During the highly publicized exchange between Bill O'Reilly and Laura Ingraham on gay marriage, O'Reilly made this statement: "There are Bible thumpers, and all they do is say, 'I object to gay marriage because God objects to it.' You don't win a policy debate in America with that."
Really?
Before central control out of Washington was imposed in 2003, policy arguments for criminalizing homosexual acts were won explicitly "with that." And because of "that," the idea of gay marriage has been unthinkable throughout the history of the American nation.
Just over four years ago, during the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama was part of the winning policy debate in America, disapproving of gay marriage. That moral debate, consistent with America's history, was won "with that." In fact, Barack Obama was quite the Bible-thumper on the campaign trail.
Barack Obama was for gay marriage (1996) before he was against it (2004 Senate race; 2008 presidential race) before he was for it again (2012). But during his tenure during which he was against it, he based his opposition to it on "that." The "that," of course, was his alleged Christian faith.
At the Rick Warren forum in August of 2008, Obama stated: "I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian -- for me -- for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union. God's in the mix."
Hmm. We learn in the Bible that God considers marriage a sacred union. In fact, Christian cultures have long referred to marriage as "holy matrimony." Though polygamy existed in ancient cultures, there is no biblical record of God establishing it. God originally placed one man with one woman, and in the New Testament, God makes clear that a man should have one wife.
Barack Obama supposedly believed in 2008 that "God is in the mix." Since the worldviews of Christians are informed by the Bible, wasn't that Obama's way of saying, "I object to gay marriage because God objects to it"?
Apparently, God was "in the mix" in 2008, disapproving of gay marriage. But how did Obama know that God was against homosexual marriage? He could know only in the same way all Christians know -- he must have based his knowledge upon the revealed and written words from God found in the Bible.
Or was Obama just being politically expedient to win an election?
We know that Obama has since "evolved," and some of the country has evolved with him. But have the Bible and Christianity evolved with Obama and his disciples?
The last time I checked, the Bible's condemnation of sin, and of homosexual acts in particular, has not changed.
What has changed is the way people view and interpret the Bible. Many now view the Bible and Christianity the way Obama views the same.
In the 2006 memoir The Audacity of Hope, Obama reveals: "When I read the Bible, I do so with the belief that it is not a static text but the Living Word and that I must continually be open to new revelations -- whether they come from a lesbian friend or a doctor[.]"
Rather than viewing the Bible as "living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow ... a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart," Obama views it as "living" in the sense that it can be manipulated.
Not surprisingly, Obama views the Holy Bible in the same manner as how he views our revered Constitution -- both are living documents and are subject to postmodern interpretations and applications. Neither the Bible nor the Constitution provides fixed principles from which to govern our lives and country. The radical liberal class somehow has permission to determine what is flexible in both manuscripts -- regardless of what the actual words say.
On his show, The O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly, informed Megyn Kelly that:
The compelling argument is on the side of homosexuals. That's where the compelling argument is. "We're Americans. We just want to be treated like everybody else." That's a compelling argument, and to deny that, you gotta have a very strong argument on the other side, and the other side hasn't been able to do anything but thump the Bible.
Well, God is either "in the mix," or not. When God is not in the mix, both sides are reduced to moral relativism. No one can say one side's arguments are better than the other's. What makes sense to one side is foolishness to the other.
To the radical left, which largely controls education and the media, there will never be a "compelling" reason to ban homosexual marriage, whether based on secular or celestial arguments or a combination of both. Gay marriage is being advanced on emotion and rejection of our flawed traditions.
Since there never will be a "compelling argument" against gay marriage to the left, why not stand on religious principle? Such a stance gives sacred purpose to the secular interests in preserving marriage.
What so-called conservatives like O'Reilly must realize is that without the moral authority of our Creator, one can take a man marrying another man or a man marrying a few men or a mother marrying her adult son or a man marrying a woman and a man, etc. and put all of these on the same intellectual footing. Even Obama knew he had to appeal to divine authority when he was pretending to be against homosexual marriage.
To win the culture is to win the argument. If the culture cannot be won, there will be no moral restoration in America, and the slide to Gomorrah will continue. Conservatives and Christians must contend that the moral compass of the Bible has not changed.
To win the argument, we must be convinced that Western civilization's time-tested definition of marriage is not subject to evolution. Marriage does not evolve, because the Bible does not evolve.
Contrary to what Bill O'Reilly believes, objecting to gay marriage because God objects to it is the most profound argument of all.
The preceding is cross-posted from an April 8 entry at AmericanThinker.com entitled, "Gay Marriage: Bill O'Reilly Misses the Point."
