Marriage Equality

Earlier today we posted video from Truth in Action Ministries of Religious Right leaders condemning the Obama administration’s push to curb anti-LGBT violence and persecution and the criminalization of LGBT status. now the group’s president Dan Scalf is comparing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the Pharisees in John 8:1-11, who wanted to stone a woman for adultery, for her attempt to “promote homosexuality globally”:

How should Christians react to our tax dollars being used to promote homosexuality globally?

I am reminded of the situation religious leaders created in an attempt to trap Christ. They brought a woman to him they had caught in act of adultery and asked, “Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do you say?”

Hillary Clinton did something similar to that in her speech. She reminded the international leaders and representatives in her audience that the United Nations had adapted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Then, she went on to state that homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people deserve the same protections as people persecuted because of their religion, ethnicity, age, or gender.

Christians are often trapped by that type of intellectual posturing. We allow those who call good evil and evil good to frame the argument without challenging their agenda or assumptions. We cannot come to a good solution when beginning with a flawed presupposition.

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Hillary Clinton, and all those who promote homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender rights have an agenda. It is not “equal” rights. They want nothing less than complete cultural acceptance for a practice that God’s holy and infallible Word calls sinful.

Concerned Women for America is also voicing their opposition to efforts to decriminalize homosexuality. CWA’s Mario Diaz called the administration’s policy against anti-LGBT discrimination “embarrassing,” claimed that a “majority of Americans” do not believe that gays and lesbians should have equal rights, and even heralded a statement from the Foreign Minister of Russia, which has a dreadful record on safeguarding LGBT rights and protecting LGBT community from violence:

U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has made clear that the President has put an emphasis on all foreign assistance from the U.S. to advance lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) "rights."

"Gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights," Clinton said in a speech at the end of last year that sparked strong criticism from many nations who do not adhere to the same belief.

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Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said:

We have repeatedly said that the Russian Federation condemns any forms and manifestations of discrimination on any grounds…

In this connection we cannot agree with attempts to artificially single out this category of people as an independent group claiming that its rights and interests should be specially protected.

Embarrassing.

This is yet another reason why the next election is so crucial for our nation. Will we continue to export homosexuality as a human "right," despite the fact that the majority of Americans do not agree with that?

There is little doubt as to where President Obama stands in this question. His emphasis on the promotion of homosexuality as a human right internationally and his all-out effort against the traditional definition of marriage have been swift and decisive.

While many "conservatives" plead with us to stop talking about "social" issues and focus on the economy, the President has been steadfast in undermining marriage and the family. Under his leadership, the future looks bleak in this regard.

As North Carolina voters go to the polls on May 8th to decide the fate of Amendment One, which would enshrine a ban on same-sex marriage and civil unions in the constitution, radio host Steve Noble has been working with the leaders of the Amendment One campaign Tami Fitzgerald and Patrick Wooden. Following in the footsteps of Wooden, Noble appeared on Americans for Truth about Homosexuality Radio Hour with Peter LaBarbera, where LaBarbera likened gays and lesbians to murderers and drug addicts and Noble said the gay community is trying “to attack the entire world” and “the word of God”

LaBarbera: This idea that’s coming out of the emergent church or the liberal evangelicals in which we don’t want to talk about ex-gays and people who’ve left the lifestyle, you know nobody has a problem that Jesus cold change murderers, drug addicts, and yet somehow homosexuals, people practicing homosexuality, that is held up as something ‘oh no that’s verboten, can’t talk about that.’

Noble: The homosexual lifestyle is not an orientation it’s just a temptation, we all face that, but they’re the ones, that’s the only group of sinners that’s chosen to try to attack the entire world, let alone the word of God, to say ‘no, no, we’re going to keep fighting until you all agree with us that this thing that we know as a sin, isn’t.’

LaBarbera: Right, there are other sins but we don’t see adultery pride parades every June.

As Jeremy Hooper noted, Noble’s comments continued to devolve, and he even alleged that gays and lesbians are living in “the playground of Satan”:

LaBarbera: You’re talking about the spiritual significance of attaching that name—marriage—to the sin of homosexuality.

Noble: Right, when you refuse to repent the only option you have left is to redefine. You say, ‘I’m just going to take this sin right out of the Bible by redefining it and I’m going to get rid of it.’ That’s why when you do that and this is the really sad spiritual underbelly of the whole thing for me as I look at this situation, I’m looking at people, men and women, caught up in their sin, enslaved by their sin, it’s the playground of Satan and the evil forces against God’s way, and they are so broken and so angry at the world telling them and pointing out to them ‘there’s something wrong with you, your lifestyle is messed up, it’s deviant,’ all the things that get said, these are broken people who desperately want to feel whole but they are not willing to repent.

Intelligent Design activist Jay Richards of the Discovery Institute, who recently coauthored the book Indivisible with televangelist James Robison, appeared on Phyllis Schlafly’s radio program Eagle Forum Live this week where he argued that those who believe in individual rights and limited government should oppose the rights of gays and lesbians to marry. Richards maintained that stopping the legalization of same-sex marriage is needed to defend the rights of individuals, and argued that since marriage is “outside the jurisdiction of the state” same-sex couples cannot take part in it.

Richards: We argue that there are other pre-political realities besides just the individual that a limited government has to recognize and marriage is one of those realities, it’s a universal human institution, we find it in every time and place, in every culture, every religious tradition has this basic concept of marriage as between one man and one woman with a special connection to children. So a limited government is going to recognize that institution rather than try to redefine it, so that’s why we think, in fact, if you believe in limited government you need to believe in laws that protect marriage as it actually is historically. The institution of marriage is one of those things that is outside the jurisdiction of the state, so quite apart from the consequences, we think, if you believe that government should recognize individual rights, then you need to believe that the government is also going to recognize the rights and realities of this institution which it can’t dictate.

Once again, the National Organization for Marriage is promoting North Carolina pastor Patrick Wooden, who stars in a video meant to drum up support for the state’s discriminatory Amendment One. The North Carolina Traditional Values Coalition includes Wooden and other Religious Right activists in the video urging people to vote for Amendment One, which would ban same-sex marriage and civil unions in the state constitution, and Wooden maintains that there is “no bigotry” against gays and lesbians in their efforts:

NOM likes to claim that they are not “anti-gay” but simply against “redefining marriage,” but they’re not fooling anybody when they use a spokesman who called anti-LGBT violence “normal” and encouraged parents to beat their transgender child, blamed Oprah, Tyler Perry and the cast of Glee for promoting “wicked” and “perverse” causes, said that Chaz Bono is controlled by demons and claimed homosexuality is a “wicked, deviant, immoral, self-destructive, anti-human sexual behavior.”

And those are just his least notorious statements.

Wooden in an interview with Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality alleged that gay men ultimately “have to wear a diaper or a butt plug just to be able to contain their bowels”:

In a second interview with LaBarbera, Wooden went on to describe how gay men have “literally died in diapers” because of their inability to control their bowels as a result of shoving cellphones, baseball bats, and gerbils up their anuses, saying that he thanks God he is a human being so he is not put up a gay man’s rectum.

NOM should really stop pretending to be confused when critics call the group “anti-gay.”

Family Research Council vice president Tom McClusky yesterday appeared on The Janet Mefferd Show to discuss a Politico article on how same-sex marriage has become “virtually a dead issue” among the senior brass of the Republican Party. McClusky denied concerns that opposing marriage equality will make the GOP more unpopular by arguing that polls which show growing support for legalizing same-sex marriage are “skewered” [sic] because people are likely lying in opinion surveys out of fear that they would be criticized for revealing their true views to pollsters. “The other side is taking up the cause of bullying and it’s kind of ironic because they’ve really mastered the art of bullying,” McClusky argued, saying that gay rights supporters are trying to “silence” groups like the FRC:

McClusky pushed back against Republican politicians who wanted to prioritize economic issues over social ones, warning that society will “crumble” if same-sex marriage becomes legal:

Mefferd: Ultimately, why do you think this is an issue worth fighting for even if they dub it in the media as a losing issue, the gay marriage issue, why is it worth fighting for?

McClusky: Even more so than the economic issue this is a generational issue. I look at my nieces and nephews, I look at my wife and the children that we hope to have and I understand what would happen to society if marriage were to go away or to be redefined out of existence. Societies that try to do away with marriage, they crumble, they fall apart. We need to emphasize more on the family and without that fight the U.S. will just not be the U.S. anymore.

Mefferd: I unfortunately agree with you on that.

He even floated the creation of a third party composed of disgruntled conservative Republicans and black and Hispanic Democrats who would come together in opposition to gay rights and abortion rights:

Mefferd: If the GOP continues to go in a direction where they will not get on the side of traditional marriage and be willing to fight for it, what do Christians do?

McClusky: I think you will—there are always threats of a third party—I think if something like that were to happen you would see a third party. It would be made up of more than just disgruntled conservative Republicans. On the marriage issue there’s African Americans who normally vote Democratic, there’s Hispanics, and the same on the life issue, and there are a lot of good Democrats like say in the state legislature of New York who fought against same-sex marriage and Maryland who tried to, I think what you see is a lot of people drifting from both parties into a third party or some sort of independent party that is more pro-life and pro-marriage.

Earlier today we noted that the North Carolina Values Coalition teamed-up with the Southern Baptist Convention for a panel to marshal support for Amendment One, a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriages and civil unions, which are already banned by statute. Following a speech by Richard Land, panelist Tim Wilkins made the case for why gays and lesbians should not have rights equal to those of their straight counterparts. Wilkins began his remarks by describing how he is “ashamed” of his “past homosexuality.”

Wilkins in fact, is a professional “ex-gay” activist whose ministry “stems from his own freedom from homosexuality some thirty years ago.” He is also a member of NARTH, the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, and organizes a conference that “addresses such topics as If a Friend Says ‘I’m gay’, Debunking the ‘Gay Gene’, ‘What’s a Parent to Do?’, Untwisting ‘Gay Theology’, Counseling the Homosexual, Preventing Homosexuality, and A Biblical Bridge Out of Homosexuality.’”

He maintained that a same-sex relationship is inherently “unequal” and actually “lacks the very diversity it seeks to promote,” urging audience members not to treat homosexuality as a sexual orientation but instead as a “temptation.” Wilkins argued that homosexuality should be reduced to a “temptation” just as Pluto was relegated from its status as a planet to dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union.

Watch:

Jim Garlow, who helped lead the campaign to pass Proposition 8 and head of Renewing American Leadership, appeared on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly today where he called on gay right advocates to “dial down the rhetoric” they use against their conservative opponents. Before his appeal to the gay community for more civil discourse, however, Garlow said that “the radical gay homosexual agenda” will “shut down” religious freedom and that the “redefinition” of marriage is actually a plan of Satan. Repeating a claim he has made before, Garlow alleged that the legalization of same-sex marriage is a demonic plot to “destroy marriage on earth.” Surely, Garlow may want to reconsider lecturing gays and lesbians about the use of divisive rhetoric after telling them they are led by Satan and out to crush religion.

Everybody on both sides of this issue full well knows the implications, that these are two locomotives coming at each other and those two locomotives cannot exist on the same track on the same time, and one is the radical homosexual agenda and the other one is religious liberty. They cannot be in the same country at the same time. People at the upper levels on both sides full well know that, they are fully, clearly aware that religious liberties, the capacity to worship God as we do, will be shut down if the radical gay homosexual agenda actually succeeds.

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If I were Satan, this is key, if I were Satan, I would want to destroy the image of God on the planet. How do you do that? You’ve got to destroy the institution of marriage. If I were Satan I would want to destroy marriage on earth with divorce, I would want to destroy it with redefinition.

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I would appeal with all my heart for the rhetoric to be dialed down and not to substitute ‘you’re a hatemonger’ when really what you’re saying is ‘I disagree with you.’ We mean it when we say we truly love you, we truly love you and we know our hearts better than you do, we truly love you, if we didn’t we’d be manifesting things in a very, very different way. I would appeal to you, if you happen to be one who feels vociferous about this issue and you’re a leader of the homosexual community, if you can, if you see it within yourself, dial down the rhetoric.

This post originally appeared in the Huffington Post.

Maine's investigation of the National Organization for Marriage's campaign finance practices has resulted in the release of several internal fundraising and planning documents. HRC has posted them online where NOM-watchers are poking through them. For sheer reprehensibility, it's hard to top hiring (or at least planning to hire) someone to find and exploit children who are willing to publicly betray their gay parents.

But that kind of "ends-justify-the-means" approach to politics has been the hallmark of NOM and its campaigns in California, Maine, and elsewhere. Those who have been on the receiving end of those dishonorable and untruthful campaigns won't be surprised by much of what's in the NOM documents. But the brazenness of the language around racial wedge politics long practiced by the religious right should make it easier to expose the group's Machiavellian heart. And it may be useful in blunting their efforts to make opposition to marriage equality a "marker of identity" for Latinos and African Americans.

The NOM documents from 2009 discuss a number of organizational projects and strategies, including a "Not a Civil Right" project:

The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks -- two key Democratic constituencies. Find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage; develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots.

And just in case that isn't clear enough: "Fanning the hostility raised in the wake of Prop 8 is key to raising the costs of pushing gay marriage to its advocates and persuading the movement's allies that advocates are unacceptably overreaching on this issue."

NOM's stated plans to overturn marriage equality in Washington, D.C. include an effort to "find attractive young black Democrats to challenge white gay marriage advocates electorally."

NOM's strategists said they needed "to accomplish a sophisticated cultural objective: interrupt the attempt to equate gay with black, and sexual orientation with race. We need to make traditional sexual morality intellectually respectable again in elite culture. And we need to give liberals an alternative way of thinking about gay rights issues, one that does not lead to the misuse of the power of government to crush dissent in the name of fighting discrimination."

Minister Leslie Watson Malachi, director of People for the American Way Foundation's African American Ministers Leadership Council, released a statement on behalf of the Council's Equal Justice Task Force calling NOM's wedge strategies "deeply cynical" and "deeply offensive."

NOM also planned to target Latinos through a "community of artists, athletes, writers, beauty queens and other glamorous noncognitive elites across national boundaries" who can help "interrupt the process of assimilation by making support for marriage a key badge of Latino identity." NOM hopes that "[a]s 'ethnic rebels' such spokespeople will also have an appeal across racial lines, especially to young urbans in America." NOM said, "Our ultimate goal is to make opposition to gay marriage an identity marker, a badge of youth rebellion to conformist assimilation to the bad side of 'Anglo' culture."

NOM has had more success in some areas than others: most recently it failed in a stated priority of overturning marriage in New Hampshire, despite having made gains in the state legislature; and it failed to prevent marriage from advancing in New York. Its efforts in other states, like Iowa, are still underway. And it is pushing constitutional amendments in North Carolina and Minnesota. It also hopes to keep opposition alive "behind enemy lines" in states that have made marriage equality a reality.

But even in 2009, the top priority for 2012 was clear: defeating Barack Obama. In order for the group to achieve victory on marriage, "the next president must be a man or woman who expressly articulates a pro-marriage culture, and appoints sympathetic Supreme Court justices." In order to help achieve that objective, the group discussed plans to "sideswipe Obama" by portraying him as a "social radical" and by taking steps to "[r]aise such issues as pornography, protection of children, and the need to oppose all efforts to weaken religious liberty and the federal level." No wonder Maggie Gallagher is such a fan of Rick Santorum -- his campaign plan mirrors NOM's.

In addition, it is utterly clear that the bishops and NOM were ready to make "religious liberty" a campaign issue well before the recent controversy over insurance coverage for contraception: "Gay marriage is the tip of the spear, the weapon that will be and is being used to marginalize and repress Christianity and the Church." NOM's documents also affirm the group's "close relationships" with Catholic bishops, with whom it would work to engage Catholic priests nationally as well as locally.

You can fault NOM for many things, but not for thinking small. NOM's planning documents discuss strategies for exporting its model and playing a major role internationally. It calls for a global "counterrevolution" against marriage equality, something that is, unfortunately, well underway, with disastrous consequences.

HRC got its hands last night on a December 2009 National Organization for Marriage strategy document, which was unsealed in connection to NOM’s court challenge to Maine’s campaign finance disclosure laws.

The most explosive revelation in the document is NOM’s explicit plan to drive a wedge between the gay community and blacks and Latinos. But another part of their effort to recruit “hearts and minds” to the anti-marriage cause is also startling. Not only did NOM propose to document anti-gay “victims” of gay rights with emotional videos– a plan they implemented with a set of glossy films in upstate New York, for instance – they proposed to hire a staff member at $50,000 a year “to identify children of gay parents willing to speak on camera”:

Did NOM end up hiring someone to find children of gay parents who they could portray as “victims”? If so, it seems that a year’s worth of full-time work didn’t turn up a single child of gay parents who was willing to be portrayed as a “victim” of marriage equality.