Controlling the language is a big part of winning the cultural war. Social Security, Affordable Care Act, Department of Homeland Security, Patriot Act. The list could go on, but you get the idea. Make forced government programs run by millions of government employees with billions of dollars behind them sound like they are public charities designed for our best interests.

Then there are the more subtle control words like “progressive,” “war on women, “hate crime” “anti-immigration.”

Controlling the language controls the debate, as Frank Schaeffer noted in his book The Myth of Neutrality. He wrote the following before he went psychotic and joined the other side:

“Think of the use of labels to categorize political activity. Some labels are used to neutralize the actions of certain groups; others denote being ‘one of us,’ acceptable.

“The words ‘right wing,’ ‘fundamentalist,’ ‘pro-life,’ ‘absolutist,’ and ‘deeply religious,’ are put-downs more than categories. Conversely, think of the unspoken pat on the back and blessing that the following words convey: ‘moderate,’ ‘pluralistic,’ ‘liberal,’ ‘civil libertarian,’ ‘pragmatic,’ and ‘enlightened.’”1

Added to the list are “gay” and “homophobic.” Gay used to mean “happy” or “festive,” like in the line from “Deck the Halls”: “Don we now our gay apparel.” “Gay apparel” does not refer to a rainbow flag draped around a naked homosexual activist or the way many homosexuals dress for a Gay Pride Parade.

Homosexuals learned very early that it was necessary to control the language. They told us all about their strategy:

“In the early stages of the campaign, the public should not be shocked and repelled by premature exposure to homosexual behavior itself. Instead, the imagery of sex per se should be downplayed, and the issue of gay rights reduced, as far as possible, to an abstract social question.”2

As Sigmund Freud wrote, “Groups are subject to the truly magical power of words.”

To be homophobic, in the definitional sense, means to have a fear (Greek: φόβος/phobos) of people who engage in same- (homo) sex sex.3

Today’s pro-homosexual journalists use the word homophobic to describe people who oppose same-sex sex or are fearful of being homosexual themselves. The word is used in articles like those published by the UK’s Daily Mail. One of the more recent one begins this way:

“EXCLUSIVE — ‘Hung out to dry’: Duck Dynasty star and family hit out at A&E for letting his controversial interview go public and for suspending him for homophobic comments.”

Instead of writing, “those who oppose same-sex sex,” thus, anti-same-sex sex or anti-homosexuality, they describe people opposed to same-sex sex as homophobic. Their terms . . . their control of the debate.

People who oppose same-sex sex aren’t afraid of homosexuals. Those opposed to same-sex sex do fear the government forcing an unwilling population to comply with the demands of a very small minority (1.7 percent) of people who engage in same-sex sex because they believe the behavior is immoral and irrational and infringes upon God-ordained principles of freedom of association and freedom of conscious.

There is a real fear that a government that controls the schools and thus controls the content of what’s taught will indoctrinate children into believing that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle choice.

There is also the fear that pro-longed retaliation by pro-homosexual groups will infringe upon the freedoms outlined in the First Amendment. Consider New Jersey:

“Legislators pulled their pending bill to legalize same-sex marriage in the Garden State in response to its supporters’ demand to strip the bill of language that would allow Christians and other people of faith to decline to recognize gay marriages on religious grounds.”

We fear our government and the institutions that have come under the control of a cadre of perverse ideologies that are having devastating effects across the nation. Ken Klukowski writes:

“We already see what happens where such protections are lacking. In Michigan and Georgia, graduate students were expelled from counseling programs for refusing to affirm gay marriage. In Vermont, a bed and breakfast was sued for not allowing a same-sex wedding reception in its banquet hall. And in a case now being offered to the U.S. Supreme Court, Elane Photography v. Willock, a financial penalty was imposed on a Christian photographer for declining to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony.”

1. Franky Schaeffer, A Time for Anger: The Myth of Neutrality (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1982), 15. [↩]
2. Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, “Strategy: Persuasion, Not Invasion,” After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90s (New York: Doubleday, 1989), 178. [↩]
3. The Greek word ὁμός (homos) should not be confused with the Latin word homo which means “man” or “mankind” like it’s used for the anthropological term “Homo erectus” (upright man). Although I’m sure homosexuals consider him to be a homosexual. For example, Ecce homo, “Behold, the Man!” (John 19:15), is the Latin translation of the Greek phrase Ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄνθρωπος (Idou ho anthrōpos) that Pontius Pilate said when he presented a beaten and scourged Jesus Christ to a hostile crowd shortly before his Crucifixion. Again, don’t be too surprised if homosexuals claim Jesus as one of their own based on the fact that He hung out with 12 young men. For homosexuals, everything is sexual. [↩]