Hundreds of MI pastors: Stop ‘Gay’ Civil Rights or Send Me to Jail

By Michael F. Haverluck

In a protest over the homosexual agenda’s latest push to make gains through an LGBTQ-inspired civil rights movement, hundreds of Michigan pastors and Christian leaders from across America held a press conference last week to say they have had enough — to the extent of going to jail over the issue.

Proclaiming their opposition to the Michigan Legislature’s proposed amendment to the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, many advocates of biblical morality took a particularly bold stand on the steps of the State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, against legislation that they deem as anti-family and anti-Christian values.

“The homosexual agenda is an anti-freedom movement which has led to the persecution of pastors and Christian business owners across the nation, whose freedom of speech and freedom of religion are being taken from them, under the guise of so-called gay rights,” contended National Christian Leadership Council president Stacy Swimp. “There is nothing civil about that!”

Swimp believes that the “gay” agenda has gone too far, to the point where Christians have little choice but to exercise civil disobedience to stand up for the law as he insists the founders of the United States intended.

“Let there be no doubt that, if you should decide to go forward with this grave injustice, I, every born again believer I know, as well as every pastor you see here today, shall disobey your unjust law,” continued Swimp at the outdoor press conference (see video below). “Here we stand, Black and White together, ready to go to jail!”

Reportedly pressing the envelope on homosexual “rights” to include privileges above and beyond what heterosexual Americans enjoy, the new LGBTQ-friendly legislation is trying to include sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression into the state’s current civil rights act. This addition does not sit well with many in the Christian community in the Wolverine State.

“We, the undersigned Christian pastors of the state of Michigan, declare our opposition to adding sexual orientation, gender identity or other similar designation to the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act,” read Immanuel Baptist Church senior pastor Doug Levesque, out of Corunna, Michigan. He read this joint statement at the press conference from the steps of Lansing’s State Capitol.

The irony of it all

Pastors and Christian leaders at the conference argued that the newly proposed “nondiscrimination” laws will imminently resemble similar problematic legislation in other states — having the reverse effect of promoting and enforcing inequality instead of equality.

Church leaders from across the state contend that such laws allegedly designed to protect homosexuals end up unlawfully discriminating against people of faith. The pastors raised their case and point with the current political and legal proceedings taking place in Houston, Texas, where Mayor Annise Parker recently made – then retracted – an unprecedented move in the name of LGBTQ “rights” by subpoenaing local pastors’ sermons, notes and text messages in order to allegedly stifle and violate their religious liberty and free-speech rights.

Many at last week’s press conference contended that such extreme measures to push the homosexual agenda is nothing short of totalitarian in nature, resembling regimes of the past century when citizens were subjected to dictatorial laws enforced by officials acting as a kind of “thought police.”

“I don’t know of another example of pastors’ sermons being subpoenaed, except for in Nazi Germany and Communist Russia,” expressed First Baptist Church pastor R.B. Ouelette, who traveled to Lansing from Bridgeport, Michigan, to voice his challenge against the newly proposed legislation at the press conference. “I find it ironic that the first example of that happening in America is from the LGBT community.”

Upholding or tearing down the Constitution?

According to the pastors and Christian leaders gathering at the State Capitol, the Michigan Legislature isn’t doing its job by considering the proposed amendment to Michigan’s civil rights law. They insist that the state’s lawmakers must work to not only affirm, but uphold the constitutionally protected freedoms of every citizen in the state — including business owners.

The pastors contend that members of the Michigan Legislature should not be in the practice of passing laws that give special privileges, guarantee special protections or grant special status to a specific people group – in this case, the LGBTQ community. At the same time, they argue that the lawmakers shouldn’t implement laws that set out to coerce and punish those who hold to specific religious or moral beliefs.

“Those wanting special rights for sexual orientation are seeking to rewrite the traditional moral fiber of our society,” asserted Faith Baptist Church senior pastor Tim Berlin, who ministers out of Warren, Michigan.

Michigan pastors insist they will go to jail before being forced to violate their Christian-held beliefs and consciences by hiring or marrying homosexuals.