Religious Voices Advocate Homosexuality

One of the most recent efforts to raise up “religious voices” from the Left, specifically in support of homosexual behavior, has been the formation of the National Religious Leadership Roundtable.  According to a group called Equal Partners in Faith:

Reflecting its commitment to “non-discrimination,” Equal Partners in Faith stated in a March 31, 1999 press release “that many people of faith believe that homophobia, not homosexuality, is a sin, and that discrimination, not love, is to be condemned.”[ii]  Both Americans United and The Interfaith Alliance are participating organizations in the Roundtable, and each have very close ties to both the BJCPA and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.  People for the American Way is also a participating organization, which has close ties to the BJCPA.   

Another participating organization in the National Religious Leadership Roundtable is the AIDS National Interfaith Network (ANIN).  ANIN became an organization of interest in 1994 when the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship released its first “resource packet” entitled: HIV/AIDS Ministry: Putting A Face On AIDS.  ANIN was listed as the only non-governmental resource on the inside cover of the AIDS resource packet.  (See CBF AIDS Resource Packet) 

BJCPA Plays Significant Role in Pro-homosexuality AIDS Conference

On November 8-11, 1998, ANIN sponsored an AIDS conference at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, which according to the Seattle Gay News, was two years in the planning.[iii]  Among the “religious voices” participating in the clearly pro-homosexuality conference was the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs.

According to the conference program, ANIN is a national organization founded in 1988 that “coordinates a network of nearly 2000 AIDS ministries” and “works with national faith-based, AIDS specific networks.”   The conference program further noted that part of ANIN’s program includes working to influence federal AIDS policy.[iv]

Serving as speakers at the ANIN conference were BJCPA administrator Karen McGuire and BJCPA executive director James Dunn.  Listed in the ANIN conference program as members of the “Convocation Program Committee” were McGuire and BJCPA associate director of communications Kenny Byrd.[v]

Last year, ANIN received $178,000 from the U.S Government’s Center for Disease Control and for the first six months of this year has received over $130,000.[vi]  But in ANIN’s case, receiving government funding does not pose a problem for the BJCPA, which takes a hard line stance against “government aid to religion.”  Though ANIN is a faith-based organization, it does not point people to Jesus Christ nor does it call people to repentance of sin.  In fact, ANIN is headed up by two homosexual men and their AIDS prevention program includes support for condom distribution, needle exchange programs for IV drug users and comprehensive safer sex education for adults and youth.  Thus, because ANIN is not “pervasively sectarian,” receiving government funding to carry out its “religious mission” does not, according to the BJCPA,  violate the “Establishment Clause” of the First Amendment.

Religious Voices Declare Homosexuality

God-given Sexual Orientation

In the area of AIDS ministry, fundamental differences between the Religious Left and the Religious Right exist in two specific areas.  The first area pertains to the nature of homosexuality.  Writing about the “God-given sexual orientation” of homosexuals, ANIN executive director Ken South states:

Homophobic campaigns of hate, bigotry and discrimination have caused serious damage to the hearts and souls of people already stigmatized by a fatal disease.  It is completely understandable why some individuals want to distance themselves from ‘the church’ because of the acute amount of pain inflicted on them by church leaders who condemn them to hell or consider them ‘intrinsically evil’ because their God-given sexual orientation happens to be homosexual.  For many who work in the AIDS community the church has become the enemy.[vii]  (emphasis ours)

South’s belief that homosexuality is a “God-given sexual orientation” parallels the CBF’s AIDS resource packet which declares that: “We do not choose our sexual orientation, but rather we ‘awaken’ to it.”[viii]  The CBF packet further states:  

[S]exuality is a gift from God…  We have a responsibility to enhance and educate our children and young people about sexuality, sexual identity and sexual orientation.[ix]

A second area where the Religious Left and Religious Right have fundamental disagreements is AIDS prevention.  According to an Associated Press article about the ANIN conference, South stated: “Evangelicals are doing great [AIDS] ministry, as long as they don’t try to change people.”[x] (emphasis ours)  But for conservative Christians, AIDS ministry is rooted in the life-changing power of Jesus Christ and declares with compassion the unavoidable consequences of wrongful behavior.  For conservative Christians, “safe sex” is summed up in abstinence before marriage and faithfulness after.  But for the Religious Left, AIDS prevention programs are about finding ways around the natural consequences of sinful behavior.  Comprehensive safer sex education, condom distribution and needle exchange programs for IV drug users are all designed to aid in avoiding the ever-present pitfalls of disease and unwanted pregnancies. 

According to an ABP article about the ANIN conference:

Debates over needle-exchange programs, sex education in schools and condom distribution can quickly turn a discussion over health and safety into a heated debate.  Religious Right groups and others argue that the government should not fund such programs, because they send a wrong signal to children and encourage immoral and dangerous behavior.  But others, including many at a recent Carter Center conference sponsored by AIDS National Interfaith Network [ANIN], said those programs are necessary to HIV prevention.[xi]

In another ABP article, it noted that: “Some [ANIN conference] participants were angry at the constant opposition of prevention programs coming from the Religious Right.”[xii]   

In addition to advocating condom distribution and “comprehensive safer sex education,” ANIN has been a leading advocate for free needles for IV drug users.  In a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala, ANIN, along with other religious groups and denominations, called for federal funds for needle exchange programs: 

The undersigned national faith organizations urge you to consider promptly the latest scientific research…in support of the use of federal funds for local needle exchange programs to reduce the transmission of HIV.[xiii]

Speaking at the ANIN conference, Sandra Thurman, director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy stated:

…opposition to needle-exchange programs has ‘been a fight taken on by the Religious Right.’  ‘I hold the nation as a whole responsible,’ she said.  ‘Certainly some of our more conservative organizations can be held responsible, because they want to go back to a different time and place instead of dealing with the reality of today.’[xiv]