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!

Denied the tools for duty

The Associated Press reported:

"I was confused and just shocked," said Spc. Jerry Richard, 27, who works at the center but was not on duty during the shooting. "Overseas you are ready for it. But here you can't even defend yourself."  Soldiers at Fort Hood don't carry weapons unless they are doing training exercises.

Yesterday a 39 year old Psychiatrist, Major Nidal Malik Hassan, executed 11 unarmed American warriors at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas.  Hassan, a Muslim, may have been a frustrated single man.  The Imam from his Mosque told reporters that Hassan complained to him about not having a wife.  Hassan received a poor job performance evaluation from Walter Reed Medical Center in July, just before he transferred to Fort Hood.

The words of Spc. Jerry Richard quoted above haunt me.  He said, "Here you can't even defend yourself."  How many massacres of this kind will America absorb before it halts its freefall into the gun control abyss?

Just one armed individual in close proximity to Hassan would have radically changed the outcome of this rampage.

Instead of creating a society full of responsible armed men prepared to protect innocence we are creating a surveillance society in which we demand that the government guarantee our safety.  That doesn't make any sense at all.  It isn't possible to build a government big enough to protect all 300 million of us all the time.  That should be painfully obvious to everyone by now.

How many more Columbines, Virginia Techs and Fort Hoods will it take to wake us up from our utopia-induced stupor so that we can take personal responsibility for ourselves and those we love.  It has become, of course, impossible to protect yourself in much of the world because of bad thinking about guns.  The liberal idea of ridding the world of guns has actually only kept guns away from the good men who would use them properly.

A perhaps unintended consequence of this bad ideology is that the process of feminization gets a testosterone boost.  Men will always choose coddling over duty, if those are their only two choices.  The problem with the world is that those aren't ever the only two choices. 

Feminists think duty can be feminized.  Men are eager to let them believe that.  It makes life so much more pleasureable ... until the going gets tough.

Then everyone, feminists included, look for the alpha male -- the man of principle who was created to use just the right amount of force, at just the right nanosecond, to secure justice for all.

That man was surely present in the Soldier Readiness Center yesterday.  Our society just made sure he was denied the tools to perform his duty.

A Simple Idea

After nearly two decades of public service on social issues, and two statewide public victories on gay rights, a simple idea is synonymous with my name -- gay rights are wrong in every way. 

The leadership of Stand for Marriage, a creation of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, decided early on that any public discussion of the morality of homosexuality, homosexual behavior, gay rights or domestic partnership (in a critical way) would significantly risk the campaign.  The YES on 1 television ad that ran most frequently on the final weekend of the campaign promised more gay rights and praised domestic partnerships for homosexuality.  And I'm not the only one with concerns about this tactic.  Click here.

The  powers that be knew something I didn't know even before I knew it.  You can't put that ad and Mike Heath in the same campaign.  It just won't work in a liberal state, or so they think.  Did I need to resign to bring about a victory?  Who knows.  We do know that YES on 1 prevailed on Tuesday.

It was my duty to stand on principle.  That is the duty of every man.

Had the Stand for Marriage Coalition allowed me into the campaign they knew that I would fight them every step of the way on these points.

So where does the pro family movement in Maine go from here?

Homosexual marriage is inevitable, and will be created shortly by the courts or another legislative action.

Christians need to stop being politically correct.  Many evangelical pastors emerged as leaders this year.  My prediction is that you will see them fade back into the woodwork now.  You shouldn't let that happen.

Here is the question that is burning in my heart for all the Pastors and Priests in Maine, "Why not give individuals the right to define marriage for themselves if you're going to concede that society can honor sexual promiscuity by other names (domestic partnerships and gay rights)?"

The answer is that there isn't a good reason to protect just the word marriage.  If the church is going to agree with the decoupling of sex and marriage in the society then the end result is entirely predictable.  Sodom and Gomorrah.

Individual passions must not be allowed to dictate social and moral norms.  Social norms must be derived from something more objective, like religion -- in Maine's case, Christianity.

Some of my Catholic friends in Maine tell me that civil law can honor both marriage and homosexuality, as long as homosexuality isn't specifically endorsed.  That is the reasoning behind Maine's clever Domestic Partnership law.  It doesn't specifically ... in the words of the law ... endorse sex outside of marriage.  EVERYONE, however, knows that 99 percent of domestic partners aren't platonic.  While the argument might be fine in theory it obviously fails in practice.

So, the effect of this compromise on public conduct and thinking is obvious.  Sex outside of marriage is fine in society, it's just not kosher for some churches.  It is fascinating to watch the debate now come fully into God's house.  We aren't just having this debate in the so-called public square anymore.  It is fully engaged inside the sanctuary.

Most Christians I know can't make up their mind anymore about the fitness of homosexuals with respect to heaven.  They aren't fit.  I am regularly upbraided by parents of homosexuals who are faithful church goers.  "How dare I judge, etc."  I understand this from people who aren't in the pews.  I find it bewildering coming from those who are in the pews.  I'm one of the only voices left publicly challenging their loved one on the morality of their lifestyle, and they view me as a threat?  This leaves me wondering what they really believe about heaven, hell and homosexuality.

A pastor of a large conservative evangelical church once told me that my presence would be unwelcome because lesbians who occasionally attend wouldn't understand.  To this day I'm left wondering what they wouldn't understand?

The truth of the matter is that they would understand, and that's the problem.  We win people to our side with honey only these days.  We've deliberately forgotten the spare the rod, spoil the child/disipline/judgment theme in Scripture.  Call it selective amnesia.

The future of the pro family movement is all about Christianity.  It is about Christians, Catholic and Protestant, coming together on the basis of shared theological principles.  If we continue to allow politics to shape our movement we will lose the civilization.  I should think that's pretty clear by now.

While I don't usually do this I did it last night.  I watched an hour of the Comedy Channel.  I watched Jon Stewart and the other guy that follows Stewart.  The shows were hilarious, and subtle.  The humor they employed was faith-destroying, and left of center on hot button social issues.  Without the sexual innuendo I don't think they'd have gotten one laugh!  These guys are doing enormous damage to the moral interests and sensibilities of Americans.

The days of innocent slapstick are long gone.  We are sexually serious about our humor, thank you very much.

And, the future of the pro family movement is serious also, for everyone.

I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. -- John 15

Righteousness prevails

There's lots of disappointed people today.  Not just in Maine, but all across America.  Maine was supposed to become the first state to endorse homosexual marriage on a statewide ballot.  It didn't happen, thank God.

It was close, but they've always been close.  Ever since I helped start the debate about using referendums to stop the queer political movement in 1991 its been close.  We realized then that the politicians would be incapable of halting the slide toward the full legal endorsement of sex outside of marriage.  We believed that the people would do the right thing.

In referendum after referendum over nearly twenty years I fought side-by-side with thousands of fellow Mainers and slowed the propagandists and politicians.  Working behind the scenes gay activists still managed to enact all of their agenda except for marriage.  It was gratifying this year to finally see substantial statewide and national groups step up to face this goliath.  I was, however, horrified by the concession proclaimed by Stand for Marriage this past weekend.  They repeated their endorsement of domestic partnerships and gay rights, going so far as to suggest that more rights to protect homosexuality may be in order.

I pray this election result signals that we have turned the corner, and that we are going to listen to our hearts.  Sexual love is made for a man and a woman to enjoy in the context of a life long commitment.  Surely we don't want to build a society where our children and grandchildren are encouraged to invent new perversions to avoid boredom?

The path to sanity is well defined.  We don't need experts to help us define marriage.  We already know it when we see it.  We simply need to see more of a commitment to it in ourselves, and those we love.

Homosexuality has absolutely nothing to do with marriage.  Homosexuality is a sickness.  It's a sin.

We need to stop putting up with it.  There is nothing civil about hiding the truth from those we love.  And the truth about sex outside of marriage is that it hurts, it's bad for us.  We need to avoid it.

We need to choose life over sex.  Sex is for life ... it creates life.  Sex and life must be connected in our thinking.  We come together sexually in the context of marriage to celebrate creation, the creation of a unique individual human life.  It is perilous to disconnect sex from creation.  It is even more perilous to pretend that pleasureable sex should be associated with acts unspeakable.

In the interest of protecting and affirming all of Maine's people, especially our children and grandchildren, we must repeal domestic partnership laws that provide benefits on the basis of homosexuality, we must defund the so-called "civil rights teams" and remove "sexual orientation and gender identity" from the Maine Human Rights Act and the Maine Civil Rights Act.  It would also be prudent to reinstate Maine's anti-sodomy law that was quietly removed from our criminal code in the late 1970s.

We must not stop fighting until Maine's laws are once again just, and equal rights are guaranteed to all Maine citizens on the basis of good conduct, not sinful behavior.  For the sake of our children and grandchildren we must fight this evil.  And we will fight. 

We will never surrender.  There is too much at stake.

Resignation: Count Me Among the Ferocious

On Monday I resigned from the Christian Civic League of Maine. Yesterday I ignored the advice of some media consultants and returned quite a few of the calls I received from the press. I didn't have time to return all the calls. In today's news cycle, which lasts about as long as it takes to walk to the coffee pot, if you don't return the call or email in the same day you've missed your opportunity.

The most repeated question of the day was, "Why now?" Maine is six weeks away from voting on gay rights once again. The press found the timing curious.

I'm not happy with the way the gay rights debate is going. That should be no mystery to anyone who follows me. The frustrations associated with those developments contributed significantly to my reasons for resigning.

Mostly, however, it is the sense Paulie and I have that it is time for us to move on from the League. I have served the ministry most of my adult life. It has been an honor to do it. The League needs a new face. I know that the ministry will choose well. The League is one of Maine's treasures. It will thrive.

It will thrive because it is not, ultimately, possible to cut the umbilical cord that runs between Christianity and the west. Christianity is the mother of the west. Christianity is durable enough to survive the pain of our current ideological struggles while providing life-giving sustenance. The faddish rebellions of our day are nothing more than baby kicks up against the womb's wall.

I will continue to support, in every way I can, the League's ministry going forward. The League's mission is about so much more than gay rights and a political party. Politics has always threatened to reduce the League to only those realities during my tenure. I don't expect that pressure to dissipate anytime soon.

Maine won't survive in the long term without Christianity. There is no such thing as multiculturalism. All that is good and beautiful about the west is directly related to the influence of one man's good news -- Jesus Christ. His gospel has done more to influence our culture than anything else. Thank God for that. His influence remains strong.

Strong or weak He wins in the end. As John wrote of Him, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning." And He will be there in the end. Jesus Christ doesn't speak from the grave. He is alive.

One thing dramatically lacking in our time is anything unmoveable. The Bible is unmoveable because it is the story of Jesus Christ. At the end of the day my faith in Him is the only thing that matters to me.

Applying that to so-called gay rights means understanding that it (gay rights) is simply God's judgment. It is insanity. Ponder Romans 1. My last words to the League at the board meeting on Monday were those of Paul from the last half of Romans. I read them, and offered no comment. They speak for themselves.

I support the leaders of Stand for Marriage. I want them to succeed.

I have never led a campaign on this issue where I have not openly admitted at this point in the campaign that the matter is in God's hands, and that the outcome is likely grim for the good guys. I feel no different this time.

Faithfulness, tradition and conviction have always marked the truly heroic leaders I've had the privilege of working with on this issue down through the years. Style, deceit and ferocity define the other side. Our side is too gentle -- but gentleness is a good thing ... until power threatens to vanquish love and truth. Then it's best to be ferocious because that is all that's left or innocence dies. The image of a thug threatening my wife comes to mind. I'm not going to be gentle, and what is "civil" becomes painfully obvious.

Count me among the ferocious.