Same sex "marriage" vs. religious freedom.

Like my last post, here’s another, good-but-long article that I’ve spent some time trimming down to the bone. It’s too bad that the author doesn’t know the word, “homofascism.” He could have used it in almost every instance where “anti-anti-homosexual” is used.

The red highlighting below is an accurate description of heteroseparatism.

“...But those who advocate homosexual marriage as a way of enlarging the American sphere of liberty are profoundly—and deceptively—misrepresenting their aims. ...”

“...the fundamental aim of those advocating homosexual marriage: it is not at all about giving homosexuals a new freedom to participate in ceremonies that they regard as weddings. It is entirely about denying freedom of public speech to anyone who would criticize such ceremonies or the sexual behaviors such ceremonies legitimize. The muzzle that homosexual activists tried (largely successfully) to put on an outspoken monarch represents only the beginning. Homosexual activists in this country deeply desire to place first thousands, and then millions, of even tighter muzzles on all who disagree with them about the nature of homosexual behavior. They well understand that enactment of laws authorizing homosexual marriage will give them sweeping powers to bind those muzzles very tightly on their fellow citizens. ...”

“...Homosexual activists may plausibly assert that they were advancing the cause of freedom when opposing anti-sodomy laws, even if many Americans view the freedom advanced as morally and even medically problematic. However, when these same activists claim that they are still advancing the cause of freedom in advocating laws that grant same-sex unions the status of marriage, their arguments quickly lose all plausibility. For those trying to enshrine the notion of same-sex “marriage” in law are not primarily trying to enlarge the freedom of homosexuals; they are primarily striving to diminish the freedom of skeptics who would deny that the union of homosexuals is—or can ever be—a legitimate marriage. The aim of those trying to inscribe the novelty of homosexual marriage in law is actually that of making an outlaw out of anyone who would question the moral substance of this new social construct and the sexual behaviors it legitimates. ...”

“...the freedom of individuals in positions of public trust to voice their opposition to homosexual behavior. It is this freedom that homosexual advocates hope to make disappear through enactment of homosexual marriage. Enshrining this radically innovative construct in law will not so much enlarge the sphere of freedom for homosexuals as it will shrink the sphere of freedom—in the workplace, legislative chamber, classroom, mainstream media, civic and student club, and marketplace—for those who in any way find homosexual behavior wanting. ...”

“...The ex-nihilo creation of homosexual marriage as a legal notion serves, above all, to give coercive power to those Justice Antonin Scalia has identified as “homosexual activists . . . [intent on] eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct.” The success of these activists, as Scalia notes, has helped foster an “anti-anti-homosexual culture.”...”

“...use the notion of homosexual marriage to silence their opponents and to drive them from the public square. ...syndicated columnist John Leo has complained that in recent homosexual activism, “a line is being crossed”: “The traditional civic virtue of tolerance (if gays want to live together, it’s their own business) has been replaced with a new ethic requiring approval and endorsement”..."

“...Americans who resist the normalizing of homosexuality are seeing their freedom shrink. ..."

“...the ingenious camouflaging of power with the rhetoric of freedom.”...”

“...Americans have seen more than a few instances in which anti-anti-homosexual power has flexed its muscles in suppressing the freedom of those who dare resist their agenda for normalizing homosexual behavior. That power was manifest in March 2011 when homosexual activists successfully pressured Apple to withdraw from its iTunes store an app developed by an evangelical Christian group that works with individuals trying to overcome homosexual impulses. That power was manifest again a month later when the prominent law firm King & Spalding announced that, despite its previous commitment to doing so, it would not defend the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act...”

“...In 2008, a biology professor at San Jose City College was dismissed for indicating—in answer to a student’s question about how heredity affects sexual orientation—that environment might be a cause of homosexuality. In 2010, Hasting College of Law denied official recognition and funding to the Christian Legal Society as a student organization (the first time it had ever denied a student organization recognition) because the group required officers (not its members) to affirm Christian sexual ethics, including the scriptural proscription against homosexuality. In 2009, a student was expelled from a counseling program at Eastern Michigan State University for refusing to affirm that homosexual behavior is normal and acceptable. In 2005, a student in a counseling program at Missouri State University found that the university had filed a grievance against her for refusing to fulfill a class assignment requiring her to write a letter to the state legislature advocating the legalization of homosexual adoption. And in 2011, a counseling student who dared to voice her opinion in class that homosexual acts are immoral learned that Augusta State University would not let her continue her academic program unless she successfully completed diversity-sensitivity training. The list goes on, with reports of similar anti-anti-homosexual bullying at Washington State University, Georgia Tech University, and the Ohio State University. ...”

“...the university has become the new surrogate church, laying down the moral imperatives guiding judges, policymakers, executives, and media moguls. The outlaws who oppose homosexuality will find no right of sanctuary in this church. Far otherwise. They will find that that new church regards them not only as outlaws but also as dangerous heretics. ...”

“...Outlaw-heretics have reason to fear inquisitorial persecution from the priests in the surrogate church, ... outlaw-heretics have reason to fear that the new priests—for all their professed

commitment to freedom for all—will actually lock them out of the democratic process. ...”

“...Those Americans can also point to election results on ballot initiatives in thirty-one states across the country defining marriage in ways consonant with religious belief, but not in alignment with the progressive homosexual-affirming agenda. ...”

“...silenced and marginalized church-goers actually constitute a majority only makes the process by which they are denied their full democratic liberties all the more insidious. For those in doubt as to how this process works, California has provided a prime illustration: through a costly and bruising electoral fight, defenders of natural marriage passed a measure (Proposition 8) acknowledging marriage as the union of man and woman—only to have a single unelected federal judge, Vaughan Walker, strike down the voter-approved measure because he, a “now-outed” homosexual, disapproved of the moral and religious impulses of those who championed it! In this fashion, a progressive anti-anti-homosexual elite dramatically diminishes the political liberties of those who wish to affirm an understanding of marriage consistent with reality as affirmed by nature, history, biology, reason, as well as religion. It is this kind of assault on religious liberty...”

“...It is precisely that liberty-denying process that elite activists are trying to advance through the legal notion of same-sex marriage. For outlaws, enforcement of the law can mean only punishment—usually loss of freedom. That contraction of freedom is exactly what those advocating same-sex marriage seek: they want to lock those who oppose homosexuality into as small a box as possible. Just how terribly small that box can be is illustrated by the case of the fertility specialist in California who in 2001 declined to artificially inseminate a lesbian, though he referred that woman to a colleague who would perform that service for her. When the doctor, who happened to also be a devout Christian, later lost a discrimination suit filed by the offended lesbian woman, he found no relief upon appeal to the California Supreme Court, which found—unanimously—that this doctor’s religious convictions did not afford him even the very, very minimal freedom of declining to perform a medical procedure that violated his convictions!...”

“...military chaplains must “embrace the new openly homosexual military, resign from service, or face court-martial for their ‘religious, conscience’ objections.”12 All these assaults on religious liberty have occurred in jurisdictions without the legal innovation of same-sex marriage. ...”

“...Catholic Social Services to suspend its handling of adoptions in the Bay State because of its refusal to violate its religious principles by placing children with homosexual couples. ...”

“...This disturbing pattern of hostility to religious freedom should leave little doubt as to the consequences of broader enactment of homosexual marriage.. ...”

“...But Americans may increasingly wonder why this spatial and transcendent liberty and autonomy of self do not extend to those Americans who want to distance themselves from homosexual acts, to stand apart, as it were, from those who engage in such acts. ...”

“...homosexual activists do, in fact, know that advancing their agenda means reducing the liberty of Americans. They hide that reality behind rhetoric of freedom, just as they hide their exclusion of religious Americans from the public square behind rhetoric of inclusion, and their extirpation of every deviation from the approved attitude toward homosexuality behind the rhetoric of diversity. ...”

“...Apparently, homosexual activists do not want anyone to notice that all the arguments that their political allies have made against the decidedly illiberal and dehumanizing logic of genetic determinism in other contexts tell against their reliance upon genetic determinism in advocating restrictions on the liberty of those who would criticize homosexual conduct. ...”

“...The second justification for restricting the freedoms of those who oppose homosexuality is that of asserting that this freedom has no content except that of hatred and bigotry, or that this freedom amounts to nothing but the equivalent of racism...as a group, African Americans—who should be the very first to recognize a fundamental kinship between racial bias and resistance to homosexuality—are actually more resistant to homosexuality than are whites...”

“...George Orwell would not normally be classed as an unthinking exponent of bias. Yet he opposed homosexuality, and as a twenty-first-century critic has remarked, “Orwell’s anti-homosexual position (definitely not ‘homophobia,’ which would suggest irrational fear) flowed naturally from beliefs and values about which he was quite forthcoming.”...”

“...Surprisingly, even the homosexual poet W. H. Auden—famous both for his insistent honesty and his astonishing prosodic talents—said some very negative things about homosexuality. “I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s wrong to be queer,” Auden said. “In the first place, all homosexual acts are acts of envy. ...”

“...Of course, millions of Americans who oppose homosexual acts for religious reasons will not want to simply wait while the elite decide what restrictions to impose on their liberties. They will want to vigorously protest every incursion upon those liberties...their witness for truth will be most effective when it is expressed with empathy and compassion, including especially a merciful compassion for those who are suffering from AIDS or other diseases often found among homosexuals. But devout Americans can express genuine love for homosexuals without accepting or endorsing their sexual behavior. An authentic faith indeed requires both firm opposition to homosexual acts and unfailing love for those who commit such acts. ...”

“...perhaps it is time for sympathetic law-makers to start enacting “conscience clause” protections—comparable to those that protect medical professionals from being compelled to perform abortions—for justices of the peace, fertility doctors, wedding caterers and photographers, and others who will find themselves forced to choose between their careers and their convictions. If they cannot prevent the enactment (often by judicial fiat) of same-sex marriage laws, lawmakers should at least be able to give an opt-out to citizens who object to homosexuality for religious reasons. ...”

Very interesting, full article here.