Ohh the Oppression!

Here are the first words of prayer uttered at the opening ceremony of President Obama’s inauguration:

Good afternoon.

Before this celebration begins, please join me in pausing for a moment to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.

Oh God of our many understandings, we pray that you will bless us with tears, tears for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women in many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die a day from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless this nation with anger — anger at discrimination at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants; women; people of color; gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.

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Everybody knows he's gay.

If you were watching the inauguration on television you did not see or hear this, because HBO had the good taste not to broadcast it.

That prayer was recited by Gene Robinson, an Episcopal Bishop from New Hampshire. In his own words he is the “first openly gay, non-celibate priest to be ordained a bishop in a major Christian denomination.”. And that’s why he was given the honor of the invocation at our new President’s inauguration.

President Obama’s first choice was the Reverend Rick Warren, an evangelical preacher and Pastor of the Saddleback Church. But the Rev. Warren had a serious liability. He supported Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative that revoked the rights of gays to marry in the state.

For this he was pilloried by the gay lobby. Gene Robinson publicly declared that the selection of Rev. Warren was a “slap in the face”. The Human Rights Campaign issued the following statement to our President elect:

Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans. Our loss in California over the passage of Proposition 8 which stripped loving, committed same-sex couples of their given legal right to marry is the greatest loss our community has faced in 40 years. And by inviting Rick Warren to your inauguration, you have tarnished the view that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans have a place at your table.

Obama didn’t want to give Gene Robinson the opening prayer. He had to. Otherwise he would have been a homophobic bigot.

At one of Obama’s campaign rallies, an “ex-gay” gospel singer and preacher performed. The Rev. Donnie McClurkin not only declares homosexuality a choice, he claims to have been cured of it by his religious faith. Here’s what the Human Rights Campaign had to say about that:

”I spoke with Sen. Barack Obama today and expressed to him our community’s disappointment for his decision to continue to remain associated with Rev. McClurkin, an anti-gay preacher who states the need to “break the curse of homosexuality.” There is no gospel in Donnie McClurkin’s message for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and their allies. That’s a message that certainly doesn’t belong on any Presidential candidate’s stage.”

You can imagine the vitriol leveled against this man on the internet. “Homophobe”, “bigot”, “fool”, and “recloseted homosexual” were some of the kindest words used to criticize him. And the irony is, these words were being used by people who consider themselves progressive liberals.

Homosexuality was viewed as a sexual addiction… a perversion, until the American Psychiatric Association removed it from the list of mental disorders in 1973.

In the early 1970′s homosexuals became more public and more vocal, following in the footsteps of women’s liberation and the civil rights movement. The problem was, homosexuality is not a race or a creed. It was still illegal in some states, and classified as a disease by the medical profession.

The APA was under pressure from gay activists and the psychiatrists within their own ranks who supported them. Dr. Robert Spitzer, a leading Professor of Psychiatry, proposed a solution that satisfied gays and the medical practitioners who still viewed homosexuality as a mental illness. The phrase “Sexual Orientation Disturbance” replaced homosexuality in the official diagnostic manual.

This removed the stigma of homosexuality as a mental disorder, while allowing those who were disturbed by their same-sex attractions to seek treatment. This was a political compromise, not a new diagnosis. Most psychiatrists still viewed homosexuality as a pathological condition, but very few thought same-sex attractions could be cured through treatment anyway.

Dr. Spitzer however, has since changed his opinion. In 2001 he concluded a controversial study that proved highly motivated homosexuals could change their sexual preferences through therapy. After releasing his study he made the following statement:

“Like most psychiatrists, I thought that homosexual behavior could be resisted–but that no one could really change their sexual orientation. I now believe that’s untrue–some people can and do change.”

The truth is, homosexuality is not biological, there is no “gay gene”. And it is not immutable, people can change their sexual behaviors. So why is it that all we hear in the media is politically correct pseudo-science proclaiming that homosexuality is natural and therefore good?

Because if gay people are not born that way, and homosexuality is a choice, then it cannot be an inalienable right.

That’s why there is no room for debate as far as the gay agenda is concerned. Anyone who opposes homosexuality on moral or religious grounds is accused of spreading “hate”. Those who consider it deviant behavior are labeled as homophobic bigots, akin to being racists.

The mainstream press would have us believe that Proposition 8 passed because of a conservative conspiracy led by the nefarious Mormon Church. In fact supporters of the initiative were outspent by the gay lobby. The campaigns for and against Proposition 8 raised $39.9 million and $43.3 million, respectively.

The acrimony over Proposition 8 was so bad, supporters of the initiative filed a federal lawsuit to prevent public disclosure of their donations, citing harassment and even death threats. On January 29^th the court system denied the donor’s motion for anonymity, and their names were made public. Since then several web sites have posted donor’s names, addresses, and personal information on the internet.

Californians against hate and Anti Gay Blacklist publicize the names of individuals who gave money to support Proposition 8, and urge readers not to patronize their businesses. One particularly infamous website, eightmaps.com, has overlaid this information onto google maps. This provides the name and occupation of individual donors and their location on a digital map.

eightmaps.com

The website proclaims its purpose with these chilling words:

Proposition 8 changed the California state constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage. These are the people who donated in order to pass it.

The site is an invitation for anyone seeking revenge to find and harass Proposition 8 supporters. What’s even more insidious, the creator of the web site has chosen to remain anonymous after providing the location of these donors.

That the gay community would orchestrate such a vicious, spiteful campaign over Proposition 8 is bad enough. That so much of our public discourse is devoted to this decadent, fringe issue shows just how clueless our culture has become. We can thank the mainstream press and many of our most famous celebrities for that.

Tom Hanks called the Mormon Church “un-American” for supporting Proposition 8, although the actor did apologize. At last weeks Oscars, Sean Penn waxed pathetic during his acceptance speech for the Best Actor award. He referred to Proposition 8 supporters as “haters”, and chastised Californians for their “shame”.

The truth is, the majority of Californians do not approve of gay marriage. They proved that by passing Proposition 8, to the shock of liberals and the gay lobby. The initiative passed with 52.3 percent voting in favor, and 47.7 against.

The demographics of Proposition 8

That may sound like a closely divided issue, but a look at who and where the voters were reveals the chasm between pro and anti-gay cultures. Urban, wealthy people voted against Proposition 8. The people who passed the ban on gay marriage were rural, poor, and colored.

This is galling to the gay lobby because homosexuality is supposed to be a civil rights issue. Women, people of color, and the poor are supposed to champion gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and trans-gendered rights. But again, homosexuality is not a race or a creed, although it has become a culture.

It is a culture that the majority of Americans do not approve of. The gay lobby and their allies tell us we simply don’t have the right to disapprove. They demand more legislation, more attention from us, and whine about being oppressed until they get it.

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