Contact: Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, 312-324-3787, americansfortruth@gmail.com; Twitter: @PeterLaBarbera 

OPINION, April 1, 2015 /Christian Newswire/ -- The following is submitted by Peter LaBarbera:

In the wake of a pro-LGBT, media-driven campaign against Indiana's new Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), Gov. Mike Pence and leaders of the Indiana legislature are backtracking to appease the liberal political mob that has cynically recast the law as the "License to Discriminate."

Good people everywhere are now intimidated from speaking plain truths about the homosexual-bisexual-transgender agenda. Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) is not. The distortions and media hype attacking Indiana's religious freedom law are obfuscating some key fundamentals in this debate. It is not the purpose here to dig into the "legaleze" about the law (for that, see this Reason.com piece) but rather to expose the core hypocrisy of pro-LGBT progressives on "discrimination."

Homosexual activists and their sycophants in the media (e.g., CNN's homosexual anchor/activist Don Lemon) are cunningly building upon their distortions of the RFRA to demand a pro-homosexual special-rights law in the Hoosier State.

It would be the cruelest of ironies if the media-driven backlash against Indiana's religious freedom law were used to push through a statewide "gay rights" law in Indiana. Such pro-homosexual laws and corporate policies have been the engine driving PRO-LGBT DISCRIMINATION against people of faith for decades—all in the sweet-sounding name of "equality." For example, the "gay" movement's bullying of the Boy Scouts of America began with a lawsuit that relied upon New Jersey's pro-homosexual "sexual orientation" law.

The pro-family movement has long referred to so-called nondiscrimination laws based on "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" as "special rights" because genuine civil rights are not based on disordered, immoral sexual behavior and gender confusion. These Orwellian laws and corporate policies actually foment discrimination in the name of "non-discrimination." That's liberalism for you.

Our cherished American freedoms come ultimately from God, as recognized by our national charter, the Declaration of Independence, which appeals to "Nature and Nature's God." Homosexual behavior--which cannot produce life--is against both. Witness the grossly disproportionate STD rates linked to "men who have sex with men."

It is ludicrous to posit "civil rights" based on homosexuality and gender rebellion as "constitutional." But it is downright un-American to argue—as many LGBT activists do—that in a nation founded by people fleeing religious oppression, "rights" based on sexual sin should trump Americans' freedom to uphold biblical sexual morality and real marriage between man and woman.

The LGBT Lobby and the media have raised the issue of potential discrimination in Indiana. Let's talk about discrimination.

With the rise of "gay power" in the West has come an abundance of victims of pro-homosexual Political Correctness. All over the world, Christians and moral-minded citizens have been victimized by a liberal, elitist pro-homosexual orthodoxy that increasingly brooks no dissent. The media have trivialized the zero-sum conflict between "gay rights" and freedom of conscience as being merely about wedding cake bakers--but the escalating "LGBTyranny" goes far beyond that:

• People are losing their jobs or being denied entry into their desired profession (e.g., counseling) because they espouse truth that homosexual behavior is immoral. Allstate Insurance Co. fired Christian Matt Barber (founder of Barbwire.com) after he wrote a column—on his own time—critical of the militant "gay" agenda.
   
• Christian students have been denied entry into college counseling programs simply because their conscience does not permit them to affirm homosexual relationships. In the United States today you are more likely to be punished or fired for OPPOSING homosexuality than you are for "being gay." (Meanwhile, many corporations and colleges—egged on by the "gay" lobby--are now engaging in pro-homosexual Affirmative Action—giving special preference to homosexuals. So much for LGBT victimhood.)
   
• Homosexual activists have successfully lobbied for laws in California, New Jersey and the District of Columbia that BAN minors with unwanted same-sex attractions from pursuing healthy, heterosexual change through therapy. The leftists at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) are using their bevy of lawyers to sue a tiny Jewish ex-"gay" group called JONAH--to drive them out of business. The LGBT activists' animus toward EX-homosexuals belies their phony rhetoric touting "diversity" and "inclusion."
   
• In the name of transgender "rights," "non-discrimination" laws are allowing biological men to use public women's restrooms, and boys to use girls restrooms and locker rooms in schools. Thus women and girls are losing their safe spaces and their right to privacy.
   
• Homosexual activists and the Religious Left are demanding that even Catholic schools hire (or not fire) openly homosexual and even "gay-married" teachers whose lifestyles defy historic Catholic teachings.

If government can compel a Christian or Orthodox Jewish businessman to participate in a ceremony that attaches sinful homosexuality to "marriage," then the State can compel ANY American citizen or institution to violate ANY of their cherished beliefs. That is the essence of tyranny.
 
Disagreeing morally with homosexuality is not "bigotry," "hate" or "animus." Since when did sodomy—which has been taboo for centuries; is condemned unequivocally in Scripture; and is defined by American wordsmith Noah Webster as "a crime against nature"—become sacrosanct?

Legalized homosexual "marriage" is a grave moral evil and an unprecedented sign of decadence in the West. It is the right and duty of every true Christian to oppose it. But no small business owner—whether religious or not--should be compelled to participate in a same-sex "wedding" that not only glorifies homosexual sin but often does it in God's name.
 
Liberals and homosexual activists love to cry "Bigot!" but there is plenty of anti-Christian bigotry on their side: see this nasty Tweet by influential Indiana LGBT activist Bil Browning mocking "Jeebus" (Jesus Christ) and this article about the National LGBTQ Task Force celebrating a documentary about a play that portrays Christ as "gay" and the one-time homosexual lover of Judas.
 
Politically speaking, it seems bigotry is OK as long as it advances the "progressive" agenda to impose mandatory acceptance of homosexuality and gender confusion on everyone.