Inappropriate Memorial Day Comments

I attended the annual Memorial Day Remembrance at the Washougal (WA) Memorial Cemetery. This was my first time attending and I found the ceremony somber yet inspirational. Except for Washougal Mayor Jeff Guard's comments. He thanked the organizers and mentioned some of his relatives buried in the cemetery then mentioned the number of dead from Iraq and said that "even though this might be a controversial comment, maybe it is about time to bring them home."

No matter how we feel about the current war, we were not there to make political statements. We were there to come together as a community to honor those who serve this country, who protect this country, and who will die in the cause of liberty regardless if those of us in the relative safety of our homes agree on the definition of that cause.

The mayor's comments were juxtaposed against the elegance of the other speakers, poems, prayers, and tributes. The mayor's comments do have a place but a Memorial Day Remebrance was not it. I do not believe he meant disrespect but that was the result

In this morning's Camas-Washougal Post-Record, a letter to the editor appeared for which I heartily agree:

Mayor's remarks inappropriate
The following is a letter submitted by e-mail to Washougal Mayor Guard following his remarks at the Memorial Day services at Washougal Cemetery.

Mayor Guard, I am writing to you regarding your remarks made May 30 at the Memorial Day ceremony at Washougal Cemetery.

Thousands of our Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard men and women have been wounded or killed to protect the freedoms we hold dear, including the right to dissent and freedom of speech. Freedom of speech, however, does not make it your place to include your anti-war remarks at a Memorial Day ceremony honoring the members of our Armed Forces both living and dead.

Your remarks were at best poor judgment and at worst rude and insulting to those of us who have served our country in the armed forces, the families of those who have served and to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice to protect our most precious possession, our freedom as a nation.

You may agree or disagree with our governmentÂ’s attempts to bring stability and peace to a region that has known nothing but dictators and terror for many years, but to announce those views at a ceremony honoring our war dead on Memorial Day was unacceptable. This is a day to honor those who have been taken from us and whose sacrifice should never be forgotten, not to spout ones own political views.

We feel you owe the veterans, their families and the community an apology for your ill-timed remarks.

Floyd N. McCreary
RMCM USN Retired
Washougal

Where, oh where did all the pro-aborts go

This past week, Charlene Dorcy received a 63 year sentence in return for pleading guilty to killing her two daughters.

Dorcy, is the Vancouver, Washington woman who drove her daughters, Jessica and Brittany to an abandoned gravel pit, fed them a snack, and then shot them. She drove back to Vancouver and turned herself in.

But where are all the pro-abortion supporters?

Here we have a mother who didn't want her children and she made the decision to abort them. Isn't that what freedom of choice is all about?

No you say? Then what exactly is the difference between Brittany, 2, and Jessica, 4, and the unborn?

Their size? Brittany and Jessica are larger than the unborn. So since an adult is larger than the Dorcy girls the adult (like Charlene Dorcy) must be more of a person than her daughters. If not, then size should not matter with the unborn.

Stage of Development? The Dorcy girls are more developed than the unborn but then an adult is more developed than the Dorcy girls. If development does not allow justification in the killings of the Dorcy girls then it is also irrelevant in regards to the unborn.

Environment? How does the changing of location (i.e. passing from inside the womb to outside the womb) change a beings nature from non-human to human? Did moving the Dorcy girls from Vancouver to a gravel pit make them any less human? Of course not. That is why no one sees a problem in charging the mother for killing them.

Dependency? If viability makes us human, then all those dependent on kidney machines or pace-makersare not persons. No ethical difference exists between an unborn child who is dependent upon its mother and a kidney patient who dependent upon a kidney machine. The Dorcy girls were dependent on their parents to survive in regards to money, food, shelter, clothing, etc. According to the May 27 Columbian, the Dorcy parents argued the night before the girls were killed over finances. Charlene Dorcy ended the financial burden.

Charlene Dorcy exercised her right to choose; her right to privacy. But pro-aborts are willing to let her hang rather than hold to the consistency of their position thereby revealing to the world the inhumanity of their hearts.

Entertainment Tonight's Mary Kay Mud Mask

More on the moral stupidity of Entertainment Tonight and their celebration of Mary Kay LeTourneau who married the now-adult but then-child she raped, Vili Fualaau.

From this past week's column of Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center we find how truly reprehensible this show is!

Here's my favorite line of the column:

ET reporter Jann Carl hyped the wedding as "the icing on the cake of a notorious soap opera that still sparks admiration and outrage around the world." Wait a minute. Just who "admires" the rape of a 12-year-old boy, other than the folks at Paramount? She then hyped her exclusive first interview with the couple. She cooed: "Was it everything you dreamed?" Without giggling, Carl explained the new Mary Kay Fualaau hoped to teach again in the future, failing to add: If some school administrator can just compassionately look past that registered-pedophile record.

To bad the American Psychological Association didn't have Jann Carl and the resources of Entertainment Tonight writing their 1998 Psychological Bulletin article, "A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples", which suggested adult sex with willing children might not be harmful. They might not have had to retract the article.

Supporters of "Unworthy of Life"

Brian Baird represents my district in the U.S. House of Representatives. This is his take as printed in the May 25 Columbian, Local Angle - Baird supports research. (Note: The Columbian only supports article links for a short time).

Wednesday, May 25, 2005compiled by Columbian staff
Congressman Brian Baird, D-Vancouver, joined 237 other House members Tuesday in voting to expand stem cell research.
President Bush has promised to veto the legislation, a decision that Baird criticized as shortsighted.
"The president's extreme position on stem cell research is not based on science and it is not based on compassion," Baird said in a statement.
"Stem cell research holds the promise of curing life-threatening diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and childhood diabetes. How can the president claim to value life when he is depriving millions of Americans the promise of lifesaving medical cures?"

What does Baird actually think the President's position is? The President is against this legislation because it allows federal funds to be used in embryonic stem cell research; research which destroys the embryo. As I stated yesterday, a human sperm unites with a human egg to form a unique human being. An embryo is simply a stage of development from implantation up to eight weeks. These are scientific facts!

This places Baird on the horns of a dilemna. If he denies these facts then his position violates his own standard of being based on scientific fact. However, if he acknowledges that a human being exists at conception then he is advocating the destruction of human beings because of "the promise of curing life-threatening diseases".

Here's a question for Baird. Suppose two year olds were discovered to have an enzyme that would cure for "life-threatening diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and childhood diabetes" and even cancer and AIDS. The only catch is that extracting the enzyme will kill the two year old. Would Baird advocate killing the two year old?

If not, why not? What is the rational difference in the nature between the two year old human being and the embryonic human being? Why would you kill one and not the other?

If you wouldn't kill the two year old then how can you "value life when [you are] depriving millions of Americans the promise of lifesaving medical cures?"

Embryonic Stem Cell Research

On Tuesday, The U.S. House passed a bill expanding public funding for embryonic stem cell research. A CNN report stated "Supporters point out there are embryos in fertility clinics that would never be used to create babies, but could be used for research purposes." (emphasis added) On the Al Franken show today, Al and his guest described that the bill "only uses embryos that would be destroyed (or discarded) embryos anyways." (emphasis added)

Scientifically speaking, when a human sperm and a human egg unite there is a unique human being. Embryo is simply a term to described the stage of development of that human being. Therefore, a human embryo is "the developing human individual from the time of implantation to the end of the eighth week after conception." (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)

So let's substitute the stage of development terminology with the ontological (i.e. nature of being) terminology in the two above statements.

"Supporters point out there are human beings in fertility clinics that would never be used to create babies, but could be used for research purposes."

Al Franken and Guest: the bill "only uses human beings that would be destroyed (or discarded) human beings anyways."

Of course, we can redefine their humanity by obfuscate the true nature of those human beings using sterile sounding scientific terms. Then we kill them in the name of helping people with horrible diseases.

To hear in the corridors of the laboratories, a Dr. Franken-stein exclaiming, "It's Alive!"

That is, the doctrine of "Some Life Is Unworthy of Life".
Not the human embryo. It was being discarded anyway.

Potential vs. Actual Persons

In today's Columbian letters to the editor, a found this gem. It is an example of how someone can throw in a word that will obfuscate the real issue. Here is the letter of Margie Bouchers of Yacolt, WA (emphasis added by me):

Extending the logic
I had to chuckle reading Karen Korinke's May 13 letter, "Guard rights of innocent," in which she refers to fetuses as "preborn people." I had a bit of fun extending her line of thinking.
Why not harvest every sperm and egg from every individual on the planet, young and old alike? Surely each sperm or egg has the potential to be a preborn person. These sperm and eggs would be housed in places called Preborn Orphan Banks.
For those men who wasted their sperm, why, we could charge them with reckless endangerment. Further, anyone refusing to participate in this glorious life-enhancing process would be judged as felons and therefore as heinous murderers and could also be put to death.

I highlighted the word potential for a reason. Karen Korinke's letter talked not about potential people but preborn people.

Bouchers inserts the word potential to obfuscate the issue. In order to justify in her mind that the taking of preborn life is okay she has created this concept of potential vs. actual people. Here's the question for anyone who makes this distinction: Scentifically, when does a potential person become an actual person?

A human sperm with 23 chromosomes merges with a human egg with 23 chromosomes to create a unique human being. If, at this point, we only have a potential person then what criteria must this potential person obtain in order to have obtained actual personhood?

Note that those who make this distinction must know the criteria. If they don't know the criteria then how do they know they are aborting a potential person rather than an actual person?

Is birth the demarcation line between actual and potential persons? If so, then what is the magical thing that occurs simply by passing through the birth canal? And since pro-aborts advocate partial birth abortion (i.e. the head still resides in the birth canal while its skull is pierced and its brains sucked out then obviously it is the head that must undergo this transformation since all but the head has passed from the birth canal.

Of course, those who hold to potential personhood won't define the criteria for actual personhood. They don't because their criteria would eliminate some obvious actual persons. Level of Consciousness as a measurement? Do those with Downs Syndrome qualify? What of the newborn? An adult is more conscious of their surroundings than a toddler? Does an Alzheimer patient qualify as an actual person?

In their attempt to obfuscate the obvious, the holders of potential personhood actually create more issues than they resolve. And it shows their diliberate dishonesty because they never seriously try to identify the demarcation between potential and actual.

Any use for government?

This letter to the editor by Joel Littauer appeared in yesterday's Columbian and is another example of the type of examples (in this case a strawman fallacy) those who do not want religious thought to have any influence in the public sphere. My comments are italicized.

Any use for government?

If the religious right wing of the Republican Party is correct that we should trust in God and him alone we should carry their message forward and use it.

Littauer makes no attempt to define the religious right wing. Does Littauer believe this is all those who are religious? What does he think these people mean by "trust in God and him alone" and then how does that align with their actions. In fact, most of those he would identify as the "religious right" believe that their are rights and wrongs and that those rights and wrongs are grounded in something outside of what human beings may define as right and wrong. (By the way, this doesn't mean the non-religious cannot be moral. It does mean that they are acting inconsistent with their worldview).

First, we could save ourselves trillions of dollars by firing the United States government.

Most religious people believe that government is instituted by God and that one of its mandates is the protection of its citizens. Secondly, most of these religious people hold to a high view of the constitution which instilled a secular government based upon Judeo-Christian ethics. Remember, it is the Declaration of Independence which founded this country. The Constitution established (after the Articles of Confederation proved ineffective) the government based upon the principles in the Declaration. Principles like "we are endowed by our Creator . . .".

If God will save us from our enemies, why do we need a Defense Department? Get rid of it.

Again, one of the principles of government according to God is the protection of its citizens which is why it is it is in the Constitution.

If only knowledge of God is necessary, why do we need an Education Department? Get rid of it.

Where, exactly, in the Constitution does it say the federal government is to control education?

If faith makes medical research irrelevant, why do we need a Health Department? Get rid of it.

Who, among those Littauer describes as the "religious right", are saying that faith makes medical research irrelevant. It is irrational to accuse those who believe there are true and false views of the world would hold those views as irrelevant while commending those holding to moral relativism (i.e. all views are equally valid) as clinging to the relevancy of medical research. In the area of abortion, for example, who holds medical research as irrelevant? Is it those who say that human life occurs when the human sperm and the human egg unite (conception) or those who say that it is just a mass of cells (of course, all living things are actually masses of cells) or manipulate language calling it a "fetus" to disguise the beings true nature. Fetus is a scientific description of a stage of development. That is why we can have a human fetus or a dog fetus. "Human" and "dog" refer to the type of being the creature is. Fetus refers to the stage of development from three months up to birth. Pro-aborts try to blur the lines of medical research by creating a "right to choose" to terminate the fetus which is like saying there is a right to choose to terminate the from three months up to birth. Littauer doesn't have a problem with the religious making medical research irrelevant. He has a problem that there are absolute truths that moral relativists will not be able to make medical research malleable to use as they want such as ignoring that human life begins at conception and therefore we can't just kill it when it becomes inconvenient to us. It is not the religious who advocate the Nazi doctrine that some life is unworthy of life.

If the Constitution is quaint and outmoded, and the Bible is the only standard to be respected, why do we need a Justice Department? Get rid of it.

Again, most religious people do not believe the Constitution is quaint and outmoded. They believe that it is not a "living document" which is code that each generation can change its meaning based on how they define the words (see aforementioned "right to privacy", etc) rather than the amendment process defined within its . If the Constitution means that then no one is safe. Each generation is at the mercy of those in power.

And why go on paying the costs of the Bush presidency when all we really need is a religious leader? Pat Robertson? Jerry Falwell? No. Too expensive. We can outsource the work. I'm sure an African tribal witch doctor will do it for much less and with a straighter face.

Oh yes, build a good strawman (depend on God alone means no need for government), knock it down and then just for good measure (and to satisfy his obsessive bigotry toward the religious) ridicule those he's attacking. Good show!

Entertainment?!? Tonight

I don't usually watch ET (Entertainment Tonight) but thought there might be some information on the Star Wars movie. Instead, I was treated to the top story on ET, the wedding of Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau.

Letourneau was convicted of child rape for having a sexual relationship with Fualaau when he was 12. As far as I am concerned Letourneau had issues, she did something wrong, did irreparable harm to her then family and to his. She has paid the penalty for her crime and she is moving on by marrying her victim.

Why exactly is ET involved at all. What exactly about this is Entertainment? The woman is famous for child molestation. And ET has her wedding set-up as the lead-in followed by interviews with her and Fualaau (although, I'm not sure you'd call his few words an interview) then later in the program other spicey tidbits about the soon to be newlyweds.

Sorry, I didn't make it past the first five minutes so I can't report on the rest of the sh-ow. Hey, let's dumb down our audience. Sad to say, they probably had a large audience who was riveted to their sets. Which may provide some insight into our current Age of Stupidity. Safe to say, I learned my lesson regarding watching ET (Excretment Tv).

When a pregnant woman is actually a pregnant man

According to the Feb 9th Montgomery Advisor, Alabama Democrat State Senator Alvin Holmes offered $700 to any legislator "who could find a passage in the Bible explicitly defining marriage as a sacred bond between a man and a woman." Four days later, The Advisor reported that "Holmes is now offering $5,000 to anyone who can cite specific verses outlawing same-sex marriage."

Of course, Holmes never identified the criteria by which he would accept that the Bible defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

World Net Daily reported that when someone had left a Bible for Holmes opened to a passage regarding marriage but to Holmes "the language of the verses weren't definitive on the subject, however, and ... the passage didn't prove anything."

1 Corinthians 7:2 states: "Since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband." To which Holmes is quoted "OK, but what that says [is] ... if two people should get married and if they are of the same sex then he becomes his wife and he's the husband."

I really hope this is a misquote of Holmes. If not, this shows that he isn't really interested in what the Bible has to say. He isn't interested in what the Bible actually says. He has his position and he will twist language to ridicule and marginalize his opposition. How do I know this? A simple word study of this passage and a little bit of grey matter exercise.

The word for wife in this passage is the Greek word pronounced goo-nay. It is used specifically to describe a wife or a woman throughout this passage (e.g. see 1 Cor 7:3, 4, etc). This same word is used specifically for a wife by Christian writers outside of the canonical writings such the Epistle of Aristeas (2nd century BC) and Philo of Alexandria (1st century AD) [See A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian Literature, Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, 1952].

Of course there is an easier way to expose Holmes' foolishness. The same word that he thinks can be translated as "he becomes his wife" is used by this same author, St. Paul, in Galatians 4:4 so we should be able to substitute the male gender:

"But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a [man] ..." Ouch that has got to hurt! Of course, Christ wasn't born of a man which is clear when the actual translted word "woman" is used.

Here's some other passages with the same Greek word. Substitute the terms "man" or "husband" for the bracketed words:

1 Cor. 11:8 - "For man did not come from [woman], but [woman] from man; neither was man created for [woman], but [woman] for man."
Holmes translation - "For Man did not come from man, but man from man; neither was man created for man, but man for man." Me thinketh that Paul does protest too much! Of course, the context for these verses is set in 1 Cor 11:7 where Paul states: "A man ... since he is the image and glory of God but the woman is the glory of man." In Genesis, man was created in the image of God while woman was created out of the side of man.

1 Thess. 5:3 - "... destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant [woman]" Does Holmes really think this passage refers to a pregnant man?

Mt 14:21 - "The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides [women] and children." Or is it five thousand men, besides men and children?

The gospel according to Alvin Holmes makes no sense. But then his point was not to make sense of what the Bible actually says. He already knows what it says. He just doesn't want to abide by it and so he ridicules and marginalizes those who do see the words of the Bible as accurately reflecting the world in which we live.

Mr. Holmes owes someone $5000 but he has neither the courage nor the character to follow through.

45 Years of "For Better, For Worse; For Richer, For poorer; In Sickness and in Health"

My parents celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary today.

It has not always been easy for them. They married less than a year out of high-school and had three kids under the age of three years of age by the time they were 22. My father's parents were less than pleased with the marriage. And, as with many young, young adults there were growing pains within their love for each other.

And when my sister died in 1992 at the age of thirty, one wondered if the grief would end their relationship as it has many others who have suffered the loss of a child. Yet through all those struggles, one item always formed the foundation of their relationship: Perseverance.

They persisted in a culture that says when the marriage gets rough that it is okay to move on. After all, it is love that is important. But love in our day and age is defined as an emotional euphoria; giving one a "buzz", that cloud nine excited feeling of meeting that special someone.

The problem is that no relationship sustains those feelings. Feelings ebb and flow. Sometimes the ebb may last a long time. Then what?

That is what the marriage are for. You know the "for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health". Those aren't just meaningless words of some silly, formal cultural ritual. The vow is supposed to mean something.

Of course, one doesn't really need a vow when things are "for better; for richer; and in health." That's not hard. The vow is for when the going becomes difficult, in the times "for worse; for poorer; and in sickness."

What my parents modeled was that love isn't just about emotions. It is about committing yourself to the other person and to the relationship even when it would be easier to move on. They modeled that promises are just to be kept when you feel like it but when you don't feel like it. Perserverance builds character.

It is an idea that many in their generation as well as mine have missed resulting in much hurt and despair. And therein lies the paradox. Letting their emotions guide them to happiness has actual resulted in much unhappiness. And in the scars of the failed relationships that litter their past.

Congratulations Mom and Dad on your 45th Wedding Anniversary.

A Serious Definition of the Religious Right

There is much weeping and gnashing of teeth of late in regards to the religious right, a term that is used more often than not as a perjorative. Those that use it as such tend, I think for obvious reasons, not to define the term.

My definition of the religious right is one who holds a high view of Scripture, that its meaning can be known (interpretation), and that its actual meaning is to be applied to one's life (application) to, as St. Paul says, conform oneself to the image of Christ.

Dr. John Mark Reynolds offers a much more detailed definition of the religious right. It is worth the read and contemplation.

Un-Civil Unions

The May 5 Oregonian states of Senate Bill 1000, "Would allow same-sex couples to enter into civil unions, granting them the same rights under state law as married couples."

Oregon voters just last November passed, by 56%, a constitutional amendment defining marriage as one man, one woman. Supporters of SB 1000 state the bill does not grant marriage. Let's do a little thought experiment to determine the difference between item tow items.

Item #1 contains consists of components A, B, and C. We'll call it item ABC.
Item #2 contains consists of components A, B, and C. Calling it item XYZ doesn't mean it is different from item ABC.

But supporters of SB 1000 say if we call it XYZ then it is not ABC. If civil unions grant the same rights under state law as marriage then civil unions is the same as marriage:

(civil union rights) same as (marriage rights)

(civil union rights) = (marriage rights)

Supporters counter that civil unions is not like marriage because it does not offer the federal rights of marriage. The flaw with their argument is that the state does not have control over the federal realm only the state realm. (Not to mention the argument against the Federal Marriage Amendment which was the states should decide; of course states can only decide what is in the state's realm). Therefore, since civil unions grant the same rights as marriage then civil unions is marriage in the eyes of the state. And as such it violates the clearly stated will of the majority of Oregon voters.

But then, as we have seen many times in the past, the drive to normalize same-sex relationships rarely acknowledges, let alone bows, to the will of the people.

"Pay No Attention to the Parts in the Bucket Behind The Curtain"

Great letter in today's USA Today. I'm surprised the Board published it but congratulate them for having the courage to do so. The language of obfuscation of the pro-abortion movement is to hide these very facts.

Here is the letter:

Abortion should not be a game of tolerance

On the topic of abortion, politicians who play a tolerance game in order to win votes need to grow up and quit abusing a wonderful governmental system, created to be “for the people” (“The changing politics of abortion,” Cover story, News, Monday).

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm stated, “I don't feel that in our state it (abortion) is viewed as a black-or-white situation. People see it in shades of gray.” I would venture to say that this is true for many other Americans, and this is precisely the problem.

Abortion is not a gray issue. Death is not gray, confusing or hard to diagnose.

I think everyone who is pro-choice should have to spend one day in an abortion clinic. They could then see the broken, dismembered and burned human beings rudely disposed of.

I commend all who stand up for human rights, but please don't disregard the thousands of human beings who are being ripped, sucked or flushed from their mothers' wombs daily.

Ryan Neuhaus
St. Louis

Defense: England Oxygen-Deprived at Birth

An AP article, "Defense: England Oxygen-Deprived at Birth," states that "Defense lawyers sought leniency for Pfc. Lynndie England ... [because she] was oxygen-deprived at birth, speech impaired and had trouble learning to read."

The story goes on to say, "When asked by judge Col. James Pohl whether England knew right from wrong, [West Virginia school psychologist Dr. Thomas] Denne said she had a compliant personality and tended to listen to authority figures. On Monday, England told Pohl that she initially resisted taking part in the abuse at the Baghdad prison, but that she succumbed to peer pressure. "I had a choice, but I chose to do what my friends wanted me to," she said. Rick Hernandez, a defense lawyer, said the psychologist's testimony helped England by establishing that her ability to reason was lower than that of her comrades.

Here's my question. Why did she resist at first? Another AP story by T.A. Badger quotes England as saying, "'No, no way' at first when a fellow soldier asked her to pose" for the now-infamous picture of England smiling and "pointing at a naked detainee's genitals while smoking a cigarette." Did she resist initially because she knew it was wrong?

The moment Lynndie said she initially resisted she acknowledged that she was capable of evaluating the moral environment. Even in an impaired state she admits to enough moral sense to make a decision. Therefore, the deprived of oxygen argument is meaningless and is being used as an emotional appeal.

Her "ability to reason" may indeed be lower than others but that is irrelevant. The question is can she make that judgment. Lynndie, herself, admitted she could.

The Darkened Heart

Dr. John Mark Reynolds scores in his analysis of the "Rev." Mel White's protest of Dr. James Dobson and Focus on the Family. See his post, "Salazar has a chance to repudiate extremism". Be sure to read his comments to the Rocky Mountain News article.

My absolute favorite part of the Rocky Mountain article was this quote:

"Focus on the Family does not focus on families. They teach from a theology that is morally bankrupt," said Jacob Reitan, Soulforce's youth director, who stood between his mother and father. "It teaches mothers and fathers to reject their gay sons and their lesbian daughters, and it has to end. We cannot go on any longer dividing our families."

Dr. Reynolds shines the light on the darkness of Reitan's view to which I add the following thought.

St. Paul makes the observation in Romans 1 (note: the progression) that the "wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth ... For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God ... but they became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened." Paul says these men's hearts were darkened first then (and only then) did God give "them over in the lusts of their hearts ... they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator."

"For this reason (that is, because of the darkened hearts) God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another.

First, the unrighteous suppress the truth, they become futile in their speculations, and their heart becomes darkened. God gives them over to the passions of their darkened hearts. And they engage in creature worship of which one is "exchanging the natural sexual function (between opposite sexes) for the unnatural (between same sexes).

Homosexual behavior isn't the sin anymore than adultery is the sin. Turning from God is the sin. Homosexuality, adultery, gossiping, slander, etc. are merely the symptoms identifying the disease that each of us have.

Reitan, White, Soulforce and others have turned their faces from God and want the truth, which exposes their tru condition, suppressed.

The "Jesus Never Spoke Against Homosexuality" fallacy

Ona Shepperd of Vancouver, WA writes in the April 24 Columbian (C6):

"I'm sure that if Jesus prayed for homosexuals, it went something like this: God, help this person, made in your image and likeness, to be strong and forgive those who are bigoted and intolerant of differences in your creation."

I'm not trying to single one person out because many supporters of homosexual behavior do this; remember the ever popular, "Jesus never spoke against homosexuality." Ona simply was more creative in speaking this view. Although they would deny it, these people actually have a low view of Scritpure and an anemic understanding of Christology. Here's why:

1. Jesus called himself the Son (i.e. in the image) of God. In other words, he is the very essense of God. Not any old God but the God of the Old Testament.
2. In the OT, God does speak about homosexual behavior and in rather unflattering (and in the eyes of today's culture) bigoted and intolerant terms. Gen 18:16 - 19:29; Lev 18:22, 20:13
3. Jesus is called the Creator (Jn 1:3, Col 1:15-17)
4. God "created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." Gen 1:27
5. After making the woman from man God said, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh." Gen 2:20-24. Jesus reiterates this statement in Matthew 19 to show the proper purpose of marriage.
6. The Bible's teaching on sexual behavior is consistent - within the confines of marriage and since marriage is between a man and a woman that would exclude homosexuals.

Therefore, Shepperd's statement amounts to this:

"I'm sure that if Jesus prayed for homosexuals, it went something like this: God, help this person, made in your image and likeness, to be strong and forgive me who is bigoted and intolerant of differences in My creation."