In remarks earlier this month around the Commonwealth of Nations heads of government meeting, British Prime Minister Theresa May essentially attempted to shame former British colonies into adopting the LGBT movement’s goals. These remarks represented a new kind of colonialism, a moral crusade to browbeat former colonies that do not accept the LGBT movement.
May said she deeply regrets Britain’s role in criminalizing same-sex relations in its former colonies, and declared that such laws were “wrong then and wrong now.” While even the most socially conservative Brits and Americans would not advocate criminalizing same-sex relations today, May went further.
“Nobody should face discrimination and persecution because of who they are or who they love,” May told Commonwealth leaders, according to the BBC. Then the kicker: “The UK stands ready to support any Commonwealth nation wanting to reform outdated legislation that makes such discrimination possible.”
As the BBC noted, laws against homosexual relations passed under British rule are still in effect in 37 of the Commonwealth’s 53 member nations. Countries like Nigeria and Uganda have imposed stricter laws.
May did not just call for the reversal of laws criminalizing same-sex relations, however. She also declared that “nobody should face discrimination … because of who they are or who they love.” She also pledged that Britain would gladly intervene in the sovereign affairs of other countries, re-establishing a kind of colonialism, to achieve this goal.
Any social conservative knows what this attack on “discrimination” means. LGBT activists have interpreted measures to “live and let live” as “discrimination.” (True discrimination is rightfully outlawed, but much of what LGBT activists claim to be discrimination is not actually discrimination.)
A baker by the name of Jack Phillips is defending his First Amendment rights to free speech, freedom of assembly, and religious freedom at the Supreme Court of the United States because the Colorado Civil Rights Commission (as well as higher courts) had ruled that Phillips’ refusal to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding constituted “discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.”
Contrary to the commission, Phillips gladly served homosexual clients, including the two gay men who requested a cake for their same-sex wedding. Phillips merely wished to avoid lending his artistic talents to support an event he considered a counterfeit wedding. Like millions of Americans, Brits, and especially Africans, Phillips considers marriage to be between a man and a woman, and he did not want to be seen to celebrate as a marriage the union of a man and a man. This was not discrimination, but a decision to opt out.
Worse, the same Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruled that a different baker could refuse to bake a cake based on the content of its message. While Phillips was not allowed to opt out of baking a same-sex wedding cake, Azucar Bakery was given carte blanch to opt out of baking two cakes declaring that homosexuality is a sin, citing scripture.
In the name of fighting discrimination, LGBT activists in Ohio have planned to force churches to host same-sex weddings. An LGBT megadonor characterized his activism as “punishing the wicked,” aiming to prevent anyone from opting out of celebrating LGBT identity, especially same-sex weddings.
Attacks on religious freedom in the name of fighting “discrimination” are common in Britain, as well. Not only do British authorities celebrate the LGBT movement — with police and fire wearing rainbow flags at the London Pride Parade — but LGBT activists successfully bullied British theaters into censoring a film about voluntarily leaving the gay lifestyle. The speaker of the British House of Commons actually declared that same-sex marriage won’t be “proper” until no church has the freedom to reject hosting a same-sex wedding. Two Jewish schools in London had to decide between facing closure or compromising their beliefs for the LGBT movement.
Last year, around the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, Anglicans mimicked Martin Luther’s 95 Theses by posting protest documents against the Church of England’s embrace of the LGBT movement.
The global Anglican movement has increasingly looked to African countries like Nigeria for leadership, as English church authorities have abandoned the Bible’s claims about Jesus Christ being the only way to God, along with the Bible’s sexual morality.
Pushing the LGBT movement in former British colonies suggests an attack on the bastions of social conservatism in the Commonwealth.
May suggested that the only reason these former British colonies outlaw same-sex relations is their history of being dominated by the British Empire. There are far deeper reasons why most of these countries refuse the LGBT movement, however.
As Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, pointed out, “Many of the leaders of these Commonwealth nations and continents such as Africa suggest that the colonialism they fear is the colonialism of modern secular progressives and moral revolutionaries. What they fear is the very kind of influence that Theresa May, the British prime minister, was trying to exert as she was addressing the Commonwealth leaders.”
“But many of the national leaders in Africa — and especially the leaders of historic Christian churches such as the Anglican churches and many African nations — are complaining that the real colonialism is the kind of political and economic pressure being brought by nation such as Britain now that have decided to fundamentally change their morality,” Mohler explained.
Ironically, some of the very Leftists who loudly condemn the West’s history of colonialism are so assured of the LGBT morality that they pressure sovereign countries into adopting it, following the former colonial power.
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