I will tell you right now that this blog will be long, informative and/or offensive. However, right now as an American I am allowed to public on the internet anything I wish to say, and this right may quickly be taken away from me. I must use this amazing tool of technology while I can.
First, a little background. Just about anyone who is reading this blog knows that I am a lover of Jesus and a believer that the Bible is
literally the words of our Living Creator. I believe that the Bible teaches that God has created man and woman in His image. I believe that the Bible teaches that men and women are not born homosexual but, rather, this is a lifestyle choice they have made. I believe that the Bible calls homosexuality a sin. This is at the root of this debate. If homosexuality truly was a God-given characteristic, like the color of our skin, then to deny homosexuals "equal rights" would be wrong. However, the Bible does not teach this. Do I believe that adultery is sin? Yes. Do I believe that pornography is sin? Yes. Do I believe that abuse in any form (emotional, physical, sexual), stealing, greed, and lying are sins? Yes. Do I want to see adulterers given special treatment of protection under the law? No. Do I want people who steal to be given special treatment under the law? No. Do I want people who practice homosexuality to be given special treatment? No. The argument over homosexuality and the "rights" of those individuals hinges on this belief. It amazes me that this characteristic of this argument has not been mentioned more often. (Or, is it really that amazing?)
I don't know how many of you are closely following the gay-marriage debate. Maybe you've heard about it in the news. Have you gone deeper than the superficial reporting by the news stations and read about what will REALLY happen if marriage is not legally defined as one man and one woman? One of my college roommates works for a non-profit organization called Exodus International (www.exodus-international.org/). Their ministry is to help those struggling with the sin of homosexuality to leave that lifestyle through the Power of Christ. Through my continued friendship with Caryn, I have learned a lot about the homosexual community. Let me fill you in on something very interesting--most homosexuals do not want to be married. Most do not want a monogamous relationship. In fact, many of the advocates of "same-sex marriage" are also activist for polygamy and polygomy. It has been said many times over by activists in the gay-rights movement(in every place but on television) that same-sex marriage is just the stepping stone to the "freedom" and lifestyle that they desire to live in. Let me fill you in on some disturbing news...
Legislation has been proposed in many state legislators, including in Montana, that will include sexual orientation as a protected class under the Equal Opportunities Act. This would make it illegal to not hire a qualified homosexual for any position (including a position in a church, if that position were advertised). Couple this legislation with same-sex marriage, and what will American begin to look like? What will this mean for the church?
The following excerpt from an article published in the Boston Globe attempts to answer some of those questions. Because this blog is already really long and you may not have time (or desire) to read even the EXCERPTS of this article, let alone the entire article, I'll summarize. (You can see the full article at http://www.afa.net/websites/weeklystandard_05_15_2006.htm).
Right now, no one is
anticipating that churches will be
forced to perform same-sex marriages. However, the likely effects of this legislation could force private Christian schools to allow homosexual students and give them permission to form gay and lesbian student groups. It would force religious retreats to include children from same-sex families. It would force Christian counselors to give counseling to same-sex couples. This is not the biggest news, however...
Churches and parachurch organizations (fill in here the Navigators, Focus on the Family, Compassion International, MOPS International, Campus Crusade for Christ, Exodus International, etc) could very likely lose their tax-exempt status. Many organizations under the "faith-based initiative" so successfully established by President Bush would lose their funding. Churches, parachurch organizations, and missions boards will close by the hundreds.
Are you thinking that this is gloom and doom? Or do you realize that this is truly on the verge of happening in our lifetime? That the churches that we attend on Sunday morning may cease to exist in the next ten years? That the send of missionaries from the United States may be cut back dramatically? But as my husband so eloquently put it, the modern church is a far cry from what the early church looked like. And the culture climate that we are about to enter into will be one very similar to the early church. It is not beyond my imagination to think that my husband (or even me!) could serve jail time or be fined severely by merely answering questions about what we believe and those words be considered "sexual harrassment."
What can you do? Contact your congressmen! Tell him/her to support the Federal Marriage Amendment. (Go to www.afa.org to look up the contact information for your congressmen.) Find out what is going on in your state legislator and DO SOMETHING. Do you realize that if our grandparents had taken a stand in the 1950s against Playboy that the pornography industry may not have gotten started? We have a responsibility to our generation, future generations, and to the Lord to stand up for the Truth of the Bible.
Here is the excerpt:
"...As general counsel for the American Jewish Congress, Marc Stern knows religious liberty law from the inside out. Like Anthony Picarello, he sees the coming conflicts as pervasive. The problem is not that clergy will be forced to perform gay marriages or prevented from preaching their beliefs. Look past those big red herrings: "No one seriously believes that clergy will be forced, or even asked, to perform marriages that are anathema to them. Same-sex marriage would, however, work a sea change in American law. That change will reverberate across the legal and religious landscape in some ways that are today unpredictable," he writes in his Becket Fund paper.
Consider education. Same-sex marriage will affect religious educational institutions, he argues, in at least four ways: admissions, employment, housing, and regulation of clubs. One of Stern's big worries right now is a case in California where a private Christian high school expelled two girls who (the school says) announced they were in a lesbian relationship. Stern is not optimistic. And if the high school loses, he tells me, "then religious schools are out of business." Or at least the government will force religious schools to tolerate both conduct and proclamations by students they believe to be sinful.
Stern agrees with Feldblum that public accommodation laws can and should force truly commercial enterprises to serve all comers. But, he asks, what of other places, such as religious camps, retreats, and homeless shelters? Will they be considered by courts to be places of public accommodation, too? Could a religious summer camp operated in strict conformity with religious principles refuse to accept children coming from same-sex marriages? What of a church-affiliated community center, with a gym and a Little League, that offers family programs? Must a religious-affiliated family services provider offer marriage counseling to same-sex couples designed to facilitate or preserve their relationships?
"Future conflict with the law in regard to licensing is certain with regard to psychological clinics, social workers, marital counselors, and the like," Stern wrote last December--well before the Boston Catholic Charities story broke.
...
Or consider a recent case at William Paterson University, a state school in New Jersey. A senior faculty member sent out a mass email inviting people to attend movies with a gay theme. A student employee, a 63-year-old Muslim named Jihad Daniel, replied to the professor in a private email asking not to receive messages "about 'Connie and Sally' and 'Adam and Steve.'" He went on, "These are perversions. The absence of God in higher education brings on confusion. That is why in these classes the Creator of the heavens and the earth is never mentioned." The result: Daniel received a letter of reprimand for using the "derogatory and demeaning" word "perversions" in violation of state discrimination and harassment regulations.
Interestingly, Stern points out, a single "derogatory or demeaning" remark not seeking sexual gratification or threatening a person's job security does not constitute harassment under ordinary federal and state sexual harassment law originally intended to protect women in the workplace. Moreover, Stern says, "our entire free speech regime depends on the principle that no adult has a right to expect the law will protect him from being exposed to disagreeable speech."
Except, apparently in New Jersey, where a state attorney general's opinion concluded, "[C]learly speech which violates a nondiscrimination policy is not protected." "This was so 'clear' to the writer," notes Stern, "that she cited not a single case or law review article in support." Ultimately, the school withdrew its reprimand from Daniel's employment file after receiving negative publicity and the threat of a lawsuit from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).
Sexual harassment law as an instrument for suppressing religious speech? A few days after I interviewed Stern, an Alliance Defense Fund press release dropped into my mail box: "OSU Librarian Slapped with 'Sexual Harassment' Charge for Recommending Conservative Books for Freshmen." One of the books the Ohio State librarian (a pacifist Quaker who drives a horse and buggy to work) recommended was It Takes a Family by Senator Rick Santorum. Three professors alleged that the mere appearance of such a book on a freshman reading list made them feel "unsafe." The faculty voted to pursue the sexual harassment allegation, and the process quickly resulted in the charge being dropped.
In the end the investigation of the librarian was more of a nuisance--you might call it harassment--than anything else. But the imbalance in terms of free speech remains clear: People who favor gay rights face no penalty for speaking their views, but can inflict a risk of litigation, investigation, and formal and informal career penalties on others whose views they dislike. Meanwhile, people who think gay marriage is wrong cannot know for sure where the line is now or where it will be redrawn in the near future. "Soft" coercion produces no martyrs to disturb anyone's conscience, yet it is highly effective in chilling the speech of ordinary people.
Finally, I ask Stern the big question on everyone's mind. Religious groups that take government funding will almost certainly be required to play by the nondiscrimination rules, but what about groups that, while receiving no government grants, are tax-exempt? Can a group--a church or religious charity, say--that opposes gay marriage keep its tax exemption if gay marriage becomes the law? "That," says Stern, "is the 18 trillion dollar question."
Twenty years ago it would have been inconceivable that a Christian or Jewish organization that opposed gay marriage might be treated as racist in the public square. Today? It's just not clear.
"In Massachusetts I'd be very worried," Stern says finally. The churches themselves might have a First Amendment defense if a state government or state courts tried to withdraw their exemption, he says, but "the parachurch institutions are very much at risk and may be put out of business because of the licensing issues, or for these other reasons--it's very unclear. None of us nonprofits can function without [state] tax exemption. As a practical matter, any large charity needs that real estate tax exemption."
He blames religious conservatives for adopting the wrong political strategy on gay issues. "Live and let live," he tells me, is the only thing around the world that works. But I ask him point blank what he would say to people who dismiss the threat to free exercise of religion as evangelical hysteria. "It's not hysteria, this is very real," he tells me, "Boston Catholic Charities shows that."
Fundamentally, Stern sees this as a "religious war" between people for whom an egalitarian secular ethic is the only rational option and people who can make room for an ethic based on faith in a God who commands. There are very few signs of a willingness to compromise on either side, he notes.
"You look around the world and even the right to preach is in doubt," he tells me. "In the United States we are not foreseeably in that position.
Fundamentally speech is still safe in the United States. Beyond speech, nothing is safe."
...
Religious bodies may be as simple as the small, independent congregations that exist all over America, but often they are large and complex institutions with extensive property and multiple missions, notably saving souls. Even a slight risk of anything so damaging as the loss of tax-exempt status will persuade many such groups to at least mute their marriage theology in the interest of preserving the rest of their activities. Such a self-imposed muting on the part of faith communities would change our culture of marriage, and our understanding of the free exercise of religion, without necessarily creating visible martyrs.
