Most people, most of the time, especially in a democratic society, will tend to go along with what they think most of their peers believe in.
20 years ago one had to beat against the current to be pro-gay. I was recently reading a late-60s John D. MacDonald noval, and the hero casually expressed anti-gay and lesbian attitudes that were utterly unexceptional at the time. Orson Scott Card is presently being boycotted because he expressed much less negative attitudes in print 20 years ago.
A year or two ago we were probably at 50/50. The trend is only in one direction, and as it gets harder to be anti, fewer people will be willing to fess up to such a hateful opinion.
This is, BTW, exactly what happened with regard to racism. Such a belief system is acceptable in very few places in American society today. Which is an example of this dynamic working in a positive way.
The pro-gay groups have succeeded in equating a belief that homosexual activity is sinful with racism, an example of the dynamic working negatively. IMO.
sounds like you might have been reading some Travis McGee. I recently watched the movie Serial. I was struck by how much Hollywood has changed in 35 years. The main characters openly laugh about the gay motorcycle gang, and reference “interior decorator jokes.” The kid says shocking things about his “Gay Bruce” doll. A gay hairdresser is portrayed in a very stereotypical way.
The momentum is frightening, the squishy middle has decided that marriage is a sinking ship and is jumping overboard. Gingrich, Laura Bush, and the Ohio Senator are just the beginning. Anyone who is not sure of where he stands will take the road of less resistance and cross over.
You are right.
Acceptance of homosexuality, especially with regard to homosexual marriage, is being presented as a civil rights issue. It will take blacks fighting against homosexual marriage to break that connection being created in the public mind.
Put simply, we need a lot more black pastors standing up and being willing to publicly say, “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”
One of the few pieces of good news in the general collapse of American public opinion regarding a biblical view of homosexuality is that black churches and even black secular culture, for a wide variety of different reasons, have been less willing to go along with the push to normalize sodomy.
Some of those reasons are really, really bad and cannot be endorsed by Christians who, unlike Rob Bell, actually take the Bible seriously. In secular black and Hispanic culture, and especially in the sports world, sexuality, fornication, and a certain grossly wicked concept of “manliness” are far too often glorified. While that helps make homosexuality unacceptable in a lot of secular black and Hispanic circles, glorification of heterosexual lust by men and encouraging sexual abuse of and voluntary promiscuity by women certainly isn't something good.
Of course, those same problems of glorifying heterosexual lust are also present in the “Dukes of Hazzard” Southern white culture as well. Lust isn't a black or Hispanic problem; it is a human sin problem that affects all races and all cultures, though it may manifest itself in different ways for cultural reasons.
Nevertheless, homosexuality really **IS** worse than run-of-the-mill heterosexual lust.
Romans 1 shows us that the rise of homosexuality in a culture is a warning of God's impending judgment. God gives nations over to wickedness because they abandoned him, and both male and female homosexuality are examples of that.
For those who think I'm being alarmist, go read God's Word in Romans 1:21-33, especially verses 26-27. It really is that simple.
Romans 1:21-33: “21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. 24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. 26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. 28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; 29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.”