It is easy for us to get sidetracked when it comes to the issue of special status for homosexuality. It is like trying to have a discussion on the merits of affirmative action and everyone gets sidetracked on the broader issue of racism. Each time I bring it up everyone wants to get into the discussion of the rightness or the wrongness of homosexuality. That is not my primary concern. My concern is with the right to hold to either side of the issue and the ability to share your opinion in the public forum.

Consider the prayer letter that appeared in my church’s Wednesday night bulletin. It was written by a missionary to Canada who had served in Scotland. He had to move from that country because the government there wanted to take his special needs child out of the home. Now it appears that he may once again run afoul of the government.

As we contend for the faith in many areas, please pray as we contend with mounting pressure from the Canadian government regarding religious beliefs. We recently received the following report.

“Bill C-250 proposed changes to the Criminal Code hate crime legislation that are intended to criminalize all people with dissenting opinions on homosexuality and the homosexual agenda. If Bill C-250 becomes law, the following consequences will result:

• The Bible, at least certain portions of the Bible, may be declared “hate literature.”
• Expressing disagreement with homosexual behavior or the homosexual agenda, either verbally or in writing would be considered hate propaganda.
• Educators, including those at private religious schools, will not be able to refuse to teach homosexual curriculum.
• Religious institutions will not be allowed to teach anything non-supportive of homosexual sex.
• Canadian Blood Services will not be allowed to screen risk-behavior donors.
• Churches will not be able to mention certain Scriptures.
• Clergy may be subjected to criminal charges if they refuse to marry homosexuals.
• Governments will be prevented from passing (even debating) sex standard laws.
• Parents may be subjected to criminal charges if they refuse to allow their children to attend classes that teach about and promote homosexual behavior.”

Please note this bill has not yet become law, but it needs only one more vote to do so.

“We won’t be appealing the recent decision on the definition of marriage. Rather, we’ll be proposing legislation that will protect the right of churches and religious organizations to sanctify marriage as they define it.”

But as David Frum wrote for NRO on June 18:

“Those words are extremely important, because it is something close to an iron law of the gay-marriage battle in Canada that whenever the authorities state the such-and-such a thing will never happen, that such-and-such will turn out to be the very thing they concede next.”

Based on Bill C-250, Chretian’s promise rings hollow and Frum’s warning is prophetic. Actually, it appears that the opposite of the PM's promise is only one vote away. Mr. Frum gives us three reasons to doubt the sincerity of the statement.

1) The Ontario human rights commission’s ruling in 2000 that religious conviction was no defense against a charge of discriminating on grounds of sexual orientation.
2) The ruling in a Saskatchewan court in 2002 that a man could be punished under the province’s hate-crime statute for publishing a newspaper ad in which the only text were four verses from the Bible condemning homosexuality.
3) He also points out Bill C-250 where he speaks of a bill “pending in the Canadian House of Commons right now to make anti-gay “propaganda” a criminal offense.

“Come on, Jonathan, that is Canada,” you say. True. It is. However, I have pointed out how the movement is also growing in our own country. Consider the response to the Southern Baptist Convention’s resolution on homosexuality. The mouth piece for the homosexual agenda, David Smith of the Human Rights Campaign, says this about an SBC outreach to homosexuals in a recent AP article.

“If the Southern Baptist Convention embraces such an outreach, it would be the largest denomination to do so. They’re promoting ‘love the sinner, hate the sin,’ but they’re really saying that gay people are bad, and that gives license to violence."

“. . . and that gives license to violence.” Homosexuals have long tried to make a connection between Biblical preaching against homosexuality and cases such as Matthew Shepherd. Funny, but most of the attacks against homosexuals that I recall were by the guys who had been drinking too much and decided to go out and have some fun beating up on the “queers.” They probably had as much regard for Sunday school teachers as they did their next victim.

How long before this oft repeated charge becomes accepted as truth? How long before a simple reading of Romans 1:24-27 will be called anti-gay “propaganda”? How long will it be before our House of Representatives has its “C-250”?

Oh, I hope I am making a mountain out of a molehill. Believe me! Yet, someone has got to speak out and warn of the real possibility that the day will come that it will be a crime to “love the sinner, hate the sin.” That day will be a blow against the first amendment.

It is the sin of homosexuality that looms on the horizon, but what will be the next sin? What will be the next doctrine of the Bible to become unacceptable? What will be the next opinion that will be controlled? Go ahead and disagree with me on the Bible’s stand on homosexuality, but at least open your eyes to the broader attack on our freedoms.