RICHMOND, Va. (BP)–Have you been listening to the homosexual couples around the country asking why they shouldn’t be allowed to marry? Have you noticed how few answers to that question are being reported in the mass media?
One reason, of course, is that the major media have abandoned their responsibilities as impartial reporters and made themselves advocates for the cause of “gay liberation.”
But the main reason you’re not hearing a convincing reply is that so many Americans — even many Christians — actually believe homosexuality is a legitimate “alternative lifestyle choice.”
That’s just not true, though many regular folks are afraid to say it for fear of being labeled a “homophobe.”
The propaganda campaign to “normalize” homosexuality began in the early 1970s, when homosexual psychiatrists finally convinced the American Psychiatric Association to revise the manual used to diagnose mental disorders. The APA changed the diagnostic criteria to say that a person with homosexual feelings didn’t have a disorder unless those feelings distressed the person or prevented him or her from functioning socially.
In succeeding years, the APA gradually edged toward removing homosexuality from the manual entirely. Once that was done, it was only a matter of time before governments were convinced to repeal or quit enforcing sodomy laws. The “gay” community also has waged an effective propaganda campaign to portray homosexuals as just the boy or girl next door.
Some Americans still understand, however, that homosexual feelings are not normal, no more than sexual feelings for a child or an animal. Homosexuality is a mental illness, a disorientation with complex roots, often in painful childhood experiences.
While a person may not be at fault for having such feelings, homosexual activity is sinful because it involves a choice to reject God’s plain intent in creation. The Apostle Paul links homosexuality to a person’s choice to worship the creature, rather than the Creator (Romans 1:20-32). Genesis 1:27-28 says God created mankind male and female and told them to “be fruitful and multiply.” Even schoolchildren know male and female bodies were designed to work together for the purpose of reproduction.
You won’t hear this on the evening news, but it is a crucial issue — and one on which Christians can no longer afford to be silent.
The U.S. Supreme Court says the individual’s “right to privacy” includes the right to define who he is and the freedom to live according to that self-definition. It’s a dangerous belief.
In Roe v. Wade, it got us abortion on demand, which has cost us the lives of millions of unborn children — with horrible physical, psychological and spiritual consequences for their mothers. In Lawrence v. Texas, it got us a federal override of state laws prohibiting sodomy. And with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, it got us a court-ordered right to homosexual marriage, a move that threatens to spread rapidly across the country.
That idea — that each individual is free to live out his own self-definition — also will eventually get us pedophile liberation. Indeed, that process already has begun. Activists are pressing to lower the age of consent in the United States like it has been in Europe. The mass media are busy turning girls and boys into sex objects at ever-younger ages. And the American Psychiatric Association already has revised its diagnostic manual to say that pedophile feelings aren’t a mental disorder unless the feelings distress the person or prevent him from functioning socially. Sound familiar?
We are not homophobes. We simply believe that God had the right idea when he created mankind male and female. We recognize homosexual feelings for the psychiatric disorder they are. We believe God desires wholeness for people who have homosexual feelings. We believe Jesus has the power to deliver any of us from the power of any sin. We believe our responsibility is to reach out in love to everyone who is lost and hurting.
We also believe society must not award special rights or privileges on the basis of a psychiatric disorder. Legalizing homosexual civil unions or marriages would be a serious mistake that would legitimize sexual dysfunction and eventually leave our society with no reason for prohibiting marriages between multiple partners or even with children.
Christians too often are silent when they need to be speaking the truth in love, but great numbers of us need to have the courage to tell the truth about the emperor’s new, rainbow-colored clothes. If you don’t want America to make a serious mistake, you must act now to tell your local, county, state and national lawmakers that you will not accept homosexual marriage in any form.
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Mark Kelly is the author of “Proof Beyond Reasonable Doubt: The End of Christian Apologetics,” available only at kainospress.com.
