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.
No, I caught at the outset that you wanted to change the subject, using misdirection to avoid the fact that a homosexual agenda exists.
Homosexuals were serial killers (forget that the greatest mass murders we know were heterosexual).
People have the right to have sex with their property animals, but not with people of the same gender (Clintn Suhks).
Anal sex with the same sex is dirty and is an efficient method of spreading disease, remedy (no reference to heterosexual anal sex or oral sex).
The 10th amendment allows states to abridge human rights.
This ignorance never seems to stop.
I'm glad to see you acknowledge the existence of the homosexual agenda. Then again, considering the source, that is someone who doesn't recongize the ramifications of the homosexual agenda on society, I wear your insults with pride.
Well that's really intelligent. Tell me how I'm supposed to tell you what pages I'd like to see from a book I've never looked at. You assume I'm clarivoyant now?
Excuse me, but Free Republic is not a police state. (Note to moderator: please ZOT tpaine.)
In post #632, you say "what are they doing to stop GLSEN and others from teaching gay sex in the schools?"
Then on the very next post, number 633, you say "Nobody is saying they are required to do anything."
Which is it scripter? You seem a bit dischordant. Can't keep up with your own rhetoric?
Expecting a reply from Clint. Will read it later.
If you read the link as you said you did, you would see page numbers listed next to the numbered points in the link. You've commented about the authors summary but you apparently didn't look very closely at the numbered points.
Now that you know what to look for, even though you said you already read the link, what pages would you like scanned for your perusal? There are 62 numbered points. If I scan the context to 5 points will you admit the author accurately represents the original book? How many will it take?
You can scan as much or as little as you like, but it's not going to make your statement, that the author accurately summarized the book, any truer.
Agreed!!!
So you're not interested in knowing whether or not you read the author's intention correctly. Interesting. You really aren't interested in facts. And you wonder why folks like me take up the fight.
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