Two recent news developments — President Clinton’s executive order
prohibiting discrimination against federal employees based on “sexual
orientation” and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott’s candid assessment
that homosexual behavior is a sin — have thrust the issue back into the
national debate.
Is homosexual behavior a sin? Or is it a right? That’s really what
this argument is all about.
If the Bible is the standard by which we judge sin, there really
isn’t much question. In both the Old and New Testaments — from Moses to
the Apostle Paul — the idea of same-sex unions is condemned as an
“abomination” in God’s eyes. Despite what a few theological wishful
thinkers might say, the Bible doesn’t leave much wiggle room on the
issue of homosexuality.
But could it be a right? Well, “sexual orientation” is certainly not
alluded to in the Constitution, the standard by which we recognize
individual, inalienable rights that descend from nature and the Creator.
This is where the trouble begins. People who maintain there is a
“right” to practice homosexuality, bisexuality, transvestism,
transsexuality or some other non-heterosexual activity, don’t believe in
either the biblical definition of sin or constitutional standard of
rights. Without agreement on standards, right and wrong is defined
merely by popular opinion or by state decree.
That’s where we are today — not just in the debate over sexuality,
but on a host of other pressing national issues, as well. This is the
battleground chosen by those who seek nothing less than to destroy
Western civilization by transforming it from a culture of moral
absolutes, limited government, personal rights and unity in a common
dream of freedom to a culture of moral relativism, coercive state power,
group rights and divisiveness.
That’s the game plan. You must understand that to comprehend the
magnitude of what’s at stake in this debate. This is not about what
people do “in the privacy of their bedrooms.” If it were, there would be
no debate. It’s about taking sexuality out of the bedroom, where it
belongs, and into the public square, where it rightfully has no place.
If homosexuals do have special rights against discrimination, should
not adulterers? Yet, only recently, I seem to recall, a candidate for a
top military position was denied appointment because of an adulterous
affair. There are good reasons to choose a non-adulterer between two
otherwise equally qualified candidates for a position of responsibility.
Adultery tells us something about a person’s character. If a man or
woman breaks the most intimate of contracts between two people, can that
man or woman truly be trusted not to break other trusts? This country
might be better off if people had given that simple premise some
consideration in 1992 and 1996.
Furthermore, let’s take this notion of non-discrimination on the
basis of “sexual orientation” to its logical conclusion. The same lobby
that fights for special legal protections for men who sleep with men and
women who sleep with women also crusades on behalf of drag queens,
transvestites, transsexuals and for lowering the age of consent.
Is it preposterous for an employer to prefer, let’s say, a
non-crossdresser in a position requiring a high public profile, lots of
visibility — a position that helps shape the image of a particular
company? To bring it home, I know of a male newspaper reporter who came
to work one day wearing a dress. To say his editor was surprised would
be an understatement. The reporter was assigned to desk work in the
newsroom so the paper itself would not be embarrassed publicly by the
spectacle. The reporter turned around, sued the paper for discrimination
and won.
That’s the natural consequence of this kind of moral insanity called
relativism. It can and will hit home with all Americans before too long.
But, by then, it may be too late to go back — to return to a more
innocent time, a time when there were certainly no bedroom police, but a
time when we didn’t equate illicit sexual behavior with the
relationships we have honored between married men and women for the last
5,000 years.
What kind of a world do you wish for your children? Is it the kind of
Brave New World the social experimentation crowd would create? Or would
you prefer the kind of civilization the Judeo-Christian ethic has
provided for the last two millennia?
How not to think about Syria
Josh Hammer