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Intolerance and Religion in the Public Square 5/28/2003
By Robert Knight

Apology or not, David Horowitz might want to reconsider his pro-‘gay’ stance

I’m in the middle of a tiff with a friend, David Horowitz, who is taking issue with Christian conservatives’ attempt to keep the GOP from falling into the camp of “gay” activists. He has written two columns on his FrontPageMagazine.com website. The first, “Pride Before a Fall” (May 20), accused Christian conservatives of intolerance and poor judgment concerning their meeting with Republican Party Chairman Marc Racicot to discuss Mr. Racicot’s earlier meeting with 300 homosexual activists.

The latest column, “Render Unto Caesar” (May 27), responds in large part to a column I wrote last week, “Mr. Horowitz Owes Christians an Apology” (May 28).

In “Render Unto Caesar,” Mr. Horowitz repeats his charge of intolerance, but takes it up a notch:

“Why do I owe Christians an apology, since I have not attacked Christians? To accuse a Jew of attacking Christians is a serious matter and goes to the heart of the political problem that ‘social conservatives’ often create for themselves when they intrude religion into the political sphere. Why is religion even an issue in what should be entirely a political discussion?”

Some observations:

1) Mr. Horowitz warns that we need to keep religion out of politics or even any public discussion, but he led off his initial column by distorting Jesus’ teachings, thus injecting religion into the discussion. Then he accuses Christians of injecting religion into the issue because some of us corrected his distortion of Scripture. Apparently, only Mr. Horowitz gets to opine about religion and politics. By the way, many, many people who are not religious support family values and oppose homosexual activism.
2) Mr. Horowitz assails Gary Bauer, and by extension, other politically active Christians, for being “mean-spirited.” (Later, he accuses me of harboring “prejudice dressed up as a moral position.”) I don’t know about you, but I consider being accused of bigotry an “attack.” Black racists have used the same tactic on Mr. Horowitz for his courageous stand on campuses opposing slavery “reparations.” He should know that disagreement is not evidence of bigotry, and that morality is not prejudice. But homosexual activists and their allies use these false comparisons to try to silence their opponents. The following is even worse.
3) “To accuse a Jew of attacking Christians is a serious matter.” Why does Mr. Horowitz bring up his being Jewish? I certainly didn’t. He could be a lapsed Baptist for all I care. We debate all comers. The message seems to be that if we defend our Christian beliefs on this issue against his criticism, it amounts to something approaching anti-Semitism. Given that Mr. Horowitz knows me and knows that I am not anti-Semitic, his hinting at it is out of bounds. (I'm thinking of getting a bumper sticker that says, "Friends Don't Call Friends Bigots!") By his reasoning, only Jews can discuss the political application of Christian theology without running the risk of being accused of something hideous.
4) “They intrude religion into the political sphere.” The last time I looked, religious speech was protected in the Constitution, which nowhere limits public discussion to only what atheists and secularists find appropriate. The Founding Fathers fully expected religion to play a prominent role in shaping public policy.

Elsewhere in his column, Mr. Horowitz continues his defense of injecting Jesus into the discussion:

“To repeat, I did not charge Christians with anything. Nor did I make pronouncements on the subject of Jesus’ moral teachings. Perhaps this is too fine a point. I did not say that Jesus approved homosexuality, but I did point out the contrast in the degree to which Jesus considered it important to the salvation of one’s soul and the way some conservative Christian leaders considered it important to the coming election of an American president.”

What we have here is apples and oranges. If an organized group were trying to impose the values of Sodom on Jerusalem during Jesus’ time, He might well have addressed the “issue.” But they weren’t. The organized sodomy lobby is a byproduct of a modern culture adrift from its Biblical foundations. And Jesus condemned all “fornication,” that is, sex outside marriage. He did not need to itemize, since Moses already did that.

Using Horowitz's argument, Abraham Lincoln didn't think homosexuality was a bad thing since he didn't mention it in any of his reported speeches. The Log Cabin “gay” Republicans are shamelessly exploiting Lincoln’s image, while some activists even promote the preposterous fiction that Abe was himself “gay.”

Christian sexual morality comes directly from Jewish law. When Peter and the rest gathered in Jerusalem to discuss which part of the Law should be applied to Gentiles entering the faith, they exempted converts from the dietary laws and circumcision, but required that they abstain from fornication. That was non-negotiable — no sex outside of marriage. One would suppose that Peter, Andrew and the rest of the apostles knew more about what Jesus thought on that subject than Mr. Horowitz. Paul made it clear in I Corinthians 6:9-11 that homosexuality is just one of many sins that, if unrepented, can lead to a grim eternity. But he said to his followers, “such were some of you,” clearly indicating the early church’s view that sin, including homosexuality, is well within God’s ability to help the believer overcome.

But Mr. Horowitz’s real charge is that Christians who take their faith seriously enough to engage in political battles had better not make moral arguments. He welcomes our contributions, so long as they are entirely secular. Thus, politics and lawmaking cannot be informed by faith, at least not publicly. This would be news to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, not to mention one of Mr. Horowitz’s heroes, Ronald Reagan.

Mr. Horowitz also lobbed this little nugget in the original column: “Moreover, the fact that it is, after all, crosses the Ku Klux Klan burns, might suggest a little more humility on the part of Christians addressing these issues” [emphasis in original]. Why? Christian conservatives consider the Klan a blasphemous terror group. Does Mr. Horowitz think we regard them as one of the family? Why would he think that, unless he really believes that conservative Christians are just slightly different in degree?

There’s a bit more: “As a veteran of leftist revolutions, I know the difference between a leftist gay activist and a Log Cabin Republican, and so should Robert Knight.”

Well, I do. The first type wears a Hillary button and backs “gay” marriage, “gays” in the military, “hate crime” laws and special rights based on sexual behavior. The second wears a Bush button and backs “gay” marriage, “gays” in the military, “hate crime” laws, and special rights based on sexual behavior. Both are attempting to use the power of law to overturn millennia of social norms and create a libertarian pornotopia that will little resemble America as we know it. This will happen all in the name of tolerance, of course.

Mr. Horowitz’s main complaint with leftwing homosexual activists seems to be that they are leftwing. But leftism is not the only evil that can cause harm. Destroying the moral foundations is arguably more serious and is a key part of the effort to build the socialist nanny state that Mr. Horowitz opposes.

Christian conservatives are not the only ones to whom Mr. Horowitz might consider softening his rhetoric. His sweeping dismissal of the ex-gay movement, which includes the Jewish group Jonah, seems based on what homosexual activists might be telling him. He says, for example, “All evidence points to the contrary. The conversion movements have been miserable failures.” First, there is no credible scientific evidence of any genetic or in-born factor causing homosexuality. Second, thousands of people have overcome same-sex attractions, most of them through the grace of God. Third, Dr. Robert Spitzer, who was instrumental in taking homosexuality off the list of psychological disorders in 1973, did his own study recently and concluded that homosexuals can change. Mr. Horowitz himself concedes that “a tiny minority of what is itself a tiny minority of people willing to go through the conversion process achieve a well-adjusted heterosexual result.”

“Conversion process” sounds too clinical to me. A lot of people overcome unwanted desires, from porn addiction to adultery to alcoholism. Most of them do so quietly and go on with their lives. The same can be said for people who conquer same-sex desires. Mr. Horowitz owes it to himself to get in touch with the folks at Exodus International in Orlando, who are counseling thousands of people out of homosexuality.

Finally, Mr. Horowitz unbinds himself from all restraint, and pens this to finish his column:

“A mission to rescue homosexuals is a religious mission; it is not an appropriate political cause. Would Robert Knight like the government to investigate every American to determine whether they are homosexual or not and then compel those who are to undergo conversion therapy — or else? This is a prescription for a totalitarian state. No conservative should want any part of it. But this is how Robert Knight sums up the political agenda of social conservatives. Those who agree with him should think again.”

Mr. Horowitz is not normally prone to such overstatement, which is more characteristic of our common leftist opponents, so I am puzzled. Nowhere do I suggest the state should do any of the above. I did say that our agenda is to dissuade people from engaging in homosexual behavior and offering a helping hand to those who seek to change. We honestly don’t believe the public schools should mislead children about the nature of homosexuality or that businesses should be forced to subsidize homosexual relationships.

Mr. Horowitz’s entirely ad hominem argument is that because I think homosexuality is wrong and should be discouraged, that I favor a totalitarian government. Actually, I see totalitarianism coming in on the heels of the “tolerance police,” (let’s call them the Gaystapo) who will brook no opposition to their insistence that God, the Bible and medical evidence are all wrong and that homosexuality is normal and right. If you don’t believe that the Log Cabin Republicans are as radical as the “gay left,” then why did they call for the head of Sen. Rick Santorum for merely defending current law and family values?

If Mr. Horowitz wants to preserve freedom, he should speak out (as he has, on occasion) against the homosexual activists who are trying to turn America’s moral order upside down, criminalize ex-gay counseling, and pave the way for a Canada-style repression of religious freedom in the name of “tolerance.”

In fact, to his credit, Mr. Horowitz notes that, “I have opposed the gay left’s attacks on the Boy Scouts; that I have decried the intrusion of the gay left’s sexual agendas into the public schools and that I have written the harshest critiques of the gay left’s promotion of organized promiscuity and subversion of the public health system, as the root cause of the AIDS epidemic….”

Bravo, Mr. Horowitz. As homosexual activists of all stripes move closer to their goal of suppressing dissent, we could use some more help from your prolific and effective pen.

Robert Knight is director of the Culture & Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America.