Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview

Chuck Colson's Latest Pathetic Claim that LGBT Rights is Undermining Religious Freedom

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wednesday, 1/18/2012 12:25 pm

Today on his radio bulletin Breakpoint, Manhattan Declaration co-author Chuck Colson claimed that the Obama administration has abandoned freedom of religion in order to advance LGBT rights. While attacking Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s speech on LGBT rights abroad as “disastrous foreign policy,” Colson claimed that “in one fell swoop, she changed our God-given right to freedom of religion, a public act, to a much more restricted ‘freedom of worship,’ a private act, which any Chinese official could go along with,” while placing the “‘right to love in the way they choose’ as a fundamental human right.”

Of course, this argument that the mere use of the phrase “freedom of worship” has negated the freedom of religion ignores Secretary Clinton’s speeches on the freedom of religion, and as Kyle pointed out earlier, even former President George W. Bush frequently talked about the “freedom of worship.” Bush used the phrase four times in a 2008 proclamation, which if issued by Clinton or President Obama would surely have created uproar from the Religious Right.

But never mind all that, because for Colson, whipping-up anti-gay paranoia is far more important than the facts:

It started as a drip, drip, drip. Then the flow increased, and now it’s a gusher: The Obama administration has decided to promote and emphasize lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered rights—and it is doing so at the expense of everyone’s God-given freedom of religion. Those are tough words, but regrettably, true words.

In December 9, 2009 in a major address entitled, “Human Rights Agenda for the 21st Century,” Secretary of State Clinton said people “must be free to worship, associate, and to love in the way that they choose.” Did you catch that? In one sentence, little noticed at the time, Mrs. Clinton showed the Administration’s true priorities. In one fell swoop, she changed our God-given right to freedom of religion, a public act, to a much more restricted “freedom of worship,” a private act, which any Chinese official could go along with. And at the same time, Mrs. Clinton, speaking for the administration, elevated the quote “right to love in the way they choose” as a fundamental human right.

Lest you think I’m overreacting to an isolated statement, the intervening years have amply borne out my concerns. Freedom of worship has been substituted for freedom of religion in speech after speech by administration officials. Just last month, the Secretary told a gathering of diplomats that “gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.” She also said the “most challenging issue arises when people cite religious or cultural values as a reason to violate or not to protect the human rights of LGBT citizens.” As I mentioned before on BreakPoint, this is a disastrous foreign policy. African nations are already up in arms, and it certainly isn’t going to help us with Muslim nations, who view U.S. advocacy for homosexuality as proof of Western decadence.

Not to be outdone, President Obama told a pro-gay-rights group, “Every single American—gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, transgender—every single American deserves to be treated equally before the law.” Does that include marriage? Well, the President’s secretary for Housing and Urban Development, Shaun Donovan, has just said that he “absolutely” supports same-sex marriage. The Administration has already refused to defend the Defense of Marriage Act. And before the EEOC, officials have said in a contest “between religious liberty and sexual liberty,” sexual liberty triumphs.

Can you see where all this is headed?

Chuck Colson Warns of Domination by the "Sexually Deviant" Gay Community

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 12/9/2011 1:05 pm

During a conference call with Champion the Vote, the ostensibly non-partisan group that is working to increase the turnout among voters with a “biblical worldview,” Chuck Colson argued that Christians in America are a “sleeping giant” that has been beset by the domineering gay community. Colson cited the work of Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, a pioneer of public opinion polling who has been criticized for her work in Nazi Germany, who wrote about the “spiral of silence” in which minority opinions are marginalized quickly because people are afraid of alienation and punishment from the majority. Colson says that the gay rights advocates are now “controlling the conversation” even though they are a “tiny minority,” and said that it is time for Christians to “break the spiral of silence, to speak out, to point out unrighteousness.” “It hasn’t taken very many gays in our society to change this society’s attitudes towards something which we would have said is sexually deviant and is, but it doesn’t take much,” Colson said. “We’re the sleeping giant”:

We’ve fallen into the spiral of silence in which case the people who might be a tiny minority but are controlling the conversation intimidate the rest of us…. Now where have we seen that happen most vividly? We’ve seen it in the gay rights movement. The gay rights movement is a tiny minority in America, so what you get is a passionate movement of 10 percent of the people, 5 percent of the people maybe in the gay movement, maybe 4 percent, 3 percent, and they control what the rest of us think because the rest of us are intimidated into silence. Folks, brothers and sisters, I tell you I believe in the depths of my being that the most important thing we can do today in obedience to Christ is to break the spiral of silence, to speak out, to point out unrighteousness.

...

If people really intensely believe and have a passion for something and if they are given some sense of direction and purpose, it doesn’t take a lot of people. I’m sorry to use this example but it hasn’t taken very many gays in our society to change this society’s attitudes towards something which we would have said is sexually deviant and is, but it doesn’t take much. We’re the sleeping giant. We have forty percent of the country saying they are born again, my goodness how is it that Christian values are in retreat everywhere? It’s because we’re not organizing ourselves properly into a movement. So I want nothing more, nothing that I want more fervently right now that I’m giving my life to morning, noon and night than building a movement across this country that will restore what we believe will be the sanity and reasonableness of the Christian worldview.

In a video for the Colson Center he warns of the dangerous spiral of silence. “What the gay lobby has done, they have 600,000 same-sex households in America the Census showed, that’s extraordinarily low, they also have only 100,000 couples who’ve gotten married in five years it’s been legal in five states,” Colson contended. “So the overwhelming majority of Americans do not accept this and yet everybody is afraid to speak, everybody is afraid if they speak they’ll be called bigots.”

Religious Right Activist Doubts That Martin Luther King Jr. and Christians Would Support Wisconsin Protests

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 3/1/2011 11:14 am

A writer for the far-right Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview wonders whether any of the Wisconsin labor protesters are genuine Christians, and also says she is “pretty certain” that Martin Luther King Jr. would have opposed the Wisconsinites protesting Governor Scott Walker’s plans to dismantle the collective bargaining rights of public employees.

Of course, it was King who condemned so-called “right to work” laws because their “purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone,” and also told the AFL-CIO that “our needs are identical with labor’s needs — decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community. That is why Negroes support labor's demands and fight laws which curb labor.”

But according to Singer, who used his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” as evidence, King would have disapproved of the demonstrators. Singer even believes that any Christian should disapprove of the protesters who will “lead this nation to anarchy”:

Note that King acknowledged that the Birmingham city government had a legitimate right to require groups to have a permit before leading a peaceful demonstration in their city. However, knowing that his organization had been denied a permit as a way of preventing them from showing their opposition to unjust segregation laws, he willingly broke the permit law, yet he showed his "highest respect for law" by his willingness to pay the penalty.

What, by contrast, have some of the teachers in Wisconsin done? They called in sick (a lie), they accepted fake doctor's excuses in an attempt to cover up their actions (another lie), they forced their schools to close (defrauding their employers, cheating the children they claim to care about, and causing working parents to scramble to find day care), and they now expect to be paid for their deceit (estimates of the cost for paying for their "sick days" range from $6 million to $10 million, which means they are willing to steal from the taxpayers who must foot the bill).

In other words, they want to protest what they consider an unjust law (which is certainly their right and duty as American citizens), they broke the law to do it, but they are not willing to pay the price for their civil disobedience. I seriously doubt King -- who knew something about paying the steep cost of his convictions -- would approve for he knew too well that such cowardly, narcissistic and dishonest actions would only lead to anarchy.

As I watched the demonstrations on television, I had to wonder how many of the people in the crowd consider themselves Christians -- and how many of those Christians were participating in committing this act of fraud against the state of Wisconsin.

I can only hope that those who are guilty will have an attack of conscience: that the Spirit will bring to their mind the list of sins which God hates the most (Proverbs 6:16-18) so they can see their fault, repent, confess, and then make restitution to those they have harmed. If they don't, then they should expect to pay a different price -- one determined by a righteous and just God who never overlooks sin.

…

However, we won't have the wisdom we need from God if we have put ourselves outside His will by committing the sins He most despises, the sins that will only lead this nation to anarchy.

The Right's New Manhattan Project

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 11/20/2009 10:29 am

It seems that Chuck Colson has gathered together a group of right-wing activists and clergy for something called the "Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience" in order to create a unified front in fighting the culture war: 

The manifesto, to be released on Friday at the National Press Club in Washington, is an effort to rejuvenate the political alliance of conservative Catholics and evangelicals that dominated the religious debate during the administration of President George W. Bush. The signers include nine Roman Catholic archbishops and the primate of the Orthodox Church in America.

They want to signal to the Obama administration and to Congress that they are still a formidable force that will not compromise on abortion, stem-cell research or gay marriage. They hope to influence current debates over health care reform, the same-sex marriage bill in Washington, D.C., and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.

They say they also want to speak to younger Christians who have become engaged in issues like climate change and global poverty, and who are more accepting of homosexuality than their elders. They say they want to remind them that abortion, homosexuality and religious freedom are still paramount issues.

For some reason, the headline of the New York Times article is "Christian Leaders Unite on Political Issues" instead of "Right Wing Activists Unite On Political Issues," which would have been far more accurate considering that a significant number of those who signed on to this declaration are standard Religious Right political activists:

Chuck Colson Founder, the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview

Jim Daly President and CEO, Focus on the Family (Colorado Springs, CO)

Marjorie Dannenfelser President, Susan B. Anthony List (Arlington, VA)

Dr. James Dobson Founder, Focus on the Family (Colorado Springs, CO)

Dr. William Donohue President, Catholic League (New York, NY)

Dinesh D’Souza Writer & Speaker (Rancho Santa Fe, CA)

Rev. Jonathan Falwell Senior Pastor, Thomas Road Baptist Church (Lynchburg, VA)

Maggie Gallagher President, Institute for Marriage and Public Policy and a co-author of The Case for Marriage (Manassas, VA)

Dr. Robert P. George McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University (Princeton, NJ)

Rev. Ken Hutcherson Pastor, Antioch Bible Church (Kirkland, WA)

Bishop Harry R. Jackson, Jr. Senior Pastor, Hope Christian Church (Beltsville, MD)

Dr. Richard Land President, The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC (Washington, DC)

Rev. Herb Lusk Pastor, Greater Exodus Baptist Church (Philadelphia, PA)

Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. President, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY)

Tony Perkins President, Family Research Council (Washington, D.C.)

Alan Sears President, CEO, & General Counsel, Alliance Defense Fund (Scottsdale, AZ)

Mark Tooley President, Institute for Religion and Democracy (Washington, D.C.)

The Declaration can be found here:

While the whole scope of Christian moral concern, including a special concern for the poor and vulnerable, claims our attention, we are especially troubled that in our nation today the lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are severely threatened; that the institution of marriage, already buffeted by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is in jeopardy of being redefined to accommodate fashionable ideologies; that freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized by those who would use the instruments of coercion to compel persons of faith to compromise their deepest convictions.

Because the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as a union of husband and wife, and the freedom of conscience and religion are foundational principles of justice and the common good, we are compelled by our Christian faith to speak and act in their defense. In this declaration we affirm: 1) the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every human being as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, possessing inherent rights of equal dignity and life; 2) marriage as a conjugal union of man and woman, ordained by God from the creation, and historically understood by believers and non-believers alike, to be the most basic institution in society and; 3) religious liberty, which is grounded in the character of God, the example of Christ, and the inherent freedom and dignity of human beings created in the divine image.

We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right—and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation—to speak and act in defense of these truths. We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence. It is our duty to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in its fullness, both in season and out of season. May God help us not to fail in that duty.

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Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview Posts Archive

Chuck Colson's Latest Pathetic Claim that LGBT Rights is Undermining Religious Freedom
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Wednesday 01/18/2012, 12:25pm
Today on his radio bulletin Breakpoint, Manhattan Declaration co-author Chuck Colson claimed that the Obama administration has abandoned freedom of religion in order to advance LGBT rights. While attacking Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s speech on LGBT rights abroad as “disastrous foreign policy,” Colson claimed that “in one fell swoop, she changed our God-given right to freedom of religion, a public act, to a much more restricted ‘freedom of worship,’ a private act, which any Chinese official could go along with,” while placing the “... MORE >
Chuck Colson Warns of Domination by the "Sexually Deviant" Gay Community
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Friday 12/09/2011, 1:05pm
During a conference call with Champion the Vote, the ostensibly non-partisan group that is working to increase the turnout among voters with a “biblical worldview,” Chuck Colson argued that Christians in America are a “sleeping giant” that has been beset by the domineering gay community. Colson cited the work of Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, a pioneer of public opinion polling who has been criticized for her work in Nazi Germany, who wrote about the “spiral of silence” in which minority opinions are marginalized quickly because people are afraid of alienation... MORE >
Religious Right Activist Doubts That Martin Luther King Jr. and Christians Would Support Wisconsin Protests
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Tuesday 03/01/2011, 11:14am
A writer for the far-right Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview wonders whether any of the Wisconsin labor protesters are genuine Christians, and also says she is “pretty certain” that Martin Luther King Jr. would have opposed the Wisconsinites protesting Governor Scott Walker’s plans to dismantle the collective bargaining rights of public employees. Of course, it was King who condemned so-called “right to work” laws because their “purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and... MORE >
The Right's New Manhattan Project
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Friday 11/20/2009, 10:29am
It seems that Chuck Colson has gathered together a group of right-wing activists and clergy for something called the "Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience" in order to create a unified front in fighting the culture war:  The manifesto, to be released on Friday at the National Press Club in Washington, is an effort to rejuvenate the political alliance of conservative Catholics and evangelicals that dominated the religious debate during the administration of President George W. Bush. The signers include nine Roman Catholic archbishops and the primate of the... MORE >