Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Scott Lively
Including Americans for Truth About Homosexuality and Defend the Family International, the coalition was formed as a response to Western pressure against Russia's homosexual propaganda law. The organization's statement – seen in full at the end of this article – says it “is a U.S. based international network of loosely-affiliated independent pro-family organizations” that “serve[s] the global pro-family movement by encouraging and facilitating cooperation and coordination among pro-family strategists and activists.”
The Coalition, which says it is not offering “a blanket endorsement of the Russian Federation,” is encouraging affiliates “to lobby their own governments to follow the Russian example” of preventing “so-called elites of the Western powers” from “[imposing] their inverted morality on everyone through the manipulation of international law.”
With the 2014 Winter Olympics being held in Sochi, Russia, there has been major international pressure against Russia for its ban on homosexual propaganda. The law itself enforces fines of various sizes against citizens and non-citizens in Russia, with individual citizens facing fines of $120 to $150, and non-citizens facing as many as 15 days in jail as well as deportation. (See the full letter of the law here.)
Public officials in Russia face fines of approximately $1,500, and organizations fines as much as $30,000 per offense. The fines have brought major criticism from Western countries, including the United States. As part of that criticism, President Obama sent two openly homosexual people in the Olympic delegation this year.
According to Dr. Scott Lively, president of Defend the Family International, “what we want is for the LGBT movement to stop trying to legitimize alternate sexual lifestyles in mainstream society and go back to being a sub-culture. At the beginning of their movement in the 1950s Dale Jennings of the Mattachine Society said what they wanted was 'the right to be left alone' (which was basic tolerance). Personally, I have always supported that goal.”
“With the Stonewall Riots in 1968 they abandoned that reasonable objective and adopted the hard-core militant strategies of the Frankfort School of Cultural Marxists,” says Lively. “Since that time their agenda has been about the replacement of Christian sexual ethics with sexual anarchy. In just 40 years they have defeated every secular institution that has stood in their way, starting with the American Psychiatric Association in 1973 and conquering the very last one, the Boy Scouts of America, in 2013. The only barrier left standing is the church, a sizeable part of which is running scared from the fight.”
Lively says the coalition “is calling the church to unity and action on Biblical truth as a last stand against the overthrow of Christian civilization in the western world.” He also says that while Russia “was truly an evil empire” in the days of the Soviet Union, “a wave of Christian missionaries flooded Russia” approximately 15 years ago, “while the Russian Orthodox Church and other traditional denominations also experienced a resurgence.”
While it is possible that “Putin is a power-hungry despot,” Lively says it “does not seem true to me.” Lively did a 50-city tour of the former Soviet Union seven years ago, meeting with "high-level representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church,” and says he believes in “the absolute sincerity of these mens' Christianity and their deep concern for their people and nation, especially the disastrous population decline they have suffered as the result of un-Biblical sexual lifestyles and abortion.”
According to Lively, while nobody should “suffer violence for exercising their freedom of speech, including their self-identification as homosexuals,” he has proposed a “First Amendment Supremacy Clause,” which would prevent “sexual orientation regulations” from “supersed[ing] the First Amendment rights of individuals, churches and religious organizations to freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion. For the purpose of this statute religious organizations are those whose policies or culture are substantially influenced by religious values, including but not limited to Christian bookstores, adoption agencies, hospitals, businesses, social organizations and student clubs on college campuses.”
Lively also points to the level of moral depravity in America's legal system as it compares to Russia's, when it comes to the homosexual “marriage” debate, as evidence Russia may be superior to America. “We should consider whether the disenfranchisement of a few punk music band members on the streets of Sochi (as wrong as that is) comes anywhere close to the to the disenfranchisement of millions of pro-family American voters by left-wing ideological federal judges, who are now cynically striking down Defense of Marriage laws state by state.”
“In Russia,” says Lively, “the people’s values are being honored by their government. In America, dictatorial powers are imposing their own twisted version of morality on the people.”
“I think the U.S. is the bigger culprit of the two.”
Statement in Support of the Russian Pro-Family Laws of 2013 and 2014
The Coalition for Family Values is a U.S. based international network of loosely-affiliated independent pro-family organizations. We serve the global pro-family movement by encouraging and facilitating cooperation and coordination among pro-family strategists and activists. While geographically, ethnically and methodologically diverse, we share a Biblical worldview, and a commitment to speak the plain truth about the LGBT agenda and its destructive influence on society. Our goal is to promote and protect the natural family as the essential foundation of civilization, and family values as the source and guide to mainstream culture in every society, while advocating reasonable tolerance to those who choose to live discretely outside of the mainstream.
As the 2014 Winter Olympic Games come to a close in Sochi, Russia, we want to praise the Russian Federation for providing much-needed leadership in restoring family values in public policy, and to encourage the governments of the world to follow the excellent example that the Russian government has set in 2013 and 2014 by banning LGBT propaganda to children and limiting the adoption of children to natural families only. By taking these steps in the face of intense criticism and hostility by some Western governments and NGOs, the Russians have demonstrated the high value that they place on their children and the natural family model of society. We believe that God will bless the Russian people for their faith and courage.
The Coalition for Family Values will be encouraging our current and future affiliates throughout the world to lobby their own governments to follow the Russian example. While the LGBT agenda has seemed like an unstoppable political juggernaut in North America and Europe, the vast majority of the people of the world do not accept the notion that sexual deviance should be normalized. It is time that these voices are heard on the world stage before the so-called elites of the Western powers impose their inverted morality on everyone through the manipulation of international law, which they clearly intend to do.
The LGBT agenda has already gone too far, but it is still advancing. We are asking the family-friendly nations of the world to erect a barrier to that agenda in their own countries and in the international community, which can perhaps strengthen and embolden the pro-family movement in the Western nations to roll back that agenda in our own countries.
The future of the natural family is the future of humanity itself. We must not allow the culture of desolation to supplant the culture of life in our societies. Let us pray for healing for those who choose the LGBT path, and (within reason) respect their right to be wrong in their private lives. But let us not allow the LGBT political movement to transform the world in its own distorted image.
Caveat: This statement is not to be construed as a blanket endorsement of the Russian Federation, but an acknowledgement that its policies regarding family values are trending in the right direction. The great lesson of Christianity is that repentance brings renewal, and every person or nation which turns from sin receives the blessing of God. We praise Russia not because it has achieved perfection in all things, but because it has turned from the evil of communism and is beginning to embrace Christian values once again. By encouraging the good, we hope to see further positive changes.
