Here is a well written article regarding the efforts of a few San Diego pastors: http://www.worldmag.com/articles/article.cfm?eid=7EF87E24-A0B5-BDF2-2E3D2AA862332998
Excerpt:
The 14th Amendment equal-protection argument in favor of gay marriage already is trampling First Amendment rights to religious exercise and free speech.
In March 2006, for example, the 103-year-old adoption division of Boston Catholic Charities (BCC) decided to close its doors rather than comply with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ requirement that it place children with homosexual couples. Five months later, the group’s San Francisco branch followed suit. Both moves were direct outgrowths of the legalization of gay marriage and domestic partnerships in Massachusetts and California.
In September 2007, a boardwalk pavilion owned by the Methodist Ocean Grove [New Jersey] Camp Meeting Association lost its state tax-exempt status after the association refused to allow two lesbian couples to hold civil union ceremonies there.
In April 2008, Christian photographers Jon and Elaine Huguenin were fined $6,000 by a New Mexico state “human rights” commission for politely declining on religious grounds to photograph a homosexual “commitment ceremony.”
Kelly Shackelford, chief counsel for Liberty Legal Institute in Plano, Texas, said religious rights of conscience—and not relational equality—are precisely the target in California. “Gays and lesbians there can already be domestic partners, and have all the legal rights of marriage. The Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of gay marriage is about something else,” he said. “It is a direct attempt to establish same-sex couples as morally equivalent to a married man and woman.”
Legal scholars on both sides of the debate agree that if Massachusetts begins exporting gay marriage, and/or California’s gay-marriage law is allowed to stand, it will likely trigger nationwide court clashes that will profoundly alter law and public policy in the areas of employment, education, family law, and even the boundaries of the First Amendment.
The idea that the Gospel doesn’t affect EVERY aspect of life and only applies to Christians is part of what has caused this state that we’re in. The preachers and teachers that are training our clergy to say things like the following are responsible for the degradation of our society:
Proverbs 31:8-9 is the charge to Christ on behalf of his people. Believe it or not, it was not written to the pro-life movement to protect the unborn or to Green Peace on behalf of the whales.Social gospels have ways of circumventing the Christo-centric nature of the Bible.
I’m not saying that America has ever been a perfect idealistic nation-state, but the outward law-keeping it once had was good, to some extent. For example, at least there weren’t MILLIONS of babies being MURDERED EVERY YEAR. There is a blessing even in a non-regenerate population that keeps the law. If a society doesn’t enforce capital punishment for capital crimes, then eventually, when our capital crimes grow rampant (infanticide aka: abortion, rape, public approval of sodomy, etc.), God will bring His justice of capital punishment to our nation. But the sad thing is that these things can only happen if the church becomes impotent. When she deludes herself into thinking that the Gospel is only about an individual’s justification before God, and that the Church is only about the Word and Sacraments, then, AND ONLY THEN, will God’s enemies regain their ground. Jesus told us that the gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church. Most people think of this in a backwards way. The truth is that gates are stationary. They are there to protect the citizens inside of the city. They are defensive. Which means that Jesus is speaking of the church as OFFENSIVE. The church is to be attacking these gates, NOT defending against them. Instead, we’ve built gates and holed up within the city walls, sorry, I meant to say holed up within the church walls and we’ve let hell come bashing on our doors. We have been so pre-occupied with saving individual’s souls and entertaining them from a stage that used to be a pulpit. We’ve split up the families and created programs for different age groups, that the younger disciples aren’t benefiting from the wisdom of the older disciples. We’ve watered down the Gospel to a man-centered, individualistic psychological feel good alternative, that we’ve forgotten that Christ came to redeem the WORLD. It is HIS. He bought it back, and if we’re not going to get with that program, he’ll prune the dead branches and graft in new living branches that will actually produce fruit.
In Canada, preachers can’t teach the scripture when it comes to calling sodomy a sin for fear of being fined or going to jail. The legislation has made this a hate crime. So, the pessimillenialists that teach that there are 2 kingdoms, and that the church kingdom has nothing to say to man’s kingdom, and that the world will just get worse and worse until the end, will see their beliefs come to pass only if they act upon what they believe. And then they won’t be able to preach and teach without going underground like in China or the old Soviet Union. Mark my words, it can happen here. It’s already starting as you’ve seen above in the excerpt I’ve provided.
Let’s not follow in their footsteps anymore. Let’s become educated with the scriptures and realize that we need to pray that God’s ONE KINGDOM will come ON EARTH as it already is in heaven. And then let us act as if God will answer that prayer.
kazoo
Posted by kazooless 
