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Mr. Horowitz Owes Christians an Apology 5/21/2003 Latest conservative to distort Jesus' teachings and slam 'religious right'
Editor’s note: This article was submitted for publication to FrontPage Magazine.com on Wednesday. The David Horowitz article that prompted it follows this column.
In “Pride Before a Fall” (May 20), David Horowitz informs us in his FrontPage Magazine.com webzine that Jesus did not mention homosexuality in the four Gospels. The implication is that Jesus did not think it was any big deal, so we shouldn't, either.
By Mr. Horowitz’s reasoning, since Jesus didn't bother condemning rape, Jesus must be indifferent to that, too. Jesus was not recorded in the New Testament speaking directly about incest or child pornography, either. Does that make them okay?
The Torah and Jewish tradition clearly forbid sodomy. If Jesus had meant to contradict this, He would have said so.
Likewise, Mr. Horowitz distorts a point made by Gary Bauer. Upon hearing Republican National Committee Chairman Marc Racicot defend meeting with homosexual activists by saying he would meet with “anybody and everybody,” Mr. Bauer noted that Mr. Racicot would not meet with the Ku Klux Klan. Mr. Bauer made it clear that he was not comparing homosexuals to the Klan, merely observing that Mr. Racicot would pick and choose with whom he meets knowing that meetings impart legitimacy. Mr. Racicot himself agreed that, well, yes, he does exclude some groups for that reason. I am surprised that Mr. Horowitz, a guy who has shown tremendous courage taking on his former leftist comrades and championing conservative principles, would employ a common logical error to question Mr. Bauer’s integrity and compassion.
Mr. Horowitz writes:
Just because HRC says it's an "organization for human rights" doesn't mean it is. HRC’s goal is to gain special legal status for men or women who have oral or anal sex with each other. Perhaps the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) should change its name to the Human Rights Coalition for Men and Boys. Then Mr. Horowitz might someday tell us we're bigoted for objecting to child molestation, about which Jesus said absolutely nothing. Also, would Mr. Horowitz be sanguine if the GOP were meeting with the extreme “black reparations” groups that are trying to silence him on the nation’s college campuses? All in the name of “outreach,” of course.
Finally, Mr. Horowitz’s assertion that “the very term ‘homosexual agenda’ is an expression of intolerance” is unfathomable. Christian conservatives have an agenda. Environmentalists have an agenda. Homosexual activists have an agenda. Mr. Horowitz has an agenda. What’s wrong with having an agenda, or pointing out that another group has one? The Human Rights Campaign’s agenda of radical social change – “gay” marriage, adoption of children by “gay” couples, “hate crimes” laws, “gays” in the military, “gay” propaganda in schools – is clearly listed on its website and in its literature.
Mr. Horowitz’s agenda here seems to be to accuse Christian conservatives of bigotry, pure and simple, as if they could have no valid reasons for opposing the political agenda of homosexual activists.
On Monday, the Human Rights Campaign supported “Gender Lobby Day,” in which men in dresses stormed Capitol Hill to demand that lawmakers sign pledges not to discriminate based on “gender identity.” These are the same folks who are advising confused teenage girls at HRC-backed conferences to have their healthy breasts amputated in their tragically misguided quest to become "men."
The idea that there is a "respectable" gay movement that will go only so far and that will help the GOP win elections is a dangerous fiction. As a veteran of leftist revolutions, Mr. Horowitz should know better.
If the “real issue here is tolerance of differences in a pluralistic society,” then Mr. Horowitz should oppose the “gay rights” movement with his whole being. It is transforming Canada into a totalitarian country. If you don’t believe that, ask that country’s broadcasters, who are forbidden to air anything critical of homosexuality, including Scripture readings. Or ask two Ontario mayors who were hauled before “human rights commissions” and charged with failing to issue proclamations celebrating “gay pride week.” Or ask Christian professor Chris Kempling of the British Columbia College for Teachers, who was suspended by his university for merely writing a letter critical of homosexuality to a local newspaper. Writing about the case, Edmonton Sun columnist Ted Byfield warns: “You see emerging [in Canada] the Western world's No. 1 totalitarian state, all developed in the name of human rights.”
It is already happening in the United States. Just ask the Boy Scouts of America, who are being treated as pariahs by some communities and United Way chapters for insisting that homosexual men not don Scoutmaster uniforms and take young boys camping. Or ask employees fired by corporations for not wholeheartedly embracing homosexual “diversity” training.
Christian conservatives and Torah-believing Jews oppose homosexual activism for three basic reasons:
Our agenda on this issue is to dissuade people from becoming trapped in homosexuality and to offer a helping hand to those who seek to change and pursue a fuller life.
With all due respect, Mr. Horowitz owes Christians an apology for his crude distortion of Jesus’ teachings, and for his implied charge of bigotry.
Robert Knight is director of the Culture and Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America, based in Washington, D.C.
Pride Before a Fall
In four Gospels - including the Sermon on the Mount - Jesus neglected to mention the subject of homosexuality. But that hasn't stopped a handful of self-appointed leaders of the so-called Religious Right from deciding that it is an issue worth the presidency of the United States. In what the Washington Times described as a "stormy session" last week, the Rev. Lou Sheldon, Paul Weyrich, Gary Bauer and eight other "social conservatives" read the riot act to RNC chairman Marc Racicot for meeting with the "Human Rights Campaign," a group promoting legal protections for homosexuals. This indiscretion, they said, "could put Bush's entire re-election campaign in jeopardy."
According to the Times' report by Ralph Hallow, the RNC chairman defended himself by saying, "You people don't want me to meet with other folks, but I meet with anybody and everybody." To this Gary Bauer retorted, "That can't be true because you surely would not meet with the leaders of the Ku Klux Klan."
Nice analogy Gary. Way to love thy neighbor.
This demand to quarantine a political enemy might have had more credibility if the target - the Campaign for Human Rights -- were busily burning crosses on social conservatives' lawns. But they aren't. Moreover, the fact that it is, after all, crosses the Ku Klux Klan burns, might suggest a little more humility on the part of Christians addressing these issues. Just before the launching of the 2000 presidential campaign, George Bush himself was asked about similarly mean-spirited Republican attacks. His response was that politicians like him weren't elected to pontificate about other people's morals and that his own faith admonished him to take the beam out of his own eye before obsessing over the mote in someone else's.
The real issue here is tolerance of differences in a pluralistic society. Tolerance is different from approval, but it is also different from stigmatizing and shunning those with whom we disagree.
I say this as someone who is well aware that Christians are themselves a persecuted community in liberal America, and as one who has stood up for the rights of Christians like Paul Weyrich and Gary Bauer to have their views, even when I have not agreed with some of their agendas. Not long ago, I went out on a public limb to defend Paul Weyrich when he was under attack by the Washington Post and other predictable sources for a remark he had made that was (reasonably) construed as anti-Semitic. I defended Weyrich because I have known him to be a decent man without malice towards Jews and I did not want to see him condemned for a careless remark. I defended him in order to protest the way in which we have become a less tolerant and more mean-spirited culture than we were.
I have this to say to Paul: A delegation to the chairman of the RNC to demand that he have no dialogue with the members of an organization for human rights is itself intolerant, and serves neither your ends nor ours. You told Racicot, "if the perception is out there that the party has accepted the homosexual agenda, the leaders of the pro-family community will be unable to help turn out the pro-family voters. It won't matter what we say; people will leave in droves."
This is disingenuous, since you are a community leader and share the attitude you describe. In other words, what you are really saying is that if the mere perception is that the Republican Party has accepted the "homosexual agenda," you will tell your followers to defect with the disastrous consequences that may follow. As a fellow conservative, I do not understand how in good conscience you can do this. Are you prepared to have President Howard Dean or President John Kerry preside over our nation's security? Do you think a liberal in the White House is going to advance the agendas of social conservatives? What can you be thinking?
In the second place, the very term "homosexual agenda," is an expression of intolerance as well. Since when do all homosexuals think alike? In fact, thirty percent of the gay population voted Republican in the last presidential election. This is a greater percentage than blacks, Hispanics or Jews. Were these homosexuals simply deluded into thinking that George Bush shared their agendas? Or do they perhaps have agendas that are as complex, diverse and separable from their sexuality as women, gun owners or Christians, for that matter?
In your confusion on these matters, you have fallen into the trap set for you by your enemies on the left. It is the left that insists its radical agendas are the agendas of blacks and women and gays. Are you ready to make this concession -- that the left speaks for these groups, for minorities and "the oppressed?" Isn't it the heart of the conservative argument that liberalism (or, as I would call it, leftism) is bad doctrine for all humanity, not just white Christian males?
If the President's party - or conservatism itself -- is to prevail in the political wars, it must address the concerns of all Americans and seek to win their hearts and minds. It is conservative values that forge our community and create our coalition, and neither you nor anyone else has – or should have - a monopoly in determining what those values are.
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