Free Republic

In parts I and II, I focused on the substance of Christian teachings about marriage and homosexual sex. In this part, I discuss the reasons of theology, politics, and legal strategy that bring Christian sacraments and morals into direct collision with the LGBT-rights movement. As discussed in parts I and II, the arguments for excusing Christians from following Jesus’ and Paul’s teachings on marriage and on homosexual sex are grounded in unsettled science, bad history, and worse theology. The more serious argument among people who are more versed in Christianity is not what is right or wrong as a matter...

Standing against same-sex marriage is not at all like supporting slavery and Jim Crow laws. In part I yesterday, I addressed two of the three most common efforts to undermine the legitimacy of Christian doctrine on marriage and homosexuality. Part II deals with the third. The third major avenue of attack on Christian teachings on same-sex marriage and homosexual sex, and a particular favorite of anti-religious progressives, is to compare Catholics and other Christians who defend the New Testament’s teachings on marriage and sex to the defenders of Jim Crow and American slavery. This argumentum ad Wallace, mainly advanced by...

Norwegian Eurovision star Tooji has come out in scandalous style, releasing a video shot inside an Oslo church in which he has steamy sex with a male priest in front of both altar and shocked congregation. The Bishop of Oslo, Ole Christian Kvarme, on Monday condemned the video as “totally unacceptable” and “a gross misuse of the church”, accusing the video’s producers of misinforming the church about the video’s contents. “My new video Father is Out, and so am I!” Tooji Keshtar, 28, said as he released the video on YouTube on Monday. In the song and video, called the...

Can gays and Christians co-exist in America? As the saying goes, “Can this marriage be saved?” I still hope the answer is yes. But for now, it is very much up in the air—and the answer is no longer in Christians’ hands. This is a provocative thesis on a sensitive topic, one many of us would rather not face. I had long hoped not to return to writing at any length about this issue, especially not when conservatives are winning so many other arguments these days, and this is one that persuades few people who have not already made up...

As a young, openly gay Christian activist, Matthew Vines considered it a victory just to get into a room at a conservative Christian university here with four influential evangelicals who disagreed with him over what the Bible says about homosexuality. He ended up in a polite, heartfelt three-hour debate last month over Scripture passages about topics like celibacy, eunuchs, slavery — and the connections between sex and marriage. “Every single system you have within your body — whether it’s your respiratory system, your excretory system, your muscular system — can be completed as an individual,” said Sean McDowell, a professor...

Canada legalized same-sex “marriage” in 2005, the fourth country in the world to do so. During the rushed public debate that preceded legalization, the Christian and traditional understanding of marriage as the union of a man and a woman had strong support. Polls showed a deep split among Canadians, and the majority (52 percent) were actually against legalization at the time that it occurred.Opponents of same-sex “marriage” were given all kinds of assurances. The preamble to the Civil Marriage Act states that “everyone has the freedom of conscience and religion,” “nothing in this Act affects the guarantee of freedom...

By now, many readers have probably heard about the recent revelation that Josh Duggar, the oldest son of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar of 19 Kids and Counting fame, has admitted to molesting some young girls a decade ago when he was a teenager. The information about this came out recently when a heavily redacted police report from 2006 was released by In Touch Weekly detailing the incidents. Duggar has since apologized for the acts, even as the scandal has grown and the Duggar's television show has been pulled from TLC. I have no interest here in defending Josh Duggar...

After you read Mark Regnerus on that fabricated gay-marriage “study,” click over to The Weekly Standard, where Andrew Ferguson makes an excellent point about the same: You can’t help but suspect that had such a questionable piece of work produced a result unflattering to the cause of “gay equality,” social scientists and journalists would have flogged each of its methodological mistakes. But this assumes that such a study could get published in the first place. Which leads us to what should have been the brightest red flag of all. The study confirms​—​perfectly, exquisitely, suspiciously​—​the picture that gay marriage advocates...

“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: 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.” Romans 1:26,27 (KJV) Vice President Joe Biden say today that the rights of the LGBT people are violated by “religious condemnation”. He is directly referring to Bible verses like the one posted at the top of...

I said it was coming. Many of us did. Two years ago this week the Boy Scouts of America voted to welcome into its ranks “open and avowed” homosexuality (boy-on-boy sexual attraction and behavior), thereby disavowing the “morally straight” Scout Oath its members are sworn to uphold. Shortly thereafter I warned, “In so doing, the [Boy Scouts of America (BSA)] effectively waived the only legal defense it once had to preclude openly homosexual Scout leaders and gender-confused girls from its ranks: religious and moral conviction. It’s only a matter of time until the BSA is forced to capitulate to sexual...

The soul of a bureaucrat Robert Gates has long been surrounded by men in uniform, first as secretary of defense, now as president of the Boy Scouts of America. His time at DoD coincided with the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on homosexual soldiers — a repeal effectively imposed by the courts — and as the leader of the Boy Scouts he is calling for a repeal of that organization’s policy banning homosexual adults from serving as troop leaders or in other leadership roles. Gates, whose likeness appears in Webster’s with the entry for “bureaucrat,” says that...

The health of a democratic polity depends in no small part on the generousness of its civic discourse — that is, opposing sides ought to give one another the benefit of the doubt. If same-sex marriage proponents allowed that same-sex marriage opponents might, just might, be motivated by something other than animal hatred, we might be able to reach solutions that balance the competing interests unavoidably present in any political body. But our discourse is growing increasingly ungenerous. We ought not be surprised when the result is less debate and more dishonesty and coercion. Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/418811/why-gay-marriage-study-was-faked-and-why-we-should-expect-more-it-ian-tuttle

HOMOSEXUALITYWed - 4:29 pm EST Homosexuality , Poll PRINCETON, NJ, May 20, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- For the first time, a majority of Americans say that homosexuals are "born that way." According to the latest Gallup poll, 51 percent of Americans say that people are born gay or lesbian, while only 30 percent say outside factors such as upbringing and environment determine sexual orientation. However, science would not bear that out. No fewer than eight major studies from around the world have found homosexuality is not a genetic condition. Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council says that these numerous, rigorous...

In December, I wrote a post about a groundbreaking new study published in Science,which had profound implications for the gay rights movement. The study’s researchers claimed that a mere 20-minute conversation about the importance of marriage equality could convince same-sex marriage opponents to support gay rights. People who spoke with straight canvassers demonstrated a slight boost in tolerance;those who spoke with gay canvassers demonstrated—and retained—an even more significant boost in support for gay rights.Does that sound too good to be true? It was. The study was co-authored by Donald Green, a professor of political science at Columbia University,and Michael J....

When Judaism demanded that all sexual activity be channeled into marriage, it changed the world. The Torah's prohibition of non-marital sex quite simply made the creation of Western civilization possible. Societies that did not place boundaries around sexuality were stymied in their development. The subsequent dominance of the Western world can largely be attributed to the sexual revolution initiated by Judaism and later carried forward by Christianity. This revolution consisted of forcing the sexual genie into the marital bottle. It ensured that sex no longer dominated society, heightened male-female love and sexuality (and thereby almost alone created the possibility of...

A study purporting to show that people’s views on gay marriage could change simply by meeting gay people has been retracted following revelations that its data was fabricated.The study was published last December in Science, and prior to publication drew a great deal of attention from the American media. Vox, for instance, described the findings in the study as “kind of miraculous.” As it turns out, that’s exactly what they were, because they were apparently made up.According to the study, people from communities hostile to gay marriage could have their opinions shift dramatically after spending just a few minutes speaking...

I didn't envy Ismael Ozanne in the least when he took the podium for his news conference this last Tuesday. The Dane County district attorney looked visibly nervous, dabbing sweat from his face several times over the course of the long, detailed speech that led to his eventual rationale for and decision not to press criminal charges against Madison police officer Matt Kenny in the shooting death of biracial teenager Tony Robinson. Ozanne is himself biracial, his mother a black woman who was involved in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the Freedom Summer of 1964. Ozanne become the first...

The engineer of the death train was a homosexual and a gay activist who “liked several LGBTI pages on Facebook,” a gay news site. “The engineer who was involved in Tuesday night’s Amtrak train crash is Brandon Bostian,” says gaystarnews.com. Interesting now is how the media are equivocating and blaming those old meanies, the Republicans. One site commenter to the outing of this 32 year old engineer says, “the fact is a gay activist is untouchable in the main stream media. Once his sexual preference came out, the story started changing and the blame will go towards needing more money...

Paste your docume(CNSNews.com) - President Barack Obama issued a statement on Saturday indicating that he and First Lady Michelle Obama would commemorate this Sunday as "the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia." In the statement, the preisdent said he is working to "address the specific needs of transgender persons." Here is the president's statement : Michelle and I join our fellow Americans and others around the world in commemorating the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia tomorrow, May 17. We take this opportunity to reaffirm that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights are human rights, to celebrate the dignity...

Was this kid pushed up the ladder to fill some quota?  Merely because he had the right fruit-factor? We already know that Barack Obama has politicized every damn government agency he could find -be it IRS, DHS, or Park Service- utilizing them to inflict his nuttier-than-sqirrel-poop agenda on us all, punish enemies, and reward political/financial supporters... but do you recall Amtrak's recent (silly and funded with your tax dollars)  gay-outreach program...? As if riding the train is somehow different for these people- can't just sit back and enjoy the view like everybody else. As with other valuable voting blocks, it...