Federal probe of homosexual activists urgently needed
Don HinklePathway Editor
August 3, 2004
At the risk of making The Pathway a target of the Kansas City –based Mainstream Coalition, the self-appointed enforcers of their interpretation of separation of church and state and one of Missouri’s more blusterous advocates of homosexual “marriage,” let me relay a message: Thus saith the Lord, “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination … (Lev. 20:13).” Let us pray that the Mainstream Coalition and many others will heed God’s warning concerning a lifestyle He has called “unclean, dishonorable” and “debased.”
In case you have missed it, the Mainstream Coalition is a partisan organization that supports the Democratic Party and homosexual movement in Missouri and Kansas. They claim to have recruited about 100 volunteers to visit churches and “monitor” sermons where pastors are preaching biblical truth about homosexuality. They suspect pastors of violating IRS regulations that govern a churches’ tax-exempt status when engaging in politics.
In fact, this is nothing more than an attempt to intimidate churches and discourage them from participating in the political process. One pro-family group, the Christian Seniors Association (CSA) has asked the U.S. Justice Department to send federal agents to Missouri and Kansas to investigate Mainstream.
Ironically, just before writing this column I read about Democratic Presidential Nominee John Kerry speaking at an African-American church in Ohio Sunday morning. As one might expect, the Mainstream Coalition – or like-minded Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) – was nowhere to be found. That is the second time in recent weeks Kerry has made an appearance at an African-American church in Ohio with no outcry. Let President Bush show up at First Baptist Arnold and the Democrats and homosexual activists will go berserk.
Is it me or is something peculiar going on here? The rap sheet of pro-homosexual groups – like Mainstream and AU – against Southern Baptists in particular, seems to lengthen daily. Mainstream has been harassing churches in the Kansas City area for several weeks. Earlier this year homosexual activists made threatening phone calls to First Baptist Church, Gravois Mills, and doused the church’s outdoor sign with paint after the pastor preached that homosexuality is a sin. In a related incident, another Southern Baptist church near Helena, Mont., recently was the target of homosexual activists because its pastor hosted a meeting in hopes of citizens voting on a constitutional amendment in that state to protect traditional marriage from homosexuals.
AU has clashed with Southern Baptist churches for years. One of the more notable confrontations came in 1998 when AU sent a threatening letter to the First Baptist Church, Wichita Falls, Texas, after Pastor Robert Jefferies told his congregation to vote out of office any city council member who favored keeping two homosexual books – paid by taxpayers — in the children’s section of the city’s public library.
Now AU is going after Jerry Falwell and the First Baptist Church of Springdale, Ark. Both claims by AU are bogus, yet are disturbing attempts to keep both from participating in the political process. There are multiple stories about much of this in this issue of The Pathway and I urge you to read them carefully.
It should be noted that both the Southern Baptist and Missouri Baptist Conventions have overwhelmingly passed resolutions affirming that homosexuality is a sin. As this becomes more widely known, both conventions can expect activists to intensify their ridicule and physical acts of intimidation.
Let us remain faithful to the words of our King in Matt. 5:13. Let us also pray unceasingly for our pastors to stand firm and preach the Word and for God to be glorified in whatever may come.
I join the CSA in asking Attorney General John Ashcroft to look into the activities of such groups.