Robert Knight

The lesson of the Jason Collins story, according to Religious Right activists, is that true courage is found in attacking gay people… since not enough people are doing it these days.

In his daily radio bulletin, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council contended that Chris Broussard, the sportscaster who claimed that Jason Collins was rebelling against God, showed “real courage,” unlike Collins…because no one criticized him for being gay, except for Broussard (and many, many, many others).

Jason Collins doesn't play for the Trailblazers, but he's being treated like one. Hello, I'm Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. When the NBA's Jayson Collins announced he was gay, people were literally jumping through hoops to praise him. But if you want to know what real courage looks like, try standing up for truth. NBA reporter Chris Broussard did--and he found out that coming out as Christian might be harder than admitting you're gay. "There [are] a lot Christians in the NBA and just because they disagree with that lifestyle, they don't want to be called bigoted and intolerant ...[T]rue tolerance and acceptance is being able to [act like] mature adults and not call each other names." Personally, Chris said, he didn't know how Collins could reconcile homosexuality with his faith. "If you're openly living in unrepentant sin... not just homosexuality, [but] adultery... premarital sex... whatever... that's walking in open rebellion to God..." ESPN apologized for his comments, but they should have been sorrier for fouling up the debate.

The American Civil Right Union’s Robert Knight made the same case in the Washington Times, arguing that the really brave people are those who attacked Jason Collins since not enough people attacked him.

“A lynch mob is chasing ESPN the Magazine writer Chris Broussard,” Knight writes, “Like openly devout quarterback Tim Tebow, Mr. Griffin and Mr. Broussard are the brave ones — rocks in a flood tide of insanity and cowardice.”

When pro basketball player Jason Collins “came out,” the media went nuts. He was toasted from coast to coast, received congratulatory phone calls from President Obama and Bill Clinton, and made magazine covers.

On May 1, Washington Post sportswriter Mike Wise joined the parade by bashing “Old Testament moral certainty” and denouncing anyone who “trumpeted their bigotry under the guise of ‘religious beliefs.’” There’s no hint in Mr. Wise’s vitriolic column that someone could possibly hold sincere, faith-based moral beliefs. Bullies like the oxymoronically named Mr. Wise are types that the Age of Tolerance is spawning by the truckload.

This brings us to our final word, which is “brave.” Mr. Collins was widely hailed as brave, but it’s the few people who dared question the wisdom of his volitional behavior who are brave.

A lynch mob is chasing ESPN the Magazine writer Chris Broussard because he reiterated classic Christian doctrine to an interviewer: “If you’re openly living in unrepentant sin, whatever it may be — not just homosexuality, [but] adultery, fornication, premarital sex, whatever it may be — I believe that’s walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ. So I would not characterize that person as a Christian, because I don’t think the Bible would characterize him as a Christian.”

Another brave soul is Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III, who on April 30 tweeted: “In a land of freedom, we are held hostage by the tyranny of political correctness.” Like openly devout quarterback Tim Tebow, Mr. Griffin and Mr. Broussard are the brave ones — rocks in a flood tide of insanity and cowardice.

As we watch word after word twisted into doublespeak by corrupt elites, it brings to mind George Orwell’s observation: “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

Washington Times contributor Robert Knight of the American Civil Rights Union warns in a column today that “the left’s drive for ‘gay rights’ poses the greatest domestic threat to the freedoms of religion, speech and assembly.” He asserts that legalizing same-sex marriage “will lead to less freedom and more government” as “civil rights enforcement becomes a gun aimed at the head of citizens, forcing them to choose between God and Caesar.”

“Tyranny is masquerading as enlightenment,” Knight writes, arguing that the effort to overturn statutes banning same-sex marriage is really a drive to “repeal reality.”

Recently, Sen. Rob Portman, Ohio Republican, announced support for homosexual “marriage” because his son is homosexual.

It’s one thing to have unconditional love and compassion toward a friend or loved one, and another thing to redefine marriage for the whole nation. Public policy is the force of law. Civil libertarians who are jumping aboard the homosexual “marriage” bandwagon might want to stop and consider why this will lead to less freedom and more government.

Sundered by no-fault divorce and cohabitation, marriage as a “genderless” institution will lose even more legitimacy and contribute less to stability, prosperity and self-sufficiency. As nuclear families fail, government grows to pick up the pieces — and to enforce the new reality.

This brings us to the bigger picture. The left’s drive for “gay rights” poses the greatest domestic threat to the freedoms of religion, speech and assembly. When traditional morality is equated with racist bigotry, civil rights enforcement becomes a gun aimed at the head of citizens, forcing them to choose between God and Caesar. That should never happen in America, where our Founders said rights come from our Creator, not capricious man, who can mistake fashion for morality.

In Massachusetts, which legalized homosexual “marriage” in 2004, public schools openly entice children to try homosexual behavior despite well-documented health risks. Penalties are enforced against dissenters. People are losing jobs. Catholic Charities, the largest Massachusetts provider of foster homes for orphans, closed its doors rather than give up placing children only in married, mother-father homes. Tyranny is masquerading as enlightenment.

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In New Jersey, the Southern Poverty Law Center is suing Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH) under consumer fraud law. They contend that no one can overcome this particular temptation, despite ample evidence to the contrary.

In California, legislators passed a law making it criminal for parents to take their children to counselors for help in overcoming unwanted same-sex desires — even children who have been molested. A court has enjoined the law for now, but is this still America, land of the free and home of the brave?

Yet, conservatives, the GOP and even the Tea Parties are told they must bow before this increasingly intolerant movement. President Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Lady Gaga and the Democratic Party embrace homosexual “marriage,” so it must advance conservative principles, right?

Laurie Higgins, a perceptive writer for the Illinois Family Institute, asks this question: “What if Portman’s son had announced he was bisexual or polyamorous? Would Portman then seek to have the government recognize plural unions as marriages? Imagine if everyone decided that the ‘Bible’s overarching themes of love and compassion’ and the ‘belief that we’re all children of God’ compel us to affirm all the feelings, beliefs and life choices of our loved ones. The truth is, it is entirely possible to deeply love people while finding their feelings, beliefs and life choices disordered or false. In this wildly diverse world, most of us do it all the time.”

Instead, we’re being asked to repeal reality, which is an unreasonable and dangerous request.

• The Boy Scouts announced that the organization has decided to postpone the vote on whether to drop the prohibition on gay scouts and leaders, scheduled to take place today, until May.
• Robert Knight says the core problem "is that America has been told that homosexuality is now moral and healthy and normal, even though it's none of the three. It's a sin. The Bible makes it clear it's sinful. It hurts people."
• The "Heartbeat Bill" might be stalled in Ohio, but it continues to spread across the nation.
• Hey, Mat Staver ... when exactly did the Department of Homeland Security designate the FRC and AFA as "potential domestic terrorists"?
• Fox News has apparently finally gotten tired of paying Dick Morris to be wrong about everything and severed its ties with him.
• Finally, the man who attacked the Family Research Council headquarters last summer has pled guilty ... and FRC continues to try to place the blame on the SPLC.

American Family Association radio host Sandy Rios today warned listeners that gay rights advocates are promoting a form of “fascism” and that gay equality will result in a “lack of freedom.” 

Rios: We all watched the inauguration recently of the President and we saw on the platform where things lie. We know that if you think that homosexuality is a problem you will not be allowed into public service hardly in any way. If you think that homosexual couples should not be able to adopt, if you have a problem with that, then you are out of the adoption business. I think it is fascism personally; I would go to that extreme and say that, it’s a lack of freedom.

Her guest Robert Knight of the American Civil Rights Union also criticized gay rights supporters and argued that any shift in the Boy Scouts of America’s ban on gay membership “would destroy the Boy Scouts,” and later called for a “new board of directors” who would not “entertain such bizarre notions as opening up the ranks to homosexuals.”

Knight: What they are saying is they are going to leave it up to parents and local councils and Scout troops on whether to allow homosexual leaders and members in. This would destroy the Boy Scouts, let’s cut to the chase, what parent would put their young boy under the authority of men who are attracted to males and take them camping and swimming, etcetera. It’s not designed to make the scouts fairer it’s designed to destroy the Boy Scouts as we know them.

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Rios: There’s really no pressure in the courts and the financial pressures they were facing earlier had subsided so this is like a new assault on them, isn’t it? Now they are coming out because of the corporate angle.

Knight: Yeah and I think what people have to do is say the Boy Scouts need a new board of directors if they are going to entertain such bizarre notions as opening up the ranks to homosexuals. This is about getting corporate money so they can keep their fat headquarters in Texas. Think about it, Scout troops raise money locally they can survive just fine without corporate donations, but not the people at the top, they are the ones who ought to be replaced.

• The Supreme Court has agreed to hear two important gay rights cases involving California's Proposition 8 and a lawsuit challenging the Defense of Marriage Act.
• Robert Knight is not happy about a recent gay wedding at West Point: "It's a disgrace that West Point allowed same-sex so-called 'marriage' in the chapel. That's a blasphemy against God. It goes against the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law. It's a finger in the eye of God and the American people who still hold to biblical morality, and it was done deliberately."
• Allen West spent four times as much as his challenger in trying to save his Congressional seat and still lost. 
• Joseph Farah calls for a boycott of the military.
• Janet Porter is, once again, calling for prayer and fasting in a desperate effort to see her "Heartbeat Bill" legislation pass in Ohio.
• "Kinky sex is the realm of the Jezebel spirit, which sanctions sexual immorality" and leads people into "spiritual bondage." So keep that in mind.
• Quote of the day from Buster Wilson: "Those who wish to redefine marriage do so to satisfy their own fleshy lusts and perverted human desires only, and all the while wrongly blaming God for making them that way."

• Donald Trump spoke today at Liberty University where he delivered the Christian message: "Don’t let people take advantage ... Get even."
• Robert Knight says "we're right on the edge of losing our constitutional republic" and if Obama gets re-elected it "might just push us over that edge."
• Phyllis Schlafly, Dick Bott and David Lane will all be out on the campaign trail in Missouri tomorrow stumping for Todd Akin.
• Matt Barber warns that "America is keeping her head above water; but barely. The upcoming elections may determine whether we as a nation sink or swim — live or die."
• Finally, Gary Bauer knows that "the Obama Administration and its allies in the media have spent the last ten days intentionally covering up the truth about what happened" in Libya and he wants answers!

The outcry from the Religious Right over President Obama’s endorsement of legalizing same-sex marriage continues, with the American Civil Rights Union’s Robert Knight attackig Obama for trying “to invoke Christ when doing the devil’s work” and creating “the sinews of tyranny”:

After having done everything in his power to undermine marriage, President Obama has come out of the closet, so to speak, with his announcement that he’s now for brideless or groomless “marriage.” But he didn’t come out alone. He brought Jesus with him, citing Christ as his inspiration for directly attacking God’s moral order. It’s one thing to be a hypocrite, which Mr. Obama has been for years. Since he began pretending to oppose the redefinition of marriage but refusing to defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act while homosexualizing the military. It’s quite another thing, however, to invoke Christ when doing the devil’s work.

Forget the voters. Mr. Obama’s going to have to answer to God for this one. Wednesday’s announcement even might sober up the people who voted for Mr. Obama simply to show that America has overcome racial division. Someone should survey pastors who support Mr. Obama and ask: Which is more important - electing a man on the basis of race or upholding the integrity of the faith and what the Scriptures say about marriage? Citing Genesis 2:24, Jesus said in Matthew 19:5: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”

This actually is about much more than marriage. It’s about truth. Mr. Obama is asking us to put into law a requirement for us to recognize as a marriage something that is not a marriage. When you do that, you create the sinews of tyranny, which stretch out to strangle freedom of speech, freedom of association and, eventually, freedom of religion. The virtue of tolerance is strangled, too, morphing into the vice of mandatory celebration.

With this wicked move, Mr. Obama is insisting that we bow down and worship the false idol of sexual anarchy. That’s what his wealthy supporters in Hollywood demand. On Thursday, they ponied up a reported $15 million to his campaign at George Clooney’s pool party. When you accord more respect to liberal film stars and gay billionaires than you do to the Creator of the universe, you’re not leaving much doubt about what you really worship.

Jerry Newcombe of Truth in Action Ministries said that Obama’s announcement is “another nail in the coffin of the American Family”:

With this statement, America’s self-proclaimed Christian leader has professed a clearly non-biblical belief that further weakens the moral fiber of our nation. “This could be another nail in the coffin of the American Family, if we don’t stand up now” says Jerry Newcombe, spokesman for Truth in Action Ministries. “Same sex marriage is wrong on many fronts—especially by codifying immorality into law. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the president’s position is to put the government’s sanction on something God has clearly revealed to be sin. Thankfully thousands of homosexuals have been freed from their sin through the power of Christ and continue to be freed every day.”

Christians in America must speak the truth on this issue— before it’s too late. Please help us make a difference. We, as God’s people, must speak out against anything that contradicts His Word — including the radical homosexual agenda. We must oppose it now — or apologize, in the years to come, to the children and grandchildren whom we have left to be its victims.

Ken Hutcherson reaffirmed his pledge to the Christian Post to “take back” the word “gay”:

"The most important thing is that there is no way in the world that I would vote for, regardless who it is, regardless how white they are, regardless how black they are, there is just no way I am ever going to vote for someone who believes in same-sex marriage and abortion," Hutcherson said in an interview with The Christian Post on Thursday.

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"God hates the killing of innocent life, and God hates divorce, and God hates the whole effeminate aspect of man going after man or woman going after woman. You can't get around that – it's in the Bible. And what we need to understand as Christians, is that this is America. We stand on our biblical views regardless," he noted.

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"We have given up so much territory; we are confused about how to take things back. Just like the word 'gay.' I am not homosexual, but I am gay – I am happy. And we've lost that word – we've given it up. We need to take back the rainbow, and we need to take back the word of God," the pastor concluded.

Robert Knight of the far-right American Civil Rights Union appeared yesterday on VCY America’s Crosstalk to discuss so-called voter fraud problems, where he accused people who oppose restrictions on voting rights such as voter ID laws of being “racist.”

Knight: To suggest that showing a Photo ID like everybody else is supposed to show is a way to suppress the minority vote to me is a rather racist thing to say, because it implies that these people are just incapable of operating by the same rules everybody else is. It’s that soft liberal racism that pops up over and over.

As detailed in the Right Wing Watch: In Focus, The Right to Vote Under Attack, research overwhelmingly dispels claims of widespread voter fraud and found that the proposed laws set out to solve this invented problem have a lopsided impact on African American voters. And according to a NAACP report [pdf], such laws are “threatening to disfranchise millions of people, a disproportionate number of whom are people of color.”

Robert Knight of the American Civil Rights Union appeared on The Janet Mefferd Show yesterday to discuss his recent column where he warned that the so-called War on Christmas will be even more traumatic this year as the “Christmas-phobic ACLU tacks up portraits of Grandfather Frost in back offices to inspire them during that darned holiday season that Dare Not Tell Its Name.” Mefferd and Knight floated a legal strategy to challenge what Knight called in his column “the secular virus,” a lawsuit on the grounds that the government violated the First Amendment by establishing atheism as the state’s official religion.

Mefferd: As we were talking about atheism being the de facto official religion with all of this, do you know if there’ve been any lawsuits dealing with the establishment of religion with atheism? This issue of saying, hey by not allowing this, by default the state really seems to be embracing atheism?

Knight: No but that sounds like a good lawsuit to me. I think Christians and others who believe in religious freedom in this country ought to be more aggressive, and that kind of strategy Janet, that’s a great idea.

It appears that Mefferd and Knight confuse government neutrality towards religion, a principal reason for religious freedom in America, with an official endorsement of atheism, which is not a religion.