Dishonesty in Decorah

There was a time when eyebrows would be raised by news of the 14 year-old daughter of a religion professor being openly bi-sexual. Not any more.

Eyebrows are now raised by Texas Gov. Rick Perry invoking two thousand years of Christian ethical thinking and the plain and consistent teachings of both testaments that homosexual behavior is sinful.

Perry was confronted by Rebekah Green of Decorah, Iowa the other day over his opposition to gays serving openly in the military. I do not share Gov. Perry's postion on the issue, and it needs to be admitted that he expressed himself badly in responding to Ms. Green. “Here’s my issue., said Perry."This is about my faith, and I happen to think, you know, there are a whole hosts of sins. Homosexuality being one of them, and I’m a sinner and so I’m not going to be the first one to throw a stone.”

Hopefully Perry mispoke. In fact, nobody but an utter yahoo would suggest that homosexuality- as an orientation- is a sin. People who pay attention to the evidence are clear on the point that we do not choose our sexual orientation. While it is clearly not genetic, as some on the cultural Left try hard to argue- half of the identical twins of gay men, who have an identical genetic inheritance, are straight- it is clear that both pre-natal and post-natal influences beyond the control of the individual determine sexual orientation

But homosexual behavior is a different matter. Though social liberals have striven mightily- and mostly successfully- to confuse the issue, it is homosexual behavior rather than the condition of being homosexually oriented that Scripture and that considerable portion of Christianity which still considers itself bound by it regards as sinful.

Mr. Green's denomination- and that of her father, Luther College religion professor Todd Green- is not part of that portion of Christianity. The zeitgeist-worshipping Evangelical Lutheran Church in America officially abandoned biblical sexual ethics a couple of years ago.

Ms. Green herself accused Perry of trying to tell people "whom they can love." But love, of course, is not the issue.

Sex is. And Perry has concerns- which again, I do not happen to share- that having serving members who are openly homosexual might prove problematic to our military. Apparently most soldiers, sailors and Marines disagree with him.

I, too,  think he's wrong. But it's a reasonable question to ask. And neither Ms. Green nor her father nor the media ought to demonize him for asking it.

But they should be more honest about what the real issue is in the debate over the public acceptance of homosexuality. It's not orientation. It's behavior. And it's long past due time for the cultural Left to stop trying to disingenuously make an ethical issue into a matter of discrimination.

But now comes the real outrage. Says Prof. Green, "It takes no courage to come out of the closet to be a Christian and run for president of the United States. I’d be more impressed if you were Muslim or an atheist and coming out like that, but to come out as though this was an act of courage for him to proclaim his Christian faith, but he also wants to take the stand against gays in the military. "

Actually, it takes considerable courage in this day and age for anyone to "come out of the closet" and confess that he's a Christian who believes what the Bible and the apostolic Christian faith have to say about homosexual behavior, whether he's running for president or not . As one who advocated that position in the ELCA for years, I would humbly suggest that Prof. Green knows it, too.

Nobody who held the biblical position would be allowed to teach religion at Luther College.