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The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today
Authors Alan Sears and Craig Osten expose the goals of the homosexual movement and its rising legal activism. The homosexual agenda has as its primary aim to “trump” the rights of all other groups, especially those of people of faith. The saddest part of the story is that it is working. In 1988, 74.9 percent of the American public thought that sex between two people of the same gender was always wrong. By 1998, the percentage had fallen to 54.6 percent. Sears and Osten provide well-documented proof that America; is not only becoming more tolerant of homosexuality, through the indoctrination of children, positive exposure on TV, and the support and approval of corporate America, it is becoming less tolerant of those who disagree.
240 pages, Paperback
First published July 15, 2003
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October 9, 2007Wow, it is always good to hear what the other side has to say... and then take it apart bit by bit, exposing the bullshit.
January 23, 2016
Oh dear
The note from the authors Alan Sears and Craig Osten at the beginning says.
"While this book deals with a difficult and contentious issue, we want to state up front that both authors and the ministry of 'Alliance Defense Fund' have nothing but respect, compassion and sensitivity toward those enslaved in homosexual behaviour. Both of us have family members, respected acquaintances and friends who have been trapped in this behaviour and know something of the incredible pain and sorrow it has brought to them and their families. With God's grace we carefully balance this love and respect for these individuals with warnings about the carrying out, promotion, and demand for legal approval for homosexual behaviour that will stifle religious freedom and trap millions of more people in its deadly grip."
It goes down hill from here. The other 229 pages continue in a similar vein of duplicity, sensationalistic scare tactics, condemnation and fear-mongering.
With an enormous amount of quotes, many taken out of context, referencing, cherry picking research the authors endeavour to make a case that gay and lesbian people intend to take over the world and destroy the church and family. Oh and don't forget we are also debauched paedophiles according to authors.
Even though the endorsements at the front of the book by people such as Bill Bright, James Dobson, James Kennedy and Albert Mohler speak glowing of the work , one pastor calling it 'ground-breaking', these conspiracy theories are nothing new. It's a worn out, tired, old, vagary that has kept their prayer lives active and the church and ministry coffers full since the likes of Anita Bryant in the 1970's with her 'Save the Children' campaign.
The frightening thing of course is that there will be those who read this and it will push them further into ignorance and misinformation about the everyday lives of gay and lesbian people, their families and relationships.
The only reason I persisted and ploughed through this piece of fantastical, conservative Christian writing was for research.
Just for the record. The agenda is to be treated with dignity, respect and equality. That is all.
The note from the authors Alan Sears and Craig Osten at the beginning says.
"While this book deals with a difficult and contentious issue, we want to state up front that both authors and the ministry of 'Alliance Defense Fund' have nothing but respect, compassion and sensitivity toward those enslaved in homosexual behaviour. Both of us have family members, respected acquaintances and friends who have been trapped in this behaviour and know something of the incredible pain and sorrow it has brought to them and their families. With God's grace we carefully balance this love and respect for these individuals with warnings about the carrying out, promotion, and demand for legal approval for homosexual behaviour that will stifle religious freedom and trap millions of more people in its deadly grip."
It goes down hill from here. The other 229 pages continue in a similar vein of duplicity, sensationalistic scare tactics, condemnation and fear-mongering.
With an enormous amount of quotes, many taken out of context, referencing, cherry picking research the authors endeavour to make a case that gay and lesbian people intend to take over the world and destroy the church and family. Oh and don't forget we are also debauched paedophiles according to authors.
Even though the endorsements at the front of the book by people such as Bill Bright, James Dobson, James Kennedy and Albert Mohler speak glowing of the work , one pastor calling it 'ground-breaking', these conspiracy theories are nothing new. It's a worn out, tired, old, vagary that has kept their prayer lives active and the church and ministry coffers full since the likes of Anita Bryant in the 1970's with her 'Save the Children' campaign.
The frightening thing of course is that there will be those who read this and it will push them further into ignorance and misinformation about the everyday lives of gay and lesbian people, their families and relationships.
The only reason I persisted and ploughed through this piece of fantastical, conservative Christian writing was for research.
Just for the record. The agenda is to be treated with dignity, respect and equality. That is all.
June 4, 2015
1.5 stars because of faulty logic.
First of all, this book failed to make any argument for why A) What the authors call "extra rights" for gay people -- sorry, that should be "people who practice homosexual behavior" because gay is a word made up by the gays, again, sorry, "people who practice homosexual behavior" (I'll just go with PWPHB for short from now on) to sell their brand to the public -- which sane people would call "equal rights," leads to B)making it illegal to preach their biblical beliefs about homosexuality in church.
The authors get way out in the weeds at some point equating work policies that prohibit being bigots to censorship. Here's a clue: When the government prohibits free expression, it's censorship; when an employer does it, it's called company policy, and the company's rules -- whether or not one agrees with them -- are not censorship. Conservatives have been actively working for decades to chip away at workplace protections and unions that could perhaps give them more protection on issues such as this, so if it bites them on the ass, it's partly their fault.
Likewise, their idea of persecution is out of skew. They give as an example of government meddling in church business the example of the withholding of federal funds from Bob Jones University because of that institution of (not) learning practiced racism by not allowing interracial dating and not allowing people in interracial marriages to attend. Really? You went there?
They claim that the "special rights" demanded by PWPHB are different because black people couldn't help being black, but that members of the former class choose to engage in homosexual behavior.
Which brings us to this: They never once define what "homosexual behavior is." This should seem obvious, but here's why it isn't in this book: They consider telling first graders that sometimes people have two mommies or two daddies as instruction in homosexual behavior. So telling kids that some of them have different families, which has always been the case, seems to be equated to a three-day beach orgy in the Keys. But with those being the parameters, "homosexual behavior" can be anything -- or, apparently, nothing.
For the sake of establishing a definition that would be almost universally accepted, I'm referring to homosexual behavior as women having sex with women or men having sex with men. Plenty of straight men have gone to a gay club for a drag show because they think they're fun; they're not engaging in homosexual behavior. If a male/female couple plays doubles tennis against their gay co-workers, they are not engaging in homosexual behavior. If a lesbian couple shows affection in a venue where it acceptable for a straight couple to do the same, that's not homosexual behavior.
And if PWPHB, for the sake of argument, do choose to do so, so what? People choose to work on the Sabbath and I have never heard a Christian speak out against it. So breaking one of the 10 Commandments -- supposedly the top 10 things God wanted to impart -- is OK, but breaking a rule that was not considered important enough for the top-10 list is really bad?
And our entire capitalistic system is based on coveting, that people at the bottom want to have the nice things that others have. I don't recall hearing preachers spending much,if any, time condemning coveting when I was a kid.
On to language. On one page about 4/5 through the book I noticed the use of "homosexual activists" five times, or more specifically two of that phrase and three "radical homosexual activists." I don't know whether that page topped all the other pages for the use of that phrase; I had not been counting to that point. There also was the term "militant homosexual activists" used a few times.
And this gives some insight to what the authors present -- the most radical examples they could find. Some are well-sourced, some not so much. And it was obvious several were taken out of context.
But if someone were to write a book titled "The Christian Agenda" and fill it up with the most extreme acts of Christians, he could easily spend six months cataloging horrendous examples and more realistically a year or two. He could spend that much time on pogroms against Jews and witch trials/murders.
Remember, it's been Christians (and Muslims) who have been killing and jailing PWPHB for hundreds of years. Who have been firing them from their jobs or refusing to hire them in the first place. Who have been calling them all manner of names. Name-calling has more danger in this case than might normally be the case, as some people will take it as encouragement to commit violence and because it dehumanizes PWPHB or are maybe only suspected of it. In addition to the Atlanta Olympics bombing, Eric Rudolph also bombed a lesbian club.
So some PWPHB are activists, and some maybe are radical activists, but maybe it's from being the target of all that Christian "love" Christians are always on about for a couple of thousand years.
And just, finally, to touch on the issue of churches losing tax-exempt status if they have petition drives for petitions related to gay rights issues, here's a quote:
“The divorce between Church and State ought to be absolute.It ought to be so absolute that no Church property anywhere, in any state or in the nation, should be exempt from equal taxation; for if you exempt the property of any church organization, to that extent you impose a tax upon the whole community.” ~James A. Garfield
Churches should be able to write off charitable good works, such as feeding the hungry and clothing giveaways, but should not get a blanket exemption. Churches use public sewage and water systems, which often are subsidized by regular taxpayers and sales taxes from which they often are exempt; they receive fire and police protection; and their existence leads to more traffic on the roadways of parishioners coming and going. They should pay like any other business for services they use.
When churches aren't taxed their fair share it means everyone else has to pay for all of the houses of worship. So atheists actually are subsiding Christians who are subsidizing Muslims who are subsidizing Jews, etc.
First of all, this book failed to make any argument for why A) What the authors call "extra rights" for gay people -- sorry, that should be "people who practice homosexual behavior" because gay is a word made up by the gays, again, sorry, "people who practice homosexual behavior" (I'll just go with PWPHB for short from now on) to sell their brand to the public -- which sane people would call "equal rights," leads to B)making it illegal to preach their biblical beliefs about homosexuality in church.
The authors get way out in the weeds at some point equating work policies that prohibit being bigots to censorship. Here's a clue: When the government prohibits free expression, it's censorship; when an employer does it, it's called company policy, and the company's rules -- whether or not one agrees with them -- are not censorship. Conservatives have been actively working for decades to chip away at workplace protections and unions that could perhaps give them more protection on issues such as this, so if it bites them on the ass, it's partly their fault.
Likewise, their idea of persecution is out of skew. They give as an example of government meddling in church business the example of the withholding of federal funds from Bob Jones University because of that institution of (not) learning practiced racism by not allowing interracial dating and not allowing people in interracial marriages to attend. Really? You went there?
They claim that the "special rights" demanded by PWPHB are different because black people couldn't help being black, but that members of the former class choose to engage in homosexual behavior.
Which brings us to this: They never once define what "homosexual behavior is." This should seem obvious, but here's why it isn't in this book: They consider telling first graders that sometimes people have two mommies or two daddies as instruction in homosexual behavior. So telling kids that some of them have different families, which has always been the case, seems to be equated to a three-day beach orgy in the Keys. But with those being the parameters, "homosexual behavior" can be anything -- or, apparently, nothing.
For the sake of establishing a definition that would be almost universally accepted, I'm referring to homosexual behavior as women having sex with women or men having sex with men. Plenty of straight men have gone to a gay club for a drag show because they think they're fun; they're not engaging in homosexual behavior. If a male/female couple plays doubles tennis against their gay co-workers, they are not engaging in homosexual behavior. If a lesbian couple shows affection in a venue where it acceptable for a straight couple to do the same, that's not homosexual behavior.
And if PWPHB, for the sake of argument, do choose to do so, so what? People choose to work on the Sabbath and I have never heard a Christian speak out against it. So breaking one of the 10 Commandments -- supposedly the top 10 things God wanted to impart -- is OK, but breaking a rule that was not considered important enough for the top-10 list is really bad?
And our entire capitalistic system is based on coveting, that people at the bottom want to have the nice things that others have. I don't recall hearing preachers spending much,if any, time condemning coveting when I was a kid.
On to language. On one page about 4/5 through the book I noticed the use of "homosexual activists" five times, or more specifically two of that phrase and three "radical homosexual activists." I don't know whether that page topped all the other pages for the use of that phrase; I had not been counting to that point. There also was the term "militant homosexual activists" used a few times.
And this gives some insight to what the authors present -- the most radical examples they could find. Some are well-sourced, some not so much. And it was obvious several were taken out of context.
But if someone were to write a book titled "The Christian Agenda" and fill it up with the most extreme acts of Christians, he could easily spend six months cataloging horrendous examples and more realistically a year or two. He could spend that much time on pogroms against Jews and witch trials/murders.
Remember, it's been Christians (and Muslims) who have been killing and jailing PWPHB for hundreds of years. Who have been firing them from their jobs or refusing to hire them in the first place. Who have been calling them all manner of names. Name-calling has more danger in this case than might normally be the case, as some people will take it as encouragement to commit violence and because it dehumanizes PWPHB or are maybe only suspected of it. In addition to the Atlanta Olympics bombing, Eric Rudolph also bombed a lesbian club.
So some PWPHB are activists, and some maybe are radical activists, but maybe it's from being the target of all that Christian "love" Christians are always on about for a couple of thousand years.
And just, finally, to touch on the issue of churches losing tax-exempt status if they have petition drives for petitions related to gay rights issues, here's a quote:
“The divorce between Church and State ought to be absolute.It ought to be so absolute that no Church property anywhere, in any state or in the nation, should be exempt from equal taxation; for if you exempt the property of any church organization, to that extent you impose a tax upon the whole community.” ~James A. Garfield
Churches should be able to write off charitable good works, such as feeding the hungry and clothing giveaways, but should not get a blanket exemption. Churches use public sewage and water systems, which often are subsidized by regular taxpayers and sales taxes from which they often are exempt; they receive fire and police protection; and their existence leads to more traffic on the roadways of parishioners coming and going. They should pay like any other business for services they use.
When churches aren't taxed their fair share it means everyone else has to pay for all of the houses of worship. So atheists actually are subsiding Christians who are subsidizing Muslims who are subsidizing Jews, etc.
September 17, 2008
Everything you need to know to see why homosexuals need love. I disagree with homosexuality but I agree that they along with every person are deserving of love. The book also shows what many homosexuals are driving at.
February 19, 2016
First, I am a conservative Christian who believes the Bible says homosexuality is a sin. I get that there's people who separate what Paul said from what Jesus didn't say, but my understanding of Scripture doesn't allow me to separate the Gospels from the Epistles.
I have homosexual friends (or at least I did before I published this review), and I accept that I may lose their friendship. I wish that wasn't the case. I wish there was a way I could show love for you while at the same time disagreeing with you.
I did not want to believe that there is an insidious homosexual "agenda" that threatens religious freedom. I picked up this book primarily because I was skeptical that homosexuals want to threaten religious freedom.
Having read the book now, I do believe there is an agenda, and that homosexual activism is not satisfied with mere tolerance. The authors make the case that activism won't be satisfied with anything less than conformity, and if they can't get assent from the church, silence.
So why only two stars? First off, if you read this book, don't read it on the Kindle. This is one of the worst print-to-digital conversions I've ever seen. Pull quotes that are not separated from body paragraphs; footnotes that, once you click on them, don't backlink to the body text; inconsistency between what gets a footnote, an asterisk, or a +. The formatting is a hot mess.
Second, it's very dated. Published in 2003, the book is in sorry need of revision, now that same sex marriage is the accepted law of the land. The extended section applauding the Boy Scouts for the stand they have taken against gay scoutmasters is completely irrelevant now, and the chapter on Hollywood's treatment of homosexuality talks about "Will and Grace" as its most current example.
Finally, the tone of the book is very strident. In the opening pages, the authors promise compassion and love for those trapped in the homosexual lifestyle. But there is no love for activists. Sometimes the authors come across as petulant children, complaining that "if the church, or Focus on the Family or any other religious organization tried to do what the activists have done..." and so forth. We get it. It's unfair. But Jesus pretty much guaranteed that it would be, so we need not be surprised. The authors quote Anne Coulter, positively. Twice. And when you quote Anne Coulter, you give up acres of moral high ground.
What was most interesting to me was the statistics on the disposable income and economic level of same sex couples. Prime time TV, advertisers, and vacation destinations aren't catering to homosexuals because of a political agenda. They do so because there is money to be made. Companies exist to make money, and gays have money to spend. There doesn't have to be an insidious activist agenda at work. It's capitalism, plain and simple.
All in all, the book does what it says it will do: exposing the threat to religious freedom. I'm still not convinced that this is the "principal" threat to religious freedom, but I do think it's a threat.
What I need most as a pastor is a resource that will help me guard against my voice being silenced as a minister, and will help me equip people in my congregation to deal with unfair policies in the workplace. This book exposed the threat, but it didn't really provide that kind of resource.
I have homosexual friends (or at least I did before I published this review), and I accept that I may lose their friendship. I wish that wasn't the case. I wish there was a way I could show love for you while at the same time disagreeing with you.
I did not want to believe that there is an insidious homosexual "agenda" that threatens religious freedom. I picked up this book primarily because I was skeptical that homosexuals want to threaten religious freedom.
Having read the book now, I do believe there is an agenda, and that homosexual activism is not satisfied with mere tolerance. The authors make the case that activism won't be satisfied with anything less than conformity, and if they can't get assent from the church, silence.
So why only two stars? First off, if you read this book, don't read it on the Kindle. This is one of the worst print-to-digital conversions I've ever seen. Pull quotes that are not separated from body paragraphs; footnotes that, once you click on them, don't backlink to the body text; inconsistency between what gets a footnote, an asterisk, or a +. The formatting is a hot mess.
Second, it's very dated. Published in 2003, the book is in sorry need of revision, now that same sex marriage is the accepted law of the land. The extended section applauding the Boy Scouts for the stand they have taken against gay scoutmasters is completely irrelevant now, and the chapter on Hollywood's treatment of homosexuality talks about "Will and Grace" as its most current example.
Finally, the tone of the book is very strident. In the opening pages, the authors promise compassion and love for those trapped in the homosexual lifestyle. But there is no love for activists. Sometimes the authors come across as petulant children, complaining that "if the church, or Focus on the Family or any other religious organization tried to do what the activists have done..." and so forth. We get it. It's unfair. But Jesus pretty much guaranteed that it would be, so we need not be surprised. The authors quote Anne Coulter, positively. Twice. And when you quote Anne Coulter, you give up acres of moral high ground.
What was most interesting to me was the statistics on the disposable income and economic level of same sex couples. Prime time TV, advertisers, and vacation destinations aren't catering to homosexuals because of a political agenda. They do so because there is money to be made. Companies exist to make money, and gays have money to spend. There doesn't have to be an insidious activist agenda at work. It's capitalism, plain and simple.
All in all, the book does what it says it will do: exposing the threat to religious freedom. I'm still not convinced that this is the "principal" threat to religious freedom, but I do think it's a threat.
What I need most as a pastor is a resource that will help me guard against my voice being silenced as a minister, and will help me equip people in my congregation to deal with unfair policies in the workplace. This book exposed the threat, but it didn't really provide that kind of resource.
Read
August 12, 2014Read this book when I was a conservative religious teenager. Weirdly its arguments were so bad it was one of the first things to make me start questioning some of the things I had been taught.
January 23, 2009
Really good.
Read
March 20, 2008I will never finish this one
August 19, 2024
ARE WE IN THE "ELEVENTH HOUR" WITH REGARD TO GAY ACTIVISM?
They wrote in the Introduction to this 2003 book, "In the pages to follow, we will strive to make the point that the future of our children and grandchildren is in our hands. We will outline how the homosexual agenda touches every area of our lives, from the media to education to families to corporate America and to government. We will document how the religious freedoms of all Americans are under attack from radical homosexual activists...We are at ... the eleventh hour with regard to homosexual activism and religious freedom... we can either put up a brave defensive stand, or we can let them cross the goal line unhindered. If believers choose to do nothing, there might be a day that people of faith will have to tell their children and grandchildren, `I'm sorry. I did nothing to protect your religious freedom and now it's gone.'" (Pg. 14-15)
They admit, "Unfortunately, some individuals have played right into the hands of radical homosexual activists in helping them bludgeon the Christian community on the homosexual issue... we mentioned Fred Phelps and his followers who go around the country with signs ..., picket funerals of AIDS victims, and host a website showing homosexuals being thrown into the fires of hell. Others have used less than ideal discernment in discussing the homosexual issue in the media. By not practicing Christ-like speech, sincere Christians have often been their own worst enemy in assisting radical homosexual activists move their agenda forward, especially when they are looking for the absolutely worst-case examples to prop up as representatives of orthodox and evangelical, Bible-believing Christians." (Pg. 23)
They argue, "The argument over gay marriage is only incidentally and secondarily and argument over gays. What it is first and fundamentally is an argument over marriage. Unless a government is sufficiently powerful and disdainful of religion to crush the objections of the local churches---and few governments are---gay marriage will turn out in practice to mean the creation of an alternative form of legal coupling that will be available to homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. Gay marriage... does not extend marital rights; it abolishes marriage and puts a new, flimsier institution in its place." (Pg. 92)
This is a strongly-worded critique and call to action that will appeal to sympathetically-minded Christians, though its force may alienate others.
They wrote in the Introduction to this 2003 book, "In the pages to follow, we will strive to make the point that the future of our children and grandchildren is in our hands. We will outline how the homosexual agenda touches every area of our lives, from the media to education to families to corporate America and to government. We will document how the religious freedoms of all Americans are under attack from radical homosexual activists...We are at ... the eleventh hour with regard to homosexual activism and religious freedom... we can either put up a brave defensive stand, or we can let them cross the goal line unhindered. If believers choose to do nothing, there might be a day that people of faith will have to tell their children and grandchildren, `I'm sorry. I did nothing to protect your religious freedom and now it's gone.'" (Pg. 14-15)
They admit, "Unfortunately, some individuals have played right into the hands of radical homosexual activists in helping them bludgeon the Christian community on the homosexual issue... we mentioned Fred Phelps and his followers who go around the country with signs ..., picket funerals of AIDS victims, and host a website showing homosexuals being thrown into the fires of hell. Others have used less than ideal discernment in discussing the homosexual issue in the media. By not practicing Christ-like speech, sincere Christians have often been their own worst enemy in assisting radical homosexual activists move their agenda forward, especially when they are looking for the absolutely worst-case examples to prop up as representatives of orthodox and evangelical, Bible-believing Christians." (Pg. 23)
They argue, "The argument over gay marriage is only incidentally and secondarily and argument over gays. What it is first and fundamentally is an argument over marriage. Unless a government is sufficiently powerful and disdainful of religion to crush the objections of the local churches---and few governments are---gay marriage will turn out in practice to mean the creation of an alternative form of legal coupling that will be available to homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. Gay marriage... does not extend marital rights; it abolishes marriage and puts a new, flimsier institution in its place." (Pg. 92)
This is a strongly-worded critique and call to action that will appeal to sympathetically-minded Christians, though its force may alienate others.
May 21, 2025
I am open to many views, but this book is shocking beyond the core and incredibly nonsensical, including so hypocritical that it is sickening even to get through. The blasphemy in this book is so slap-in-the-face that no one who contributed to this can even call themselves a person of God. God would cry if he read this book.
This book should be called:
"The Ignorant and Insecure Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing the Deeply Hypocritical, Unjustly Righteous, Religiously Blasphemous, and Pointlessly Hateful Threat to Human Freedom by a Group of People who can't Follow God's Path but Skew his Word for their Purpose and Wants Just to Shame and Oppress Others Who do Not Fully Align With Their Personal Views."
The people in this book create issues that do not exist just to push a personal agenda. It is unforgivable to lie just to desperately try to inhibit the freedom of anyone different.
This book should be called:
"The Ignorant and Insecure Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing the Deeply Hypocritical, Unjustly Righteous, Religiously Blasphemous, and Pointlessly Hateful Threat to Human Freedom by a Group of People who can't Follow God's Path but Skew his Word for their Purpose and Wants Just to Shame and Oppress Others Who do Not Fully Align With Their Personal Views."
The people in this book create issues that do not exist just to push a personal agenda. It is unforgivable to lie just to desperately try to inhibit the freedom of anyone different.
June 6, 2025
The authors of this book are some of the most vile, disgusting, and absolutely stupid people to ever put pen to page.
This book vascillates wildly between some of the dumbest things that made me laugh out loud, and then some of the most vile homophobia, on par and exceeding anything the Westboro Baptist Church put on a sign.
And worse: these ADF fucks are making laws.
This book vascillates wildly between some of the dumbest things that made me laugh out loud, and then some of the most vile homophobia, on par and exceeding anything the Westboro Baptist Church put on a sign.
And worse: these ADF fucks are making laws.
May 15, 2025
Not gay enough. Mostly here to shit on this book because of John Oliver. But also wishing the worst of existing to everyone who had a part in creating this and anyone who rated it 5 stars
August 22, 2025
Horrible homophobic propoganda.
May 31, 2023
good writing, but gross context. 🤢🤮
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews