Despite representing only 2 percent of the population
By Louis P. Sheldon, Charisma Magazine
Despite representing only 2 percent of the population, the radical homosexual agenda continues to change America. Can the church stem the moral tide?
Last year alumni from Wheaton College—what used to be the heart of conservative evangelicalism—made headlines for forming an organization to not only support the gay community, but also to promote the belief that homosexuality and Christianity are compatible. As on Christian college campuses throughout the United States, they have once again succeeded in convincing believers that Jesus’ command to “love your neighbor” means turning a blind eye to what the Bible explicitly calls an “abomination.”
“They” aren’t just Wheaton alumni or those who have formed similar groups—both official and unofficial—at Baylor, Harding, Samford, Seattle Pacific and a host of other universities and colleges. They would be the activists who have masterfully driven the gay agenda for more than 30 years and, with remarkable success and precision, changed our nation’s cultural mindset on homosexuality.
In 2008, Newsweek Religion Editor Lisa Miller wrote about “Joining the ‘Out’ Club” and wondered if Christian colleges might be “the last bastion of traditional values” standing amid these cultural changes: “As homosexuality ceases to be a cultural taboo, evangelicals increasingly have had to grapple openly with the question of how to deal with the gays and lesbians in their midst. Now, even on very conservative Christian campuses, there are gays who are ‘out’ and who want their authority figures to recognize them—and their sexuality—as deserving of God’s love.”
Yet Miller’s last phrase is proof of how effective this 30-year campaign has been. The question is not whether gays deserve God’s love or if He loves them more than a murderer, a glutton or someone who lusts in their heart. In fact, that’s exactly the line of thinking the gay agenda would rather Christians focus on, and one that has permeated a timid church fearful of offending those they’re witnessing to. No, the real issue is the mammoth, worldwide agenda of immorality that few within the global church are paying attention to or, more often, standing up to.
From Grace to Glee
From kindergartens to city councils to churches to the Supreme Court, the mainstreaming of homosexuality has reshaped everything in America. And one of the most powerful vehicles by which the gay agenda has accomplished this is media. The first television network program to feature a homosexual character in an ongoing role was the soap opera One Life to Live in 1992. By 1999, there were 25 sitcoms or daytime dramas with homosexual characters. Without exception, these characters were portrayed as witty, clever, lovable and just a little quirky.
It’s perfectly clear what the Hollywood writers and producers were doing—grinding away at public morality, using comedy as a vehicle to overcome the natural resistance of adults, and playing on the curiosity and credulity of children. By sheer persistence, the gay-friendly media have been forcing Americans to accept homosexuality as a normal and natural choice, whether they believe it or not. Today, based on the large number of primetime TV shows that currently feature openly gay characters, you have to believe that the most favored and most protected type of sexuality is homosexuality. Over the last decade, overtly pro-gay programs such as Will and Grace, Queer as Folk, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, The L Word and Glee have been designed to desensitize Americans to the genuine risks of the homosexual agenda. Again, homosexuals are invariably portrayed as funny, sensitive and caring individuals. At the same time, critics of homosexuality are portrayed as bigoted and ignorant homophobes who have to learn to accept homosexuality as a valid lifestyle choice. Yet behind the scenes, how many people realize that organizations such as the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation actually have veto power over many of these scripts and can actually force directors and producers to rewrite dialogue that casts an unflattering light on homosexuals?
The gay agenda in media hasn’t just affected older audiences, but has been painfully apparent in targeting children under the guise of teaching “tolerance and diversity.” In January 2005, for example, several major children’s television shows joined with the We Are Family Foundation to promote the homosexual agenda using kiddy favorites such as Arthur, Barney, Bob the Builder, Dora the Explorer and Jimmy Neutron. After the characters sang “We Are Family” together, they directed kids to the website of the pro-homosexual We Are Family Foundation, which teaches them to accept and celebrate differences of race, class, genders and “sexual identity.”
A cartoon feature aired on the Disney Channel, Nickelodeon and PBS on March 11, 2005, and was supposed to be shown to kids in 61,000 schools nationwide. Each child was to be given a workbook designed by the very liberal, very pro-homosexual Anti-Defamation League. To top it off, children were being urged to visit a website where they could sign the “Tolerance Pledge,” which promises to respect all people whose “abilities, beliefs, culture, race, sexual identity or other characteristics are different from my own.”
Overt Operation?
Some might argue that there’s nothing wrong with teaching kids about diversity, just as it’s only fair to include and encourage gays and lesbians in the workplace, where they can make a positive contribution. Though well meaning, that view misses the point entirely. The homosexual agenda has nothing to do with making a positive contribution. Furthermore, gay rights activists will never settle for a “live and let live” role. Their goal is to enforce acceptance and legitimization of their lifestyle and to overpower and overwhelm by sheer force anyone who dares to stand in their way.
This is not merely my opinion; it’s what homosexual activists have said about their own game plan. They have a strategic marketing plan to promote homosexuality and to vilify their enemies. That plan has been outlined and published in multiple places, including Guide magazine in November 1987, and it makes for some pretty eye-opening reading.
In “The Overhauling of Straight America,” homosexual activists Marshall Kirk and Erastes Pill describe several strategies that homosexuals can use to push their way onto center stage. Among their directives: “Portray gays as victims, not as aggressive challengers. … Mr. and Mrs. Public must be given no extra excuses to say, ‘They are not like us.’ … Our campaign should not demand direct support for homosexual practices, but should instead take antidiscrimination as its theme. … Make the victimizers look bad. … The public should be shown images of ranting homophobes whose secondary traits and beliefs disgust middle America. These images might include: the Ku Klux Klan demonstrating that gays be burned alive or castrated; bigoted southern ministers drooling with hysterical hatred to a degree that looks both comical and deranged; menacing pugs, thugs and convicts speaking coolly about the ‘fags’ they have killed or would like to kill; a tour of Nazi concentration camps where homosexuals were tortured and gassed.”
There is nothing benign here, no reasonable disagreement, no respect for the opinions or moral reservations of those who have expressed concern for the dismantling of our culture. Rather, what’s being presented here is a plan for combat and the conquest of a nation.
The Legal Battlefield
Less than 2 percent of the population of the United States is actively homosexual, yet no other group exerts such enormous pressure or wields such power over the nation’s cultural institutions. Those forwarding the gay agenda know this. It’s been their stated goal since the 1970s, and they want to use that power to coerce the federal government, state legislatures and the courts at all levels into passing and prosecuting laws that give special rights to same-sex couples and others in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. While they preach tolerance, they are all for laws that punish those who oppose the homosexual agenda.
Between 1972 and 1978, at least 40 state legislatures granted “civil rights” to homosexuals comparable to those accorded to ethnic minorities. At least 20 states repealed their sodomy laws, and in 2003 the United States Supreme Court, in the case of Lawrence v. Texas, ruled the sodomy laws of Texas unconstitutional, forcing by implication all 50 states to take similar action.
When Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996, it did so with the support of 68 percent of the American people. The vote in the House was an astonishing 342 to 67, and in the Senate it was an equally impressive 85 to 14. The bill was signed into law by then President Bill Clinton, but he did it in the middle of the night to make sure there was little or no opportunity for the press to report on this important story. That law recognized the traditional definition of marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman. It also insured that no state would be forced to accept another state’s definition of marriage if it included either “civil unions” or “same-sex marriage.”
Subsequently, 43 states passed constitutional amendments and ordinances of various kinds to protect the institution of marriage from redefinition by the homosexual lobby. But since DOMA was signed into law, a long list of academics, activists and their lawyers have introduced legal challenges claiming the federal and state laws are unconstitutional. In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and since then five other states have followed suit—not including those states (and cities) that recognize these marriages but don’t grant licenses for them.
Clearly, the battle for same-sex marriage has become the centerpiece of the gay agenda in recent years. Despite poll after poll revealing that the American people want to preserve the sanctity of marriage and safeguard the family, the “debate” over defining marriage takes center stage each voting season.
Homosexuals say they want the right to get married and live normal lives just like heterosexual couples, but this is a lie. On the surface, marriage seems like such a natural and innocent request. Who could argue with that? But that’s another part of the homosexuals’ campaign of deception. What they actually want is to force same-sex marriage on America as part of a much larger strategy for destroying the concept of marriage altogether.
If that sounds extreme, consider the words of homosexual activist Michelangelo Signorile, who made this aspect of the agenda perfectly clear in Out magazine. In his article he urges his fellow homosexuals to “fight for same-sex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely. … To debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution. … The most subversive action lesbians and gays can undertake—and one that would perhaps benefit all of society—is to transform the notion of ‘family’ altogether.”
There it is: The mission is not participation but subversion
Despite representing only 2 percent of the population, the radical homosexual agenda continues to change America. Can the church stem the moral tide?
Last year alumni from Wheaton College—what used to be the heart of conservative evangelicalism—made headlines for forming an organization to not only support the gay community, but also to promote the belief that homosexuality and Christianity are compatible. As on Christian college campuses throughout the United States, they have once again succeeded in convincing believers that Jesus’ command to “love your neighbor” means turning a blind eye to what the Bible explicitly calls an “abomination.”
“They” aren’t just Wheaton alumni or those who have formed similar groups—both official and unofficial—at Baylor, Harding, Samford, Seattle Pacific and a host of other universities and colleges. They would be the activists who have masterfully driven the gay agenda for more than 30 years and, with remarkable success and precision, changed our nation’s cultural mindset on homosexuality.
In 2008, Newsweek Religion Editor Lisa Miller wrote about “Joining the ‘Out’ Club” and wondered if Christian colleges might be “the last bastion of traditional values” standing amid these cultural changes: “As homosexuality ceases to be a cultural taboo, evangelicals increasingly have had to grapple openly with the question of how to deal with the gays and lesbians in their midst. Now, even on very conservative Christian campuses, there are gays who are ‘out’ and who want their authority figures to recognize them—and their sexuality—as deserving of God’s love.”
Yet Miller’s last phrase is proof of how effective this 30-year campaign has been. The question is not whether gays deserve God’s love or if He loves them more than a murderer, a glutton or someone who lusts in their heart. In fact, that’s exactly the line of thinking the gay agenda would rather Christians focus on, and one that has permeated a timid church fearful of offending those they’re witnessing to. No, the real issue is the mammoth, worldwide agenda of immorality that few within the global church are paying attention to or, more often, standing up to.
From Grace to Glee
From kindergartens to city councils to churches to the Supreme Court, the mainstreaming of homosexuality has reshaped everything in America. And one of the most powerful vehicles by which the gay agenda has accomplished this is media. The first television network program to feature a homosexual character in an ongoing role was the soap opera One Life to Live in 1992. By 1999, there were 25 sitcoms or daytime dramas with homosexual characters. Without exception, these characters were portrayed as witty, clever, lovable and just a little quirky.
It’s perfectly clear what the Hollywood writers and producers were doing—grinding away at public morality, using comedy as a vehicle to overcome the natural resistance of adults, and playing on the curiosity and credulity of children. By sheer persistence, the gay-friendly media have been forcing Americans to accept homosexuality as a normal and natural choice, whether they believe it or not. Today, based on the large number of primetime TV shows that currently feature openly gay characters, you have to believe that the most favored and most protected type of sexuality is homosexuality. Over the last decade, overtly pro-gay programs such as Will and Grace, Queer as Folk, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, The L Word and Glee have been designed to desensitize Americans to the genuine risks of the homosexual agenda. Again, homosexuals are invariably portrayed as funny, sensitive and caring individuals. At the same time, critics of homosexuality are portrayed as bigoted and ignorant homophobes who have to learn to accept homosexuality as a valid lifestyle choice. Yet behind the scenes, how many people realize that organizations such as the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation actually have veto power over many of these scripts and can actually force directors and producers to rewrite dialogue that casts an unflattering light on homosexuals?
The gay agenda in media hasn’t just affected older audiences, but has been painfully apparent in targeting children under the guise of teaching “tolerance and diversity.” In January 2005, for example, several major children’s television shows joined with the We Are Family Foundation to promote the homosexual agenda using kiddy favorites such as Arthur, Barney, Bob the Builder, Dora the Explorer and Jimmy Neutron. After the characters sang “We Are Family” together, they directed kids to the website of the pro-homosexual We Are Family Foundation, which teaches them to accept and celebrate differences of race, class, genders and “sexual identity.”
A cartoon feature aired on the Disney Channel, Nickelodeon and PBS on March 11, 2005, and was supposed to be shown to kids in 61,000 schools nationwide. Each child was to be given a workbook designed by the very liberal, very pro-homosexual Anti-Defamation League. To top it off, children were being urged to visit a website where they could sign the “Tolerance Pledge,” which promises to respect all people whose “abilities, beliefs, culture, race, sexual identity or other characteristics are different from my own.”
Overt Operation?
Some might argue that there’s nothing wrong with teaching kids about diversity, just as it’s only fair to include and encourage gays and lesbians in the workplace, where they can make a positive contribution. Though well meaning, that view misses the point entirely. The homosexual agenda has nothing to do with making a positive contribution. Furthermore, gay rights activists will never settle for a “live and let live” role. Their goal is to enforce acceptance and legitimization of their lifestyle and to overpower and overwhelm by sheer force anyone who dares to stand in their way.
This is not merely my opinion; it’s what homosexual activists have said about their own game plan. They have a strategic marketing plan to promote homosexuality and to vilify their enemies. That plan has been outlined and published in multiple places, including Guide magazine in November 1987, and it makes for some pretty eye-opening reading.
In “The Overhauling of Straight America,” homosexual activists Marshall Kirk and Erastes Pill describe several strategies that homosexuals can use to push their way onto center stage. Among their directives: “Portray gays as victims, not as aggressive challengers. … Mr. and Mrs. Public must be given no extra excuses to say, ‘They are not like us.’ … Our campaign should not demand direct support for homosexual practices, but should instead take antidiscrimination as its theme. … Make the victimizers look bad. … The public should be shown images of ranting homophobes whose secondary traits and beliefs disgust middle America. These images might include: the Ku Klux Klan demonstrating that gays be burned alive or castrated; bigoted southern ministers drooling with hysterical hatred to a degree that looks both comical and deranged; menacing pugs, thugs and convicts speaking coolly about the ‘fags’ they have killed or would like to kill; a tour of Nazi concentration camps where homosexuals were tortured and gassed.”
There is nothing benign here, no reasonable disagreement, no respect for the opinions or moral reservations of those who have expressed concern for the dismantling of our culture. Rather, what’s being presented here is a plan for combat and the conquest of a nation.
The Legal Battlefield
Less than 2 percent of the population of the United States is actively homosexual, yet no other group exerts such enormous pressure or wields such power over the nation’s cultural institutions. Those forwarding the gay agenda know this. It’s been their stated goal since the 1970s, and they want to use that power to coerce the federal government, state legislatures and the courts at all levels into passing and prosecuting laws that give special rights to same-sex couples and others in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. While they preach tolerance, they are all for laws that punish those who oppose the homosexual agenda.
Between 1972 and 1978, at least 40 state legislatures granted “civil rights” to homosexuals comparable to those accorded to ethnic minorities. At least 20 states repealed their sodomy laws, and in 2003 the United States Supreme Court, in the case of Lawrence v. Texas, ruled the sodomy laws of Texas unconstitutional, forcing by implication all 50 states to take similar action.
When Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996, it did so with the support of 68 percent of the American people. The vote in the House was an astonishing 342 to 67, and in the Senate it was an equally impressive 85 to 14. The bill was signed into law by then President Bill Clinton, but he did it in the middle of the night to make sure there was little or no opportunity for the press to report on this important story. That law recognized the traditional definition of marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman. It also insured that no state would be forced to accept another state’s definition of marriage if it included either “civil unions” or “same-sex marriage.”
Subsequently, 43 states passed constitutional amendments and ordinances of various kinds to protect the institution of marriage from redefinition by the homosexual lobby. But since DOMA was signed into law, a long list of academics, activists and their lawyers have introduced legal challenges claiming the federal and state laws are unconstitutional. In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and since then five other states have followed suit—not including those states (and cities) that recognize these marriages but don’t grant licenses for them.
Clearly, the battle for same-sex marriage has become the centerpiece of the gay agenda in recent years. Despite poll after poll revealing that the American people want to preserve the sanctity of marriage and safeguard the family, the “debate” over defining marriage takes center stage each voting season.
Homosexuals say they want the right to get married and live normal lives just like heterosexual couples, but this is a lie. On the surface, marriage seems like such a natural and innocent request. Who could argue with that? But that’s another part of the homosexuals’ campaign of deception. What they actually want is to force same-sex marriage on America as part of a much larger strategy for destroying the concept of marriage altogether.
If that sounds extreme, consider the words of homosexual activist Michelangelo Signorile, who made this aspect of the agenda perfectly clear in Out magazine. In his article he urges his fellow homosexuals to “fight for same-sex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely. … To debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution. … The most subversive action lesbians and gays can undertake—and one that would perhaps benefit all of society—is to transform the notion of ‘family’ altogether.”
There it is: The mission is not participation but subversion