In a recent on-air debate I had with homosexual activist attorney Andrea Ritchie, I asked her whether, in her estimation, the demands being made by the homosexual lobby could peacefully coincide in our society with traditional, Biblical morality.  After stating her opinion that there is no homosexual or transgender agenda, she explained that her understanding of Jesus' teachings was that we were to love and accept everyone.

When I responded by challenging that those of us who oppose the dangerous lifestyle of homosexuality do so out of a sense of love, she reminded me that when confronted with the woman caught in adultery (another form of sexual indiscretion), Jesus warned only those who are without sin should cast the first stone.  Tellingly, she decided to drop the period right in the middle of Jesus' sentence.  Conveniently missing from Ms. Ritchie's defense was what Jesus went on to lovingly say to the prostitute: "Go and sin no more."

And that was the heart of my question - is it possible for our society to satisfy the cries of "civil rights" for those practicing various forms of recreational sex while still providing for the rights of Christians to proclaim to those individuals, "go and sin no more?"

Though intentionally elusive and non-committal, her response contained enough substantive morsels to deduce the real answer: the two can coexist so long as Christians capitulate by neutering Scripture and accepting sin.

This is the painful reality that our society can continue to ignore, but that will continue pressing uncomfortably against us until we acknowledge its nagging presence.  Our culture is being confronted with the choice of whether we will continue to protect the rights of conscience for Christians and other like-minded religious people, or if we will forsake those protections and instead create a right of sexual chaos where moral disapproval of any consensual sexual activity is forbidden.  We simply can't have both.

As evidence of this truth, consider a recent ruling from the United Kingdom's High Court.  At issue was the foster care parenting rights not of practicing homosexuals, but of practicing Christians.  Eunice and Owen Johns had applied to become foster parents, but were denied that right because of their religious conviction that homosexuality was deviant and immoral behavior.

The High Court saw this belief as discriminatory against homosexuals and thus deemed the Johns' home an improper environment for raising children.  This is the danger in elevating behavior to the status of identity.  By confusing homosexuality as who a person is rather than what a person does, moral disapproval of that behavior is removed from the concept of free opinion and placed in the category of condemnable hate. 

The great irony, of course, is that by protecting practicing homosexuals from such discrimination, the High Court codified and condoned discrimination against practicing Christians.  While they acknowledged the European Convention granted individuals a right to conscience and religion, the judges decided the degree to which Christianity is protected can be "qualified."

Got that?  Religious rights now become "qualified" in order to allow for an unencumbered and unrestricted sexual license.  Despite being built upon the framework of Western-Christian thought dating back to leading legal authorities, like the Scripturally devout Sir William Blackstone, the UK High Court exhibited no hesitation in choosing sides in this titanic struggle between the rights of conscience and the push for sexual anarchy. 

They ruled, "While as between the protected rights concerning religion and sexual orientation there is no hierarchy of rights, there may, as this case shows, be a tension between equality provisions concerning religious discrimination and those concerning sexual orientation.  Where this is so...the National Minimum Standards for Fostering and the Statutory Guidance indicate that it must be taken into account and in this limited sense the equality provisions concerning sexual orientation should take precedence."

Sexual progressives 1, Christians 0.

Though we've seen this imminent face-off between the demands of the aggressive sexual anarchists of the left and Christian rights of conscience brewing for some time - an Indianapolis cookie store threatened with eviction for declining to participate in a homosexual celebration, a New Mexico photography business fined for declining to take pictures of a homosexual "ring ceremony," San Diego doctors taken to court for not providing a lesbian couple with in vitro fertilization, evangelical dating site eHarmony.com bullied by the New Jersey Attorney General's Office into creating and operating a site for homosexuals - this UK ruling is the most alarming development to date.

It indicates the uncompromisingly hostile position the left is taking towards traditional morality: one will win, the other will lose.  The fate of our civilization depends upon the right outcome.