My University, UNC-Wilmington, needs to change its name to The University of No Competition Whatsoever. We could still use the UNCW logo but our full name would more accurately reflect our educational priorities. We already undermine economic competition by promoting Marxism. But now we are considering cutting athletic competition in order to preserve diversity spending in the midst of state budget cuts.
The local Wilmington (North Carolina) McTimes recently reported on a proposal floating through the ranks of the university administration. The following sentence summarizes the gist of the spending cuts, which are expected to save $800,000 annually:
"UNCW would no longer field teams in men's indoor track; men's cross country; men's and women's swimming and diving and softball if the university's Board of Trustees approves the Intercollegiate Athletics Review Committee's recommendations."
Many people are upset at the proposal due to the fact that the men's swimming and diving team has won 12 consecutive CAA titles. They wonder why we would cut the most successful program on campus (athletic or otherwise) while leaving failed programs intact. Their concerns are merited but they miss two other repercussions of the cuts, which will overshadow the loss of our swimming and diving team. I discuss each below:
Blacks and track. We can't cut the men's track programs because most of the black male students at UNCW are on the track team. Maybe there are more black male students than I am aware of - perhaps several more are hiding in the African American Center in order to escape the racial oppression they learn about in African American Studies classes. But most black guys I see at UNCW are running around the track. We need to retain these high visibility black guys. The only other place you usually see black males is on the UNCW website - and I think some of those black guys were imported for PR purposes.
Lesbians and softball. Cutting the women's softball team will kill our efforts to promote homosexual diversity. Our women's softball games attract more lesbians than an Indigo Girls concert. If we get rid of the softball program we will lose over half of our real lesbians. We'll still have a few thousand temporary lesbians but those don't count. They are only lesbians for a few years in college because of the two-to-one campus girl-to-guy ratio.
Since a campus full of white temporary lesbians does little to promote diversity, we need to keep the track and softball teams. But where will the $800,000 in spending cuts come from? Naturally, I have all the answers.
My proposed cuts are listed below in no particular order of importance:
Close the Upperman African American Center. Most of the dozen or so black people we have on campus are too well-hidden. Instead of hiding from white people in a "blacks only" lounge, they should be circulating on campus with everyone else. Closing the Upperman Center will save a couple of hundred thousand a year. Plus, when our black students start to integrate with others we can take pictures of them and post them on the website. No more importing black people for PR purposes.
Close the LGBTQIA Center. These guys spent way too much money last year trying to defeat Amendment One. Now that they have lost, we should shut down this office, which is really nothing more than a lobbying center for gay politics – one that occasionally sponsors a few masturbation seminars to relieve the pressure of high-stress political lobbying. The closure will save us another hundred thousand or so and help us keep the swimming and diving program afloat. After all, we should be rewarding athletic winners instead of rewarding political losers.
Fire Coach Peterson immediately. Finally, we should fire our basketball coach, Buzz Peterson. He can't seem to coach basketball and stay on top of the academic performance of his players. Cutting him would get us halfway to the goal of saving $800,000 per year on our educational budget. Plus, we really don't need a coach named "Buzz" at a school that is notorious for partying.
Many would say that my savings plan has a flaw because we would need to hire another basketball coach to replace Buzz Peterson. But I disagree with that assessment. Under my plan, we would just let the basketball players coach themselves. They couldn't do much worse than they are doing right now. Plus, we'd be able to experiment with utopian society by declaring everyone on the team to be equals.
I'm sure everyone would share the ball equally under my new athletic budget reduction plan. But when your only goal is diversity and inclusion who cares about winning games anyway?
Col. Allen West discusses NBA basketball player Jason Collins. Collins revealed publicly that he is gay, and received a telephone call from President Obama. Col. Allen West contrasts this with the heroism of soldiers like Sgt. Greg Robinson, who became the first amputee to complete Air Assault School. The training was so grueling that Robinson broke his prosthetic leg twice. Did Sgt. Robinson receive a call from President Obama? Did other decorated soldiers like Army Lieutenant Col. Matthew Dooley? Find out.
Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence. – Psalm 73:6
“Gay pride” necessitates anti-Christian hate. It must. “Gay marriage” and other “sexual orientation”-based laws do violence to freedom and truth. They are the hammer with which the postmodern left intends to bludgeon bloody religious liberty and the Judeo-Christian sexual ethic.
According to the unequivocal moral precepts of the Judeo-Christian tradition – explicit throughout both the Old and New Testaments – homosexual behavior is a sin. Sin is evil. Homosexual behavior is the central, defining characteristic of so-called “gay marriage.” Therefore, “gay marriage” is evil. Christians are obligated to avoid sin – to “do no evil.”
I know; it’s not popular to speak such simple truths in today’s politically correct world. But I’m not out to win a popularity contest.
Neither is Ms. Barronelle Stutzman. Ms. Stutzman is the Christian owner-operator of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, Wash. She is, by all accounts, a lovely, sweet, elderly woman who both employs and regularly serves open practitioners of the homosexual lifestyle. Sadly, she has become the latest victim in a fast-growing string of secularist attacks against Christians and other morally minded people. If “same-sex marriage” becomes the law of the land, I can assure you that we will soon see a virtual explosion in the same kind of anti-Christian persecution Ms. Stutzman now suffers.
Recently, one of Ms. Stutzman’s frequent homosexual customers requested that she provide flower arrangements for his same-sex “wedding.” She politely declined, saying that her Christian conscience and “relationship with Jesus Christ” prevented her from any involvement with counter-Christian “same-sex marriage.” She was, quite simply, a Christian being Christian. The two hugged and parted ways.
Unfortunately, in our ever-”progressive” culture, being Christian has fast become a most dangerous proposition. As each homofascist demand is checked from liberals’ sin-centric wish list, it only gets worse.
As a result of her constitutionally guaranteed religious free exercise, Washington State’s newly elected Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed charges against Ms. Stutzman, seeking both a monetary judgment and an injunction to physically force her to violate her Christian conscience. He would compel her to either lend her artistic expression in support of counterfeit “gay marriage” – something Christianity steadfastly recognizes as mortal sin – or face further charges.
Speaking of steadfast, to her credit, Ms. Stutzman has stood firm. She has refused to cave under Ferguson’s tyrannical torment. Ferguson, on the other hand, has revealed himself a creep and a coward – a “progressive” bully who apparently gets off on abusing elderly women. He’s a disgrace to Washington State and should be thrown out of office and disbarred.
Still, this type of government persecution must be expected. Ferguson is a liberal. The liberal viewpoint is that any viewpoint, save the liberal viewpoint, must be criminalized and prosecuted.
Like many of us, Joseph Backholm, with the Family Policy Institute of Washington, has long warned about the consequences of radically deconstructing the institution of natural marriage. “Now that the law says marriage is genderless,” he recently wrote of Ms. Stutzman’s ongoing abuse, “those who think otherwise [must] … conform or be punished. … Now liberals believe they are legally entitled to someone else’s labor.”
To homosexuals I say this: Yes, you are equal in God’s eyes. You are loved. These things are true, not because of your homosexual lifestyle, but, rather, they are true in spite of it.
Most homosexuals know intuitively, I think, that their lifestyle is unnatural and immoral and that the oxymoronic notion of “same-sex marriage” is a silly farce. Thus, they must force others to affirm both their self-destructive lifestyle and their mock “marriages” under penalty of law. They must physically compel everyone to engage their “emperor’s new clothes” delusion, so they can feel better about bad behavior.
Well, my friend, making everyone else “call evil good and good evil” won’t fill that dark void in your soul. Only repentance and redemption through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ can do that.
When we give deviant sexual conduct preferred status in law, Christian morality becomes illegal. If you think government-recognized “gay marriage” is harmless to society, you’re playing the fool. It places the Christian sexual ethic and free exercise of religion in direct conflict with law. It’s my sense that many liberty-minded people are finally coming awake to this disturbing reality.
Although we all sin, Christians are commanded to neither support nor engage in evil. Hence, Christians – true Christians – cannot engage in nor condone the unrepentant practice of homosexual behavior. Neither can we support sin-centric “gay marriage.”
This rudimentary equation is built upon the natural laws of moral physics. Christianity is magnetically charged truth. Homosexual behavior is a magnetically charged lie – a spiritual and biological falsehood. Christianity and homosexual sin are as north to south. Polar opposites cannot occupy the same position in time and space. They repel one another. It’s physically, spiritually and legally impossible for religious freedom and preferred legal status for sexual sin to coexist in harmony. Ms. Stutzman’s persecution is just the latest example of this timeless reality.
Why are Christians so afraid to call sin sin? It’s time for invertebrate believers to grow a backbone. Truth, in love, is the balance. Yes, the world will hate you, because it first hated Christ. So what? Count it a blessing – even unto death.
Here’s my recommendation: When those who are lost to the world hate on you, laugh at them. Then cry for them. Then pray for them. Follow Christ’s example and ask, as did He, that God “forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Then get up, dust yourself off and get back in the fight.
Albert Einstein once said, “Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.”
He was right.
Barronelle Stutzman followed this advice and – though she currently faces government persecution for her choice – she has also become an accidental hero. Pray for her. I know God will surely bless her faithfulness.
Still, know this: If you are a Christian in today’s America, you too will almost certainly find yourself with a similar decision to make. When man’s law violates God’s law, you will have to choose which to obey. Choosing God can mean persecution.
When I was a kid, my father used to say to me, “Right is right even if nobody’s right, and wrong is wrong even if everybody’s wrong.” That pearl of wisdom really stuck with me. Now, as an adult, and being the type of black-and-white person that I am, I’m extremely troubled by how moral relativism is destroying the fabric of society. My unwavering conviction and 34 years of Bible-believing Christianity inform my belief that fallible people acting as autonomous gods can only cause much suffering for everyone, regardless of what they believe.
Modern society has devolved to the point where the right to do whatever you want takes precedence over doing what is actually right. Killing unborn babies has morphed into the “right to choose,” sodomy has mutated into gay rights, and bilking the system as a way of life more than seven generations after the fact has become the right to reparations for slavery.
Double-destruction has befallen us, because the Bible says, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” Moral relativism has delivered “woe” to those who refuse to acknowledge the true difference between right and wrong.
Thirty years ago, I had a conversation with a moral relativist that I’ve never forgotten. The young man was indignant that I dared to suggest that there are moral absolutes. My argument was that the Bible says that human beings intrinsically know the difference between right and wrong, indicating that, like it or not, there are standards. My point was that moral relativism is merely an effort to quell the conscience and make excuses for a sin nature that, without the constraints of God’s truth, is capable of fantasizing, stalking, trapping, and then cannibalizing another human being.
The moral relativist continued to stress that there are no moral absolutes and that the concept of right and wrong is relative to many factors. His premise was that the individual, not God or others, should judge personal truth. That’s when I asked him, “Oh, so if you lived next-door to a child molester and they felt that having sex with a five-year-old was acceptable, you’d be fine with them sexually abusing your child?”
My stammering opponent responded to that absurdity by saying, “That’s taking things a little too far!” I then asked, “Are you saying there is a standard for right and wrong, and the difference is that you get to set the standard?” That question was followed by a couple of seconds of heavy silence. I persisted: “So, in your opinion, raping children is wrong? Therefore, even though you don’t want God or society to impose their morality on you, you’re comfortable imposing your morality on the pervert with a lecherous eye on your preschooler?”
Shocking as it may sound, that particular person was so steeped in the desire not to judge or offend that he actually said, “Well, I guess I really couldn’t say anything, because it wouldn’t be my right to impose my standards on the guy next-door just because he likes to have sex with children.” For the committed moral relativist, chancing sacrificing his child to a molester is certainly a high price to be willing to pay to preserve the right to retain subjective (and in this case, disgusting) preference.
Currently, Americans live in a culture where individuals arrive at conclusions based on limited life experience, a faulty knowledge base, and ambivalent emotions, all of which are influenced by lies, skewed perception, and human weakness. Add to that the growing belief that moral values are not divinely mandated or commonly relevant, and you have a recipe for disaster.
That’s why, when I read stories like the one where an Oklahoma mother and her 11-year-old son were arrested after the little boy purportedly raped his 6-year-old sister and her mother told her not to tell anyone, I’m not shocked.
What’s shocking is the public’s response to a sexualized youngster raised in an atmosphere void of moral restraint acting accordingly. A young child violates his little sister, and the culture that’s guilty of fostering degenerate behavior asks why?
The bigger question here isn’t why things like that happen, but rather who among us has the right to say that what the boy did was wrong. Who has the right to tell a mother that failing to report forced juvenile incest is unacceptable? Isn’t drawing an ethical line in the sand and saying that there is something very wrong with a child raping a sibling and their mother attempting to cover it up imposing a standard of morality on a family whose measure of decency may be different from our own?
By adhering to the tenet of moral relativism alone, moral relativists and their ilk have zero right to oppose any kind of behavior, even if such perverse or evil conduct shocks them or negatively impacts their lives. Remember, the price of subjective preference can be very high.
The older I get, the more I understand what my father was saying. Attempting to run a society based on the belief that morality’s canon is independently decided upon seems like a great idea until some lunatic shoots up an elementary school or a prepubescent brother rapes his little sister. That is when the ramifications of a misguided ideology that preaches the abolishment of moral absolutes end up proving that “right is right even if nobody is right, and wrong is wrong even if everyone is wrong.”
As leader after leader comes out in favor of the radical redefinition of marriage, it is becoming increasingly clear that what is driving most, if not all of them, is not biblical values, or the institution of marriage, or the long-term good of society. Instead, they are driven by polling, popularity, and a superficial pragmatism. This is what happens when you drink the same-sex “marriage” Kool-aid!
Consider Illinois Senator Mark Kirk, who on April 2nd announced his support for same-sex “marriage.” He explained that “Same-sex couples should have the right to civil marriage. Our time on this earth is limited, I know that better than most.” (Senator Kirk recently had a serious stroke.)
Then, for his intended coup de grace: “Life comes down to who you love and who loves you back — government has no place in the middle.”
What? These are the words of an elected U.S. senator?
Does Kirk not understand that the government does not get involved with the question of “who you love and who loves you back” but rather with the institution of marriage?
Does he not understand that the reason society conveys benefits on marriage is because marriage conveys benefits on society, namely, the ability (as a rule) to produce children for the next generation and to join those children to their mother and father? (Newsflash: It still takes a man and a woman to produce a child, and that is why it has always taken a man and a woman to constitute a marriage.)
And does Kirk really believe that the government should redefine marriage based on “who you love and who loves you back”? If so, then the government needs to recognize any loving relationship as “marriage,” regardless of age, number, or gender. But this is what Senator Kirk proudly declared.
Behold the effects of drinking the same-sex “marriage” Kool-aid!
Consider next the left-leaning Christian leader Jim Wallis. Although in 2008, Wallis had argued that “justice” requires us to support (and even bless) same-sex unions, he also stated clearly that, “I don’t think the sacrament of marriage should be changed. Some people say that Jesus didn’t talk about homosexuality, and that’s technically true. But marriage is all through the Bible, and it’s not gender-neutral.”
Now, Wallis has declared his support for the radical redefinition of marriage, explaining, “I think we have to talk about, now, how to include same-sex couples in that deeper understanding of marriage. I want a deeper commitment to marriage that is more and more inclusive, and that’s where I think the country is going.”
What? These are the words of a noted Christian leader?
How seriously can Jim Wallis be taken when he tells us in 2008 that “marriage is all through the Bible, and it’s not gender-neutral” and then in 2013 wants to make it gender-neutral? And how can he imagine that by removing the most essential components of marriage, namely one man and one woman, marriage will be made stronger? This would be like suggesting that, since car sales are down, we’ll say that bicycles and motorcycles are cars. (This is not meant to be a precise analogy but rather illustrative.)
And if Wallis truly wants to make marriage “more and more inclusive,” then he needs to embrace polygamous marriage and polyamorous marriage and more. Does he really mean what he says?
And has Wallis forgotten that as Christians, we do not determine our values by looking at where “the country is going”? Instead, as followers of Jesus, we are called to swim against the conformist, worldly tide of the age, calling society back to the timeless ways of God. Yet Jim Wallis wants to redefine marriage and make it “gender-neutral” based on where the country is going.
Behold the effects of drinking the same-sex “marriage” Kool-aid!
Finally, let’s consider the Democratic Party. According to an April 5th report on ABCNews, “What began as a slow drip has turned into a flood over the last two weeks of Senate Democrats switching long-held positions and now coming out publically to endorse same sex marriage.”
And what, pray tell, explains this “flood”? “. . . ABC News/Washington Post reveals that support is now up to 58 percent for gay marriage in the most recent [poll] up from 32 percent nine years ago.”
Well there you have it! Gay “marriage” is trending. What else are politicians to do?
Behold the effects of drinking the same-sex “marriage” Kool-aid!
Brendan O’Neill, editor of Spiked-Online.com, recently wrote that, “Anyone who values diversity of thought and tolerance of dissent should find the sweeping consensus on gay marriage terrifying.”
Author's Note: although Jesus never specifically condemned it, I think wearing snow boots with your mini skirt after Easter is a sin. But that's just my holistic interpretation of the Scriptures. What's true for this author may not be true for you.
I have an old friend named Don who graduated from college twenty years ago. He has tried every get rich scheme in an effort to retire early and enjoy the good life. Now that he's in his forties and has nothing to show for it, he's decided to take the biggest shortcut in life: he's joined the Democratic Party.
Don started smoking pot every day in college. Unlike most pot smokers he never grew out of it. So he suffered the side effects of pot including laziness and inattention to personal hygiene. These are among the reasons none of his get rich schemes worked. In every business venture, no matter how temporary, one must be on time, responsive, and well kempt. Pot interferes with all of these objectives.
Daily pot use led him to failure, which, in turn, led him to liberalism as a means of rationalizing his personal failure. In 2009, Don came by my office to discuss the TARP bailout. I told him why I opposed the bailout in principal and in accordance with my concerns over its long term economic consequences. Don told me we needed TARP because ultimately the government had to take over the banking industry. He spoke of the evils of greed, insider trading, and crony capitalism. It's the kind of thing I heard every day in academia. So I just changed the subject.
Failure in business can cause someone like Don to jump ship and become an economic liberal. The motivation for that switch is obvious. Desperate people crave handouts. But at some point the former conservative who joins the Democratic Party must make peace with the radical social policies of the Democratic Party. For a while, I’ve wondered how Don would make that transition. Last week, I found out when he decided to show up after four years of silence and bomb my Facebook page. That's why I love Facebook. It's been reuniting me with psycho ex-girlfriends and frenemies for years.
Don the ex-con (that's short for ex conservative) went right to one of my status updates, which criticized the homosexual rights movement. In addition to a few personal insults, he left a comment I am hearing with increasing frequency from the so-called Christian Left. He said "Jesus never said anything about homosexuality. EVER!" And so we are supposed to assume that anything Jesus was not recorded as saying in the Bible is fair game.
First, as a matter of clarification, Jesus did condemn homosexuality. In the first chapter of Romans, homosexuality is very specifically condemned. That book was written by the Apostle Paul. But those weren't his words. He was speaking the word of God. And Jesus is God. So the words belong to Him. Second, and perhaps more importantly, things may not have been mentioned by Jesus because they were obviously wrong, not because they were right. Furthermore, consider the ramifications of assuming that things Jesus never specifically mentions are therefore permissible:
Jesus never mentioned child pornography. Does that mean it is moral and therefore fair game?
Jesus never mentioned female genital mutilation. Does that mean it is moral and therefore fair game?
Jesus never mentioned insider trading. Does that mean it is moral and therefore fair game?
And, finally, Jesus never said anything about smoking pot every day, mooching off your wife, and bombing your friends’ Facebook pages while they are at work trying to earn a living. But decent people know some things just aren't right. In fact, they are downright left.
When Don wakes up, lights another bowl, and logs onto Facebook he's going to realize it was imprudent to pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. And he'll likely offer another inane liberal rebuttal to my well-reasoned remarks. When he does, I'll be sure to write a follow-up. It's how I earn my living and avoid government handouts.
Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin condemns any people. (Proverbs 14:34)
The name “Abraham Lincoln” enjoys a boundless shelf life. The 16th president of the United States is more popular today than ever. The blockbuster movie “Lincoln” recently took home two Oscars, with Daniel Day-Lewis earning the “Best Actor” nod for his masterful portrayal of the Civil War president.
In his outstanding biography, “Abraham Lincoln, a Man of Faith and Courage,” author Joe Wheeler observed that “Lincoln has had more books written about him than all our nation’s presidents put together.”
Love him or hate him, Abraham Lincoln remains, far and away, the most admired president in U.S. history.
It’s little wonder, then, that President Obama seeks to associate himself with this great man at every possible turn. Even so, in terms of worldview, political philosophy, integrity and honorability, the two men are as north to south. Their similarities both begin and end with an Illinois mailing address.
Consider, for instance, that, whereas Lincoln was both a Republican and a strong social conservative by modern standards – Obama is a hard-left Democrat and radical Marxist by any standard. Whereas Lincoln ultimately united a nation brutally divided, Mr. Obama brutally divides a nation once united.
While, as noted by Wheeler, Abraham Lincoln was a man singularly driven by unfettered fidelity to both biblical principles and the one true God of the Bible, Mr. Obama is hell-bent on undermining, if not outright defying, every jot and tittle of the Holy Scriptures.
By placing his hand on the Lincoln Bible and swearing to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States … to the best of my ability,” Mr. Obama sought to draw some symbolic connection to President Lincoln.
Instead, and due to his counter-biblical public policy, he not only engaged in brazen duplicity, but managed to underscore the stark contrast between the two leaders. As compared to his pious predecessor, “the best of [Mr. Obama's] ability” has been weighed on the scales and found wanting.
In his first inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln observed: “Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him, who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty.”
I believe that, due to our nation’s near total rejection of God and our government’s official stamp of approval on that which Scripture unambiguously calls mortal sin (i.e., homosexuality, the deconstruction of legitimate marriage, abortion on demand and the like), God has, for the first time in our relatively brief history, “forsaken this favored land.” I believe we are a nation under judgment and that Barack Obama is part of that judgment.
Lincoln also declared, “The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time.”
Let that sink in. “God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time.” God declares homosexual behavior “an abomination.” Mr. Obama celebrates it. God says “thou shalt not murder.” Mr. Obama and his ilk are responsible for the cold blooded murders of 55-plus million American babies at the callous hands of abortionists.
Jesus, in His own words, reaffirmed the definition of legitimate marriage, saying, “Haven’t you read that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” (Matthew 19:4-6)
Mr. Obama has called Jesus a liar, saying, in effect, “At the beginning the Creator made them lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT). For this reason a male, female or shemale will leave his, her or whatchahoozie’s father and mother, father and father or mother and mother and be united to his or her wife – and/or husband – and the two or more will become one flesh. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
Contrast Mr. Lincoln’s reverence for God and Christianity with Mr. Obama’s declaration that, “Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation.”
Or consider these words, where Mr. Obama both defamed the Bible and mocked Christ’s Sermon on the Mount:
“Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount – a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application?”
The Sermon on the Mount – a passage so radical that its application the Defense Department would not survive? No, Mr. President, you simply desire it not survive.
Indeed, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin condemns any people.” This is not just a flowery aphorism. It’s a self-evident truth – an objective reality. We as an American people have embraced sin and are thusly condemned.
Lincoln said, “The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” As individuals, we will each stand before God and give an accounting – we will all face judgment. As a nation, we can only be judged in the temporal – in the here and now.
Lincoln also said, “let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear, and with manly hearts.” This sage admonition, though certain to infuriate modern-day feminists, is in perfect keeping with 2 Chronicles 7:14, which declares, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
Because, as the psalmist observed, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” (Psalm 33)
The president declared it. A pastor prayed it. And woe betide those who differ with this new reality announced at yesterday’s presidential inauguration: Gay is now an official social category as defined and tangible as black or white. Put another way, romantic attraction and sexual desire are now viewed as being as innate and immutable as skin color.
Make no mistake about it. Another significant step was taken yesterday at the inauguration, and what was once associated with the extremist views of radical gay activists is now as American as apple pie. As expressed in the closing prayer of Episcopal pastor Luis León, “We pray for your blessing, because without it we will see only what the eye can see. But with your blessing, we’ll see that we are made in your image, whether brown, black or white; male or female; first generation immigrant or Daughter of the American Revolution; gay or straight; rich or poor.”
Earlier in the festivities, and framing his speech in historic, Constitutional terms, President Obama said, “We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths -- that all of us are created equal -- is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall . . . .”
Seneca Falls, Selma, and Stonewall? By Seneca Falls, Obama was referring to a watershed moment in the women’s rights movement that took place in the mid-1800’s in Seneca Falls, New York. By Selma, he was referring to the pivotal Civil Rights marches and protests that took place in Selma, Alabama in the mid-1960’s. And by Stonewall he was referring to the Stonewall Riots that took place in New York City in 1969 when drag queens and their gay friends fought back against the police who raided their bar.
So, the president spoke of Seneca Falls, Selma, and Stonewall in the same breath, and in front of the whole nation at his inauguration, thereby equating women’s rights, black civil rights, and gay rights – which include bisexual, transgender, and other categories as well – also putting the women of Seneca Falls, the blacks of Selma, and the drag queens of Stonewall in the same category.
Do we realize just how significant this is? Do we grasp the implications?
The president also said: “It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law -- for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”
To repeat my opening comments: woe betide those who differ with this new reality announced at yesterday’s presidential inauguration. The war is on against people of conscience and people of faith who do not affirm homosexual practice, no matter how loving and fair-minded they may be.
Third, they demanded that everyone recognize those “rights”;
Fourth, they want to strip away the rights of those who oppose them;
Fifth, they want to put those who oppose their “rights” into the closet.
I have often been ridiculed for laying out this progression, but it is unfolding in front of our eyes, with a massive shift taking place in just the last year. And with the president of the United States declaring at his second inaugural speech that homosexuality (and more) is equivalent to gender and skin color, a line has been drawn in the sand. And that line in the sand will soon become a line in the courts and law books to the point that anyone who does not affirm homosexual practice will be codified as a bigot or worse.
As I wrote in 2011, “the legitimizing of homosexuality as a perfectly normal alternative to heterosexuality also requires that all opposition to homosexual behavior must be delegitimized. At the very least, the gay agenda requires this (and let recognized gay leaders renounce this if it is not so):
“Whereas homosexuality was once considered a pathological disorder, from here on those who do not affirm homosexuality will be deemed homophobic, perhaps themselves suffering from a pathological disorder.
“Whereas gay sexual behavior was once considered morally wrong, from here on public condemnation – or even public criticism – of that behavior will be considered morally wrong.”
Yesterday marked a watershed moment in the gay rights movement, and it is time for people of conscience and faith to draw our own line in the sand: We will be loving and respectful to all people. We will oppose bullying and unfair treatment of all people. But we will not equate homosexuality with gender and skin color, and we will not celebrate that which we morally and spiritually oppose.
And so, Mr. President, we will not be intimidated, and to use your terms, in the spirit of Seneca Falls, Selma, and Stonewall, we will stand up for what we believe is right, regardless of cost or consequences.
If we agreed with you, sir, that there is no moral or social distinction between homosexuality and heterosexuality and that homosexuality was innate and immutable, we too would champion this cause. But we do not agree, sir, and in the spirit of Martin Luther King and others whom you hail, we will not compromise our convictions, come what may.
It was bad enough for the White House to disinvite a pastor from praying at President Obama’s inauguration because he expressed orthodox Christian views in a sermon delivered almost 20 years ago. But to disinvite him in order to reflect “this administration’s vision of inclusion and acceptance for all Americans” is enough to make George Orwell proud. Talk about a classic example of doublespeak!
To be sure, Orwell never used the term “doublespeak,” but in his classic volume “1984,” he referred to “doublethink” and “newspeak.” Others have combined these terms into “doublespeak,” meaning to say one thing and mean the opposite. As noted on a contemporary Orwell website, “In 1984, when BIG BROTHER and the Party say PEACE they mean WAR, when they say LOVE they mean HATE, and when they say FREEDOM they mean SLAVERY.”
Today, in 2013, when this administration says “inclusion and acceptance of all Americans” it means “exclusion and rejection of multiplied tens of millions of Americans.” And when this administration uses the “diversity,” word, it means “narrow conformity,” in strict accordance with the Gay Activist Doublespeak Lexicon, as reflected in the comments of Addie Whisenant, spokeswoman for the Presidential Inaugural Committee.
Whisenant explained that President Obama had asked Pastor Louie Giglio to pray at the inaugural ceremonies before learning that this evangelical pastor had preached an evangelical sermon in the mid-1990’s entitled, “In Search of a Standard – Christian Response to Homosexuality.” Using the “diversity” word, she noted that the inaugural committee was “not aware of Pastor Giglio’s past comments at the time of his selection and they don’t reflect our desire to celebrate the strength and diversity of our country at this Inaugural.”
So there you have it: A popular evangelical pastor (well known, I might add, for his work against sex trafficking) was excluded from participating at the inauguration of President Obama in order to “celebrate the . . . diversity” of America and to reflect the “administration’s vision of inclusion and acceptance for all Americans” (both quotes from Whisenant).
As I noted on October 13, 2012, “In the upside down, gay activist lexicon, tolerance means intolerance, inclusivity means exclusivity, and diversity means my way or the highway.”
The whole inaugural event becomes even more Orwellian when you realize that:
President Obama will be using two Bibles when he is sworn in (the Lincoln Bible and the Martin Luther King Bible), yet he will be doing so while explicitly disavowing the contents of those Bibles on a number of critically important points (the divine mandate to protect innocent life and the divine disapproval of homosexual practice being two of the most glaring).
In 2009, at the ceremonies held one day before President Obama’s first inauguration, Bishop Eugene Robinson was asked to bring the opening invocation, yet Robinson has been one of the most divisive figures in American (and even world) religion since making history as the first openly gay bishop ordained by the Episcopal Church. So, a respected Protestant pastor like Louie Giglio is considered divisive whereas an openly homosexual bishop who has caused a fissure in the Episcopalian Church of America and the Anglican Church worldwide is considered an ideal choice. (Chad Griffin, president of the gay activist Human Rights Campaign, agreed that it would be right to exclude Giglio from this year’s event, since “Participants in the Inaugural festivities should unite rather than divide,” presumably just as Robinson “united” Americans in 2009.)
Although Pastor Giglio was branded as “vehemently anti-gay” by Think Progress, preaching one major sermon on the subject of homosexuality over a 20 year period hardly qualifies as being “vehemently anti-gay.” And when Giglio stated almost 20 years ago that acting on homosexual desires is a choice, that homosexual practice is “a sin,” that “homosexuality is less than God’s best for his creation,” and that the “only way out of a homosexual lifestyle … is through the healing power of Jesus,” he was hardly expressing viewpoints that were “vehemently anti-gay.”
Just four years ago, despite protests from gay activists and their allies, Pastor Rick Warren offered the benediction at Obama’s inauguration, even though he had publicly opposed same-sex marriage in California in 2008. Now, based on a mild sermon preached almost 20 years ago, Pastor Giglio has been excluded from offering the benediction. How dramatically things have changed in just four years.
In a very important article, Rev. Al Mohler was quick to label this “The Giglio Imbroglio — The Public Inauguration of a New Moral McCarthyism,” noting that, “The Presidential Inaugural Committee and the White House have now declared historic, biblical Christianity to be out of bounds, casting it off the inaugural program as an embarrassment” – along with the orthodox expressions of Judaism and Islam, among other world faiths.
Yes, the administration has decided to scorn the views of perhaps 150 million Americans (if not many more) in order to celebrate our country’s “diversity” and to reflect “this administration’s vision of inclusion and acceptance for all Americans.”
Somewhere, Big Brother is smiling, and in America, it’s 1984 in 2013. In fact, it’s been 1984 for a quite a few years already. The problem is that most Americans don’t have a clue. Doublespeak has been doing a masterful job.
In recent days, the extreme intolerance, bigotry, and exclusivity of some gay activists and their straight allies has been on prominent display in their attacks against Chick-fil-A. What makes this all the more ironic, not to mention Orwellian, is that their campaign is being carried out in the name of tolerance, inclusion, and diversity. As expressed by jurist Marvin Frankel (in his book Faith and Freedom: Religious Liberty in America), “The powerless call out for tolerance. Achieving power, they may soon forget.”
Today, words like “diversity” and “inclusion,” which have been on the lips of gay activists for years, have taken on an ominous tone that would make Orwell proud.
Since March, students at New York University have been circulating a petition calling for Chick-fil-A to be removed from their campus for “human rights violations” (I kid you not). In classic doublespeak, the petition states that the fast food company doesn’t belong there because “NYU prides itself on being a diverse, open and inclusive campus community. . . . Unfortunately, maintaining a contract with an anti-gay vendor like Chick-fil-A undermines what makes this university so great.” So, Chick-fil-A should be banned because NYU “prides itself on being a diverse, open and inclusive campus community.”
In the same vein, Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, stated, “As the country moves toward inclusion, Chick-fil-A has staked out a decidedly stuck-in-the-past mentality.” He further stated, apparently with a straight face, that “fair-minded consumers” can now “make up their own minds whether they want to support an openly discriminatory company.” It appears, then, that Griffin’s version of an “inclusive” America means that it’s either the gay way or the highway.
But it gets worse. In the now infamous words of Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, “Chick-fil-A doesn’t belong in Boston. You can’t have a business in the city of Boston that discriminates against a population.”
It appears, however, that you can have a mayor in the city of Boston who discriminates against a population (namely, the scores of millions of Americans who do not want to redefine marriage) and against a business (namely Chick-fil-A, an exemplary company that has broken no laws, including laws of discrimination).
Mayor Menino continued (and with Orwellian eloquence at that), “We’re an open city, we’re a city that’s at the forefront of inclusion,” a stunning example of unintended irony if ever there was one.
In a similar example of unconscious doublespeak, New York City council speaker Christine Quinn, herself in a same-sex “marriage,” explained why she too wanted Chick-fil-A kicked off the NYU campus: “We are a city that believes our diversity is our greatest strength and we will fight anything and anyone that runs counter to that.”
That’s right, Chick-fil-A. We are so diverse that we will run you out of our city. And we are so open and inclusive that we have no room for a business like yours.
Chicago Alderman Joe Moreno also attributed his attack on Chick-fil-A to “diversity,” explaining to ABCNews.com that his district is “a very diverse ward--economically, racially, and diverse in sexual orientation” – but not so diverse that it can welcome a Christian-based company. (The comments of the magnanimous mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emmanuel, require little commentary: “Chick-fil-A values are not Chicago values. They disrespect our fellow neighbors and residents.” Perhaps he should have added, “No disrespect intended to my fellow neighbors and residents who oppose same-sex ‘marriage,’ and certainly, no disrespect intended to Minister Farrakhan, whose business is always welcome in our city.”)
Not to be left out in this remarkable display of tolerance, equality, and diversity, the Philadelphia City Council was considering “a resolution condemning Chick-fil-A for what one city leader called ‘anti-American’ attitudes that promote ‘hatred, bigotry and discrimination.’ City Councilman Jim Kenney sent a letter to Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy telling him to ‘take a hike and take your intolerance with you.’” (I am not making this up.)
Does Councilman Kenney not realize that he should be directing his statement to the face looking at him in the mirror? (To repeat: “take a hike and take your intolerance with you.”) Does the Philadelphia City Council not recognize that 31 states have so far voted to uphold marriage as the union of one man and woman? Are all these states, most recently North Carolina, with an overwhelming vote of 61-39%, “anti-American”? And isn’t it the Philadelphia City Council resolution that is actually an example of “hatred, bigotry and discrimination”? Yes, Chick-fil-A, we will discriminate against you because we oppose discrimination.
Already in 1994, Camille Paglia wrote in her book Vamps and Tramps, “One reason I so dislike recent gay activism is that my self-identification as a lesbian preceded Stonewall: I was the only openly gay person at the Yale Graduate School (1968-72), a candor that was professionally costly. That anyone with my aggressive and scandalous history could be called ‘homophobic,’ as has repeatedly been done, shows just how insanely Stalinist gay activism has become.” And Orwellian too.
So be on guard: The intolerance brigade is coming for you.
A British hotel replaces the in-room Gideon Bibles with copies of Fifty Shades of Grey (aka Mommy porn). A Christian organization is banned by the Advertising Standards Authority from announcing that God can heal sickness today. And a recent poll indicates that only 37% of people in England say they have always believed in God, as opposed to 81% of Americans. Christian England, what has become of you?
The hotel in question was the Damson Dene Hotel in Cumbria, Northwest England, and the idea to replace the Bibles with the racy novel came earlier this month from Wayne Bartholomew, general manager of the hotel and “reportedly a choir member at his local church.” (One wonders what kind of church Mr. Bartholomew attends.)
But that is just one hotel, and there was some outrage over the general manager’s decision. What happened to a Christian group in Bath England in February was far more telling. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned a ministry named Healing on the Streets Bath from announcing on its website and in leaflets that God can heal today, ruling that “this is a ‘misleading’ ad which could sow ‘false hope’ amongst sections of the public.” And the ASA made this decision despite the fact that the message of healing in Jesus’ name is as old as the Gospels while the group simply offered to pray for sick people without making any guarantees. (Saying “can” is different than saying “will.”)
Cutting-edge columnist Brendan O'Neill could not resist taking a swipe at the ASA’s ban, writing, “The ASA has been itching to ban the words ‘God heals’ for quite a while. Last June, it rapped the knuckles of a church in Nottingham for putting up a poster that said ‘God can heal you today!’ after the church was grassed up to the ASA by some snitch in Nottingham’s Secular Society. And now it has actually banned a Christian group from proselytising about God’s healing powers. What next? Should we ban groups from declaring that ‘Jesus loves you!’, considering that is probably also technically untrue and could promote ‘false hope’?”
Not to be outdone, in June, “Three church groups [were] suspended from preaching at a secondary school after a leaflet containing homophobic scripture was delivered to homes in Walthamstow.”
In other words, because the leaflets contained a Bible verse that spoke against homosexual practice (part of a list of ten sinful behaviors in the verse; see 1 Corinthians 6:9-10), they were suspended from using a public school for their meetings. (It should also be noted that the verse was one of several on the leaflet, and homosexual practice was absolutely not the focus of the leaflet.)
Remarkably, all three church groups denied distributing the leaflets, with one theory being that it was the work of a “rogue parishioner.” The spokesman for one of the church groups stated that, “It is ill advised to put that sort of thing on a leaflet and we would certainly never do it,” while a local atheist who received the leaflet said, “People who preach this sort of thing shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a school.” Perhaps verses like this should just be cut out of the Bible to avoid all offense?
And then there was the case of Eunice and Owen Johns, a Christian couple in their 60’s who had cared for 15 foster children in the past. Last year, England’s High Court ruled that they could no longer take in children after a gay activist organization brought a complaint against them, concerned that kids in their care could be “infected” with Christianity.
As Eunice Johns explained, “All we wanted to do was to offer a loving home to a child in need. We have a good track record as foster parents, but because we are Christians with mainstream views on sexual ethics, we are apparently unsuitable as foster parents.”
In May, the courts again ruled that the Johns’ could not provide care for a 16th child. As Eunice stated, “The judges have suggested that our views might harm children.” (She had previously told a social worker who pressed her about her faith that she would provide love and care for a child who identified as homosexual but would not tell the child that homosexuality was “okay.”) She continued, “We have been told by the Equality and Human Rights Commission that our moral views may ‘infect’ a child. We do not believe that this is so.”
Ironically, the initial court ruling against the Johns’ came down just weeks after magazine covers around the world breathlessly announced the news that Elton John and his partner David Furnish now had a baby boy, all of which leads me to ask: Christian England, home of men like John Bunyan, John Wesley, William Wilberforce, G. K. Chesterton, J. R. R. Tolkien, and C. S. Lewis, home of cities named Christ Church and of once-Christian universities like Oxford and Cambridge, what has become of you?
According to published reports, when Larry Brinkin was arrested two weeks ago, the police found “images of year-old infants subjected to sodomy and oral sex, and perverse racial comments (Brinkin’s email: ‘I loved especially the 2 year old n----- getting nailed. Hope you’ll continue so I can see what the little blond b---- is going to get. White Power! White Supremacy! White D--- Rules!’).” Yet the media has barely reported this terribly disturbing incident.
But, you ask, who was Larry Brinkin? He was “a central figure in the gay rights movement,” a man who was so influential that, “The San Francisco board of supervisors actually gave a ‘Larry Brinkin Week’ in February 2010 upon his retirement.” It was Brinkin who first used the term “domestic partnerships” in a legal dispute, marking a watershed moment in gay activist history, yet news of his alleged crimes against infants and children, not to mention his alleged White Supremacist leanings, has received very little media attention.
Is there a double standard here? Imagine what the media would be doing if Brinkin had been a conservative Christian leader.
When evangelical leader Ted Haggard fell, the media was quick to pounce, suggesting that this exposed the corrupt nature of evangelical Christianity as a whole. And media leaders have done this repeatedly whenever there has been a scandal connected to an evangelical (or Catholic) leader, and the news is blared from the headlines. But where, I ask you, is the outrage or the front page news when a gay leader commits atrocities such as those allegedly committed by Larry Brinkin? And why isn’t the media claiming that Brinkin’s transgressions expose the corrupt nature of gay activism as a whole?
The failure of a Christian leader is considered endemic and representative; the failure of a gay leader is considered an aberrant exception. Why the unequal treatment?
Personally, I do believe that ministry leaders should be held to high standards, and if we fall short in a serious, public way, we deserve the disappointment (and even scorn) that comes with it. After all, we are supposed to be moral and spiritual examples, even serving as faithful representatives of Jesus, and we have no business preaching morality while living in immorality. And while I absolutely believe in God’s mercy and the possibility of restoration (we all need His mercy), I do agree that the stakes are high and that there will often be heavy fallout when a prominent Christian leader sins in a serious and public way.
My question, though, has to do with Larry Brinkin, who allegedly enjoyed watching infants as they were being sexually abused (yes, infants!). Where is the national indignation? Why isn’t the name of Larry Brinkin on the lips of every news commentator in the nation? And why, two weeks after his arrest, does a Google search for his name yield just 111,000 hits? More importantly, why hasn’t his arrest caused the public to stand up and say, “We must do something to stop the vicious exploitation of little children!”?
The answer is that Brinkin’s arrest has received relatively little media attention because he was a gay activist leader, not a conservative Christian leader, and there is no hiding the mainstream media’s pro-gay, anti-conservative Christian bias. And because Brinkin’s arrest has not been widely reported, the general public has not been confronted afresh with the horrors of child pornography.
(On another note, there was a shocking case in England a few years ago where social workers had evidence that a gay activist couple was sexually abusing the boys in their foster care, but the social workers were afraid to report the couple lest they be accused of homophobia. Not surprisingly, the case received limited coverage in the UK and almost no coverage here in the States. What if this had been a conservative Christian foster care couple?)
To be sure, Ted Haggard was a better known figure than Larry Brinkin, but there have been other Christian leaders of much less notoriety than Haggard (like an otherwise unknown Catholic priest), and that didn’t stop the media from making their failings into a national scandal. Brinkin, for his part, was no smalltime player, with the San Francisco Examiner describing him as an “iconic San Francisco gay activist who brought the nation’s first domestic partnership lawsuit in 1982.” And he was, after all, a respected, long-term leader within the Human Rights Campaign, the world’s largest gay activist organization. Why hasn’t the HRC been tarred and feathered the way evangelicals (or Catholics) are after one of their leaders falls? Why the inconsistency?
To this day, the name of Ted Haggard, is used to mock evangelical leaders (in the form of emails and comments we frequently receive, telling us that we will be the next Ted Haggard) while the name of Larry Brinkin is being forgotten as quickly as possible. Why the double standard?
I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore. For eighteen years, I’ve been playing singles tennis. But, recently, I decided to switch to doubles in an effort to attenuate some back and knee pain I’ve been experiencing on the hard courts. So my friend Gary Faulkner and I decided to sign up to play doubles for the local tennis club. Gary, being somewhat effeminate, decided we should sign up for mixed doubles. Although technically a male, Gary likes to occasionally play the role of a female.
Unfortunately, the Wilmington Tennis Foundation (WTF) rejected our request to play mixed doubles. They insisted that the definition of mixed doubles requires a man and a woman. They further insisted that the terms “man” and “woman” are determined objectively. In other words, it isn’t enough that someone plays the role of a woman. She actually has to be a woman to qualify as a woman. In the wake of the WTF reaction, Gary plans to file a complaint with the Obama Department of Justice.
For those who are not Swift enough to detect satire, Gary Faulkner is not really my friend. To the contrary, he is a gay rights activist who is deeply distraught over North Carolina’s recent passage of Amendment One limiting the definition of mixed doubles – oops!, I mean marriage – to unions involving one man and one woman.
Gary Faulkner’s strong emotional reaction to the vote is perplexing for two reasons: 1) He insisted that Amendment One was “unnecessary” prior to its passage, and 2) He was already married before the amendment came up for a vote. Both of these points are important and deserve separate treatment below.
First, anyone following the Amendment One controversy in North Carolina knows that it was necessary to pass in order to keep judicial activists from redefining marriage by judicial fiat. Gay rights activists like Gary Faulkner know that blocking the judiciary with a constitutional amendment was the only way to preserve the institution of marriage from Marxist social engineers who want government, not family, to be the foundation of society. Were the amendment unnecessary, Faulkner would not be so emotionally distraught in the wake of its passage. In fact, Gary Faulkner hasn’t been this upset since Victor Willis of the Village People married a woman.
Second, heterosexual gay rights activists like Gary Faulkner do not lead the march for same-sex marriage out of a love for gay people. Most do it out of a hatred of Christians. Faulkner, who has a well-documented history of making hate-filled and defamatory statements about Christians, has a political motive for supporting same-sex marriage. He wants marriage re-defined. Then he wants to see churches that refuse to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies stripped of their tax-exempt status. Finally, he wants to see churches that refuse to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies shut down in the name of “equality” and “tolerance.” The result would be a nation in which the only Christian churches remaining would be those that have abandoned basic Christian principles.
It’s been a hard few weeks for Gary Faulkner. But he holds out hope for the future by referencing the fact that young people are more supportive of same-sex marriage than older people. That’s because Gary and his Marxist contemporaries have gained the kind of control over the schools that they have not yet gained over the churches.
Of course, the fatal flaw (and I mean that literally) in Gary Faulkner’s grand vision for America is that he and his Marxist contemporaries have been pushing abortion as steadfastly as they have been pushing same-sex marriage. The problem with abortion is that it produces an aging population that does not replenish itself. As people age, they have a tendency to discard silly emotionally-driven ideas – like the idea that 96-98% of society’s conformists should re-arrange themselves on behalf of 2-4% of its deviants.
If Gary Faulkner were not such a champion of abortion rights, 53 million more people would have been born since 1973. About two million of them would have been homosexuals eligible to marry someone of the same sex. And, who knows, some of them might have played mixed doubles in their spare time.
Planned Parenthood will help you abort your baby, even if the grounds for the abortion is the sex or sexual preference of the child. Should gender selection be classified as a hate crime? Hear what Zo thinks.
My University, UNC-Wilmington, needs to change its name to The University of No Competition Whatsoever. We could still use the UNCW logo but our full name would more accurately reflect our educational priorities. We already undermine economic competition by promoting Marxism. But now we are considering cutting athletic competition in order to preserve diversity spending in the midst of state budget cuts.
