Homosexuality: What would Jesus do?

Patricia Ireland, former president of the National Organization of Women, raised what probably sounded like a good question to some recently.

She asked during a debate on the Fox News Channel: "If ... lesbian and gay rights issues were such a serious kind of value, a core value, why did Jesus never talk about them?"

Of course, the answer is that homosexuals have no special rights that distinguish what they do and who they are. They have only the same rights the rest of humanity has. The question should be more appropriately asked of people like Ireland, who pretend to be Christians, while asserting values that are contrary to the Christian faith and the Judeo-Christian tradition.

That was her question. And that is the appropriate answer to the question she asked. But I'm not sure she was asking the right question. Let me see if I can more properly frame the question to help her out.

If the institution of marriage as we know it between one man and one woman is such an important value, a core value of the Christian faith, why did Jesus never talk about it?

The answer to that question, of course, is that He did. He did so explicitly. He defined it clearly. And His definition leaves no room for same-sex unions.

That's what Jesus Himself said about marriage. It's also a very strong statement about the fact that men and women were made for each other. There's no talk here of civil unions. There's no suggestion here of domestic partnerships. There's no hint here that men should fool around with men and that women should fool around with women.

It's a straightforward statement that alone should clarify any misconceptions about what Jesus thought and believed and commanded insofar as sexual unions.

But the Bible and the Christian faith are based on much more than the words spoken by Jesus, who explained that He did not come to overturn the law but to fulfill it. That means the basic commandments of the Hebrew Scriptures didn't change when Jesus came along. And those laws are crystal clear in condemning homosexuality as an abomination in the sight of God – as they are in the inspired teachings of Paul in the New Testament.

Jesus Himself was referring to the law as laid out in Genesis 2:24: "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh."

My point is that people like Patricia Ireland, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton like to pretend they are operating under the same value system that led to Western Civilization, the same value system that resulted in the founding of America, the same value system that was taught by Jesus and the Hebrew prophets before Him.

They are not. They are operating under different values. They are only pretending to have a different interpretation of those values. That is why they are so uncomfortable talking about values. Because they are in constant fear you will find them out – that you will discover they are operating under a completely different worldview.

It doesn't matter to them what Jesus taught. But they know it still matters to enough Americans. And if enough Americans see through their charade, then they can't win elections. And if they can't win elections, they can't impose their different morality on you.

It all comes down to the church vs the state:

What makes a good Christian when it comes to choosing a ruler or can government do the work of God?

What I have read and understood from the Bible is that God and Jesus wants us to help each other by using our own time, treasure and talent and to give from our hearts. Nowhere have I found anything along the lines of “Go out and institute huge bureaucracies that will take money from some people at the point of a sword and give that money to other people as a politician sees fit.”

Our Founding Fathers were Christian and very pious men. They founded this country under strong Judeo-Christian tenets and reflected on their religious beliefs on all their decisions. They wrote nothing into the Constitution of any type of government “aid” to help the poor, children or anyone else on purpose. They wanted a very limited government for good reason. Limited government is the best way to ensure that freedom will be preserved. The Scottish philosopher Alexander Tytler, who lived during the time of the American Revolution and writing of the US Constitution, summed these views:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure.

From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years.

These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."

There are many interesting questions if citizens rely on government to do “God’s Work.”

If a government takes a portion of a man’s wages and does good with it, has the man also done good? If a government takes away a portion of a woman’s property and does evil with it, has the woman also done evil? When a rich man pays more in taxes than a poor person, is he more Godly? If the government then does evil, is he more to blame? A woman works for the government and uses other people’s tax money and does “God Work” with it, is this government woman now a good/Godly woman? If I legally try to avoid paying taxes, does that not make me an “Ungodly” man?

Today, the US government takes nearly 50% of a middle-class person’s paycheck after all taxes are factored in (income taxes, Social Security, sales tax, real estate taxes, gas tax, death taxes, phone taxes, highway tolls, sad etc.). Uncle Sam will spend more money in just this year (2004) than it spent combined between 1787 and 1900 - even after adjusting for inflation. I cringe at those numbers. The Founding Fathers wanted nothing like the tax-consuming monster that we have as a government today. I also think of all the good work that could have be done if people were allowed to keep more of their own money and give it to organizations/people that they believe in their heart are doing God’s work. Maybe it comes down to trust. Will people do the right thing with their own money or must a government take a huge chunk of it to do the “right things?”

Except government rarely does anything right except for those tasks that were explicitly outline in the Constitution as the Founding Father intended. I could cite many examples (such as where would you rather put $10,000 in retirement money - in Social Security or in your own 401k plan?) but the plight of black America illustrates this failure beyond comparison.

In 1965, the US government was going to wipe out poverty by the “Great Society” programs, in which to date over 3.5 trillion dollars has been spent. These federal programs were designed to “help families and children” or “buy votes” depending on your political viewpoint.

At the beginning of the 1960’s, the black out of wedlock birth rate was 22%. In the late 1975 it reached 49% and shot up to 65% in 1989. In some of the largest urban centers of the nation the rate of illegitimacy among blacks today exceeds 80% and averages 69% nationwide. As late as the 1970’s there was still a social stigma attached to a woman who was pregnant outside marriage. Now, government programs have substituted for the father and for black moral leadership. The black family and culture has collapsed (and white families are not that far behind).

Illegitimacy leads directly to poverty, crime and social problems. Out of wedlock children are four times more likely to be poor. They are much more likely to live in high crime areas with no hope of escape. In turn, they are forced to attend dangerous and poor-performing government schools, which directly leads to another generation of poverty.

Traditional black areas of Harlem, Englewood and West Philadelphia in the 1950s were safe working class neighborhoods (even though “poor” by material measures). Women were unafraid to walk at night and children played unmolested in the streets and parks. Today, these are some of the worst crime plagued areas of our nation. Work that was once dignified is now shunned. Welfare does not require recipients to do anything in exchange for their benefits. Many rules actually discourage work or provide benefits that reduce the incentive to find work.

The black abortion rate today is nearly 40%. Pregnancies among black women are twice as likely to end in abortion as pregnancies among white and Hispanic women.

The “Great Society” programs all had good intentions. Unfortunately, their real world result are that they have replaced the traditional/Christian models of family/work with that of what a government bureaucrat thinks it should be.

I could make an excellent argument that if the US government had hired former grand wizards of the KKK to run the “Great Society” programs, and if they had worked every day from 1965 to today without rest, they could have hardly have done better in destroying black America than the “Works of God” that the government has done or is trying to do.

I have visited many countries in which the government “guarantees” that everyone has a job, a place to live, education, health care and cradle to grave “government help” for all children and families. It all sounds great except that the people in these countries are/were miserable. They wanted to escape but were forced by their governments, at the end of a gun, to stay. The “worker’s paradises” of socialist and communist counties are chilling reminders of letting governments do “God’s Work.”

The Bible clearly states that we are to help those in need. The question is “Who should help those in need?” I firmly believe that scripture and the historical evidence strongly support that individuals, private organizations and churches should be the ones doing the heavy lifting. Government help should be the last resort.

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