"It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favors." —George Washington (1789) 
This column is something of an outlier, and I suspect it will in some part offend a small number of readers for reasons that will become apparent. This week, as we prepare to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ, it is a fitting time to raise these issues. Over the last 30 years, I've had a front-row seat to the institutional invasion and damage done by the so-called "LGBT(ad nauseam)" cadres of gender-challenged individuals. The militant heterophobic advocacy for homosexual orthodoxy by their group leaders, endeavoring to normalize gender confusion across the social and cultural spectrum, enables the denial of their own pathology. This gender diffusion effort constitutes the most consequential organized assault on family and faith in our history. While I would argue that divorce and out-of-wedlock births — broken families and generations of fatherless children — are at the root of the cultural and social entropy that plagues our nation, that societal dissolution is being accelerated by the "gay agenda." That gender dysphoric agenda takes the form of absurd manifestations, like the idea that males can compete as females because they are "transgendered." That is gender appropriation. There is no such thing as transitioning gender — you will forever be the sex you were at the time of conception. To suggest otherwise is to deny the science. This frontal assault is not led so much by the spectrum of gender-confused individuals, who represent in all forms only 5.6% of the population. They are just political fodder for a crass and calculated assault by Democrat Party politicos. Demos know that faith and family are the foundational pillars of American Liberty, and Liberty is the antithesis of the statist power the Left seeks. The foundational assertion that Liberty is "endowed by our Creator" rather than awarded by the state is antithetical to the ideological Left's assertion that it should be the licensing arbiter of all freedoms and the ultimate decider of how those freedoms will be "equitably" distributed. When it comes to support for the homosexual agenda, Democrat Party strategists believe female voters are emotionally incontinent dupes and are thus too irrational to discern and reject emotive political bait. And a majority of women have proven those strategists correct, demonstrating themselves to be the most dependable and easily swayed of the collective constituencies that Demos fire up ahead of general elections. Thus, promoting the homosexual agenda, much as the abortion agenda, attracts female voters. Women majorities have elected every Democrat president since 1960, and they've been a major force in midterm elections. On average, women have voted for Democrat presidents by a margin exceeding eight percentage points since 1980. In his surprise 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump won 52% of votes cast by men but only 41% of those cast by women. That's the largest gender gap on record in the 40-year history of tracking such votes. In the 2020 election, Joe Biden received 57% of the female vote, and the expected outcome is that homosexuals will gain influence. According to The Washington Post, had the "gender agenda" voters not rallied for Democrats in 2020, Trump would have won. Democrats in the House have passed the so-called "Equality Act," and if it passes the Senate — avoids a filibuster — it will codify this leftist agenda and allow it to be used as a club against those family and faith institutions that don't comport with its orthodoxy. Of course, "equality" is not the Left's underlying motive, any more than "diversity." Demos want to keep all their identity constituencies divided up by special interests or innate attributes — and to do so they endeavor to make those interests and attributes more visible, not less. That being said, the homosexual agenda has become so loud and ubiquitous that most adults believe one in four Americans are LGBT — five times the actual percentage. According to public opinion analysts, women comprise a majority of those who believe those numbers are so much higher — and thus, they must be accommodated by everyone. The political agendas notwithstanding, there are three fronts where I have witnessed firsthand, up close and personal, how invasive and destructive that agenda has been. First, the Episcopal Church of the United States of America (ECUSA). 
I am a fifth-generation Episcopalian, who, as a young adult, served as a vestry member and in other leadership roles for the governing body of our church. ECUSA is the American franchise of the World Anglican Communion, the latter of which has about 90 million members and has largely held to its Biblical foundation. The Episcopal Church broke from the Anglican Church of England in 1785, after the American Revolution. It is the wealthiest protestant denomination with the wealthiest congregants. But as I have have written previously, wealth and faith too often mix like oil and water. The Episcopal Church was the home church of George Washington, and it endured for 200 years since our nation's founding, until the 2003 ordination of an avowed homosexual bishop shook the scriptural foundation of the church to rubble. That year, the "enlightened" U.S. bishops rebuffed the World Anglican Communion and codified their rejection of Scriptural authority by ordaining Vicky Gene Robinson, a divorced father of two who resided with his homosexual partner, as Bishop of New Hampshire. As such, it became the first mainline protestant denomination to fully embrace and enforce the homosexual agenda. Eight years before that apostate ordination, I was invited to leave the Episcopal Church because of my (apparently effective) vocal opposition to the homosexual agenda's erosion of the foundational tenets of the church. At the time, ECUSA had 3.5 million members. It now has 1.8 million members, and many of those remaining no longer attend church. Just this week, William Love, former bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany, has announced he is leaving the church after being chastised for not allowing homosexual marriage in his diocese. On his way to the Anglican Church in North America, Love said, "As a cradle Episcopalian (with nearly 30 years of ordained ministry as a deacon, priest and bishop), that was not an easy decision, but given all that has transpired these past couple of years and the constraints placed upon me as a theologically conservative and orthodox bishop ... I believe it is the right decision." As for those who perform such "marriages," the fact is that most people drawn to church leadership are big-hearted and at risk of being swallowed up by leftist agendas and a generalized belief that they're doing the right thing. A recent case in point would be those in the church who have consumed the BLM Kool-Aid and believe the nation is consumed with "systemic racism." The effluent of Episcopal "wokeness" is manifest in big and little ways nationwide. Such was the case earlier this month when a prominent, elitist Manhattan Episcopal school published a guide for avoiding offensive language — like "mom" and "dad." For a mere $57,000, your child can be indoctrinated too! In 1995, because my battle within the church was not my family's battle, we moved to a church where Biblical authority is still foundational, but I remain active in the promotion of the World Anglican Communion's American church plants. About 200,000 "displaced" Episcopalians have moved to Anglican churches. Second, Bethany Christian Services (BCS). 
For a decade, I served as board chairman for Tennessee's largest adoption agency, Bethany Christian Services. There were many battles to be fought on behalf of successful adoptions, and I knew that we would eventually be forced to deal with the issue of adoption by homosexuals. Earlier this year, in order to retain its licensing in states where homosexual adoption was permitted, BCS changed its policy to allow such adoptions. My former BCS colleague David Fowler, who now heads an influential family and faith policy organization, offered this observation: "When I was on the board of BCS Tennessee, we struggled with some of the decisions and priorities coming out of the parent organization in Michigan. Bethany purports to be a Christian organization, not just an adoption agency, but it has lost its belief in the goodness and glory of God manifested in creating us male and female and their union as the means by which the creation was to be further filled and formed by their offspring. To say that the love of children can be divorced from God's creational design for the family is not a holy love and puts something, no matter how good and loving it sounds, above the glory of God Himself as creator and the call of Christians to bear witness to the glory of God manifested in the way He created." To the broader point of populist agendas eroding the foundation of the Christian Church, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler offered this warning to Christian organizations: "The story of Bethany Christian Services is a tale of the head-on collision between sexual revolutionaries and Christian organizations and ministries who resist the new moral orthodoxy of modernity. ... Language matters, and the word 'parents' has meant for nearly all human history something that is now deliberately confused and subverted. The moral chaos of the sexual revolution has shifted the entire way we think about the family. ... The attempt to redefine what it means to be a parent, a mother, a father, and a family is an attempt to redefine civilization. It's just that ambitious. It's also happening before our eyes. Bethany Christian Services has now surrendered to the sexual revolution and the attempts to reshape the family into new form that violates God's good design. ... There is reason to believe that the Supreme Court will rule in favor the Christian charities and adoption agencies in the city, but BCS went ahead and changed their policies. In other words, Bethany Christian Services surrendered even before the battle began. ... Bethany Christian Services buckled under the pressure. Try as they may to walk the tightrope, there is no middle ground between the moral revolution and biblical orthodoxy. Christians must understand this: Pressure is mounting on all fronts and it will confront every single Christian institution, school, congregation, denomination, and ministry. Period." Mohler added: "The moral revolutionaries will come with rhetoric designed to lead your institutions into full retreat and surrender. They will tell you: 'Think about how many more students your school will be able to teach if you adopt our policies on gender and sexuality.' They will coerce you with, 'We will not partner with your ministry if you continue to hold these convictions — so, in the name of serving others, just abandon your beliefs about homosexuality and transgenderism.' We can understand this argument and the realities of this kind of pressure. This pressure, however, is a recipe for the absolute dissolution of Christianity in the United States. It is an attempt to erase our witness not only in the public square, but even within the confines of our own ministries." Finally, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). 
I have been a BSA leader for two decades. I'm the father of two Eagle Scouts, and I still serve on an Executive Council in a conservative part of the country. In 2013, with the prospect of the national BSA board allowing homosexuals to serve as scout leaders for young boys, I wrote "The Boy Scouts' 'Gay Pride' Merit Badge," condemning that decision and expressing the frustration that most Scout leaders experienced. Common sense, which is sometimes rare in boardroom vacuums, dictates that sexual predators flock to where their prey are. It was becoming apparent that, much as was the case in the Catholic Church, there were homosexual pedophiles who had assaulted young boys, and there would be a legal reckoning for that sexual predation. Notably, about 4% of Catholic clerics had credible or substantiated accusations of child sexual abuse of minors during the last half of the 20th century. What may surprise you is that current studies conclude 5% of public school teachers have had credible or substantiated claims of sexual abuse of minor children under their charge, and that sexual violence in schools is increasing significantly. As a consequence of predatory sexual abuse claims against Scout leaders over the last 50 years, the national BSA organization declared bankruptcy recently, which will be a never-ending legal cycle unless and until the national BSA corrects its moral bankruptcy. The lesson with the BSA is that for organizations that want to raise a lot of money, and thus put wealthy corporate types on their boards, that has proven to be a Faustian bargain. The common denominators in each of these cases are homosexual predators and the homosexual agenda. In each case, it was the national organizations that dictated to the local organizations that they would have to bow to that agenda. In the end, there will eventually be interesting sociological studies to determine the fallout when the children affected by these decisions become adults. If you're interested in further reading, I recommend this comprehensive analysis, "Gender Disorientation — A Faithful Response to the 'LGBT?' Agenda," which also addresses the fact that gender devolution has become fodder for the most absurd manifestation of identity politics. Fellow Patriots: Tomorrow we officially launch our annual Patriots' Day Campaign that funds our daily operations into the summer. As you know, our organization is entirely sustained by American Patriots like you. If you're able, please consider supporting our 2021 Patriots' Day Campaign today to help ensure that our defense of Liberty remains strong in the coming months. Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776
Please join us in prayer for our nation's Military Patriots standing in harm's way in defense of Liberty, for their families, and for our nation's First Responders. We also ask prayer for your Patriot team, and our mission to, first and foremost, support and defend our Republic's Founding Principles of Liberty, and to ignite the fires of freedom in the hearts and minds of our countrymen. | 
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