The United States House passed a hate crimes bill. This bill elevates homosexual behavior to the status of a civil right, equating sexual choice with race and gender. While the bill does not directly offer criminal penalties for people who have a religious objection to homosexuality, it opens the door and sets the stage for restricting the free speech rights of evangelical Christians.
Tony BeamThe bill is now being debated in the Senate (S. 1145, also known as the “Hate Crimes Bill”). If passed, S. 1145 could very possibly become the springboard that would launch a host of bills designed to curtail the biblical witness against homosexuality.
God’s word is very clear on this subject. Paul wrote to the Romans, “For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever, Amen. For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.” It speaks directly to the sin of homosexuality. It places it in the context of the complete rejection by the world of God’s word and the breakdown of culture.
Already in Canada and in several European countries (Sweden and Holland), government officials have used their countries’ hate crimes laws to prosecute pastors for preaching the sinfulness of homosexuality. We now live in a world characterized by positive, rather than negative, tolerance. Negative tolerance says I can disagree with your lifestyle and still be defined as tolerant as long as I recognize your right to exist. Positive tolerance says in order to be considered tolerant I must recognize a person’s right to believe in homosexuality and that the homosexual lifestyle is acceptable. This is impossible for an evangelical Christian who takes the word of God seriously.