13AR18-07

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Apologia Report 18:7 (1,143)

February 13, 2013

Subject:  Growing secular opposition to homosexual "marriage"

In this issue:

AMERICAN RELIGION - a well-made interactive map showing distribution of beliefs

HOMOSEXUALITY - leaving the ranks, blazing a trail, and right on the mark

MARRIAGE - great secular resources for defending the traditional view

MORMONISM - new support for the best question to ask about the LDS

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AMERICAN RELIGION

USA Today has created an online interactive graphic, "Topography of Faith," that's based on data from the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life. It opens with a map of the U.S. which is flanked by a list of religious groupings and gives the percentage of the country represented by each group. Move your pointer around the map to see that percentages change for each state. Overall, an impressive tool that distills a lot of complex information in an attractive way. Try this: Move your pointer slowly from Rhode Island to Arkansas and note the state-by-state percentage progressions. <www.ow.ly/hzNNs>

   (Special thanks to long-time supporter Jim Barrie for pointing this out to us.)

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HOMOSEXUALITY

"If everyone in the world read this brief story, it would be a good thing." Those were my thoughts (RP) after reading the testimony of Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, the former "leftist lesbian professor, who despised Christians." What happened? She began "researching the Religious Right and their politics of hatred against queers like me." Then she met someone who asked questions and engaged her in worldview discussion. That turned into a friendship. The Lord did the rest.  Impressively well written. "My Train Wreck Conversion," Christianity Today, Jan/Feb '13, p112. <www.ow.ly/hzItD>

POSTSCRIPT, Apr 20 '24: Compare with <www.tinyurl.com/AR-on-T-I-Burton>

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MARRIAGE

Recent dialog with folks hostile to traditional marriage has shown us that, for many, a rights-based argument trumps any religious value set. Consequently, secular arguments for traditional marriage have become a new means for us to continue the discussion. With this in view, we'd like to pass some discoveries on to you. For a short, well-done book presenting a secular argument for traditional marriage, consider What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, by Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George [1]. It "identifies and defends the reasons for [the traditional] historic consensus and shows why redefining civil marriage is unnecessary, unreasonable, and contrary to the common good." (See a video roundtable with the authors at <www.ow.ly/hFfAu>.)

   We've also been impressed by the blog efforts of Robert Oscar Lopez with the Witherspoon Institute. In his excellent entry "Lessons from France on Defending Marriage," Lopez begins: "Unlikely characters, including gay men, are leading the French people in protest against redefining marriage. A repeating refrain is 'the rights of children trump the right to children.' Americans should follow their example of mobilizing across party lines.

   "The international press was shocked on November 17, 2012, when hundreds of thousands of French citizens took to the streets to fight against a parliamentary bill redefining marriage to include same-sex relationships and legalizing same-sex adoption. ...

   "France offers activists an example of a country that can question gay rhetoric without engaging in the violent homophobia one sees in the repressive laws of Putin's Russia. Those who feel no ill will toward LGBT people, but who believe that there is something special about male-female relationships - marriages - especially because of their role in rearing children, must watch closely what unfurls. ...

   "News about the various alliances forming against the redefinition of marriage and same-sex adoption emerges in snippets at lightning speed. Much of it is not translated into English. To help Americans learn what is happening, I have put up this website offering quick translations <www.ow.ly/hzHHd>.

   "Yesterday, January 13, occurred the much-anticipated 'manif pour tous' or 'march for all,' pitted against the pro-same-sex marriage movement called 'marriage for all.' Buses and trains from all over France carried hundreds of thousands to Paris to demand a referendum.

   "While a bill is scheduled for a vote in Parliament on January 29, an alliance of religious, secularist, straight, gay, rightist, leftist, and non-partisan sources has amassed to halt the bill's passage.

   "The three most prominent spokespeople are unlikely characters: 

'Frigide Barjot,' a bleached-blonde comedienne famous for hanging out with male strippers at the Banana Café, and author of 'Confessions of a Branchée Catholic'

[<www.ow.ly/hFfHL> ];

Xavier Bongibault, a young gay atheist in Paris who fights against the 'deep homophobia' of the LGBT movement, believing it disgraces gays to assume that they cannot have political views 'except according to their sexual urges'; and Laurence Tcheng, a disaffected leftist who voted for President François Hollande but disdains the way that the same-sex marriage bill is being forced through Parliament.

   "In a poll conducted in December, fully 69 percent of French people wanted a referendum on 'marriage for all' rather than an act of Parliament, with 42 percent seeing this as an 'absolute' demand. Right-wing citizens are most adamant, but even a comfortable majority of the French left opposes 'marriage for all' without a rigorous debate on what this will mean for families, and, most of all, for children. ...

   "As a bisexual, raised by a lesbian and her lover (read my account of 'growing up with two moms' here), with decades of experience in gay American discourse, I find this dissension among France's gays utterly inexplicable. A fellow American Thinker contributor, who is also gay and worries about same-sex parenting, admitted to me after seeing these shocking translations: 'This would be unthinkable in the United States. If you were gay and said such things in America, you would be flayed alive. You'd never get published.'" <www.ow.ly/hzHQ1> (includes many imbedded links to more info)

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MORMONISM

A common approach in addressing discord between the LDS and other religious people is often seen in the question: "Are Mormons Christian?" Yet, as many Christian apologists specializing in Mormonism will acknowledge, the better challenge is to ask the LDS: "Can non-Mormons be Christian?"

   Valuable recent evidence of this thinking within the LDS community has been unearthed by Bill McKeever. His cover story for the Mormonism Researched Jan/Feb 2013 newsletter, "Mormon Apostle's definition disqualifies all but Latter-day Saints as 'Christian,'" explains: "A Christian is, in a complete sense, a Mormon in good standing with his or her church. A Christian, according to an October 2012 general conference message ('Being a More Christian Christian'

[<www.ow.ly/hFfO8> ]) delivered by Apostle Robert D. Hales, can be defined by these distinctives:

   • Has faith in the Lord Jesus Christ

   • Can repent, forgive others, keep the commandments, and inherit eternal life

   • Takes the name of Christ by being baptized and received the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands by those holding His priesthood authority

   • Knows that God's prophets have always testified of Jesus Christ, who appeared to the Prophet Joseph Smith in the year 1820 and restored the gospel and the organization of His original Church

   • Knows that God, the Heavenly Father, has a glorified and perfected body of flesh and bone

   • Knows that Jesus Christ is His Only Begotten Son in the flesh

   • Knows that the Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit whose work is to testify of the Father and the Son

   • Knows that the Godhead is three separate and distinct beings, unified in purpose.

"Of course, these definitions require a person to hold Mormon doctrine as truth, apparently negating the title of 'Christian' for anyone who cannot hold to these very specific tenets." <www.http://ow.ly/hzN3t>

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, by Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson, and Robert P. George (Encounter, 2012, paperback, 152 pages) <www.ow.ly/h0j8s>

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