Viewpoint Discrimination, Homosexuality and the Growth of a Secular Monopolistic Religion

With the growing intolerance within the university community, viewpoint diversity will soon become no more than a mere legend. LifeSiteNews.com reports that:

• The national agency which grants accreditation to social work courses is questioning Franciscan University of Steubenville over a course which lists homosexuality as a deviant behavior.  Attention was drawn to the course by a group of Franciscan University alumni, identifying themselves as “Franciscan Gay Alumni & Allies”, who are demanding publicly that the university “revise its course descriptions and to stop contributing the culture of hate and ignorance.”

• The course is called ‘Deviant Behavior’ and the part of the course description in question states, “The behaviors that are primarily examined are murder, rape, robbery, prostitution, homosexuality, mental illness, and drug use.”

• In the press release issued by “Franciscan Gay Alumni & Allies” [FGAA] and published by the Daily Kos, further accusations and demands are made, based solely on the ‘Deviant Behavior’ course description.  Among them are the group’s accusation that students are “being taught ideological falsehoods in the classroom,” and that the classification of homosexuality as a deviant behavior “feed(s) cultural biases and promote hatred for lesbian and gay individuals.”

Interestingly, FGAA hasn’t accused the university of “hate” regarding its designation of “murder, rape, robbery, prostitution…mental illness, and drug use” as deviant. According to FGAA’s logic, the murderer and rapist should also protest their designation as “deviant.” After all, wouldn’t this designation also promote hate against them as well as against the mentally and the drug user? Indeed, according to this logic, no one should be considered deviant, and all behaviors should be equally acceptable – robbing, killing…

Of course, this logic represents the height of absurdity. It wouldn’t even be worth mentioning had it not already co-opted the very institutions that are supposed to be our watch-dogs against this madness.

• [FGAA] goes on to make a broad demand that the university “revise its course descriptions,” “stop contributing the culture of hate and ignorance,” and “conduct an audit of its entire curriculum and remove any information being taught on this subject that is outdated and not substantiated by sound scientific fact.” 

Who is actually “contributing [to] the culture of hate and ignorance?” It is the FGAA and many other groups like it that have used threats and intimidation to silence any other viewpoint.

Who are the real agents of “ignorance?” Sadly, our secular gate-keepers have fallen in line behind this agenda, silencing any voices that fail to goose-step behind this militaristic agenda. Although they tout the idea of diversity, viewpoint discrimination is broadly enforced. Although our secular authorities have committed themselves to anti-bullying programs, this only pertains to certain protected groups. Others are consistently bullied into submission by a monolithic, suppressive secular agenda.

While FGAA glibly claims “sound scientific fact” as their ally, the thrust of their agenda stifles research and silences any open exchange of scientific findings. This agenda caused University of Texas researcher, Dr. Mark Regnerus, to become the object of an intimidating ethics investigation, because of his politically incorrect findings:

• Dr. Mark Regnerus leads a team of researchers on another peer-reviewed homosexual “parenting” study labeled: “How different are the adult children of parents who have same-sex relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures Study.”

• The study was published in the journal Social Science Research. Its website FAQ page summarizes the findings: “[T]he data show rather clearly that children raised by gay or lesbian parents on average are at a significant disadvantage when compared to children raised by the intact family of their married, biological mother and father.”

• Focus on the Family’s Citizenlink distills the research: “According to [Regnerus’] findings, children raised by homosexual parents are more likely than those raised by married heterosexual parents to suffer from poor impulse control, depression and suicidal thoughts, require mental health therapy; identify themselves as homosexual; choose cohabitation; be unfaithful to partners; contract sexually transmitted diseases; be sexually molested; have lower income levels; drink to get drunk; and smoke tobacco and marijuana.”

Fortunately, Regnerus was cleared of any wrongdoing. However, the prospect of this threat has kept other fair-minded researchers away from politically sensitive research.

Diversity requires thick skin. It demands a willingness to tolerate contrary opinions, even when we feel offended by them. It values free speech and freedom of belief as the foundations of a free and open society, which benefits all. It recognizes that, in order for us all to live together under one roof, we cannot impose our beliefs upon others, especially not by intimidation. It also means that we have to love one another – the murderer, the rapist, and even those whose practices we might regard as deviant.

Our Bible teaches us to speak the truth in love, and so we must lead the way. And a little prayer wouldn’t hurt.

Censorship, Threat and Intimidation

• A prominent British Christian conservative ‘blogger [going by the pseudonym “Archbishop Cranmer”] is under attack from a government agency, at the behest of a homosexualist activist group, for supporting the defence of traditional marriage…Cranmer came under investigation by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) when he posted an ad for the petition being run by the Coalition for Marriage that recently tipped over half a million signatures, including those of several members of the House of Lords. He has been given until May 21 to answer the accusations against him from an alleged 24 anonymous complainants.

It might be imagined that the petition had advocated sending gays to hell or at least stoning them. However, gays aren’t even mentioned. Instead, the petition is just a reassertion of what Western civilization has always taken for granted:

• I support the legal definition of marriage which is the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. I oppose any attempt to redefine it.

However, such a seemingly innocuous statement has now become the basis for criminal charges. How has this happened? Has science proven that heterosexual marriage undermines social well-being or leads to child abuse or promotes suicide? Not at all! In fact, in The Case for Marriage, Linda Waite & Maggie Gallagher are emphatic that:

• A preschooler living with one biological parent and one step-parent was forty times more likely to be sexually abused than one living with two natural parents. (159).

Well then, has it been demonstrated that by disallowing other forms of marriage, society suffers? In Evangelical Ethics, John J. Davis writes of the work of British Anthropologist, J.D. Unwin:

• After a comprehensive study of both Western and non-Western cultures throughout human history, Unwin concluded that the record of mankind “does not contain a single instance of a group becoming civilized unless it had been absolutely [heterosexually] monogamous, nor is there any example of a group retaining its culture after it has adopted less rigorous customs.” Unwin observed that a society’s adoption and maintenance of heterosexual monogamy as a social standard “has preceded all manifestations of social energy, whether that energy be reflected in conquest, in art and sciences, in extension of the social vision, or in the substitution of monotheism for polytheism.” (116)

Well then, why the uproar against the definition of marriage as heterosexual? And why should someone be threatened into silence for even expressing such a view? What impels such intimidation and bullying? I think that we can explain it historically, sociologically, and even biologically, but perhaps the most illuminating explanation might be the theological one:

• But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God-- having a form of godliness but denying its power…always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. (2 Tim 3:1-7)

Nevertheless, we have every reason in this world and the next for confidence, as Paul continues:

• But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone…In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of… (2 Tim. 3:9-14)

Our Lord assures us of bright skies. The weather-man also does this, but he is sometimes wrong. However, our Lord controls the weather!

Therefore, Paul concludes with this counsel:

• In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction. (2 Tim. 4:1-2)

   

What Do We Trust in Most?

What do you find more trustworthy: 1) Scripture or 2) the latest scientific consensus regarding evolution? Well, before you answer #2, I just like you to consider a few things. I won’t bore you with the fact that we all know that this consensus is ever-changing as we acquire new data. Instead, I’d like to focus on another problem that might be more serious than you had previously thought.

In his article entitled “Laboratory Lies,” Daniel James Devine reports:

• The British Medical Journal reported that 13 percent of UK scientists say they’ve seen colleagues “inappropriately adjusting, excluding, altering or fabricating data,” indicating widespread research fraud. “The BMJ has been told of junior academics being advised to keep concerns to themselves to protect their careers, being bullied into not publishing their findings, or having their contracts terminated when they spoke out,” said BMJ editor. (World, Feb 11, 2012, 64)

Evidently, “13 percent” just represents the tip of the iceberg – just those who were aware of fraud and had the courage to admit it. Also, the very fact that of “contracts terminated” and bullying suggests that fraud might be endemic to this system. In addition to this finding:

• A survey of U.S. researchers a few years ago found that 9 percent had seen colleagues engage in scientific misconduct.

• A 2009 meta-analysis of multiple surveys determined about 2 percent of scientists have engaged – by their own admission – in fabricating, falsifying, or modifying data at least once. Up to a third have admitted to practices some would call questionable.”

Although “2 percent” doesn’t sound like much, we might assume that there are many more who understandably are unwilling to jeopardize career and reputation by making such a disclosure. Combine this with the obvious professional systematic bias against any who break with the theory of evolution, and we come up with a reasonable concern about the sermons emanating from the science community.

Our foundational presupposition about who to trust – Scripture or the science community – determines all of our subsequent beliefs. When we start buttoning our shirt with the wrong button, every subsequent button will be misplaced. Our only recourse is to return to the first button.