How gay rights and abortion rights are connected

The Intimate Connection

Gay rights, abortion rights and EVERYONE’S religious, political, and sexual freedom are under attack by the fundamentalist Christians. Their intentions are to create a highly restrictive Christian America° in which there is no room for either gay sex or abortion rights.

The Republican Party: The fundamentalist Christians have taken over the White House at least as far as both gay sex or abortion rights are concerned. In violation of the spirit of Article Six of the Unites States Constitution,° Mr. Bush is appointing ultra-conservative judges whose religious affiliation is in alignment with the ultra-conservative, fundamentalist Christian agenda. Mr. Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft are doing everything they can to destroy both gay and abortion rights.

The Recall Circus: The fundamentalist Christians have now succeeded in deposing the Governor of California. Anti-gay, anti abortion, fundamentalist Christian, Republican millionaire Congressman Darrell Issa, funded the beginning steps of the Davis recall. He spent about a million dollars of his own money to cover the expenses. His fundamentalist friends were major players in obtaining the necessary signatures. According to the currently available data, that little fiasco cost the California taxpayers about $60,000,000, plus millions more that the candidates spent.

Religious Freedom & Same-Sex Marriages:

Those opposing marriage rights for same sex couples are publicly declaring that they are, "Defending the sanctity of marriage." Once again, we have a clash of church and state. Let's examine the language and see if we can gain a little clarity on this issue.

Marriage: The term "marriage," in this context, is a contract created by the state defining the civil and legal relationship between two people.

License: A License is "ticket," a "letter of permission" granted by ruling authorities. That certificate gives its holder permission to engage in certain specified activities, activities that those without the license are prohibited from engaging in.

Sanctity: Sanctity is a word common to religious places, things, activities, or situations. It is rarely ever used in secular contracts, and to my knowledge, it is never used in government contracts. Webster's dictionary defines "sanctity" as:

1 . Saintliness or holiness;
2. The fact of being sacred or inviolable; [i.e. not to be profaned or injured]
3. Anything held sacred.
Sanctity comes from the Latin word, "sanctitas" meaning "holy."

Defining Sacred: The Pro-Truth Team has spent years looking for a clear distinction between what is sacred and what isn't, and the clearest answer we've been able to find is this: "Either everything is sacred or nothing is."

If a state's marriage contract is sacred and holy, which religion gets do define what saintly, sacred, and holy mean? Is my drivers license also sacred? If not why not. What's the difference? Bars and nightclubs have licenses. Are those contracts sacred? What makes one government contract sacred and the other not? What is sacred, anyway?

God and Government: We cannot exclude "God" from the government.° That is literally impossible! Why? Because humans cannot separate their divine nature from the governments they create. Our spiritual nature (our religious, and spiritual beliefs) dominate our lives. Even ego-atheists are not religion-free. Many of them (the ego atheists) have simply turned money into a secular god. And besides, even atheism has to be accepted by what, in religious terms, is called, " Leap of faith," which, in essence, means to believe without any proof.

Protecting Individual Rights: How then, do we honor all religious beliefs? How do we honor religious freedom? The best thing we can do is to prevent any religious faction from dominating government and to prevent any religious group from using government laws, money or property to promote their ways at the expense of others. (See the section titled: Church and Sate -- How do they relate?°)

The Goal: The goal is protect everyone’s rights, religious and otherwise --- to protect the rights of the minority from being trampled on by the collective will of the majority --- to prevent any group from interfering with the rights of those who do not believe in that groups doctrine/theology.

Open the Door: I haven't heard any gays or lesbians proposing that would in any way, violate, injure, profane, harm, or do away with the legal contract called marriage. Actually, they are just demanding the right to entry into that secular, legal contract. Millions of heterosexual couples have already signed state-sanctioned legal contracts.

Discrimination: Why then, are some people denied access to this contract? Could it be that the presence of gays and lesbians would profane the contract? That sound a lot like the racial bigotry that conservative Christians have, in the past, been so infamous for? How about taking a short, one-question test. Please tell us which set of words best describes the opposition to same sex marriages:

a) justice, freedom, tolerance, open-mindedness, equality,
fairness, truth, peace, harmony, brotherhood, love.

b)    discrimination prejudice inequity chauvinism, bigotry,
         sexism, intolerance, narrow-mindedness, hate,
         one-way-my-way, sexually flavored racism.

Who Gets to Make Your Decisions: Then there's the age-old question, who gets to define what the words mean? Who determines what is and what is not profane? Who defines what the word "marriage" means? Who gets to define sacred and who gets to decide what is sacred, and who gets to decide how something that is sacred fits into government laws?

Anti-Sex is the Core Issue: Those opposing gay marriages claim that granting same sex couples the same rights now given to heterosexual couples endorses and promotes homosexuality. Does granting stores liquor licenses endorse drinking alcohol? It could also be said that licensing same sex marriages is just releasing long-held, anti-gay, anti-sexual bigotry. When you examine the group opposing gay rights you'll find most of them are controlled by strong fundamental-Christian-induced anti-sexual belief systems.

Open the Door: Gays and lesbians are simply saying; "I'll no longer ride in the back of the bus! I'll no longer drink form the separate water fountain! I demand to be served while seated at the lunch counter!"

Bigotry: Gays and lesbians are also asking: "What about you makes you better than me? How are you injured by my having a legal marriage contract? Why are you defying the words in your own sacred text?" Perhaps it's time to give more than lip service to the concept of religious freedom.

Who is Supporting Gay and Lesbian Rights? The religious, social and political beliefs of gay rights activists completely cover the board. Supporters of gay and lesbian rights can be easily found in every religion, every race, every culture, every age group, every social and economic status. Many of them are completely heterosexual.

Who is Opposing Gay and Lesbian Rights? Those leading the antigay parade are the same people opposing abortion rights, sex education, birth control, and stem-cell research. They are primarily fundamentalist Christians or traditionalist, old-school Catholics. The opposition leadership has strong anti-sexual, conservative, religious roots.

Those opposing same sex marriages are basing their opposition on religious grounds only. They offer no physical or secular evidence in support for their opposition. There are no victims who would be harmed. They simply claim to be "Defending the sanctity of marriage." They are defending a belief system --- a religious belief system --- a Christian religious belief system. The evidence tells us that the war against gay and lesbian marriage a religious freedom issue.

Gay Rights and the Christian Bible: Perhaps we should direct our anti-gay friends to the words written in their own Christian Bible: Here are a few sentences from Romans, Chapter 14 of the Christian Bible:

“I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that [there is] nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him [it is] unclean.” 14:14

"Who art thou that judges another man's servant?" --- "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." --- "why dost thou judge thy brother?" --- "Let us not therefore judge one another any more --- "no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in [his] brother's way." --- "Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace" ---

"...All things indeed [are] pure; but [it is] evil for that man who eateth with offence." 14:20

And here are a couple of classics:

". . . He who is without sin, let him first cast a stone. . . John 8:7
". . . Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself. " Matthew 22:39

And with all the Roman Catholic priests having been exposed as homosexual child molester, perhaps we should direct them to read Matthew 7:5 and Luke 6:42 in that same Christian Bible:

"Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of your own eye; and then shall thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

The Supporting Biblical View: In the Biblical references related to Jesus, He never mentioned homosexuality. However in Romans 14:14 (a statement directly attributed to Jesus) there is a passage that can easily be interpreted to support gay rights. Here's the quotes form Romans 14:24 and 14:20 written in slightly different language:

"Like beauty, ugliness, obscenity, and sexual immorality are all in the eye of the beholder. That which is labeled as "unclean" is only unclean to he who thinks it to be unclean, and it is unclean only because belief and perception make it so."

This leads us to the common practices of denial and projection.

Projection: Are you familiar with the common practice of denying one's own disliked character traits by looking for them in someone else and hating them there. It's called projection,° and it's based on the findings that, “Men [and women] hate in others those things -- and only those things -- which they despise in themselves.” It stems from the tendency to disown un-liked aspects of one’s own personality.

We wonder how many anti-gay Christian leaders are denying their own represses homosexuality? Considering the large number of gay Catholic priests and Protestant Christian Ministers who, over the years, have been exposed as Gay, we would guess that number of hidden homosexuals in the anti-gay movement to be extensive.

Projection: In keeping with the anti-gay movements practice of waging war against everything they that attracts attention and makes them money, the gay-rights movement could easily throw their own game back at them and introduce legislation in every government body making it a crime to discriminate against anyone based on his or her sexual preference.

Propose a constitutional amendment supporting Gay rights

If we don't stand up against bigotry here and now,

WHO AND WHAT WILL BE NEXT?°

Creating a Christian America°

Hypocrisy and Sins of Lifestyle:

As you well know, the anti-abortionist are adamantly anti-gay and anti-gay-rights. But there is one little glitch in their anti-gay rhetoric. It's grossly hypocritical. Here's why:

Fundamentalists distinguish between sins like most Christians occasionally commit for which they confess, do penance, and are forgiven and sins that they call sins of lifestyle. Sins of lifestyle are transgressions of Biblical law which are constantly, regularly, and intentionally engaged in and for which the transgressors are not forgiven. According to the Christian theology, engaging in a sin of lifestyle condemns the person to eternal damnation.

Christian theology labels both homosexuality and the adultery as Sins of lifestyle. Our anti-abortionist friends condemn those who live in a homosexual life style, but they ignore the millions of so-called Christians who are living in the sin of adultery. Here's the Biblical quote from Mark 10:11-12:

"And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his
wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against
her. And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be
married to another, she committeth adultery."

and the quote form 1 Corinthians 6:9-10:

"Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God."

The above two quotes make it very clear what the consequences are for violating scripture. Wouldn't you think that true believers would want to stay in God's grace. Well, I would too, but let's look at the evidence. It tells a very different story.

The Divorce rate in the united states among fundamentalist Christian is about the same as everyone else, approximately fifty-percent. Around eighty-five percent of divorced people have remarried. Thus, forty to forty-five percent of our anti-abortionist friends are, themselves, living in a sin of lifestyle. They are living in the lifestyle of adultery, a sin that ranks equal to homosexuality in Biblical scripture. Remember, Christian theology condemns those who engage in either of these sin of lifestyle to eternal damnation. Once again, we see the anti-abortionists being hypocrites.

If they really believe in the Bible as the word of God, how can they violate their own beliefs? What's really going on? Are these people mentally ill? Or is the Bible merely a tool that the anti-abortion leaders are using to collect money?

How can they publicly condemn others for sins of lifestyle when over forty percent of them are doing the same thing?

Once again, HYPOCRISY reigns supreme

We also refer you to a page that describes in detail the Anti-abortionist hypocrisy around what are called sins of lifestyle: The page is title, "When Christ was Gay" By Brian Elroy McKinley and can be found at http://elroy.net/ehr/gay.html.°

More Evidence on our Web Sites of Anti-abortionist Hypocrisy:

The Global Gag Rule°

Newt Gingrich -- The Ultimate Hypocrite°

The Roman Catholic Encyclopedia -- What is Life°

The Biblical Evidence°

Sex and Sin -- God's a Hypocrite°

Hypocrisy -- Our Main Page°

The Insanity of Censorship °

Hidden Agendas°

Christian Prayers in Public Schools°

Sins of Lifestyle°

God Is a Baby Murderer°

Internet Web Sites about Anti-abortionist Hypocrisy:

http://www.mlode.com/~ra/ra7/religion'shypocrisy.htm°

Recovery Anonymous -- An Internet page on Religious Hypocrisy.

Responding To Anti-gay Challenges:

Mutual Support: We need to support each other before this plague of religious despotism gets completely out of hand. Please assist us in our project to pull the false, self-righteous foundation. out from under the anti-abortion movement. This will greatly enhance everybody’s political, sexual and religious freedom.

How Shall We Respond: As you can see by the information offered on this web site. and on our sister web site, http://www.pro-truth.net., the Pro-truth Team has a thoroughly researched, well-developed, and fully functional strategy which, when properly implemented, will pull the false, self-righteous foundation out from under the anti-abortion movement. That strategy involves approaching abortion from a First Amendment, religious freedom perspective, and aggressively challenging anti-choice hypocrisy. Our intention and our focus is to expose and examine the hidden and previously ignored aspects of the abortion controversy.

Our web site and the book it describes are focused on the vision that Abortion Is a First Amendment Religious Freedom Issue,. and on the fact that the entire anti-abortion war is based on faulty logic,. on denial of universal laws,. and on un-provable, religious fantasies. that date back to the days when church leaders believed the Earth was flat.

The Results: The inevitable result of full publicity and full disclosure of these facts will be that the false, self-righteous foundation presently supporting the fundamentalist Christian anti-gay, anti-sex, anti-abortion movement will collapse and their war against non-believers will be significantly reduced.

The Counterattack in Action: The booklets described at http://www.pro-truth.net/100win.html. and at http://www.pro-truth.net/40a-church-state.html. are examples of putting that intention into action. In order for our mission to succeed, the public must become aware of the truth about what abortion is and what it means,. and the truth regarding what the anti-abortion war is really about..

This Is Where You Come In:

November 7, 2004

The Moral Values Issue: In response to bush being in the White House for a second term and in response to the "moral values issue" that was a deciding factor in the November 2, 2004 election, we have added a new section to our web site -- a section that is critically important to the members of the gay and lesbian community. Please see the section on how to secure gay rights° in the moral values section of our web site.

There are several ways you can participate.° In addition the eighteen-item list, here are a couple of other actions for your consideration:

Internet Chat Rooms: One critically important requirement is to bring our web site to the attention of surfers on the Internet. One relatively simple way to do this is if you would introduce our work to others by way of the Internet chat rooms.

In addition to being gay or lesbian, are you pro-choice? Do you realize the importance of exposing the fundamentalist Christians for what they are? Are you familiar with chat rooms? Are you willing to bring some of the specific topics on our web site to the attention of those who participate in chat rooms? If so, please assist us. We’d be most grateful. Please also connect us with others who can and will assist us.

Silent Support of Gay Rights: If you are gay or lesbian and not openly acknowledging your sexual orientation, supporting abortion rights is a great way to very powerfully and, at the same time, quietly support gay rights.

Magazines, Newsletters, and Other Publications: Are you a party to the production of a magazine, a newspaper, a newsletters, and/or any other publications? If so and while assembling the artwork for printing, and you find a small space leftover on one of your pages, you could insert one or more of the following lines:

Support Gay Rights. Support Abortion Rights.
http://www.choice101.com/r73-gay-rights.html.

If you have had an abortion

and still think about it,

please check this web site.

http://www.choice101.com/pasr.html.

You may find it helpful

If I Told You "The Real Truth"
About Fame, Money, Sex, Power
and the Anti-abortion War,
You Wouldn't Believe Me.

So I won't. I'll let
"The Evidence"
speak for itself.

http://www.pro-truth.net.

Sponsors: Perhaps you know someone who would sponsor an add for us by paying the insertions costs; or someone who would like to have an sponsor's/ advertiser's position on one of our web pages.

Thank you: Our request for your assistance is an offer and an opportunity for you to bring your feelings and desires about abortion out into the world in a tangible form. Please sit quietly for a few minutes and ask your inner guidance, “What is right for me to do regarding this request?” And then act accordingly.

Thank you.

Sincerely, Rev. Robert E. Coté