What they did not minimize was that homosexual group’s dislike the Mars Hill Church in Portland “for its views against homosexuality,” meaning they believe in biblical scripture and do not embrace the homosexual agenda.
KOIN 6 received an anonymous email claiming responsibility for the cowardly act of smashing century old stained glass windows at the church. They report,
“A gay-activist group, identified only as ‘angryqueers@’ in an anonymized email address, has claimed responsibility. In an email to KOIN, a reported member of the group said ‘Mars Hill is notoriously anti-gay and anti-woman’.”
“The sender took issue with Mark Driscoll, Mars Hill's head pastor, saying Driscoll has said women need to be subservient to their husbands and that gay people are a cancer. Members of this southeast Portland church deny these claims.”The act has drawn the condemnation of several different religious and homosexual group representatives, reports the Portland Mercury.
They quote notoriously liberal Reverend Chuck Currie and the Q Center staff. “I am embarrassed by whoever did this, and sincerely hope the queer community can continue to stay focused on changing hearts and minds rather than breaking windows,” while the Q Center’s Logan Lynn says, “We have every right to be angry, given the history of hurt from the church, but violence is not the answer. If we want to be treated like human beings, we must not behave like animals.” (emphasis in the original)
Of importance to us in Washington State is the recent legalization of homosexual marriage rammed through the Washington State legislature last session and the subsequent efforts to place the matter before voters to legally redefine marriage as one man to one woman in our state and reject the legislatures ramming through of homosexual marriage.
Two efforts have been launched to restore traditional marriage in our state, Referendum 74, that seeks to “give the voters of Washington State the opportunity to determine for themselves how the first and foremost of all human institutions, marriage, will be defined,” and Initiative 1192 that would “define marriage as a civil contract between one man and one woman and would prohibit marriage for same-sex couples.”
The cowardly vandalization in Portland could also be interpreted as a “shot across the bow” to Washington State residents to discourage people from signing the petitions to preserve traditional marriage in the state, since over 30 homosexual activist groups were supplied the names and addresses of every person who signed the R-71 petitions’ in 2009 that sought to overturn SB 5688, the “Everything but marriage” law for Domestic Partners.
Even though U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle initially blocked release of that personal information, citing numerous threats from homosexual activists against supporters of overturning the law and seeing the violence in California after the passage of Proposition 8 that overturned their homosexual marriage law in 2008, Republican gubernatorial candidate, Rob McKenna, acting in his capacity as State Attorney General, fought for the release of that information to the U.S. Supreme Court and it was released almost immediately after the court decision mandating it be released.
Democrat gubernatorial candidate Jay Inslee is a strong supporter of homosexual marriage while McKenna claims on the campaign trail he does not support homosexual marriage. Only Republican Shahram Hadian has taken a strong stance against homosexual marriage in the campaigns.
We must not allow the cowardly act of a self proclaimed homosexual activist group in Portland, Oregon sway us from doing what we know is right. Even though homosexual activist groups in Washington State have vowed “uncomfortable conversations” with people who signed the R-71 petitions and were supplied to them by the efforts of Rob McKenna, we must not cower in their presence. We should not compromise our principles in the face of veiled threats designed to impede our constitutional right to our values and to participate in the initiative process.
The only way to defeat bullies is to stand up to them and that is what homosexual activists are doing, bullying those opposed to their agenda with threats of violence.
SB 5688 granted homosexual Domestic Partnerships all of the legal rights granted to opposite sex couples. As was even written in the Columbian, Same-sex marriage offers few new benefits. By placing the matter before voters and if voters decide to overturn homosexual marriage, homosexuals still retain all of the legal rights given them under the “Everything but marriage” law passed in 2009.
As stated by Greg Noelck, Regional Director R74 Campaign,
“R-74 is not anti-homosexual. Those in Washington State who do not support SB 6239 generally oppose the new law because it is bad public policy to define marriage as genderless- particularly as it relates to parenting, and because a very small minority do not have the right to redefine marriage for the vast majority; they support what everyone knows is the best way to define marriage and family: husbands and wives, moms and dads. Many people also do not support SB 6239 because it violates their religious belief and are simply exercising the same freedom of conscience that all other Washington citizens enjoy pertaining to other issues.”
“Same-sex couples have made the argument that the redefinition of marriage is important to their relationship while simultaneously arguing that it does not affect the marriage of others. This is illogical as the definition must affect either all or none of the relationships under consideration. If the definition has no practical bearing on a ‘traditional marriage’ then how can it have a practical bearing on a ‘non-traditional marriage’ when equal protection under the law has already been established?”Pastor Tim Smith of Portland’s Mars Hill Church says he harbors no ill-will against the cowardly homosexual mob that vandalized his church.
While that is all fine and well, we must not cower before their ill-will towards us.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment