If you believe that the issue is about giving homosexual partners benefits, you are either naive or ignorant. The issue is a clear-cut attempt to put homosexual lovers on the same level as husband and wife. It is about legitimizing a form of depraved behavior. Supporters of this decision would have you to believe that its passage counters discrimination. Usage of the word "discrimination" has successfully concealed the issue. The issue is not one of discrimination. The effect of the decision is the subsidizing of depravity and illegal behavior.
The Board of Trustees revised the Equal Opportunity Statement to include sexual preference as a protected class in 1994. The obsequiousness of the Board of Trustees to the Committee on Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual Concerns can be seen in this revision. The quintessential requirement of a protected classification is an immutable attribute, not alterable behavior. The Board of Trustees promulgated its prohibition to discriminate on the basis of sexual preference. Then they granted benefits to same-sex partners and denied them to opposite-sex partners. This decision puts the Board of Trustees in direct violation of the very thing they said they wanted to prevent! Truly, the Board of Trustees has lost the ability to discern right from wrong in its pursuit of dissipation, in the name of diversity.
By claiming discriminatory practices, the Committee on Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual Concerns has incorrectly used the term "discrimination" in order to obfuscate the issue. They used the term in its malevolent sense, in which it means to prejudge others for attributes they cannot change, i.e., race, gender, national origin. To be prejudicial against others in terms of aspects that can change (benevolent discrimination), such as behavior, is completely appropriate. Homosexuals can change, and indeed many have. To discriminate against a person solely because they engage in perversion is wrong. To grant benefits or privileges on the basis of that perversion is to be an accomplice to depravity, which is equally wrong. The Board of Trustees' logic is analogous to giving a psychopath a cash reward for population control.
Statements to the contrary not withstanding, adoption of same-sex benefits does endorse homosexuality. The answer to any sin problem is not to condone it, like the Board of Trustees has done, but to encourage others to repent, and accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior!
Moral relativists say, "That's nice, but that is your opinion." Wrong again! It is not my opinion, but Almighty God's. Obviously, that does not impress the Board of Trustees, or they would not have decided to attempt to legitimize such abominable behavior.
Illicit sex, which has devastated the American family, is leading to the destruction of school systems, cities and society as a whole. AIDS threatens to bankrupt the country's medical system, and after 12 years there is neither an imminent vaccination nor a cure. Practicing homosexuals' life span is abridged to about 40 years. The illegitimacy of homosexuality is rooted in the word of God and their obvious inability to procreate, not unpopular opinion.
The only two options that remain are repentance or destruction. With the sanctioning of homosexuality, Emory has clearly indicated which option it desires most. The attempt to hide behind an institutional facade from divine judgment is futile. This policy was voted on and approved by individuals, not "an institution." As in the Watergate debacle, group think will be no cause of exculpation. Each individual will be held responsible for his or her own actions.
This policy is not about providing benefits. It is about recognizing perverted behavior. This retort is not about denigrating people. It is about condemning the support of reprobatory demeanor. Emory, as a school or community, will not escape the inevitable judgment coming upon it. Its status, funding or intellectual babbling will not be able to divert its demise because of its indulgence of profligacy.
Concerning homosexuality, Paul wrote to the Romans, "Because of this [pride and arrogance], God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion (Romans 1:26-27)." I am sure that the preceding scripture, along with Leviticus 18:22, is still in the Methodist Bible. It is clear how John Emory, the bishop for whom the school is named, would have felt about the decision of the Board of Trustees.
Gerald Garrett is a senior accountant in the School of Medicine's Department of Family and Preventive Medicine.