"Resolutions" and The Overhauling of Straight America

Ideally, we would have straights register differences in sexual preference the way they register different tastes for ice cream or sports games: she likes strawberry and I like vanilla; he follows baseball and I follow football. No big deal. — Guide Magazine, October 1987

A heated debate broke out in West Virginia recently when the West Virginian Family Foundation accused a new school program of being "a veiled promotional tool for homosexuality." The school project organizers insisted that "they do not have a hidden agenda," despite the fact that the training manual recommends that teachers wear a "LesBiGay positive" button or a T-shirt with a "Straight, But Not Narrow" slogan. They insisted that it was simply an anti-bullying program to convince kids that "bullying is wrong." For Christians, I think it should be clear whose agenda has been moving forward in America when school officials focus on bullying being immoral but the sin of homosexuality is "an acceptable alternative lifestyle."

In California schools, a new film is making the rounds designed to help children accept homosexual "families." Here is how Debra Chasnott, director and producer of That's a Family defended the film in the October 9, 2002 ABC News report: "It reflects family diversity. It acknowledges the diversity in families as opposed to promoting certain lifestyles. It's important to make that distinction. Somehow that manages to get twisted and turned around and people think we are promoting a gay agenda."

Should unsuspecting parents take Debra at her word or be concerned that there really is some sort of homosexual agenda, hidden or otherwise, at work here? I would suggest that not only is there a homosexual agenda, but there is hardly any effort to keep the agenda hidden and a lot of resolve on the part of the homosexuals to see it accomplished!

In November of 1987, Marshall Kirk and Erastes Pill published a major "call to action" for the homosexual community in Guide Magazine. The article was not so subtly entitled "The Overhauling of Straight America" and clearly laid out what they thought the "gay agenda" needed to be in the coming years.

Authors Kirk and Pill laid out the agenda right at the start of their essay, "At least in the beginning, we are seeking public desensitization and nothing more. We do not need and cannot expect a full 'appreciation' or 'understanding' of homosexuality from the average American. You can forget about trying to persuade the masses that homosexuality is a good thing. But if only you can get them to think that it is just another thing, with a shrug of their shoulders, then your battle for legal and social rights is virtually won."

The authors went on to outline the six "agenda points" that must be done for this type of campaign to succeed: As you review them, ask yourself whether the homosexuals have made any progress on this agenda in the past fifteen years. Reflect upon how dedicated, disciplined, and on message they have been in promoting something that even they admit cannot be discussed in public.

Here are the "six agenda points" suggested for the homosexuals with selected comments by the authors:

• Talk about gays and gayness as loudly and as often as possible.

  The principle behind this advice is simple: almost any behavior begins to look normal if you are exposed to enough of it at close quarters and among your acquaintances.

  Open and frank talk makes the subject seem less furtive, alien, and sinful, more above-board.

  And when we say talk about homosexuality, we mean just that. In the early stages of any campaign to reach straight America, the masses should not be shocked and repelled by premature exposure to homosexual behavior itself.
  
  

• Portray gays as victims, not as aggressive challengers.

  In any campaign to win over the public, gays must be cast as victims in need of protection so that straights will be inclined by reflex to assume the role of protector.

  (It almost goes without saying that groups on the farthest margin of acceptability such as NAMBLA, [Ed. note — North American Man-Boy Love Association] must play no part at all in such a campaign: suspected child-molesters will never look like victims.)
  
  

• Give protectors a just cause.

  A media campaign that casts gays as society's victims and encourages straights to be their protectors must make it easier for those to respond to assert and explain their new protectiveness. 

  Our campaign should not demand direct support for homosexual practices, should instead take anti-discrimination as its theme.
  
  

• Make gays look good.

  In order to make a Gay Victim sympathetic to straights you have to portray him as Everyman. But an additional theme of the campaign should be more aggressive and upbeat: to offset the increasingly bad press that these times have brought to homosexual men and women, the campaign should paint gays as superior pillars of society.
  
  

• Make the victimizers look bad.

  At a later stage of the media campaign for gay rights — long after other gay ads have become commonplace — it will be time to get tough with remaining opponents. To be blunt, they must be vilified… we intend to make the antigays look so nasty that average Americans will want to dissociate themselves from such types.
  
  

• Solicit funds: The buck stops here.

  Any massive campaign of this kind would require unprecedented expenditures for months or even years — an unprecedented fundraising drive.

The article is still available at here and you can read the complete plans that authors Kirk and Pill laid out for this massive campaign. They concluded with this sober warning for the homosexuals in 1987:

And, let us repeat, time may be running out. The AIDS epidemic is sparking anger and fear in the heartland of straight America. As the virus leaks out of homosexual circles and into the rest of society, we need have no illusions about who is receiving the blame. The ten years ahead may decide for the next forty whether gays claim their liberty and equality or are driven back, once again, as America's caste of detested untouchables. It's more than a quip: speak now or forever hold your peace.

The homosexuals and their supporters have stayed on message and followed this agenda in almost every  area of American society over the past fifteen years, including the school programs discussed above. Despite vocal protests, these programs in the schools are doing exactly what the homosexuals wanted in their agenda!

The bottom line question for Christians is this: If these sinners who desperately need the great gift of salvation in Jesus Christ can do so much in the power of the flesh to defend practices that the general public finds repulsive, then what should we as Christians be doing to advance the kingdom of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit? Should we be showing the same type of dedication and discipline as we consider what it means to pray "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven"?

As we approach the season of resolutions, it would be good if more Christians would ponder some that go a little deeper than cutting down on the number of trips to the ice cream parlors or doing a better job of keeping their tempers on the highways. Perhaps it is time for Christians to consider how we would practically put together a plan for "The Overhauling of Sinful America!" The critical question is whether we as Christians are prepared to show the same resolve and discipline and do the kind of hard work that the homosexuals have done over the past fifteen years promoting their ungodly agenda. Lord willing, in the power of the Holy Spirit we can!

For starters, our Lord and Savior left us with one perfectly good resolution that Christians can use year after year: "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

Have a Happy New Year, and I hope to see you on the battlefield!