Saturday, August 02, 2003

In God We Trust

Today, every American is feeling the consequences of wars being fought abroad, rising unemployment, global pollution, skyrocketing healthcare costs, soaring crime and corruption and the steady decline of the ‘traditional’ family structure as outlined and defined in the Bible. We’re living in times where ‘legal’ is a relative term as several fronts challenge our nations selective enforcement of separation of church and state. Students aren’t allowed to pray in public schools, the pledge of allegiance is under attack for being ‘unconstitutional’ because it cites a submission to God and gay rights activists are rigorously seeking equal acceptance and protection within the laws of the land. So often we glance at these headlines on the news and just glaze over them and resolve that those are issues for those government and political ‘bigshots’ to figure out. But for those of us who sincerely care about the society that we live in and the environment that we’re raising our kids in, a closer look at the issues at hand is required.

Back in 1998, here in Houston, a disgruntled neighbor of John Geddes Lawrence called the police with a fake distress call, saying there was a man ‘going crazy’ in Lawrence’s apartment. When the police arrived on the scene, they pushed open the door to find Lawrence and his partner, Tyron Garner, engaged in anal sex. Both men were arrested on a misdemeanor sodomy charge, spent one night in jail and had to pay a $200 fine. Texas’s long-standing sodomy laws made it illegal for gay people (and not heterosexuals) to engage in anal or oral sex. Instead of accepting the charges, the two men appealed the decision..all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. Their legal fight was not alone; a long list of legal and medical groups joined gay rights and human rights supporters in backing these Texas men. This past June, in a major victory for gay rights activists, the Court struck down this Texas sodomy statute (6-3), ruling that the law was an unconstitutional violation of privacy.

Personally, I felt that this decision by the court was an inevitable progression of our society. What consenting adults do within the confines of their own homes is a private matter. But from my understanding of the Bible, homosexual relations is NOT a union endorsed but rather condemned by God:

If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. Leviticus 20:13 (NKJV)

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. I Corinthians 6:9-10 (NKJV)

Today’s ‘church’ and Bible thumpers are so quick to point out the sinful ways of groups that they’re not a part of, but they tend to turn their back and ignore the ‘accepted’ sins such as heterosexual fornication and adultery. Now that the next push for gay rights is the acknowledgement and validation of same-sex marriages, the rubber is about to meet the road. This past Thursday, the Vatican released a 12-page document in seven different languages entitled, ‘Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons.’ The document calls on Roman Catholic lawmakers to block legislation granting legal rights to homosexuals in Europe and North America. It campaigns against same-sex marriages and same-sex couples adoption of children, both of which it sees as ‘gravely immoral’. Coming from an entity that was conspicuously silent and evasive concerning its own rampant incidents of child molestation (mostly homosexual) within its ranks of clergy and priests..the decree reeks of hypocrisy and selective morality.

America today is engaged in an ever-growing civil war of morality. Everybody doesn’t adhere and abide to the same religion. A large group of folks don’t even believe in God at all, as is their Constitutional right. But now that we’re all here, driving the same streets, working in the same workplaces, enjoying the same freedoms as tax-paying Americans, where is the line drawn in this separation of church and state? I respect any person for standing up and fighting for what they believe in, it shows energy, drive and a thirst for what they feel is a better life. But at the same time, I would like for others to respect MY beliefs and understand why I cannot endorse laws that are against the will of the God that I serve. I’m not trying to throw stones at anyone, or expounding that the ways in which I sin are better than the ways in which they sin, because we’ve ALL come short of the Glory. But these are the types of moral issues that if left unattended, will continue to grow toward a state completely devoid of the presence and will of God. America’s founding father’s made it a point to acknowledge God, even so much that the slogan, “In God We Trust” is printed on every piece of legal tender (money) that’s printed. Too often the squeakiest wheel gets the oil, its time for the people of God to raise their voices and be heard. If we don’t, America can easily follow the same fate that beset Sodom and Gomorrah.