Despite having won a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2000 upholding its constitutional right to discriminate against homosexuals as scout leaders, the Boy Scouts of America is today just inches away from crying “uncle” and caving in to “gay” pressure.
What is the secret weapon that has all but demolished the BSA’s defenses? Sexual Orientation Regulations (SORs), specifically the sexual orientation anti-discrimination policies of the Boy Scouts largest corporate donors. Homosexual agitators are trying to force these corporations to ban donations to the Boy Scouts as a violation of their company SORs.
It’s a clever strategy, but it exposes these SORs for what they really are: a sword to attack people of faith, not a shield to defend “gays” from losing their jobs or their homes. It’s a lesson we should all have learned about the SORs by now given the steady stream of lawsuits by homosexual activists suing Christians for declining to bake their “wedding” cakes or print their “Gay Pride” posters, or such like.
The simple solution is to amend the SORs with a First Amendment Supremacy Clause: “Under no circumstance shall sexual orientation regulations supercede the First Amendment rights of individuals, churches and religious organizations to freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
For the purpose of this amendment religious organizations are those whose policies or culture are substantially influenced by religious values such as Christian bookstores, adoption agencies or hospitals, as well as companies like Hobby Lobby and Chick Fil A, and social organizations like the Boy Scouts of America and Christian student clubs on college campuses.”
This amendment would stop 99% of abuses by “gay rights” aggressors while preserving 99% of anti-discrimination protections for homosexuals. It would also save the Boy Scouts. It should immediately be adopted by every city, state, corporation, college, association and government agency with SORs.
There is no perfect rule that will satisfy both homosexual activists and people of faith. Our goals are contradictory because the Bible is crystal clear that Christians cannot condone sex outside of authentic marriage, while homosexuals refuse to abide any disagreement with their agenda (which is why they describe all dissenters as mentally ill bigots, i.e. “homophobes.”)
So when conflicts occur between the desire of Christians to live their faith under the protection of the First Amendment and the desire of homosexuals to suppress all disapproval of their perverted lifestyle under the SORs, one legal standard or the other must prevail and the other must fail. As a society we have to choose whether the sexual orientation regulations or the First Amendment will be the law of our land.
Granted, homosexuals may feel discriminated against when I quote the Bible that homosexuality is an abomination to God. They want to shut me up. One of us is going to lose that contest. At stake is nothing less then the power of the First Amendment to protect my freedom of religious speech.
Let us remember that freedom of religion is the very first principle of the Bill of Rights, just as it was the very first principle of the Magna Charta, the foundation stone of all civil rights law going all the way back to the year 1215. Freedom of speech is the second principle of the Bill of Rights. So my right to call homosexuality depraved is deeply rooted in the first two principles of our most fundamental civil rights law.
SORs on the other hand are a late 20th century invention of the political left to try to shoehorn homosexuality into our civil rights law. They have no precedent in human rights jurisprudence but were created from thin air. They literally contradict true civil rights. How can it be that these legally frivolous, highly controversial regulations are allowed to trump the First Amendment?
In years past, liberals used to say “I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Today, that’s been changed to “Speak against ‘gay’ dogma and I will make you regret it.” And SORs are the weapon that have given them the power to actually do it.
Let’s remember also that SORs were originally sold to us as a policy to protect homosexuals who “just want to be left alone to live their lives” from unfair discrimination in housing and employment situations where their private sexual conduct was irrelevant. We never agreed to arm militant “gay” social engineers with legal weapons to hunt down and destroy the lives of people of faith.
I say we drag this issue out into the light of day by launching First Amendment supremacy campaigns wherever we can find these SORs, starting with the corporations under pressure by the “gays” to stop funding the Boy Scouts. Let’s all work to amend these SORs with a First Amendment Supremacy Clause. It should be fairly easy to do in many cases, especially in more socially conservative parts of the country, such as Oklahoma where a group has launched such a campaign just this month. Indeed, there are many cities, companies and other entities that will likely welcome this amendment to curb or prevent the sort of abuses mentioned above.
Even in more liberal areas we should work to amend the SORs and hold every decision-maker accountable for their stand on the First Amendment. How many city council members, for example, when pressed in front of an audience to choose the SORs or the First Amendment will say their city SORs should trump the First Amendment? That would likely end their political career, and rightly so.
This is not to say that SORs are transformed into good public policy by the amendment. It is better not to allow them in at all, because they tend to legitimize unhealthy sexual lifestyles that society should instead discourage. Discrimination against homosexual conduct (indeed all sex outside of authentic marriage) is a social good, not a social evil. However, where SORs are already established and being used as a weapon against Christians and other people of religious values, this amendment is an important and effective compromise.
In conclusion, the First Amendment Supremacy Clause is the solution to the problems caused by the SORs and the radical “gay” activists they have empowered. It substantially preserves both employment and housing protections for homosexuals and religious liberty for Christians while stopping the “gay” movement from destroying the Bill of Rights and venerable American institutions like the Boy Scouts of America.
