By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
The liberal establishment in the media and the academy react with disdain toward those who contend that the objective of homosexual activists is to one day make it illegal to make public statements in defense of traditional Christian views on sex and marriage. They call those who fear that such a day will come “kooks,” “extremist,” and “paranoid.”
Recent events in Canada illustrate that there is good reason to suspect that the endgame for the secular left is precisely that: to drive the biblical understanding of marriage from the public square and to cast those with traditional beliefs on this matter in the same category as flat-earthers and religious eccentrics not to be taken seriously by the educated public.
We should keep in mind that the homosexual lobby has never been honest with the American public about their long-range goals. They have understood from the beginning of their drive to change American attitudes on homosexuality that they had to go slow, to appear moderate at first, to disguise their full agenda, to keep moving the goal line, as they advance step-by-step toward the day when those who cling to traditional views on marriage will be seen by society as extremists and bigots.
Check the record: Just a few decades back homosexual activists insisted that all they wanted was to end the bullying of “gay” young people, to secure equal rights in housing and end discrimination in employment. They acted as if it was alarmist of anyone to suspect that there would ever be a push for same-sex marriage, or for legal action against justices of the peace who refused to participate in the marriages of same-sex couples, or caterers and photographers who insisted upon the right not to participate in same-sex marriages for religious reasons. We have all of that now.
Now we can see how the next step will be taken; how Christian groups will be driven from the mainstream of societal life if they persist upon living according to traditional views about marriage. A May 25 column by Dennis Crowley, on the web site of The Institute on Religion & Democracy, informs us that Trinity Western University (TWU), Canada’s largest privately funded Christian university, is “fighting back with legal action after law societies in Ontario and Nova Scotia refused to approve a new law school” the university plans to open in 2016.
The Canadian newspaper Globe and Mail reports “the controversy centers around a provision in a code of conduct requiring all students and staff to sign a statement not to engage in sexual activity outside of marriage.” Trinity Western, located in Langley, British Columbia, was founded in 1962 and enrolls an estimated 3,500 students. The Law Society of Upper Canada, according to Dennis Crowley, voted to ban TWU School of Law graduates from practicing in the province of Ontario “because of the school’s traditional biblical Christian views on marriage.”
The “Nova Scotia Barristers Society also voted 10 to 9 not to approve the School of Law unless TWU changed its biblical beliefs and practices.”
Not all of Canada agrees: The Federation of Law Societies of Canada and the British Columbia Ministry of Advanced Education, and the Law Societies of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan have decided to accept TWU’s graduates.
TWU is fighting back. A video on the school’s website states that those in charge of the university “are not prepared to throw over the values that have been traditionally held in the Christian community and in the communities of many faiths just because an organization has changed its sexual ethic.”
Canada’s Christian Legal Society is supporting TWU. Its CEO, David Nammo, spoke with a representative of the Institute on Religion and Democracy. He spoke of what it will mean “if future graduates of a Christian law school should be denied the right to practice law because of their religious beliefs.” He asked if the “next logical step” would be “to find those Christians currently practicing law and remove their ability to practice law? When did it become acceptable to discriminate against Christians in Canada?”
It will be interesting to see this clash develop in Canada. Regardless of the short-term results, we have been given the template the secular leftists will use in their efforts to make it illegal for Christians to live out their Christian beliefs in public on this issue. It is not an exaggeration to say that the goal of the homosexual activists is to make the biblical understanding of sex a belief that is no longer considered acceptable in public discourse, similar to the way a literal belief in the account of creation found in Genesis or St. Paul’s call for women to be “submissive” to their husbands is treated in our courts, schools, and in Hollywood. The stakes are high.
On another topic: Michelle Obama’s federal nutrition program. If you are among those who found her attempt to remove from local school districts the authority to set their school lunch programs a classic case of liberal overreach, you are not alone. Michelle Malkin reported in a recent column that school districts are losing money and discarded food is piling high. “Kids are going off-campus to fill their tummies or just going hungry.”
L.A. Unified School District has labeled the federal initiative a “flop” and a “disaster.” Principals are reporting “massive waste, with unopened milk cartons and uneaten entrees being thrown away.” The Los Angeles Times reports that the city’s students throw out “at least $100,000 worth of food a day — and probably more,” amounting to as much as “$18 million a year.” The food-service director at the L.A. Unified School District offered the Times a solution: “We can stop forcing children to take food they don’t like and throw in the garbage.”
Defenders of Michelle Obama’s program will insist that something must be done to prevent local schools from giving their students food that they “like,” if that means a menu of hot dogs, hamburgers, chili, and French fries. They will argue that such an unhealthy diet cannot be defended.
But it can. Parents for decades have seen nothing wrong with their children having a slice of pizza or a hot dog for lunch in school — because they knew that their children were getting a healthy breakfast and dinner at home with the family. One wonders if the supporters of the federal diet program are so rigid about school lunches because they are convinced that American children no longer receive a healthy diet at home, and believe that the school must replace the family as the decision maker about nutrition.
Which is a troubling thought. We have to consider that they may be right about the situation at home for many modern public school children. That said, giving more and more responsibility over childrearing to the state takes us on a path toward statism that does not bode well for the country.
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Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about this and other educational issues. The e-mail address for First Teachers is fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net, and the mailing address is P.O. Box 15, Wallingford CT 06492.
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