What the Church Can Learn From the Gay Rights Movement
Tipping Points
Several tipping points in culture have occurred through the arts and entertainment mountain. One tipping point occurred when Ellen DeGeneres kissed Laura Dern in the 1997 episode of Ellen. This event became a tipping point for the gay rights movement. Gays and lesbians have long been prominent in the arts and entertainment worlds, but this event encouraged famous gays and lesbians to come out of the closet. They told their people to get jobs in media, script writing and acting so that their lifestyle would be represented in sitcoms, movies and news. Issues about gay life worked their way into story lines in television, movies and plays. Modern Family is one of the more successful examples of this.
Hollywood films have become one of the primary propaganda machines for their cause, which is designed to legitimize their lifestyle. They present a wholesome view of the lifestyle so that they would be perceived as a discriminated group of people so you would have sympathy for them. Their strategy has worked wonderfully. Our young people have especially bought into this lie.
Public Perception of the Gay Agenda
Seventeen Magazine has been doing a survey about the gay lifestyle for several years. To get an idea how effective the gay rights movement has been with public relations, one only needs to look at this survey of its readers compared to earlier years. Consider their 1991 survey, which revealed that 17 percent of their readers accepted homosexuality as appropriate. However, in their 1999 survey, after eight years of public relations work, the same survey said 54 percent accepted homosexuality as appropriate.
In Pew Research polling in 2001, Americans opposed same-sex marriage by a 57 percent to 35 percent margin. Since then, support for same-sex marriage has steadily grown. Today, a majority of Americans (57 percent) support same-sex marriage, compared with 39 percent who oppose it.
This is clearly further evidence of the success of the gay agenda using the media for their cause and the public’s increased acceptance of an ungodly lifestyle. Gradually even those in the church begin to succumb to public persuasion and pressure and begin to rationalize sin. This has led to an entire Episcopal denomination to not only embrace the lifestyle as acceptable but also to even ordain them as priests. This has spread into parts of the Lutheran church.
The Church Has Lost Its Authority to Speak Into This Area
The problem the church has is we have lost our authority to speak into this area. A recent sitcom illustrated this. A recent show called The Goodwife presented a story about a wedding planner who denied service to a gay couple. A major law firm was trying to determine if they would take the case. They did a mock trial to see what the opposition would do in this situation. They hired another lawyer from another firm to be the prosecuting attorney. In the mock trial the prosecuting attorney questioned the wedding planner in this way:
“Miss Jones, you are refusing service based on your religious beliefs, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Did Jesus say anything about homosexuality?”
“No, but the Bible clearly speaks of it in several places.”
“Did Jesus ever speak of divorce and remarriage?”
“Yes, on at least four occasions he called it sin to divorce and remarry.”
“Have you ever done a marriage for a divorced couple?”
“I suppose I have.”
“Actually, you have conducted two weddings for Christian couples who are divorced. So, what you are saying is your religious ground is selective, at best. I rest my case.”
The judge’s verdict was in favor for the gay couple.
You see, the church has failed so badly in the area of marriage by condoning divorce and remarriage as well as other sins that we have lost our voice. Fatherlessness has contributed to broken families. One survey says that over 50 percent of men who attend church are regular viewers of pornography. You combine this with the Catholic Church scandals and you see why we have lost our authority. This does not change the fact the sin is still sin, but if the church is going to judge homosexuals, it must first judge itself.
How can the church counter the narrative currently being pervaded by the anti-God movement?
First, the answer to all of this is that the church must begin to return to God and establish wholesome families again. We must stand against divorce and remarriage. We must return to purity in men and leadership. A divorce rate of 3 percent would be a good start to reverse the brokenness in families.
Secondly, we must change the narrative in the media and speak the truth about this issue in creative ways. We must engage with the media about this lie that is being propagated and embraced. We must create positive messages in the media and entertainment about God and His love for people. We must create sitcoms and movies about the love of God and powerful stories of redemption.
The gay rights movement is well funded, they are passionate about their cause and they are unified. The church has failed to be any of these things. So, we are trying to fight a battle with no bullets in our spiritual gun.
Perhaps when we do all these things, we can begin to see a shift and a spiritual awakening in our nation.
Os Hillman is author of TGIF Today God Is First and Change Agent. Visit todaygodisfirst.com.
