Posted on 05/20/2003 8:14:33 AM PDT by theoverseer
In four Gospels - including the Sermon on the Mount - Jesus neglected to mention the subject of homosexuality. But that hasn’t stopped a handful of self-appointed leaders of the so-called Religious Right from deciding that it is an issue worth the presidency of the United States. In what the Washington Times described as a "stormy session" last week, the Rev. Lou Sheldon, Paul Weyrich, Gary Bauer and eight other "social conservatives" read the riot act to RNC chairman Marc Racicot for meeting with the "Human Rights Campaign," a group promoting legal protections for homosexuals. This indiscretion, they said, "could put Bush’s entire re-election campaign in jeopardy."
According to the Times’ report by Ralph Hallow, the RNC chairman defended himself by saying, "You people don’t want me to meet with other folks, but I meet with anybody and everybody." To this Gary Bauer retorted, "That can’t be true because you surely would not meet with the leaders of the Ku Klux Klan."
Nice analogy Gary. Way to love thy neighbor.
This demand to quarantine a political enemy might have had more credibility if the target – the Campaign for Human Rights -- were busily burning crosses on social conservatives’ lawns. But they aren’t. Moreover, the fact that it is, after all, crosses the Ku Klux Klan burns, might suggest a little more humility on the part of Christians addressing these issues. Just before the launching of the 2000 presidential campaign, George Bush himself was asked about similarly mean-spirited Republican attacks. His response was that politicians like him weren’t elected to pontificate about other people’s morals and that his own faith admonished him to take the beam out of his own eye before obsessing over the mote in someone else’s.
The real issue here is tolerance of differences in a pluralistic society. Tolerance is different from approval, but it is also different from stigmatizing and shunning those with whom we disagree.
I say this as someone who is well aware that Christians are themselves a persecuted community in liberal America, and as one who has stood up for the rights of Christians like Paul Weyrich and Gary Bauer to have their views, even when I have not agreed with some of their agendas. Not long ago, I went out on a public limb to defend Paul Weyrich when he was under attack by the Washington Post and other predictable sources for a remark he had made that was (reasonably) construed as anti-Semitic. I defended Weyrich because I have known him to be a decent man without malice towards Jews and I did not want to see him condemned for a careless remark. I defended him in order to protest the way in which we have become a less tolerant and more mean-spirited culture than we were.
I have this to say to Paul: A delegation to the chairman of the RNC to demand that he have no dialogue with the members of an organization for human rights is itself intolerant, and serves neither your ends nor ours. You told Racicot, "if the perception is out there that the party has accepted the homosexual agenda, the leaders of the pro-family community will be unable to help turn out the pro-family voters. It won’t matter what we say; people will leave in droves."
This is disingenuous, since you are a community leader and share the attitude you describe. In other words, what you are really saying is that if the mere perception is that the Republican Party has accepted the "homosexual agenda," you will tell your followers to defect with the disastrous consequences that may follow. As a fellow conservative, I do not understand how in good conscience you can do this. Are you prepared to have President Howard Dean or President John Kerry preside over our nation’s security? Do you think a liberal in the White House is going to advance the agendas of social conservatives? What can you be thinking?
In the second place, the very term "homosexual agenda," is an expression of intolerance as well. Since when do all homosexuals think alike? In fact, thirty percent of the gay population voted Republican in the last presidential election. This is a greater percentage than blacks, Hispanics or Jews. Were these homosexuals simply deluded into thinking that George Bush shared their agendas? Or do they perhaps have agendas that are as complex, diverse and separable from their sexuality as women, gun owners or Christians, for that matter?
In your confusion on these matters, you have fallen into the trap set for you by your enemies on the left. It is the left that insists its radical agendas are the agendas of blacks and women and gays. Are you ready to make this concession -- that the left speaks for these groups, for minorities and "the oppressed?" Isn’t it the heart of the conservative argument that liberalism (or, as I would call it, leftism) is bad doctrine for all humanity, not just white Christian males?
If the President’s party – or conservatism itself -- is to prevail in the political wars, it must address the concerns of all Americans and seek to win their hearts and minds. It is conservative values that forge our community and create our coalition, and neither you nor anyone else has - or should have - a monopoly in determining what those values are.
Why? Will we be tested on it?
In my opinion the problem today with the separation of church and state is that the church is not holding up its end of the deal. Some feel its ok to try to use religion as a basis for politics.
Perhaps we just need to do away with the 1st Ammd altogether and name the Speaker of the House - 'Lord Cardinal of All the Land' and we can be one happy united people under the same laws and the same God ... at least until the next election ....
Name one.
There is no political action committe supporting the rights of brigands to rob travelling Samaritans. But there is a political movement to legalize homosexual behavior and to encourage prostelyzation of sexual deviancy in the schools. So the context is the political reality of 2003.
I can't see how David Horowitz, by quoting the New Testament, would become some kind of authority on Judaism thereby. Mr. Horowitz was attempting to meet the likes of Bauer on their own intellectual turf, the NT.
There would be little use in quoting Torah to most X-ians, especially those of Bauer's ilk, as most them rarely ever read it and have publically stated in their doctrinal statements that J-sus replaced Torah with "grace", even when at the same time, they claim that J-sus himself is the creator of the universe and gave Torah to the Jews--the same Torah they now feel is largely abrogated by J-sus' death on the cross.
They can't have it both ways, either Torah, with its condemnations of homosexual and other behaviours are binding or not. Either the Torah "high days" and the Sabbath are important or they are not.
I find that most x-ians splits hairs with the Torah when it suits them (when they bother to read it). You can't say that the Torah is right about homosexual behaviour and wrong about the "high days" and be intellectually consistent.
Just like the "fast rise" of Islam in this country. The figures they quote are, basically, contrived lies.
Yes, and that is why repealing things like sodomy laws doesn't mean the behavior in question is being condoned, let alone embraced. It means its none of the government's business.The best way to find out what their real goals are is to talk to them, hence the meeting. If they want special treatment, then of course the GOP can say they aren't going to support that.This is true, and if all this gay group wants is for the governmnent to leave gays alone, then there is no reason to object to this meeting. But what are the chances of that? More likely they want special treatment by the government, which is where a problem arises
The moralistas are in a tizzy because they even talked to them.
-Eric
Exactly WHO was spreading the idea that the RNC was going to support the "gay agenda?" I don't think anyone got that idea from the RNC.
It seems to me that the idea came from the Human Rights group (whose mission, as I said, was to stir up trouble) and from Bauer and his allies, who took the bait and started ranting to their donors.
Yep, just like blacks have an agenda to eat fried chicken and collect welfare.
Just like asians have an agenda to drive poorly.
See all gays all want public sex in parks. I have heard them talk in fact. They said, first let's go trick George Bush into talking with us, then park sex is next. They took a poll. 100% of gays are in favor of this agenda. They also wanted Mauve as the national color, Joan Crawford as the national icon, and Somewhere over the rainbow as the national anthem.
Then proceed to and read every word in these links:
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