Why Is This Extra Right Needed?
It was a little disconcerting that the Trump administration announced last week that it would honor Obama’s executive order for LGBTQ workplace protections. Homosexuals are covered by the same constitutional rights and nondiscrimination laws as every other American. Why is this “extra right” needed, since all Americans are protected under these laws?
Homosexual behavior is a conduct—an activity, not an identity. Over the past half-century, homosexuals have been adept at redefining terms like behavior and conduct as identity, and homosexual marriage as marriage equality.
Marriage between a man and a woman is a fundamental pillar of society. God’s design since creation (Gen. 1-2) requires a male and a female for procreation.
Same-sex advocates in the 20th century pressed for “libertarian acceptance” of their conduct: “Oblige us to live our lives in the privacy of our homes” was their refrain. But having gained “libertarian acceptance” over the last 25-50 years, homosexuals now demand a “totalitarian” position: “Christian bakers, Christian photographers and Christian retreat centers are required to take part in our weddings or be bankrupted.” Kentucky clerk Kim Davis in 2015 was introduced to the next chapter, fascism: “Christians must condone our wedding plans and ceremonies or spend time in jail.”
So let’s be clear. No one, not a 5-4 decision from the U.S. Supreme Court (or even a unanimous decision!), can change the definition of marriage. Only God can do that.
Solomon offered a rationale for answering folly put forth in public policy: “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit” (Prov. 26:5).
Jewish biblical scholar Michael V. Fox writes: “The wise person must expose the fool’s distortions to serve his own interests at the expense of the community and must not silently accept it and thereby contribute to establishing his topsy-turvy world against the rule of God.”
President Obama’s flirtation with syncretism and “social engineering” on a nation established on Judeo-Christian bedrock was a disaster.
“And such is the nature of sin, the spiritual poison of the soul; enter where it will, it creeps from one member of the body to another, and from the body to the soul, till it has infected the whole man; and from man to man, till the whole family; and stays not there, but runs like a wildfire, from family to family, till it has poisoned a whole town, and so a whole country, and a whole kingdom.”—William Crashaw, The Parable of Poyson (1618)
President Trump announced last May, “I think that local communities and states should make the decision. And I feel very strongly about that. The federal government should not be involved.” He was referring to the sweeping decree by Emperor Obama that all public schools, from kindergarten up, allow children to use the bathroom and changing room in which they feel most comfortable. President Trump should make good on his promise and leave such decisions in the hands of local communities.
Spiritually, we are made for eternity. This present life is only the introductory piece of our eternal existence. God established that the cross is the basis of all blessing, and individuals or nations that violate His established order do so at their own peril. Sin must be a hideous thing to God if such a sacrifice was required for its atonement.
As Dr. Gary Miller has put it, the hard part in discussing homosexuality in the public square is setting the standard in the macro—that is, “establishing order in the public square by following and obeying God’s design for life”—while at the same time loving people in the micro, “establishing personal relationships with broken people, by loving and investing in them regardless if they follow God’s design for their lives.”
“The church, individually and corporately, faces its greatest challenge when called upon to do the best of things in the worst of times and to respond in love to those who treat us in the worst of ways,” he said.
“Most broken people see the church in the macro. It appears to them to be a loud, threatening train heading toward their personal picnic they have set up on the tracks. Screaming insults at them doesn’t help get them off the tracks and on board the train. Loving them in the micro is hard because they hear the faintest warning cry as a curse. Praying for the Rachel Maddows of the world may very well improve their hearing. It will indeed change the heart of the one calling out their name to God to save them.”
As pastors and pews move into the public square to re-establish a biblically based culture, wisdom and love will be required. As Charles Spurgeon once wrote: “The nail of reproof must be well oiled in kindness before it is driven home.”
All men are created in the image of God.
And thank God, many Gideons and Rahabs are beginning to stand.
