Full Speed Ahead to the End of a Culture

It appears homosexuality is now the defining force in American culture. Almost every institution is committed to supporting and furthering this "lifestyle choice," from the government schools to America's corporate elite.

Institutional leaders are so blatant and confident in their mission that they don't even try to conceal their agenda anymore. For instance, a recent feature in NEA Today, the official publication of the National Education Association, focused on how to recruit and train children to be openly and proudly homosexual. The "dilemma" under discussion was titled "Supporting Gay Students" and teachers from middle school (grades 6-8) upward contributed to the question of "How do you support students who are struggling with their sexual orientation?" The answers:

I support these students in the following ways:
1. Taking the risk of offering with other colleagues a confidential Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered Support Group for students, and posting notices at school that students may approach me or two other colleagues for information on the support group.
2. Inviting all staff to wear "rainbow stickers" on our school ID badges to signify we are open to talking to students with sexual orientation issues. We have posters around the school explaining the stickers.
Steve Bloom
Licensed school social worker
I am an out gay Spanish teacher. One of the reasons I am out is so that our gay/bi-sexual/transgendered youth can turn to a teacher who refuses to hide the life she was meant to live, one who will not judge, push, criticize, or be horrified. A teacher whose life is open as all wholesome, caring lives should be and there when students need me.
Elena Picado
Spanish teacher
When discussing civil liberties in my civic class, I bring up the issue of homophobia. I relate experiences I've had, including going to a Pride March. I reassure my students that the American Medical Association has removed homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses. I mention famous people who happened to be gay. I try to help all my students make the transition to a view of tolerance. I let them know I was raised homophobic but outgrew this faulty premise. As a result of this outreach, a number of students have felt comfortable enough to approach me . . .
Mel "Skip" Didier, Jr.
High school teacher/coach ¹

Corporate Wooing of Homosexuals
Surprisingly though, the overwhelming impetus, not only financially but also socially, is coming not from the government PC Machine, nor even from areas which are being legally forced to support homosexuality. While it's easy to blame the morally challenged National Endowment for the Arts, the Department of Education, OSHA, the legislative, judicial, and executive branches (and they do deserve blame), the problem runs much deeper and is closer to home. Sadly, it is our most prestigious business corporations that are not only tolerating homosexuality, but pursuing, embracing, and financing the movement with reckless abandon.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Big Three automakers (Ford, GM, and Daimler-Chrysler), have "said they will extend their health care benefits to same-sex partners" which they proudly declare will be "a breakthrough in a long-running national debate over workplace fairness."² It's not as if overwhelming pressure was placed upon the American auto manufacturers, because by their own count, "statistically, less than 1% of their employees are expected to take advantage of the new benefits program, and observers said they don't expect that number, which has remained constant in the past decade or so, to change much."³ Interestingly enough, the automakers chose to exclude "unmarried heterosexual partners, because they have the option of getting married. Gay couples don't have that option in most states."⁴ Of course, the car companies have standards!

Workers will be required to attest that their domestic partner relationship meets certain eligibility criteria, including being of the same sex and having shared a "committed relationship" with each other for no less than six months. Documents an applying couple will be asked to produce include those showing their shared financial responsibilities, Ford's Mr. Murphy said.⁵

That's no typo: Ford Motor Company really wants to encourage and reward those "committed [homosexual] relationships" in order to right a grievous wrong. What the states are unwilling to do fast enough (legitimatize homosexual marriages) the auto companies will do now!

While I wouldn't want to make the case for benefits extended to unmarried heterosexual couples, the point is that now the preference is clearly not just for reprobates, but for the most debased and perverse reprobates, and their recruitment is a priority. To receive a benefit you must demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are sharing the bed of someone of the same sex. Ford and the other manufacturers want the homosexual to come out of the closet and proudly "strut their stuff."

Indeed, so militant are these companies that they are willing to lose normal, heterosexual workers and even profitable business contracts, as Cummins Engine Company recently demonstrated:

When Cummins Engine Co. extended health benefits to domestic partners of its unmarried workers, it was simply following the lead of a number of other major corporations. But in Cummins' conservative hometown of Columbus, Ind., the idea of benefits for same-sex couples and unmarried heterosexuals raised a few hackles. While Cummins says the move will help it attract workers, some of its 28,000 employees complained the move endorses "antifamily" lifestyles. The controversy spilled over into the company's annual meeting earlier this month, when a representative from Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Transgendered Indiana rose to praise the diesel-engine maker's new inclusive policy, while critics lambasted the measure and the owner of a small trucking concern vowed to cancel an engine order. Cummins officials say they aren't backing down.⁶

Cummins, while including unmarried heterosexuals, clearly was seeking the approval of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Transgendered Indiana. I have an acquaintance who is an engineer for Cummins and who attended the meeting in which this policy was formally announced. After speaking against the implementation of the "domestic partners" inclusion in the health program, he was quietly advised by management the next day that perhaps he and several other Christians who held "intolerant views" would be happier working for some other company.⁷ Cummins claims to be trying to attract workers that 1% homosexual population that hasn't changed over the last decade but despises the highly qualified and far more numerous Christian employees they currently employ.

Cummins is not the exception, but rather represents the norm today. American Airlines, Boeing, IBM, Wells Fargo, and Disney are just a few of the 20% of the Fortune 500 companies that have begun encouraging homosexuals to seek employment with them by offering health coverage to same-sex partners.

While "courageously" standing up to the vast majority (perhaps 99% deserves an even stronger term then "vast"), they are, we're told, deadly afraid of offending a tiny, tiny homosexual minority. Our largest corporations bend over backwards to comfort them, give money to their political causes, and tailor their advertising and marketing to appeal to them based solely on their perverted lifestyle.

After the Big Three announcement, Alan Wolfe, director of the Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College and author of One Nation, After All wrote:

[I]n their pursuit of self-interest, private companies cannot disparage public sentiment. As the Paramount Television Group discovered when it agreed to air a new show hosted by Dr. Laura Schlesinger, gay-rights activists are quick to organize demonstrations and threaten boycotts against anyone whose behavior or opinions they view as discriminatory. Companies reluctant to offend any sizable group of consumers will read public opinion-polls with the same attention as politicians unwilling to offend any group of voters.⁸

This is a truly laughable myth. It's not that private companies are reluctant to offend a sizable group of consumers. They routinely not only knowingly offend Christians and other groups concerned about the moral climate, but brag openly about doing so. They also think nothing about offending significant numbers of shareholders who protest corporate underwriting of disgusting and vile programs and "causes." It is not self-interest that motivates far too many corporate leaders, but rather an almost unexplainable, unchecked, passionate drive to legitimatize, exalt, and ensconce homosexuality as the preferred way of life in every sphere.

Corporate Schizophrenia
I used the words "almost unexplainable," because in one sense it is mystifying. Why would any company that depends upon a stable community do anything that would undermine its future? Why would any company in today's very tight labor market suggest that a large group of faithful heterosexual employees leave so they can attract a much smaller and far more transient stable of homosexuals?⁹ There is no end of the "why's" that we could ask.

The mystery is taken out of this question, however, when the Christian thinks and interprets all things through Biblical eyes. God's Word tells us that those who hate Him love death. And the degree of hatred they have for God and the extent they love death is staggering. For instance, Allan Bloom, the conservative professor and author of The Closing of the American Mind, led a reckless life as a homosexual. When he discovered he was dying, most probably from AIDS, his closest friend reports that rather than repenting and crying out to God for mercy, he became increasingly obsessed with ever more bizarre sexual acts and was insatiable in his lust.¹⁰

This isn't an isolated incident. In Houston, Texas, one of the most popular homosexual party attractions is the conscious paring of HIV and AIDS infected men with healthy ones to participate in "unprotected sex." The stated goal is to increase the thrill for non-infected gays in an expression of sexual Russian roulette. The possibility that they may receive an infectious death penalty is for them an incredibly erotic experience. God-haters will pursue that which most perverts the image of God and defies His creation order and revel in death.

Judgment Day
What this means is that God is not going to judge our nation and culture sometime in the future because we have exalted homosexuality. Rather He is right now in the process of judging us, and we can tell that the last stages of this culture have arrived by recognizing just how powerful the homosexual drive is. It is God Himself who has already judged us and found us seriously wanting. Romans 1:24-32 outlines how "God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves... For this reason God gave them up to vile passions.... God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting..." We're in a culture that, even while "knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them."

The Christian and the church are called to discern the times; and we do so by observing the incredible, all-out rush to uphold, endorse, exalt, and praise the homosexual and sanctify and hold sacred all homosexual acts. In the Big Three's case, they have actually declared homosexuality to be a sacrament, with open confession and participation bringing the promise of health (benefits). While the end of history may not be near, the end of our current culture, outside of an incredible miracle of God, is definitely at hand.

This is both a dangerous time and an exciting, opportunistic time for the Christian church. It is dangerous because as restraints are lifted, man falls deeper and deeper into the cesspool of his own lusts and desires. Christians, as well as non-Christians, have to face the Neros, Robespierres, Hitlers, Stalins, Maos, and Pol Pots of the world, and are required in many instances to endure trials and tribulations for the sake of Christ.

However, enduring trials and tribulations is different from pursuing trials and tribulations. When wicked rulers are in power (and not recognized as wicked) and a culture is infatuated by sin and will not hear the Word of God, there can legitimately be times when the advice given in Amos 5:13 should be heeded: "Therefore the prudent keep silent at that time, For it is an evil time." We live in an evil time.

I don't think this advocates a withdrawal from society, but rather a realistic examination and diagnosis of where we stand. There are times a Christian is better served by staying quiet to avoid becoming a target in a culture where evil is called good and good is called evil. The fact that we are Christians living lives that exhibit the holiness of God and that we refuse to grant our approval to their debauchery by aligning our institutions with them is a powerful and undeniable witness to their crimes. While we never obey men when they require us to disobey God, in times such as these it makes little sense to rush out and seek martyrdom in the name of being a prophet. This is an evil time when we are seeing our culture crushed under the enormous weight of sin and judgment. To be silent now may be the prudent action. (And by silent, I don't mean we stop declaring from our pulpits or in our teaching classes that homosexuality is sin. I do mean that employees may not want to attend meetings and protest homosexual health benefits since it's increasingly likely no good will come out of this and, in fact, godly people will be fired.)

However, prudent silence does not mean we are not actively engaged against evil. If we recognize that the end of our culture is at hand, we must have the faith to build a godly one that can emerge from the rubble. This is the great opportunity, and it requires that we now begin (re)building truly Christian institutions. The church stands against the culture by upholding Biblical order and law. Homosexuality is not condoned by or in the church and, as a result, we make a more far-reaching and effective statement than protesting at city hall. The church teaches what the distinctions are between men and women and sets forth Biblical models to emulate those distinctions. It acts in a positive way by pronouncing blessings upon men and women who marry and by supporting Biblical marriages in every possible way. Rather than protesting the ungodliness of government schools that brag about their "diversity" and preference for wickedness, we build Christian schools that uphold God's laws.

Christian businessmen, while many times required by law to employ openly homosexual workers, do not grant them legitimacy by voluntarily extending benefits and privileges reserved for those conforming to Biblical models of righteousness. Employers should be ready to reward those who honor God's laws in whatever way they can. To the extent they can do business with other Christian businesses or help establish new ones, this is preferred. However even this should be undertaken with discretion, because RICO laws have been directed at Christians who are too high-profile in their actions.

Once again, we need to stop saying that we will be judged for our culture's infatuation with homosexuality and understand that it is the judgment itself. Once we see this, we can act accordingly. Our strategy doesn't change, but our tactics do! In other words, rather than utilizing all of our energy and resources on preserving and saving the current culture, we begin building a brand new one. We must prepare for the time, whether it be five, ten or a hundred years from now, that the final expiration of this culture arrives and people are open to life-giving truth once again.

There are going to be interesting times, to say the least, for Christians as we see what develops over the next decade or so. May God give us wisdom and understanding to interpret the times and know how to act accordingly. My great hope is that where sin abounds grace may much more abound and that God grants mercy to the church in this time of great transition.

Notes

1. "Supporting Gay Students," NEA Today, April 1999, Vol. 17, No. 7.

2. Norihiko Shirouzu, "Gay Couples to Get Benefits At Big Three Auto Makers," Wall Street Journal, June 9, 2000.

3. ibid.

4. ibid.

5 ibid.

6. Wall Street Journal, April 25, 2000.

7. Just as a side note, an elder of my church owns the company that cancelled the Cummins engine order. While the WSJ has repeatedly spurned his letters to the editors, they didn't hesitate to make use of actions taken to show how "courageous" Cummins officials were in standing up to such intolerant pressure.

8. Alan Wolfe,"Can Gay-Rights Groups Handle Success?", Wall Street Journal, June 13, 2000. Interactive edition.

9. Not only do homosexuals tend to be rootless and unsettled in their personal life; according to several studies, homosexuals have an average life expectancy of less than 50 years. It is an interesting fact that a homosexual with AIDS has a life expectancy just a few years less than a homosexual without AIDS.

10. Saul Bellows, a close friend of Bloom's, has written a book called Ravelstein, a thinly veiled biography of Bloom. As he writes in his book, "Ravelstein was willing to lay it all out for me. Now why did he bother to tell me such things, this large Jewish man from Dayton, Ohio? Because it very urgently needed to be said. He was HIV-positive, he was dying of complications from it. Weakened, he became the host of an endless list of infections. Still, he insisted on telling me over and over again what love was — the neediness, the awareness of incompleteness, the longing for wholeness, and how the pains of Eros were joined to the most ecstatic pleasures." I have just skimmed through the book but it is amazing the number of newspapers and magazines that published lengthy reviews or commentary based upon the book, including several in both the Washington Post and New York Times. It also seems to be a favorite for those at Amazon.com as well, judging by the number of reviews and ratings it has received.