What are these people talking about?
"The greatest immediate threat to every freedom and right that is enshrined in the First Amendment."
"Every major institution is being corrupted."
"A very vicious thing that's just growing like a hydra-headed monster."
"The very future of our nation is at risk."
And finally: "It's not only foreign terrorists that we need to fear today. The most dangerous radicals who threaten our way of life are those who live among us. They already hold positions of esteem in government, the courts, our schools and colleges, and even the world of business; and you can be certain they will destroy us if we do not take steps to defeat their radical agenda now."
It all sounds very scary, like Sen. Joe McCarthy's rantings about a Communist conspiracy to take over the country. But since the collapse of the Soviet Union, even the most paranoid among us have calmed down a bit about the threat of Communists undermining our democratic institutions and seizing control of the government. So that can't be it. Perhaps a few of the hardest of the hardcore anti-Communist crazies have shifted their focus to Sharia law, convinced that it has already taken over Dearborn, Mich., and is about to invade their local probate court. But Sharia law is not what these people are talking about either. What they are talking about is the dreaded "homosexual agenda" -- that is, a vast homosexual conspiracy that they believe is seizing control of the country. In fact, the last two quotations are taken, respectively, from The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today by Alan Sears and Craig Osten and The Agenda: The Homosexual Plan to Change America by Rev. Louis P. Sheldon.
Some of these homosexual-conspiracy theorists actually believe that there is a strategy guide or playbook that homosexual activists have been using for years to enable them to subvert the entire culture. In fact, Sears and Osten base much of their book on this idea. That supposed playbook is called After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the '90s. It was written by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen. Sears and Osten talk about Kirk and Madsen as if they were Marx and Engels. Hunter Madsen is much more modest in his assessment of the book. In 2006 he wrote:
[W]hile the book was widely read (and, in most cases, excoriated) by gay activists when it was first published, in 1989, and while a great many of its techniques have obviously been employed by activists since then, I see no evidence that the book itself serves as any kind of reference for the movement today.
But here's the really funny thing: Sears and Osten are outraged at what they perceive to be the incredibly Machiavellian activist strategies advocated by Kirk and Madsen, strategies that include such subversive recommendations as "make gays look good" and "solicit funds." But what they and the entire religious right find most disturbing, what they find truly shocking, is what they say is the ultimate goal of Kirk and Madsen, a goal that they say defines the so-called "homosexual agenda." That goal is for homosexuals -- indeed for the entire LGBTQ community -- to be accepted as regular people just like everybody else. And you know what? They're right! That is the goal! That is the agenda. How horrible!
Here's the point: Sexual orientation and gender identity are essential elements of human identity. If you vilify and demonize people because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity, then you are engaged in bigotry. If you believe that being gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender is unnatural and perverted, if you believe that LGBTQ people have no right to marry, indeed if you believe that LGBTQ people have no right to have sex because sex with another human being of one's own gender is immoral, then you are engaged in bigotry. It doesn't help if you base your bigoted judgments on a religious belief. It actually makes it worse. It means that you are making the absolutely preposterous claim that the creator of the universe backs you up in your demonization of an entire group of people based on who they are. You have your own playbook called the Bible, which you believe was authored by the creator of the universe, and that that book says that homosexuality is contrary to nature, that engaging in homosexual sex is morally wrong, and that everyone who engages in homosexual sex is going to hell. You agree.
As I've said before, even if the Bible is authored by God, and even if God condemns people based on their sexual orientation and/or gender identity, that doesn't make it right. That just makes God a bigot. That just makes God a bad god. Shame on him.
In the final analysis, it's really simple: The homosexual agenda, indeed the LGBTQ agenda, is the human agenda: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If you oppose that, then you are a bigot, even if you believe that the creator of the universe agrees with you.