Knight: Gay Equality Is ‘The Greatest Domestic Threat to the Freedoms of Religion, Speech and Assembly’

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.

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.