How Has the LGBT Community Changed Cultural Opinion?

Note: This is the second in a series of articles from MorningStar Ministries’ Rick Joyner. Click here for Part 1.

What Is Not Happening?

First, the same-sex marriage issue is not about allowing people who love each other to have a committed relationship. The LGBT has been brilliant in keeping so many Americans believing this, and the naïve, the ignorant and the lukewarm have bought into it. Those in marketing, branding and messaging know that they will be far more successful by projecting a simple message and staying on point.

You must give the LGBT credit for knowing what they are doing in forming public opinion. Regardless of what they say, the LGBT community is between 1.6 percent and 2 percent of the population. The way they have changed public opinion in America in such a short time is a remarkable accomplishment.

However, to American citizens, this is about freedom—everyone’s freedom, not just freedom of religion. The religious have rights too. If the LGBT has the right not to have moral standards imposed on them, then the religious have the right not to have immorality imposed on them. To force what a religion considers to be sin imposed upon the devout, taught to their children, or to determine whether or not they may do business, is the destruction of the freedom of religion in our country and a profound undermining of all our other freedoms as well.

Second, Christians do not hate homosexuals. I am pretty well connected in conservative evangelical circles, as well as with other movements and denominations. I do not recall ever meeting someone with a hatred of homosexuals. Disagreeing, even vehemently disagreeing, is not the same as hatred. Hatred is what anyone who has stood up to the LGBT has usually faced.

Most devout Christians that I know have friends, co-workers, neighbors and family members who are homosexuals. I don’t know any who do not love and respect them. That is the biblical command for Christians, but it does not mean we have to agree with them. Disagreeing does not mean one is a hater or a homophobe. For the LGBT to keep using that tactic will be their own ultimate undoing.

Most Christians I know would fight to protect homosexuals from being attacked or discriminated against. The resistance of Christians that I know to same-sex marriage has nothing to do with depriving the rights of homosexuals, but about preserving their own rights and freedoms that have come under continuous and relentless attack from the LGBT.

The LGBT has been most successful in getting its message out. Christians and other religious conservatives have done a very poor job of getting their message out, or educating their fellow believers about the real issues, much less the public in general. Much of this is the result of Christians being in such disunity. As we are taught by the unfolding consequences of this SCOTUS decision, which will be a very expensive lesson, the Christians that are left standing will unify and will get their message right.

The LGBT has fought with great courage, resolve and wisdom. The lack of courage in the Christian community may be the greatest crisis in our times. One congressman recently said to me that if they saw more courage in the church, we would see more courage in Washington.

With but few exceptions, the conservative religious community has been just as lacking in resolve and wisdom as it has lacked courage. The exceptions being things like the passing of Proposition Eight in California. In that case, one homosexual judge, who should have recused himself from even hearing this case, threw out this vote by millions of Californians. Is that how a republic is supposed to operate? Of course not, which is why the courts were not given the authority they have now usurped, and by this are destroying the foundations of our Republic. But the protest against this was hardly a whimper.

The LGBT has been successful by using Saul Alinsky’s strategies outlined in Rules for Radicals. This is basically using threats, intimidation and almost any form of guile to win, because the end justifies the means. These have proven very effective against a weak or indifferent people, and now they have proven effective in America. We can, therefore, expect a lot more of the same until there is a courageous and resolute stand against any agenda that uses such tactics.

Rick Joyner is the founder and executive director of MorningStar Ministries in Fort Mill, South Carolina. For the original article, visit morningstarministries.org.