Yesterday, I posted on the Don Imus controversy and his crude comments about the Rutgers women’s basketball team – comments that, BTW, ended up getting him fired from his MSNBC gig today. Next to controversies involving race and racial stereotypes, most people, I suppose, would probably agree that comments that either poke fun at or criticize someone’s sexual orientation are next on the lightning rod scale. (Something Ann Coulter discovered several weeks ago.)

You’ve got to hand it to all the gay and lesbian activist groups out there: with the help of the sexual revolution, Hollywood, and their liberal consorts in the mainstream dino-media, they’ve been able to successfully steer the national conversation about homosexuality away from morality and individual behavior to tolerance and victimization, to the effect that anything anyone says about homosexuality as practiced behavior in any kind of negative fashion immediately gets you tarred as a homophobe.

The same is true in the Episcopal Church and other mainline Protestant churches, where activist groups have been able to steer any kind of conversation about homosexuality and homosexual behavior away from morality and the teachings of Holy Scripture and towards the need for tolerance and “full inclusion” (their words) in the Church. What does this mean? It means that baptism – a sacrament open to all desiring a discipleship with Jesus Christ with no restriction when it comes to sexual orientation – is no longer good enough. Instead, gays and lesbians (and that means all gays and lesbians, regardless of their personal behaviors and lifestyle choices) must be give full access to all the sacraments of the Church – including ordination and marriage – regardless of the fact that these sacraments in partcular have always taken into account certain aspects of a person’s character and their individual lifestyle choices.

How successful have gay and lesbian activist groups like Integrity been in shifting the dialogue in the Episcopal Church? So successful that the head of the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams, says that the churches of the Anglican Communion must be “safe places” for gay and lesbian people – as if in some unheard of way (at least to my ears) these churches have been places of danger, peril, or persection for gays and lesbians. In fact, Dr. Williams’ comments are both laughable and absurd on their face, as no group in today’s Western Anglican Churches have been kow-towed to so much as gays and lesbians. In fact, the sad truth is, as David Virtue so eloquently points out, it’s not gays and lesbians that need safe places in today’s Episcopal Church, it’s the poor saps who still believe in such archaic notions as the teachings of Holy Scripture, personal morality, and the holiness of the Church’s sacraments:

In 300 years of American Episcopal Church history, there has never been a single sign outside an Episcopal Church in the U.S. reading; “Gays not Welcome…go join the Metropolitan Community Church.” You never will see one. When an Episcopal Church announces it is an “inclusive” or “rainbow church,” what it is actually saying is that this parish will tolerate non-celibate homosexual relationships which is contrary to Holy Scripture, The Prayer Book, tradition and history. If a parish does not wave the flag of inclusivity, it is automatically assumed to be filled with bigots, hate-mongers, homophobes and fundamentalists. This is an outrageous lie.

Just look at what is happening in the Diocese of Colorado. A highly successful evangelical rector, with seventeen years of experience, at a church of 2,500 who has preached a clear unequivocal gospel all those years, was given an eviction notice by his bishop on grounds so thin you could skip communion wafers across a baptismal font. The Bishop, Robert O’Neill, has no more ability to build a church of that size with his “gospel” of inclusion than [controversial liberal theologian John Shelby] Spong could build a diocese. In point of fact, [Spong’s former] Diocese of Newark is falling apart so fast, and parish-giving declining so rapidly, it cannot pay its assessment to the national church!

Now, Virtue has heard his share of “homphobe” accusations in the past, and while even he would likely admit his verbiage often borders on the controversial and flammable, he remains both defiant and committed, knowing there’s more than a grain of truth in what he says.

The Ace over at Polipundit blog also isn’t afraid of the slings and arrows, and has posted a well-written and thoughtful post on homosexuality from a conservative’s perspective. While I can’t say I agree with everything he has written 100% (though it’s pretty close), I think anytime you can take the emotion out of it, avoid personal attacks, and look at such a politically divisive issue from a variety of perspectives as The Ace does, it’s worthy of consideration and debate. Regardless of what side of the fence you might be on (pun intended), it’s well worth checking out.