Pro-Family Leaders Predict New Year Will Be Crucial In Culture War

by Bill Fancher, Fred Jackson, and Allie Martin
January 2, 2004

(AgapePress) - As battle lines continue to be drawn over issues such as the definition of marriage and the public acknowledgement of God, family values advocates are saying 2004 could be a pivotal year in the culture war.

Steve Crampton, an attorney with the American Family Association Center for Law and Policy, says issues such as the legalization of same-sex marriage and the constitutionality of public displays of the Ten Commandments and the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance could be decided in the legal arena this year.

"The day is not far off, if the present onslaught continues -- especially on the same-sex prong of the attack -- that we will be prohibited from even preaching certain portions of the Bible," the attorney says. "We sometimes like to think it will never reach us, but what we have seen over the past year or two is a constant aggression by extremists on the other side that are not content to allow us to even preach the gospel."

Crampton contends that the Church's past silence has enabled liberal activists to push their agenda on society. He feels it is more important than ever for Christians to be vocal on such issues. "If we want to see the gospel remain free," he says, "it is up to us to take our stand, much as our forefathers did many years ago, for freedom."

Meanwhile, Bob Knight of the Culture and Family Institute says the coming year will be particularly crucial to the marriage debate, especially as U.S. politicians begin campaigning in earnest. He expects homosexual marriage to be a major election issue that will raise the stakes very high.

"To the extent that politicians rush to defend marriage they will do well at the only poll that matters -- the ballot box," Knight says. "Those who equivocate on it, who don't have a clear voice, who actually promote homosexuality, are going to find out that is not a popular position with the American people."

Knight says he hopes to see Americans rallying behind the institution of marriage in 2004, and beyond that, he hopes pro-family forces will start pushing back homosexual activism.

But as skirmishes are fought in America's courtrooms and on the political scene, the culture war over homosexuality is moving on to a new front -- the workplace. Christianity Today reports an increasing trend among companies to force their workers not only to tolerate homosexual behavior, but also to respect and even promote it.

The Rutherford Institute is a religious liberty organization representing a number of employees who are facing such challenges. In one case, AT&T Broadband workers were ordered to sign a document that declared that all employees must fully recognize, respect, and value the differences -- including differences in sexual orientation -- among their fellow workers.

But one employee, 47-year-old Albert Buonanno of Denver, told his supervisor in a letter that he would neither harass nor discriminate against homosexuals, but that he could not sign the document because it contradicted the Bible. Buonanno was fired the following day.

Rutherford Institute is representing Buonanno and a number of other workers who lost their jobs for refusing to condone employment policies they found biblically immoral. Rutherford Institute founder John Whitehead says these types of cases represent the most frightening thing he has seen in 30 years of legal practice.

Whitehead agrees that Christians should not engage in discrimination but, he contends, neither should they be forced to deny their faith. He believes Buonanno's suit, which is slated to go to trial in February, will prove to be a test case.

The Institute's founder told Christianity Today such legal battles are "really important because certain people are being told they can't have free speech anymore."

But while a growing number of Christians find themselves forced to defend their right to proclaim their biblical beliefs, one Louisiana minister says believers need to be on the offensive.

Gregory Pembo is pastor of the Vieux Carre Assembly of God Church, one block away from the infamous Bourbon Street district in New Orleans. Pembo is known for leading members of his congregation in witnessing efforts during homosexual pride marches and Mardi Gras festivities.

The New Orleans clergyman says America's founding fathers would not have tolerated what is happening in the U.S. today. He says wicked, liberal forces are "seeking to sanitize our nation of any mention of Jesus Christ. They're sanitizing the nation of his standard of morality, and it's time for the Church to buck up and go out to the fight and fight."

Pembo believes many of the so-called Christian politicians are a big part of society's problem. "Some are good, aggressive, stand up statesmen," he concedes but says, "Others, I believe are sissies. I think they compromise. I think they're afraid to get in a fight."

Pastor Pembo, who recently led a live Nativity scene presentation outside the offices of the New Orleans American Civil Liberties Union, says it is time for individual believers to stop hiding the light of Christ and start engaging the opposition in the culture war.