JCPenney is making headlines with a new ad featuring a same-sex couple. The Father’s Day commercial shows real-life fathers Cooper Smith and Todd Koch playing with their children. In February, the company chose Ellen DeGeneres as their spokesperson. In response to the outcry that ensued, that same month it distributed a Mother’s Day ad featuring two lesbian parents and their daughters.
Meanwhile, Target Corp. is selling T-shirts on its website to raise money for the Family Equality Council, a group working to defeat a gay marriage ban in Minnesota. The company states, “Target is pleased to be able to bring our guests products they want while, in turn, helping support the LGBT community.” The statement also notes Target’s long-standing support of the gay community.
What is behind this shift from tolerance of gays to promotion of homosexuality?
Advocates see gay marriage as a civil right and want homosexuals to become a protected minority. Negative statements regarding homosexuality would then be considered homophobic and perhaps illegal, in a category with anti-Semitism and racial prejudice. To accomplish these goals, they are working to desensitize our society by portraying homosexuals as positively as possible. They often depict gay people as victims and are influencing young people through media, changes in sex education, and redefinitions of parenting and family. And they are seeking legal changes such as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, a proposed bill that would prohibit discrimination in hiring and employment on the basis of sexual orientation.
Is such an agenda clearly at work in our nation today? What would Jesus say about it?
He clearly loved all people, whatever their failures or mistakes. But he also invited them to change behavior that was harmful. As I have written in past articles, homosexual activity, as with all sex outside of marriage, is unbiblical and wrong. While it is not the unpardonable sin, and gay people should be treated with respect, their unbiblical lifestyle should not be promoted or embraced.
What can those of us who disagree with the gay agenda do? First and foremost, we can pray for a moral and spiritual awakening in our nation. This is the ultimate answer to the ethical decline of our day. Second, we can voice our concerns to retailers, political leaders, and others, all the while “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). Third, we can model biblical morality in our personal lives. Scripture encourages us to “become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life” (Philippians 2:15-16).
God loves us enough to meet us where we are, but he loves us too much to leave us there. How is that fact relevant to your life today?
Search
