Or Else…

SERIOUS QUESTIONS:

1. Should a private dating service be forced against their conscience to facilitate homosexual relationships? This happened to E-Harmony in 2008 under the prospect of huge court costs (much of which they had to pay anyhow). Homosexuals are not hindered from starting dating services and many exist. Nevertheless, homosexual activists and their lawyers forced E-Harmony to meet their demands, or else.

2. Do you think a faith-based adoption agency should be forced by law to abandon any priority given to traditional families (with a mom and a dad), or else? This too is happening. After “same-sex marriage” was imposed by some judges in Massachusetts, Catholic Charities had to end its longstanding work of placing orphans in good homes. A legal mandate to place children in same-sex households (a violation Catholic teaching) was forced on them, or else.

3. Do you think private business owners (wedding photographers, caterers, bed-and-breakfast owners, etc.) should, under legal intimidation or intense boycott pressure, be forced to support the homosexual lifestyle or suffer financial loss or be shut down? A quasi-marital “civil unions” policy in New Jersey caused a Methodist institution to be stripped of its tax exempt status because they could not in good conscience allow ceremonies blessing homosexual unions in their privately owned facility.

4. Should the Boy Scouts be forced to comply with homosexual demands to abandon their scoutmaster qualifications? Shouldn’t they be free to as a private organization to set their own safety policies? The Scouts do nothing to interfere with anyone’s right to start an alternative organization with different policies. Yet, their freedom of conscience has been under attack by the ACLU and homosexual militants for two decades. Since losing a 5 to 4 Supreme Court decision in 2000 (favoring the free association rights of the Scouts), opponents have formed a coalition of groups to escalate attacks against the Scouts at state and local levels. They pressure companies to withdraw support from the Scouts, demand that United Way drop the Scouts from their fundraising drives and file countless law suits against local governments to prohibit the Scouts from using parks and public buildings. The ACLU has managed to deprive the Scouts from recruiting resources and public fund-raising avenues that are freely used by radical homosexual activist and atheist groups.

5. Should our government compel pro-life hospitals, clinics, physicians, surgeons, nurses and other health care professionals to perform or participate in abortions or refer patients to those who do, or else? Or should the public respect the consciences of others and take their own initiative to find non-religious institutions and health care workers who do not have pro-life scruples? In 2012, the Obama administration (Department of Health and Human Services) attempted to impose a mandate on religious organizations to provide insurance for things which violate their conscience. For the first time, such a decision violating religious liberty came by executive fiat.

6. Do you think children in public schools should be exposed to homosexual recruiting literature and indoctrination at taxpayer expense? Should public school kids grow up being asked to decide if they want to marry a boy or a girl someday? It’s happening, whether our media report it or not.

7. Should Christian clergy be prosecuted for preaching biblical morality related to sexuality? This has happened in other Western countries. In America, hate-crime legislation as well as alleged anti-bullying pretexts are regularly abused to intimidate people of conscience who don’t have an ounce of hate in them and would never bully a soul. It is people of faith and good conscience who are more often being bullied.

A SOBER ANSWER:

Religious conscience is not well respected today. Threats and intimidation have worked on many (not the Boy Scouts which is why they remain under relentless attack). Following Jesus means truly loving all sinners while objecting to and actively opposing the destructive and disrespectful trends we see in our current culture. When faced with another intimidating “or else,” we will take “else” rather than compromise our conscience for a cheap reward or to appease an intimidator. Like Jesus, we will stand alone if we must. Our culture is toxic enough.

A month before Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson passed away, he was placed on a black list by The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation along with 35 others who GLAAD targeted for demonization and exclusion from major media outlets. No one is more fair and gracious than Colson, even in disagreement. Let’s give him the last word here:

“A believer may risk prison for his own religious beliefs, but he may never build prisons for those of other beliefs… It is our duty to create a cultural environment where conscience can flourish.” Charles Colson, The Enduring Revolution

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The views expressed on this blog are personal and belong to Joel Solliday unless otherwise stated. They are not, intended to characterize the views of the Lewiston Church of Christ or other organizations to which I may refer.

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