Don’t Cave to the Pressure

The power of influence is huge. A little over a week ago the Supreme Court gave us their ruling on the constitutionality of what the nation has come to know as Obamacare. Most conservative court watchers said that they were sure that the mandate that people had to buy a product, in this case insurance, would have been ruled unconstitutional. It was their opinion that the conservative element of the Supreme Court would have come down with that majority opinion.

We now know that is not the way it played out. The deciding vote for the liberal and majority opinion was cast by Chief Justice John Roberts. Justice Roberts has been, up to this point, a very solid conservative and has almost always sided with the other socially conservative justices on the court. Recently, there was a news story circulating on some talk shows that Chief Justice Roberts’ vote was influenced by pressure from the liberal media. In essence, if this story is true, the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court caved to pressure to change his vote to uphold this landmark health care law.

In our world we are witnessing first-hand that the power of influence for people to change to more socially acceptable positions is everywhere. We are living in a world where many corporations cave to the pressure and influence of the homosexual agenda. Corporations like Home Depot, Kroger, and J.C. Penney have bought into the homosexual mindset. These corporations have become sponsors of the homosexual agenda by giving dollars to events that promote their radical, immoral agenda. J.C. Penney had a Father’s Day advertisement that featured a homosexual male couple with children. I am glad to say that many of these corporations are paying in the pocketbook for their affiliation with these kinds of activities. Beyond corporations, mayors from Ohio’s ten largest cities have signed a resolution stating their opposition to Ohio’s Marriage Amendment. Their influence is being used to push for a repeal of this amendment to be put on Ohio’s ballot in 2013.

This kind of thing goes on and almost seems normal in a world where people do not believe in an absolute right and wrong. For many in our world truth is not absolute and is constantly changing. For some people something is true if they want it to be whether it is or not. We live in a world where homosexuality is pushing to be legitimized and not considered wrong or sinful. In their eyes, it is not wrong or sinful because they don’t want it to be; that should be good enough for the rest of us. They are working very hard to bring their pressure of acceptance to bear on all of us.

When I think of what is happening in this regard, it reminds me of the children’s story entitled The Emperor’s New Clothes. If you are familiar with the story, you remember the Emperor was influenced to purchase a very costly new outfit of clothing being sold by a couple of swindlers. They told the Emperor that the clothing that they were making was being woven out of special thread by a special seamstress and not just anyone could appreciate or even see this thread or cloth. It could only be seen by those that were very intelligent. The Emperor (not wanting to look foolish) said that he, of course, could see the cloth. He paid them handsomely for this new outfit. He went about to dress himself in this very special outfit that, in reality, he could not see, touch or handle but felt the pressure to accept as real. He put it on and then paraded through the streets. All of the adults felt that they could not speak up because they did not want to insult the Emperor or make him look foolish. They all pretended that he was wearing these fancy new clothes; however, there was one child watching the Emperor parade through the streets with nothing on but his undergarments. This little child said, “Hey look! The Emperor is wearing no clothes.” All of a sudden everyone started laughing, and the Emperor felt like a fool. He had been made a fool by the power of influence. It took the sincerity of a truthful child to point out what everyone knew, but they were afraid to say. They were being pressured to keep silent because they did not want to disagree with the powers at play. I sense this is where we are today in this moral debate.

May God help us to have the courage to speak the truth in love. The truth is that homosexuality is sinful; it is a deviant choice in the regard to one’s sexual behavior and as such it should not be granted special rights and privileges. It is unfortunate that we live in a world where more and more people are afraid to speak the truth. Don’t cave to the pressure!