Gore says homosexuality is divine creative act

by  Dwayne Hastings                                                                                                                                  Vol. X, No. 9, Nov/Dec 1997

Vice President Al Gore stepped up the national dialogue over civil rights protection for homosexuals in a Nov. 16 news conference, saying God creates homosexuals and that God is grieved at their mistreatment. Meeting with local reporters in his home state of Tennessee, Gore was asked about comments a month earlier in Beverly Hills, CA, in which he praised Hollywood producers for forcing Americans to "look at sexual orientation in a more open light" with openly homosexual television characters.

God would have never made homosexuals if he knew they would be maltreated, Gore said, according to The (Nashville) Tennessean Nov. 16. "I do not believe that God intended them to suffer persecution and discrimination throughout their lives here on earth. I do not believe God would have created them as he has and intend for them to be mistreated," Gore said.

The head of the Southern Baptist's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission quickly disagreed with Gore. Richard Land said the debate over homosexuality has never been about "persecution" and discrimination, "but rather about whether as a society we are going to normalize deviant and abhorrent sexual behavior and stigmatize those who follow the Bible in condemning such behavior."

Saying Christians are to separate the sin from the sinner and to detest only the sin, Land continued, "Vice President Gore evidently wants to redefine the sin out of existence." Land described the vice president's remarks as so "wrong-headed" it was difficult to know where to begin to respond to them.

"Homosexuals and lesbians are a product of a sinful heart -- both personal and societal in the form of absent fathers and childhood sexual abuse," Land said, stressing God did not create the sexual orientation of homosexuals and lesbians. "The Apostle Paul in the first chapter of the Book of Romans has given us the definitive and authoritative word from God about the origin of homosexuality," Land said, noting that Paul wrote that "those who worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator," God gave over to their vile passions. "For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful," Land said, citing Paul's letter to the Romans in the Bible.

In middle Tennessee for a fund-raising dinner for the state Democratic party, Gore said the movement for civil rights for homosexuals mirrors the drive for civil rights based on race three decades ago, according to The Tennessean report.

Gore's comments came just a week after President Clinton's groundbreaking appearance at a dinner hosted by the Human Rights Campaign, reportedly the homosexual movement's largest political organization. The dinner was expected to raise $300,000 for the organization and featured the star of "Ellen," Ellen DeGeneres, receiving a civil rights award from the group.

At the event Clinton said discrimination based on "sexual orientation" is "wrong, and it should be illegal." He said the equality espoused in the Declaration of Independence has evolved in its definition and should include homosexuals.

The president expressed his belief that the Employment Non-discrimination Act, which would grant homosexuals the same workplace protection now provided to classifications of race, gender, age and disability, would become law. The bill, which failed to pass the Senate by only one vote, 50-49, last year, is not expected out of committee until January or early February.

Another contender for the Democratic nomination to succeed President Clinton, Richard Gephardt, also joined the list of high ranking office holders reaching out for homosexual political and financial support. On 29 October, less than two weeks before Clinton’s speech noted above, Gephardt met with the leaders of eight of the homosexual movements political organizations.

A Gephardt spokesman said Gephardt believes homosexual groups are a “crucial part” of a winning coalition. A particularly significant development at the Gephardt meeting, said a representative from one of the homosexual organizations, was the congressman’s commitment that homosexual congressional candidates next year will be supported by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Among the organizations represented a the meeting were the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Gay ands Lesbian Victory Fund, and the Human Rights Campaign, which is the country’s largest homosexual political group. [BP]