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.
Sorry, but that's not the way I read it. In the article he referred to the gays as merely seeking "civil rights." How can anyone by against civil rights, if that's indeed the issue? Then he says this:
"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."We should recognize the homosexuals as merely seeking "human rights," says Horowitz. And it is "intolerant" to ignore them. Looks like Horowitz did "remotely say" exactly what you claim he did not.
If you want to take a simplistic approach, maybe you could make that case. It's an easy, if misleading conclusion, if tab A fits slot B, that's the way it's supposed to be for everyone. But that's making humans nothing more than biological automatons. Humans, thankfully, have progressed beyond being a mere animal in the biological universe.
From a biological and evolutionary standpoint, it's completely insignificant if 2% (give or take) of the population doesn't procreate. The global population continues to grow.
Thirdly, is rigid homogeneity desirable? I tend to think people are different for a reason. Everyone contributes something to society. Would you really want to go see a Broadway musical produced and directed by Hank the construction foreman?
Only one problem with this... Jesus is God... The elders of Sodom were happy rationalizing their sodomy till the day they were destroyed.. By God -Jesus Christ.
Newsflash! David Horowitz is Jewish and does not need to quote or believe Christian theology to be a "good" conservative.
Madam (I assume because of your screenname): I am very disappointed in your apparent stand on this issue. As a Noachide, I am even more disappointed in your creating the impression that condemnation of homosexuality (shikhvat zakhar) is a uniquely chr*stian position when it was condemned by Judaism for thousands of years before chr*stianity even existed. The whole point of Horowitz' diatribe (which you are defending) was that J*sus, the "gxd" of the chr*stians, did not condemn homosexuality. This "prejudice" of Fundamentalist chr*stians obviously comes from Judaism, which you cite as a defense of Horowitz's position.
Now look what you have done. You have seized on "joesnuffy"'s naive belief that the Nazarene personally zapped Sedom va`Amorah in Seifer Brei'shit and confirmed to him that this is indeed so, since "Jews" don't oppose homosexuality. Now he believes more than ever that Biblical morality is the personal property of chr*stianity and that Jews obviously "missed the boat" two thousand years ago. I suppose you also enjoy this illusion (that all that was puritanical suddenly went into chr*stianity two millenia ago and left mainstream Judaism with only "tolerant" rationalistic morality). Unless you are an extremely ignorant person you know better than this, yet you delight in giving the impression that "Jews support homosexuality" and that opposition to homosexuality is a "chr*stian thing."
Have you ever heard of the Seven Noachide Laws? Do you know what they are? Do you know what they demand? Do you know how they will ultimately triumph? It isn't going to be very "tolerant," I'm afraid.
Lastly, shame on you for defending homosexuality (or at least attacking chr*stians who believe all conservatives should oppose it) while using as a tagline a quotation from a Jewish Sage. What do you suppose that Jewish Sage would think of your attitude towards homosexuality? What do you suppose he (since the Jews were male chauvinist pigs) would say about your debonair dismissal of the Torah as a moral authority? Again, shame on you.
I apologize if I have misconstrued your position, but this is the only post of yours I have read. From it I assumed that you were defending Horowitz' pro-homosexual position based on the fact that he is Jewish and doesn't need to quote "the bible." That sounds an awful lot like someone who thinks "the bible" is a chr*stian book.
Disgusting.
Actually Hank works for me and I can tell you that you would not, I repeat NOT want to see that...
On a similar note: who is going to manage the local Starbucks? Evan may be a little sweet ... but he has an amazing touch with a Latte'.
Don't be deliberately obtuse. Of course there are homosexuals who have sex in parks and bathtubs. Of course there are blacks who love fried chicken. Of course some asians don't drive well.
Just not everybody! Ok? You painted with a broad brush, and I called you on it. Deal with it.
If 100% of gays decided to have public sex, your point would be extremely valid. That is disgusting, immoral, and should be prevented. That is not reality though. If you want to toughen laws against that, I am on your side.
If you mean contributions in the arts, what does that have to do with how they have sex? Absolutely nothing.
How very intolerant of you. Let's tolerate Andy Sullivan and his bareback HIV-positive sodomy, but let's vilify anyone like Remedy who tries to defend traditional morality. That will be the new agenda for conservatives and the Republican party, according to people like you.
Well count me out, for one. And several million others as well. The Republican party will join the ranks of the Conservative party in Canada and the Tory party in England (both virtually extinct) the day that it abandons its base of social conservatives.
Well there is a large minority that would prefer Cher as the national icon. And don't forget about the national holiday status for the "Academy Awards".
Sorry, I think you have a jaundiced eye then. Even after your attempt to explain your interpretation, I still don't see how you've concluded that Horowitz says "support gay rights". I think you're a little taken in by the anti-gay sophistry.
He implied that the agenda of the Log Cabin Republicans and the HRC should have a place in the Republican Party and that Bauer and other Christian conservatives are wrong for opposing that presence.
BUT the agenda of the LCR and HRC is to legalize sodomite aping of Christian marriage and to extend special rights to sodomites.
Tolerance of sodomy in society is one thing: allowing sodomite propagandizing in one's home, the Republican Party, is another.
Quite simply the HRC is telling the RNC: join us in our program of encouraging and promoting sodomy. And Bauer et al. is telling the RNC: do not join them, do not encourage and promote this behavior.
If Horowitz doesn't get that working with the HRC is not tolerance but is approval, he's being obtuse.
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