In this video series created by PulpitFreedom.org before the Supreme Court Struck down the Defense of Marriage Act and California Proposition 8, Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon examines several key texts of Scripture and explains why homosexuality is a sin. Gagnon looks at the creation account, the Sodom story, the Levitical prohibitions, the relationship between David and Jonathan, the witness of Jesus and the witness of Paul.
David French comments on the new statement from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights condemning laws that "target" homosexuals and transexuals. "The Commission has issued a declaration of war — not just on religious liberty but also on the First Amendment writ large," French says. "After all, if the new religion of nondiscrimination is now legally “preeminent,” then every other civil liberty can be cast aside in the name of ending 'transphobia.' Four centuries of American legal and cultural tradition are thus rendered less important than the 'dignity' of those who demand mixed-gender bathrooms."
Target Corp said on Tuesday that employees and customers will now use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity, rather than their actual gender, becoming the first big retailer to weigh in on an issue at the center of a heated national debate. The move came after the North Carolina General Assembly blocked Charlotte's nondiscrimination ordinance. The law in North Carolina does not affect private-sector businesses, which are free to set their own policies.
A transgender bathroom bill in the Tennessee legislature failed Monday after the House sponsor said she was withdrawing the legislation while waiting to see how legal challenges play out in other states that have passed similar measures. "There's definitely some issues we need to work out," Rep. Susan Lynn, the bill's sponsor in the House, said. "We know as soon as this bill passes, we're going to be sued. So if we're going to be heading into a lawsuit, we want to make sure we have the strongest position possible."
Foundation for Moral Law President Kayla Moore responds to Vanzetta McPherson's inflammatory and disrespectful opinion column attacking Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore. "McPherson and the SPLC are on a mission to cleanse the public square of all official utterances critical of the homosexual lifestyle and so-called same-sex marriage," Moore says. "In that campaign Christian conservatives are the main target."
A Los Angeles high school on Friday opened the first gender-neutral restroom in the nation's second-largest school district, in a move geared toward accommodating transgender students. Santee Education Complex converted a second-floor girls' restroom after the campus Gay Straight Alliance gathered some 700 signatures on a petition calling for the change.
Senator Ted Cruz came out in favor of a North Carolina law prohibiting biological males from using the restrooms, showers, and changing facilities of the opposite biological sex during a town hall meeting in Buffalo Thursday night. "As the father of daughters, I’m not terribly excited about men being able to go alone into a bathroom with my daughters," he said. "And I think that is a perfectly reasonable determination for the people to make."
In this sermon, Dr. Baucham addresses the most common objection posed by proponents of same-sex "marriage": "How can you oppose same-sex marriage while continuing to eat shrimp and shave the edges of your beard?" Addressed to an audience of college students, this sermon tackles the issue head on and gives practical, logical, and biblical answers that lead squarely to the gospel.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards signed an executive order Wednesday that critics say will open the floodgates for discrimination lawsuits to be filed against businesses and will prevent people of faith from freely exercising their religion. The order adds "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" alongside such immutable characteristics as race, sex, and national origin in the state’s anti-discrimination policy. All firms that accept state contracts must adopt a similar policy.
North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory signed an Executive Order on Tuesday reaffirming what he says maintains "common sense gender-specific restroom and locker room facilities in government buildings and schools." However, he also promised to seek legislation in the short session that would reinstate the right to sue the state for discrimination, which was eliminated under HB2. In addition, McCrory said he is expanding the state's Equal Employment Opportunity policy to include sexual orientation and gender identity.
In this article written just ten days before the Obergefell opinion was released, former congressman John Hostettler argues that state officials are duty-bound to obey the Constitution first. He says: "If it had been the intention of the Constitution’s framers to exclusively delegate all questions of Constitutional finality to the unelected, life-tenured members of the U.S. Supreme Court . . . Article VI of the United States Constitution would have been the place in the U.S. Constitution where this peculiar doctrine would have been made obvious. From its omission, it is clear that this was never the Framers’ intent."
South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has said that she doesn't think a bill requiring public restrooms be gender-specific is necessary. "When we look at our situation, we’re not hearing of anybody’s religious liberties that are being violated," Haley said. But the bill’s sponsor, State Senator Lee Bright, considers the matter a public-safety issue. "Years ago, we kept talking about tolerance, tolerance, tolerance,” Bright said on the legislative floor. "And now they want men who claim to be women to go in the bathroom with children."
Deutsche Bank is freezing plans to create 250 new jobs at its Cary, North Carolina, location after the state passed a law blocking Charlotte's nondiscrimination ordinance. The ordinance would have opened up women's bathrooms to men and vice versa. "We're proud of our operations and employees in Cary and regret that as a result of this legislation we are unwilling to include North Carolina in our U.S. expansion plans for now," CEO John Cryan said.
About 700 supporters of the new North Carolina law blocking Charlotte's nondiscrimination ordinance spread across the Capitol lawn Monday. Speakers repeatedly urged the crowd to applaud Gov. Pat McCrory, Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, legislative leaders and supportive lawmakers. They also had sharp rebukes for PayPal, the online payments company that canceled its plans to expand in Charlotte; for Bruce Springsteen, who canceled a Greensboro concert in protest; and for the businesses that have publicly opposed the law.
Norway’s Lutheran Church voted on Monday in favor of redefining marriage to include same-sex unions, becoming the latest of a small but growing number of "churches" worldwide to do so. In a vote at the annual conference of the Norwegian Lutheran Church on Monday, 88 of the 115 delegates voted to redefine marriage. Both the French Protestant Church and the U.S. Presbyterian Church took similar action last year.
Why might a Christian refuse to attend, cater, or participate in a same-sex marriage ceremony? Kevin DeYoung points out some reasons. He says: "It would be difficult, if not impossible, to attend a wedding (let alone cater it or provide the culinary centerpiece) without your presence communicating celebration and support for what is taking place. And, as painful as it may be for us and for those we love, celebrating and supporting homosexual unions is not something God or his word will allow us to do."
Ohio Gov. John Kasich said Sunday he probably wouldn't have signed HB2, a new North Carolina law that blocked Charlotte's nondiscrimination ordinance. "I wouldn’t have signed that law from everything I know; I haven’t studied it," the GOP presidential candidate said. "You just got to see what the laws are and what the proposals are and why you need to write a law. Why do we have to write a law every time we turn around in this country? Can’t we figure out just how to get along a little bit better and respect one another? I mean, that’s where I think we ought to be. Everybody chill out."
In this article, Al Mohler asserts that homosexuality "is a grievous sin against God and is a direct rejection of God’s intention and command in creation." He goes on to say that those "seeking to contort and subvert the Bible’s message are not responding to homosexuals with compassion. To lie is never compassionate–and their lie leads unto death."
In a papal document on Friday, Pope Francis urged the Roman Catholic Church to “reaffirm that every person, regardless of sexual orientation, ought to be respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration, while ‘every sign of unjust discrimination’ is to be carefully avoided, particularly any form of aggression and violence.” But the pope stopped short of pushing for a total redefinition of marriage. “De facto or same-sex unions, for example, may not simply be equated with marriage,” he said.
A federal appeals court on Thursday stated unambiguously that Puerto Rico’s marriage law is unconstitutional, throwing a federal judge off a case after the judge had ruled that the law was still in effect. in March, U.S. District Court Judge Juan Pérez-Giménez ruled in favor of the law, arguing that the Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling did not apply to a territory like Puerto Rico.
Already fractured Republicans in Indiana are facing a new fight over whether to keep language defining marriage in the state party's platform. Activists who fought lawmakers’ attempts to ban same-sex unions now want to strike wording that describes marriage as "between a man and a woman" from the state GOP's policy statement. A similar debate is brewing on the national level. "The job of the party is to win elections," political organizer Megan Robertson said. “We need to bring more people into the party, not alienate them.”
John MacArthur writes on how the church can defend the truth about what constitutes a family. He says: "The best way to defend and uphold God’s design for marriage and family is not through political or legal action—it’s through the living testimony of a faithful, righteous adherence to God’s design. The watching world needs to see the necessity of God’s design lived out in our daily lives."
NC Family Policy Council President John L. Rustin writes on the more than 120 CEOs who have publicly condemned the blocking of Charlotte's nondiscrimination ordinance. He says: "While LGBT activist groups would like for us all to believe this was a spontaneous uprising of indignation among the state and national business community, a closer examination reveals that it is actually part of a carefully orchestrated campaign by the HRC and its network of allies."
Rob Gagnon provides counter arguments to the view that the sin of homosexuality is no worse than the sin of overeating. He says, "Comparing gluttony to acts of immoral sexual intercourse, including a pattern of self-affirming homosexual practice, trivializes sin and makes of mockery of God’s holy demand."
Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant has signed a religious freedom bill, also known as House Bill 1523. The bill prevents state and local government agencies from taking action against state employees, individuals, organizations and private associations that deny service based on religious beliefs. However, the bill does not prevent civil lawsuits based on claims of discrimination.