The quickest civil rights shift in U.S. history took place on June 26. With two landmark rulings, the Supreme Court gave its support to “gay marriage” as a legal institution. Striking down the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (doma), signed into law by President Bill Clinton, the court ruled that legally “married” same-sex couples were entitled to federal benefits. “doma is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy, who authored the majority opinion. The Obama administration has pledged to act swiftly to extend federal benefits to legally “married” same-sex couples.

The court declined to decide a case related to California’s Proposition 8, effectively allowing same-sex “marriages” there.

The rulings leave in place laws banning same-sex unions throughout the nation and declined to say that there is a constitutional right to same-sex “marriage.” Yet they cleared the way for same-sex unions to become legal in California, the nation’s most populous state. It is expected that California will legalize “gay marriage,” making it the 13th state to allow such unions along with the District of Columbia.

This issue is dominating public and private discussion worldwide. The media love it: Images of same-sex couples lustfully embracing are popping up everywhere on television, the Internet and magazine covers. Gallons of ink and tons of paper are being used to publish newspaper stories on marriage for homosexual couples. Try as you may, you can’t get away from the issue.

Leading the debate are homosexuals and their supporters, who claim that redefining marriage will be good for America, the marriage institution and children—the little ones adopted, brought into a homosexual relationship from a previous heterosexual marriage, or born via a surrogate or in vitro fertilization. They believe marriage is a tradition that has been evolving for millennia, and that it’s time for it to evolve to include them.

Conservatives also believe marriage is a tradition—but one that should not be tampered with. They say loosening the definition of marriage beyond one woman and one man will destroy marriage altogether and open the door to legalize other perverted unions. Conservatives want the American people to decide the matter through the political process, which includes voting.

Careful analysis of the current debate shows that neither side understands the vital purpose for marriage! If everyone fully understood and embraced the purpose for marriage, this debate would have never even begun.

How did we get here—entertaining the notion that marriage should include same-sex couples? This transformational change did not happen spontaneously.

How did you form your view on homosexuality? Most people don’t reason it out, considering evidence on all sides and sifting truth from error. They simply absorb influences and come to accept certain ideas as normal. They follow what seems right at the time.

The fact is, the great majority are forming views and making decisions and even policies having been influenced, even bullied, by political correctness, peer pressure or societal coercion. There has been a clandestine yet concerted effort to radically change people’s minds about homosexuality. And whether they realize it or not, many people have come to accept and embrace this idea because they’ve been unwittingly manipulated to do so.

Numbing Western Minds

In 1960, every American state had anti-sodomy laws, many of which prohibited intimate acts between persons of the same sex. Homosexuals hid their actions to avoid prosecution. However, in 1969 homosexuals in New York rioted after police raided the Stonewall Inn, a “gay bar.” This led to the formation of the “gay liberation” movement, which has worked for decades to pass anti-homosexual-discrimination laws.

Pro-”gay marriage” lawsuits began to be filed over four decades ago. Although not nationally publicized, between 1970 and 1973, courts in Kentucky, Minnesota and Washington denied marriage licenses to same-sex couples that filed lawsuits to obtain them. Yet the intellectual stance on homosexuality began to change. It was in 1973 that the American Psychiatric Association stopped listing homosexuality as a mental disorder.

At the same time, a turbulent sexual revolution was landing in the West, finding fertile ground and rooting itself in its top university campuses. Sexual experimentation, including homosexuality, filled the dormitories. It was on these university campuses that the first moves were made to turn public opinion in favor of homosexuality.

The numbing of the staunchly anti-homosexual Western mind began slowly at first. Homosexuals used tv sitcoms and movies to influence viewers’ thinking. In 1971, All in the Family became the first sitcom to depict a homosexual character. Daringly, it was the show’s fifth episode, “Judging Books by Their Covers,” that sought to smash people’s stereotypes. The episode showed that Meathead’s effeminate-looking friend was not homosexual, but Archie’s athletic former-nfl-linebacker friend was.

“A reading of this episode reveals that even four decades ago, television writers tackled the issue of gay rights using tactics that remain operable today,” writes A. J. Aronstein for Splitsider. Before All in the Family, homosexuals and homosexuality took the brunt of all jokes, but not anymore. tv viewers were being taught: Overlook the homosexual part, and you’ll see a normal person just like you.

Out of the Closet—In Your Face

The public and lawmakers did not jump on the “gay rights” train immediately. In 1973, Maryland became the first of 31 states to officially ban same-sex “marriages.” But homosexuals remained active and aggressive.

The first national homosexual-rights march on Washington took place Oct. 14, 1979, with between 75,000 and 125,000 homosexuals, bisexuals, transgender people and straight allies demanding pro-homosexual legislation. The legal fight was on.

In 1980, John Boswell, a prominent historian and Yale University professor, published Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality claiming that the early Roman Catholic Church may have sanctioned same-sex “marriages.” In 1983, Harvard Law student Evan Wolfson wrote his thesis—his manifesto—advancing the legal right to same-sex “marriage.” John Boswell died of complications from aids in 1994. Wolfson, a founder of the same-sex “marriage” movement, now directs a group called Freedom to Marry.

In 1981, medical researchers first reported on the health-wrecking symptoms now known as aids. Originally called grid—gay-related immunodeficiency disease—this fatal illness spread with particular force amid promiscuous homosexual men. Activist homosexuals convinced the medical establishment to change the name to “acquired immune deficiency syndrome.” Even so, the spread of aids caused the public stigma of homosexuality to grow stronger.

“The aids epidemic is sparking anger and fear in the heartland of straight America,” wrote Marshall Kirk and Erastes Pill in November 1987. “The 10 years ahead may decide for the next 40 whether gays claim their liberty and equality or are driven back, once again, as America’s caste of detested untouchables.”

These words appeared in an article titled “The Overhauling of Straight America” in Guide Magazine in November 1987. In this article, the authors outlined a strategy for transforming public perception of homosexuality. “At least in the beginning, we are seeking public desensitization and nothing more,” they wrote. “We do not need and cannot expect a full ‘appreciation’ or ‘understanding’ of homosexuality from the average American. You can forget about trying to persuade the masses that homosexuality is a good thing. But if only you can get them to think that it is just another thing, with a shrug of their shoulders, then your battle for legal and social rights is virtually won. And to get to shoulder-shrug stage, gays as a class must cease to appear mysterious, alien, loathsome and contrary. A large-scale media campaign will be required in order to change the image of gays in America.”

This article advocated just such a campaign, in astounding detail. The authors’ suggestions were voluminous: Talk publicly about homosexuality, particularly in the media (“almost any behavior begins to look normal if you are exposed to enough of it”). Encourage the appearance of favorable homosexual characters on television shows and in movies. Portray homosexuals as pillars of society (“In no time, a skillful and clever media campaign could have the gay community looking like the veritable fairy godmother to Western civilization”). Claim that famous historical figures were homosexual (“From Socrates to Shakespeare, from Alexander the Great to Alexander Hamilton, from Michelangelo to Walt Whitman”). Use spokespersons who are indistinguishable from straight people. Keep the discussion broad and abstract, downplaying actual homosexual behavior (“First let the camel get his nose inside the tent—only later his unsightly derriere!”). De-emphasize the fact that people choose to be homosexual (“the mainstream should be told that gays are victims of fate, in the sense that most never had a choice to accept or reject their sexual preference”). Portray homosexuals as victims in need of protection. Promote the cause using civil rights terminology (“Our campaign should not demand direct support for homosexual practices, should instead take anti-discrimination as its theme”). Publicize support for gays by more moderate churches. Undermine conservative resistance by representing it as antiquated and out-of-touch. Vilify opponents, associating them with the Ku Klux Klan or Nazis (“make the antigays look so nasty that average Americans will want to dissociate themselves from such types”). The article concluded with a multi-step plan for gaining ever greater access to television, radio and the mainstream press.

It is easy to forget just how radical this plan was at the time—simply because we now live in the pro-homosexual world they wanted to create.

Shifting Public Opinion

In 1989, the New Republic published the article “Here Comes the Groom: A Conservative Case for Gay Marriage.” “[G]ay marriage could both avoid a lot of tortured families and create the possibility for many happier ones,” author Andrew Sullivan argued. “It is not, in short, a denial of family values. It’s an extension of them.” Sullivan’s article helped thrust the debate out of the academic world and into the mainstream landscape.

In 1993, Tony Kushner’s seven-hour play, Angels in America, which deals with homosexual themes including aids, won the Pulitzer Prize. That same year, Hawaii’s supreme court ruled that the state law barring same-sex “marriage” may violate its constitution, and the U.S. military instituted its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. In 1994, Tom Hanks won the Oscar for best actor for his portrayal of a homosexual with aids in Philadelphia.ikea placed its first ad featuring two men as a couple.

In 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court established that banning protective laws for homosexuals was unconstitutional with Romer v. Evans. But President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, defining for the federal government marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Yet Time magazine put Ellen DeGeneres on its cover in 1997 with a bold title in red ink stating, “Yep, I’m Gay.” Even to the surprise of many homosexuals, the strategy was working.

In 2000, the Netherlands became the first nation in the world to legalize same-sex “marriage.” The same year, Vermont became the first U.S. state to legalize civil unions for same-sex couples. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court, with a 6-3 ruling in the landmark case Lawrence v. Texas, struck down the state’s sodomy law and, by extension, invalidated sodomy laws in 13 other states, legalizing same-sex sexual activity in every U.S. state and territory.

In 2004, Massachusetts legalized same-sex “marriage” by court decision, and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom briefly granted marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In 2008, a California court legalized “gay marriage” (although voters then banned it by Proposition 8). In 2011, the military ended “don’t ask, don’t tell,” allowing homosexuals to be open about their sexuality. Even Marvel Comics gave one of its superheroes a homosexual wedding in 2012.

Public opinion has followed the radical shift. The first national public opinion poll on approval of “gay marriage” in 1996 found a 27 percent approval rating. By 1999, it jumped to 35 percent, then 39 percent by 2005. The next year, it rose to 42 percent, dropping back to 40 percent in 2008 and then shooting to 44 percent by 2010. This year, a cnn poll found that support for same-sex “marriage” had grown to 53 percent—nearly double what it had been just 17 years before—thus becoming the majority position in America.

The Supreme Court first heard oral arguments on the cases related to Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act in March. On April 8, Time boldly printed on its cover: “Gay Marriage Already Won: The Supreme Court hasn’t made up its mind—but America has.” Homosexuals wanted the Supreme Court, including Justice Anthony Kennedy, to decide the issue. They feared a national public vote. Now, homosexuals have gotten their wish! Justice Kennedy led the way in striking down doma. By using the media and the courts, homosexual activists and leftist media have successfully broken America’s will to resist homosexuality.

Time for Clarity

Is traditional marriage gone forever? Only if we allow it to be taken from us! Polls show that Americans over 65 still strongly resist same-sex “marriage,” yet Americans born after 1980 strongly favor it. It was the 20-somethings that highly praised the sordid film Brokeback Mountain. It was the 20-somethings that made Modern Family the top-rated tv show in 2010.

Why is adult America allowing 20-somethings to redefine marriage? Why are young people taking control of America’s cultural values?

Most of America is allowing itself to be bullied by an aggressively vocal minority. Pro-homosexuals want Americans to believe there are large numbers of homosexuals who want to receive legal benefits, marry and raise children. The reality is, those large numbers do not exist.

The 2011 census counted approximately 114.8 million households in the United States. In 2010, the Census Bureau reported that same-sex pairs headed about 600,000 U.S. households—0.52 percent. Of those, only 115,000 have children—meaning 0.1 percent of American households are homosexuals raising children.

A tiny homosexual minority is forcing its views on the majority. Left-leaning journalists help by demonizing any voice opposed to it.

“One of the most effective tactics of gay rights activists has been to shift the debate,” wrote the Christian Science Monitor on March 25. “Instead of asking society to expand its view of marriage to accommodate them, same-sex marriage proponents have attacked those supporting the traditional view of marriage as bigots enforcing marriage exclusivity out of animosity towards gays and lesbians.”

Few people are willing to stand up for traditional marriage and to brave public humiliation. Too many Americans have said instead, As long as it doesn’t affect me, let them do what they want.

But it does affect you.

What About You?

Whether or not you realize it, the homosexuality issue touches many of the biggest, most profound and important questions in life.

Homosexuality challenges several fundamentals of human existence. Why male and female? Why marriage? What is its purpose? What defines family?

The implications of this issue force you to contemplate spiritual realities including the nature and character of God—and of the devil. And it challenges our understanding of the supreme question: Why are we here? What is the purpose for humankind?

Do you know the answers to these questions? If you don’t, then your attitude about homosexuality—positive or negative—is not based on a full understanding of the truth!

You can’t afford to decide on this subject with hazy opinions and assumptions. Your attitude and choices on homosexuality have profound implications for you and your loved ones.