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An Eight-Fold Agenda
[excerpted from The Six
Pillars of Honest
Politics: The Biblical
Nature of a Level
Playing Field, © 2007
John C. Rankin]
In 1994, I wrote a
diagnosis of the
homosexual-rights
movement, summing up an
eight-fold agenda which
I then discerned. It is
the relentless agenda of
a small core of
homosexual-rights
activists which will
outlast the core of
politically defined
pro-family activists,
unless biblical theology
gains ascendancy. Most
homosexual persons are
not pressing for this
agenda – they are
oftentimes hurting
persons, needing the
love of Christ, or
persons who want merely
to be left alone. But
there is a small core,
even a core within a
shifting core, which
consists of those who
press the agenda with
the help of a willing
culture within
syncretistic churches,
politics, academia and
the education
establishment, the
media, business,
professional disciplines
and the arts. Here is
the agenda:
1.
Remove the
concept of homosexuality
as "sinful," and remove
the concept that
homosexual behavior is
intrinsically unhealthy.
2.
Define homosexual
identity and behavior as
a "normal" and healthy
"variant" within the
plurality of the human
community, and call for
"toleration" of it.
3.
Move from
"toleration" of it as a
"normal variant," to a
full "acceptance" of its
intrinsic nature as
being equal with that of
heterosexuality.
4.
Gain ecclesiastical,
legal and social
"approval" of the
personal and social
"goodness" of
homosexuality, and call
it "gay.”
5.
Translate this
"approval" into
leadership positions –
especially ordination
status in the church and
political office in the
culture.
6.
Redefine
"marriage" to include
"same-sex"
relationships.
7.
Elevate "gay"
relationships to a place
of moral superiority for
the wider culture to
honor and emulate.
8.
Define
"homophobia" as the
cardinal theological and
political "sin" and
remove the First
Amendment liberties of
anyone who disagrees,
including those of
ministers or rabbis who
refuse to perform
same-sex marriages; and
at the extreme, remove
the protection of
unalienable rights for
dissenters to this new
orthodoxy.
Agenda items #1
through #5 are already
deeply infused within
the culture, and items
#6 through #8 continue
to be aggressively
pursued. As I examine
elsewhere, the 2004
Goodridge decision
of the Massachusetts
Supreme Judicial Court
forced same-sex marriage
on the Commonwealth in
deep violation of the
State Constitution.
Namely, they elevated
same-sex marriage to the
status of a
“fundamental” or “basic
civil right,” indeed,
equal to that of an
unalienable right. This
reality almost never
gains comment, but is
the deepest substance of
the decision, and its
greatest threat to civil
life. For if same-sex
marriage is an
unalienable right, what
happens to the
historically preceding
reality of religious
liberty as an
unalienable right? And
religious liberty is the
first freedom from which
the freedoms of speech,
press, assembly and
redress of grievances
follow. This conflict
percolates in an ever
widening capacity when
it comes to the
eight-fold agenda.
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