I have to admit that I have been having a hard time understanding what is going on over at Focus on the Family.
New president Jim Daly keeps saying that he’s all about civility and that Focus would have a much less confrontational tone while, at the same time, Focus representatives are giving in to pressure from militant anti-gay activists and announcing that they would oppose a Supreme Court nominee solely on the grounds that said nominee was gay.
It all seems rather schizophrenic … and that is exactly the impression I got after listening to this recent Focus on the Family broadcast examining Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court as well as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
In the past, a Focus on the Family program dedicated to these issue would almost surely have contained some over-the-top rhetoric from either the host or the guests … but this broadcast, which featured Daly, Chuck Colson, Focus on the Family Judicial Analyst Bruce Hausknecht, and Focus on the Family Vice President of Government and Public Policy Tom Minnery, was downright dull.
In fact, any time anyone said anything that might be considered even borderline controversial, Daly went to great lengths to explain that their views are not based on hate and that the ultimate goal is to bring people to Christ.
As such, during the discussion on Kagan, Daly ended up reading passages from the Bible about loving your enemies, explaining that those who don’t share their political and cultural views are “gnarled in their sin” and can’t see the world properly.
The discussion then turned to ENDA and as Tom Minnery explained that Christian were alarmed about it because it would make it illegal for them to discriminate against gays, Daly was again quck to say that they were not opposing this legislation out of hatred toward gays, but rather on the grounds that while all people are sinners, we shouldn’t be passing laws that encourage such sins.
Then Hausknecht began to explain that gays want ENDA to pass because it is a stepping stone to marriage equality and ultimately the marginalization of Christians, at which point Daly again stepped in say that their opposition to gay marriage was not about hate toward gays, but rather about what is best for our culture and our children, insisting there is no ill-will toward gays and no desire to offend them since the ultimate goal is to get them to know the love of Jesus.
I’ve edited the program down so you can listen for yourself:
If this is the new, more civil Focus on the Family, I have to say I almost prefer the older, more confontational one.
At least you knew where they stood.
