U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has elevated gay rights above national culture and tradition. That would include religious traditions or beliefs, needless to say. Biden made his remarks to a gathering of gay rights advocates and said that the Obama Administration has directed U.S. diplomacy and foreign assistance to promote the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender men and women around the world. “I don’t care what your culture is,” Biden told the group of about 100 guests at the vice-presidential mansion, “Inhumanity is inhumanity is inhumanity. Prejudice is prejudice is prejudice.” Biden’s remarks are in connection with the U.S. Administration’s attempt to mobilize a global front against anti-gay violence and discrimination.
In other words, the U.S. Administration is now saying that religious tradition as well as other traditions must not stand in the way of gay rights. And they want to enforce this on a global scale.
Biden also said, “protecting gay rights is a defining mark of a civilized nation…” In other words, if you believe what the Bible says about homosexuals, you will be considered uncivilized and out of step with modern nations. Not only that, those who teach the Bible principles concerning homosexuality will be accused of being inhumane and prejudiced.
Globalizing the battlefront for gay rights by the U.S. government involves pressuring non-compliant governments by removing financial aid and other forms of diplomatic pressure.
This development is very interesting because it is a likely harbinger of how other religious traditions or beliefs will be treated. For instance, will believers of the seventh-day Sabbath eventually be told that their views and practices don’t count when the government wants to implement Sunday worship? Revelation 13 seems to suggest this (see vs. 4, 8, 15, and 16).
The Affordable Care legislation (known as Obamacare) took direct aim at certain religious convictions of some people and organizations involving contraception, abortifacients and sterilization. The gay rights front in the U.S. government is targeting yet another set of religious convictions.
The boldness of the Obama Administration in promoting gay rights on a global scale reveals the shallowness of its concept of the meaning of culture and tradition. How successful they are in achieving gay rights on a global scale will reveal the strength of the government’s ability to create and enforce laws that impinge on other aspects of religion and tradition in the future.