July 2007 – There is no doubt that American culture is in the midst of a massive shift in values, a shift begun in the 1960s, continuing today and no doubt into the foreseeable future. Traditional mores – and the institutions like marriage and family which have rested upon them – have been abandoned and, in fact, repudiated in some circles.

Societies can undergo dramatic change in a number of ways. Sudden and convulsive changes can occur in a culture, often in answer to social trauma – like economic upheaval, famine, revolution or war. These cataclysmic events transpire to suddenly shock a system, and it lurches in desperation to find stability, equilibrium and tranquility. In those moments, new ideas – like fascism and communism in the 20th Century – can suddenly find acceptance as old ideas appear helpless to stop potential disaster.

Sometimes, however, cultures can mutate gradually. Over time, people come to see things in a different light, and they arrange the society around new ideas.

This culture’s views about homosexuality have seen just such a gradual though dramatic change. Spurred by self-assertive activists and aided by the liberal establishment, homosexuals have created a movement that may be more influential and more aggressive than anything this nation has ever seen.

Purpose and agenda
Quite often the opponents of the homosexual movement speak of the “gay agenda,” a phrase that produces ridicule from activists and a mocking demand to “show us this gay agenda you keep talking about.”

Regardless of the derision and dismissiveness of homosexual leaders, the gay agenda is something that hides in plain sight. Activists speak quite frequently of their goals and the necessary steps by which they intend to meet those goals.

That is precisely what an agenda is. Merriam-Webster defines an agenda as either (1) “a list or outline of things to be considered or done,” or (2) “an underlying often ideological plan or program.”

Obviously not every gay organization is the same – no community is monolithic. But do homosexual groups have lists, plans or programs concerning things they wish to accomplish? Absolutely. For example, a simple search on Wikipedia under “March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation 1993” will turn up a list of demands issued by the coalition of homosexual groups which participated. Other marches occurred – with similar lists of demands issued – in 1979, 1986 and 2000.

Other aspects of the gay agenda can be found on the Web sites of prominent homosexual lobby groups like the Human Rights Campaign (www.hrc.org) or the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (www.thetaskforce.org). On such sites there is an extensive treatment of agenda items.

In 2005, 22 LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) organizations released a joint statement in which the gay movement was defined as “an organized effort to promote or attain an end. …” It would be very difficult to conceive of any “organized effort” seeking to attain an end that does not have an agenda.

In fact, these 22 groups stated that what the gay movement had already accomplished was “absolutely historic,” and that it had not “happened by chance or by accident.” In other words, it had been a purposeful and organized pursuit of goals. The organizations might be different, the statement pointed out, but they are all part of the same “civil rights orchestra.”

“We play different instruments – lobbying, electoral politics, impact litigation, grassroots organizing, public education, media advocacy and more – and we are dedicated to playing them well,” they said.

Just vanilla or chocolate
So what is it that homosexual activists want from society? Simply put, the overarching goal of the gay movement is to obtain society’s approval of homosexuality.

This is what homosexuals have wanted all along – not simply to be left alone, but for our culture to change its view of the lifestyle itself. Luke Montgomery, once known as the militant homosexual activist “Luke Sissyfag,” said, “You have to understand that the motivation of the gay community is validation. They want to be approved. They want people to say, ‘It’s okay that you’re gay’… .”

There is an obstacle to this goal, however. There is a deeply entrenched cultural view of homosexuality which believes that that lifestyle is neither normal, natural nor healthy. And what undergirds that competing view is the traditional, Judeo-Christian view of human sexuality, marriage and family.

Activists have long realized that this traditional view must be radically altered if society is to ever approve of homosexuality. For example, lesbian activist Paula Ettelbrick, executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, once famously said: “Being queer is more than setting up house, sleeping with a person of the same gender, and seeking state approval for doing so. … Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality, and family, and in the process, transforming the very fabric of society. … We must keep our eyes on the goal … of radically reordering society’s views of reality.”

The critical first step towards this end occurred in 1973, when gay activists succeeded in forcing the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.

That carefully planned coup relied on the sympathies of some within the APA, and used threats and intimidation upon the body as a whole, rather than new scientific evidence. In the end, according to Dr. Irving Bieber, one of the major figures in that 1973 APA debate, it was “a sociopolitical struggle” over homosexual rights.

Nevertheless, the impact of the APA coup was huge. It was used to declare that homosexuality was normal – a pronouncement that was amplified in succeeding years by similar declarations released by other medical and mental health organizations. As with the APA, these decisions were not based on science, but politics.

It is upon this foundation that the entire gay agenda is built. For example, how could activists demand that homosexuals be allowed to serve openly in the military if homosexuality itself was rejected as abnormal?

Activists did not stop there, however. The second important step in that radical reordering of society’s views of reality was to normalize gay sex. For more than three decades homosexuals have been busily and continuously telling society – through television programs and movies, articles and editorials, books and speeches – that homosexual sex is no different from the heterosexual variety. Just as one person prefers chocolate and one prefers vanilla, one man prefers other men while another prefers women.

In this regard, the homosexual movement is the latest and most radical manifestation of the Sexual Revolution. That movement redefined sex as activity that is personal and recreational, decoupling it from marriage and procreation. If all sex is legitimate merely if it is consensual, then homosexual sex is likewise legitimate if it meets that standard. Society has no business passing moral judgment.

This, in fact, was the reasoning of the U.S. Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas (2003) when it struck down state sodomy laws. The 6-3 decision considered the case of two homosexual men who had been arrested for having anal sex in their home. In its ruling, the high court stated that the case involved “two adults who, with full and mutual consent from each other, engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle. The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives.”

Everything else follows
Once gay activists began winning those two arguments, successive propositions were stacked upon them: (1) If gay sex is normal, then gay relationships are normal; (2) If gay relationships are normal, then homosexuals should be allowed to marry; (3) If homosexuals should be allowed to marry, then they should be allowed to adopt.

The entire pot of stew that makes up the gay agenda is poured out of this series of interdependent arguments. For example, activists claim that, because homosexuality is normal, children should be taught this fact in public schools; and since gay sex is normal, kids should learn about it in sex education classes at the same time they learn about the heterosexual variety.

But since the entire fabric of the gay agenda is interwoven and thus interdependent, it unravels when the first thread is pulled. While Christians must always remain loving and humble in what they say and how they say it, they must also remain firmly committed to what the Bible declares.

And this is what the Bible teaches: Homosexuality is a sign of a person’s brokenness through the fall of man, a brokenness that all human beings share. The crippling weakness of sin might manifest itself in numerous ways in each one of us, with different people each struggling with a variety of burdens.

This is what Christians mean when they say that homosexuality is immoral. It is not that gays and lesbians are less human, it is that their humanness is broken like everyone else’s, and our celebration of that brokenness is an offense before God.

This applies to both homosexuals and heterosexuals. All people, regardless of how they define their “sexual orientation,” are called to repent of their sexual immorality, and not demand the right to exercise it.

That’s God’s agenda, and we would all be wise to heed it.