Homosexual activists are gloating over the recent statement by Focus on the Family (FOTF) President Jim Daly (left) that pro-family leaders are “losing” the battle for traditional marriage among younger generations of Americans.
In an interview published in WORLD magazine, Daly was queried on the efforts of organizations like FOTF to protect families, marriages, children, and the pre-born. While Daly was optimistic on such initiatives as adoption and beefing up crisis pregnancy centers, when asked about efforts to convince younger Americans on the importance of protecting traditional marriage, he appeared much less optimistic.
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“We’re losing on that one, especially among the 20- and 30-somethings,” he told WORLD editor Marvin Olasky, noting that 65 to 70 percent of that age group appear to be favorably disposed towards same-sex marriage. “I don’t know if that’s going to change with a little more age — demographers would say probably not,” Daly said. “We’ve probably lost that. I don’t want to be extremist here, but I think we need to start calculating where we are in the culture.”
In response to Daly’s admission, a homosexual website, GoPride.com, made it one of its top stories with the headline, “Christian groups admits defeat in battle against gay marriage.” The website buttressed the “gay marriage” case with news that a recent Gallup poll showed 70 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds support same sex marriage. “Overall 53 percent of Americans polled said it’s time for gay marriage to be legal,” declared the homosexual website, “marking the first time for such support since Gallup began tracking the issue in 2004.”
Similarly, a lesbian themed website, LezGetReal.com, gleefully announced that Daly had decided to “wave the white flag” of surrender in the marriage conflict, further insisting that the battle over abortion belonged to their side as well. Arguing that “most people want abortion to be legal,” writer Bridgette LaVictoire accused social conservatives of cutting away “at abortion rights through a thousand little cuts restricting it further and further while their thugs go out and bully doctors into not performing abortions under threat of death.”
But LaVictoire assured her lesbian readers that “marriage equality is going to be hard to kill by a thousand little cuts…. The push for marriage equality is something that is important to enough Americans that they are invested in it. What is more, the use of social issues to get Republicans into office and distract from the economic damage that has been done to the country by them is starting to become more and more difficult.”
For his part, Daly appeared to place the blame for much of the crisis over marriage firmly at the feet of the Church. “We’ve got to look at what God is doing in all of this,” he told Olasky, suggesting that the divorce epidemic and marriage dysfunction that has infiltrated Christian homes has prompted God to hand His people over to “polygamy and same-sex situations in order to, perhaps, drive the Christian community, the remnant, into saying, ‘OK, there’s no no-fault divorce in our church.’”
Daly told Olsaky that the faithful must devise a new strategy for building a strong marriage culture, based on Christians raising their standards for marriage and family above the minimum requirements set by the state. That strategy will be played out, said Daly, by Church leaders declaring that the “‘piece of paper that you get [from] the state to recognize your marriage is worthless. It’s like registering your car. But if you’re going to be a part of this church and you’re married, you’re going to be committed to your marriage. There’s no easy way out.’”
Added Daly: “What if the Christian divorce rate goes from 40 percent to 10 percent or 5 percent, and the world’s goes from 50 percent to 80 percent? Now we’re back to the early centuries. They’re looking at us and thinking, ‘We want more of what they’ve got,’ because we’re proving in front of the eyes of the world that marriage in a Christian context works.”
Daly recalled that a homosexual activist had challenged him on the dismal track record of Christians and social conservatives relative to marriage. “You guys haven’t done so well with marriage,” the activist said. “Why are you upset about us having a try?” Daly told WORLD that such challenges are legitimate. “We’ve got to look at our own house, make sure that our marriages are healthy, that we’re being a good witness to the world,” he said. “Then we can continue to work on defending marriage….”
Following publication of the WORLD magazine interview, even as homosexual activists continued to make hay over Daly’s apparent concession of defeat on the same-sex marriage issue, the Focus on the Family head took to the Washington Post op-ed pages to offer a clarification of his statement. Declaring that “I am not waving a white flag” or even “contemplating picking one up,” Daly explained that his comments to WORLD magazine “are no more or no less than a continuation of something I’ve been saying for years: That we cannot expect the culture to be the church.”
Daly explained that the Bible calls believers to “speak the truth in love, and advance it in public policy, regardless of opinion polls or shifting political winds.” He added, however, that “our responsibility doesn’t end at the bully pulpit or the ballot box. We also must model the beauty and permanence of traditional marriage to society. And, to be frank, we have not done a very good job in that regard.”
Noting that his organization would continue to offer resources for building strong marriages and families, as well as provide tools for “transforming the culture through promoting biblical citizenship,” Daly declared that it is time for those who truly care about defending families and traditional values to “look past whatever writing may be on the cultural wall and joyfully embody kingdom principles to the world.”
Concluded the pro-family leader: “Millions desperately need not only to hear those principles articulated, but to see them lived out.”
