On Monday, we reported that Truth In Action Ministries spokesman Jerry Newcombe wrote a column defending a Texas student athlete who claimed he was disqualified from a tack race over a religious gesture, which Newcombe used as evidence of anti-Christian persecution in America.
But Newcombe’s account had one tiny little problem: the week before he published his column, the athlete admitted that he made the story up.
Rather than retract his post, our friends at Wonkette point out that Truth In Action Ministries scrubbed it from their website and Newcombe rewrote the column to detail the case of Texas cheerleaders who wanted to put Bible verses on banners during football games.
But despite Truth In Action Ministries’ best efforts, you can still read Newcombe’s original (and never corrected) column here:
It apparently doesn’t matter that a Texas student athlete who had claimed he and his team were disqualified from a race over a religious gesture recanted his allegations and admitted that he made it all up, as it appears that Religious Right groups intend to pursue the story anyway.
Today, Truth In Action Ministries today is promoting the fabricated case as well, with Newcombe citing the fictitious account to warn of the imminent threats to the freedoms of religion and speech.
Virtually every week there is some outrageous story of an alleged violation of the separation of church and state. They’re becoming so frequent that they are often met with a collective yawn.
The crazy thing about all this is how removed this is from the clear intent of the founders themselves---as seen in their documents, in their actions, in their words, etc.
One recent incident that blows me away is that involving a high school junior sprinter in a competition in Texas. His team, the Columbus High School Mighty Cardinals, had a chance to compete at the state level, until he did something egregious.
What did he do? What was his crime? After a successful run, as one of four runners (100 meters each in a relay), he pointed his finger to the sky---in a gesture of thanksgiving to God.
This one gesture now disqualifies his team because it was supposedly an “excessive celebration”---which is not allowed.
His father was dumbfounded, according to Alexander Marlow of Breitbart News (May 3, 2103): "It was a reaction," said the father, "You're brought up your whole life that God gives you good things, you're blessed."
It dawned on me that if that young man had given an obscene gesture to his team’s opponents, and he were likewise punished, the ACLU would have been at that young man’s defense faster than he had run the 100-meters.
Let me ask a question in this case: Where’s the church? Where’s the state?
Why is it that any sort of Christian expression in the public arena is not allowed, but virtually every other expression is allowed?
Truth In Action Ministries, which last year produced a film warning that the “radical homosexual agenda” will destroy America like an iceberg hitting the Titanic, is out with a new short film opposing gay members in the Boy Scouts. Featuring Religious Right leaders like Bob Knight of the American Civil Rights Union, Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family, Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, the anti-gay activists warn that gays pose a physical and spiritual danger to children and do away with morality.
Jerry Newcombe of Truth In Action Ministries is upset that ex-gay leader John Paulk has renounced the movement and announced that his marriage to his wife is ending. While Newcombe didn’t explicitly name Paulk, the former poster boy of the ex-gay movement made news recently for recanting his past activism.
Newcombe said that Paulk is like an “ex-ex-smoker” who “for whatever reason, they lit up again, and they no longer try to fight these urges,” adding that the rejection of the ex-gay movement is nothing short of “blasphemy.”
Well, it’s happened again. Another prominent person in ministry has apparently fallen away from the faith, and he renounces what he once was a part of.
This isn’t a story like the supposed apostasy of Joel Osteen. That was a false story foisted on the world through computer hacking. What a strange time we live in, where such hackers could invade the Associated Press’ website and plant a false story about the president getting injured---causing the stock market to temporarily drop, until the truth came out.
The moral of the story is: Don’t believe everything you read or hear in the news, until firmly established by two or three witnesses, to use the biblical standard.
But this story about a prominent man in ministry falling away is verified from multiple sources. His particular sin happened to be homosexuality, to which he has now returned.
As Christians, how are we to understand it when people seem to get converted but fall away, presumably for good? Like they say, the Bible will keep us from sin or vice versa.
Perhaps this man will eventually get back right with the Lord. Perhaps not. When people say, “Once saved, always saved,” I prefer to add two qualifiers: “Once truly saved, always truly saved.” Obviously, temporary setbacks are on a different level than permanent ones.
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What’s interesting about this fallen away man who is currently in the news is that he claims he never was changed. Fair enough, because only he and God know his own heart. But what he now says is that you can’t change---that is, no one with such a struggle can change. Excuse me?
As the wife of an ex-gay once told me in an interview, “To say that people can't be transformed is to say that God cannot transform people, and that's blasphemy. Nothing less.”
Granted, some sinful backgrounds may be harder to work through than others. But God can and will transform those willing to submit to His will. He wants us to be free more than we do.
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I actually know some ex-ex-smokers. They gave up smoking---for a while. In some cases they became fanatical against smoking. But eventually, for whatever reason, they lit up again, and they no longer try to fight these urges. Does that mean that no one can quit for good? Of course not. Yet that’s sort of implied in some of the media stories about our fallen away friend. …
Every Christian is described by Paul as a “living sacrifice.” The problem is that sometimes we living sacrifices can crawl off the altar. We should pray for such people to crawl back. When they do, they’ll see that God waits for them with open arms, like the father of the Prodigal Son.
Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family appeared with John Rabe and Carmen Pate on Truth that Transforms, the flagship radio program of Truth in Action Ministries, to argue that same-sex marriage is an oppressive and satanic ploy. After Rabe asked him why opponents of same-sex marriage sometimes have problems explaining “why redefining [marriage] is deadly,” Stanton claimed that the marriage debate “goes deep into not just our own faith but humanity itself.”
He argued that resistance to same-sex marriage is necessary because “throughout the world if you look at how cultures do marriage, every single culture throughout time has done marriage as a union between men and women, God has given it to us this way.” “Every human culture needs marriage and we redefine it at our own peril,” Stanton said.
Later, Stanton repeated his assertion that homosexuality “is a really pernicious lie of Satan” because it denies “the distinct God imaging in each of us as males and females.” He went on to warn that gay equality leads to the “persecution” of Christians and will “redefine not only marriage but the family itself if not humanity completely.”
Stanton: This is a really pernicious lie of Satan to say that the gender part of humanity doesn’t really matter because the gender part of humanity is really denying the distinct God imaging in each of us as males and females. We need to understand that as Christians. That’s the biggest thing. The other is that, ‘you know kids don’t really need a mom and a dad they just need any configuration of loving adults who care for them,’ in fact, and this has already been in the case, we all know about what hate speech is, the fact of saying a child needs a mother and a father will be deemed hate speech because that is a statement against same-sex marriage and parenting. That’s a radical thing. The other thing is religious freedom, I mean we’re already seeing that on a vast, vast scale; the other side really in a pitiful way goes, ‘oh we’re not going to violate religious freedom, you’re not going to have to marry same-sex couples in your church,’ but it goes far beyond that. But it goes far beyond that. Doctors refusing to inseminate a lesbian couple because it violates his conscience, people like that have and will be hauled into court and prosecuted and persecuted because of their long held and deeply felt convictions about what is right and what children need.
Rabe: That’s a major point. The way that this has been portrayed societally and how it’s gotten so much traction is via the idea, ‘well if two people love each other, who are we to say that they shouldn’t be together and that they shouldn’t be able to get married?’ That very simple idea has a lot of persuasive power with people as it turns out and yet when you really break it down you start to get the sense that that’s really not what this is about. It’s not so much that people want to be able to have that long-term commitment to each other as it is being able to redefine what society is about and being able to silence people who disagree.
Stanton: That is exactly it. As a good friend of mine says, ‘you know a lot of these people advocating for same-sex marriage, I’ve been in the marriage work for decades, I’ve never seen these people come to the stump to advocate for marriage, the only time they are for marriage is when it has same-sex in front of it.’ Think about that. These are not advocates of marriage; they’re advocates for redefining marriage. They know that making gender any irrelevant part of the equation really does redefine not only marriage but the family itself if not humanity completely.
Jerry Newcombe of Truth in Action Ministries warns that if the Boy Scouts of America “succumb to the tentacles of political correctness” and end the national ban on gay membership then they will join society’s “mad dash toward Gomorrah.” He argues that the debate over the discriminatory policy shows “we lost our common sense as a society” and fears there will “come a time when many parents (single or married) will avoid the Scouts because they can’t be sure if their child will be safe.”
In 1996, the late Robert Bork wrote a book entitled, "Slouching Toward Gomorrah." But today, we’re not slouching toward Sodom and Gomorrah, we seem to be in an all-out sprint.
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As a former Boy Scout (not very advanced, for our troop fell apart after a short while), I’ve marveled how all these years, the Boy Scouts have stood firm. But now there’s intense pressure on them to cave into the gay movement, just as about every other group has in society, even many of our churches (despite what the Bible has to say about homosexuality---including redemption. Thankfully, there are thousands of ex-homosexuals alive today, changed by the Gospel).
As to the Boy Scouts, without officially allowing gay scoutmasters, isn’t it true that there have been many cases of molestation of boys by scoutmasters? Many lawsuits have been filed.
Wouldn’t opening up the Boy Scouts to explicitly gay scoutmasters increase the chances of that happening---not that all gays would do that? Have we lost our common sense as a society? Must all private, voluntary organizations today succumb to the tentacles of political correctness?
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A lot of single parents struggle to provide positive influences to their children. The Scouts provides an exemplary, affordable outlet and means by which many of these young boys can find positive male role models. Will there come a time when many parents (single or married) will avoid the Scouts because they can’t be sure if their child will be safe? We should speak out before it’s too late. (The Boy Scouts number is 972-580-2400.)
In his book, "Slouching Toward Gomorrah," Robert Bork writes, “If we slide into a modern, high-tech version of the Dark Ages, we will have done it to ourselves without the assistance of the Germanic tribes that destroyed Roman civilization.” (p. 4).
Bork adds, “We are living through a cultural collapse, and major corporations are presiding over that collapse and grabbing everything they can on the way down.” Corporations? “Presiding over the collapse?”
He also notes: “The upshot is that American popular culture is in a free fall, with the bottom not yet in sight. This is what the liberal view of human nature has brought us to….There is an eager and growing market for depravity, and profitable industries devoted to supplying it.” (p.139).
Will nothing slow down society’s mad dash toward Gomorrah?
In fact, warning that America is turning into Nazi Germany seems to be Truth in Action's favorite scare tactic, which explains the organization's newest video, "Tyranny: The High Cost of Forgetting God," which "looks at Christians who stood against Hitler's tyrannical rule, and modern day Christian 'heroes' fighting for righteousness in America today." In the video, Tony Perkins, Richard Land, and Wendy Wright explain that things like banning prayer in schools, legalizing abortion, and kicking God out of the public square all signal that the United States is following the same path that led to the Holocaust:
Truth in Action Ministries has released their “2012 Issues Guide for Christian Voters” [PDF], which argues that federal spending on social services “goes against what the Bible says about caring for one’s own and others” and pushing for bans on abortion rights, stem cell research and emergency contraception. The group also warns of “radical judges” and an “out-of-control judiciary,” the “dangerous and destructive” health care reform law and the “false religion” of environmentalism.
But of course, no Religious Right voter guide goes without a section on gay rights, and Truth in Action Ministries tells members that END will “impose the homosexual political agenda on the workplace” and that the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has started “Maoist-style ‘re-education’ in ‘diversity.’” The group also claims the repeal law will “violate the rights of those serving by forcing them to cohabit and shower with people who may desire them sexually” and “jeopardize the military’s health and blood supply, since homosexual men are far more likely to be promiscuous and to have STDs, including HIV/AIDS”
In 1996, Congress overwhelmingly enacted the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). But in 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court struck down the state’s marriage law, and the state began issuing same-sex “marriage” licenses six months later, despite no change in the law. And in May 2012, a federal appeals court in Boston declared DOMA unconstitutional.
All candidates should be asked how they will defend marriage from this radical assault. It’s not enough to say they favor marriage if they also support same-sex “civil unions,” “domestic partnerships,” or “sexual orientation” laws, all of which incentivize homosexual relationships and devalue marriage. They should also be questioned about:
• The proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would impose the homosexual political agenda on the workplace;
• A constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union only of one man and one woman;
• New policies giving marital benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees.
Servicemen and women put their lives on the line. They deserve policies that ensure maximum military readiness and the best chance to win wars and return home alive. That’s why Congress overwhelmingly passed a law in 1993 incorporating as policy the Uniform Code of Military Justice’s ban on homosexual sodomy. But now the federal government has overturned “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” We believe this is profoundly immoral on several levels. It would:
• Hurt unit cohesion, morale, retention, and recruitment;
• Violate the rights of those serving by forcing them to cohabit and shower with people who may desire them sexually;
• Jeopardize the military’s health and blood supply, since homosexual men are far more likely to be promiscuous and to have STDs, including HIV/AIDS;
• Force chaplains to resign or to jettison God’s Law in favor of political correctness;
• Subject all personnel to Maoist-style “re-education” in “diversity.”
Likewise, Congress should resist any effort eliminate women’s combat exemption.
A recent film released by Truth in Action Ministries, entitled Why Christians left the Political Arena, implores evangelicals to remain politically engaged. Featuring activists Calvin Beisner, Wayne Grudem and Rick Scarborough along with an eminent montage of gay rights, pro-choice, and environmental activists, the film decries any separation between religion and public policy. It implies that if a truly observant Christian is to obey the commands of Jesus, they must advocate for laws that “protect” marriage, and warns that God will hold us accountable for “how we have acted in responsibility towards influencing government.”
Truth in Action Ministries has previously embraced anti-gay activists who have likened homosexuality to “slavery” and warned that “moral chaos” was inevitable due to “liberal secular people” marginalizing religious people in the public arena.
Beisner: Law plays a proper function in curtailing sin. So, we have a responsibility to seek to use laws to retrain the outward sinful conduct of people, even where we can’t use them, we never can use them, to change people’s hearts.
Grudem: If I truly love my neighbor I want laws that will protect my neighbor’s marriage, that will give good education to neighbor, that will protect my neighbor’s health and well-being, and economic well-being, so government doesn’t steal everything from us. I think it is a way of obeying Jesus’ command ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
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Scarborough: If pastors don’t get involved in confronting the moral issues of our day, biblically, we will soon digress into becoming a lawless nation. And frankly, we’re on the very edge of that right as we speak. Our country is becoming an amoral country because so many preachers have withdrawn from the culture completely.
Beisner: There is no part of life that is neutral, to which Christ doesn’t say “it’s mine”. No part of life. And there is no neutrality on any moral issue whatsoever. And all of life is religious.
Grudem: The bible does tell us that God will hold us accountable for how we act. I think that includes all of life and certainly it includes how we have acted in responsibility towards influencing government.
Last night, a gunman shot and killed at least 12 people and injured dozens more at a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" in Aurora, Colorado.
And already Jerry Newcombe of Truth in Action Ministries is out with a piece blaming it on the fact that Americans have no fear of God or of going to Hell:
I can't help but feel that to some extent, we're reaping what we've been sowing as a society. We said to God, "Get out of the public arena." Lawsuit after lawsuit, often by misguided "civil libertarians," have chased away any fear of God in the land -- at least in the hearts of millions.
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Recently, I wrote on the subject of Hell and how our society has generally lost its cognizance of it.
We've lost this cognizance to the point that a recent bestseller was a book by an "evangelical pastor," who for all practical purposes denied Hell (or the import of it). (It exists, but don't worry -- supposedly nobody's going there.) When the book was first published 16 months ago, it made the cover of TIME magazine. This month it was republished as a paperback.
This makes me think. "Wow, what the heck happened to Hell?" What -- was there some new revelation that changed what the Lord warned about? To me, what He said 2,000 years ago is still worth heeding: What does it profit you if you gain the whole world and lose your soul?
Tens of millions of young people in this culture seem to have no fear of God. It's becoming too commonplace that some frustrated person will go on a killing spree of random people. If they kill themselves, they think it's all over. But that's like going from the frying pan into the fire. Where's the fear of God in our society? I don't think people would do those sorts of things if they truly understood the reality of Hell.
Many conservatives took a break over the summer from their typical screeds against so-called judicial activism as they demanded the Supreme Court step in and overturn the 2010 health care reform law. After the court upheld the law, they simply decriedtherulingas“activism”anyway, further proving that right-wing activists see cases of judicial activism as really just decisions they disagree with.
Now, Truth in Action Ministries has released a new film, Freedom on Trial, featuring Robert Bork, the failed Supreme Court nominee and a senior adviser to Mitt Romney, Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly, Christian Reconstructionist attorney Herb Titus and Heritage Foundation vice president Genevieve Wood, among other conservative speakers who denounce the judiciary for “circumventing the Constitution and legislating from the bench.” Freedom on Trialfocuses on the usual conservative criticisms of Supreme Court decisions regarding organized prayer in public schools, reproductive rights and LGBT equality. Bork warns that courts are “teaching the people that religion is evil” and Titus claims that decisions that go against the Ten Commandments will “destroy the country” while rulings in favor of LGBT rights are “making a certain sexual behavior straight when it is crooked and the nation will self-destruct.”
Truth in Action Ministries has releasedyetanothershortfilm chronicling America’s supposed moral decline and spiritual collapse. In Losing Liberty, hosts Jerry Newcombe and Jennifer Kennedy Cassidy, daughter of late televangelist D. James Kennedy, insisted that America is a “Christian nation” but that secularists are “working day and night to unmoor of us from our Christian foundations.” According to the film, America is turning into a dystopian society much like The Hunger Games, the trilogy about a dictatorial regime which forces children to fight to the death each year. “One can’t help but wonder, will our future will be similar if our nation continues in the direction we are headed,” Carmen Pate asks.
After activist Dee Wampler insisted that America was much better off in the 1950s and 1960s, South African evangelist Peter Hammond said there is a “secular humanist assault on our Christian heritage” that is leading to tyranny. “It’s the Christian foundation of our foundation that brought us freedom,” said John Rabe, who hosts the organization’s radio show Truth that Transforms alongside Pate, “to turn away from that would take what’s already disastrous and make it infinitely worse.”
As Hammond discussed “everything that is evil in this world,” the film displayed images of the September 11 attacks, bombings, drug abuse, Adolf Hitler…and a married lesbian couple and the kiss between characters Kurt and Blaine on Glee!
Much like American Religious Right activists who reminisce about the 1950s, when much of the country had legal segregation, Hammond asserted that the 1994 election in South Africa, the first free election following the fall of Apartheid, demonstrated the “disastrous” impact of “evangelical apathy.”
Evangelicals “refused to vote because they didn’t like what was happening in our country at that time,” Hammond said, “all that happened is less Christian candidates got elected and more anti-Christian candidates got elected, and the country got more anti-Christian and soon they legalized abortion and pornography, homosexuality and before we knew it we had desecration of Sundays to a massive increase of crime.” He then went on to blame the Obama administration for having “encouraged” anti-Christian persecution and violence abroad.
America is on the brink of collapse, and Truth in Action Ministries is warning in a new film, as a result of gay rights, liberalism and secular government. The group unveiled The Price of Freedom following a series of films blaming America’s ills on the IRS and homosexuality, calling for its criminalization. The film features Mike Huckabee, anti-gay activist Harry Jackson, Liberty Counsel’s Harry Mihet, Movieguide’s Ted Baehr and tea party activist Paul Jehle, along with the predictably ominous scenes from gay rights rallies and parades. Others participating in the film include Southern Baptist Convention’s Richard Land and Congressmen Todd Akin and Cliff Stearns.
“We have created a future for our children which is very negative in the sense that if they live in a socialized culture, in a perverse culture, all of the pillars of society are going to be pulled out from under them,” Baehr asserted. Jackson spoke of a “head-to-head battle” between “liberal, secular people” and the church, which Mihet said can prevent “moral chaos.”
Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) appeared today on Truth that Transforms, the flagship radio program of Truth in Action Ministries, to push his Houses of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act, which the Interfaith Alliance notes would allow houses of worship to engage “in partisan politicking,” such as endorsing candidates from the pulpit, “without losing their tax-exempt status.” Truth in Action Ministries recently produced a film likening the rule to Nazism, and Jones told host John Rabe that the tax provision is like “communism” and “socialism.”
The congressman also conflated the risk of forfeiting tax-exempt status with losing civil rights, saying that the IRS has eroded the “freedom of speech” in the U.S. Jones also said that unlike liberals, “those on the conservative side believe in freedom of speech and therefore they’re not reporting anyone.”
Rabe: In reality it also seems that in some ways the threats have outstripped the actual actions, no one should be threatened with the loss of their tax exemption for speaking freely but it seems like this is something that the ACLU and Barry Lynn and groups like that use to get churches to self-censor as well, it might be helpful for pastors to understand that if they stand up and are bold and speak the truth anyway, they may find that the IRS has their hands full trying to do anything about it.
Jones: I think you are right on that, John, I think it’s a law that is very difficult to enforce and in fact the Internal Revenue Service will tell you and they testified to this that they are dependent on a third party to report. Is that communism? Is that socialism? What is that?
Rabe: Yeah, it’s spying on each other.
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Rabe: It does seem that this provision has been somewhat selectively enforced is it just my perception or is it reality that those on the conservative side of the spectrum seem to face more sanctions on this sort of thing than those on the liberal side of the spectrum.
Jones: Well if I can answer you this way I think those on the conservative side believe in freedom of speech and therefore they’re not reporting anyone. But I will say that to me, left or right, this should not be part of America, this should not be the intimidation of some law that was never debated that a group or an element can use this law to intimidate. John, that’s not America, you know that, I know that, you’ve been saying that, I’m just telling you this is one of those issues that ought to be repealed, let’s get it off the books and let’s return this country to freedom of speech.
Today, American Values president Gary Bauer spoke to Truth in Action Ministries’ Carmen Pate and John Rabe of Truth that Transforms where he claimed that because of legal abortion “we really do risk God taking His hand of protection off of our country.” He said that abortion rights could lead to the end of liberty, and also went on to claim that marriage equality for gays and lesbians would similarly have “devastating impacts on our society.” Later in the interview he falsely claimed that the legalization of same-sex marriage will inevitably lead to polygamy as “secular forces” try “to redefine American society”:
Bauer: As a society I think if we continue down this road of the destruction of a million innocent unborn children over a year we really do risk God taking His hand of protection off of our country. That would be tragic; it could very well mean the end of the American experiment in liberty under God. I always look at that issue, if somebody is wrong on that, they might be right on taxes, the size of government, national defense and so forth but if they are wrong on this I have found over the years that they end up in many cases being unreliable on those other things. So I would recommend that as being key.
Second of all this issue about the definition of marriage, marriage has been between a man and a woman in Western civilization for several thousand years, every state that has voted on this issue wants to keep it a man and a woman, but there is absolutely no doubt that if the wrong people are elected or re-elected this coming November we are going to have forced on us either by the courts or by these politicians a fundamental redefinition of the meaning of marriage, which I think would have just devastating impacts on our society.
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Once we get a court ruling from a Supreme Court that says that under some provision in the Constitution that we’ve never thought authorized this we’d have to allow same-sex marriage, there would be no constitutional grounds that that court could say we’re going to keep illegal multiple marriages or group marriages or polygamy or a variety of other types of marriage that exist in other parts of the world and increasingly exist in Western countries in Europe where there are large Muslim populations, so this will follow as surely as night follows day. Anybody that thinks it will stop just with same-sex marriage either doesn’t understand the law or doesn’t understand that demands of secular forces that want to redefine American society.
The outcryfrom the Religious Right over President Obama’s endorsement of legalizing same-sex marriage continues, with the American Civil Rights Union’s Robert Knight attackig Obama for trying “to invoke Christ when doing the devil’s work” and creating “the sinews of tyranny”:
After having done everything in his power to undermine marriage, President Obama has come out of the closet, so to speak, with his announcement that he’s now for brideless or groomless “marriage.” But he didn’t come out alone. He brought Jesus with him, citing Christ as his inspiration for directly attacking God’s moral order. It’s one thing to be a hypocrite, which Mr. Obama has been for years. Since he began pretending to oppose the redefinition of marriage but refusing to defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act while homosexualizing the military. It’s quite another thing, however, to invoke Christ when doing the devil’s work.
Forget the voters. Mr. Obama’s going to have to answer to God for this one. Wednesday’s announcement even might sober up the people who voted for Mr. Obama simply to show that America has overcome racial division. Someone should survey pastors who support Mr. Obama and ask: Which is more important - electing a man on the basis of race or upholding the integrity of the faith and what the Scriptures say about marriage? Citing Genesis 2:24, Jesus said in Matthew 19:5: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”
This actually is about much more than marriage. It’s about truth. Mr. Obama is asking us to put into law a requirement for us to recognize as a marriage something that is not a marriage. When you do that, you create the sinews of tyranny, which stretch out to strangle freedom of speech, freedom of association and, eventually, freedom of religion. The virtue of tolerance is strangled, too, morphing into the vice of mandatory celebration.
With this wicked move, Mr. Obama is insisting that we bow down and worship the false idol of sexual anarchy. That’s what his wealthy supporters in Hollywood demand. On Thursday, they ponied up a reported $15 million to his campaign at George Clooney’s pool party. When you accord more respect to liberal film stars and gay billionaires than you do to the Creator of the universe, you’re not leaving much doubt about what you really worship.
Jerry Newcombe of Truth in Action Ministries said that Obama’s announcement is “another nail in the coffin of the American Family”:
With this statement, America’s self-proclaimed Christian leader has professed a clearly non-biblical belief that further weakens the moral fiber of our nation. “This could be another nail in the coffin of the American Family, if we don’t stand up now” says Jerry Newcombe, spokesman for Truth in Action Ministries. “Same sex marriage is wrong on many fronts—especially by codifying immorality into law. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the president’s position is to put the government’s sanction on something God has clearly revealed to be sin. Thankfully thousands of homosexuals have been freed from their sin through the power of Christ and continue to be freed every day.”
Christians in America must speak the truth on this issue— before it’s too late. Please help us make a difference. We, as God’s people, must speak out against anything that contradicts His Word — including the radical homosexual agenda. We must oppose it now — or apologize, in the years to come, to the children and grandchildren whom we have left to be its victims.
"The most important thing is that there is no way in the world that I would vote for, regardless who it is, regardless how white they are, regardless how black they are, there is just no way I am ever going to vote for someone who believes in same-sex marriage and abortion," Hutcherson said in an interview with The Christian Post on Thursday.
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"God hates the killing of innocent life, and God hates divorce, and God hates the whole effeminate aspect of man going after man or woman going after woman. You can't get around that – it's in the Bible. And what we need to understand as Christians, is that this is America. We stand on our biblical views regardless," he noted.
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"We have given up so much territory; we are confused about how to take things back. Just like the word 'gay.' I am not homosexual, but I am gay – I am happy. And we've lost that word – we've given it up. We need to take back the rainbow, and we need to take back the word of God," the pastor concluded.
Religious Right activists continuously claim that a wide majority of Americans share their ultraconservative views but are too politically apathetic or confused to act on their beliefs, frequently blaming the IRS for supposedly “silencing” pastors by maintaining a rule that would take away a church’s tax-exempt status if it endorses candidates. This week, Truth in Action Ministries unveiled a film on Truth that Transforms featuring host Jerry Newcombe, Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver, Liberty Institute’s Kelly Shackelford and author Bill Federer, along with a petition “to repeal the ban on church free speech.”
“How does Satan always work?” Shackelford asked. “False information, intimidation and fear, and that’s what’s happening here.” Later, Federer said that “horrible things can and unfortunately will happen” as a result of the IRS rule, while the film showed images of Adolf Hitler delivering a speech and the corpses of Holocaust victims.
Family Research Council president Tony Perkins stars in a video produced by the FRC and Truth in Action Ministries where he warns that same-sex marriage “contradicts God’s will as revealed in the created order, violating God’s law only brings pain and heartache.” Perkins says that in society today, “right is called wrong; evil is called good,” and “all of society suffers” as a result of legalizing marriage equality.
For nearly a generation we’ve neglected marriage, leaving it nearly defenseless to homosexual activists who are now trying to redefine marriage out of existence. Same-sex marriage, it contradicts God’s will as revealed in the created order, violating God’s law only brings pain and heartache. Right is called wrong; evil is called good, it is because we have wielded moral authority to the demands of special interests or the ruling of some aberrant judge. As a result, all of society suffers.
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The future of marriage is up to you, your vote can determine the language of your state constitution and the people we elect in our representative form of government will pass the laws and appoint the judges who may decide the final outcome. Get involved, vote your values, your biblical values, and make a difference.
Leslee Unruh, the founder of Abstinence Clearinghouse and a staunch anti-choice activist, today appeared on Truth that Transforms, the flagship radio program of Truth in Action Ministries, to discuss the falling teen pregnancy rate. The Centers for Disease Control noted [pdf] that “strong pregnancy prevention messages directed to teenagers” and the “increased use of contraception” may “have contributed to the recent birth rate declines.” However, states with abstinence-only-until-marriage policies continue to see higher rates of teen pregnancy compared to states with schools that teach comprehensive sex-education.
“The teen birth rate increased during the height of the federal investment in abstinence education,” Bill Albert of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy told Salon. “Researchers who have looked at it closely over the past several years tend to believe it is contraception that is making the difference.”
Upset about the positive attention given to the role contraception is playing in lowering the teen birth rate, Unruh told Truth that Transforms host John Rabe that comprehensive sex-ed programs, particularly those which include discussions about sexual orientation and gender identity, are actually going to lead to the “self-destruction” of society and are “based on profound ignorance about human nature.” She maintained that “all the data” backs abstinence-only-until-marriage education, adding, “you know what, the church ladies are having the best sex.”
Rabe: This isn’t just basic biological information this is really ideological indoctrination form a very liberal standpoint, isn’t it?
Unruh: Exactly and you know the information is really designed to have all kinds of family, regardless of how many people were involved, it’s about [sexual] orientation, gender identity, it’s out there, and I’ll tell you it’s really based on profound ignorance about human nature and what makes for a healthy family. It really is the next stage in really the self-destruction of what we call the traditional family and a healthy society. So it’s a fight worth getting involved in and fighting for our kids.
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Unruh: All the data is there, and it is time for everybody to recognize it, both in the church and in the public sector that you know what, the church ladies are having the best sex!
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