DriveThru – Get What You Need

On USA Today’s “Faith and Reason” blog, Betty Klinck reports on a campaign backed by numerous powerful and high profile homosexual and “transgender” rights groups.  The goal?  To persuade Christian church leaders and laity to take action on political issues so homosexuality will be normalized and affirmed in every area of society.

According to the “Believe Out Loud” website, this propaganda push is a

“multi-year and multi-tiered social marketing campaign to influence the attitudes, beliefs, and eventually governing policies of mainline Protestant clergy to welcome LGBT individuals into their fold.”

Don’t get me wrong, it would be one thing if this campaign were merely about the well-meaning and long-overdue “welcome” of people who experience same-sex attraction and gender incongruity. Those of us who hold a biblically orthodox view of human sexuality agree that all should be welcome in Christ’s church – regardless of our struggles or background.

But that’s a far cry from what “Believe Out Loud” is pushing.  They’ve said it’s not enough to accept, or even welcome and affirm. No, they’re demanding that Christian churches honor and openly celebrate a view of human sexuality which is clearly out of line with God’s created intent.

To achieve this goal, “Believe Out Loud” offers talking points and detailed “meaningful personal actions” aimed at clergy and lay leaders so they can convince those under their spiritual care that revisionist theology is biblical.  And, so they can encourage their followers to participate in efforts to put pro-LGBT social policies into law.

Through these resources, a well-funded, well-packaged and breathtakingly deceptive revision of Scripture is being pedaled like snake oil to many who trust in the spiritual authority of their clergy and lay leaders. By casting doubt on God’s Word, these wolves in sheep’s clothing put both feet and money to what is ultimately a secular political campaign – one that would normally have liberals howling for the separation of church and state.

But the most tragic aspect of this campaign is the spiritual toll.  By invoking themes like social justice to promote gay and “transgender” equality, God’s own definition of social justice is completely ignored.

True biblical social justice results in bringing God’s righteousness and order to bear in every arena of the culture.  If we really want to see social justice implemented in our churches, we must center it around speaking God’s truth in love about His purposes for sexuality, marriage and family.

The church does no favors to those who self-identify as gay or “transgender” by capitulating to the pro-homosexual culture and altering biblical truth on a topic as fundamental as how we bear His image as male and female.

By adopting this revisionist view, the church withholds from LGBT people the opportunity to repent of this particular area of sin and place it under the lordship of Christ. In the end, this denies people we love the fullness of life that comes with walking in obedience to God.  Do we really want to deny the blessings, freedom and peace that come with His forgiveness, grace, mercy, compassion and love?

Believers beware: the message of “Believe Out Loud” is one with grave and eternal consequences. In separating the wheat from the tares, it points to the time foretold in Scripture when even the elect might be deceived – with people throwing off sound doctrine and, instead, gathering around themselves teachers who tell them what their ears want to hear.  Knowing this, let’s be those who correctly “examine the Scriptures” to make sure what we’re being taught is true.

Proponents of same-sex “marriage” have gone to great lengths to try and convince Americans that gay relationships are fundamentally no different than heterosexual relationships – and therefore gay “marriages” are no different than straight marriages.

However, a recent story in The New York Times highlighting the prevalence of “open” relationships among homosexual couples – “Many Successful Gay Marriages Share an Open Secret” – pulls back the curtain and exposes the gay “marriage” wizard for who and what he is – a fraud.

Here, we learn that a new study from San Francisco State University (SFSU) due out next month will reveal that “open relationships” are common among gay men and lesbians in the Bay area – to the tune of 50% of the gay male couples surveyed. And while gay activists have long claimed that societal “homophobia” is what drives them to be promiscuous, this argument is entirely undermined by the fact that this survey takes place in one of the most liberal and gay-affirming places in America – San Francisco.

Couple this with Joy Behar’s recent comments on “The View” about monogamy being “too much trouble” for gays, and it would seem that even pro-gay liberals can see that there’s a fundamental difference in sexual mores between homosexual and heterosexual relationships.

Of course, this dirty little secret is not news to anybody who knows this community well. Before I walked away from homosexuality myself, I lived as an out and proud gay man for well over a decade. While I had hundreds of gay friends around the world, I never knew of a single gay male couple in a long-term relationship that was monogamous. Eventually each relationship became “open” to one degree or another – which seemed to be the only way the relationships could endure. I even remember seeing threesomes and other “open” couples go forward to receive communion together on a weekly basis at the gay-affirming church I attended.

While we await details from this new SFSU survey, it’s not unreasonable to surmise that the study will echo previous research on gay relationships indicating high levels of sexual infidelity. For example, in 1984, gay researchers McWhirter and Mattison studied 156 gay couples and found a 100% infidelity rate after 5 years. They concluded that non-monogamy was the norm in the gay community.

More recently, in 2003, a Canadian study titled “Relationship Innovation in Male Couples,” revealed that three-quarters of Canadian gay men in relationships lasting longer than one year are not monogamous. Here, the openly gay professor conducting the study concluded that “gay culture allows men to explore different, more successful, forms of relationships besides the monogamy coveted by heterosexuals.”

People who self-identify as gay are perfectly free to forge relationships on their own terms. They may even choose to justify this openness as somehow aiding in the establishment of stronger, longer-lasting, and more “highly evolved” partnerships.

But to say that these relationships are the same – and then to use this claim as a basis to redefine marriage away from the natural definition of.one man-one woman is deceptive.

Fidelity and monogamy may be “too much trouble” for a significant percentage of people in the gay community, but they’re central features of heterosexual marriage.

In the nonsensical and unrelenting international push by gay and “transgender” activists to convince the world that somehow biological sex can be “changed” but sexual orientation can’t, we learn that the national Congress of Argentina has named a male-to-female “transsexual” as their Woman of the Year.

And to think that out of the approximately 15.6 million Argentine women over the age of fifteen, not a single female could be found spanning 23 provinces and a distance of 2,400 miles from north to south who deserves national recognition as “Woman of the Year.”  Instead, a biological male is chosen.

What a slap in the face this must be for the real women of that great South American country.

While it’s increasingly easy to fool individuals, GLBT activists, mental health professionals, and now, national legislatures that biological sex can be changed, it’s never nice to fool Mother Nature. 

The fact of the matter is that no matter how many ongoing hormone treatments and mutilating surgeries one undergoes, biological sex simply can not be changed, reassigned or “transitioned.” And barring the extremely remote possibility that “Marcela” suffers from a Disorder of Sexual Development – intersexuality – this gentleman was, is, and always will be male.

While one can readily sympathize with the decades of pain, confusion and social isolation that “Marcela” has no doubt experienced in his gender identity struggle, as Christians we are called to speak the truth in love and compassion.

In this case, the truth is that gay and “transgender” activists are asking society to jettison the objective reality of biological sex in favor of the subjective feelings and self-identification of individuals who are in the throes of what is arguably a recognizable and treatable mental condition – Gender Identity Disorder.

Indeed, one of the leading experts in sex reassignment surgery from Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Paul McHugh, notes that “to provide a surgical alteration to the body of these unfortunate people was to collaborate with a mental disorder rather than to treat it.”

In short, we do gender-confused individuals no favors when we indulge their confusion and make ways through hormone treatments and unnecessary surgeries to irreversibly cement them in their condition, which, according to McHugh leaves them no happier than they were before.

The movement promoting the normalization of “transgenderism” radically redefines the clearly articulated vision for the sexes found in the Bible. Significantly, the image we humans bear of God on this planet as male and female mysteriously and gloriously reflects who God is.

Just as Jesus went out of His way to minister to the outcasts of society, we are called to speak God’s truth on sex and sexuality in grace and compassion – sharing the love of God embodied in the Gospel message of Christ in humility and service. And we are called to lift up those who struggle with their gender identity in prayer – beseeching the Holy Spirit to bring about conviction, healing and transformation.

We’re crying for you, Argentina.

Shifting from penguins, yet another media story focusing on purported homosexuality in the animal kingdom has surfaced – this time involving vultures in the Holy Land.

While it’s tempting to revisit the topic of “gay” penguins, we’ve already covered that base here.

Instead, what’s fascinating about this story – reported in Ha’Aretz from Israel and Fox News – is the unmistakably pro-gay media bias.

Specifically, both stories speak about Dashik and Yehuda – two male Griffon vultures – as having been a “gay vulture couple.” While Ha’Aretz offers details going back ten years, in neither story is there an explicit recognition that this “couple” is past tense and that there has quite evidently been a shift in the respective sexual orientations of these males – who have subsequently dated, mated and procreated with female vultures.

Indeed, this ex-gay perspective is conveniently ignored – lest the obvious get in the way of promoting the politically correct view that homosexuality is innate and unchangeable.

Even more striking is the portrayal by Fox News that Dashik and Yehuda had previously “fathered” a chick together – as if it were possible for two males, of any species, to physiologically reproduce. However, buried in the details of the Ha’aretz piece we see that Dashik and Yehuda were part of a program to reestablish their dwindling aviary species in Israel. Zoo keepers gave them an artificial egg some years ago to care for – one that was later replaced by a live chick with the apparent goal of training Dashik and Yehuda to nurture it.

Beyond this, Fox characterizes the breakup of Dashik and Yehuda as two gay males who have “gone back into the closet.” The implication here is that these carrion creatures are suppressing “who they really are” and “living in denial” – sentiments that align with invective hurled by gay activists at those today who choose to walk away from homosexuality and instead steward their sexuality in alignment with their values and faith.

The assumption reflected by these media outlets is known as the “essentialist” theory on homosexuality – a view which says that humans (and animals, apparently) are, somehow, at their essence, homosexual. Never mind that valid and reliable evidence to support this bias-driven theory continues to elude researchers.

First there was Silo at the Central Park Zoo in New York. In 2005, he left his partner, Roy, and took up with a female penguin named Scrappy.

Now the August 2009 issue of The Advocate reports that Harry and Pepper – a “gay penguin couple” of six years – have split. Apparently, Harry’s fast-approaching seven-year-itch involved a widowed penguin named Linda.

So here we have another “ex-gay” penguin on our hands – and this time in San Francisco of all places.

What a blow this must be for pro-gay advocates who often attempt to justify what they see as the innate naturalness and morality of human homosexual behavior by pointing to examples of “homosexuality” in the animal kingdom – and then interpreting these behaviors through the lens of human experience, perceptions and desire.

And as these gay advocates psychologically superimpose their wishful thinking upon these unwitting waddling wonders – penguin pawns in a politically correct propaganda machine – they choose to ignore an Antarctic-sized mountain of considerations that puts a frozen chill on their claims:

Like the fact that human behaviors – particularly in the realm of sexual attraction, expression and identity – are known to be much more complex than animal sexuality.

That humans pair-bond and develop romantic sensibilities, rather than simply responding on a physiological level to mating calls and sex odors.

That humans solidify their sexual orientation and gender identity through psychological bonding experiences – particularly with same-sex parents and peers.

That – compared to humans – scientists know very little about what function same-sex sexual behavior serves for any animal species.

That animals don’t have recreational sex.

That animals primarily act out of instinct – responding to aggression, fear, needs for dominance, etc. – whereas humans are uniquely gifted among all earthly creation to function beyond our instinctual limitations as the sole image bearers of God the Creator.

That just because something is doesn’t mean it ought to be. Indeed, animals are regularly known to eat their own eggs, vomit and feces; to kill their young, their old and their siblings; and to engage in incest. Are we to understand that all of these animal behaviors are moral for humans as well?

But if gay advocates insist on deriving lessons about human traits from animal behavior, then let’s do it. And let’s use our penguin brothers as examples that human homosexuals can and do change their sexual orientation. After all, Silo and Harry have walked away from their homosexuality. And so can we.