It is all about equal rights, the gay “marriage” lobby keeps telling us. We just want the right to marry, like everyone else.
That is what they are telling us. But that is not what they mean. If same-sex “marriage” becomes the law of the land, we can expect massive persecution of the Church.
As my friend Jennifer Roback Morse notes in the National Catholic Register, “Legalizing same-sex ‘marriage’ is not a stand-alone policy . . . Once governments assert that same-sex unions are the equivalent of marriage, those governments must defend and enforce a whole host of other social changes.”
The bad news is these changes affect other liberties we take for granted, such as religious freedom and private property rights. Several recent cases give us a sobering picture of what we can expect if we do not actively embrace—and even promote—same-sex “marriage.”
For instance, a Methodist retreat center recently refused to allow two lesbian couples to use a campground pavilion for a civil union ceremony. The state of New Jersey punished the Methodists by revoking the center’s tax-exempt status—a vindictive attack on the Methodists’ religious liberty.
In Massachusetts, where judges imposed gay marriage a few years ago, Catholic Charities was ordered to accept homosexual couples as candidates for adoption. Rather than comply with an order that would be harmful to children, Catholic Charities closed down its adoption program.
California public schools have been told they must be “gay friendly,” as Roback Morse notes. But it will not stop with public schools. Just north of the border in Quebec, the government told a Mennonite school that it must conform to provincial law regarding curriculum—a curriculum that teaches children that homosexuality is a valid lifestyle. How long will it be before the U.S. government goes after private schools?
Even speaking out against homosexuality can get you fired. Crystal Dixon, an associate vice president at the University of Toledo, was fired after writing an opinion piece in the Toledo Free Press in support of traditional marriage . . . Fired—for exercising her First Amendment rights!
Promoters of same-sex “marriage” seem to go out of their way to target Christian businesses and churches. Their goal, it seems, is not the right to “marry,” but to punish anyone who disagrees with them.
Clearly, there is a spiritual battle going on here: Christians are under attack because they are a public witness to the fact that a holy God created us male and female, and we will always put obedience to Him and His laws above obedience to any earthly demand for loyalty.
The coming persecution of Christians is one more reason why we need to get involved with efforts to pass laws at the state and federal level defining marriage as a legal relationship between one man and one woman. We must protect, not only genuine marriage, but also many of the freedoms we now take for granted: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom to use private property the way we see fit—all are under threat.
And we must tell our friends and neighbors why gay “marriage” is not just about equality: It is about forcing religious believers to accept the validity of the homosexual lifestyle—or else.
This is part two of a two-part series.
From BreakPoint®, July 1, 2008, Copyright 2008, Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with the permission of Prison Fellowship Ministries. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced or distributed without the express written permission of Prison Fellowship Ministries. “BreakPoint®” and “Prison Fellowship Ministries®” are registered trademarks of Prison Fellowship
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Melinda,
"their moral precepts were more important than finances"
It is God's moral precepts which they stood on. It is about being obedient to God. It is NOT about weighing a business decision based on finances.
The Methodist church that Mr. Colson describes did not lose its tax-exempt status. The church owns a lot of property, including the pavilion in question. When the church refused to allow the lesbian couple to marry, they lost the tax-exempt status only the property itself. The church did not lose its tax-exempt status on the church itself or for any of its other properties.
The church made a deliberate decision: their moral precepts were more important than finances. This seems like a pretty easy decision, actually. If their principals are that essential, why would they compromise their beliefs over a few hundred or thousand dollars in tax breaks? Render unto Caesar...
I do hope that you correct this error.
Why does all of this surprise us? Government is to the ungodly what Church is to Christians. We seek and submit to the power of God to lead us and guide us in our lives. The ungodly don't know God nor do they care to, so they use the power of government to impose tyranny on others.
Even in times past, men, claiming to "speak for God" and claiming to be Christians (though they operated inconsistently with the teachings of Christ as liberal "Christians" do today) imposed a tyrannical rule over men all in the name of God.
Persuasion by force: Yeah, that always works.
There's a difference between forcing one's views and understanding that there's a basic framework by which every society is built. There have been many experiments but only the Judeo/Christian worldview has the consistent framework by which the God-given rights of the individual are valuable.
Traditional marriage, the preservation and value of human life, the right to free speech and to disagree, the freedom to believe or not in God...all of these can only extend from a worldview that believes that each person has intrinsic value. Naturalism, buddhism, hinduism, islam...none of these would ever have arrived at the Constitution. Only the Judeo/Christian worldview can and did.
Colson is awesome!