Why a 'Gay' Activist Columnist at The Washington Times?

As a pro-family conservative and former reporter for The Washington Times, I am one of that newspaper's biggest boosters. To appreciate the thoroughness of the Times and the balance it provides to the liberal Post, one need only travel to another big city and read the shallow and biased fare that passes for "news" and commentary in the local newspaper. Americans owe a debt of gratitude to the Times.

So I was stunned one recent morning to open up the Times and read that it had added a weekly column by Andrew Sullivan to its Friday editorial pages. Sullivan is a gifted essayist and cultural critic, to be sure, but he is also one of the world's most effective propagandists for the homosexual cause. He tirelessly advocates for "gay marriage" - an oxymoron if there ever was one. And he regularly posits a moral equivalence between normal male-female relationships and unnatural homosexual couplings. Worse, he claims to do so as a practicing Catholic.

Like countless fellow "gay" activists, Sullivan wrongly assumes that his homosexual "orientation" is natural and criticizes the Church's age-old Biblical stance that homosexual behavior is sinful. Rather than examine his heart and repent of his own errors, Sullivan - who has AIDS and who was discovered last year to have posted a solicitation on a homosexual "barebacking" (condomless sodomy) Web site - questions the Church and its teachings.

Not surprisingly, Sullivan is using his Friday "Weekly Dish" column in The Washington Times column to advance his favorite cause. In his November 6 column, he hails several "gay" election victories and works in yet another pitch for "gay marriage." He also welcomes the growing homosexual support for Republicans and ends with an appeal to President Bush to support a federal pro-homosexual "law against workplace discrimination" as a means of winning further support. Funny, I recall reading that Sullivan once bucked the "gay" lobby by opposing expansive "gay rights" laws as unnecessary and a potential threat to liberty. It appears that his "gayness" has trumped his "conservatism" once again.

It's a sad commentary on our times that today a person is probably more likely to be fired or disciplined at his job for opposing homosexuality than for being homosexual. Take Eastman Kodak, which imposes a misnamed "diversity" code on its employees - regardless of their religious or moral beliefs. Kodak recently fired a 23-year employee, Rolf Szabo, who bristled at a memo ordering workers to support homosexual coworkers who "come out" as "gay," lesbian, bisexual or "transgendered." Szabo copied his reply, "Please do not send this type of information to me anymore as I find it disgusting and offensive," to all the Kodak employees who had received it, and then refused to issue an apology. The leading "gay" lobby group, Human Rights Campaign, organized a letter-writing campaign in support of Kodak's action.

This is not "tolerance;" it's mandatory groupthink, and the Corporate Thought Police will only get bolder, and meaner, if "conservative" Sullivan gets his way and the federal homosexual bill he is touting - the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) - becomes law. You can bet there would be more Rolf Szabos thrown out on the street under ENDA, all in the name of "gay" tolerance.

There has never been a time when the media - led by The Washington Post and The New York Times - have pushed the pro-homosexual line harder than they do today. The Washington Times is different. It gives voice to traditional viewpoints that so often are shut out by today's journalists, who are like so many lemmings jumping off a moral cliff. Andrew Sullivan has plenty of media outlets with which to hawk "gay marriage" and other misguided homosexual causes. The last thing we need is for a self-described "family" newspaper - "America's newspaper" - to lend its respected pages to his immoral crusade.

when and where have these laws been enforced?

Hundreds rally for '10 Commandments judge'

"They have objected to my behavior as a judge because I reference the moral foundation of the law when we talked about sodomy, when we talked about adultery, when we talked about separation of church and state. I go back to the legal history that we have here in Alabama, our court case precedents, and the foundations of law to show that these things comport with the Scriptures from which we get our moral foundation."

Gay rights organizations in Alabama and Washington, including Equality Begins at Home of Central Alabama, are calling for Moore's resignation, accusing him of using "right-wing rhetoric and far right religious dogma to justify homophobia and execution of homosexuals."

The effort is in response to the Alabama high court's unanimous decision to reject a lesbian mother's child custody petition. Moore wrote a separate concurring opinion, repudiating homosexuality on religious grounds, calling it "abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature, and a violation of the laws of nature and of nature's God."

when and where have these laws been enforced?

Because of the nature of the crime, the penalties for the act of sodomy were often severe. For example, Thomas Jefferson indicated that in his home state of Virginia, "dismemberment" of the offensive organ was the penalty for sodomy. ⁷ In fact, Jefferson himself authored a bill penalizing sodomy by castration. ⁸ The laws of the other states showed similar or even more severe penalties:

That the detestable and abominable vice of buggery [sodomy] . . . shall be from henceforth adjudged felony . . . and that every person being thereof convicted by verdict, confession, or outlawry [unlawful flight to avoid prosecution], shall be hanged by the neck until he or she shall be dead. ⁹ NEW YORK

That if any man shall lie with mankind as he lieth with womankind, both of them have committed abomination; they both shall be put to death. ¹⁰ CONNECTICUT

Sodomy . . . shall be punished by imprisonment at hard labour in the penitentiary during the natural life or lives of the person or persons convicted of th[is] detestable crime. ¹¹ GEORGIA

That if any man shall commit the crime against nature with a man or male child . . . every such offender, being duly convicted thereof in the Supreme Judicial Court, shall be punished by solitary imprisonment for such term not exceeding one year and by confinement afterwards to hard labor for such term not exceeding ten years. ¹² MAINE

That if any person or persons shall commit sodomy . . . he or they so offending or committing any of the said crimes within this province, their counsellors, aiders, comforters, and abettors, being convicted thereof as above said, shall suffer as felons. ¹³ [And] shall forfeit to the Commonwealth all and singular the lands and tenements, goods and chattels, whereof he or she was seized or possessed at the time . . . at the discretion of the court passing the sentence, not exceeding ten years, in the public gaol or house of correction of the county or city in which the offence shall have been committed and be kept at such labor. ¹⁴ PENNSYLVANIA

[T]he detestable and abominable vice of buggery [sodomy] . . . be from henceforth adjudged felony . . . and that the offenders being hereof convicted by verdict, confession, or outlawry [unlawful flight to avoid prosecution], shall suffer such pains of death and losses and penalties of their goods. ¹⁵ SOUTH CAROLINA

That if any man lieth with mankind as he lieth with a woman, they both shall suffer death. ¹⁶ VERMONT

8. Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew A. Lipscomb, editor (Washington, D. C.: Thomas Jefferson M emorial Association, 1904), Vol. I, pp. 226-227, from Jefferson's "For Proportioning Crimes and Punishments."
9. Laws of the State of New-York . . . Since the Revolution (New York: Thomas Greenleaf, 1798), Vol. I, p. 336.
10. The Public Statute Laws of the State of Connecticut (Hartford: Hudson and Goodwin, 1808), Book I, p. 295.
11. A Digest of the Laws of the State of Georgia (Milledgeville: Grantland & Orme, 1822), p. 350.
12. Laws of the State of Maine (Hallowell: Goodale, Glazier & Co., 1822), p. 58.
13. Laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: John Bioren, 1810), Vol. I, p. 113.
14. Collinson Read, An Abridgment of the Laws of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1801), p. 279.
15. Alphabetical Digest of the Public Statute Laws of South-Carolina (Charleston: John Hoff, 1814), Vol. I, p. 99.
16. Statutes of the State of Vermont (Bennington, 1791), p. 74.

I believe in live and let live. I think that most Americans do, also. The hang ups I have with the gay activists is their political agenda and their deafing silence on child predators. A sizeable number of molestations are by gay men. There are even gay activists who are pushing for more than just tolerance, they are advocating acceptance to the point of special minority status. Some gay activists are even driving the agenda of lowering the age of consent.

All in all, the gay activists are largely anti-Christianity. Having a half a dozen or so verses in the Bible that speak against homosexuality is the primary reason. The agenda by these gay acivists here is to neutralize Christian belief and moral implementation. The Christian ethic is the biggest single factor for America being Great and that is what they are attacking.

The Christian ethic is the biggest single factor for America being Great and that is what they are attacking.

Sept. 2, 2000 ,Volume 15, Number 34 WORLD ON THE WEB, Marvin Olasky

...For example, the word homophobia smogged up the air over the Democratic convention in Los Angeles last week, as we learned once again that a man who criticizes homosexuality on biblical grounds is trying to repress his true desire to plant a big sloppy kiss on the dude next door.

...That's why Rabbi Lapin's fearless statement makes sense: "Those of us who venerate freedom, be we Jewish or Christian, be we religious or secularized, have no option but to pray for the health of Christianity in America. No other group possesses both the faith and the numbers sufficient to hold back the ever-encroaching, sometimes sinister, power of the state."

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.