Lamar Howell's Weblog

American Atheists have adopted a stretch of Davis Blvd near my home.

I guess after having brought about the end of Roman infanticide, polygamy, and child abuse,

then the abolition of slavery, women’s sufferage, and turned abortion on demand around,

established the Salvation Army, Red Cross, built hospitals and orphanages around the world,

established Feed the Hungry, Prison Fellowship, Catholic Charities and World Relief,

brought about child labor laws, founded Social Work, and Save the Children,

then wrote the Magna Carta and established a new nation.

I guess they still have some breath left in them to do something on a local level –

like buy a green sign and stick it by the road.

I am not so much bothered about the Supreme Court’s DOMA and Proposition 8 decision. Those decisions are only reflections of the mentality of many in our nation at this juncture in our history.  What bothers me is where these decisions and our current philosophy is taking us. Let me make some predictions as to where this line of thinking will take us as a nation:

This movement about ‘gay rights’ is now commonly referred to as the new civil rights movement. I agree with this assessment, although I disagree with its premise. The civil rights for blacks was based on what is called ‘immutable characteristics,’ meaning color of skin or gender–things a person is born with, like being Jewish.  What happened in this new so-called civil rights movement, is that the culture and popular media, as well as politics attributed the immutable characteristics test to people promoting certain types of  behavior: homosexuality. Once that happened, it was only a matter of time before argument, protests, advocacy, and legislation established people practicing homosexuality as a minority group. It only follows that the rights of minority groups will be enumerated, defended legislatively and culturally, and finally – codified into law.

So, will ‘same-sex marriage’ become the law of the land in every state in the union? Yes. It is only a matter of time. But this is not what concerns me; it is the mentality that so widely and readily accommodates such a re-definition of a millennially-dominant culturally-given institution: marriage, or should I say traditional marriage–to qualify it, as if it needed to be qualified.

Here is what I see as a possible scenario in America: Homosexual ‘marriage’ will become common, and commonly-accepted. Churches and evangelical christians and Catholics will have to concede to this new phenomenon. Pressure will be put on churches, legally and culturally, to sanction this twisted meaning of marriage. It may sound extreme, but there could be arguments over the tax-exempt status of those institutions who reject a legitimate minority. Activists will monitor the activities of churches and statements by church leaders and report them to a sympathetic media.

Here’s what I see in the schools: homosexuality is already entrenched in academia and the educational system, with student clubs, acceptance of the ‘educational’ input of groups like GLSEN (Gay Lesbian Straight Educational Network) under the pretext of bullying. There will be a flurry of videos and books sent into schools nationwide to ‘educate’ children on the evolved definition of marriage, expanded definitions of sexuality, and various genders. Homosexuality activits are already using children as tools of their ideology: “children in gay families need to feel that their parents are just as normal and dignified as other families, and the children need to feel dignity.” Schools will be given the chance to have their own ‘pride’ celebrations. Schools are already doing things like ‘mix-it-up’ day, a way to promote tolerance of various people and, by extension, lifestyles and sexuality preferences. Teachers for example will be hesitant to do  games which separate the sexes or identify them, for fear of being called down. A good citizen will only be the tolerant citizen.

Teacher training will go beyond diversity training and sensitivity seminars. They will be taught how to bring ideas about homosexuality and marriage into lessons, and be pressured to treat all ‘marriages’ as equal, good, and desirable. Teachers will be given opportunities to present such lessons for fellow teachers. There are already school which promote lessons about ‘LBGT,’ Lady Gaga, and the like. Lessons teachers can print, and videos they can show which define, describe, and promote homosexuality to school children.

As for the business world: no business which advertises will not be allowed to aim ads at traditional families or couples. Billboards, printed material, public posters–anything that shows a traditional couple or family will become suspect, and there will be a outcry of discrimination, and lawsuits will clog the courts.

As for television: Activists will demand equal time (equal protection under the law as the rationale) for advertisements on networks and on television programs. Portrayals of traditional families will be balanced out with depictions of the new ‘families.’ Embarrassing to say, but even companies which produce medicine for ED and other disorders will be forced to advertise using men only. Traditional marriage will not be tolerated as being superior, preferable, normal, and yes–eventually as traditional. History will be re-written, and obscure, despised-at-the-time relationships will be drudged up from the sea of history.

Politically, it will be Pandora’s box, Hollywood’s Ark of the Covenant, the opening of a hoarder’s closet. There will be a greater move to de-emphasize gender, gender roles, and even titles such as Mr. Miss and Mrs. will become a landmine. People will not be able to identify people as man or woman in police reports, and any references to a person’s masculine or feminine looks or attire (profiling) will eventually become anathema and political suicide. Gender-confusion on any side will eventually bleed like grape juice into all groups and affect individuals and all society.

The calendar will take big hits from this too: Father’s Day and Fathers’ Day; Mother’s . . . you get the picture. And so will businesses, capitalizing on a new source of revenue. Every holiday parade and city-sponsored public event will have activists and representatives, booths, and literature on hand.

Sounds like fiction and fear-mongering? Bizarre? What–nothing bizarre has happened in America this week? . . .

The second most dreadful part of this will be the fallout from action government takes when reverse discrimination and affirmative action policy regarding homosexuality are instituted, codified, and forced upon society. This may be long in coming, as some of the other possible scenarios I outlined, but it will come. If lawsuits are even hinted at being superfluous, more outrage will follow.

People who write essays like this one you are reading will be attacked, marginalized, and fired from their jobs for ‘unknown’ reasons. Yesterday’s homophobes are today’s bigots, and will be tomorrow’s racists. Anyone who resists this new marriage ideal, it would be just as well if he or she were Jim Crow or a Nazi-sympathizer.

The  thing to most fear about this whole path the Supremes seem to be leading us down is the total loss of freedom: freedom of speech, because you cannot say anything critical of this new civil rights movement; freedom of religion, because you cannot say anything about its morality; freedom of the press, because unless you agree with this new sexual-revolution anything you say is verboten; and freedom of assembly, because like the Scouts, you will not be able to meet with groups who voice opposition of the new, improved marriage culture. As an aside, silence in the public sphere will be seen as disapproval. Spokespersons, employers, administrators, and public officials must openly praise this new civil right: its relationships, its virtues, its history, and its rightful place in a modern equal society.

Fifty years from now, those who survive this cultural moral suicide will be met with an onslaught of anniversaries of landmark decisions, historical events, biographies of heroic ‘gay activist’ Americans, and new holidays to celebrate.

A strange twist of irony which will result from ‘same-sex marriage’ will be the defensibility of marriage for any and every reason, and possibly for any and every number of people. For example, if Joe Schmoe has lots of money and his friend Fred Schmed is disabled, then Joe and Fred may marry–not for love, not for family, not for sex–but simply for monetary reasons. And if Mary and Lucy love eath other and  both love Jose, why can’t they all get married. What will stop it?

Nothing. Wait, there is one thing.

If a culture with traditional, moral people holding a Biblical worldview do not act to stop this insanity, then there is another force that will.

Islam.

A large comet-like asteroid is approaching Earth, but it is not alone. Astronomers have discovered in the tail of this asteroid a small moon. So, all comets are not gigantic cosmic wandering loners like we always thought. They are not all Godzillas or Superman, acting alone. No. The Lone Ranger has his Tonto; Don Quixote has his Sancho Panza; the Longhorn cow has her egret; and so, Asteroid 1998 2EQ has its companion. Which makes me ask, do you have a little companion moon encircling you or following in your wake? What do people see in your outer atmosphere. (Control your imagination here). Are you so predictable, like Halley’s Comet, which once struck fear in the heart, but is now just an occasional heavenly dust-storm?  Is there something amazing in your life that people haven’t seen? Surprise people with a revelation, serendipitiously mesmerizing some bored observer and bringing awe back to an unsuspecting human soul. Splash the color of life onto the forgotten closeted canvas of a mind medicated by the repetitious clockwork pale orange of society. Maybe your small moon is nothing spectacular in itself. The joy erupts in the simple knowledge that your small moon exists. We all have one – look behind you!

A policeman without his bullet-proof vest feels vulnerable. A skirt-clad lady in a strong wind feels vulnerable. A mourning dove with its nest on the ground must feel somewhat vulnerable.

I’ve made myself vulnerable before, because I knew that many wise people say we must let down our barriers in order to overcome certain issues. I confessed a mortal weakness to a minister in front of a crowd of Full Gospel Businessmen and asked for prayer. I told an elderly lady I needed prayer because I hated someone. I sat before men as an experiment in inner healing and watched them chart details about my upbringing and complex family relationships, then brush their spiritual hands in victory and leave me like so many loose stripped electric wires, raw and zuhhhz-ing to the touch.

All those things which I thought were vulnerabilities faded when I read Isaiah 53 again today. The prophet looked seven hundred years into the future at true vulnerability. The Messiah, Christ, was to be marred beyond recognition, receive wounds for the sake of the whole world, be publicly punished for the wrongs of his malefactors and their progeny, be falsely called a transgressor, and in the face of all this, maintain complete silence–defenseless as a lamb.

That would have been enough to qualify him as the most vulnerable person who ever lived, aside from the fact that he came into the world as an utterly helpless infant, whose very life was endangered by a barbaric dictator. But that was not enough vulnerability, exposure, and weakness for the Savior. His clothing was seen as barter, a serendipitous prize in a game of dice. So, before gawkers and mockers, he died naked–the ultimate in vulnerability.

He was wounded for our transgressions, lashed for our healing, beaten to a pulp for our peace with God, and died for our sinfulness. His nakedness was not morally necessary for our salvation, so why did it happen?

I would dare say that few of us have been naked before a crowd, especially outdoors, and on a hilltop to boot. Far fewer of us have been punished in the nude. Our vulnerability ends where divine shame begins. For only One died naked for the secretly sequestered, godlessly garbed, and cowardly covered sins of a proud world. The disrobing of God extended even into the most holy place as the curtain was violently torn away to expose wholesale mercy.

No one can ever assert or even hint that the Son of God did not go the extra mile in humiliation.