Dec 22, 2008
"No More Mister Nice Gay"
Last month, California voters went to the polls and passed an initiative on gay marriage. Proposition 8 would have changed the state constitution to restrict the definition of marriage to a union between a man and a woman and bar same-sex couples from marrying each other. Despite being one of the most liberal states in the union, the measure passed by a comfortable margin.
The amendment is not a done deal. The California Supreme Court still has to weigh in on the matter. Gay groups are asking the justices to strike down the measure, while supporters of Proposition 8 are calling for the amendment simply to be enforced.
Homosexual activists have not had much luck at the polls. Whenever there has been a ballot measure that would ban gay marriage, it has always passed. During the last presidential election, 11 states passed bans on same-sex marriage.
Gays keep losing at the polls primarily because most people view their lifestyles as grossly immoral. They also have the problem of only being a very small portion of the population. A recent government survey found that 4 percent of adults aged 18-45 identified themselves as homosexual or bisexual.
The main power of the gay movement is in the liberal media. The folks in Hollywood and the news outlets have been working for decades to give respectability to a whole series of perversions. Lately, I've noticed a constant bombardment of pro-gay propaganda from the liberal media.
Two weeks ago, Focus Features, the same film company that produced "Brokeback Mountain," released "Milk." This film is about Harvey Milk, who in 1977 was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay man to be voted into public office in America. You would have to wait until hell freezes over before you would see Hollywood produce a positive movie about a conservative leader.
Newsweek recently printed a huge article that came out for same-sex marriage in a big way. I was passing through a Dallas airport when I saw the cover story titled, "The Religious Case for Gay Marriage." It was written by Lisa Miller, the woman who interviewed me last month about Obama's possible connection to the Antichrist. Most of the words in the nine-page article were spent on dismissing the Bible's relevance. The article ultimately concluded that gay is okay because "Jesus doesn't want people to be lonely and sad."
I've noticed a dramatic shift in the homosexual movement's strategy as a result of the Proposition 8 vote. Its members are now being more confrontational. Having lost at the polls, gay leaders are trying to intimidate the opposition.
Margie Christoffersen is one victim of this new tactic. She was the manager at El Coyote, the Beverly Boulevard landmark restaurant that's always had throngs of customers waiting to get inside. Christoffersen donated $100 in support of Proposition 8, and by doing so, she showed up on lists of "for" and "against" donors. A boycott was organized on the Internet, with activists trashing El Coyote on restaurant review sites. Gays also picketed outside the restaurant, shouting "shame on you" at customers. As result of the protests, business at El Coyote has dramatically dropped off and Christoffersen has taken a voluntary leave of absence.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has also been a target. Members of the Mormon church were strongly urged by church leaders to contribute money to the Proposition 8 campaign. It is estimated that members of the church gave more than $20 million. When the money flow was traced back to Utah, thousands of gay protesters gathered outside the church's headquarters in Salt Lake City. On November 12, 2008, more than 10,000 protesters gathered outside the Manhattan New York Temple to protest the LDS Church's support of Proposition 8.
Pastor Rick Warren is another target in the Proposition 8 backlash. The head of Saddleback Church and author of the book The Purpose-Driven Life has been invited to give the invocation at Obama's inauguration. Gay groups are pressuring the President-elect to find someone else. “We feel a deep level of disrespect when one of architects and promoters of an anti-gay agenda is given the prominence and the pulpit of your historic nomination," said the president of Human Rights Campaign, Joe Solomonese.
This new campaign of intimidation may prove to be very successful. It comes at a time when most Christians are unwilling to take a stand for biblical truth. It is a terrible shame that the Mormon Church would be the lead financial backer of an effort to block gay marriage. Mormonism is a cult, and it has always been shy about public scrutiny. I doubt the Mormon Church would be willing to repeat its support of any future ballots.
Rick Warren’s involvement is a prime example of how moral standards are being rapidly degraded. Here we have Obama being attacked for making a great mistake by choosing Warren. If anyone is a fault, it should be Rick Warren. He is the one who is planning to offer his blessing to the most ultra-liberal president in our nation's history.
A Christian can’t be neutral in any dealing with the world. The price for being accepted is always some type of concession.
The liberal media loves to root out compromise. Warren was asked by NBC News if he was homophobic. He replied by saying he was not. His answer should have been, "The Bible is homophobic, so I guess that makes me homophobic."
I see us quickly headed to a point where it will be suicidal to make a stand against any gay measure. Homosexuality is no longer seen as a sin when you have the vast majority of church leaders unwilling to proclaim biblical truth. Now that gays have become militant in their quest for acceptance, they'll probably be surprised to find how easy it is to silence their Christian foes.
I have no problem speaking out against perversion because I know that judgment day is coming. Any pastor who decides not to deal with the sin of homosexuality will have to answer to the Lord of heaven.
---Todd
PEACE vs. Peace
"Peace" is a word whose true definition has eluded this planet since the time recorded in Genesis 3: 6-7:
“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.”
The cry for peace is futile, in the human sense, because since the disobedience in the Garden of Eden, mankind has continued to descend more deeply into sin. The human heart is deceitful above all things, the Bible says, and desperately wicked. Therefore, there is, rather than tranquility within the lost human soul, warfare that is never ending: “[There is] no peace, saith the LORD, unto the wicked” (Isa. 48:22). And,
James the apostle says: “From whence [come] wars and fightings among you? [come they] not hence, [even] of your lusts that war in your members?” (Jam. 4:1).
The prophet Isaiah spoke to Israel and--through his God-given words--the whole of the human race: “The way of peace they know not; and [there is] no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace” (Isa. 59: 8).
So, in this time of the season when many across the world–although I concede it's a diminishing number of people—use the phrase, “Peace on earth, good will to men,” let us think a moment on "PEACE vs. Peace," as the title of the commentary has it.
We recall the old, grainy, black-and-white newsreel film of Britain’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain waving a document containing the peace arrangement he had just made with the German fuhrer, Adolf Hitler. Chamberlain said at that time that the agreement guaranteed that there would be “peace in our time.” Those who know the history of the time know that almost before the ink on the pact was dry, Hitler ordered the first attack that began bringing the whole world to war.
There came a time when Japan surrendered, and Gen. Douglas MacArthur declared the matters of World War II concluded. But, the matter of warfare was and remains far from concluded. Many thousands of Americans, not to mention people from other nations, have since lost their lives in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and numerous other far-flung areas around the world.
Today, the world’s diplomats, news cameras and microphones are focused on the most problematic spot on earth, regarding the threat of the possible ignition of World War III. It is the same area of the world where true PEACE will one day break out. But, for now, it is the lack of the humanistic version of peace in the place called the Holy Land that is the cause of angst for earth’s powers that be. God’s prophet, Ezekiel, spoke to the dearth of peace involving God’s chosen nation: [“To wit], the prophets of Israel which prophesy concerning Jerusalem, and which see visions of peace for her, and [there is] no peace, saith the Lord GOD” (Ezek. 13:16).
No matter in which direction one casts a glance today, evidence of earth-quivering anxiety mounts. This is at present, more than at any time in recent memory, a world with out peace. The seas and waves are roaring, the nations are in distress with perplexity, precisely like Jesus foretold they will be at the time of His break in upon a sinful, incorrigibly wicked world of earth-dwellers.
The Middle East is in a peace process, yet terroristic threats--like those of Iran against Israel--prevent peace. Society and culture in America and most other nations are in tumult spawned largely by the tremendous economic earthquake and its many aftershocks that continue to rattle monetary structures to their cores. There is no peace because government leaders, financial leaders/experts, and people with fortunes and jobs to lose cannot find rest about things to come.
Religions of earth, too, are in turmoil. The many religions of the planet at the same time proclaim they are peaceful, yet hate each other. The religionists are making efforts to establish their own brand of “peace” through ecumenism. Certain of some who claim to have Christ at their center have joined the ecumenical movement toward establishment of a religious conglomerate within which all can live in peace.
One “evangelical” pastor upon whom much worldly honor and fame has been heaped has proposed his own peace plan. So influential is his presence on the world religious scene that President-elect Barack Obama has invited him to word a prayer at Obama’s inauguration on January 20, 2009. It is certain that Rick Warren will include in his prayer the call for peace.
But, will he be talking about PEACE in the sense of peace from heaven, or will it be prayer for his own P.E.A.C.E. plan to be implemented that the pastor will make to the God of heaven? The plans wrapped in that acronym are closely allied to the U.N. Millennium Goals, and are designed to achieve humanistic improvements through non-offensive gospel rhetoric and evangelism that doesn’t run counter to the globalist elitists’ agenda for a changed world order.
PEACE –true PEACE, however, is in fact already here upon this troubled sphere. PEACE came in the form of a baby nearly 2,000 years ago. We celebrate His birthday on Thursday. Jesus, the Prince of Peace, in truth IS here in the forever of eternity past and the forever of eternity future. He is the great I AM who is here in the present, and who chose to come in the flesh to suffer and die, then to resurrect so that fallen men, women, and children can be given the PEACE the human soul of each person on the planet must have to be resurrected from the death sin wrought.
Jesus ascended to the throne room of heaven, and is coming again: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my father is greater than I” (Jn. 14: 27-28).
Rejoice! Take Heart! Lift up your head and watch. PEACE will yet have the victory upon Planet Earth!
--Terry
