In recent memory, Sen. Ted Cruz used to be widely regarded as the leading right-wing politician in America. He was as hawkish and laissez-faire as Ayn Ran, as Bible-thumpingly conservative as Billy Graham, and as liberal as Genghis Khan.
Cruz was the ideal for a certain type of Republican. He offered hope that one could reject Trump’s reshaping of the GOP into a populist party without veering hard to the left in compensation–especially as that reformation entailed its own concessions to radical social causes.
Cruz shattered the hopes of this type of Republican on Memorial Day. The senator from Texas was enraged by a law from Uganda that the American Empire’s Rainbow lobby deemed a threat to the Empire’s advancement. He tweeted: “This Ugandan law is horrendous & wrong.” The death penalty or any law that criminalizes homosexuality is an abomination. ALL civilized countries should condemn this human rights violation.”
Cruz has added the hashtag #LGBTQ below this message.
Cruz’s activism in support of legalized sodomy was not a new concept for him. Last year, he urged Texas to repeal the law (which had been rendered unenforceable by the Supreme Court in 2003 due to its misjudgment Lawrencev. Texas). Texas.
As well as serial crimes, “aggravated homophobia” is primarily rape or other forms of sodomy committed on someone who cannot consent, such as children, the elderly and mentally handicapped. What is so grotesque about a justice system that punishes such predation, or so abominable? Any reasonable person, whether Christian or not or right-wing, would think that men who rape boys should be hanged?
Many people do not. While conservatives and Christians rallied around Cruz, other Christians spoke out to support the senator’s condemnation of Ugandan law. Cruz’s strongest support came from a surprising ally. Liberal evangelical Russell Moore wrote a lengthy defense for Christianity Today.
For the same reason I would prefer Protestants to stay away from Catholic disputes, I also tend to avoid Protestant debates. Moore’s objections to morality laws are so unfounded, so corrosive and so easily disproven with recourse to Christianity that they deserve a fraternal reproach.
Moore confesses that God’s Law commands: “If anyone lies with a male as a female, both have committed a abomination. Let them be put to Death: Their blood be on them.”
He insists, however, that Uganda’s laws–which reserve the death penalty only for the most extreme offenders–are not only imprudent, but essentially non-Christian.
Moore points out that Christians who are subject to the New Covenant, however, are not bound by the civil laws of the Old Covenant. The Church established this fact at the Council of Jerusalem. Moore could easily argue that the Ugandan law is unwise, and that, because the death penalty is not necessary , there are other ways to combat predatory sexual behavior.
Moore does not make this argument. Moore, however, seems to be insisting that since the death sentence is not mandatory for these offenses, then it must somehow be prohibited.
Moore gives a lot of meaning to St. Paul’s instructions that a resolute sinning person should be expelled from the church in Corinth. Moore makes a remarkable leap of logic, assuming that Paul is excluding all other measures by naming a specific measure. Moore believes that Paul is denying civil authorities the right to enforce moral law, because he has not mentioned it. Why would he do that? He is talking to the Church about what it should do. The fact that the state’s concerns are distinct does not mean they disappear into the air.
These arguments are not limited to male-on-male sexual assault, but they apply to all substantive moral questions. The new covenant does not only prohibit the enforcement of old law moral precepts. We must affirm that God’s son’s death on the cross has wiped out the right to use the power of God for good. Let sin be rampant, so that God’s Grace can provide.
Russell Moore, do you really believe that? Ted Cruz too? Have they been so swayed by the gay liberation propaganda that they are unable to see the implications of their positions? Ted Cruz would raise his voice if (as in an ideal society) all unrepentant perpetrators of rape were hanged. Would Ted Cruz only raise his voice on behalf of victims who were boys?
We are not free to ignore the unpleasant realities that we face during this high holy season. One of the most important is that a particular type of grave immorality, which is particularly fast-spreading as well as destructive to the public order and the health and wellbeing civilizational, is not challenged by any significant political or religious forces operating in the United States. Even the thought of objecting is prohibited. We can at best count on a political left that won’t actively celebrate their most obscene exaggerations.
Uganda is a reminder to us that pride, and other sins should not be glorified or even permitted. The Bible makes it clear that they shouldn’t. The American tradition, in which Ted Cruz would have been so far to the left that he’d be thrown out of any respectable city before yesterday, presents another way.
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Before 1962, sodomy had been a crime in all states. By the time the Supreme Court tipped the scales forty-one year later, 23 states still prohibited sodomy. Before the 1960s, homosexuality was a lifestyle that was not even considered. Its exaltation along with the natural family seemed absurd to another generation.
Are your grandparents uncivilized or not? Their morals were “horrible & wrong”. Was the society that they supported grotesque and a abomination, or grotesque?
There are no hard questions here, but the truthful answers will challenge every power that has been entrenched and every value that is sacred to this new regime.
