality is inborn and unchangeable. You were born that way. Forget about your fairytale picture of getting married and having children and living in a little house with a white picket fence. God made you who you are and he/she destined you for the gay life. Learn to enjoy it.”

(6) At some point, he gives in to his deep longings for love and begins to have voluntary homosexual experiences. He finds – possibly to his horror – that these old, deep, painful longings are at least temporarily, and for the first time ever, assuaged.

Although he may also therefore feel intense conflict, he cannot help admit that the relief is immense. This temporary feeling of comfort is so profound – going well beyond the simple sexual pleasure that anyone feels in a less fraught situation – that the experience is powerfully reinforced. However much he may struggle, he finds himself powerfully driven to repeat the experience. And the more he does, the more it is reinforced and the more likely it is he will repeat it yet again, though often with a sense of diminishing returns.

(7) He also discovers that, as for anyone, sexual orgasm is a powerful reliever of distress of all sorts. By engaging in homosexual activities he has already crossed one of the most critical and strongly enforced boundaries of sexual taboo. It is now easy for him to cross other taboo boundaries as well, especially the significantly less severe taboo pertaining to promiscuity. Soon homosexual activity becomes the central organizing factor in his life as he slowly acquires the habit of turning to it regularly – not just because of his original need for fatherly warmth of love, but to relieve anxiety of any sort.

(8) In time, his life becomes even more distressing than for most. Some of this is in fact, as activists claim, because all-too-often he experiences from others a cold lack of sympathy or even open hostility. The only people who seem really to accept him are other gays, and so he forms an even stronger bond with them as a “community.” But it is not true, as activists claim, that these are the only or even the major stresses. Much distress is caused simply by his way of life – for example, the medical consequences, AIDS being just one of many (if also the worst). He also lives with the guilt and shame that he inevitably feels over his compulsive, promiscuous behavior; and too over the knowledge that he cannot relate effectively to the opposite sex and is less likely to have a family (a psychological loss for which political campaigns for homosexual marriage, adoption, and inheritance rights can never adequately compensate).

However much activists try to normalize for him these patterns of behavior and the losses they cause, and however expedient it may be for political purposes to hide them from the public-at-large, unless he shuts down huge areas of his emotional life he simply cannot honestly look at himself in this situation and feel content.

And no one – not even a genuine, dyed-in-the-wool, sexually insecure “homophobe” – is nearly so hard on him as he is on himself. Furthermore, the self-condemning messages that he struggles with on a daily basis are in fact only reinforced by the bitter self-derogating wit of the very gay culture he has embraced. The activists around him keep saying that it is all caused by the “internalized homophobia” of the surrounding culture, but he knows that it is not.

The stresses of “being gay” lead to more, not less, homosexual behavior. This principle, perhaps surprising to the layman (at least to the layman who has not himself gotten caught up in some pattern, of whatever type) is typical of the compulsive or addictive cycle of self-destructive behavior; wracking guilt, shame, and self-condemnation only causes it to increase. It is not surprising that people therefore turn to denial to rid themselves of these feelings, and he does too. He tells himself, “It is not a problem, therefore there is no reason for me to feel so bad about it.”

(9) After wrestling with such guilt and shame for so many years, the boy, now an adult, comes to believe, quite understandably – and because of his denial, needs to believe – “I can’t change anyway because the condition is unchangeable.” If even for a moment he considers otherwise, immediately arises the painful query, “Then why haven’t I…?” and with it returns all the shame and guilt.

Thus, by the time the boy becomes a man, he has pieced together this point of view: “I was always different, always an outsider. I developed crushes on boys from as long as I can remember and the first time I fell in love it was with a boy, not a girl. I had no real interest in members of the opposite sex. Oh, I tried all right – desperately. But my sexual experiences with girls were nothing special. But the first time I had homosexual sex it just ‘felt right.’ So it makes perfect sense to me that homosexuality is genetic. I’ve tried to change – God knows how long I struggled – and I just can’t. That’s because it’s not changeable. Finally, I stopped struggling and just accepted myself the way I am.”

(10) Social attitudes toward homosexuality will play a role in making it more or less likely that the man will adopt an “inborn and unchangeable” perspective, and at what point in his development. It is obvious that a widely shared and propagated worldview that normalizes homosexuality will increase the likelihood of his adopting such beliefs, and at an earlier age. But it is perhaps less obvious – it follows from what we have discussed above – that ridicule, rejection, and harshly punitive condemnation of him as a person will be just as likely (if not more likely) to drive him into the same position.

(11) If he maintains his desire for a traditional family life, the man may continue to struggle against his “second nature.” Depending on whom he meets, he may remain trapped between straight condemnation and gay activism, both in secular institutions and in religious ones. The most important message he needs to hear is that “healing is possible.”

(12) If he enters the path to healing, he will find that the road is long and difficult – but extraordinarily fulfilling. The course to full restoration of heterosexuality typically lasts longer than the average American marriage – which should be understood as an index of how broken all relationships are today.

From the secular therapies he will come to understand what the true nature of his longings are, that they are not really about sex, and that he is not defined by his sexual appetites. In such a setting, he will very possibly learn how to turn aright to other men to gain from them a genuine, nonsexualized masculine comradeship and intimacy; and how to relate aright to woman, as friend, lover, life’s companion, and, God willing, mother of his children.

Of course the old wounds will not simply disappear, and later in times of great distress the old paths of escape will beckon. But the claim that this means he is therefore “really” a homosexual and unchanged is a lie. For as he lives a new life of ever-growing honesty, and cultivates genuine intimacy with the woman of his heart, the new patterns will grow ever stronger and the old ones engraved in the synapses of his brain ever weaker.

In time, knowing that they really have little to do with sex, he will even come to respect and put to good use what faint stirrings remain of the old urges. They will be for him a kind of storm-warning, a signal that something is out of order in his house, that some old pattern of longing and rejection and defense is being activated. And he will find that no sooner does he set his house in order that indeed the old urges once again abate. In his relations to others – as friend, husband, professional – he will now have a special gift. What was once a curse will have become a blessing, to himself and to others.

2012
05/18
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Let’s tackle the homosexual ‘issue’


I won’t call myself an expert on anything. There are some things I’m informed about, some things I hold convictions about but, honestly, have little knowledge beyond the conviction, and some things that I just accept ‘because the Bible tells me so’. Some would call that ignorance. I’ve chosen to call it faith in a God I can’t understand but love unconditionally.

I’ve always strayed from any serious discussion on homosexuality, because I simply didn’t feel informed enough beyond my own conviction in what the Bible says to speak to the issue. And while I consider the words of scripture to be more than adequate, many do not. Without further evidence or facts, I’ve chosen to mostly not touch the topic, despite my firm belief that it is A) a choice and B) a sin. I can point to several people I know who are gay and claim that it is their choice as reason for A, which some would still argue against. But I’ve only been able to point to the Bible for B. Which while that’s always been enough for me, as mentioned, isn’t enough for many.

Recently, as the debate has grown more heated in the national spotlight, I’ve found myself doing research, mostly for my own benefit. Like I suspected, I haven’t found anything that serious disputes A or B in my mind, but that doesn’t keep people from spewing venom and hate on the subject.

One most interesting article comes from write Allan Dobras called “The Homosexual Fifth Column  –  Ideology, Not Science” published Sept. 13, 2004. I would like to share it with you, because, honestly, he address the issue from a logical standpoint that is simply more articulate than anything I could say.

Over the next several days I will publish a series of articles for consideration on the issue that I have found helpful and informative. I believe that biblical literacy and historical understanding are and must be an important part of every Christians lifestyle, especially when it comes to making decisions about what we believe.

Enjoy.

DK

The Homosexual Fifth Column  –  Ideology, Not Science

 As four of Emilio Mola Vidal’s army columns moved on Madrid, the Spanish Civil War general referred to his militant supporters within the capital as his “fifth column,” intent on undermining the loyalist government from within. ~ Encyclopedia Britannica, 2004

The homosexual rights movement is not a cause based on science, social justice, or fairness toward a “persecuted minority.”  Rather, it is the work of a devious and clandestine fifth column that seeks to undermine the moral values in place in America since the founding of the Republic.  Its beginnings can be traced to the infamous 1973 decision made by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to strike homosexuality from the officially approved list of psychiatric illnesses.            

From Illness to Interest Group

Prior to the APA decision, homosexual persons were considered to be emotionally disturbed and lacking in capacity to develop normal heterosexual relations. In his book, Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, psychiatrist Jeffrey Satinover discusses how this change came about:

How did this occur?  Normally a scientific consensus is reached over the course of many years, resulting from the accumulated weight of many properly designed studies.  But in the case of homosexuality, scientific research has only now just begun (c.1996), years after the question was decided…The APA vote to normalize homosexuality was driven by politics, not science.  Even sympathizers acknowledged this…the leadership of a homosexual faction within the APA planned [in 1970] a “systematic effort to disrupt the annual meetings of the American Psychiatric Association”.

The APA decision, therefore, was not based on rigorous scientific discovery, but on hardball backroom politics engineered by a cabal of homosexual activists who pushed their agenda through intimidation and deception.  Other medical professional organizations meekly fell in line and sodomy suddenly became an officially acknowledged alternative lifestyle whose practitioners were considered to be born with unalterable homosexual attractions.  Thus, any therapy employed by a psychiatrist or psychologist intended to change a person’s sexual orientation was declared to be unethical.

Armed with this newly gained acceptability, homosexual activists were able to infiltrate the media, academia, industry, government, and even the church with a message geared toward “tolerance.” They framed the debate over this issue in the context of a scientifically identified, oppressed minority, victimized by the prejudice of a society dominated by irrational religious values.

This strategy has proved so successful that homosexuality—i.e. sodomy and all its variations—must not only be tolerated, but accepted; not only accepted, but affirmed; not only affirmed, but promoted; and finally, not only promoted, but codified into law with appropriate penalties for exhibiting “intolerance” or “hate” toward the practice or its practitioners.

The astonishing success of the homosexual rights movement has, in large part, come about because the debate has been controlled by well-placed homosexual activists whose shameless work of propaganda has flown under the radar of the typical American citizen.

The Print Media

Literally three-quarters of the people deciding what’s on the front page [of the New York Times] are not-so-closeted homosexuals. ~ Richard Berke, journalist

The above statement was made by New York Times national political correspondent, Richard Berke.  He made the remarks in an April 12, 2000 National Press Club reception reveling about how much things have changed at the Times since he started 15 years ago.  “[It is] a real far cry from what it was like not so long ago,” he exulted.

The Times is the nation’s most influential newspaper and what it places on its front page sets the agenda for other newspapers all over the country and in many parts of the world.  It follows then, that not-so-closeted homosexuals determine what much of the country reads in its newspapers.

Richard Berke is an open homosexual and longtime member of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA)—a 1,200-member organization dedicated to providing “responsible gay coverage [for the] issues of same-sex marriage, gay families, parenting and adoption, gays in the military, sex education in the schools, civil liberties, gay-related ballot initiatives, gay bashing and anti-gay violence.”

The reach of the NLGJA goes far beyond the pages of the New York Times. Speakers, honored guests, or workshop presenters at NLGJA functions read like the who’s who” of media: Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, Harry Smith, Katie Couric, Lesley Stahl, George Stephanopoulos, Barbara Walters, Stone Phillips, Linda Ellerbee Armstrong Williams, and Linda Vester.  Other participants have included New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Mark Rosenthal, president and chief operating officer of MTV Networks; Jim Kelly, managing editor of Time magazine; Walter Isaacson, chief executive officer of CNN; Anthony Marro, editor of Newsday; Caroline Miller, editor-in-chief of New York magazine; Andrew Heyward, president of CBS News, and John Huey, managing editor of Fortune.

The wide support for the NLGJA shown by the active participation by these media executives and personalities is a clear indication of the depth of homosexual influence in the popular media, and certainly arouses justifiable suspicion that an imbalance of reporting exists concerning issues of gay rights.

The Film and Television Industry

Without homosexuals there would be no Hollywood, no theater, no arts. ~ Elizabeth Taylor, film actress

The comment by Ms. Taylor is not an exaggeration and extends beyond actors to all levels of the industry.  It should be no surprise that Hollywood has been turning out more and more movies with a positive and affirmative portrayal of the homosexual lifestyle.

Television currently includes a number of leading lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender characters in original primetime broadcast, and cable programming for 2003-2004, including: Coupling (NBC), Degrassi: The Next Generation (NTV), ER (NBC), It’s All Relative (ABC), The L Word (Showtime), Queer as Folk (Showtime), RENO 911! (Comedy Central), Six Feet Under (HBO), Will & Grace (NBC), The Wire (HBO), and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (Bravo).

In addition, television sitcoms and dramas often feature positive homosexual themes and homosexual characters.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting features a regular broadcast of In The Life, described as “a national television series in a newsmagazine format that reports on gay and lesbian issues and culture.”  It is carried by over 130 public television stations nationwide, including all of the top 20 viewer markets.  The program reaches more than one million viewers per episode with a positive message about the gay lifestyle.  There is no counterbalance to this program on public television.

The Public Schools

Ex-gay messages have no place in our nation’s public schools.  A line has been drawn. There is no “other side” when you’re talking about lesbian, gay and bisexual students. ~ Kevin Jennings, Executive Director of the Gay Lesbian Straight  Education Network (GLSEN).

Mr. Jennings made the above statement upon the release of a 1999 GLSEN publication, Just the Facts About Sexual Orientation and Youth, which was mailed to almost 15,000 school district superintendents across the country. GLSEN said the publication was “prompted by concerns that school personnel were receiving inaccurate information on the issue of sexual orientation and how to address it best with students.”  The statement strongly urges educators and school administrators to reject efforts to bring ex-gay messages into the nation’s schools.

GLSEN is certainly aware that homosexual attraction is neither innate nor immutable; the fact that homosexuality can be overcome is well documented by the personal experiences of thousands of individuals who have successfully left the lifestyle.  Nevertheless, it is GLSEN’s intended purpose to show children from K-12 that same sex attraction is normal. Any suggestion that one can change his/her sexual orientation, GLSEN claims, is fruitless and unethical and has no place in the public schools.

Mr. Jennings efforts were recently rewarded by the National Education Association—the powerhouse 2.7 million-member union that represents most U.S. teachers—when the organization presented him with the 2004 Virginia Uribe Award for Creative Leadership in Human Rights.

Critics of his selection pointed out that Mr. Jennings was the keynote speaker at a GLSEN conference in 2000 at Tufts University where Massachusetts Department of Education HIV/AIDS coordinators discussed with teenage students ways to perform various homosexual acts.  This event became known as the notorious “fistgate scandal,” and the controversy it raised over the exposure to children of vulgar and disturbingly graphic descriptions of homosexual acts is still reverberating in Massachusetts.

The National Education Association has been promoting gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgender affirmation in the public schools for many years, through such initiatives as recognizing sexual orientation as a protected “civil right” for both students and staff; developing sex education classes to include information on the “diversity of sexual orientations,” and teaming with homosexual rights groups to promote gay-oriented “Back to School” programs.

With the help of the NEA, the 1999 gay-friendly video, It’s Elementary, was shown in classrooms throughout the nation.  In discussing the video, then president of the NEA, Bob Chase, said

Schools cannot be neutral when we’re dealing with issues of human dignity and human rights.  I’m not talking about tolerance.  I’m talking about acceptance.  It’s Elementary is a great resource for parents, teachers, and community leaders working to teach respect and responsibility to America’s children.

Regrettably, while parents continue to entrust the education and social development of their children to the public school system, the educators are surreptitiously encouraging the children to explore a lifestyle that most parents find repulsive and unnatural, a lifestyle whose promotion is totally inappropriate in primary and secondary schools. At the same time, messages about persons who have overcome the homosexual lifestyle are not tolerated in NEA-dominated public schools.

The Gate Keepers

As the homosexual fifth column works its way through academia, the media, the church, government, and industry, opponents of gay affirmation often find themselves outflanked by embedded homosexual gate keepers who control the flow of information in and out of their spheres of influence.  The recent debate on the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) is a case in point.  The proposed amendment is fiercely opposed by homosexual advocacy groups who are making extraordinary efforts to assure its defeat.

The homosexual weekly, Washington Blade, reported July 2 that gay activists Michael Rogers and John Aravosis have threatened to “out” highly-placed closeted staffers who work for members of Congress that support the amendment as a means to “expose the hypocrisy” of conservative lawmakers.  According to the Blade, this high-pressure tactic has “evoked panic and precaution behind the Capitol’s closed doors.”

In other words, the number of influential, closeted homosexuals working behind the scenes on Capitol Hill is so pervasive that the mere threat of exposure may be enough to pressure some members of congress to change their position on the proposed amendment.  In a July 15 article in the Washington Post, Rogers explained his concern over the FMA

Gays and lesbians are under attack!  It’s amazing to me that people don’t get that!  So what are we going to do?  Protect these gay staffers who have influence on policy matters while their bosses spew hate and bigotry?

After the Ball

[T]he public should not be shocked and repelled by premature exposure to homosexual behavior itself. Instead, the imagery of sex per se should be downplayed, and the issue of gay rights reduced, as far as possible, to an abstract social question. ~ Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear & Hatred of Gays in the 90s

In Kirk and Madsen’s prophetic handbook, the authors laid out a comprehensive plan for legitimizing homosexuality, one that called for homosexuals to hide the details of the unseemly side of their lifestyle and portray themselves “conventional young people, middle-age women, and older folks of all races…victims of circumstance and depression.” They write

To suggest in public that homosexuality might be chosen is to open the can of worms labeled “moral choices and sin” and give the religious intransigents a stick to beat us with. Straights must be taught that it is as natural for some persons to be homosexual as it is for others to be heterosexual…wickedness and seduction have nothing to do with it.

Kirk and Madsen insisted that the dark underworld of homosexual behavior—the movement’s Achille’s Heel—must be avoided at all costs.  The homosexual fifth column has followed the plan to perfection.

Al Dobras is a freelance writer on religious and cultural issues and an electronics engineer. He lives in Springfield, Virginia.

2012
05/17
CATEGORY
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Leadership Ambition


Today’s thought comes from a Pastor in North Carolina who I’d imagine knows a thing or two about being called arrogant by well meaning, hypocritical “Christians”. I read it and really was refreshed. It is OK to have a drive to do something great for God…even if others don’t want to ride along.

I hope you are refreshed in your drive for God’s glory, too.

DK

There’s a word many Christians are afraid of. It’s almost a bad word. If you have it, many people assume it means you’re self-serving. Power hungry. But most of all, arrogant.
I’m talking about ambition.

It’s almost like if you want to excel at something or do big things with your life or organization, then you must have a God-complex. An all too elevated sense of self-importance.

There’s no denying that that’s definitely true in the case of some people. But I also fear that our fear of ambition is severely limiting other people who have been called to do great things for God. Why should we put a cap on their potential because some people can’t put a cap on their pride?

I’ve seen too many pastors settle for reaching hundreds when God called them to reach thousands. I’ve seen too many talented businessmen stop short of the impact God had called them to make on their field. All because they feared being thought of as ambitious.

So let’s clear this up once and for all: nowhere in the Bible is ambition condemned. Selfish ambition is definitely warned against. But ambition for the sake of God’s glory is not only condoned—it’s commended. It’s a required asset for anyone wanting to rise above the mass of men and do something extraordinary.
Ambition led Noah to build the ark. David to expand the borders of Israel. Solomon to build the Temple. Nehemiah to rebuild the walls. Paul to spread the gospel to the ends of the Earth.
I wonder if people accused them of being arrogant? Maybe. But then again, if you’re never accused of being arrogant, it’s probably a sign that you’re not being ambitious enough. You’re dreaming too small. Your goals are too easily attainable.

Let me free you: it’s OK to want to be the best at what you do. It’s OK to want to achieve as much as you can with your life for the sake of the God who gave it to you. I sincerely doubt God is going to look at you at the end of your life and say, “You did too much for me.” But I do sincerely believe that God is going to look at many people and say, “You were too ‘humble’ for your own good and the good of countless people you could have impacted if you’d had a little more ambition.”

Don’t let anyone ever tell you that ambition is synonymous with arrogance. Godly ambition is what God uses to do incredible things in our world.

If that makes you look arrogant, don’t back down from what God has called you to do. Instead, mourn for the people who are living so far beneath their potential that anything greater must be arrogance.

Steven Furtick

StevenFurtick.com
Steven Furtick is the Lead Pastor of Elevation Church, an incredible move of God in Charlotte, NC with more than 9,000 in attendance each week among (soon-to-be) six locations. He is the author of the book, Sun Stand Still. He lives in Charlotte with his wife Holly and their three children, Elijah, Graham and Abbey.

2012
05/17
CATEGORY
Uncategorized
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