Banquet's Days are Numbered

Homosexuals hold their annual banquet today at the Holiday Inn by the Bay in Portland.  According to their website they started their crusade in 1984.  I stepped into the ring against them a couple years later.  Back then their favorite euphemism for sexual immorality was "sexual preference."  Over time they morphed their propaganda, and ultimately pushed "sexual orientation" into Maine's laws and culture.  "Orientation" offers a whiff of science ... they can't help themselves, it's an orientation, not a preference.  Poor gays.  We all feel sorry for them.

Can you imagine!?  Living your life crusading as a victim.  Alas, poor souls.

They've devoted all their immoral energies to this crusade all these years and they only have less than a half dozen companies willing to identify with them as heavy hitters.  That must hurt.

What's really sad is that their top sponsor is the University of Maine at Farmington.  They have to know that support from that source is running out.  The University system is in trouble financially.  News this week reveals that they are cutting degree programs and professors.  It will not be possible for the University system to justify ongoing financial support for sexual immorality next year at this time.  People are waking up to the reality of what these folks mean by "equality."  Their days are numbered.  The public is waking up and I'm excited about it.

Frankly, I'm shocked that UMF has gotten away with supporting the "queer" cause up to now.  I suspect it is because the President over there supports this cause.  Mainers have a deep respect for college presidents, and all those in authority.  It is sad when leaders abuse that trust.  The days of public patience with this tomfoolery are coming to an end.

One of the other four big hitters is a credit union.  The Five County Credit Union is a sponsor for some reason.  Now that I'm the President of the American Family Association of Maine I'm considering a boycott aimed at them.  They would seem to me to be a target of opportunity.  Time Warner is also a sponsor.  It is more difficult to target them because there are not many cable and internet service options in Maine.  Who knows, maybe we'll decide to target all five of the big hitters.

I won't do it without contacting the leadership of all the companies beforehand to ask for an explanation of their financial support and a promise that they won't support this cause ever again.  I'll publish that communication on this blog.  Stay tuned.

I'd love to get your input on this idea, and any other ideas you have for making a difference.  Send me an email at afaofmaine@gmail.com

Focus on Dr. Dobson

My favorite people these days have something to do with football.  My buddy in Ohio, Coach Dave Daubenmire, is running for Congress in one of America's most conservative Congressional districts.  He coached football until the prayer police tried to make him stop.  They failed, but he got so disgusted with fearful leaders during the year long fight that he quit ... coaching football.  He kept right on coaching though.  He traded a non-descript cap for his trademark cross hat and took to preaching, and coaching guys like me.  I enjoy his columns published on newswithviews.com.

My new favorite football guy used to play NFL ball.  He's now a preacher also.  The good Reverend Ken Hutcherson penned a doozie of a column the other day.  World Net Daily published it.  He titled it I lost my Focus on the Family.

Hutcherson says he spoke personally with both Jim Daly and Dr. Dobson.  He claims that he's the only one who has spoken to both of them about Dobson's recent departure from the ministry he founded over three decades ago.  I'm sure there are many folks around the world who looked on these developments and would have enjoyed a conversation with both men.  I count myself among them.  Maybe "enjoyed" isn't the right word.  It isn't enjoyable to discuss these developments with anyone, but it is necessary.

I attend a small Nazarene Church in rural Maine.  Dobson was raised by a Nazarene evangelist father.  I'm sure he got his toughness from his dad.  It's no picnic being an evangelist.

Having inherited his dad's grit, as leader of Focus on the Family Dr. Dobson stood up when it was absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to endorse publicly the notion of spanking.  He not only endorsed it, he taught us all how to do it Biblically.  Moreover, Dr. Dobson taught us about discipline, choosing to do the hard thing for the good of others.

Dr. Dobson helped Paulie and I raise three sons who we couldn't be more proud of today.  All three have demonstrated with their actions deep commitments to God, family and country.  Between them there are three combat tours to Iraq with the United States Marines, and work in high levels of our government protecting all of us from terrorists.  And they're just getting started, none of them having crested 25 years of age.  I credit Dr. Dobson's Focus on the Family with providing significant, very significant, guidance to our parenting.

Dr. Dobson is an American hero.  He should be broadcasting from the Focus microphone until the day HE chooses to retire, and not before.  It is beyond belief, what has been done here.  I feel like listeners to Focus on the Family should object to this move and demand that Dr. Dobson be returned to the host chair of Focus on the Family.

His new radio venture is unwise for the movement.  I'm ashamed to call myself an evangelical as I think about this.  Surely we must do better with the war horses of our movement?  Dr. Dobson is in his prime.  God has brought him through so much.  Agree or disagree we need his ideas as host of Focus on the Family, not as the host of some side show.

Dr. Dobson is not to blame here.  He is too much of a gentleman to make Focus look bad.  I honor him for that.  The board of Focus on the Family needs to make a course correction, and invite Dr. Dobson back to the microphone.

Peter LaBarbera, the leader of  Americans for Truth observed:

We also suspect that Focus may be feeling the pull of George Barna’s polling research denigrating “religious right” activism (e.g., Barna Group President David Kinnaman’s and Gabe Lyon’s influential yet painfully shallow book UnChristian) and the appeasing liberal Christian “Emergents” — both of which appeal to younger generations of Christians who eschew the polarizing “culture war.”  In that regard, Focus has a choice: does it follow the worldly culture trends driven by these new generations — who, although they probably are loathe to admit it, are indoctrinated in politically correct,  “gay”-tolerant attitudes? Or does it recommit itself to educating these youth and standing boldly for timeless truths no matter where the culture is headed? (We realize there are many Christians who advocate quitting the cultural war against social evils, but they never have a good answer to this question: what about the hugely funded and powerful Homosexual, Abortion and Porn Lobbies that never quit; do we simply abandon America’s cultural/political landscape to them in a free society?)

If even the obviously Christian Focus on the Family is going to give up the fight for common sense on sexuality then very soon the question will be, "Will anyone be allowed to boldly speak out for Biblical ideas about marriage, family and sexuality?"  Massachusetts lawmakers decided this week to consider jail terms and fines for citizens in their state who shame the public display of sexual sin.

This is not a good sign for Christianity in America.  It's obvious we are losing our courage.  One good way to get it back would be to reverse course with Dr. Dobson, one of the most gutsy men in recent American history, and put him back on the radio.

Just Three Reasons Why

Two institutions and one movement experienced catastrophic moral failures over the past two decades.  This failure created Maine's current extremely toxic cultural climate on so-called "sexual orientation."  One institution is political.  The other two are religious.

Maine's Republican Party and Roman Catholic Church failed Maine people over the past two decades.  Maine's Evangelical Protestant movement held on until 2004, when they also capitulated.  Everything always rises or falls on leadership.  The leaders of these institutions, churches and movements are what failed the people of Maine.  There is no doubt in my mind that Maine would not have any "sexual orientation" laws today if it weren't for compromises at the leadership level.  I've been professionally active at that level since the late 1980s.

No reasonable person believes that the liberal leadership of the death culture is going to stop with their radical redefinition of marriage.  They will press that through later this year, or next year.  There exists no solid reasonable foundation to stop them.  Evangelical and Roman Catholic leadership granted the legitimacy of "gay rights" once again last year.  They did so in a crass political move designed to appeal to couch potatoes who might vote in the November election.  They ran a last minute television ad just before last year's vote on marriage allowing that Maine might need more legal rights for homosexuals and their friends.  Unbelievably, they offered the support of their institutions to these unnamed expansions in immoral rights.

I am left wondering if they meant they would allow the current effort to lock in government protections for cross dressing men to succeed.  Conspicuously absent in the debate over transgender bathrooms here in Maine are leaders from either the Evangelical or Roman Catholic tradition.  The only ones speaking out boldly are activists who tend to embarrass their leadership with passionate prayers in public, and bold public displays of the symbols of their faith, like rosary beads and big black bibles.

A few wonderful folks showed up to a work session in Augusta on the bathroom guidelines.  They contacted the press and made life generally miserable for the five members of the Maine Human Rights Commission, the governmental body that is creating the new bathroom guidelines.  Their efforts paid a rich dividend.  The Commission was forced to put the guidelines out to a public hearing.  That hearing will happen later this year.

Leaders will now have an opportunity to lead on this issue.  The Maine Human Rights Commission is arguing that they are merely doing the will of the people as enacted by law in 2004.  That is the year that homosexual rights finally passed.  Republicans and Roman Catholics sat on the sidelines while Christian (Catholic and Evangelical) activists and the Christian Civic League of Maine attempted another Peoples Veto.  The League nearly pulled it off at the polls a third time.  The relentless propagandizing of liberals finally pushed this evil idea over the top, and homosexual rights became the law of the land.

One Evangelical leader who spoke out in a blog post just before the bathroom guidelines work session suggested that guidelines like these shouldn't concern citizens as much as laws.  Perhaps leaders like this will now step up and work to strip the phrase "sexual orientation" from all Maine's laws?  This is an effort I am eager to support, but only if Christians will unite to make it happen.

It is never too late to do the right thing.  All Maine people must pray (or hope, if you don't have the spiritual muscle to pray) that these institutions will stop pretending that they are bold defenders of the family and marriage.  The upcoming Maine Human Rights Commission PUBLIC hearing on bathroom rules for cross dressers will reveal a lot.

Now it's about bathrooms?!

Remember when certain things were unmentionable.  It wasn't that you couldn't mention them.  You just didn't mention them because it didn't occur to you that you should think about them.  You know, issues like what defines a family and marriage.  Remember the days when there wasn't always emerging discontent over sex?

Now it's not enough for media and political leaders to feed the public a steady diet of "debate" about "gays."  The revolutionaries among us are going to assure that it is safe for boys to compete on girls sports teams, after they spend some time in the girl's locker room ... of course.

I know, I know.  Who am I to judge?  I'm supposed to be a good Christian and love everyone, no matter what they do.  All good Christians love GLBTQI people.  We don't hate.  And maintaining reasonable definitions of right and wrong about sexuality is definitely hateful.

On Monday of this week the Maine Human Rights Commission met in Augusta.  Late last year they met with radical homosexual leaders behind closed doors and cooked up a set of guidelines to assure that confused men and boys have access to women's restrooms and sports teams.  This bizarre activity drew little resistance, mostly because reasonable people find the whole discussion distasteful and weird.  It was also flying under the radar because the Commission was trying to pass the guidelines without a public hearing.

Some stalwart citizens objected and the Commission came to its senses.  They decided to hold a public hearing later this year.

Some Christian leaders stayed away from the work session (a public meeting where only commissioners and staff can speak) arguing that it wasn't important because the Commission is only making rules, not laws.  One leader in particular called on Christians to stay away, and suggested that citizens who showed up were not being politically prudent or thoughtful.

This confused and tragic political landscape exists because the Church is not speaking clearly about sin -- especially in the public arena.  Sex outside of marriage is simply wrong.  All of it, homosexual or otherwise.  No Christian can, in good conscience, support any law, guideline or policy that protects sexual sin.  I would argue that Christians of good will have an obligation to act on their knowledge about family formation, marriage and proper relations between men and women.  We must resist the aggressive politiking of the death culture that upholds the practice of abortion and homosexuality.

I commend Paul Madore and Bob Celeste for showing up on Monday.  Steve Martin brought a small group all the way down from Aroostook County.  These are all fine Maine citizens who deserve our full throated praise for their work on this emotional issue.  God bless you all!