REALity – Volume XXXIV Issue No.6 June 2015

There can be no doubt that the US and Canada are deeply involved in a culture war, with religious freedom the centre of the battle.

This has been going on in the background for the past several years, but erupted openly in April in the State of Indiana. The state had passed a law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which was modelled after a federal law passed in 1993 under President Clinton. This law provided that the government could not interfere in anyone’s right to religious freedom. There are 19 other states that already have a similar RFRA in place. Arkansas was in the process of passing a similar law, but withdrew it under political pressure. This is because mass hysteria and political posturing broke out over Indiana and Arkansas, engineered by homosexual activists who claimed that this legislation would permit discrimination against them by permitting businesses to withdraw services from them based on religious belief. That was not what the Act stated, since it related only to government interference, and did not relate to actions by individual businesses. No matter, the stage was set for a donnybrook over religious rights. Large US corporations were recruited by homosexual activists to bring about cultural change by way of harassment and bullying of those who resist their agenda. Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, an acknowledged homosexual, turned to the pages of the Washington Post to declare that the Indiana law “would allow people to discriminate against their neighbours

[LGBT’s]”. Wal Mart, whose head office is located in Arkansas, warned that it would move out of the state if it enacted the RFRA. Other corporations joined, resulting in Indiana and Arkansas backing down on the legislation. Both Apple and Wal Mart are selective and calculating in their outrage. Apple outsources the manufacture of its products to China, to the impoverished and underpaid workers there, and Wal Mart provides poverty wages to its employees everywhere. Moreover, if these and other corporations were genuinely concerned about discrimination, they would refuse to do business in countries where a person can be executed for being homosexual. But they don’t.

It’s far easier, with the media’s support, to bully religions to conform to their dictates on the LGBT issue.

This is because religion is the last bulwark against the full acceptance of homosexuality. People of faith refuse to follow the script, determined by the state, media and now, the corporations. People of faith take their instructions from a higher authority—namely, the word of God. Thus, in view of their refusal to accept the script, religions must be stamped out or “adjusted” or revised, in light of the demands of the modern age.

An openly homosexual columnist in the New York Times, Frank Bruni, recently wrote that religions and religious people had to be freed from their prejudices and biases and that homosexuality should no longer be considered a sin. This capitulation exists in liberal churches following the denial of the truths of the Christian faith, such as the Virgin birth, the resurrection of Christ, the existence of miracles, life after death, etc. All must be re-thought and jettisoned according to Bruni “rightly bowing to the enlightenments of modernity.”

The result of such pressures is that some churches have ceased to uphold their religious values and have collapsed into social institutions rather than religious ones. For example, the United Church of Canada was a vibrant, influential church after its amalgamation in 1926 of the three Protestant Churches: Congregationalist, Presbyterian and Methodist. However, the United Church adapted to contemporary society with fatal results. In 1972 the General Council of the Church accepted the policy of abortion on demand, and has accepted other such secular views on prostitution, assisted suicide, same sex marriage, etc. In short, the United Church has abandoned the pillars of faith on which it was built. It must be difficult for members of the United Church today to sing with any enthusiasm the wonderful hymn “I know that my Redeemer Liveth … and He at last will come for me” when one no longer is certain that He will come, after all. The United Church of Canada at one time had over one million adherents, but, according to recent surveys, has a membership of just under 300,000. Similarly, the Anglican Church is in disarray for the same reasons, with its membership collapsing. The pews of these re-organized, revisionist churches are quickly emptying while the resolute Catholic, Evangelical and Reformed Churches have continued to carry on, faithful to their Christian beliefs.

According to the left wing, the only faiths that deserve religious liberty are those that have capitulated theologically to the modern age. All others are despised. Ontarian NDP Cheri DiNovo (who introduced the transgender bill in Ontario) stated that religious objection to homosexuality is a “cover for hatred”. Objections to gay straight alliances and trans access to bathrooms have “nothing to do with faith and everything to do with phobia”. She suggests that all opposition to LGBTQ rights and privileges are motivated by emotions and racism.

On April 8, 2015, former NDP staffer and regular political commentator on CBC News network “Power and Politics”, Ian Capstick, announced that he and others are going to work to remove the charitable status of any churches that do not support gay marriage. In effect, homosexual activists, with their fellow enthusiasts are working on the long term secular humanist project of banning its chief rival, Christianity, from any role in public life. They believe religious freedom must be cut down by limiting freedom of worship to occur within only a church, temple, mosque or synagogue. It may only occur, that is, in the pews, homes and hearts, but not be an influence in public policy. That is, to secure their totalitarian rule, these activists believe religion must be obliterated from the public square.

A culture war is a war of values. This war will not be won tomorrow. Our task is to maintain our culture against these venomous attacks. To win, we must maintain our organic organization which consists of our families, our communities and our religious, cultural groups, our arts, and our skills to resist this unauthentic counter culture of the left. The latter is a clumsily slapped together assemblage, trying to dominate people by the fetishization of a minority. Homosexuals should have the same rights as others, but should not have special rights based on their destructive sexual practices and life-style, which are detrimental to their very lives. The left had nothing to keep them going except for their hatred of established religious beliefs. We must live out our lives as persons of faith which is the natural resistance to the pressures caused by this bullying. We will destroy their system by refusing to be controlled by it. Our task is to outlive their counter culture.

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