By Sonja Dalton and Peter LaBarbera

The October 1, 2006, “Oprah” program was entitled “Wives Confess They Are Gay.” (Click on that link to read about or watch the show online.)

After years of suppressing her sexuality, Chris decided to come out to her husband, Joe…

“I said, ‘Joe, I think after lots of soul searching and lots of reading and lots of praying I do believe that I’m a lesbian,'” she says. “It was very painful to do.”

But Chris wasn’t alone…

Joe says he was supportive of Chris because he loved her…and because he was also gay! Four years after his divorce, Joe followed Chris’s footsteps…

Chris now has a lesbian partner, Libby, and Joe has a homosexual male partner, Paul, who was also formerly married and who has children. Oprah calls the foursome “One Big, Happy Family.” Her audience applauds, as though there is something to be happy about in this tangled mess.

According to Oprah, they “are now living [their] best life.” According to God, however, they are deluded, deceived – given over to sexual impurity and degrading of their bodies, given up to dishonorable passions, abandoned to a debased, depraved mind (see Romans 1 in the New Testament).

So much for the broken homes, broken hearts – and broken promises before God. Oprah, we ask: where is your compassion for the children whose families are shattered, and the husband who said he cried every day, with anguish over the destruction of his marriage and family that, he said, almost killed him?

Exodus Youth offers an excellent resource for young people (as well as for parents, Bible class teachers, and youth ministers) entitled “Truth & Tolerance: A Student’s Guide to Understanding Homosexuality.” The 20 page booklet is available FREE in pdf form HERE.

Excerpted from The Road to Nowhere? Middle Church, by Dr. Albert Mohler, published Oct 3, 2006, by Crosswalk:

Bob Edgar wants to rescue America from the religious right. In his new book, Middle Church: Reclaiming the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority from the Religious Right, Edgar intends to reset the nation’s agenda when it comes to matters of Christian concern.

…Edgar could have offered a careful, exegetical, historical, and theological engagement with moral issues. Instead he offers irresponsible generalizations such as this: “The Bible mentions abortion not once, homosexuality only twice, and poverty or peace more than two thousand times. Yet somehow abortion and homosexuality have become the litmus test of faith in public life today.”

How can an intelligent reader, armed with even the slightest knowledge of the Bible and the Christian tradition, take such a statement seriously? The Bible does not mention abortion only in the sense that it does not make direct reference to the practice of surgical abortion as is common today. The Bible speaks clearly to the sanctity of human life and to the priority of protecting unborn life. Furthermore, to state that the Bible mentions homosexuality “only twice” indicates that Edgar has redefined homosexuality as something other than that which the Bible addresses in numerous passages.

There can be no doubt that the Bible’s consistent judgment is that homosexual acts are inherently immoral and sinful. The Christian church in all of its major branches has understood this for two thousand years. This has been a true ecumenical consensus until recent years when some more liberal churches in the West have abandoned the Christian tradition in order to endorse homosexual practice.

Thus, it is an act of intellectual dishonesty for Edgar to claim to speak for “classic historical Christianity.”

Just in case we might miss his point, Edgar offers this assessment of Scripture: “The far religious right is fond of condemning homosexuality because they say the Scripture is immutable and its words are literal.” Again, Edgar identifies the scriptural consensus that homosexuality is sinful as an example of the radical nature of the “far religious right” [italics his]. Once again, one need not be very conservative to end up in Edgar’s category of the far religious right…

In an amazing passage, Edgar asserts: “People of faith must be able to conduct a respectful and open conversation about all aspects of sexuality including homosexuality. God has a lot to say on all these topics, and if we skip the listening and rush straight to the judging–an enterprise in which we’re not supposed to be involved anyway–we can’t hope to make serious progress in our discussion.”

Statements like this must leave us wondering if this author actually means to be taken seriously. His book is filled with moral judgments–judgments about ecology, justice, racism, and a host of other issues. But when it comes to sexuality, Edgar offers the facile suggestion that moral judgment is “an enterprise in which we’re not supposed to be involved anyway.”

In other words, when Edgar makes moral judgments, he’s not being judgmental. But when others moral judgments, they are being judgmental. The Bible does not say that we are not to make moral judgments, or that we are not to judge moral behavior. Indeed, the Bible makes absolutely no sense if that is the case. The Bible–in both Old and New Testaments–is filled with moral judgment and with advisement on how we are to make such judgments. Of course, the judgments we are to make concern behavior, not the heart. We are expressly forbidden to judge another’s heart. That distinction is missing from Edgar’s analysis.

…What separates Bob Edgar and biblical Christianity is the fact that God has told us how He is going to judge humanity–and the crucial issue in that judgment is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

When it comes to matters of public policy, evangelicals surely do not have all the answers. Furthermore, evangelicals are well served by a reminder that our moral agenda needs to be broader than the issues of the daily headlines.

Nevertheless, conservative Christians did not decide to make abortion, homosexuality, and stem cell research front-line issues. It is nothing less than intellectual dishonesty to suggest that evangelicals prompted the national debate on those issues. On all of these fronts, evangelicals are simply calling on the Christian church to stand by its historic convictions and moral wisdom.

Continue reading at Crosswalk…

Excerpted from Gay Marriage – An Oxymoron, by Bryan Kemper, posted on Stand True (emphasis ours):

…Stand True is most definitely against homosexual marriage. In fact, I would go as far as saying there is no such thing as homosexual marriage. Marriage is an institution created and ordained by God for a man and woman.

Genesis 2: 24 – For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. 25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

Outside of the marriage covenant, IS shame in sexual activity. The sexual act inside of marriage is a bond that brings man and wife together as one flesh, and this bond cannot happen between two men or two women. They cannot become one flesh and therefore it cannot be called marriage.

The state may recognize their illicit union as a “state marriage,” but it cannot be recognized as a true marriage ordained by God. As Christians we know the truth and must abide by it whether or not the state does. Although society may want to allow something like this, we cannot support it or even validate it by calling it marriage.

…It is very clear in God’s Word that homosexuality is unnatural and an abomination to God.

Romans 1:24 – Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
25 – They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator–who is forever praised. Amen.
26 – Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
27 – In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
28 – Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
29 – They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,
30 – slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;
31 – they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
32 – Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

Our society and government want to legitimize sin, and they demonize anyone who stands for the truth as intolerant or hateful.

As Christians we have a duty and responsibility to stand for the truth no matter how unpopular it is in society. We must love our neighbor as ourselves, but we must not love or even accept our neighbor’s sin. In fact, I would say it is not love if we just close our eyes and tolerate our neighbor’s sin. How can we truly say we love them, if we allow them to continue on a path to eternal damnation without offering them the truth?

The gospel of Christ is offensive to those who do not believe.

I Corinthians 1:18 – For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

The Gospel can cut deep but also offers the only hope for forgiveness to sinners like us. The Gospel is full of grace and acceptance with God we don’t deserve. And if we reject this Grace where will we go? The Gospel is 100% truth with no room for margin or tolerance or variation. We must live by this truth and not society’s version of truth. We must Stand True to God’s law and Jesus Christ without exception…

Continue reading at Stand True…

This is part B of our response to “Out in Scripture” (from the pro-homosexuality Human Rights Campaign) by for Sept 17, 2006, by Americans For Truth writer Sonja Dalton:

“Out in Scripture” makes the following assertion about Psalm 116:1-9:

The psalmist in Psalm 116:1-9 expresses a similar strength and gratitude. In spite of distress, persecution, affliction, even death, God delivers and is merciful to those whose whole lives are grounded in God (116:5-6). What a valuable word for the LGBT community! When one claims the truth of one’s core identity in God — whether that core is known through being a teacher or in claiming the fullness of one’s God-given gender identity or sexual orientation — divine support is available.

And so we must ask: Is “homosexuality,” “bisexuality,” or “transexuality” a grounded, God-ordained identity?

Let us open our Bibles and examine what the Creator has revealed about the God-ordained identity of humankind…

Mr. McCullough suggests below that our country has a “new superhero” class of extra-marital fornicators: “Who are they? Men who engage in same-gender sexual activities!” Episcopal bishop (Vickie) Eugene Robinson for example, and, of course, the lastest: Former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey.

Mr. McCullough noticed, as did many puzzled Christians, how many times Jim McGreevey invoked the name of God, stating repeatedly that his open embrace of homosexuality is part of his “path back to godliness.” There could be no greater lie.

• Jesus Himself said, “If you love me, you will obey what I command” (John 14:15)…the same Jesus that affirmed God’s design for marriage (one man, one woman, for life) and condemned both divorce and adultery (Matthew 5 & 19).
  
• The apostle John wrote, “If we claim to have fellowship with Him yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not live by the Truth…No one who continues to sin has either seen Him or known Him…He who does what is sinful is of the devil…No one who is born of God will continue to sin…”

If Jim McGreevey knew anything about godliness, he would be sorrowful for what he has done, and is still doing, to his wife and children — and even more grieved by what he has done against a Holy God. Instead, he exposes his innocent little daughter to his homosexual lover and introduces his lover to the world as though such a travesty is laudable.

Jude, the brother of Christ, warned that there already were and would continue to be “godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality” and who “follow their own ungodly desires…who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.” He urged believers to beware, to “contend for the faith,” to “snatch others from the fire and save them,” to “show mercy, mixed with fear – hating even the clothing stained with corrupted flesh.”

Therefore, we must speak in opposition to this latest blasphemy: divorce and adultery and homosexual practice are not godliness. We must pray earnestly for Jim McGreevey and others who are living in open defiance of God’s will, calling evil “good.” And we must reach out with genuine love and compassion to those who are confused by homosexual attractions–those whose consciences are yet tender and responsive to Christ’s healing.–Sonja Dalton

The following is excerpted from Why Liberals Love Adultery, by Kevin McCullough, published Sept 24, 2006, by Townhall:

…there’s a new kid on the scene. Having done all he could to ruin the state of New Jersey – a state he took a solemn oath to protect and serve – the new adulterer that liberals all love is Jim McGreevey. Just in the last week alone he’s held hands with Oprah, and shared New Jersey rest area secrets with Matt Lauer.

He’s also invoked God’s name about three hundred times.

And now he says, “it’s all about telling the truth.”

But I’d like to know, “since when?”

This is the second installment in our series of responses to “Out in Scripture,” Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) attempt to do the impossible: re-interpret the Bible to be in support of homosexual behavior (sin).

By Sonja Dalton

The primary text for the Sept 17 HRC’s Out in Scripture Commentary is Isaiah 50:4-9a:

The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward. I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.

Who was this one called to minister to the weary and to warn the unfaithful? Was he a homosexual? The “Out in Scripture” commentary claims, “Isaiah 50:4-9a offers the testimony of one who knows herself to be called by God.” Is that true?

No, certainly not.

This book of prophecy is the inspired testimony of the bearded male prophet, Isaiah, to a rebellious Judah – of whom he says in chapter 1:

If the LORD of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have become like Sodom and become like Gomorrah. Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom! Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!… [God Himself speaking:

“I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly…

When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you;

even though you make many prayers, I will not listen…“

So, in likening the rebellious character of Judah to the rampant homosexuality in Sodom and Gomorrah, the prophet Isaiah (like all of God’s prophets, apostles, and teachers) affirmed God’s design for human sexuality (faithful marriage) and overtly condemned homosexual practice.

By Peter LaBarbera

Christians are called “haters,” “bigots,” “homophobes,” and worse simply for proclaiming God’s Word to homosexuals (for the best defense of Christian orthodoxy on homosexuality, see Rob Gagnon’s brilliant website). As believers, our most fervent hope and prayer is that those tempted to embrace homosexual attractions would recognize that they are not inherently “gay” and find spiritual healing and salvation through the resurrected Christ — an intent which, while offensive to those not inclined to hear, cannot fairly be described as “hatred.”

Many men and women who once considered themselves “gay” or “lesbian” have embraced the path of change and overcome the pull of homosexuality in their lives. See Stephen Bennett’s heartwarming story HERE and Linda Jernigan’s wonderful testimony HERE. Some people have changed through secular therapy (see NARTH’s website), but it seems the more typical story in the United States is people overcoming homosexuality with the help of God through Jesus Christ.

Perhaps the citation below of a radical Islamic book’s prescription for treating homosexuals (dropping them from a building and then stoning them) will shed light on the superiority of Biblical “tough love” (oppose sinful behavior while extending forgiveness through Christ). We at Americans For Truth condemn in no uncertain terms all violence and hatred directed at homosexuals. The same God who rescues people from bondage to any number of sinful inclinations can rescue those who are caught up in homosexuality–and has countless times, despite the vain efforts of fanatical “gay” activists like Wayne Besen who strive to show that “sexual orientation” (an unbiblical construct) is unchangeable.

While contemplating what this Islamic book recommends, consider also the contemptuous and ridiculous statement of Rosie O’Donnell, who said on ABC’s The View on the anniversary of 9/11:

“Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam…”

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The following is excerpted from Official OK with Islamic law in Netherlands, published Sept 13, 2006, by WorldNet Daily:

…As WND reported in 2004, [Netherlands’ Justice Minister Piet Hein] Donner hasn’t always been open to every aspect of Muslim culture.

He joined with [Dutch Integration Minister Rita] Verdonk in banning a Muslim book [”The Way of the Muslim”] distributed by the Dutch Lel Tawheed mosque condoning the stoning of homosexuals, female circumcision and the beating of wives.

“Gay people should be thrown head first off high buildings and if not killed on hitting the ground, they should be then stoned to death,” says a book titled “The Way of the Muslim.”

Continue reading at WorldNet Daily…