Baptist Leader Perceives 'Rolling Crescendo' in Support of Traditional Marriage

by Bill Fancher and Jody Brown
November 10, 2003

(AgapePress) - A leader in the Southern Baptist Convention says the effort by homosexual activists to re-define marriage to include same-sex "unions" is the key issue in America's culture war.

Homosexual activism is hard at work on many cultural fronts in America -- the movement's persistent influence is obvious in the areas of education, commerce, entertainment, and even religion. At the heart of the homosexual agenda, though, are concerted efforts in several states to re-define marriage to include same-sex "marriages" -- sometimes referred to as "civil unions."

But opposition to those efforts to undermine the traditional concept of marriage is also growing stronger. Just last week, for example, a superior court judge threw out a lawsuit aimed at establishing same-sex marriages. And Wisconsin's legislature decided to make their state the 38th in the nation to pass a Defense of Marriage Act.

Dr. Richard Land

Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, says people are realizing there is more to the issue than just a marriage license. "It is the poster issue for the tremendous struggle that is going on in our society between those who believe in a Judeo-Christian basis for our culture and those who believe in a neo-pagan relativist base for our culture," the Baptist leader says.

Land says no issue he has ever seen has mustered so much enthusiasm among the pro-family movement as this effort to protect the traditional, biblical view of marriage. "This is an issue that has roused the grassroots. This will be a rolling crescendo," he says. "Politicians who don't know the radioactive nature of this issue now will by November of 2004."

But confusion still remains in the nation's courts about how to deal with legal matters involving homosexuality. A case in point is a decision handed down last week in a divorce case in New Hampshire in which a husband had accused his wife of adultery after she had a sexual relationship with another woman.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled 3-2 in agreeing with the accused wife who had argued that homosexual sex does not qualify as adultery under the state's divorce law -- because, by definition, adultery requires sexual intercourse. Therefore, according to the ruling, the wife is not guilty of adultery and cannot be considered at fault in the break-up of the marriage.