QUESTION: How do we get back on the offensive in the Culture War battle against homosexual activism and gender confusion? Send your ideas to americansfortruth@comcast.net

Dear AFTAH Readers,

My friend Laurie Higgins below has hit on a microcosm of why our movement is on the brink of an astounding cultural defeat — the triumph of immoral same-sex behavior as a “civil right.” In the last decade, some of our leaders, and many conservatives, chose to “downplay” the very force — homosexualism — that was leading the assault on marriage, normalcy and children in our culture.

About three years ago, I sat in a roomful of evangelical leaders at a major ministry where it was taught that you should not criticize homosexual behavior in advocating against “same-sex marriage.” The “expert” speaker cited poll data and negative audience reaction to the issue being raised.

Meanwhile, with each passing year, the other side CELEBRATES homosexual and gender-confused lifestyles with ever greater fervor, and happily promotes the same to kids, as if they are doing God’s work (when it is actually Satan’s). Their play book is simple: always stay on the offensive, even when it comes to advocating “transgender” identity/behavior to children (e.g., the 2nd-grade Colorado boy who was encouraged to come to school in a dress). We moral-minded express the requisite shock and horror; they continue to move forward.

Tell me: which side is destined to win the Culture War according to these lopsided Rules of Engagement?

In the public policy arena, many on “our side” have already conceded “civil unions,” at least in blue states (the California Marriage Amendment that may get on the ballot expressly allows “civil unions”). Most GOP politicians are reluctant to even discuss homosexuality at all, which only emboldens the Democrats to be more pro-homosexual-agenda. You cannot win a debate if you are afraid to discuss the main issue — homosexuality. That’s like being pro-life but refusing to discuss the humanity of the unborn baby! (Please note the parallels: there was a time when the opinion polls favored pro-abortion feminists; now they favor pro-lifers — defeat is NOT inevitable, and Truth is more important than polls.)

In the corporate world, McDonald’s (phone: 1-800-244-6227) is hardly alone: like so many dominoes, companies are capitulating to the homosexualists — who continue to aggressively DEMAND “same-sex marriage” as a “civil right” with outrage in their voices. (See HRC’s report: http://www.hrc.org/documents/HRC_Corporate_Equality_Index_2008.pdf.) Meanwhile, a new book on youth attitudes published by Christian pollster George Barna accuses the Church of having an “anti-homosexual” image problem (see www.unchristian.org). Do you get it? WE’RE the problem, or should I say God’s Holy Word is, because, you know, our Lord is so embarrassingly “anti-gay” ….

Although I completely sympathize with the “soft” Christians’ desire to reach homosexuals for Christ, they seem to be saying that God can’t do that unless the Church becomes more worldly: “Give me a Gay-Tolerant Jesus so I won’t be hated by my liberal friends and the media.” To plead their case, they use pious-sounding arguments — and cite surveys correctly showing how homosexual-friendly today’s (brainwashed) youth are — but they are utterly Chamberlain-esque when it comes to the Culture War.

How strange: when the Homosexual Lobby is at the zenith of its power, some Christian leaders are calling for a retreat and scolding the “Religious Right,” which at least has tried to slow down the homosexual activist juggernaut. Whoever said Christians are called to surrender in the battle of good versus evil?

We must reject such defeatism and get back to the basics of why we are in this fight — explaining, in Christian love in line with Biblical truth:

• WHY homosexual behavior is always wrong, and often dangerous;
• WHY homosexual relationships — even those rare long-term, truly monogamous ones — are immoral, disordered, against God, and harmful to children (”gay adoption”);
• WHY it is public-policy madness to grant civil rights status based on changeable sexual behavior and gender identity disorders;
• WHY corporations should get out of the business of promoting ALL extra-marital relationships;
• WHY homosexualism is not “gay” but destructive to children; and
• HOW “sexual orientation” laws are fundamentally incompatible with religious and moral freedom.

And of course: how no man or woman — or teenager — has to be “gay” (positively homosexual): that’s a lifestyle choice which can be overcome with God’s help; see Stephen  Black’s wonderful testimony HERE.

We at AFTAH, or the other pro-family organizations, don’t have all the answers — that’s for sure. So please let me hear your thoughts on how our movement can regain the offensive in the ongoing battle against homosexualism. Write americansfortruth@comcast.net. Thank you and God bless.

Peter LaBarbera
Americans For Truth
www.americansfortruth.org
E-mail: americansfortruth@comcast.net

Below is Laurie Higgins’ e-mail:

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From: Laurie Higgins
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 8:35 AM
To: [pro-family allies]
Subject: Why I refuse to “downplay” homosexuality

A parent who objects to Angels in America suggested that those who object to the [homo-erotic] play should “downplay” the issue of homosexuality, to which I responded as follows:
_________________________________________________________________________

“The homosexual piece is downplayed at our great peril. At the Saturday meeting, I think I was the only person who addressed the homosexuality. I will not retreat from this because virtually everyone else is. Almost everyone I talk to says that they don’t care about the homosexuality; it’s the language and sex they care about. I think that’s both a strategic and moral error. If Angels is pulled from the curricula just because of the graphic sex and obscene language, then the faculty is free to continue to introduce resources that normalize homosexuality as long as the resources aren’t graphic and obscene.

“If no one stands with me, I will stand alone because, to borrow shamelessly the words of Martin Luther, ‘I can do no other. God help me.’”

_________________________________________________________________________

Christians need to understand that their cowardly retreat from expressing the view that homosexual conduct is wrong carries with it devastating consequences for individual lives, public education, parental rights, speech rights, and religious rights–let alone truth.

Those parents who refuse to address the presence of pro-homosexual resources and activities in public schools will be partly responsible when Illinois follows in the footsteps of Massachusetts and California in requiring the teaching of pro-homosexual material in kindergarten through high school with no parental notification and no opt-out. Yes, that means picture books about homosexuality for kindergartners.

Laurie Higgins is a writing instructor at Deerfield High School, north of Chicago.

My friend and Americans For Truth Board Chairman Mike Heath, who also serves as Executive Director of the Christian Civic League of Maine, sent out the message below about Good Friday and “Hate.” Mike can relate to Oklahoma’s beleaguered State Rep. Sally Kern, as like her, he and his wife Paulie have been vilified and demonized by Maine’s pro-homosexual lobby for years as outspoken Christian, pro-family advocates.

I love Easter. The Christ whose sacrificial death we commemorate and whose resurrection we celebrate on Easter Sunday is real and alive, but His redemptive work in everyday people’s lives only rarely makes Fox News. Just today I received a call from a Christian man who had left the “gay” life behind and has been married for 16 years; he and his wife are raising their children, much like countless other married couples raising families. Another wonderful ex-”gay” story that belies the homosexual propaganda myth that homosexuals can’t change, but which probably will never appear in the media.

Most ex-homosexuals do not go around publicizing their former life, just as most Christians don’t go around discussing the destructive sins from which they were delivered by Christ. When was the last time you heard a believer talk like this: “Now let me tell you how I used to get rip-roaring drunk and behave like an imbecile two-to-three nights a week in college!”?

Jesus Christ heals drunks. He heals drug-addicts and gamblers, womanizers, perverts, malicious gossips, rapists and murderers, prostitutes, pimps and their lust-filled “clients,” greedy businessmen, lying politicians, secular leftists, secular rightists, libertines, abortionists and women who’ve aborted their babies, atheists, selfish jerks, compulsive liars, adulterers, you name it.

And of course, He heals men and women caught up in the homosexual lifestyle, like my friend Yvette Schneider, who once considered herself a proud lesbian and despised evangelistic Christians before she repented and accepted Christ as her Savior. (Yvette is now happily married with two children.) We’re all in the same boat: as I read in that supposedly “obscure” New Testament book, Romans: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)

The idea of a (pro) “gay church” and “gay christians” makes about as much sense as starting a Porno Church and saying, “God can’t change porn addicts; they’re born that way.”

Come to think of it, I never was able to find that Gossipers’ Church I was looking for.

Throwing up the white flag of surrender on homosexuality — and treating it as some type of special condition that is not really a sin — elevates man’s feelings at God’s expense. It is to declare the resurrected Jesus Christ powerless when already He has miraculously turned around the lives of countless former “gays,” “lesbians,” “bisexuals” and “transgenders.” The shame of the (small-c) christian Left is that it waters down or negates Biblical truths to accommodate popular sins — rather than pointing desperate sinners to the true Savior who then transforms them, day by day, to be more like Him. (Note that we still may be tempted by besetting sins after accepting Christ, although Yvette says she never has “homosexual desires of any sort — physical or emotional.”)

GLBT? How about God Loves the Business of Transforming sinners who relinquish their “gay pride” to humbly seek Him in repentance. Corny, but true. Jesus is good and holy. We are neither (Mark 10:18). That’s why we need Him on Easter and every day of the year. Good Friday and Easter are about God leaving His heavenly throne to come down to earth and die a shameful death on a cross, taking the punishment we deserve for our many sins. If you repent and believe in Jesus Christ, and follow Him, you will live eternally. I beg you to accept His priceless gift of salvation if you haven’t yet (see John chapter 3).

Have a Blessed Easter!

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. (John 3:16-18)

Sincerely,

Peter LaBarbera
www.americansfortruth.org

Related posts:

Ex-Lesbian Yvette Schneider Testifies to ‘Complete’ and Permanent Change

Full Transcript of Oklahoma Rep. Sally Kern’s Speech

LaBarbera Assails Homosexual Hate and Intimidation Campaign against OK Lawmaker Sally Kern

Now for some Real Hate; Homosexuals Deluge Rep. Sally Kern with Mean, Vile Messages (WARNING: UNDELETED, VULGAR and CRUDE LANGUAGE)

LISTEN ONLINE/CWA: OK Lawmaker Under Vicious Attack by Anti-Christian Homosexual Hate Groups

‘Queer’ Quotes: Hating Jesus, and Selfishness Redefined
(Will Ellen DeGeneres campaign against the virulent anti-Christian hate among her fellow homosexuals?)
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Mike Heath of the Christian Civic League of Maine writes:

‘Hate’

Today, Christians all over the world remember the slaughter of Jesus Christ. It is Good Friday. On this day 2000 years ago social, religious and governmental forces aligned against God. They tortured him, and hung him on a cross. He was nailed there until he died. He came to a gruesome and painful end.

Mankind hated him then. Do we hate him now?

Perhaps we are justified in concluding that we do hate Jesus Christ today. The recent experience of a pastor’s wife in Oklahoma offers an opportunity to reflect. She is also a state legislator.

Representative Sally Kern spoke plainly about homosexuality. Essentially, she described a societal sin that threatens our civilization. Most Americans share her views about sexual wrongdoing. All sex outside of marriage is morally wrong. She roots her belief in Christianity. She believes Jesus Christ.

She is now hated.

While I can’t recommend that you click on the following link because it contains language and ideas that are detestable I will provide the link for those who require proof of a most vile form of hatred aimed at Representative Kern.

Click here.

It would be a mistake to respond to these ideas in kind. It would be equally wrong to pretend that these ideas are somehow explainable, or that there is a reason for them. No reason exists for such evil. There is only one adequate response, and that is sacrifice.

That is what Good Friday is all about. Sacrifice.

This is the day God died … for you. His death provides all the power that we need to overcome the evil of sexual sin, and the despair that tempts everyone who is fearful of the consequences of such wicked ideas. The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ is hope itself.

My good friend Peter LaBarbera has written a report on the verbal scourging of Representative Kern. I encourage you to read his report, and to choose the power of the cross in your life today.

Click HERE to read Peter’s report.

Mel White and his homosexual lover, Gary Nixon, as shown on his group Soulforce’s website. Evangelical leftist Jim Wallis calls White a “gay Christian” in his new book. White smears Christians who adhere to Biblical teachings on homosexuality by accusing them of “spiritual violence” against homosexuals.

What is striking about the quotation below from Jim Wallis’ book, “The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in Post-Religious Right America” (which he promoted at his recent speech at Wheaton College) is that while he accuses the late Rev. Jerry Falwell of “inflammatory language,” he ignores the same from homosexual activist Mel White, whom he labels a “gay Christian.” White and his group Soulforce accuse churches and Christian leaders who defend Biblical teachings against homosexuality of “spiritual violence” against “gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people” — a calculated verbal smear that deliberately conflates defenders of God’s revealed truth with spiritual bullying.

Why doesn’t Wallis call upon Mel White to heal the “wounds” he has caused faithful Christians by castigating them for upholding Biblical truth?

Can you be a faithful Christian and a homosexual activist? We say no — any more than you could be a faithful Christian and an adultery activist, or a pornography activist, or an abortion-on-demand activist. Sin is sin. Mel White, who left his wife and family to enter into a sexual relationship with another man and pursue homosexual activism, is a rebel against God, albeit an eloquent one. Unfortunately, his ally Jim Wallis sees the greater danger coming from defenders of Biblical morality, rather than those like White who are working diligently to undermine and redefine it. — Peter LaBarbera

The following is found on page 303 of Wallis’ book Great Awakening:

“It would have been nice to hear that Jerry Falwell, too, had moved to embrace a broader agenda than just abortion and homosexuality. Rev. Falwell, who was admittedly racist during the civil rights movement, in later years was honored by the Lynchburg NAACP for his turnabout on the issue of race, showing the famous founder of the Religious Right’s capacity to grow and change. But recently on television I saw the pain on the face of gay Christian Mel White, who lamented that despite the efforts of himself and others, Falwell never moderated his strong and often inflammatory language (even if maintaining his religious convictions) against gay and lesbian people. They still feel the most wounded by the fundamentalist minister’s statements; that healing had yet to be done.”