God Is The New Gay
November 7, 2008 / 2:18 pm • By Dr. Melissa ClouthierYou know what I’ve noticed? I’ve noticed that if you want to even be remotely taken seriously in public discourse, don’t say you believe in God. God is the new gay. In hushed tones, Aunt Petunia whispers conspiratorially in Nephew Regiinald’s ear, “That’s Melissa. I hear she believes in God.” Gasp!
I might have a more quiet, inward faith but there are other people in this country who evangelize more directly, who believe passionately and that belief motivates them to ministry (service). They may be expressive or reserved about it, but it’s their business and their right as Americans.
It is fashionable these days to bash Christian evangelicals, but I’d like to remind the Leftists that it’s the evangelicals who are spearheading the efforts to deal with AIDs in Africa, who helped put New Orleans back together again, who push the administration about Sudan. The evangelicals also are motivated to protect the environment, believe in non-violence, minister in prisons, help fund and staff drug and alcohol addiction recovery programs, and who care for pregnant, single women and help them either parent or find someone to parent their child. Their belief animates their action.
Part of the frustration with the DC elite is a blinding secularism that despises any form of God-talk. Their ignorance of the Bible makes them ignorant of Western Civilization and rather than be ashamed of their ignorance they wear it as a badge and bludgeon anyone who thinks differently as a small-minded rube. The secularists run the classrooms and newsrooms and broadcasts and think tanks and round-tables and when a run-of-the-mill Alaskan Governor who happens to be an unashamed Christian comes along, she is savaged.
Underneath the contempt, there is a contempt for anyone who believes in God. How can a rational, reasonable, thinking person believe? Well, faith transcends the mind and operates on the spirit level. So, it is impossible to rationalize, but anyone who knows God, feels His presence and it’s as real as the computer you’re staring in–that is to say, I can see it, but the inner workings and the connection is a mystery.
It disappoints or angers people who believe in abortion or gay marriage that the God of the Bible doesn’t like these activities. So the answer is to deny God. God doesn’t do what I want, I will reject God. That is certainly every American’s right. He or she can believe or not. He or she can worship or not. He or she can worship God or not. There is freedom for all.
For. All.
That includes people who passionately, literally interpret the Bible. They are free to believe, too. And they are free to have a voice in American politics. And there may even be politicians who strongly and unashamedly believe in God: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, and now George W. Bush. And don’t forget, Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson are preachers, too. Their faith animated their love for civil rights.
The founders made their trek to America to worship Him freely. And in having freedom of religion, procured other freedoms. Freedom and Christian faith are inexorably linked. Too often these days, it’s not the Christian who is bigoted, but the secularist. America needs to have room for all.
Cross-posted at RightWingNews.com
14 Responses to “God Is The New Gay”
November 7 2008 / 5:39 pm
Reply
well.. as someone who blogs mostly about soccer, I came across this article randomly and I had to type my thoughts on some of your points.
To me, and many others God is something of your heart. Something personal. My religion tells me that God comes from within. That said, I think it is wrong for Government to project Gods or religions on its citizens.
There should be a clear distinction between State and Religion. Consider the issues like Gay Marriage. Most religions in the world oppose this union, but that is no reason to deprive 2 gay people the rights to tax benefits and other benefits that marriage entails. Doing that is tantamount to punishing them for not following a certain faith. So it is my humble opinion that something like Marriage, must not be a faith based issue. It has to be noted that Marriage is a much older tradition than most religions.
November 7 2008 / 5:53 pm
Reply
Marriage is about culture, which is informed by religion. Societies where polygamy is accepted religious practice have very different cultures that ours which is based upon a monogamous relationship between one man and one woman. The attempt to redefine marriage to include homosexual unions is nothing less that an attempt to erode the foundations of our culture which is based on a Judeo-Christian heritage. To say “there is a clear distinction between State and Religion” ignores the fact that a society’s culture is ubiquitous and underlies both the State and Religion.
If gay people want tax benefits they can (and do) have that through civil unions. But that is not good enough for them — they insist that their unions be defined a “marriage” and thereby seek to redefine the meaning of marriage that has served our civilization well for 2000 years. The gay agenda is not to have rights and priviledges but to change the culture, pure and simple.
November 7 2008 / 6:06 pm
Reply
I may not be very familiar with the laws here, but, I was of the opinion that what happens in a Church (a priest marrying 2 people) was a ceremony.
If we bring up things like that, we can argue that the State can only recognize marriage of one religion. When the state can recognize marriage in different religions like Christianity, Hinduism or Islam dont you think the same applies to gay people? isnt that a way of life just as Christianity, Hinduism or Islam are?
I am sure they are not asking to be married as Christians, they are just asking to be married without any relation to any religion. So Nobody is asking to change anything in the Bible, all they are asking is to be recognized as a married couple which I am sure transcends any religion. Even Elephants have couples..
November 7 2008 / 6:32 pm
Reply
CB Denver,
The whole problem with the state defining marriage is that ultimately it forces them into a legal double standard. Part of the reason that the California judges allowed gay marriage is that all other state agencies are forbidden from discriminating on the basis of race, sexual orientation, gender, etc. If the state remains in the marriage business, then legally they have to provide the same opportunities and access to marriage (according to how it’s defined by the state government). This does not mean however, that churches, temples, etc. are under any obligation to accept these unions, and I don’t believe anyone is forcing them to recognize them.
I have read a lot of outrage from conservatives about how these were activist judges trying to push a radical agenda through, but they were really just trying to apply anti-discrimination laws equally. Personally, I don’t give a rat’s behind either way.
On another note, culture changes everyday, CB. Culture as described by the old testament would be unbearable for 99% of the population today, and even under the guidance of the new testament most of us would not be able to live up to that standard. Slavery was part of US culture for 300 years, but clearly it needed to end and did so. Perhaps it’s time that we all re-evaluate our cultural stances and let go of tradition for tradition’s sake unless it still has relevance. Two gay guys getting married is not going to put my marriage to my wife in any kind of jeapoardy, and my kids aren’t going to turn gay because a couple of women get hitched.
November 7 2008 / 7:23 pm
Reply
Dr. M, your comments about contempt for religion struck a chord with me. One of my brother’s best friends was recently shocked to learn that my brother was religious. The friend is now attempting to “convert” him to atheism. His friend told him “No smart people believe in God!” and gave him Dawkins’ book.
So yes, you are describing a real phenomenon; despite having been friends for well over ten years, my brother’s friend only found out my brother was religious because the friend made a disparaging comment about religious people and my brother then told him of his faith. The stereotype of pushy Christians was really turned on its head in this case!
Karthik, the civil recognition of marriage in the US is a favored class, i.e., society offers benefits to a group of people who do something considered to be beneficial. As such, it has nothing to do with religion. One can be married civilly or in a religious ceremony.
There is an obvious difference between the bulk of male-female partnerships and same-sex partnerships. Only in the male-female partnerships do children naturally occur. It is in society’s interest to encourage male-female commitments in a way that does not exist for same-sex pairings.
The institution of marriage existed before our laws and our society’s foundation. It will exist after we are gone for the same reason – children. The state of marriage does not exist in our society because our society wishes to encourage two adults to take responsibility for each other, as the existence of pre-nuptials and so forth amply proves.
November 7 2008 / 8:46 pm
Reply
Simple question.
Why is there this need for you evangelicals to assume victim status?
Believe in your Bible. Go to a church of your choosing. That’s your business. Seriously, you might not want to hear this, but no one cares.
Really.
November 7 2008 / 9:05 pm
Reply
Since you put Thomas Jefferson on your list:
The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine.
In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814
My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Mrs. Samuel H. Smith, August, 6, 1816
November 7 2008 / 9:13 pm
Reply
Glynn,
I put Jefferson on the list on purpose. Jefferson had problems with churches and priests, not God. There’s a difference. And America has room for his arcane views, too.
November 7 2008 / 10:01 pm
Reply
there are 2 things to think about here.
If, your opposition to marriage is not due to religious belifs of any particular religion and just out of your concern for the well being of the society, I have this to say,
Mere acceptance of Gay marriage is not going to encourage it. Any society that has to ban something like Gay marriage to discourage the same is usually insecure about its own principles. A strong society never has to go out of the way to impose a ban on anything unless it does not trust the ability of its own citizens to uphold its principles, especially on something like being gay, which is not a course of life for most of us. This shakes your belief in the fundamentals of democracy as the marriage of 2 gay people is not going to affect your personal life in anyway.
If it is because of religious beliefs that you oppose it, it is not justified to prevent anybody other than yourself to do anything you dont believe is right, because the ’state’ does not have a religion and cannot dictate religious beliefs on its citizens. If 2 people in your state want to renounce all religion in their bid to marry each other, whatever sex they may be, it is their fundamental right by all means to do so. Those two people dont need your individual approval, but some sign of respect for their union from the state of which they are citizens of, to which they pay taxes and help uphold, which I dont think is too much to ask is it?
November 7 2008 / 11:00 pm
Reply
As much as you want to imagine that you are persecuted for believing in a god, it is not true. “Atheist” is worse than the N-word. Yes, I am a Libertarian Atheist, and I know from my own experience that Atheists are discriminated against. In the words of Robert Heinlein, in order to get along, you have to pay public homage to whatever god happens to be in fashion.
And if you don’t believe that, just wait for the hateful replies to this post.
November 7 2008 / 11:07 pm
Reply
TX CHL,
You bring up an interesting point. Perhaps the problem is that there is no acceptance of anyone with a strongly held belief no matter the belief.
“Belief” is dangerous, thus the moral equivalence between terrorists and evangelical Christians.
November 8 2008 / 5:03 am
Reply
Mr Chuckles, Ocean Grove NJ. A Methodist Camp Meeting association, a religious entity. They have a pavilion on the boardwalk, often used for wedding ceremonies. A gay couple wanted to rent it for their wedding. They were told no. Ocean Grove lost it’s religious tax exemption. It’s not a state, local or federal agency. Sounds like they were punished or would be forced into accepting something their tenets did not approve of.
In Boston, there was a Catholic agency doing adoptions. They were very successful in placing children in families. They placed according to their beliefs; they would do adoptions for gay couples. They would refer them to another agency that would help them, they just would not do it themselves. They were forced to close by the state of Massachusetts.
Sounds like trying to force it on religious organizations doesn’t it? And yes there have also been cases where gay couples would try and force a Catholic church to marry them.
November 8 2008 / 11:32 am
Reply
There is a serious problem with a society where, “Who Wants to Marry a Midget” airs on Fox – while loving gay couples are refused a marriage license.
November 9 2008 / 12:05 am
Reply
Glynn–
There’s a serious problem with a society that has tv shows like “Who Wants to Marry a Midget,” “Sex and the City,” and “Desperate Housewives,” no matter WHAT its stand on homosexuals.