Report: U.S. Army is now calling Christian group American Family Association a ‘hate group’

This comes via Todd Starnes of Fox News, and if true, it's clearly the latest attempt by the prevailing culture - with the U.S. government carrying the water in this case - to marginalize the Word of God by demanding denunciation of its pronouncements on homosexuality. Starnes says he was contacted by several members of the Army, including both active duty and reservists, who attended a briefing last week at Fort Shelby in Mississippi and were told that the American Family Association should be regarded by the Army as a "domestic hate group" every bit as much as the Ku Klux Klan, the Neo-Nazis, the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam.

Starnes reports:

A soldier who attended the briefing contacted me and sent me a photograph of a slide show presentation that listed AFA as a domestic hate group. Under the AFA headline is a photograph of Westboro Baptist Church preacher Fred Phelps holding a sign reading "No special law for f***." American Family Association has absolutely no affiliation with the controversial church group known for picketing the funerals of American servicemembers.

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"I had to show Americans what our soldiers are now being taught," said the soldier who asked not to be identified. "I couldn't just let this one pass." The soldier said a chaplain interrupted the briefing and challenged the instructor's assertion that AFA is a hate group. "The instructor said AFA could be considered a hate group because they don't like gays," the soldier told me. "The slide was talking about how AFA refers to gays as sinners and heathens and derogatory terms." The soldier, who is an evangelical Christian, said the chaplain defended the Christian ministry. "He kept asking the instructor, "Are you sure about that, son? Are you sure about that?'" he said, recalling the back and forth.

The response from AFA was quick and pointed, and very well started. Bryan Fischer gets right to it:

If our military wasn't headed by a commander-in-chief who is hostile to Christian faith, these allegations would be laughed off every military base in the world. The truth is that the AFA doesn't hate anyone. We love everybody. We love homosexuals enough to tell them the truth about the moral, spiritual and physical dangers of homosexual conduct. We disagree with those who believe that homosexuality is a benign alternative to heterosexuality, but disagreement about the normalizing of homosexual behavior is not hate; it is simply disagreement.

It is also disagreement that is grounded in the Word of God, which is the foundational text for all of Christianity. There is no mistaking the message of 1 Corinthians 6:9-10: "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God." To give you an idea of just how determined the culture is to marginalize this Scripture, consider what happened to college football commentator Craig James. A Christian who recently ran for the U.S. Senate as a Republican from Texas, James recently took a job working college football broadcasts for Fox Sports, only to be fired when it came out that James had endorsed the Bible's teaching on homosexuality in an interview during his campaign that had nothing whatsoever to do with his Fox duties. What the American Family Association and James have in common is that their beliefs on this subject line up with the Word of God, as do mine. If that makes you a "hate group" in the eyes of the U.S. military, then this nation has essentially picked a fight with God. How does it usually work out when you try that? I pray that homosexuals understand they are just pawns here. They are being used in a cultural rebellion against God's law, and they are useful and sympathetic figures who can be used by people who are willing to misrepresent what God really teaches - not hate at all, but a loving call to deliverance from sin - because they want to invalidate all of God's commands. That is a fight that cannot be won, no matter what Army you have on your side. By the way, if this is the position the United States of America is going to take - that adherence to God's Word is "hate" - and they expect Christian Americans to make a choice between our country and our God, that's an easy choice.