Robert Knight will once again tell us who we are, what we want, and why we do what we do:
“Like other terms that swiftly achieve common usage, “sexual orientation” is rarely examined. Yet “sexual orientation” is more than a neutral term that can be used to describe anyone’s sexual inclinations. It is a radical challenge to the beliefs of all major
religious faiths because it attacks the notion that sexual behavior has moral dimensions. It especially challenges Christianity.
The underlying concept of “sexual orientation” is that all sexual behavior is equally valid and equally valuable to society. There are no good choices or bad choices, just desires. “Sexual orientation” laws are the legal embodiment of the old ’60s slogan, “If it feels good, do it.” However, the orthodox Christian view is that people who embrace sinful behavior as an identity are to be challenged like any other sinner, and they should be assisted in resisting temptation and overcoming it. They are to be encouraged to repent and avail themselves of the healing power of Jesus Christ. “Empowering” a particular sin serves only to trap sinners and encourages them to continue practicing their sinful behavior. That is why “supporting “gay rights” based on the relativist notion of “sexual orientation” is the opposite of Christian compassion, however well meant.
Over the past 90 years, a steady campaign has unfolded to overthrow Christian morality and replace it with an amorality that says desires in and of themselves validate behavior. It has been advanced largely by hijacking the rubric and moral capital of the black civil rights movement and attempting to apply such rhetoric to gain support for same-sex behavior. The political Left has long been at war against sexual morals for strategic reasons.
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Robert H. Knight, How the Concept of “Sexual Orientation” Threatens Religious Liberty, 4 Liberty University Law Review [ADF Alert]
Uhm, Mr. Knight: “Sexual orientation” is not a mere term. It’s not political rhetoric. Sexual orientation is science. Is research. Is truth about the human condition’s full spectrum.
Sexual orientation isn’t an “If it feels good, do it” notion. Instead, it is an “If it *is* you, live it” reality. So it’s one thing to choose religious beliefs that both see and bring problems to certain people on the basis of their relational cores (a.k.a. sexual orientations). But these anti-[certain citizens] theological convictions must deal with the world as it actually exists, not vice versa. And of course civil government must deal with this actuality free from church interference.
Does supporting rights based on scientifically-recognized sexual orientation free from some people’s personal faith (and in ways that fully match pro-gay people’s faith beliefs) constitute an attempt “to overthrow Christian morality and replace it with an amorality that says desires in and of themselves validate behavior“? Of course not! The truth is that folks like Robert Knight have, for decades, been using their own cherry-picked sense of what is and is not kosher under Christian moral code (incidentally: non-kosher food is totally fine) to replace America’s actual range of citizenship with only a limited span, all of whom agree to sidle whole hog onto the religious right’s own myopic vision. The anti-LGBT throngs’ constant message: That everyone else must deny their own feelings, beliefs, and learned interpretations of constitutional law, so as to allow “pro-family” values an unfettered reign. Which for LGBT people always boils down to either living a fake life or losing fair and equal citizenship. Which for both LGBT people and allies means a denial of their own morality (or even the possibility that such people could have moral compasses).
So who’s really been on the strategic path in this country? Is it (1) those who’ve fostered better understanding of the world’s diverse people and connected dots about how and why all humans can and should coexist civilly and peacefully; or (2) the crowd that’s undertaken a complex, highly financed, extremely (even admirably) tactical, decidedly code word-laden “culture war” against supposed undesirables? Because from where we sit, we see one side that would give anything to stop fighting and simply live, and another, highly-motivated crew that refuses to let that easy reality come to pass. We see a war that we never wanted or declared, but are now conscience-bound to fight.