Barack Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright is not going away.  His views are in the news everyday.  Who knows how long it will stay that way.  In America the media teases out the views of public figures whether they are religious or not.  That is the blessing of a free press.  I celebrate it.

One politician offered a quip to me last week on the phone.  He cast me in a favorable light in contrast to Wright.  It seems my outspokenness on homosexual issues over the years may have earned me a Wright-like profile in the view of some members of the public.  This politician quipped when someone equated me with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, "I'd rather defend Mike Heath than Jeremiah Wright any day of the week."  It's a little disconcerting to be lumped in with Jeremiah Wright in any manner.  I'm encouraged, however, that I won the comparison with this particular politician.

I'll allow that I'm controversial.  I'd like to think it is because I refuse to surrender to the idea that sexual orientation is benign.  This idea is anything but harmless.  It is moral poison that destroys character.  It must be resisted.

I don't know what Jeremiah Wright's views are on gay rights.  It doesn't matter to me because I know what his disciple, Barack Obama, thinks about the matter.  He audaciously hopes for an America that honors sex outside of marriage with the same benefits that chastity and virtue once enjoyed.  He wants to break the bond between parents and children.  He wants selfish adults to have the right to define childhood for innocent babies who have no power of their own.

I audaciously work for a different culture than the one Rev. Wright and Barack Obama want.  I work to create one where every conceived child is a wanted child.  I want to live in a country that realizes that AIDs isn't a scourge aimed at blacks by whites.  We must form a nation that knows America isn't responsible for the actions of Islamic terrorists on 9/11.  America was attacked.  Innocent Americans were murdered.  Those who committed the atrocity are being held accountable.  That is as it should be. 

Rev. Wright needs to apologize publicly for many of the things he has said from his church's pulpit.

I, on the other hand, have nothing to apologize for.  I believe in the potential of our American form of government.  It was formed by Christian men who yearned for freedom.  Because of their Christian faith they wanted men to be free from religious tyranny.  And so we Americans are not compelled to join or support a church.  While not intentional, the effect of this practice is the closeting of orthodox Christian ideas about life, sex, marriage and family.  The unofficial religion that is emerging from the closet in America, and the west, has unmentionable consequences because they are so horrible and inhuman.

We are surrendering ourselves and our children to the tyranny of a fierce athiestic orthodoxy that wishes to destroy our humanity.  This new religion controls our institutions while remaining officially unrecognized as a religion.  This ideology which is on its way to becoming a religion appears most committed to turning the act of sex on its head.  Where sex was created to be the most selfless and life-giving action in the human repertoire, we adults are allowing it to pervert into a thin lifestyle of selfish, hedonistic abandon.  Sex is pleasure, and nothing else.

The consequence is the willingness to kill our own children before they are born.  We euphemistically call that choice.  Another consequence is confusion over just what defines marriage and family.  A few short years ago there was no confusion.  Now, even the Christian church is divided over this simple matter.

Regardless of what religion you choose, America will rise or fall based on how it resolves the fight over sexual morality.

A much more controversial preacher than either Rev. Wright or me made that observation more than 2000 years ago.  Paul the Apostle was murdered by the Roman state for his views.  He was controversial.

In the first chapter of his letter to the Christians in Rome he observed that sexual confusion is the mark of an empty people, a people who have surrendered their imaginations to a lesser god.  He describes the future for people who have done this.  He describes their destruction.

America will rise or fall based on what it does with the God of the Bible.  There is no doubt where God stands on sexual immorality.  For the common good, there must be no doubt where politicians and pastors stand either.

Abortion is never necessary, and marriage will never be gay.  These are simple issues that can be resolved quickly.  Until they are resolved it is the duty of every decent person to hold their leaders accountable.

I'm thankful that this is happening with Barack Obama and his pastor.