This article was originally published on the One News Now website HERE.
Liberal church leaders in Tennessee are demanding the end of religious freedom in The Volunteer State in the name of ending discrimination, but a pastor who opposes them says their views are not the norm.
“Just because it sounds like a church, just because it looks like a church, just because they’ve got people in there that call it a church, and just because they’ve got a name that sounds like a church, doesn’t mean that they are a Bible-believing church,” observes Dale Walker, a member of the biblically conservative Tennessee Pastors Network.What causes liberal clergy to align with pro-homosexual groups’ demands for ‘tolerance’ and ‘inclusion’?
Walker is responding to the list of pastors, rabbis, bishops, and other church leaders who have aligned themselves with the Tennessee Equality Project, a pro-homosexual rights lobbying group that is currently fighting several state bills nicknamed the “Slate of Hate” by the LGBT group.
In the ongoing culture war, defining “hate” is part of the battle, and state legislators are being besieged with claims of “state sanctioned discrimination” by a far-left group that demands biological men can enter women’s restrooms without punishment, and the same group wants to force Christian-based adoption agencies to place children into homes led by homosexual couples.
All totaled, Tennessee lawmakers have proposed five bills this session (SB0848/HB1152, SB0364/HB0563, HB1151/SB1297, SB1499/HB1274, and HB1369/SB1282) that are drawing the anger of vocal and well-funded homosexual-rights activists, including a bill (HB1369) that defiantly states The Volunteer State recognizes legal marriage is between one man and one woman.
The Tennessean newspaper reported in February that the Tennessee Natural Marriage Defense Act states the 2015 Obergefell decision is void because Tennessee had already passed its own state law banning same-sex marriage.
A spokesman for the Tennessee Equality Project told the newspaper the state bill is a “dream scenario” for the “far right” because the legislation would be challenged and could wind up at the U.S. Supreme Court.
The spokesman predicted an “outcry” from pro-homosexual groups if the bill, which failed last year, gains traction in the General Assembly.
According to Walker, the vast majority of Tennessee pastors are in favor of religious liberty but there is a problem: they need to speak out in the current battle over defining religious liberty in the state.
“The leftist churches and the progressive churches, they’re willing to put their name on the list,” he points out. “And Bible-believing churches today are going to have to get a backbone and not act like a bunch of Jezebel’s prophets.”