If we reflect on the dreadful consequences of sodomy to a state, _and on the extent to which this abominable vice may be secretly carried on and spread; we cannot, on the principles of sound policy, consider the punishment as too severe. For if it once begins to prevail, not only will boys be easily corrupted by adults, but also by other boys; nor will it ever cease; more especially as it must thus soon lose all its _shamefulness and infamy and become fashionable and the national taste; and then . . . national weakness, for which all remedies _are ineffectual, most inevitably follow; not perhaps in the first _generation, but certainly in the course of the third or fourth. . . . To these evils may be added yet another, viz. that the constitutions _of those men who submit to this degradation are, if not always, yet very often, totally destroyed, though in a different way from what is the result of the whoredom.

Whoever, therefore, wishes to ruin a nation, has only to get this _vice introduced; for it is extremely difficult to extirpate it where it has once taken root because it can be propagated with much secrecy . . . and when we perceive that it has once got a footing in any country, however, powerful and flourishing, we may venture _as politicians to predict that the foundation of its future decline_ is laid and that after some hundred years it will no longer be the same . . . powerful country it is at the present.

—Sir John David Michaelis, Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, 1814

In 1983, 30 percent of Americans said that they knew someone who was homosexual. By 2000, that figure had skyrocketed to 73 percent. In 1985, only 40 percent of those polled said they were comfortable around individuals who practice homosexual behavior. By 2000, that number had risen to 60 percent. Also in 1985, 90 percent of Americans said they would be upset if their son or daughter announced they were homosexual. By 2000, that figure stood at just 37 percent.1

Those of us who have dealt with the issue of the homosexual agenda issue over the years often stop and ask ourselves in disbelief: How has 1 to 2 percent of the population* achieved so much success in transforming American culture and restricting religious freedom?

The road leading to the grave threat that the homosexual agenda poses to evangelism, faith, and religious freedom did not happen overnight. It has been part of a long-term strategy implemented by radical homosexual activists to dramatically transform America’s perception of homosexuality and of those who oppose homosexual behavior.

As Gene Edward Veith wrote about the tremendous gains made by the homosexual activist movement:_“Homosexuality used to be considered a vice; now even those it makes uncomfortable now must avow—as in a Seinfeld episode—‘not that there’s anything wrong with it,’ while those who think there is something wrong with it are considered to have the vice of intolerance.”2 What has caused such a radical shift in public attitudes toward homosexual behavior? And how did this shift happen in less than a generation? The reason is a well-thought-out strategy that was devised in part by homosexual activists Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen and publicized in two publications: a 1987 article titled “The Overhauling of Straight America” and a 1989 book titled After the Ball.* When one reads both of these works, one sees how radical homosexual activists have implemented the strategy laid out in these publications almost to the letter. The homosexual activists laid out a six-point strategy to radically change America’s perception of homosexual behavior. Their six points were:

1. Talk about gays and gayness as loudly and often as possible.

2. Portray gays as victims, not aggressive challengers.

3. Give homosexual protectors a “just” cause.

4. Make gays look good.

5. Make the victimizers look bad.

6. Solicit funds: the buck stops here (i.e., get corporate America and major foundations to financially support the homosexual cause).

We are going to examine all six of these points and show how each is being played out in present-day American culture.

“Talk about Gays and Gayness_as Loudly and Often as Possible” In “The Overhauling of Straight America,” Kirk and Madsen write, “The principle behind this advice is simple: almost all behavior begins to look normal if you are exposed to enough of it at close quarters and among your acquaintances.” This principle has proven itself time and time again throughout history as inhumane and outrageous behavior have become common-place and ordinary. Every modern dictator has understood this principle as well. In the past decade it has often seemed that every time you blink there is another newspaper article and another television show talking about otherwise “ordinary” individuals who practice homosexual behavior. The onslaught is relentless. This continual promotion of homosexual behavior eventually has one of two effects: (1) it convinces people that homosexual behavior is just another lifestyle, or (2) causes them to get so sick of the issue that they throw their hands up in disgust or become exhausted and then withdraw. Either way, the radical homosexual activists win, as they have either convinced people that they are “just like my fishing buddy” or make them so fed up with the issue that they can no longer stand it and just say to themselves, “I’m tired. I give up. Give them what they want so they will be quiet.”

And the effect on our communities is pervasive as homosexual activists continue to push the edge to what the public will tolerate. Consider this story about what happened to Conway Robinson State Forest in Prince William County, Virginia: “Forty years ago, families, church groups, and Boy Scout troops would gather and play at Conway Robinson State Forest . . . now notorious for homosexual trysts. ‘There’d be 20 to 30 cars in there, kids running around and parents cooking out,’ said a Gainesville woman in her late 50s . . . ‘We used to go down there and cook hamburgers and hot dogs, having a good old time,’ she said. ‘Now I don’t even want to go back there. They completely ruined it.’”

The story goes on to tell about how homosexuals have overtaken the park, even to the point of sexually assaulting undercover police officers. Clairborne T. Richardson III, the assistant commonwealth attorney for Prince William County, reported that: “Some officers were approached and asked to perform certain acts. If they refused, then some of the individuals tried to grab the officers, either around the face or the head. It was extremely bold and blatant.” In addition, those engaging in homosexual behavior invited people in the park to watch them engage in their trysts. Richardson concluded that it was no longer safe to go to the forest, where just thirty years ago, families and civic groups were able to innocently enjoy its natural beauty.

Sadly, people are resigned to the fact that the forest will never be the same. As one man said: “It’s a shame that people can’t use the park anymore.”3 Kirk and Madsen wrote, “The main thing is talk about gayness until the issue becomes thoroughly tiresome.” This ties into the concept of perseverance, the gradual wearing-down of people until they get to the point of total fatigue and give in on an issue. As we will see throughout this book, homosexual activists continue to hammer away time and time again until people just say, “Forget it” and then homosexuals get their way.

The activists were also very much aware that the unseemly sides of homosexual behavior—the types of sexual activity and its consequences—would have to be suppressed in order to gain acceptance. They wrote: “In the early stages of the campaign to reach straight America, the masses should not be shocked and repelled by premature exposure to homosexual behavior itself. Instead, the imagery of sex should be downplayed and gay rights should be reduced to an abstract social question as much as possible.”4 Therefore, the link between the practices of homosexual behavior and pedophilia, as well as the other dark sides of homosexual behavior, are intentionally suppressed or denied. Kirk and Madsen added: “First let the camel get his nose inside the tent—and only later his unsightly derriere!”5 Kirk and Madsen also knew full well that the media would play an important role in their crusade. They stated, “The average American watches over seven hours of TV daily. Those hours open up a gateway into the private world of straights, through which a Trojan Horse might be passed.”6 Homosexual behavior has not only become commonplace on network television and in movies, but homosexual characters are often portrayed as the most compassionate, funny, “normal,” and “human” individuals in the show.

The next target for Kirk and Madsen was organized religion. They wrote, “While public opinion is one primary source of mainstream values, religious authority is the other. When conservative churches condemn gays, there are only two things we can do to confound the homophobia of the true believers. First, we can use talk to muddy the moral waters. This means publicizing support for gays by more moderate churches, raising theological objections of our own about conservative interpretations of Biblical teachings, and exposing hatred and inconsistency.”7 The homosexual activists have found a more than willing ally in liberal churches, many which threw out the gospel years ago anyway. Many of these churches now seemingly exist for few purposes besides the promotion of homosexual behavior.

With regard to churches that hold fast to the biblical teaching on homosexual behavior, Kirk and Madsen said, “We can undermine the moral authority of homophobic churches by portraying them as antiquated backwaters, badly out of step with the times and with the latest findings of psychology. Against the mighty pull of institutional religion, one must set the mightier draw of science and public opinion. . . . Such an unholy alliance has worked well against churches before, on such topics as divorce and abortion.”8 Therefore, conservative Christians have been referred to in the media as “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command.”9

In addition, even in traditional churches, dissenting advocates of homosexual politics are portrayed as enlightened, cutting-edge thinkers.

“Portray Gays as Victims, Not Aggressive Challengers” Kirk and Madsen’s next point, “Portray gays as victims, not as aggressive challengers,” is a direct play to most Americans’ basic sense of fairness and liberal guilt about anyone who claims to have been oppressed. Therefore, despite demographic statistics to the contrary,* homosexual activists have skillfully played the media like a drum to portray themselves as a victimized class in need of special protections.

In addition, they have been extremely skillful at turning tragedies into opportunities to move the homosexual agenda forward and portray anyone who opposes them as “murderers” or at least sympathetic to murder. This was evident in the assassination of Harvey Milk (the first open homosexual on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors); the AIDS epidemic of the early 1980s, when homosexual activists turned a deadly disease spread primarily by homosexual behavior into a civil rights issue; and the Matthew Shepard murder, when two nonreligious thugs shamefully and brutally killed a young homosexual man by hanging him on a fence to die. In this last instance, homosexual activists went on the Today show and immediately blamed the murder on conservative Christian organizations such as Focus on the Family.10 Dr. Dobson, the president of Focus on the Family, holds sincere religious objections to homosexual behavior but denounces violence of any kind. Instead, it was two thugs with no consciences at all who murdered Shepard. It is likely that if these two individuals had a strong relationship with Jesus Christ, Shepard would still be alive today.

Perhaps the most vicious diatribe came from Deborah Mathis who wrote in the Orlando Sentinel:

The opponents [of homosexual behavior] prefer not to acknowledge their own bigotry. Hence, the disguise—or self-delusion—of noble purpose. They insist that they mean no harm. ‘Hate the sin, love the sinner’ is their mantra. How tiresome. How empty. But a handy little motto it is, for sure. Thanks to it, homophobes the world over don’t have to reconcile their hate that writhes in their hearts with the Christianity that rests on their sleeves. Chant it enough times, and you can feel almost sanctified. . . . Did the anti-homosexual crowd help kill Matthew Shepherd? Nor per se. But it poisoned the air, which poisoned the minds which connived to attract, deceive, and destroy a young man who deserved, in the least, to be left alone. They share in the complicity.11*

Mathis also adds that conservative Christians are like Adolf Hitler, who exterminated 6 million Jews. Perhaps she has forgotten the brave actions of Christians such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Titus Brandsma, and Corrie ten Boom, who stood up to Hitler and his tragic slaughter of millions. However, her column is a vivid example of how far the homosexual activists and their allies are willing to go to demonize people of faith.

“Give Homosexual Protectors a ‘Just’ Cause”

This strategy ties naturally into the almost natural inclination of people on the left side of the political spectrum to embrace any group that they become convinced has been “wronged” in the past. While there have been groups with legitimate grievances (e.g., African-Americans), radical homosexual activists have tried to piggyback on these legitimate efforts to right past wrongs to move the ball forward for their agenda. They have accomplished this through the manipulation of statistics on teen suicide, the creation of a Christian boogeyman in the Matthew Shepard tragedy, and so forth. The result is that individuals motivated by social justice issues, including some evangelicals, have felt that they need to protect practicing homosexuals from a so-called hostile society. Another natural market for radical homosexual activists to tap in this area is Hollywood (see chap. 2 and the previous discussion in this chapter) with its liberal sensitivities and large homosexual community. Kirk and Madsen wrote, “A media campaign that casts gays as society’s victims and encourages straights to be their protectors must make it easier for those who respond to assert and explain their new perspectives.”12

Just as Hollywood did much in the late 1930s to early 1940s (back when it was in more conservative hands) to convince Americans of the need to become involved in World War II, and then later in the 1960s to help support the civil rights and antiwar movements, it has adopted homosexual behavior as one of its latest cause. Therefore, as we will see later, homosexuals are almost always innocent—the hero who needs protection in films, television, etc.—while those who oppose them are either boorish or religious fanatics.

“Make Gays Look Good”_and “Make the Victimizers Look Bad” This manifests itself in many ways: from rewriting history to convince people that many famous individuals were homosexual to the sympathetic portrayal of homosexuals in the media. The other part of this strategy, according to Kirk and Madsen, is to “make the victimizers look bad.” Kirk and Madsen wrote, “We intend to make the antigays look so nasty that average Americans will want to dis-associate themselves from such types.”13

Unfortunately, some individuals have played right into the hands of radical homosexual activists in helping them bludgeon the Christian community on the homosexual issue. In the introduction, we mentioned Fred Phelps and his followers who go around the country with signs that read “God Hates Fags,” picket funerals of AIDS victims, and host a website showing homosexuals being thrown into the fire of hell. Others have used less than ideal discernment in discussing the homosexual issue in the media. By not practicing Christ-like speech, sincere Christians have often been their own worst enemy in assisting radical homosexual activists move their agenda forward, especially when they are looking for the absolutely worst-case examples to prop up as representatives of orthodox and evangelical, Bible-believing Christians. This is why the behavior of people of faith must always be above reproach. When Christians speak out against homosexual behavior with unconfessed sins in our own closets, we only validate the mind-set that Christians are hypocrites who cannot remove the planks in our own eyes.* When believers use less than Christ-like speech, we give credence to arguments of homosexual activists that we are less than compassionate, to put it nicely. None of this means that people of faith should avoid the truth, even unpleasant truth, but we must speak the truth in love.*

Anyone who has followed the agenda of the radical homosexual activists for the past ten to fifteen years can see how they have been successful in virtually every area mentioned by Kirk and Madsen. In subsequent chapters in this book, we will describe how each area of this agenda has been implemented in the media, in public schools, the church, and every other aspect of contemporary American life.

In addition, despite the claims that “we are everywhere,” a recent survey of the 2000 census data found that more than one-quarter of same-sex households were concentrated in five urban areas (listed with the percentage of residents who state they are homosexual): New York City: 8.9%, Los Angeles: 6.6%, San_Francisco: 4.9%, Washington, D.C.: 3.3%, and Chicago: 3.1%.14†

“Solicit Funds: The Buck Stops Here”

The other method used by homosexual activists is to falsely accuse the other side of having billions of dollars in resources while they are struggling to put food on the table. Nothing could be further from the truth. Homosexual activist groups are backed by millions of dollars, including generous grants from numerous corporations.‡ This ties into their final strategy: “Solicit funds: the buck stops here.”

An example of how homosexual activists use money to advance their agenda is illustrated through the work of the Gill Foundation, which has $255 million in assets, in Colorado.15 Started by Quark software founder Tim Gill (an open homosexual) in response to the state’s passage of Amendment 2, which would have barred special rights and privileges for homosexual behavior, the foundation alone has poured at least $800,000 into the Colorado Springs area, home of several conservative religious organizations, including Focus on the Family.16

The Gill Foundation has provided an additional $3.4 million in grants to promote the homosexual agenda through its subsidiary, the Gay and Lesbian Fund for Colorado, to groups such as the Easter Seals, the American Lung Association, the Urban League, and the Girl Scouts. The money comes with strings, however. Each organization that accepts a Gill Foundation grant must agree to add homosexual behavior to its antidiscrimination policies and publicly credit the fund in its materials. More than $9 million of the foundation’s money has gone directly to groups such as the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, which lobbies for same-sex marriage.17 In 2001, the foundation gave $18.5 million in donations to homosexual organizations and causes.18 Will Perkins, who helped spearhead Amendment 2, says, “What the Gill Foundation is attempting to do—and they’re quite successful at it—is to buy legitimacy for the homosexual lifestyle. They’ve put a lot of money in the Springs area, and part of the deal is to neutralize public opinion on homosexual behavior, and it’s been working.”19

The result has been that in Colorado Springs now a majority of its city council members are sympathetic to homosexual behavior, going so far as to proclaim a gay pride week in a city that is home to headquarters or regional offices for more than seventy-two Christian ministries.20 In November 2002, the Colorado Springs City Council voted to grant same-sex partners tax-funded health-care benefits. The transformation from “ground zero” of “hate” (as radical homosexual activists called it after the passage of Amendment 2) to funding the homosexual agenda was complete. And, with the exception of Focus on the Family, the response from the other 70+ Christian ministries in town was deafeningly silent.21

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has wholeheartedly embraced the homosexual agenda and appointed as its new executive director in 2001 Anthony Romero, who is an openly homosexual person with a record of activism.22 The ACLU boasts of 300,000 members and more than 2,000 volunteer and 60 staff attorneys.23 Its various components have a $45 million budget, a $41 million endowment fund,24 which includes a $7 million grant from the Ford Foundation,25 and three hundred chapters nationwide.26 The Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, which advocates same-sex marriage and has been the leader in the attack against the Boy Scouts (see chap. 8) for its policy regarding homosexual scoutmasters, boasts of corporate support from IBM and United Airlines.27 The Human Rights Campaign, which actively lobbies for and provides direct financial support to political candidates sympathetic to the homosexual agenda, lists American Airlines and Subaru as corporate sponsors.28 The Gill Foundation reports that donations to gay and lesbian groups have grown to $100 million.29 The budget of the Human Rights Campaign has more than tripled in six short years.30 David Bohnott, a venture capitalist who developed the GeoCities website, gave about $2 million to the Human Rights Campaign,31 and Karen Levinson, founder of E-Trade, has donated $500,000 to prohomosexual groups.32

Meanwhile, many Christian organizations are finding themselves in a time of financial retrenchment, and the one organization in the state of Arizona lobbying for family values finds itself always scrambling to find the cash just to keep the doors open. While homosexual activists say they are not the aggressive challengers, the fact is that they are the aggressive, well-financed challengers.

Eric Pollard, the founder of ACT-UP (a militant homosexual group) openly admitted that lying was part of the strategy of homosexual activists. He even said that Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf was the model used for their strategy.33 It is a strategy of lies and intimidation. Consider the following excerpts from Hitler’s work:

[T]he magnitude of a lie always contains a certain factor of credibility, since the great masses of the people in the very bottom of their hearts tend to be corrupted rather than consciously and purposely evil, and that, therefore, in view of the primitive simplicity of their minds, they more easily fall a victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big. . . .34

[S]omething of even the most insolent lie will always remain and stick—a fact which all the great lie-virtuosi and lying-clubs in this world know only too well and also make the most treacherous use of. . . .35

[B]y clever and persevering use of propaganda even heaven can be represented as hell to the people, and conversely the most wretched life as paradise.36

When you read these quotations, coupled with the strategy outlined by Kirk, Madsen, and others to transform American culture to accept homosexual behavior and condemn those who hold sincere religious objections to such behavior, it might be said that activists have followed a strategy akin to what Hitler used back in the 1920s and 1930s to take over Germany. In fact, Kirk and Madsen, in the book After the Ball, which fleshed out the strategy discussed in “The Overhauling of Straight America,” said regarding advertisements that would place homosexuals in a positive light: “It makes no difference that the ads [portraying homosexuals as icons of normality] are lies, not to us . . . not to bigots.”37

Much of the homosexual agenda has been based on deception. For example, while several studies throughout the past ten years have placed the percentage of homosexuals at no higher than 1 to 2 percent, homosexual groups and their allies continue to cite the now-discredited figure of 10 percent when it comes to estimating the percentage of homosexuals in America. Yet, despite research to the contrary, homosexual activists continue to push the 10 percent figure, or even greater numbers, and government entities and the media seldom, if ever, question the inaccuracy of the puffed-up statistic.

Kirk and Madsen also added that they knew that they would have to wage a war of propaganda, just as Hitler did so masterfully in Nazi Germany, to get the American public on their side. Here is a direct quote from After the Ball: “We have in mind a strategy as calculated and powerful as that which gays are accused of pursuing by their enemies—or, if you prefer, a plan as manipulative as that which our enemies themselves employ. It’s time to learn from Madison Avenue, to roll out the big guns. Gays must launch a large-scale campaign—we’ve called it the Waging Peace campaign—to reach straights through the mainstream media. WE’RE TALKING ABOUT PROPAGANDA”38 [emphasis added].

Kirk and Madsen continue: “Even when it sticks to the facts, propaganda can be unabashedly subjective and one-sided. There is nothing necessarily wrong with this. Propaganda tells its own side of the story as moving (and credibly) as possible, since it can count on its enemies to tell the other side with a vengeance [another reminder to us about using Christ-like speech to help our credibility]. In its battle for hearts and minds, effective propaganda knows enough to put its best foot forward. This is what our media campaign must do.”39

In the chapters following, we will see how the homosexual activists have successfully implemented Kirk and Madsen’s propaganda campaign in the media, the public schools, the medical profession, corporate America, the workplace, and most of all, the church. In fact, the activists have followed this plan to the letter. They have achieved the goals they set out in the late eighties through careful coordination and relentless effort. As a result, the very future of our nation is at risk if the homosexual agenda continues to advance unchecked.