It is undeniable the LGBT movement has grown in acceptance, public opinion, influence, and more recently – in boldness throughout the West. Almost simultaneously, just over fifty years ago Christians in America became less active, visible, and vocal in public while LGBT proponents gladly stepped in. As our passion for truth and biblical morality faded, those fighting against God and Christian values have become more committed and emboldened.
This week: in Illinois, a transgender student was granted access to a public school’s female locker room after filing a civil rights complaint with the school, in Minnesota, a judge ruled that a national check-print company must pay $115,000 and apologize to a transgender man for banning “her” from the women’s bathroom, and the International Olympic Committee has just ruled that transgendered athletes can now compete against the gender with which they identify. Translation: male athletes can compete against women (without even having to undergo “gender reassignment surgery,” which used to be called a sex-change operation).
We might trace this incremental transfer of influence back to the early 1960s when homosexuality as an identity was first recognized. In fact, prior to that time the word “gay” was not used to describe homosexuals, and those who practiced the lifestyle were considered in need of psychological treatment because it was classified as a disorder by the medical profession.
If we only listen to the liberal media, Hollywood, government, and culture today, LGBT rights trump all others. Christianity is belittled, considered abnormal and sadly, the minority are the ones with the loudest voices. Though not all are hostile and agenda-driven, the activists refuse to allow disagreement or dissent any longer. If you do not conform to the takeover, you may be steamrolled, silenced, and if they have their way, exiled.
Political correctness and the powerful LGBT lobby will no longer coexist with religious freedom and practicing Christians; the fact is they never really could. With the help of the Left and progressives in government, the LGBT community has successfully rewritten history to further their cause.
Pastor Gary Gilley of Southern View Chapel stated the LGBT community now demands respect and full acceptance, and homosexuality has evolved from an act or behavior to:
• a thing in itself, classified as a disorder needing treatment for healing/change,
• to an orientation and, thus, a political movement,
• to identity and, thus, a right.
Christians who believe in the Scriptures as their final authority are in a most difficult place. If we live in obedience to written revelation, we cannot accept homosexual behavior as anything less than immorality. Yet, if we speak against the homosexual lifestyle, we are accused of hatred, judgmentalism and homophobia.
Add to this the fact that most Christians have never seriously examined the biblical teachings on homosexuality and issues are now arising that have rarely been seriously debated throughout church history, then we can readily see why the faithful children of God are being squeezed. They find themselves between the immovable Word of God and its clear teachings on all forms of immorality, including homosexuality – and the changing Western culture, which now sees homosexuality as perfectly acceptable and normal, as it does most other forms of immorality.
Obviously, homosexual behavior is not an unforgivable sin nor is it the worst of sins. All forms of sexual sin are serious as they hurt other people, often countless people, but sin offends a holy God. Adultery, abortion, lust, pornography, pedophilia, rape, and coveting are serious sins in God’s eyes. The difference is someone’s natural identity (who a person is) is not the same as their chosen sexual lifestyle (what a person practices).
Though every one of us were created in God’s image, it is important to remember none of us are without sin and we all need a Savior. Sin is any behavior contrary to God’s Law and the very reason Jesus Christ suffered and died.
It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life (1 Timothy 1:15-16).
The marketers of evil claim the battle is over discrimination, equal rights, and “love.” The Bible teaches God is love (1 John 4:8) so what do they mean by love? God cannot contradict His Word. We must remember how important it is to define the terms being used. Enemies of God are using the LGBT movement to normalize homosexuality and transgenderism to squelch Christianity, undermine natural marriage, tear apart the traditional family, and create as much chaos as possible.
Clearly, the LGBT agenda is being implemented with little resistance and we’re witnessing the consequences of our past silence. Where have the nation’s spiritual leaders and people of faith been? Where are concerned parents? The prevailing worldview is now humanism, atheism, and moral relativism; just about anything goes in our ABC culture; anything but Christ.
The following is a very abbreviated historical timeline showing the LGBT progression in America:
1915 – 1930s: Planned Parenthood founder, Marxist, and feminist, Margaret Sanger is celebrated by liberals from Katie Couric to Hillary Clinton. Sanger was known to some as a serial adulterer and coined the term “birth control.” She believed in sex with no consequences, the liberation of women such as wives and mothers, (one of her publications was The Woman Rebel) and promoted eugenics, population control, and the elimination of “inferior” minority races as well as those deemed less fit for society.
Sanger was a huge promoter of adultery and free sexual expression, setting the stage for things such as legal prostitution, Ashley Madison, and Fifty Shades of Grey many years later. Sadly, in a recent report on the state of dating in America, 87% of on-line dating site members said they would have sex before getting married. The survey included professing Christians.
– 1947: Alfred C. Kinsey founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, now known as the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. Some refer to Kinsey as the Father of the “Sexual Revolution” in America, while others refer to him as the most influential bisexual pedophile and child molester in this nation’s history. Kinsey aimed to launch a crusade to undermine traditional sexual morality and to prove that the earlier in life people start to experience sexual pleasure, the better.
Before receiving grants, Kinsey conducted most of his surveys in the attic of his Bloomington, Indiana home. If you consider this horror, he truly inspired the future trend of pornography. Kinsey’s work soon catapulted the bisexual, gay and lesbian movement in America. His reputation is generally protected today by academia, Hollywood, and the elite media even though many critics insist he should have been convicted of child molestation, incest, and pedophilia.
Moreover, his earliest privately conducted studies were not monitored. A pioneer of perversion, the man who basically regarded humans as animals is still respected today in colleges and universities. Hollywood even did a movie on his life and completely whitewashed the truth, portraying him as a misunderstood scientist. There may be no bigger, damaging influence on unhealthy sexuality in America than Alfred Kinsey.
– 1964: After “transitioning” from a man to a woman, activist and businessman Reed Erickson created an educational foundation donating millions of dollars to the gay and transgender cause. Before we continue let’s clarify something: Contrary to pop culture, Hollywood, and the Left; most of us know God created us either male or female and Nature’s laws require a man and a woman to procreate.
But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and the two shall become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” Mark 10:6-9
Therefore, a person’s sex cannot be changed. What is known as “sex-reassignment” surgery is simply a method of accommodating one who chooses to appear physically different. This may be offensive to some, but as one doctor said, “a mutilated male pumped full of estrogen remains just that—a mutilated male pumped full of estrogen.”
If God is right and His Word is true, man cannot “transition” into being a woman. If there is a Creator and we are all uniquely designed, then women cannot become men either.
– 1967: The sexual revolution exploded in the sixties and 1967 was the Summer of Love in San Francisco. One hundred thousand hippies celebrated “free love” and experimented with drugs. During Vietnam, “make love, not war” was the motto and rebelling against authority and sexual expression became the norm. That same year the first gay campus group was formed at Columbia College in New York City.
– Two years later in 1969, Woodstock took place in White Lake, New York during which thirty-two acts performed outdoors in front of nearly 500,000 concert-goers. There were drugs, sex, rock and roll, and lots of mud from long periods of rain. Woodstock marked the peak for hippie counterculture. Their naive ideals of peace, love, tolerance, and unity resonated throughout the country at a time when Americans were divided over politics, race, religion, and war – not unlike today.
– In 1977, Renee Richards (formerly Richard Raskind) sued the U.S. Tennis Association for the right to play professional tennis as a woman and won the case in the New York Supreme Court. Divorced after five years of marriage and father of a son, he began cross dressing in college, later received hormone injections, and eventually had “sex reassignment” surgery. He now regrets having the surgery and discourages others from doing so.
– Activist, Louis Sullivan founded FTM International (Female to Male) in 1986, and was a pioneer of the grassroots movement identifying himself as a “female to male transsexual.” Sullivan influenced the modern understanding of sexual orientation and gender identity as distinct, unrelated concepts. He died of HIV in San Francisco in 1991.
– In 1987, the Gay and Lesbian Caucus of the National Education Association was established.
– 1990: Not many people know the Boy Scouts of America were initially challenged by homosexual James Dale under a “sexual orientation nondiscrimination” law in New Jersey. Ultimately, in 2000, the case found its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the Scouts narrowly won their right to avoid having homosexual scoutmasters and members – only to toss away the fruits of their victory 13 years later by changing their rules under corporate pressure to allow open homosexuals.
– In 2002, the Transgender Law Center was founded “to change law, policy, and attitudes” so that regardless of a person’s gender identity and expression, discrimination would not be an issue. It is a self-proclaimed San Francisco-based “civil rights organization advocating for transgender communities.”
– In 2004, Massachusetts held the first same sex marriage ceremony – the first of its kind to be held in the United States.
– In 2008, Crystal Dixon, an employee of the University of Toledo, was fired after writing a column critical of comparing “homosexual rights” to the noble Black civil rights movement. A black Christian, she argued that those choosing to embrace a homosexual lifestyle are not “civil rights victims.” Dixon is appealing her case to the U.S. Supreme Court. That same year, America’s Top Model reality show featured its first transgender model.
– 2009: The Obama administration wasted no time implementing pro-gay policies. When President Obama was inaugurated, his “civil rights” goals were immediately posted on the official White House website including:
To allow homosexuals to serve openly in the military, repeal “Don’t ask don’t tell,” use the federal government to expand adoptions of children by homosexuals, and encourage the federal government to promote sex-education and contraception in schools.
Protect cross-dressing and transgenderism in the workplace (including schools) through federal law, pass “Employment non-discrimination Act” [EDNA] to prohibit “discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity or expression,” and expand hate crime statutes which includes giving the federal government the power to prosecute those crimes…, repeal the Defense of Marriage Act [DOMA], and push for full civil unions and federal recognition of homosexual couples, plus benefits equal to actual marriage.
– Also in 2009, Chaz Bono announced her transition to the public; in 2010, President Obama boasted the first presidential transgender appointee; and in 2012, the Miss Universe pageant opened competition to transgender contestants.
– In 2012, homosexual activist Floyd Corkins planned to massacre employees of the Family Research Council at their Washington, D.C. headquarters. Corkins targeted FRC based on its mention on the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center’s alleged “hate group” list.
– Jennifer Braly, an Arkansas transgender student fought and won the right to use the ladies’ washroom in 2012, saying the state recognizes him as a woman since he legally changed his name and gender. Even though he did not have surgery to complete the “transition,” Braly said, “I feel like I should be treated equally as a woman because that’s what I’m transitioning into.”
– 2015: Finally, propelled by his enablers, Bruce Jenner became the face of the transgender movement last year as he changed his name to “Caitlyn.” Glamor Magazine named him Woman of the Year and ESPN named him the Arthur Ashe Courage Award winner at the ESPY Awards.
– At Harvard University, the school’s faculty of arts and sciences’ registration tool expanded the number of pronouns students could use to identify as “transgender.” They can now state a preference for “ze, hir, hirs” or “they, them, theirs.” LGBT student groups forced this change “to make students feel more comfortable with their gender identity.” Ohio State University also offered housing for transgender freshman beginning last year.
– In January this year, Allstate produced a video commercial depicting two men reflecting on their “marriage” to each other and their adoption of a baby girl in 2015. With his arm around his male partner, one of the men says about the child: “The second we held her, we knew that she was ours. We’re her dads.” Campbell’s Soup also aired an ad featuring two dads. We can expect many more to hit the airwaves as corporations cave to LGBT pressure.
Do you think it is a coincidence or intentional that you can hardly find a scripted show on prime time television and cable that does not feature at least one friendly, likable, well-adjusted LGBT character? Every year, Hollywood honors LGBT-inclusive entertainment with awards from the Grammy’s, SAG, Golden Globes, and Image Awards nominations. The LGBT movement receives plenty of support from corporations, unions, the media, entertainment industry, and the government.
One of the most disappointing things to see however, is the influence secularism has had on the American church, particularly in the increase of gay ministers and pastors in churches and denominations along with a growing openness to homosexuality. Please note I did not say ‘openness to homosexuals’; we should be loving and compassionate toward anyone struggling with sin. But in the Christian church, we’re seeing the rise of apostasy as gay churches and leadership preach accommodation rather than conviction of sin leading to repentance and salvation.
Forcing humanity to accept sodomy has little to do with homosexual rights. Rather, it is part of a wider campaign to undermine the very fabric of society itself. Without the traditional family structure and God-ordained marriage, none of us would be here, and healthy societies would not have flourished for centuries.
The more recent roll-out of the agenda is promotion of the transgender cause, and there is one question that should be asked: Is surgical mutilation the answer?
Margaret A. Hagen, JD, PhD, is a Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Boston University. Hagen writes:
Most proposed legislation is driven not by medical research or theoretical differences but by the desire to make private or government insurance money available for hormone and surgical “treatment” for nonconformists experiencing psychological distress. The American Psychiatric Association has stated this unambiguously in its DSM-5, the current diagnostic manual.
Pathologizing states of mind—even distress—simply to make insurance money available for attempts to change those states through surgical, medical, and cosmetic alterations to the body is simply not sound science. Neither is it just to the larger community that pays for medical insurance and funds the Affordable Care Act.
One sad, hidden fact is depression rates for transgender individuals is through the roof while the suicide rate in post-surgical patients has been reported to be twenty times higher than in controls matched for birth year and birth sex.
Here is one example of how powerful the LGBT lobby can be: there has been an explosion of controversial legislation known to the lay person as “Bathroom Bills” that completely lack reasonable legal or scientific basis for proposed changes!
The federal Department of Education recently mandated schools provide access for sexually nonconformist students to the toilet and locker room facilities of their choice. Why? They claim that requiring biological males and females to use the facilities appropriate to their biological sex amounts to a violation of rights under Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972.
Astonishingly, the ED mandated that every student who found any action—including speech—of anyone at school offensive is entitled under Title IX to make a complaint of sexual harassment that must be investigated by the school.
Proposed accommodation statutes would require toilet facilities and locker rooms be made available according to the wishes of sexually nonconforming individuals—regardless of the privacy rights and wishes of the other individuals using the same facilities.
Lookout, because once professional institutions like the American Bar Association, American Association of Pediatrics and American Counseling Association adopt pro-LGBT “sexual orientation” codes, these policies become the basis for discriminating against people of faith. Then, what will happen to Christian ministries and non-profits?
How should Christians respond? I believe we can walk and chew gum at the same time; love others and obey the teachings in the Bible while at the same time taking a stand for truth out of sincere concern for their spiritual and physical well-being. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we can avoid the extremes of harshly judging others and being silently apathetic. The latter can lead to accommodation or approval of sin.
God never changes; people do. Fifty years ago, homosexuality was considered a disgraceful, sinful lifestyle which most attempted to hide; to a psychological disorder that needed to be cured, to a normal “alternative” lifestyle, flaunted in public and defiantly daring any to oppose it. Bible-believing Christians are called haters today when the truth is Jesus warned his followers if the world hates us remember that they hated Him first (John 15:18).
Pastor Gary Gilley puts it this way:
The world has changed so rapidly that many of us are getting whiplash. The church has been put in a unique and difficult position by standing for the truth which has been thoroughly rejected by the majority. But in darkness light shines best. May the church not cave to the demands of the many but honor the Lord who has set them free from the bondage of darkness.
Speaking the truth in love often involves confrontation. Authentic faith demands we not stay silent in the face of evil. Finally, our obedience to Christ and our love for others compel us to share the gospel and take appropriate action which includes exposing evil (Eph. 5:11) so that we can be instruments in God’s hands to save as many people as possible.
But if the watchman sees the sword [judgment] coming and does not blow the trumpet and the people are not warned, and a sword comes and takes a person from them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require from the watchman’s hand.’ (Ezekiel 33:6)
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation… and He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5:17-19
ARTICLES & RESOURCES:
Homosexuality: The Most Pressing Issue of Our Times
Transgenderism Has No Basis in Science or Law
Alfred Kinsey and Sexual Anarchy in America
Trouble In Transtopia: Murmurs of Sex Change Regret
GLAAD Timeline: A Look Back at the History of Transgender Visibility
Civil war rolls on over ‘civil right’ to be ‘Caitlyn’
‘Gay Rights’ vs. Religious Liberty: WND Whistleblower Report Documents Victims of Homosexual Agenda
Barack Obama’s Radical LGBT Legacy: An Immoral Transformation of America
Teaching an 8-year old Drag Makeup to ‘Embrace His True Identity’?
Gay Group Demands Christian Churches Be SHUT DOWN for Opposing Same-Sex Marriage
Gender Chaos: The Insanity (and Impossibility) of “Sex Change”
Trans-Species Joins LGBT’s on Alternative Lifestyle Scene
Armed and Dangerous: The Terrorism of the LGBT Radicals
HOMOSEXUALITY: Up-to-date articles with both a biblical and a scientific perspective
Pew Research: a Gay Marriage Timeline
