Posted on 05/20/2003 8:14:33 AM PDT by theoverseer
In four Gospels - including the Sermon on the Mount - Jesus neglected to mention the subject of homosexuality. But that hasn’t stopped a handful of self-appointed leaders of the so-called Religious Right from deciding that it is an issue worth the presidency of the United States. In what the Washington Times described as a "stormy session" last week, the Rev. Lou Sheldon, Paul Weyrich, Gary Bauer and eight other "social conservatives" read the riot act to RNC chairman Marc Racicot for meeting with the "Human Rights Campaign," a group promoting legal protections for homosexuals. This indiscretion, they said, "could put Bush’s entire re-election campaign in jeopardy."
According to the Times’ report by Ralph Hallow, the RNC chairman defended himself by saying, "You people don’t want me to meet with other folks, but I meet with anybody and everybody." To this Gary Bauer retorted, "That can’t be true because you surely would not meet with the leaders of the Ku Klux Klan."
Nice analogy Gary. Way to love thy neighbor.
This demand to quarantine a political enemy might have had more credibility if the target – the Campaign for Human Rights -- were busily burning crosses on social conservatives’ lawns. But they aren’t. Moreover, the fact that it is, after all, crosses the Ku Klux Klan burns, might suggest a little more humility on the part of Christians addressing these issues. Just before the launching of the 2000 presidential campaign, George Bush himself was asked about similarly mean-spirited Republican attacks. His response was that politicians like him weren’t elected to pontificate about other people’s morals and that his own faith admonished him to take the beam out of his own eye before obsessing over the mote in someone else’s.
The real issue here is tolerance of differences in a pluralistic society. Tolerance is different from approval, but it is also different from stigmatizing and shunning those with whom we disagree.
I say this as someone who is well aware that Christians are themselves a persecuted community in liberal America, and as one who has stood up for the rights of Christians like Paul Weyrich and Gary Bauer to have their views, even when I have not agreed with some of their agendas. Not long ago, I went out on a public limb to defend Paul Weyrich when he was under attack by the Washington Post and other predictable sources for a remark he had made that was (reasonably) construed as anti-Semitic. I defended Weyrich because I have known him to be a decent man without malice towards Jews and I did not want to see him condemned for a careless remark. I defended him in order to protest the way in which we have become a less tolerant and more mean-spirited culture than we were.
I have this to say to Paul: A delegation to the chairman of the RNC to demand that he have no dialogue with the members of an organization for human rights is itself intolerant, and serves neither your ends nor ours. You told Racicot, "if the perception is out there that the party has accepted the homosexual agenda, the leaders of the pro-family community will be unable to help turn out the pro-family voters. It won’t matter what we say; people will leave in droves."
This is disingenuous, since you are a community leader and share the attitude you describe. In other words, what you are really saying is that if the mere perception is that the Republican Party has accepted the "homosexual agenda," you will tell your followers to defect with the disastrous consequences that may follow. As a fellow conservative, I do not understand how in good conscience you can do this. Are you prepared to have President Howard Dean or President John Kerry preside over our nation’s security? Do you think a liberal in the White House is going to advance the agendas of social conservatives? What can you be thinking?
In the second place, the very term "homosexual agenda," is an expression of intolerance as well. Since when do all homosexuals think alike? In fact, thirty percent of the gay population voted Republican in the last presidential election. This is a greater percentage than blacks, Hispanics or Jews. Were these homosexuals simply deluded into thinking that George Bush shared their agendas? Or do they perhaps have agendas that are as complex, diverse and separable from their sexuality as women, gun owners or Christians, for that matter?
In your confusion on these matters, you have fallen into the trap set for you by your enemies on the left. It is the left that insists its radical agendas are the agendas of blacks and women and gays. Are you ready to make this concession -- that the left speaks for these groups, for minorities and "the oppressed?" Isn’t it the heart of the conservative argument that liberalism (or, as I would call it, leftism) is bad doctrine for all humanity, not just white Christian males?
If the President’s party – or conservatism itself -- is to prevail in the political wars, it must address the concerns of all Americans and seek to win their hearts and minds. It is conservative values that forge our community and create our coalition, and neither you nor anyone else has - or should have - a monopoly in determining what those values are.
The answer is because some people are fixated on homosexuality and homosexuals. Personally, I don't doubt that many of them have personal issues (closet case, childhood abuse) that contribute to their obsession with other's sexual habits/orientation.
YOU CERTAINLY SEEM TO BE! It's been my experience that people secure in their sexuality could care less about what someone else does. Then again, I'm a GenXer so I have a different perspective than many of the posters on FR.
POST #73 & 43
Yet there are non-christians within the party. So how do you reconcile using the bible as the basis for political ideology? Are non-christians not welcome within the Republican Party? And if they are welcome - must they take on all christian ideology in order to be considered politically viable?
And who then decides what is in fact christian ideology?
The Baptists?
The Methodists?
The Presbyterians?
Pentecostals?
Catholics?
Mormons?
Romans 1: 28 - 32 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;" Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 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.
Let's not forget that nothing fires up the fundraising efforts like an impending crisis (real or imagined).
Newsflash! David Horowitz is Jewish and does not need to quote or believe Christian theology to be a "good" conservative.
This is pure blatant hypocrisy. I am forced to assume that your statement is made by a non-believer because no believing Christian could make such a statement. Jesus didn't need to speak about sexual morality continutally because it was so obviously wrong. There was no debate about the issue. But anyone with the least familiarity with the New Testament is aware that he did mention it many, many times. One poster has already pointed out where it is mentioned in the sermon on the mount. In fact, Jesus held us up to a new and higher standard -- He said that even lustful thoughts in the heart are sinful. Divorce which the Jews allowed he declared to be against the will of God.
Can you honestly claim that Jesus put sodomy on the same level as double parking? He said that even lustful thoughts are sinful, but He was just fine with sodomy? This is self-serving dishonesty of the most reprehensible sort.
-Read this.
-Remove David's links from my web page.
-Never, ever read or listen to him again. Idiot.
Can you honestly claim that Jesus put sodomy on the same level as double parking?
I am somehow reminded of one Mrs. Clinton...
"I don't see how any christian can be a Republican."
No offense intended, but please be careful in assuming what someone else believes, and whether or not those beliefs are acceptable to God. "Judge ye not, lest ye be judged."
Leo Strauss never got elected to any office, but today he is ruling the world. Even his neo-con acolytes never got elected to any office -- they backed the wrong horse, McCain. Yet somehow they still managed to grab control of the reins of power.
Ideas have consequences. One of the worst ideas with the worst consequences is that one should sacrifice your principles in order to get elected. Another terrible idea right up at the top of the list is that societal promotion of homosexuality will lead to anything other than the collapse of our civilization.
If you saw a homosexual across the street, and a battered Samaratan in your path, would you stoop over to help the person, or skip over them to give the homosexual a piece of your mind?
Context. I am not saying that I understand, get, approve of, do not get icky feelings from homosexual acts. I just don't get how people can read the whole new testament, and all they seem to care about are gays.
My argument isn't that Jesus was the emcee at gay raves. My argument is that homosexuality is just one thing out of many. Not the most important, or only thing.
See, this is a fine example of just flat out dishonesty among the very conservative crowd here.
Horowitz didn't even remotely say you should support gay rights. His message is that otracizing and stigmatizing gays and comparing them to NAMBLA and the KKK is probably not a wise thing to do as most Americans don't feel the same invective towards gays as you do and you're likely to make yourselves look like fundamentalist loonies if you do that.
OK .. stop that .. you just made me spit Mtn Dew all over my laptop I'm laughing so hard. I'll be sending you the bill ....
There would be no trouble refuting it if there were any correspondence between same-sex eroticism and reality.There is no truth in same-sex eroticism. It is utterly irrational.This is just too ridiculous to refute.
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