How will ‘cosmopolitan evangelicals’ handle the homosexual issue?

I stumbled upon this interesting seminar about American evangelicalism on the Ethics and Public Policy Center website. The event was put on last year by the Pew Forum. A brief excerpt is below and the full transcript is HERE. Note Michael Lindsay’s dichotomy — not “left vs. right” but “cosmopolitan vs. populist” evangelicals.

The question with regard to homosexuality is this: insofar as acceptance of homosexuality (or, in politically correct jargon, the “gay and lesbian community”) has become a defining feature of modern big-city culture, how will the “cosmopolitan evangelicals” react as they seek to retain their influence in “elite” circles? So far we have seen left-leaning evangelicals like Jim Wallis embrace a “rights” framework regarding the pro-homosexual agenda — while still claiming fealty to the Bible. (Wallis favors “civil unions” laws for homosexual couples.) Homosexual activists have applauded the leftward evangelical shift, but Christians who take the Bible’s proscription of homosexual acts seriously view the Evangelical Left’s posturing on this issue as a capitulation to worldly forces, and a violation of Scripture.

New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson — who was given the female name “Vicki” at birth — speaking at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s “Creating Change” conference last year in Detroit. [Watch the speech on YouTube HERE.] By giving an Inaugural prayer to a homosexual activist who claims the Bible is “holy” while he brazenly flouts its teachings, President-elect Barack Obama is himself undermining Christian faith and morals. Traditionally, men of God preached against sin, but Robinson is busy celebrating sin or redefining it: at this same conference in which Robinson praised the Task Force, the homosexual group gave out its annual “Leather Leadership Award” praising a sadomasochism advocate of consensual “slavery.” Click on photo to enlarge.

Americans For Truth Press Release

January 13, 2009

Contact: Peter LaBarbera: 630-717-7631; americansfortruth@comcast.net

AFTAH: Obama’s Choice of Homosexual Bishop (Vicki) Gene Robinson to Pray at Inaugural Event Is a Slap in the Face to Christians

NAPERVILLE, Ill. – Peter LaBarbera, President of Americans For Truth about Homosexuality (AFTAH), issued the following statement regarding President-elect Barack Obama’s selection of V. (Vicki) Gene Robinson, the openly homosexual Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, to deliver the invocation at an official inaugural event Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial:

“President-elect Obama has signaled a tragic departure from America’s godly, Judeo-Christian heritage with his choice of a defiant homosexual activist, (Vicki) Gene Robinson, to recite a prayer at an official Inaugural event Sunday. Choosing Robinson — who supports homosexual ‘marriage’ and compares his agenda to mainstream sinful and changeable homosexual behavior to the noble Black civil rights struggle — is a sop to ‘gay’ activists who blasted Obama’s for picking evangelical pastor Rick Warren to say an Inauguration Day prayer.

Read the rest of this article »

Just a quick note from Europe… Thanks for doing what you do. It must take a lot of guts and faith to go up against the gay-rights juggernaut. I am a Roman Catholic. I love Christ, I love my Faith and I love my Church and it makes me sad to see how in most parts of Europe all opposition to the gay agenda has already been silenced. Worst part? The denial of Christian and Catholic values has been crammed down the throats of Europeans ever since the so-called Enlightenment. So if today you are a young European with an average education and intelligence and are forced to chose between being PC [politically correct]  and being considered a religious bigot, you don’t even think twice. You drank secularism, humanism, liberalism, egalitarianism with your mother’s milk. Plus: It has always been and will always be the Church’s fault, no matter what. So, again, thanks for doing this. I’ll keep you in my prayers!

Leo, Italy

Aberrant-sex activists demonize affable mega-church pastor as “homophobe” because he supported Prop 8

By blasting Obama for choosing Rick Warren as an Inaugural speaker — and demonizing Warren as a “homophobe” because he supported Prop 8 — homosexual activists are showing the world just how empty their “tolerance” ideology really is. Click on photo to enlarge.

Here’s an outstanding release from Pastor Bryan Fischer with the Idaho Values Alliance, an affiliate of American Family Association. Poor Barack Obama: he’s promised the world to one of the most demanding and unreasonable special interest movements on the planet. Imagine blasting the gregarious Warren as a “homophobe” because he supported Prop 8 in California. (Note the incredibly elastic, ever-expanding definition of homophobia.) Our favorite lesbian blog-stremist Pam Spaulding chastises Warren for his “sad bigotry” HERE and hits Warren for “bigotry, small-mindedness and downright ignorance” (Pam and friends know a thing or two about small-mindedness).

We agree with Bryan about the vaguely threatening nature of this quote by the hypocritical Joe Solmonese, head of the homosexual lobby group Human Rights Campaign:

Bizarrely, Solomonese says that Warren has “repeated the Religious Right’s big lie that supporters of equality for gay Americans are out to silence pastors.” He appears blind to the obvious fact that that’s exactly what he is trying to do here – put a muzzle on one of America’s leading pastors, proving that it’s hardly a lie at all.

Ominously, Solomonese told Politico, “There is a lot of energy and there’s a lot of anger and I think people are wanting to direct it somewhere.” If that sounds like a threat to you, I won’t disagree.

Also, note that Tolerant Joe embodies the evil nexus of the abortion and homosexuality movements: “Solmonese is the former Chief Executive Officer of EMILY’s List, where he oversaw one of the nation’s prominent pro-choice [read: pro-abortion] Democratic political action committees” (Wikipedia).

People are finally waking up to the truth: that the homosexual activist lobby is to tolerance and diversity what Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is to honest government. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

Below is the Idaho Values Alliance release (write them at contact@idahovaluesalliance.com):

Cizik, Jones, Campolo represent troubling trend away from Biblical worldview

“Emergent” Christianity leader Tony Jones says “biblical Christianity” and the Church can bless homosexual relationships.

We’ve pulled some excerpts from the excellent article below by Peter Jones of truthXchange — which could not be more timely given that some prominent evangelicals are straying from a Biblical worldview on homosexuality. Consider these examples:

• Richard Cizik — who recently resigned from the National Association of Evangelicals after causing widespread outrage for embracing homosexual “civil unions”; click HERE for a defense of Cizik by the Bible-twisting, homosexual lobby group Human Rights Campaign, whose own Harry Knox refers to homosexual bonds as “our most sacred loving relationships”;
• “Emergent”Christianity leader Peter Jones supporting homosexual monogamy as “biblical” and worthy of church blessing (see below); and
• Homosexual-“marriage” advocate Peggy Campolo, who justifies her anti-Biblical campaign on behalf of homosexual relationships using justice rhetoric (Peggy’s husband Tony supports “civil unions”).

Obviously, liberal cultural pressures and proud, vocal “gay” activism are leading people who should know better to defect, as it were, in the “culture war” over homosexuality. We presume that each of the above would deny that characterization, but their compromises with homosexualist ideology invariably require negating clear Scriptural prohibitions against the sin of (changeable) homosexual practice.

Prof. Gagnon’s 23-page report debunks every shibboleth and inacurracy by “reporter” Lisa Miller

Prof. Robert Gagnon rebuts Newsweek religion “reporter” Lisa Miller’s astonishingly biased and shallow polemic claiming that the Bible actually supports homosexual “marriage.” Click here to read Gagnon’s 23-page report: “More than ‘Mutual Joy’: Lisa Miller of Newsweek against Scripture and Jesus.”

Folks, needless to say, when Newsweek religion “reporter” Lisa Miller penned her ultra-biased, sophomoric cover story — or should I say “cover screed” — claiming that the Bible supports homosexual “marriage, she did not contact Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Professor Robert Gagnon — probably the world’s foremost scholarly authority on the Bible and homosexuality. Doing so would have threatened Miller’s subversive, and very “queer,” thesis: that “Scripture gives us no good reason why gays and lesbians should not be … married — and a number of excellent reasons why they should.”

Prof. Gagnon has written a very thorough refutation of Newsweek’s and Miller’s arrogant assault on God’s Word. Click here for Gagnon’s full, 23-page report: “More than ‘Mutual Joy’: Lisa Miller of Newsweek against Scripture and Jesus.” In the report, Gagnon sets the record straight (no pun intended) on Miller’s many inaccuracies and pro-“gay” assertions, including:

• Did Jesus Christ really have nothing to say against homosexuality (and hence “same-sex marriage”)?
• Does the Bible proscribe lesbian sex and relationships?
• Are Old Testament condemnations of homosexual acts (e.g., Leviticus 18:22, aptly describing sex between men as “detestable”) mere “throwaway lines in a peculiar text” — about as relevant as Old Testament rules for “hair cuts” and “cleanliness rituals for menstruating women,” as Miller writes?
• Since marriage has evolved since Bible times, why NOT let it evolve to include homosexual couples?
• Does the Bible’s call to reach out with compassion to social outcasts mandate condoning homosexual relationships?
• Miller’s assertion in favor of church-blessed homosexual “marriages”: “If we are all God’s children, made in his likeness and image, then to deny access to any sacrament based on sexuality is exactly the same thing as denying it based on skin color”?

Homosexual attacks boomeranged; “gay” incumbent statewide candidate Jim Roth loses despite heavily outspending pro-family opponent backed by Kern

How many state representatives draw the attention of national TV talk show hosts? At left, Ellen DeGeneres rolls her eyes as she plays the (selectively edited) audiotape of Oklahoma state representative Sally Kern (R; pictured on the screen next to Ellen). Apparently Ellen is not aware that pro-“gay” educators have targeted very young students — even toddlers — with inappropriate, homosexuality-affirming messages. Despite the withering and often nasty “gay” web campaign against her, Kern easily won re-election in her district. Moreover, Kern helped another Republican candidate, Dana Murphy, oust Democrat Jim Roth, an incumbent and an open homosexual activist, for the statewide office of Corporation Commission. Murphy was vastly outspent by Roth, who was endorsed by the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund — which launched the smear campaign against Kern. Click on graphic to enlarge.

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By Peter LaBarbera

Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern (R) won re-election in a landslide, 58-42 percent, last week – overcoming a national smear campaign against her by homosexual militants and celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres who tried to paint her as an extremist – based on a secretly recorded speech in which she labeled “gay” activism a grave threat to America.

In another triumph over homosexual activism in red state Oklahoma, Kern’s close ally, Republican Dana Murphy, defeated open homosexual Jim Roth (D) for Corporate Commission – an important statewide office. Roth, the incumbent, heavily outspent Murphy, and was endorsed by the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund (GLVF) – which launched the demonization campaign against Kern and which encouraged out-of-state “gay” campaign donations to Roth.

In this heavily-watched race, GLVF hoped that Roth – already the first admitted homosexual to hold statewide office — would become the first such candidate to be elected statewide in Oklahoma. Instead, GLVF itself became a campaign issue that helped bring Roth down.

Hamtramck Citizens Voting NO to Special Rights Discrimination

http://www.hamtramck.org/family/

Click on photo to enlarge. Opposition to homosexuality- and gender-confusion-based “sexual orientation” laws is something that all committed religious people can agree on — because these laws invariably oppress religious people’s freedom to live out their beliefs. At right is multi-religious, multi-ethnic rally held Oct. 12 in Hamtramck, Michigan against a proposed “gender identity”-inclusive homosexual law.

Press Release
Contacts: Jay McNally: 734 717-1174; Fr. Andrew Wesley: 313 892-1310;
Akm Rahman: 313 293-7343; e-mail:  HamtramckFamily@gmail.com

Dear Readers,

It always strikes me as odd to see homosexual activists aligning themselves with American Muslims, who oppose homosexual practice as sinful in accordance with the religion, like faithful Christians and Bible-believing Jews. These photos from a rally in Hamtramck, Michigan reflect the appropriate political/sociological equation against homosexual activism: religious people (and moral people who are irreligious) cannot abide “rights” based on same-sex misbehavior (sin). In fact, as we’re seeing in California (where Christian doctors will now be forced to perform artificial inseminations for lesbians) and across the nation, the very outworking of government-enforced homosexuality-based “rights” is to oppress religious freedom.

Americans will have to decide whether creating aberrant-sex- and gender-confusion-based “rights” — including “same-sex marriage” and its cowardly cousin, “civil unions” — is worth trampling on the historic religious and First Amendment freedoms that have defined the American republic since its beginning.  –Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

Here is the Hamtramck Citizens Opposing “Special Rights” press release put out before the rally; under that is an article on the coalition’s website explaining the coalition’s position:

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Catholic, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu Religious Leaders Speak Out Against Hamtramck Gay-rights Ordinance at campaign rally

HAMTRAMCK (Oct. 10) – Nearly a dozen religious leaders in the City of Hamtramck and a nationally prominent lawyer will speak at a campaign kick-off rally for the group Hamtramck Citizens Voting NO to `Special Rights’ Discrimination.