Matt 24 watch, 166f: But, don't my genes make me do it? (Or, are your genes making you think that "my genes made me do it," etc? Thence, absurdity . . . )

Now, there are some topics that -- being the point where the deceitful and ensnaring spirit of the age is pushing -- require a serious and sustained answer. In that light, painful and utterly distasteful though the current focal topic here at the KF blog is, I need to continue. (And, I intend to continue on and off as necessary until I am satisfied that a sufficient counter-statement to the major propaganda push has been made. Hopefully, this post will be sufficient for now, to drive home the case we have had to make in recent days: parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.)

Last time, this blog noted:

. . . we are ensouled, en-conscienced, morally governed creatures, not mere beasts acting at the whims of our impulses and hormones.

This premise is of course stringently disputed in an evolutionary materialism dominated era where for instance, the famous Nobel Prize winning scientist, sir Francis Crick, went on record in his 1994 The Astonishing Hypothesis:

. . . that "You", your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased: "You're nothing but a pack of neurons." This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.

The fatal flaw in this assertion of materialistic determinism -- held to be shaped and controlled by blind evolutionary forces of chance and necessity, further amplified by accidents of historical, cultural and personal conditioning that are viewed as driving and controlling what goes on in our brains, central nervous systems and hormones -- is that it is self-referentially inconsistent and self-refuting to the point of absurdity. 

That is, despite flying the proud flags of science and learning, this is false, and necessarily false.

Thus, seminal Intelligent Design thinker Philip Johnson rebutted that Sir Francis should have therefore been willing to preface his works thusly: "I, Francis Crick, my opinions and my science, and even the thoughts expressed in this book, consist of nothing more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules."  

Johnson then acidly commented:  “[t]he plausibility of materialistic determinism requires that an implicit exception be made for the theorist.” [Reason in the Balance, 1995.]

In short, it is at least arguable that self-referential absurdity is the dagger pointing to the heart of evolutionary materialistic models of mind and its origin. An audio clip by William Lane Craig that summarises Plantinga's argument on this in a nutshell, is useful:

Now, you may ask, why have I chosen to lead with this point, making it the focal issue?

Because, we live in an era of scientism, where, never mind how absurd a notion is, if it can fly the flag of science, and can be presented to the public or students as the "consensus" of the guardians of the only credible temple of knowledge acceptable to a secularised society, it will be very persuasive. That is why Kirk and Madsen, in their After the Ball strategy, sought to capture the institutional scientific high ground thus making those who object to their agenda (especially on faith-based grounds) seem to be bomb-throwing, irrational, backward, hateful fundamentalist terrorists and would be theocratic tyrants comparable to the Mullahs of Iran. 

Which is exactly what we saw last time. For, it is the underlying slander that underlies the Chick-fil-A controversy.

So, let the record stand: the evolutionary materialistic view of mind is self-contradictory, so it self-refutes and is thus necessarily false. 

And, that has been well known -- or, should have been widely acknowledged -- at least since the leading evolutionary thinker J B S Haldane went on record as follows at the turn of the 1930's:

"It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms." ["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209. (Highlight and emphases added.)]

In short, there is a fatal self-refuting absurdity lying at the heart of any species of determinism affecting the mind and associated powers of choice, thus morality. So, when we have seen headlines announcing a "gay gene" or a "God gene" the like claimed genes that allegedly control the sexual and moral habits or worldviews people take, this is based on a necessarily false view of mind and brain that fatally undermines itself. For, we could ask, in effect, whether the propensity to accept or reject the claim that there is or is not a "gay gene," etc, is itself the work of yet another gene, etc.

(NB: If the reader wishes to ponder an alternative view of neurons, brains and minds, s/her may want to look here on for a 101.)

In short, so long as we are thinking, reasoning, choosing creatures that have a mind of our own -- which should be patently obvious -- any species of materialistic determinism is patently false. And, if such (God forbid!) were actually true, we would not have the means to actually credibly know that. The whole proud project of evolutionary materialistic, scientism-dominated rationalism collapses in self-refutation and absurdity.

But, there is more.

Now that we have a more balanced atmosphere to evaluate the claims being touted on gay genes and the like, we can turn to a book-length summary of relevant evidence by Neil and Briar Whitehead that deserves to be far better known than it is. Clipping the introduction and summary:

The West has been subject to such a campaign of misinformation and disinformation in the last 20-30 years that its public institutions, from legislatures and judiciaries to the church and mental health professions widely believe that the homosexual orientation is innate—in the sense of biologically imprinted—and therefore unchangeable. 

The implications of this are that anyone who makes the scientifically true statements below is considered the one who is misinformed.

• sexual orientation is not inborn but develops over some years in response to an individual’s response to life events— as many human predicaments do
• homosexual orientation can change, i.e half the homosexual population naturally moves towards heterosexuality over time (without any therapeutic interventions), and further and
faster with counselling and support
• The same-sex attracted are not 10% of the population but (including bisexuals) much closer to 2.5%

The West has lost its way on this issue, and today we are seeing the outcome . . . 

Those are quite strong words, but they are backed up. Clipping the summary from Ch 1 in the 2010 online downloadable version (and of course, there is much more, with a lot of details; especially note the rebuttals to common myths):

No mainstream geneticist is happy with the idea that genes dictate behaviour, particularly homosexual behaviour.
• Genetically dictated behaviour is something that has so far been discovered only in very simple organisms.
• From an understanding of gene structure and function there are no plausible means by which genes could inescapably force SSA or other behaviours on a person. Genes create proteins not preferences.
• No genetically determined human behaviour has yet been found. The most closely genetically-related behaviour yet discovered (aggression in Dutch males) has shown itself remarkably responsive to counselling.
• If SSA were genetically dictated, it would have bred itself out of the population in only several generations, and wouldn’t be around today.
• Generally, geneticists settle for some genetic influence of rather undefined degree, most agreeing that many genes (from at least five or six to many hundreds) contribute to any particular human behaviour.
• A genetically dominated SSA caused by such a cluster of genes could not suddenly appear and disappear in families the way it does. It would stay around for many generations. So SSA is not produced by many genes.
• The occurrence of SSA in the population is too frequent to be caused by a chance mutation in a single gene. So a single gene is not responsible for SSA. Nor would many genes all mutate at once.
• SSA occurs too frequently to be caused by a faulty pre-natal developmental process, so it is not innate in that sense either.
• The widespread age-range of first homosexual attraction is very unlike the narrow time-spread of genetically driven phases of human life, e.g gestation time, puberty, menopause, making homosexuality very unlikely to be genetically driven.
The histone system which controls genetic expression is strongly affected by the environment, e.g nurturing, making searches for individual genes responsible for certain behaviours, mostly pointless.
• Same-sex attraction could be about 10% genetically influenced and opposite sex attraction about 15%. But this is weak and indirect, e.g genes making a man tall don’t also produce basketball players.
• SSA falls more naturally into the category of a psychological trait

In an earlier version of the book, the following comparison is used, to present a helpful comparison:

If a girl becomes pregnant at age fifteen, we could argue that she is genetically
predisposed. We could say that in her culture, her genes gave her the kind of
face and figure that send male hormones into orbit and bring her under a level of pressure that she is unable to resist, and she is fertile. But that’s about the strength of the genetic influence. There are a huge number of environmental factors that could also have brought the pregnancy about, from cancellation of the basketball game she was going to watch with a girlfriend, permission to use her boyfriend’s father’s car, her boyfriend’s company, the movie they had just viewed together, and failure to use a contraceptive, to big environmental factors like personal values systems, peer group pressure, and an emotionally distant father.

In short, there is no responsible way to escape the implication that -- whatever influences we are exposed to and however they may help shape our choices -- the common sense view that on the whole we are significantly responsible for our behaviours makes excellent sense, and that by and large the habits we form are significantly influenced by cumulative choices we make. That includes cases of bondage to life-dominating destructive sins, habits and addictions. (And, the "on the whole" is meant to take in the genuine cases where people are immature or insane or sufficiently retarded or senile etc. as not to be responsible. Notice, the significance of age of consent laws and the premise that to engage in unlawful carnal knowledge with someone under that age is statutory rape.)

Such a general conclusion brings forward the relevance of the well-proved 12-step addiction recovery process pioneered by Alcoholics Anonymous as a context of hope for many of us who are caught up in such life-dominating downward spirals (and, these days, I put pornography addiction as challenge no 1 here beyond even that notorious old demon rum). Let me clip, citing Ch. 5 of the AA Big Book:

Rarely  have  we  seen  a  person  fail  who  has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give  themselves  to  this  simple  program,  usually  men and women who are constitutionally incapable of be-ing  honest  with  themselves . . . . If you have decided you want what we have and are willing  to  go  to  any  length  to  get  it—then  you  are ready to take certain steps. At some of these we balked. We thought we could find  an  easier,  softer  way.  But  we  could  not . . . . Remember that we deal with alcohol—cunning, baf-fling,  powerful!  Without  help  it  is  too  much  for  us. 

But there is One who has all power—that One is God.

May you find Him now!

Half measures availed us nothing . . . . Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery:

1.  We admitted we were powerless over alcohol— that our lives had become unmanageable.

2.  Came to believe that a Power greater than our-selves could restore us to sanity.

3.  Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4.  Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5.  Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.[--> This is the famous, pivotal public confession, "I am an Alcoholic . . . "]

6.  Were  entirely  ready  to  have  God  remove  all these defects of character.

7.  Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8.  Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9.  Made  direct  amends  to  such  people  wherever possible,  except  when  to  do  so  would  injure them or others.

10.  Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11.  Sought  through  prayer  and  meditation  to  im-prove our conscious contact with God as we un-derstood  Him,  praying  only  for  knowledge  of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12.  Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Many  of  us  exclaimed,  “What  an  order!  I  can’t  go through  with  it.’’  Do  not  be  discouraged.  No  one among us has been able to maintain anything like per-fect adherence to these principles. We are not saints.  The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress.  We  claim  spiritual  progress  rather  than spiritual perfection . . . [Alcoholics Anonymous, "big Book," ch 5, pp.58 - 60.]

 Given the frankly theocentric, penitent sinner approach, it should not be surprising to hear that in the early days, this lay-led movement of addicts in lifelong recovery was often derided and dismissed by professionals, and that spectacular failures -- including a co-founder -- were luridly headlined to dismiss the approach as useless, naive and ill informed. But, in the end, it has been so vindicated by actually working, that it is the model for many similar movements of recovery. (Including from bondage to things like drugs, pornography and homosexual behaviour.)

But, this recovery approach is in reality nothing new, we have just seen in a somewhat generic form, the principles of  transformation of life through discipleship founded on repentance and reaching out to God as Saviour, and to be expressed in a community of mutual support and lifelong growth; knowing that relapse is possible, and that moral-spiritual struggle is inevitable.

This, we may see in Eph 4 - 5:

Eph 4: 17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.

18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance [-->en-darkenment] that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous [-->morally benumbed] and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.  [--> addicted to sin]

20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!- 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self,5  which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
 25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.

26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil.

28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

5: 1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.

2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
 3 But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.

4 Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. 5 For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

7 Therefore do not become partners with them; 8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), 10 and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.

11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.

12 For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. 13 But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, 14 for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,
    
                    “Awake, O sleeper,
        and arise from the dead,
        and Christ will shine on you.”
 15 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.

17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. [ESV]

Christian discipleship is founded on repentance, trust in the God who saves us, and a fearless and dauntless determination to walk in the light with God and with our brothers and sisters in God.

By the power of the indwelling, upwelling Spirit, we learn to walk in the light and develop the practice of walking in the light ever more and more, day by day, hour by hour.  That requires a special vigilance over that which may benumb the conscience, en-darken the mind, and enmesh us in captivity to life-dominating sin.  Instead, we live by the truth in love, through Jesus, upwelling from within through the Spirit, with the power of love, truth, and purity. Thus, as the people of God, we are transformed in the image of Christ.

And, as Paul writes in 1 Cor 6:9 - 11, it works:

1 Cor 6: 9 . . . do you not know that the unrighteous  will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,  10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

11 And such were some of you.

But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. [ESV]

(Though, of course, there is much wisdom in the saying, if you do not nibble on the enticingly baited hook, you will not have to then fight for your life, to break free of the barbed hook. Remember, too, that a baited fish hook is 99% good fish food that it is doubtless enjoyable to the fish to bite at. But, it is the 1% of hook that decisively counts.)

So, now, let us soberly rethink not only the ongoing attempt to legally homosexualise marriage, but the associated enmeshing of ever so many in the myth of genetic determinism leading to the concept that since this is how people inevitably are, then they have a "right" to express their love or otherwise behave the only way they "can" as controlled by their genes. In so doing, let us even more soberly reflect on where we have been taking our civilisation in recent decades. END

Matt 24 watch, 166e: But Jesus never said one word against being 'gay' . . .

As was noted in the just previous post on the Chick-fil-A threatened boycott and administrative exclusion because its owners have publicly and financially supported historic marriage, the attempted homosexualist kiss-in counter-protest to the record-setting Appreciation Day mostly fizzled for want of the brazen.

The picture below of the slander-laced vandalism-by-graffiti that falsely accused those who object to homosexualisation of marriage of being hateful and enemies of equality and freedom reveals something about the irresponsibility involved on the part of some homosexualist activists:

Fixing the vandalism in Torrance CA (LA Times, per fair use to make appropriate critical comment)

(In short, when vandals do damage and make a mess, someone has to take responsibility and soak up the costs of fixing the mess. A lesson with much wider significance in the culture clash that is now yawning open across our civilisation.)

Now, in the same LA Times article as was just linked, we find a piece of serious theological error that needs direct correction, just as the turnabout false accusation above has had to be corrected yesterday. For, we may read:

Among those who came out to support gay marriage at Costa Mesa’s Chick-Fil-A on Friday afternoon was the Rev. Sarah Halverson of Fairview Community Church. [--> Link added]

“I felt like it was an important opportunity to stand on behalf of love and inclusion and gay couples,” she said. “Love is love, and God has given us love to be shared.”

She said that although some Christians don’t believe in gay marriage, her understanding of Christianity is that God supports those who find love.

“There are Christians like us at Fairview that think that God gave every human being divine love,” she said.

She respects Cathy’s right to free speech, she said, but also exercised her own right to speak out against what she considers hate speech.

“We have the right to stand in disagreement with another’s speech,” she said . . .

Similarly, CNN reports how:

In Los Angeles, same-sex marriage supporters Luke Montgomery and Eduardo Cisneros kissed outside a Chick-fil-A restaurant.

Montgomery said Jesus Christ never said anything about gay people. Referring to Cathy, the activist said, "He needs to open the Bible before he opens his mouth."

That's where we need to begin, for this expresses and/or directly implies -- and yes, I know this is a most politically incorrect word nowadays -- outright heresy.

1 --> Jesus' most famous, most cited sermon is the Sermon on the Mount, which lays out the core principles of Christian discipleship. In it, as he commented on the Decalogue and how we tend to wrench it self-servingly, he plainly declared:

Matt 5: 17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. [ESV]

2 --> In short, he explicitly endorses the ethics of the OT, which very explicitly teaches from the opening chapters of Genesis on that sexuality is meant for man and woman in expression of the marital union and for the propagation of the race, and repeatedly condemns the homosexual perversions of sexuality, right next to condemning things of like ilk [idolatry, child sacrifice, bloodshed] as abominations that bring down God's judgement.

3 --> Similarly, in sending out his apostles he promised his Spirit and endorsed their teachings in advance as Spirit-guided. For instance, in his Last Supper Discourse, he stated:

Jn 16: 12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.  [ESV]

4 --> Of course in Israel in Jesus' day, homosexual behaviour was vanishingly small (as has continued to be so among the deeply religious orthodox for centuries). It was the apostles who had to deal with the rampant sexual perversions of the Roman Empire, especially Paul. His Spirit-led remarks on the subject are quite direct (and contrary to suggestions made by various figures, are not from obscure texts in little known works):

Rom 1: 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 

 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. 

 26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. 

 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. 

1 Cor 6: 9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous  will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,3  10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.  [ESV. Translators' F/N3: The two Greek terms translated by this phrase refer to the passive and active partners in consensual homosexual acts.]

5 --> Some (in a further act of rejection of the historic Christian faith) are inclined to reject teachings of Paul that do not fit their desires. These should heed Peter's warning:

2 Peter 3: 14 Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. 

15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. 

17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. 

18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. [ESV]

6 --> It is also important to observe what Jesus actually taught about historic, authentic marriage, in the teeth of the actual problem in his day, divorce. (Remarks that are also quite relevant in our own day, which BTW is what Mr Cathy directly addressed.) For, this has much to say by direct implication to those who would remake marriage after their desires and agendas:

Matt 19: 3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” 4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” [ESV]

7 --> In short, Jesus taught that the conjugal union of Man and Woman is what God built into the creation order for humanity, a creation order that is naturally evident from the complementarity of the sexes in reproduction and child nurture. He affirms the Genesis creation order mandate.

8 --> He then declares such to be what God has joined together and says that man has no business separating what God joins. This is of course the scriptural teeth behind Mr Cathy's concern that we are trying to pridefully fly in the face of God in our attempts to impose a redefinition of Marriage in the teeth of Creation order. (BTW, as such is emphatically a creation order mandate, it therefore transcends culture and religion.)

9 --> So, to wrench such into a homosexualised distortion is to fly in the face of what God has joined, and it is to wrench scripture to the peril of our own souls and those of the ones who listen to and follow us. Thus, we face another particularly stern warning of Jesus:

Matt 18: 1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them 3 and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

 5 “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, 6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin,1  it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

 7 “Woe to the world for temptations to sin!2  For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! 8 And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell3  of fire. [ESV (Since some who do not recognise ways in which language may be used may not recognise the use of hyperbole, Jesus here says take strong measures to see to it that you do not stumble into sin. he is not really advocating self-mutilation.)]

10 --> This has direct relevance to the intention to homosexualise school curricula to reflect the notion that there is an equal moral credibility of historic marriage and the recent homosexualised notion. And, destructive counterfeit it is, as Girgit, George and Anderson expose in a pivotal Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy paper:

[T]he current debate is precisely over whether it is possible for the kind of union that has marriage’s essential fea‐tures to exist between two people of the same sex. Revisionists do not propose leaving intact the historic definition of marriage and simply expanding the pool of people eligible to marry. Their goal is to abolish the conjugal conception of marriage in our law 10 and replace it with the revisionist [--> i.e. homosexualised] conception . . .
----------

F/N 10: Throughout history, no society’s laws have explicitly forbidden gay mar‐riage. They have not explicitly forbidden it because, until recently, it has not been thought possible . . . [T]raditional marriage laws  were not devised to oppress those with same‐sex attractions. The comparison [to racist anti-miscegenation laws that forbade inter-racial marriages]  is offensive, and puzzling to many—not least to the nearly two‐thirds of black vot‐ers who voted to uphold conjugal marriage under California Proposition Eight. See Cara Mia DiMassa & Jessica Garrison, Why Gays, Blacks are Divided on Prop. 8, L.A. TIMES, Nov. 8, 2008, at A1.

 [Sherif Girgis, Robert P. George, & Ryan T. Anderson, "What is Marriage?" Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Vol 34, No. 1, p. 250 of 245 - 287.]

11 --> We must therefore point out that when the Rev. Sarah Halverson stands up to speak in the name of the church, the gospel and the scriptures, she takes up a sobering responsibility. One, that -- given what has had to be pointed out already -- manifestly, sadly, she has failed. Painful though that is to have to say, it is necessary, for the sake of the souls of those who look to church leaders for guidance, and for her own soul as well as those of others like her. Please, Rev Halverson, please, please, read the scriptures without modernist or politically correct blinkers, and think again.

12 --> Now the Rev Halverson speaks of "God supports those who find love." She has also dismissed the concerns of those who have stood up under pressure and intimidation to say that it is not right to twist marriage from the naturally obvious creation order of man and woman under God, as being hateful. This is slander.

13 --> To correct such destructive slander, we need to again and again bring forth the correction Alan Keyes made to former first lady of the USA, Mrs Barbara Bush:

Alan Keyes, in responding to former US First Lady Barbara Bush, remarks:

. . . isn’t love the foundation of marriage? Why should some loving couples enjoy legal recognition and privileges that are denied to others?

But the plausible conviction that loving homosexual couples “ought to have…the same sort of rights that everyone has” immediately runs afoul of the simple fact that homosexuals are not the only loving couples without the legal right to marry. Parents and their children don’t have it. Siblings don’t have it. Children not yet of legal age don’t have it; and so on. In principle, all such people are capable of forming loving, committed relationships. By the logic Mrs. Bush relies on, “they ought to have… the same sort of rights that everyone has.”

In short, once we see obvious exceptions to a suggested "rule" like that, something is fundamentally wrong with the rule. What is it? Keyes continues:

Why are parents and their children forbidden to marry one another? Cut to the chase and the answer is simple. The right to marry includes legal recognition (legitimization) of the married couple’s right to have sexual relations with one another. But it is wrong for parents to have sexual relations with their children. It’s wrong for siblings to have sexual relations with each other. It’s wrong for adults to have sexual relations with underage children. Obviously, unless Mrs. Bush means to argue that these restrictions are unjustified, a committed loving relationship is not enough to establish that people “ought to have” the right to marry.

He then digs in further, addressing the pivotal term, "ought":

Mrs. Bush’s use of the word “ought” deserves further attention. The difference between what people do and what people ought to do is a matter of moral judgment. The word “ought” implies the application of a moral standard, a rule or principle that distinguishes right from wrong. People ought to do what is right. They ought not to do what is wrong. When people do what is right, they have the right to act (i.e., have right on their side as they act.) But can the same be said of those who do what is wrong?

He then points to a key breakdown triggered by the modern confusion of liberty and license -- the abuse of freedom:

In everyday parlance these days, we use the term “right” as though it is synonymous with the freedom to act as we choose. But if the choice is wrong, it makes no sense to assert that the chooser has the right  to act on it  (i.e., has right on his side as he does so.) What someone can do (has the physical capacity or opportunity to do) differs from what they ought to do. This is in fact the rationale for all criminal laws. It’s what allows us to recognize that simply having the opportunity and power to take someone’s life or goods does not grant the right to do so, does not make it right.

In short, until the moral legitimacy of homosexual conduct is solidly grounded (and until the harmlessness of such a legislative -- or, these days, often, a judicial -- act is sufficiently shown), we have a perfect right to question the notion that our civilisation's states should take the step of legitimising homosexual relationships as marriages under the law. Which of course is a very big question indeed, and one on which all serious voices have a right to be heard. Including, those who look to the truly great religious teachers of mankind, as proved moral instructors.

14 --> Plainly, falling in love can become a temptation to sin (the case of Amnon and Tamar being a sad classic with devastating consequences for a whole nation), and so even in the face of the feelings of love, we must consult the principles of what we ought to do. For, we are ensouled, en-conscienced, morally governed creatures, not mere beasts acting at the whims of our impulses and hormones.

We could go on and on, but this should be enough food for thought for one day. On the morrow, DV, let us take up the wider issue, "my genes made me do it." END

Matt 24 watch, 166d: Setting the Chick-fil-A smear in context -- understanding what is at stake in the attempt to brand Bible-believing Christians as hate-driven menaces to liberty

All too tellingly, on the eve of a homosexualist public kiss-in -- itself quite sadly revealing as a "reply" to a known moral point of concern, i.e, a willfully defiant and offensive sexualised protest event pushed in the face of families and children -- to try to counter the Appreciation day, the following graffiti turned up at a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Torrance, CA:

(Notice, the squad car at the entrance. This was plainly an act of threat. The turnabout projection of hostile attitude is all too plain. So is the agenda of jamming out and demonising those who dare to question the radical agenda now being pushed. [BTW, it looks like the homosexual kiss-in at Chick-fil-A largely fizzled for want of numbers of the brazen.])

Now, before we go further, let us make a point very clear. The explicit teaching of the Scriptures is that we are all made in God's image. That means that to hate one's fellow human being whom we see is to blaspheme the invisible God who made man in his image. 

Indeed, 1 Jn 4 is therefore quite blunt in exposing the absurdity of claiming to love God while hating our fellow human being:

1 Jn 4: 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot1  love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. [ESV]

 That is the context for the principle of loving one caught in the meshes of sin and deception enough to confront the wrong and call to penitence for the sake of his or her soul. 

If the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:25 - 37) does not suffice to show that the core biblical command to love one's neighbour as oneself -- the golden rule of Jesus, Paul and Moshe -- extends to enemies, then perhaps we should heed this, from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' most famous Sermon:

 Matt 5: 38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 

39 But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic,  let him have your cloak as well. 41 And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42 Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. 

 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 

44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers,8  what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 

48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. [ESV]

These are indeed challenging teachings, but they are at the core of the Judaeo-Christian, scriptural pattern of ethics.

If we struggle with living up to such -- as we must -- and with applying the whole counsel of scripture to the context of government and the necessity of the civil authority bearing the sword to protect the civil peace of justice (also taught in Rom 13, vv. 1 - 7, indeed this is the context in which the civil authority is viewed as God's servant to do us good who bears the sword for that purpose, and so has a just power of taxation) that is because the tension is necessary for our individual and collective good. We must have a long hard struggle in the state to resort to the sword, lest we become callous over the taking of life.

So, plainly, the scriptures simply do not teach us hate, but just the opposite.

If Christians (as do other people) struggle with anger -- "in your anger do not sin!" -- in the face of the brazenness, deceitfulness and destructiveness of evil (let us beware, so that we do not imagine ourselves to have light when we have only darkness . . . [on this matter cf. here for key texts, here for a recovery model, and here for background]), that too is a necessary struggle. We must be sure we are not acting out of mere pique or pride when we must act in prophetic, corrective judgement, or as agents of justice to arrest or punish evil. We must seek and strike a balance of truth, love, purity and spiritual power.

In the classic case-study of the woman caught up in adultery, Jesus challenged those who would use her case to push him into either rebelling against Rome or contradicting the scriptures, thus blasphemy. The intent was to pose a deadly dilemma: yes, stone and you are a rebel against Rome. No, do not, and you are a blasphemous rebel against the Law of Moses.  Either way, Jesus was being entrapped in a classic gotcha in public.

He seized the dilemma by the horns, and challenged her accusers, let him who is without sin cast the first stone at her. Convicted of their own sin, they slunk away. 

But that was not all. He turned to the guilty woman: where are your accusers? There are none, Lord. 

Nor, do I condemn you, go -- leave your life of sin.

Yes, we must not give in to the wrong of hate and playing dirty rhetorical games to trap, demonise or smear those we oppose.

But equally, we must never condone sin, and sinful lifestyles.

Instead, we must call to repentance and reformation of life.

Regardless of how politically correct or popular such sins are in any given day.

Yes, we love sinners, and yes, for the sake of their souls and our own, we dare not but call for repentance and associated reformation of societies. 

Nor should we fall into the trap warned against in Isa 5:

        Isa 5: 20 ​​​​​​​​Woe to those who call evil good
        and good evil,
        who put darkness for light
        and light for darkness,
        who put bitter for sweet
        and sweet for bitter!
      21 ​​​​​​​​Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,
        and shrewd in their own sight!  [ESV]

Then also, this very weekend, we learn how, on the UK front:

Evangelical Christians have been labelled extremist, and likened to “totalitarian Muslims” by a senior government advisor.


Alan Judd, an advisor to the Secretary of State for Education, was commenting on recent free school applications by Evangelical Christians . . . .

To ban believers from setting up free schools would be to exclude a large number of able, well-meaning and experienced people who can do much to raise levels generally”.

“The trouble is, as always, when it’s taken to extremes, whether it’s evangelical Christians, totalitarian Muslims or segregationist Jews.

“Such applications need careful vetting, not because there shouldn’t be far-out religious and ideological beliefs, but because the taxpayer shouldn’t pay to propagate them – and because children should be able to participate in a wider society without having their horizons narrowed by fundamentalism.”

In reply to this equating of Bible-believing Christians with IslamIST terrorists and their supporters, Steve Clifford, General Director of the Evangelical Alliance, remarked:

It is wrong and worrying that a senior government advisor brands evangelical Christians as extremist. 

There are approximately 2 million evangelical Christians in the UK, the fastest growing part of the church worldwide. They take their faith seriously, but that does not make them extremist.

The Christan Institute goes on:

Commenting on the news, the ConservativeHome blog highlighted that evangelical Christians were also often misrepresented by the media and portrayed as horrendous bigots or murdering lunatics.

The article notes as well, on how this has been going on for a long time now:

In 2004 the Home Secretary at the time, David Blunkett, drew criticism when he equated evangelical Christians with Islamic terrorists.

Mr Blunkett was controversially proposing to create a new criminal offence of inciting religious hatred.

He argued society needed protection from “…those who would take our lives because they reject our faith, and it applies equally from far right evangelical Christians, to extremists in the Islamic faith.”

Of course, the giveaway word is "fundamentalism."

100 years ago, when modernist theology was beginning to chip away at historic foundational Christian views as are embedded in the Bible and the classic creeds based on it, the Christians who stood up to resist in North America, published The Fundamentals, and were eventually dubbed Fundamentalists. After a century of broad-brush use of this term as a smear (and much fun being had headlining the failings and foibles of especially poorly educated or all too flawed Bible-believing Christians, too often joined to the sort of smears that led me to fruitlessly protest to the BBC all the way up to the Trust), the word has become a sneer in most usages, not a legitimate term. That's why AP's rulebook on Journalistic standards counsels against its use. 

Not that the BBC listened or cared. 

Most recently it has been taken broad-brush  to denote IslamIST terrorists and their fellow travellers, and by some twisted notion of balanced and equal wrong, this kidnapped word is being used to smear Christians who take the scriptures seriously as being the moral equivalent of murderous terrorists.

That is shameful, or rather, shameless.

And it is the exact context in which if someone stands up to say, wait a minute, marriage is not just a convenient legal institution that we can reshape as we will, like the tax code or which side of the street we drive on, s/he can now so easily be labelled as a purveyor of hate and enemy of "equality."

Let's put that sort of misbehaviour in one word: slander. 

There is an issue, that needs to be soberly addressed, and so if slander is substituted like that, that is utterly telling.

Indeed, the Mayor of Los Angeles -- the city where the defacing just happened -- has just joined the list of politicians who have said some very troubling things on the current controversy; providing a sadly apt case in point:

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has also weighed in on the Chick-fil-A debate, noting that Los Angeles has a "vibrant" LGBT community.

"I'm proud to support them as we call on Chick-fil-A's leadership to reconsider their position and join the growing majority of Americans who support marriage equality," Villaraigosa said. "In Los Angeles and in America, love and liberty will always triumph."

Something is very wrong here.

First, we cannot equate marriage between man and woman that has been established time immemorial in light of the naturally evident creation order of reproduction and child nurture, with a recent radical innovation being pushed by the confusion of license [cf. sense 2 here] for liberty, and without serious examination of consequences. 

In elaboration, I find it helpful to again clip an earlier post:

what is at stake today is the destruction or survival of marriage, the foundational institution of stable families and communities alike. As Girgit, George and Anderson observe in the just linked Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy paper:

 [T]he current debate is precisely over whether it is possible for the kind of union that has marriage’s essential fea‐tures to exist between two people of the same sex. Revisionists do not propose leaving intact the historic definition of marriage and simply expanding the pool of people eligible to marry. Their goal is to abolish the conjugal conception of marriage in our law 10 and replace it with the revisionist [--> i.e. homosexualised] conception . . .
----------

F/N 10: Throughout history, no society’s laws have explicitly forbidden gay mar‐riage. They have not explicitly forbidden it because, until recently, it has not been thought possible . . . [T]raditional marriage laws  were not devised to oppress those with same‐sex attractions. The comparison [to racist anti-miscegenation laws that forbade inter-racial marriages]  is offensive, and puzzling to many—not least to the nearly two‐thirds of black vot‐ers who voted to uphold conjugal marriage under California Proposition Eight. See Cara Mia DiMassa & Jessica Garrison, Why Gays, Blacks are Divided on Prop. 8, L.A. TIMES, Nov. 8, 2008, at A1.

 [Sherif Girgis, Robert P. George, & Ryan T. Anderson, "What is Marriage?" Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Vol 34, No. 1, p. 250 of 245 - 287.]

Already, the force of the homosexualist civilisational divide is at work, driving people on opposite sides of the issue farther and farther apart, and creating the perception that those who stand up in defence of marriage as it has historically been established are little better than hateful, racist bigots.

We need to pause, stop the radicals in their tracks -- already a bad sign, and ask them to answer to our concerns with a modicum of respect and good broughtupcy; starting from the grounding of OUGHT, and of rights. If they refuse to do so, on the whole, that is a strong sign that we are dealing with a destructive agenda that is bent on power-games to push a divide and dominate agenda, not genuine reformation. For sure, the time has long since passed where we should be intimidated by shouts of "you are a theocratic, hateful, Bible-thumping bigot," especially when these come from the mouths of angry, patently hostile radicals.

Of course the claim that a majority of Americans supports homosexualisation of marriage, is dubious given that there has been a manipulative propaganda campaign pivoting on willful corruption of language and the equally willful and -- for those who do know or should know better -- deceitful confusion of key concept such as liberty, equality and rights; so that, many who support such probably do not understand the consequences of what they are supporting. Also, we should pause, given that of it seems 32 times that this has come up for a state-level vote of the public, it has been defeated without exception.

As to the  claim that love and liberty will triumph, that brings up a point highlighted in an earlier KF discussion, in response to Mrs Barbara Bush on the same matter, revealing that there is more than love and liberty at stake here (citing from here):

Alan Keyes, in responding to former US First Lady Barbara Bush, remarks:

. . . isn’t love the foundation of marriage? Why should some loving couples enjoy legal recognition and privileges that are denied to others?

But the plausible conviction that loving homosexual couples “ought to have…the same sort of rights that everyone has” immediately runs afoul of the simple fact that homosexuals are not the only loving couples without the legal right to marry. Parents and their children don’t have it. Siblings don’t have it. Children not yet of legal age don’t have it; and so on. In principle, all such people are capable of forming loving, committed relationships. By the logic Mrs. Bush relies on, “they ought to have… the same sort of rights that everyone has.”

In short, once we see obvious exceptions to a suggested "rule" like that, something is fundamentally wrong with the rule. What is it? Keyes continues:

Why are parents and their children forbidden to marry one another? Cut to the chase and the answer is simple. The right to marry includes legal recognition (legitimization) of the married couple’s right to have sexual relations with one another. But it is wrong for parents to have sexual relations with their children. It’s wrong for siblings to have sexual relations with each other. It’s wrong for adults to have sexual relations with underage children. Obviously, unless Mrs. Bush means to argue that these restrictions are unjustified, a committed loving relationship is not enough to establish that people “ought to have” the right to marry.

He then digs in further, addressing the pivotal term, "ought":

Mrs. Bush’s use of the word “ought” deserves further attention. The difference between what people do and what people ought to do is a matter of moral judgment. The word “ought” implies the application of a moral standard, a rule or principle that distinguishes right from wrong. People ought to do what is right. They ought not to do what is wrong. When people do what is right, they have the right to act (i.e., have right on their side as they act.) But can the same be said of those who do what is wrong?

He then points to a key breakdown triggered by the modern confusion of liberty and license -- the abuse of freedom:

In everyday parlance these days, we use the term “right” as though it is synonymous with the freedom to act as we choose. But if the choice is wrong, it makes no sense to assert that the chooser has the right  to act on it  (i.e., has right on his side as he does so.) What someone can do (has the physical capacity or opportunity to do) differs from what they ought to do. This is in fact the rationale for all criminal laws. It’s what allows us to recognize that simply having the opportunity and power to take someone’s life or goods does not grant the right to do so, does not make it right.

In short, until the moral legitimacy of homosexual conduct is solidly grounded (and until the harmlessness of such a legislative -- or, these days, often, a judicial -- act is sufficiently shown), we have a perfect right to question the notion that our civilisation's states should take the step of legitimising homosexual relationships as marriages under the law. Which of course is a very big question indeed, and one on which all serious voices have a right to be heard. Including, those who look to the truly great religious teachers of mankind, as proved moral instructors.

In short, some very serious issues lurk under the surface.

Far too serious to allow smear-rhetoric to shut down discussion. Whether in declarations of Mayors or National Education advisers, or in graffiti that carries a telling, twist-about smear.  END

Matt 24 watch, 166c: The spin games weigh in, e.g. with an ABC news report -- "Chick-fil-A posted "record-setting" sales . . . after the chain's chief made anti-gay comments"

The ABC News story lead as headlined shows how unethical polarising, jamming out homosexualist spin presented under false colours of news reporting works.

Remember, given the "After the Ball" PR agenda of Kirk, Madsen and co, the following is not a mere oversight, accident or mistake. No, it is quite willfully intentional, and is increasingly par for the course in what passes for news reporting today:

Chick-fil-A Has 'Record-Setting' Sales on Appreciation Day

By AMY BINGHAM | ABC OTUS News 

Chick-fil-A posted "record-setting" sales on Wednesday as thousands of people swarmed the chicken chain for Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day after the chain's chief made anti-gay comments . . .

Just what were these "anti-gay" -- i.e. (by direct implication) allegedly hate-driven remarks?

Let us clip an earlier post, citing in turn from WND:

“We are very much supportive of the family – the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that,” [Dan] Cathy said.

In a separate radio interview, Dan Cathy said, “I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, ‘We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage. I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think we can try to define what marriage is all about.”

In short, to the likes of Ms Bingham, if you dare suggest that there is a naturally evident, creation order to humanity that -- through the obvious complementarity of man and woman -- sets  a principled moral, spiritual and valid intellectual context for understanding marriage . . .  

-- i.e. the patent basis for the universal consensus of humanity until only a few years ago when radical activists made up the notion that Adam could "marry" Steve, not Eve, and that Eve may then wish to "marry" Mary (and perhaps after this, Sue may wish to "marry" Fido) --

. . . one is inevitably being hateful.

This is an outrage, an affront to common decency and basic civility.

And, remember, this is not a commentary in a column by an advocate of an agenda, it is the lead of what should be a straight news piece. Only, it ain't.

But, it is what is happening now, in 2012.

So, it is entirely in order to clip the same previous KF post, to again see Huckabee and Hayward expose and rebuke this uncivil tactic of attempting to delegitimise people of conscience who have taken a serious position of principle:

Mr Huckabee has a telling point on that:

“The militant homosexual advocates have launched an all out assault on Dan Cathy and Chick-fil-A, pushing for a boycott because the Cathy family has contributed to traditional marriage organizations. The attempts to hurt or destroy Chick-fil-A is nothing short of economic bullying. In the name of ‘tolerance,’ there is an effort being mounted to put pressure on people to stop eating at Chick-fil-A. Even worse is the vilification of the company and its employees. The Christian world view of Dan Cathy is being met with intolerance and vicious hate speech,” Huckabee’s announcement said.

John Hayward of Human Events, adds:

 “The name of the game being played against Chick-fil-A involved ending the discussion, by ruling one side of this important social debate completely out of order, and dismissing their beliefs as unworthy of respect. All resistance to gay marriage is instantly transmuted into personal hatred of gay people. On the other hand, criticism of traditional marriage proponents cannot be viewed as hateful, no matter how angrily it might be expressed. It’s a rigged heads-we-win, tails-you-lose game,” he said.

Cathy isn’t allowed to encourage reverence and support for the traditional family, or even worse, put his money where his mouth is.  He’s not allowed to say that he finds moral or practical value in the time-honored definition of marriage, without feeling animosity towards gay people.  His ideas and principles are automatic thought crimes, no matter how gently and constructively they might be presented.

It is time that we stood up to such tactics and made it plain that news agencies that tolerate or promote such abuse of journalistic ethics will be red-lined, as having no credibility.

Those who play dirty games with news like this, need to know that they will pay a heavy price in their credibility. Otherwise, this will only get worse and worse.

Time to get out the straight vs spin grid and grade news sources -- traditional, Web based, regional and local. 

And those that fail, need to be plainly red-lined and warned against. 

That's why it is well worth clipping a critical user comment for the ABC story:

Maybe journalism has changed or they must not be paying enough at ABC. How many students would be able to get the first paragraph past a college professor twenty years ago? How low can ABC fall?Here you go everyone, my 11 yr. old kid is being called to the computer to edit this so called reporters first paragraph. Chick-fil-A posted "record-setting" sales on Wednesday as thousands of people swarmed the chicken chain for Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day after the chain's chief made anti-gay comments.Ok, the first thing he said after reading this piece and a few others on the subject is that the first paragraph is usually the most important part of the story and she missed big time. She got the who, what, where, why, when and then she made up the how. What a disgrace to a so called news organization to take make assumptions and take comments of a supporter of traditional marriage is now branded as hate speech anti-gay comments. ABC do you understand that there are important questions that your dwindling customers wants answers to? You are making stuff up to fill your dingbat views. Even an 11 yr. old sees it. How do you run a business? As someone that writes a few checks. I say about on par with my six year old. They are gaining confidence everyday so thanks ABC. 

That makes a telling contrast to the hostility expressed in the immediately following comment (I don't see a time stamp):

The narrow-minded, homophobic folks who decided to make a political statement by chowing down on reprocessed chicken parts are no different than those who vehemently objected to interracial marriage in the previous generation.They too will end up on the wrong side of history.

 The former highlights a failure of journalism, the latter is caught up in the talking points and loaded words of the moment. Evidently, it has not struck this commenter that there is a world of difference between laws that pretended that a man and a woman of diverse ethnicities do not complement one another as man and woman, and suggesting that there is no distinction between man + woman and the various alternatives that are now being touted as "equal" to it. In turn, that is highly revealing on the nihilistic breakdown of rationality and moral discernment leading to might and manipulation make 'right' amorality imposed by the rise of radical relativism in our day and underlying evolutionary materialist scientism under the guise of avant garde knowledge and flying the false colours of both science and civil rights.

Of this, Plato as long ago as 360 BC, warned in The Laws, Bk X:

[[The avant garde philosophers, teachers and artists c. 400 BC] say that the greatest and fairest things are the work of nature and of chance, the lesser of art [[ i.e. techne], which, receiving from nature the greater and primeval creations, moulds and fashions all those lesser works which are generally termed artificial . . .  The elements are severally moved by chance and some inherent force according to certain affinities among them-of hot with cold, or of dry with moist, or of soft with hard, and according to all the other accidental admixtures of opposites which have been formed by necessity. After this fashion and in this manner the whole heaven has been created, and all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only . . . . 

[[T]hese people would say that the Gods exist not by nature, but by art, and by the laws of states, which are different in different places, according to the agreement of those who make them; and that the honourable is one thing by nature and another thing by law, and that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.- [[Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT. (Cf. here for Locke's views and sources on a very different base for grounding liberty as opposed to license and resulting anarchistic "every man does what is right in his own eyes" chaos leading to tyranny.)] These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might [[ Evolutionary materialism leads to the promotion of amorality], and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [[Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality "naturally" leads to continual contentions and power struggles; cf. dramatisation here],  these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is, to live in real dominion over others [[such amoral factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless tyranny; here, too, Plato hints at the career of Alcibiades], and not in legal subjection to them . . .

In short, something has gone very wrong with news, and with a lot of other centres of influence and leadership in our civilisation.

As a consequence of earlier incidents, I have already had occasion to write off the BBC, and now ABC. And there are several others "too numerous to mention." 

If this sort of thing continues, the whole news profession needs to be red lined as in serious need of reformation before we can ever trust news again. 

Frankly, limited or even no news is better than propagandistic smears, outright lies and subtle or blatant agendas fed to us in the name of being soberly presented who- what- where- when- why- how facts we need to know about.

(And, BTW, the first paragraph got what, why and how wrong, in service to an obvious agenda. Mr Cathy was plainly not expressing hatred for homosexuals but seeking to stand for marriage as it has historically been understood, expressing his concern for the implications of assuming that we can remake so foundational an institution as we will regardless of what is naturally evident, being rooted in the underlying Creation order of Man and Woman together as the basic unit of reproduction and nurture of the next generation. That is a serious and principled view that needs to be soberly discussed, not smeared and demonised automatically as hate. Nor is it anything but prejudiced projection to assume that the tens or hundreds of thousands who came out in support of a restaurant chain that had been targetted by homosexualist radicals and their fellow travellers could automatically be written off as being motivated by the equivalent of racial prejudice and hate. That is shameful and indefensible. Indeed, it seems to be a manifestation of hostility, broad-brush adverse stereotyping and prejudice.)

Sad, but we need to face what is so blatantly in front of us.

On the bright side, there is probably a rising market for de-spinning the coverage out there and giving us some straight news and honest views. END

Matt 24 watch, 166b: In protest at the attempted homosexualisation of marriage, Chick-fil-A stores are crowded across the USA on Huckabee's Appreciation Day

In a clear message to the activists seeking to homosexualise marriage and hounding anyone who appears in the public square and does not toe the line, Chick-fil-A stores across the USA have seen large crowds on the day promoted by former US Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.  (Cf earlier post on the issue.)

As a WND report shows:

A crowded August 1st Chick-fil-A store interior

As the report then notes:

Some 600,000 people had signed up to celebrate Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day today, which former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee created to counter a boycott launched by same-sex marriage activists last week after Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy said he was “guilty as charged” for not supporting homosexual marriage.

“The goal is simple,” Huckabee wrote on Facebook. “Let’s affirm a business that operates on Christian principles and whose executives are willing to take a stand for the godly values we espouse by simply showing up and eating at Chick fil-A on Wednesday, August 1” . . . .


[Patron] Roger Cates told CNN’s iReport he had lunch at Chick-fil-A in Owensboro, Ky., and planned to return with his family for dinner. He said political leaders who have criticized the chain, such as the mayors of Boston and Chicago, are hypocritical.

“I think it is ironic that the so-called forces of tolerance and inclusion are calling for the exclusion of Chick-fil-A from cities simply because of the beliefs of their chairman. … People that disagree with me have a right to their opinion, and I have a right to mine,” Cates said.

In Oklahoma, Tim Tibbles told iReport: “It’s 109 degrees here, and people have been standing outside for well over an hour. Nobody is complaining or talking about the controversy. They’re showing quiet support.”

Other chains reportedly got in on the action, with some Wendy’s franchises in North and South Carolina posting signs outside their restaurants saying, “We Stand With Chick-fil-A.”

It is a strange time when the serving area of a fast food restaurant becomes ground zero in the culture conflicts of our time.

But, that is what we are seeing, and seeing because of the blatant radical agenda to demonise, jam out and exclude from the public square those who challenge the homosexualist agenda. END