DriveThru – Get What You Need

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.

How “inevitable” is the redefinition of marriage?  Read a couple of expert opinions:

Ben Smith says “yes—gay marriage is inevitable” over at Politico.

Maggie Gallagher posted her “Top Eight Reasons Why Gay Marriage Is Not Inevitable” at The Corner on National Review.

Some of you may recall hearing about the plight of parents in Alameda, California, who were told their elementary-age kids have to receive pro-gay lessons provided by the public school district—even if those lessons violate their families’ most deeply held religious convictions.

The parents fought back with a lawsuit, asking the court to make the school district honor their requests to opt children out of the controversial teaching.

But this week, the parents got bad news: Judge Frank Roesch of the Superior Court of California in Alameda County denied their request, giving schools carte blanche to indoctrinate kids against their parents’ wishes.

The logic? The judge determined that “any opt out right” is “outweighed by the policies against discrimination and harassment of students from LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender] families.” 

Translation: State laws and school provisions citing special protections for homosexual characteristics automatically trump parental rights and religious freedoms. (Next step for the parents is to appeal the decision with the help of Pacific Justice Institute.)

Parents, please take note. This represents the latest tactics being used by gay activist groups to undermine your rights. And this specific Alameda case offers some lessons that are worth paying attention to:

1) Gay activists are aggressively pushing so-called anti-bullying or anti-harassment policies for schools that contain specific references to things like “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” Once passed, they use these policies as legal teeth to enforce things like pro-gay curricula for six- and seven-year-olds.

2) Homosexuality teaching is being couched within “tolerance” and “bullying” lessons as a way to skirt parental rights.  Many state and local opt-out policies have wording that can be construed to only apply to subjects like health or sex education. Therefore, gay activists push schools to categorize homosexuality teaching under more general topics like “tolerance,” “bullying prevention” or “family diversity”—and then argue that opt-out provisions do not apply to these topics.

That’s exactly what happened in Alameda. The judge bought the gay-activist and liberal school-attorney arguments—and decided that opt-out provisions in the state education code only apply to subjects formally categorized as “health” instruction. And therefore, he found that parents don’t have the right to opt their kids out of so-called tolerance lessons.

3) When it comes to battles between pro-gay “nondiscrimination” laws and religious freedoms—religious freedoms are increasingly losing out. And this in turn, is creating alarming disrespect for religious viewpoints in public schools. In this case, for instance, attorneys for the Alameda school district felt free to vilify religious parents—listing as evidence against them that “they believe homosexuality is a sin” and accusing them of trying to “avoid having their children be taught respect.” 

This simply isn’t true. People of  faith consider respect for others to be a core tenet of their religious teachings.  And they believe respect  is based on the fact that all people “are created equal” by God.  Respect should not be twisted into an excuse to indoctrinate young children into homosexual  and "transgender" activism.

Those trying to protect man-woman marriage in Maine have repeatedly cited the Massachusetts court decision Parker v. Hurley as a timely warning. In the decision—rendered after gay marriage was legalized in that state–a federal judge denied parents the right to opt elementary-age children out of lessons about same-sex marriage. 

But Maine’s Attorney General, Janet Mills, recently issued a statement brushing aside those warnings because, she claimed, the Parker case didn’t “turn on any provision of state law relating to marriage or education.”

But that’s simply untrue. Let’s examine the facts:

For instance, I wonder if the Attorney General took the time to read the first few paragraphs of the decision.  If so, surely she would have noticed the clear references to “Massachusetts law” granting special protection to “sexual orientation.”  The opinion specifically explained that, because of this law, the “Massachusetts Department of Education has issued standards which encourage instruction for pre-kindergarten through fifth grade students concerning different types of people and families.” (In other words, teaching about homosexuality and same-sex marriage.) So this obviously did “turn on state law”—and keep in mind that Maine also has at least one state law giving special protection to “sexual orientation.”

Furthermore, the Massachusetts judge clearly and repeatedly connected the dots between what is being taught in the classroom and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision, which mandated the legalization of gay marriage. “Students today must be prepared for citizenship in a diverse society. .. As increasingly recognized, one dimension of our nation’s diversity is differences in sexual orientation. In Massachusetts, at least, those differences may result in same-sex marriages,” said the judge [Emphasis added.]

Therefore, the judge concluded that parents cannot opt their kids out of instruction promoting gay marriage because “under the Constitution public schools are entitled to teach anything that is reasonably related to the goals of preparing students to become engaged and productive citizens in our democracy.”

And in Massachusetts those “goals” now include teaching “respect” for homosexuality and gay marriage. “It is reasonable for public educators to teach elementary school students about individuals with different sexual orientations and about various forms of families, including those with same-sex parents…”

Clearly, Maine is in danger of taking a path that leads to almost exactly the same scenario—one that robs parents of their parental rights and religious freedoms in public schools.

On Friday afternoon, I was interviewed by Politico writer Josh Gerstein. He wanted to know why Focus on the Family Action was concerned about the following events: 1) President Obama’s speech to the Human Rights Campaign; 2) President Obama’s nomination of Professor Chai Feldblum to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and 3) Kevin Jennings’ appointment to the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools.

While I appreciate his effort to include our perspective in the article, I was disappointed to see that he left out the main point: For us, this is about religious freedom.

Our top concern regarding all three of these events, I told Mr. Gerstein, is the erosion of religious liberty. Through these recent appointments—and through pledges made to the largest homosexual advocacy group in the nation—President Obama is pandering to activists who want to silence Christians, not only in the work realm, but in public education and political life in general.

This is very frightening to people of faith.

Let’s take the three events one at a time:

President Obama’s speech to the Human Rights Campaign. Among other things, President Obama pledged to eradicate a federal law defending traditional marriage. We need only look to Massachusetts, the first state to legalize full-fledged gay marriage, to understand the threat this poses to both parental rights and religious freedoms. Parents in that state are now being told they can’t exempt their 2^nd graders from lessons about same-sex marriage—even if it conflicts with their most deeply held religious convictions.

The intolerance of same-sex marriage advocates was on display for all to see during the debate over California’s Prop. 8, which added wording to the state constitution defining marriage as only between a man and a woman. Prop. 8 supporters were subjected to vehement blackballing and even physical attacks. Church buildings were defaced and some people lost their jobs because of their stance.

Nomination of Prof. Feldblum: The President also nominated Georgetown law professor Chai Feldblum to serve on a commission that enforces the nation’s federal employment laws. This is disturbing considering that Feldblum has repeatedly stated that when it comes to a conflict between religious liberty and homosexual activists’ goals (or “sexual liberty” as she terms it)—homosexual activists should win most of the time. This is not comforting to many faith-based business owners, such as Christian day-care operators who receive federal grants and don’t want to be forced to promote gay marriage to preschoolers.

Appointment of Kevin Jennings: I also pointed out to Mr. Gerstein that Kevin Jennings has publicly attacked a mainstream, Christian student group—Young Life. Not to mention his 17-year track record of twisting “safe schools” into a tool for pushing a one-sided agenda into public schools that displays no tolerance for Christian or socially conservative points of view.

The Politico article failed to give any coverage of these religious-freedom concerns, focusing instead on a detailed litany of  “civil rights” demands by homosexual activist groups. If you fall for the semantics—“prohibiting workplace discrimination,” “expanding gay rights”—in the article, this all sounds pretty innocuous.

But the untold story is the very real threat these policies pose to religious freedoms, which is made abundantly clear by the public statements of those pushing them.

Like Carrie Prejean, everyone who believes in marriage has a role to play in defending it.

Maggie Gallagher’s “The Carrie Effect: Notes from the Frontlines of the Marriage War” in National Review (subscription required) makes a case for Miss Prejean’s effect on our country’s rather heated discussion about marriage.

Gallagher includes back story in the states where marriage was redefined recently, and outlines the Redefiner Playbook–the shortlist of strategies spun with pocketsful of gay anti-marriage money.

The list includes applying racist motives to one-man, one-woman supporters, intimidation tactics, and donating to state politicians to convince them that there will be no repercussion in the ballot box if they vote to redefine marriage.

Beyond these tactics, Gallagher  describes the  Redefiners as The Borg–”painting truths in broad strokes, hoping to make reality conform to their pictures.”  This is most evident with the repetition from the propaganda to-do list:

1) Tell Americans that gay marriage is inevitable.

2) Repeat #1.

Prejean disrupted the propaganda plan with a courageous statement in support of one-man, one-woman marriage, and that’s the playbook we need to follow.  Marriage supporters should continue to disrupt the broken record. The redefinition of marriage is NOT inevitable.

According to Gallagher, the pressure is intense at the top.  Even prestigious law firms are being intimidated by the big gay money and cultural elites repeating the mantra of inevitability.   So, it’s up to you and me–Joe and Jeanette Q. Public–to take a cue from Carrie, and speak the truth with courage.  Every person has a part to play.