6 Links worth seeing

‘Kids Are Resilient’ and 7 Other Lies Divorcing Parents Should Stop Believing 

• As a former divorce mediator, and current couples and family mediator, I have heard every excuse that            parents use to feel better about breaking up their family. In this article, I’ve outlined several of the most common lies that you might be telling yourself if you’re considering divorce.”

For years I pleaded with God to make me straight, So why did my prayers go unanswered?

• “…. when I grew up pleading with God to make me straight, I had no real interest in God Himself. I wasn’t praying for God to do this because I loved Him or wanted to live my life for Him. I was actually pretty unconcerned about Him, to be honest. I wanted God to take away my same sex desires for my own benefit – so that I could fit in, be normal, be one of the guys, and even so that I could just have sex with girls like all of my friends were. < — So I obviously wasn’t worried about being sexually moral. I just wanted to be sexually normal.”

My Marriage Wasn’t Meant to Be

• “Once you marry, you are meant for the person that you married and no one else. You didn’t marry them because you were meant for them, you are meant for them because you married them. There is nobody else. There is no other ‘right’ person at that point.”

Why are moms so tired?

• “Mothers of young children – particularly stay-at-home moms – tend to get a bad rap. Why doesn’t she do her hair more often? She seems to have a disproportional amount of yoga pants. I’m not sure why she refers to herself in third person. Sure, mothers may sleep a little less and be busy at home during this season, I have another theory on why we can be so tired even when it seems (to the outside world particularly) like we never do much of anything. Why are moms so tired? I have a theory on that.”

Ten ways to thrive in the face of pastoral challenges

• “We must remember … that wherever God calls, He also enables. God did not call us to be fruitless and unprofitable. He has a plan and purpose for His leaders, and leadership can be more effective if we follow some very practical and thoroughly scriptural guidelines.”

23 Things That Love Is

• “With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, here’s a gospel-centered reminder about how to love. But, you don’t have to be romantically in love to find this list practical. Every healthy relationship requires love and sacrifice, so if you’re a parent, child, sibling, neighbor, pastor, or co-worker, this list is for you.”

Steve Cornell

The logic on redefining marriage

What is marriage? (From a policy perspective)

President Obama’s executive order for LBGT

In light of President Obama’s recent executive order banning workplace discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees of federal contractors and the federal government, it’s important to review the seven tactics used to change public opinion on this matter (see them here) and review the word games used to move from sexual preference to sexual orientation (see here).

Peaceful existence in a nation rich in multi-ethnic, multi-cultural diversity requires from citizens mutual civility and respect. Requiring such goodwill is good for the nation. People who (within the law) choose different beliefs, morals and lifestyles, must be asked to live peacefully with one another. We’ve made great strides in promoting this kind of respect on matters of race and gender and special laws protecting the disabled.

The inclusion of sexual preferences as a civil right on the same level as race and gender is a deeply misguided decision based on a false comparison that will unnecessarily disturb peace and freedom.

All civilized people have laws restricting some types of sexual behavior. Rape, incest and all sexual contact between adults and children are and should remain illegal. Beyond these restrictions, consenting adults are free to live their sexual preferences. But to ask our nation to make new and special laws for same-sex preferences is to force the lifestyle choices of others on everyone. If a homosexual lifestyle becomes a protected status equal with race and gender, people will not be free to morally oppose homosexual behavior. This is an unnecessary violation of freedom that will backfire on those who choose to live homosexual lifestyles.

Steve Cornell

This is outrageous and dangerous

Free speech not so free when discussing gay rights 

By Cal Thomas

Once, Social Security was the “third rail” of politics. Touch it and face political death. Now it is homosexuality. Criticize anything gay people do and you risk ostracism, fines, suspension or loss of your livelihood.

Michael Sam, the first openly gay player to be drafted by a National Football League team — the St. Louis Rams picked him 249th in the last round — is being treated by the media and those in the gay rights movement as the equivalent of an early American pioneer.

Miami Dolphins safety Don Jones, apparently, didn’t get the memo. Jones tweeted “OMG” and “horrible” after he saw Sam and his boyfriend kiss each other live on ESPN. His tweet was quickly taken down, but the political correctness police swooped in anyway. Jones has been fined and suspended. He’s also being forced to attend “educational training” to get his “mind right,” to borrow a phrase from the film “Cool Hand Luke.” This sounds like the old communist “re-education” camps.

Dolphins Coach Joe Philbin called Jones’ comment “inappropriate and unacceptable.” Jones issued a statement that read like it had been written by a lawyer, apologizing for his “inappropriate” tweet and taking “full responsibility” for his comment.

How quickly things have changed from the recent experiences of Tim Tebow. When the quarterback heroically led the Denver Broncos to a playoff victory in 2012 and dropped to one knee, as he often did to express gratitude to God (a move that quickly became known as “Tebowing,” which spawned countless YouTube parodies), he was widely ridiculed by many of the same entities that now defend Michael Sam, including some NFL players and even “Saturday Night Live,” which in a skit had “Jesus” offering Tebow advice while sitting next to him on a locker room bench.

When the Broncos released Tebow, he was mocked again, not only for his faith, but for claiming to be a virgin who wanted to save himself for marriage. In an increasingly secular and licentious culture this sort of thinking and expression, apparently, must be silenced.

Read the rest here

See also:

• Sexual preference or Sexual orientation?
• 7 tactics for promoting gay marriage
• Tolerance as a strategy, not a virtue

 

No public safe zone for disagreeing with gay lifestyle

Once again there is no public safe zone for disagreeing with the gay lifestyle. If you doubt it, just ask the Benham brothers or Miami Dolphins safety, Don Jones.

It’s pure craziness that a citizen of America cannot publicly state his belief that marriage is meant for male and female without risking accusations of hate and bigotry? Citizens are only safe to publicly endorse gay lifestyles and homosexuals can publicly say whatever they want about their private sexual preferences. 

It’s even more crazy to think that all of this is being promoted based on the false premise that being gay is equal with one’s race. Are sexual preferences and acts really unalterable? Are we unable to ask people to restrain sexual desires and acts? We certainly can’t ask people of race to stop being the race they were born with. 

Let’s be honest about the manipulative agenda behind this false comparison and where it’s leading us. If we make sexual choices of individuals civil-rights comparable to race and gender, we’ll open a social and legal Pandora’s box. Citizens will not be permitted to morally oppose homosexual behavior without risking accusations of discrimination, hate and racism. Federal law will be used against the freedoms of Americans who believe and teach a different view of marriage and sexuality.

It’s foolish to treat sexual preferences as equivalent with race or gender. There is no conclusive scientific evidence that supports such a comparison. But the comparison is what feeds accusations of bigotry, hate and legal claims of discrimination. I know many people who are morally opposed to homosexuality but are not at all discriminatory or hateful toward those who choose a different sexual lifestyle. I am one of them.

We must expose this false comparison as a manipulative threat to civility and liberty. It also runs the risk of creating a counter group who could claim discrimination against their freedoms to believe and teach their own morality. Where will this path lead us as a nation? Where is it leading us now? Ask the Benham brothers and NFL player, Don Jones.

If someone dares to publicly say that he does not agree with gay marriage, he is likely to be reprimanded and possibly ostracized. We can trash Tim Tebow for his faith all day without consequence, but we dare not say anything about Michael Sam’s preference for sex with men. We are being socially coerced to remain silent when homosexuals openly flaunt their sexual preferences. Perhaps Michael Sam will be an “uncuttable” player on a team too afraid of risking accusations of hate and bigotry. 

Those who oppose gay marriage on moral grounds are now being subjected to discrimination and exclusion in ways that will only promote anger in a free nation. To deny people their freedoms and falsely accuse them of hateful motivations only causes civil unrest.

Those who take a different view on homosexual behavior are now the targets of condescending ridicule, hate speech, name-calling and scornful ad hominem. This behavior is a violation of the kind of civil debate we need in democratic process. It’s also coercion and manipulation of the worst kind.

If you oppose gay marriage, you’re told that you have irrational phobias; that you’re a hate-monger, bigot and guilty of discrimination. Why do people allow this kind of school-yard bullying to scare them into acquiescing to a militant agenda to force one sexual lifestyle on the vast majority of Americans?

Teaching people to treat each other with respect is a better alternative to forced affirmation. Tolerance is about treating others with respect when you disagree with them. Telling people they’re not permitted to disagree about moral lifestyles is coercion, not tolerance.

It’s ironic how intolerance and bigotry once wrongly shown toward people who prefer a gay lifestyle is now aimed at anyone who dares to morally disagree with homosexual lifestyles.

We must see through the manipulation and slanderous accusations being used against those who take a different view of sexuality and marriage. Let’s courageously stand for our convictions and send a strong message that we won’t put up with the absurd and irrational political correctness being forced on us.

This isn’t about the rights of consenting adults to do what they desire sexually. We all have those rights — equally shared by all Americans. This is about an arrogant insistence that the entire nation conform to the sexual choices of two percent of the people. 

Steve Cornell

 See: “Sexual preference or Sexual orientation?“

Athlete praised for coming out?

The media machine is in overdrive to praise college athlete, Michael Sam, as an example of courage for admitting that he prefers sex with men. Did we really need to know about his private sexual desires? I don’t want to know.
 


Even our President and First Lady were quick to publicly congratulate the athlete as an example of courage. While our military, who sacrifice greatly for our freedoms, receive form letters, a gay athlete gets personal tweets of praise! Is there something wrong with this picture? 
 


And, once again, those who take a different view on the morality of Michael Sam’s sexual lifestyle will be demonized as bigoted hate-mongers who belong to a Neanderthal fringe group of radical right-wing fundamentalist. I’ll personally expect the same barrage of emails accusing me of anything from being a closet homosexual to a Bible-thumping hater (who, as a pastor, should only be spreading love and acceptance). 
 


Some will even accuse me of keeping homosexuality in the news! This sad response has become so predictable that it strains credulity. The malicious plan behind it is to marginalize people like the Chic-fil-A and Duck Dynasty supporters as racists for turning out by the hundreds of thousands in support of traditional marriage. 
 


But this issue has absolutely nothing to do with race or civil rights battles for racial equality. Intelligent people see through the manipulation of falsely comparing the kind of sex people want with the racial identity of others. 
 


Imagine thirty years ago a reputable news agency giving headline attention to the courage of an athlete for telling the nation that he prefers sex with men. Of course, some would like us to believe that current knowledge should lead to a more progressive view of sexuality. Yet there’s not a bit of credible, compelling information to treat homosexual desire as an unalterable condition of birth. 
 


This is an agenda to exalt and normalize the kind of sex a person wants based on the absolute rule of individual desire. Yet it’s a disservice to society to remove sexuality from a category of human choosing based on creation of humanity as male and female. 
 


Perhaps some of my readers take the view that what people do sexually in the privacy of their lives is not anyone else’s business as long as it’s legal. Fair enough. Don’t splash it on the front page. If you take the privacy view, you should know that radical gay activists are determined to make their sexual desires your business by demanding your celebration of same-sex lifestyles.


I firmly reject all mistreatment of people who struggle with sexual or gender identity, but I also disagree with those who tell people God created them to be homosexual.   

Many years ago, a college student came to me for counseling about same-sex attraction. Other counselors encouraged him to accept his attraction as normal, as they way God made him. But he told me that he couldn’t accept it no matter how hard he tried. He also admitted that no matter how many laws or people supported homosexuality; it wouldn’t diminish his inner turmoil.

I refused to be one more cruel voice sending him off into hopelessness because I knew that when we live contrary to the way God made and planned for us to live, it’s actually a good thing for us to feel outside of that plan.

I recommended a compassionate alternative by encouraging this young man to come along side fellow strugglers who battle temptations in a context of grace and truth. I invited him to join others in discovering the freedom that can be found in living by Gods grace through His Spirit. Although my struggles are not the ones he experienced, I assured him that I also battle temptations because we all do.

Our Churches must work harder to become these kinds of communities of redemption and restoration and the gospel is “the power of God” (Romans 1:16) that will shape us into them.

Of course, at the end of the day, people are free (in every State of this nation) to pursue a homosexual lifestyle and to reject the validity of communities that believe in and encourage transformation from homosexual living.

No matter how many media groups and radical judges try to change society, the view I take here is the majority in our country and it’s also the view of true love and compassion for all people — without discrimination. 


Steve Cornell

A legal Pandora’s box

 

Although a majority of Americans do not favor gay marriage, many believe that the institution of marriage will be redefined. They believe that the historic position of our nation (and of human history) will be rejected as a relic of ignorance and bigotry.

Yet the current changes counted as victories for gay marriage are not happening because the people want it this way, but by judicial coercion; not by democracy but by oligarchy.

A number of years ago, I suggested that legalization of gay marriage as a civil right will open a legal Pandora’s box throughout the nation. When I said this at a University open forum, a visiting law professor rejected my assertion. She was then countered by a highly recognized lawyer in the audience who listed cases currently in the courts that validated my concerns.

I recently stated that it would be more politically and legally amendable and create less social unrest if the gay community said, “All we want is marriage and the benefits that come with it. We are not asking for civil rights status as a minority group along the lines of racial identity. We are not asking for businesses and Churches to be forced to affirm gay marriage. We are not asking for curriculum changes at the schools to include gay marriage and families.”

Instead of this approach, we’re seeing growing numbers of lawsuits aimed at those who hold religious convictions against gay marriage. Religious freedoms of Americans are clearly being threatened over gay marriage.

Gay activists are determined to force the public to bow to the sexual preferences of a very small percentage of our population. If they are successful, people will not be permitted to teach the historical view of our nation and the view Jesus taught that marriage is a gift from God for male and female (Matthew 19:4-6). If you hold to this view, you’ll be forced into public silence or threatened with the accusation of discrimination under federal law.

We must remind ourselves of the explicit and deceptive strategy that has been used to change public opinion. Beyond media efforts to normalize the homosexual lifestyle, the public has been subjected to an endless manipulation of words and ideas to promote the sexual lifestyle of those who prefer same gender sex.

The seven points in the link below survey the distortions of truth used to change the way the public thinks about sexuality and marriage. My purpose in exposing the agenda is not to force my beliefs on others or to suggest that I am more righteous. We simply must recognize the manipulation and deception for the sake of discernment and rational dialogue.

See: The strategy has seven key tactics 

Steve Cornell