Paul Cameron’s Family Research Institute is upset that Marvin Olasky of the Religious Right-aligned WORLD magazine dared to criticize Uganda’s draconian anti-gay bill, which recently passed parliament but has been blocked by the president, at least for now.
In a response on its website, Cameron’s group took issue with Olasky’s claim that the bill is “harsh and unlikely to be effective,” saying that harsh measures are needed to curb homosexuality…just like murder:
Laws against murder are harsh and unlikely to be effective (in completely stopping murder). But such laws educate as to what is ‘correct’ and serve as a disincentive to commit murder. Just because we cannot specify how many lives were saved by a particular law hardly means the law was ineffective. Surely the fact that people still commit murder, rape, or theft would not cause Dr. Olasky to label them as “ineffective” and not worth having.
The FRI said that gay people must be treated as lawbreakers as there is no difference between them and pedophiles.
“Dislike of homosexuality, general avoidance of those who practice it, and trying to keep our kids safe from gay predators are hardly ‘problems’ for Christians,” the group added. “How do we show ‘godly love and kindness toward active child molesters?’”
Cameron’s organization capped off its defense of the Uganda bill with this anti-gay rant:
Homosexual practitioners may get pleasure from indulging their sexual desires, but that is far outweighed by diseases leading to a shortened lifespan combined with interpersonal violence, instability, and a life of destructive meaninglessness. Additionally, they are a burden to us all in that they 1) consume more than they contribute, 2) disproportionately disturb social order, and 3) produce few children themselves while molesting the kids of others.
Homosexuality violates God’s first commandment to ‘be fruitful,’ and is at the very heart of Biblical denunciation of rebellion against God (see Deut 32 and Romans 1). Homosexual lust led to the painful incineration of 26 brave Ugandan Christian boys and young men. It cannot be ignored without substantial intellectual and moral peril. Arguably Christianity’s greatest preacher, John Chrysostom, called it the worst sin, worse even than murder. While every sin in Scripture is not to be carried into public law, if this sin is not, what would Olasky nominate and how would he justify it?
