Ken Hutcherson, pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Redmond, Washington, reportedly took a stand against the Washington governor’s recent efforts to legalize same-sex “marriage,” stating:  ”As long as the Bible says it’s wrong, I’m going to fight against it like it’s the last thing I can do. It’s no different than any other sin. If someone walked around and said ‘We want to be a minority because we are divorcees,’ I would fight that just as much.” He believes that if the proponents of the new law succeed, it will profoundly restrict religious freedom, and he’s right.

Proponents of same-sex “marriage” have the ultimate goal of sexual choices being treated the same as race. In other words, they think criticizing someone for engaging in homosexual behavior should be viewed the same as criticizing someone for being Black. The religious freedom implications for this change in the law would be striking. For instance, Title VII protects religious organizations by allowing them to discriminate based on religion when it comes to hiring staff. This exemption makes sense because no one would argue a Catholic school should hire an Atheist to teach religion. But that religious exemption doesn’t apply to discrimination based on race. If the proponents of same-sex marriage are successful in elevating sexual orientation discrimination to the same level as race discrimination, religious organizations that teach biblical truth about sexuality may be forced to hire individuals who engage in homosexual behavior  for some leadership positions like teachers. (You can read more about how the homosexual legal agenda could affect religious freedom here and here.)

Pastor Hutcherson is to be commended for being willing to take a stand that may be politically incorrect, and the foresight to understand the homosexual agenda’s negative implications for religious freedom. We need more religious leaders like him.

Many were shocked on March 2, 2011 when the Supreme Court, in an 8-1 opinion, protected the right of Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church to engage in hate speech at a soldier’s funeral.  The case, known as Snyder v. Phelps, addressed the heartbreak a father experienced when Phelps’s church picketed his son’s military funeral at a Catholic Church in Westminster, Maryland.  Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder was killed in Iraq in the line of duty.  As they’ve done many times before, Westboro Baptist held signs along the street not far from the Catholic Church.  The signs said things like “God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11,” “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” “Pope in Hell,” “Priests Rape Boys,” “God Hates Fags.”  And just in case you weren’t offended by any of these, they added the all-inclusive sign, “God Hates You.”

This case provided an excellent opportunity for the Court to adopt the legal strategy of European and Canadian courts which have refused to protect much more benign speech that is critical of homosexual behavior.  We at the ADF Church Project have been watching these foreign legal developments carefully.  Some of them include a preacher arrested for saying homosexual behavior is sinful, numerous reports of Christians persecuted because they believe homosexual behavior is immoral, and a Canadian church threatened with revocation of its tax exemption because it teaches biblical truth about homosexual behavior.  Based on this foreign trend, and attempts by courts to normalize homosexual behavior here at home, I’ve even warned that it’s just a matter of time before similar limits on speech are customary in the United States.

I was wrong (my wife and kids will be glad to see me admit it).

In the Westboro Baptist case, the Supreme Court held that even speech that may fairly be characterized as “hate speech” is protected by the First Amendment.  It said, “Given that Westboro’s speech was at a public place on a matter of public concern, that speech is entitled to ‘special protection’ under the First Amendment. Such speech cannot be restricted simply because it is upsetting or arouses contempt.  … Indeed, the point of all speech protection … is to shield just those choices of content that in someone’s eyes are misguided, or even hurtful.”

In one fell blow, the Supreme Court dashed any hopes of the liberal establishment, and calmed any fears of folks like me, that European style censorship of speech criticizing homosexual behavior will take place in the U.S. any time soon. If Westboro Baptist can stand just outside a church and openly condemn homosexuality (and all those who share U.S. citizenship with those who engage in it), a pastor inside a church can talk about God’s willingness to forgive those caught up in this sin.  And if Fred Phelps’s hate-filled view of the Bible’s teachings on homosexual behavior is protected speech on the street corner, a ministry is free to proclaim God’s forgiveness and loving admonition to go and sin no more, whether that be in the media, over the airwaves, or on the internet.

As much as I disagree with the folks at Westboro Baptist – God doesn’t hate anyone, but “wants all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth” – their victory at the Supreme Court was good for speech and good for religious freedom.  A Christian’s proper response to misrepresentations of the Gospel is to work harder to get the true message of God’s love and forgiveness out.  All of us have sinned in one way or another, but even the sexually immoral can be justified through Christ.  I Cor. 6:9-11.

The Supreme Court got it right in Snyder v. Phelps.  The answer to hate speech is not censorship, it’s more speech.

Of course, this setback won’t stop advocates of political correctness from continuing to attack religious speech they find objectionable.  These attacks are often indirect.  For instance, in 2009, President Obama signed the “Mathew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.”  This law limits itself to physical attacks and doesn’t apply to speech.  But there is a danger that it could be interpreted by an activist judge to prohibit speech that might cause someone to be physically ill.  You can find out more about this law in a resource we’ve put together here.

More importantly, virtually everywhere that hate crimes laws have been enacted, “hate speech” regulations follow. This is not surprising, considering the fact that “hate crimes” are enacted solely to send a governmental message of disapproval of certain beliefs. It is only a small step from the philosophical basis underlying “hate crimes” laws to the enactment of a “hate speech” regulation. “Hate speech” regulations have followed the enactment of “hate crimes” laws in places like Canada, Europe, and Australia, and those “hate speech” laws have been used to try to silence Christians and others who speak out against same-sex “marriage,” homosexual behavior, and other things that conflict with deeply-held religious beliefs.

The Snyder case is an important victory for religious speech, but we cannot let our guard down because the assault on the teaching of biblical morality will continue.

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Find legal resources to protect your church on the Church Resources page. 

One of the most eye-opening features of the Perry v. Schwarzenegger trial – the trial where a few people in California are trying to redefine marriage for the entire nation to include homosexual relationships – was its near daily insistence on attacking foundational Christian moral beliefs.  On a regular basis, the Southern Baptist Convention’s Position Statement on Sexuality or the Catechism of the Catholic Church - both of which, like all orthodox Christian teaching on the subject, recognize homosexual behavior as sinful – would be pulled out and subjected to ridicule.  Worse, these Christian teachings were used as evidence that the recently-enacted California definition of marriage was irrational because it may have been based in part on religious teachings.  In other words, if you vote your faith, your vote shouldn’t count.

As disturbing as such a direct attack on religious belief is, it is also instructive.  For a long time, proponents of homosexual behavior have argued that their cause was also about “tolerance.”  But it never has been.  For them, tolerance is a one way-street, where their actions must be tolerated, but your beliefs cannot be.  Perry makes this clear: normalizing homosexual behavior requires marginalizing your religious beliefs.

It’s not just Christians who are seeing this, either.  Chai Feldblum, President Obama’s new head of the powerful EEOC, has admitted that when religious liberty and homosexual behavior conflict, “I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.”  Hear that, pastors?  Your ministries, your churches, your sermons – they’d better get in line or get out of town.

Perry is just one of the recent examples of the attack on Christianity from homosexual activists.   Catholic Charities in both Washington, D.C. and Boston were run out of the adoption business by aggressive city officials who wanted to force them to place children with same-sex parents.  A church campground in New Jersey was punished by the state for refusing to use its property to host same-sex “commitment ceremonies.” A Christian student in a public college in California was verbally attacked by his professor for respectfully speaking out in support of traditional marriage.

Isaiah tells us that when society starts calling evil “good,” it won’t be long before it calls good “evil.”  Is. 5:20.  Things have gotten to the point where being a Christian – particularly one of those kinds of Christians who actually lives what you believe – is “evil.”

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Faith and freedom go hand in hand in America, even within our military where in the Army alone, some 25,000 chaplains have served 25 million soldiers and dependents since the chaplaincy was founded in 1775. Chaplains play a crucial role in providing for service members’ religious needs and broadly teaching values like honor, duty, self-sacrifice, courage, sexual fidelity, and commitment to goals larger than one’s own.  For centuries the military and chaplaincy have been aligned in their values.  But now, the Obama Administration is pushing the military towards conflict with its own chaplains by demanding that the military endorse homosexual/bisexual behavior and dispense with the current “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. 

Yet Americans are not quite so ready as the Administration to sever the moral backbone of the military, and are speaking out about this looming conflict, as this article in Indiana’s The Republic makes clear.  The article reinforces the concerns already voiced to the Administration by dozens of veteran military chaplains and by ADF attorneys in direct communication to the Pentagon.  Please join with these “pastors-in-uniform” and ADF attorneys by supporting them with your prayers and with your voices.

To find more resources about this issue, visit “Faith Under Fire.”

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Last week, 3 retired chaplains expressed, in strong and occasionally harsh terms, their disagreement with 41 chaplains’ stance that normalizing homosexual conduct in the military threatened military religious liberty.  Out of respect for these 3 chaplains’ long service to our country, and out of an equal respect for the 41’s even longer service, I offer this response to their arguments.

First, the 3 argue that normalizing homosexual behavior in the military “would have absolutely no effect whatsoever on chaplains’ duties, roles and responsibilities.”  This is not credible, especially since the only support they offer are unidentified military regulations that protect religious liberty.  Against that argument stand two stark and incontrovertible facts: (1) Military regulations, no matter how protective—and it is questionable how protective they actually are—have no power against a statute.  If Congress passes a law demanding that homosexual behavior be treated with the same deference as race or gender, that law will trump military regulations.  And the only bills currently before Congress do exactly that, without a shred of protection for religious liberties.  (2) Nationwide, where sexual orientation protections have become law, they have almost uniformly been accompanied by intolerant attacks on religious liberty.  The 41 chaplains documented some glaring examples of this phenomenon in their letter.  The 3 chaplains failed to respond to these examples.  If the 3 chaplains are serious about protecting religious liberty, they should take a long, hard look at the type of religious persecution such non-discrimination laws have engendered.

Nor are the 41 alone in their concerns.  A recent editorial written by a professor at the Army War College noted that religious liberty problems were among the “significant issues” raised by normalizing homosexual behavior in the military.  Further, numerous endorsing organizations—the entities upon which the military relies for their supply of chaplains—have voiced similar concerns.

Second, in a seeming contradiction to their assurances that normalizing homosexual behavior “would have absolutely no effect whatsoever” on chaplains, the 3 chaplains write that “[i]f federal law bars discrimination against gays in the military, then all service members, regardless of their faith, must abide by the rule of law.”  The 3 cannot have it both ways—they cannot try to cast the 41 as paranoid for raising the concern that normalizing homosexual behavior will mean minimizing religious belief while simultaneously telling them to check their religious beliefs at the door.

To support their argument that the homosexual agenda should override chaplains’ and Service members’ consciences, the 3 say that the First Amendment’s free exercise clause protects religious freedom only “until it violates the law.”  But the First Amendment is the law.  To the extent that it protects the free exercise of religion, it does so vigorously.  An anti-discrimination law does not trump the First Amendment, particularly not one foisted upon the military to advance a political agenda that is completely unconnected with the military’s purpose.  Before accusing the 41 chaplains of failing to “honor the Constitution,” especially given that many of the 41 are men who have placed themselves in harm’s way to defend that Constitution, the 3 should get a better handle on what they’re talking about.

This leads to the third point.  While the First Amendment may ultimately be found by courts to protect chaplains and Service members from the dangers that the 41 chaplains identify, such a holding would only come after long, arduous, and disruptive litigation.  And the timing couldn’t be worse.  “We’re a nation at war.  We’re deploying our warriors repeatedly.  They’re separated from their family, home, loved ones,” says Chaplain (BG) David Cyr, Air Force deputy chief of chaplains.  “They turn to their chaplains for help.”   In fact, Service members are increasingly seeking chaplains’ counsel, particularly in the areas that stand to be most harmed by normalized homosexuality, spiritual/ethical concerns and family issues.  It is precisely because chaplains are so necessary to Service members that the military must be careful to refrain from muzzling chaplains in the name of political correctness.  Yet not once in their arguments do the 3 show why disruption of the chaplaincy—an institution that has served faithfully since George Washington’s leadership of the Continental Army—is helpful in fulfilling the military’s mission to protect American liberty through American strength.  (In fact, this is a flaw with the entire political push to normalize homosexuality in the military: it has not been shown how it will contribute to the military mission.  Even proponents of the change, like Admiral Mullen, admit that the change would disrupt our Armed Forces; how exactly it will help is not clear.  Notably, President Obama’s own Justice Department recently filed documents in federal court admitting that the current ban on open homosexual conduct strengthens national security.)

What’s especially puzzling is that the 3 chaplains don’t even acknowledge that the 41 identified a path that would help avoid this otherwise-inevitable conflict if current law is repealed: creating statutory protections for religious belief.  But that entire avenue is ignored, and instead the 3 revert to talking points about “bigots” clinging to “archaic” beliefs on sexuality, an uncharitable description of not only the 41, but also the numerous Service members and Americans who share those beliefs.  While such comments may impress the readership of the Huffington Post, they do nothing to resolve what should be a central concern for the 3, even if they disagree with the 41: protecting religious liberty in the military.  Notably, though, a lack of concern for religious liberty isn’t restricted to the 3 chaplains, for neither of the bills pending before Congress even address the issue.  By contrast, most laws elevating homosexual behavior to a protected status—like the misbegotten “hate crimes” law of recent vintage—have at least had the wisdom to include statutory exemptions for religious liberty.  And, as the 41 chaplains argue, the need for such an exemption would be even more acute in the military setting—which makes its absence all the more disturbing.

Fourth, the 3 chaplains argue that the chaplaincy’s mission is to protect the free exercise of religion for Service members, ministering to the religious beliefs of every Soldier, Airman, Sailor, or Marine regardless of whether they share those beliefs.  On this point, at least, the 41 are in full agreement, for they said the same things in their letter.  But it does not follow, as the 3 insist that it does, that chaplains must abandon their own beliefs to meet this requirement.  The Army explains this distinction under the rubric “Provide and Perform.”  A chaplain is duty-bound to provide for the religious needs of every Service member.  If a Hindu soldier asks a Christian chaplain for incense for a Hindu ceremony, the chaplain will cheerfully and promptly provide what he needs.  Similarly, if the Hindu soldier requests moral counseling, the Christian chaplain will happily fulfill that need.  But if the soldier requests that the chaplain perform a Hindu ceremony or give Hindu spiritual counsel, the chaplain is duty-bound—and conscience-bound—to decline.  In fact, a chaplain who violates the beliefs of his endorsing church by performing the ecclesiastical functions of other religions jeopardizes his status as a chaplain.

Further, if chaplains are muzzled by political correctness, they will be unable to support the free exercise of religion for many Service members whose beliefs don’t coincide with a new military religious doctrine on sexual ethics.  And thus the chaplaincy’s central purpose will have been sacrificed.  Unfortunately, the 3 chaplains seem quite comfortable with this result, as they argue the 41’s theology should only be permissible “until it infringes on the rights of others who adhere to a more inclusive and affirming [i.e., the 3 chaplains’] spirituality.”  That is, the 3 believe their religious beliefs should be trump all others, even if that means sacrificing the purpose of the chaplaincy corps and Service members’ free exercise rights.  It’s worth noting that this result—the establishing of required military religious beliefs—was predicted by the 41 in their letter; the 3 have proved that point.

Another prediction of the 41 that the 3 have shown accurate is that normalizing homosexuality will mean marginalizing religious belief.  Already, simply for speaking up in favor of current law from the perspective of traditional Christian ethics, the 3 chaplains repeatedly characterize those fairly popular beliefs as “archaic” “bigotry” comparable to racism and defending stoning children to death.  And they go on to say that the military will be best served if this “bigotry” is excised from the ranks.

If that’s how orthodox Christian belief is treated for defending current law, just imagine what will happen if the law is changed.

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