The Threat of the Homosexual Agenda to Your Freedoms
by Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.
March, 2009
Most people have not been closely following the implications of the promotion of the homosexual agenda in other Western countries, especially Canada and Sweden, or even in selected areas of the United States. Here are some results that would follow from granting homosexual marriage or its legal equivalent and making "sexual orientation" a specially protected civil rights category for "hate speech" and "non-discrimination" laws.
(1) Go to jail for "hate speech." If a "Human Rights Commission" finds that you have made public statements that "incites hatred" against homosexual persons, you may go to prison. Ultimately, even ministers of the gospel will not be exempt.
This past June in Sweden a Pentecostal minister, Ake Green, was sentenced to a month in prison for referring to homosexual practice in a sermon as a "horrible cancerous tumor in the body of society." The public prosecutor commented: "Collecting Bible [verses] on this topic as he does makes this hate speech." The Swedish parliament has already given initial approval to a constitutional amendment that would prohibit any speech that "implies unfavorable treatment" to homosexual persons, with a prison sentence of up to two years.
Even highly placed church officials face the specter of prosecution. In the Catholic Church, Belgian Cardinal Gustaaf Joos faces an anti-discrimination lawsuit for remarks that he made in 2003 about homosexuality and the Church's teaching in a Belgium magazine. Madrid Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela is facing a suit in Spain for preaching against homosexuality in a sermon he gave in 2003.
In 2000 Dutch authorities even contemplated bringing charges against Pope John Paul II after he declared a homosexual rally in Rome to be "an offense to Christian values." They backed off only when they were forced to concede that the Pope had "global immunity."
In Oct. 2003 Anglican Bishop of Chester, England, Peter Forster, was investigated by police by making the following "hate" comment in an interview with a local newspaper: "Some people who are primarily homosexual can re-orientate themselves. . . . We want to help them, but I don't offer it as a pancea." The police chief declared that the comments were "totally unacceptable" and compared the remarks to offenses against ethnic minorities "generated by hate and prejudice."
Just three weeks ago in Philadelphia eleven people belonging to a Christian evangelistic group called "Repent America" were arrested for singing hymns and carrying signs ("Homosexuality Is Sin; Christ Can Set You Free") at a homosexual celebration called "Outfest." They were charged with "ethnic intimidation" under Pennsylvania's "hate crime" law ("sexual orientation" and "gender identity" were added to the law this past summer). This, along with a charge of "criminal conspiracy," and other trumped-up charges, could result in a prison sentence of up to 47 years.
(2) Lose your job for not supporting "coming out" celebrations at work or for "discriminatory" speech outside of the workplace. That's right, you can even be fired from your job for statements made outside your place of employment. Chris Kempling, a public school teacher and guidance counselor in British Columbia, Canada, was suspended for one month, without pay, for writing allegedly "discriminatory and derogatory statements against homosexuals" to a local newspaper. What kind of terrible statements did Kempling write? Things such as: "Gay people are seriously at risk [of sexually transmitted disease], not because of heterosexual attitudes but because of their sexual behavior"; and "Homosexual relationships are unstable, 'gay' sex poses health risks and many religions consider homosexuality immoral."
In a decision against Kempling handed down this past February by the British Columbia Supreme Court, Justice Ronald Holmes stated that "discriminatory speech" made outside the workplace can be punished by one's employer if one belongs to the "teaching profession" or "any [other] profession" (i.e., a white-collar job).
In 1998 Annie Coffey-Montes, a New York Bell Atlantic employee for 20 years, was fired for attempting to remove herself from the e-mail list of GLOBE (Gay and Lesbians of Bell Atlantic), which advertised "gay pride" parades, "coming out" parties, and homosexual dances. After a year of petitioning her supervisor to have her name removed, she responded to one GLOBE e-mail with: "Please take me off this email. I find it morally offensive. God bless you." She ended by citing Romans 1:27. Coffey-Montes was fired for "creating a hostile work environment."
In 2001 Albert Buonanno was fired from AT&T Broadband of Denver for not signing a "certificate of understanding" stating that he would "fully value sexual orientation differences."
In Oct. 2002 Rolf Szabo, a 23-year employee of The Eastman Kodak Company was fired when he responded to an e-mail requiring supervisors to promote a "Coming Out Day" for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender employees with the following: "Please do not send this type of information to me anymore, as I find it disgusting and offensive. Thank you."
In 2003 Richard Peterson at Hewlett-Packard's office in Boise, Idaho, posted at his cubicle two Bible verses critical of homosexual practice in response to a poster of two homosexual man placed near his cubicle. He was fired for not "accepting [the company's] values."
(3) Be fined and pay heavy legal fees for daring to criticize, or not supporting with your business, homosexual practice. Two incidents in Canada give a good indication of where things are headed. Canadian print shop owner Scott Brockie was ordered to pay a fine of $5000 because he refused to print homosexual advocacy materials for the Canadian Gay and Lesbian Archives.
In attempting to defend himself in the courts, Brockie not only incurred over $100,000 in legal expenses beyond his legal defense fund, but was also ordered by the Ontario Court of Appeal this past year to pay the $40,000 incurred by the Ontario Human Rights Commission for prosecuting him. Hugh Owens, a Canadian correctional-center guard, was fined $4500 by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission in 2002 for taking out an ad in a local newspaper that responded to a "Gay Pride" celebration.
The ad reproduced a bumper sticker that Owens had created, showing two male stick figures holding hands, with a line through the picture, and the mere citation of four references from the Bible against homosexual practice (no quotations). Owens, who had to represent himself because he could not afford legal representation, may yet have to pay the prosecuting expenses of the Human Rights Commission.
In California businesses that don't offer benefits to homosexual couples are denied state contracts, irrespective of the business owner's religious beliefs. Moreover, perceived workplace discrimination against "transgendered" persons (both transsexuals and transvestites) makes businesses liable to a $150,000 fine.
(4) Have your children taken away from you if you teach them "homophobic" ideas. In 2003 Dr. Cheryl Clark was ordered by a Denver Circuit Court judge and later in 2004 by the Colorado Court of Appeals not to say anything to her adopted daughter that her ex-lesbian partner might construe as "homophobic." In California potential foster parents who express disapproval of homosexual practice are disqualified from foster care.
Adoption qualifications will one day screen potential parents on the basis of their stance toward "sexual orientation differences." Where is this ultimately headed? It is not hard to imagine. Suppose your child wonders whether he or she is bisexual, homosexual, or transgendered-not a far-fetched possibility given the coercive promotion of bisexuality, homosexuality, and transgenderism in the school systems and the higher percentage of orientation confusion among adolescents. If your child then tells the school guidance counselor that you regard homosexual behavior as sin, the counselor will report the matter to your state Child Protective Services and your child will be removed from your home. The state will reason: Would we tolerate black children raised in the homes of Klu Klux Klan members?
(5) Have the school systems teach your children that you are a hateful bigot. In California all public schools, as well as private and religious schools that receive state money, must have curricula that "foster appreciation" for sexual orientation differences.
An example of the kind of material that children can be subjected to includes a presentation sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Educational Network (GLSEN) called "Cootie Shots." In one of the skits a young boy declares how wonderful it is to dress "in Mommy's high heals." "What's wrong with being like a girl? . / . . . They are swine, I am the pearl. / And let them laugh and let them scream. / They'll be beheaded when I'm queen."
In a GLSEN video, "It's Elementary," a resource promoted to elementary school teachers, an 8-year old girl reads her essay to her class stating that those who accept the Bible's teaching on homosexual practice are stupid. The teacher gives her essay an award.
In 2002 the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that neither parents nor school boards could prevent public school children, even in kindergarten and first-grade, from being instructed in the classroom about the acceptability of homosexual relationships. This is what is coming to America. If you are fortunate enough to have your children embrace your values in sexual ethics they will marginalized as the moral equivalent of racists and humiliated in the classroom.
(6) Other Consequences. The ramifications of making "sexual orientation" a nationally protected civil rights category are endless. Here we can only mention briefly a few other consequences.
* Adoption agencies will not be able to give any priority to heterosexual married couples over homosexual couples because that would be discrimination. It makes no difference that the child is exposed to a homosexual environment and would be more inclined from this to experiment in homosexual behavior. It makes no difference that the vast majority of homosexual relationships will be not be long-term and monogamous.
* Christian groups on college campuses that do not allow practicing, self-affirming homosexuals as leaders will be charged with discrimination and kicked off campus.
* Professionals who have affiliation with such "discriminatory" groups as the Boy Scouts or the Salvation Army will be subjected to censure. Already, for example, the American Bar Association is considering prohibiting judges from involvement with any organizations that "discriminate" on the basis of "sexual orientation."
* Christian colleges and seminaries that are suspected of "sexual orientation" discrimination-whether in hiring professors, allowing any faculty to say in class that homosexual practice is sin, or failing to provide "domestic partner benefits" to homosexual employees or "married student housing" to homosexual students-will be denied access to federal student loans. Eventually accreditation will be affected since the Association of Theological Schools cannot permit institutions to perpetuate the "moral equivalent" of racism.
* In order to protect themselves from federal lawsuits or civil suits, corporations will need to prove that they do not discriminate on the basis of "sexual orientation" by adopting affirmative-hire programs for self-professed GLBTs (gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered persons). It will not be good enough to have an "orientation-blind" policy.
The Bottom Line
The one political concern where the greatest sea change in the federal government's policies is likely to come is not in social programs for the disadvantaged, the environment, taxes, or even the Iraq War. No, the greatest change is likely to come on the issue of homosexual advocacy and the oppressive hand of the federal government against those who resist the false conclusion that homosexual practice is a normal, natural, and acceptable form of behavior that society should promote. It is on this issue that there is a serious prospect of radical abridgement of your religious and civil freedoms, to the point of being fired or imprisoned. What could be more alarming? Every Christian has a civic responsibility to engage the political process with a view to preventing such tragic results.
Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of New Testament, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
The Tyranny of the Minority:
How the Forced Recognition of Same-Sex "Marriage"
Undermines a Free Society
by S. T. Karnick
From the beginning, the debate over "same-sex marriage" has been one of those topsy-turvy issues in which the side that is truly tolerant and fair has been characterized as narrow-minded and oppressive, while the side that is intolerant and blatantly coercive has been depicted as open-minded and sympathetic.
Favoring government-enforced recognition of same-sex "marriage" is not, as the media invariably characterize it, a kindly, liberal-minded position, but instead a fierce, coercive, intolerant one. Despite their agonized complaints about the refusal of the majority of Americans to give in on the subject, those who advocate government recognition of same-sex "marriage" want to use coercion to deny other people their fundamental rights.
The issue, it's important to remember, is not whether society will allow homosexuals to "marry." They may already do so, in any church or other sanctioning body that is willing to perform the ceremony. There are, in fact, many organizations willing to do so: the Episcopal Church USA, the Alliance of Baptists, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church USA, the Unity School of Christianity, the Unitarian Universalists, the Swedenborgian Church of North America, the Quakers, the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, and the United Church of Christ, among others. Such institutions either explicitly allow the consecration or blessing of same-sex "marriages" or look the other way when individual congregations perform such ceremonies.
No laws prevent these churches from conducting marriage ceremonies-and nearly all Americans would agree that it is right for the government to stay out of a church's decision on the issue. Further, any couple of any kind may stand before a gathering of well-wishers and pledge their union to each other, and the law will do nothing to prevent them. Same-sex couples, or any other combination of people, animals, and inanimate objects, can and do "marry" in this way. What the law in most states currently does not do, however, is force third parties-individuals, businesses, institutions, and so on-to recognize these "marriages" and treat them as if they were exactly the same as traditional marriages. Nor does it forbid anyone to do so.
An insurance company, for example, is free to treat a same-sex couple (or an unmarried two-sex couple) the same way it treats married couples, or not. A church can choose to bless same-sex unions, or not. An employer can choose to recognize same-sex couples as "married," or not. As Richard Thompson Ford noted in Slate, "In 1992 only one Fortune 500 company offered employee benefits to same-sex domestic partners; today hundreds do."
In short, individuals, organizations, and institutions in most states are currently free to treat same-sex unions as marriages, or not. This, of course, is the truly liberal and tolerant position. It means letting the people concerned make up their own minds about how to treat these relationships. But this freedom is precisely what the advocates of same-sex "marriage" want to destroy; they want to use the government's power to force everyone to recognize same-sex unions as marriages whether they want to or not.
The effects of such coercion have already been felt in some places. Adoption agencies, for example, like any other organization, ought to be able to choose whether to give children to same-sex couples, or not. But in Massachusetts, where same-sex "marriage" has been declared legal, these agencies have been forced to accept applications from same-sex couples or go out of business.
*Minority Rule*
What's at issue here is not whether people can declare themselves married and find other people to agree with them and treat them as such. No, what's in contention is /whether the government should force everyone to recognize such "marriages."/ Far from being a liberating thing, the forced recognition of same-sex "marriage" is a governmental intrusion of monumental proportions.
Although pro-homosexual radicals continually refer to the forced recognition of same-sex "marriage" as a civil right, as well as a matter of liberating society from hidebound prejudices, such policies are actually the government-enforced imposition of a small group's sexual values on a reluctant and indeed strongly resistant population. That's why nearly all of the moves to legalize same-sex "marriage" have come from the courts, not the democratic process. After all, court cases would not be necessary if the public already agreed with the radicals.
This was made clear in the California Supreme Court's recent ruling that the state constitution's equal protection clauses mean that individuals have a fundamental "right to marry" whomever they choose and that gender restrictions in marriage are thus unconstitutional. The court, Republican-dominated and previously known as moderately conservative, voted by a slim 4-3 margin that sexual orientation would have to be treated just like race and sex in the state's laws. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Ronald M. George declared,
Our state now recognizes that an individual's capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual's sexual orientation. An individual's sexual orientation-like a person's race or gender-does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights.
The court ruled that the state's law approving "domestic partnerships" for same-sex couples was not enough-only official recognition as marriage would do.
Note these words in the court's decision: "Our state now recognizes." Actually, the state did no such thing; the court did it for them. The decision struck down Proposition 22, a ballot measure approved by 61 percent of the state's voters in the year 2000, which stated that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized in California." Thus, four judges decided to impose their personal views over the people's clearly expressed will, shown powerfully in the state referendum. Nor does their decision reflect a changed social atmosphere. The issue will remain in contention through the November elections, as the ballot in California will include an initiative to amend the state constitution to prohibit the government from recognizing same-sex "marriages."
What that would mean, of course, is not that Californians would be barred from "marrying" people of the same sex, but that they could not use the government to force other individuals, businesses, and institutions to recognize those "marriages."
As this case shows, the people who seek to "impose their values" on others are those who support government recognition of same-sex "marriage," not those who oppose it.
Moreover, it is not correct to argue that government recognition of two-sex marriages is unfair or oppressive. If proponents of same-sex "marriage" ask why the government should be allowed to require people to acknowledge traditional two-sex marriages, the answer is simple: /It does not./ The institutions of society acknowledge heterosexual marriages on the basis of historical and cultural preferences dating back millennia. The government didn't decide this; society did. Government recognition of traditional marriage was not a change forced upon society, but rather a legal codification of what society had already established.
Moreover, even homosexuals agree that marriage is a valid institution. They confirm this powerfully by trying to alter the institution through force of law so that same-sex couples can be included in it. The key difference between traditional marriage and same-sex "marriage," however, is that the government, in acknowledging heterosexual marriage, does not force anything on society; it merely effects the enforcement of a contract that all-or nearly all-people accept as valid and sensible. Same-sex "marriage," by contrast, is not seen as such by most people; forcing individuals to recognize it is not the legal codification of an existing social reality, but instead a radical social change forced by a few on the many.
A Pew Research Center Survey released earlier this year noted in its title that "Most Americans Still Oppose Same-Sex Marriage." The survey reported that 55 percent of Americans oppose "allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally," while only 36 percent support such a policy. A table in the report noted that "Most Groups Oppose Gay Marriage," though the study observed that poll respondents approved of allowing civil unions for same-sex couples by a 54-42 percent margin. Clearly, this suggests that most Americans are willing to allow same-sex couples to formalize their relationships in some way, but they don't want to be forced to change the definition of marriage to include them.
*A Sea Change*
Even fewer people would support same-sex "marriage" if the full implications of laws allowing them were widely known. A few days after the California Supreme Court decision, conservative columnist Dennis Prager noted just how sweeping and anti-democratic the decision was, saying, "Nothing imaginable-leftward or rightward-would constitute as radical a change in the way society is structured as this redefining of marriage for the first time in history." Unless the decision is reversed by an amendment to the California or US Constitution, Prager argued, "four justices of the California Supreme Court will have changed American society more than any four individuals since Washington, Jefferson, Adams and Madison."
Prager listed some of the social changes he foresees resulting from the court's decision:
Outside of the privacy of their homes, young girls will be discouraged from imagining one day marrying their prince charming-to do so would be declared "heterosexist," morally equivalent to racist. . . . Schoolbooks will not be allowed to describe marriage in male-female ways alone. . . .
Any advocacy of man-woman marriage alone will be regarded morally as hate speech, and shortly thereafter it will be deemed so in law.
Companies that advertise engagement rings will have to show a man putting a ring on a man's finger-if they show only women's fingers, they will be boycotted just as a company having racist ads would be now.
Films that only show man-woman married couples will be regarded as antisocial and as morally irresponsible as films that show people smoking have become.
Traditional Jews and Christians-i.e., those who believe in a divine scripture-will be marginalized.
Some might argue that Prager is indulging in hyperbole and will only cause unnecessary panic with these absurd hobgoblins, but it is difficult to see how the people of California would be able to stop sexual radicals from using the state's courts to implement all of these changes-and more-if the decision is allowed to stand. Yet, ironically, Prager notes, this far-reaching, radical decision has been deemed by the press as the compassionate, liberal-minded position on the matter. The mind boggles at the thought of what oppression might look like.
The libertarian writer Jennifer Roback Morse likewise notes that same-sex "marriage" is not a reduction of government intrusion into private lives, but an immense expansion of it. Writing in the /National Catholic Register,/ she observes,
Advocates of same-sex "marriage" insist that theirs is a modest reform: a mere expansion of marriage to include people currently excluded. But the price of same-sex "marriage" is a reduction in tolerance for everyone else, and an expansion of the power of the state.
Morse provides several examples that show how oppressive the same-sex "liberators" are in practice, including the following:
Recently, a Methodist organization in New Jersey lost part of its tax-exempt status because it refused to allow two lesbian couples to use their facility for a civil union ceremony. In Quebec, a Mennonite school was informed that it must conform to the official provincial curriculum, which includes teaching homosexuality as an acceptable alternative lifestyle. . . .
And recently, a wedding photographer in New Mexico faced a hearing with the state's Human Rights Commission because she declined the business of a lesbian couple. She didn't want to take photos of their commitment ceremony.
This list could be expanded and will only grow, as sexual radicals across the nation increasingly use the government to break down all resistance to their agenda. Recognizing the vast implications of a successful movement to disallow anyone from recognizing any difference between the sexes, Morse sees who the real victims of oppression would be:
Perhaps you think people have a natural civil right to marry the person of their choosing. But can you really force yourself to believe that wedding photography is a civil right?
Maybe you believe that same-sex couples are entitled to have children, somehow. But is any doctor they might encounter required to inseminate them?
As Morse and Prager both note, what advocates of government recognition of same-sex "marriage" are after is not "tolerance and respect," but a forcible reordering of all of society along "gender-neutral" principles-and anyone who resists will face punishment by the government. In such an environment, it should hardly surprise us to see freedom of speech become a thing of the past.
*Attitude Adjustments*
An example of the suppression of dissent occurred in a debate last year in which the candidates for the Democratic party's presidential nomination discussed issues related to homosexual rights. When Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel came out explicitly for forcing all of society to recognize same-sex "marriages," and the audience erupted in cheers, the more prominent candidates kept their heads down and clearly tried to avoid making any big mistakes.
Two of them, however, were forced into Orwellian moments of self-abasement. Former Senator John Edwards felt compelled to apologize for once having said that he opposed same-sex "marriage" for religious reasons. He promised not to impose his "faith belief" on the American people-though he would apparently be willing to impose the radicals' unbelief on all of society.
Even more revealingly, New Mexico Governor William Richardson, a strong supporter of the homosexualist agenda, blundered when asked whether homosexual behavior is a biological imperative or a choice. Richardson said, "It's a choice." Some people in the audience gasped audibly. This was potentially catastrophic for him because the great majority of homosexual activists claim that homosexual behavior is biological in origin.
Richardson's campaign organization quickly issued a retraction of what he said in the debate. As Prager and Morse point out, this sort of forced "attitude adjustment" will become universal if the "same-sex marriage" agenda is embedded in the nation's laws.
The question of whether the definition of marriage will be made by the free choices of society or by government fiat is the central issue in the "same-sex marriage" controversy. To be sure, those who argue that the government should not discriminate between traditional and same-sex couples can make their case seem principled and liberal-minded. The truth, however, is that those who favor forced recognition of same-sex "marriage" seek to suppress freedom, and those who oppose these ideas represent real liberty. .
Still Illegal
Lost in the debate surrounding the forced recognition of same-sex "marriage" is that such unions are still very much illegal-and in every state of the union. Yes, it's true that the California Supreme Court /did /rule that the prohibition of same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, as well as that the language in Proposition 22, which limited marriage to one man and one woman, must be excised from the statute. It's just that the court had no authority to do the excising. According to the California Constitution, only the people within that state can revoke or amend an initiative statute, which is precisely what Proposition 22 is. And because 61.4 percent of California voters have already insisted that "only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized in California," it is unlikely that the people will take such action any time soon.
Thus, it was the court's implication that its opinion had the force of law, not to mention Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's decision to enforce that opinion despite having no legal authority to do so, that was actually unconstitutional, /not /the ban on same-sex marriage. Interestingly enough, the same problem plagues Massachusetts' "legalization" of same-sex marriage by court ruling, which Governor Mitt Romney illegally enforced in 2004. In both states, gay marriage remains illegal, despite what the media may claim. Now if only we could get our government officials to fulfill their sworn obligation to the law.
This article was first published in the Autumn 2008 issue of Salvo Magazine (salvomag.com)
See also
The camp that 'cures' homosexuality
Homosexuality and Christianity
Pastor Rick Warren and the Saddleback Church
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