For breaking through the thick congressional wall on behalf of gay rights, President Obama was dubbed the nation’s “first gay president.” Indeed, he hosted Gay Pride events at the White House, helped bring an end to Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell, signed hate crimes legislation, and mandated visitation rights for partners of LGBT patients. Obama went so far as to appoint the first transgender in an American presidential administration — Amanda Simpson, Senior Technical Advisor to the Department of Commerce.

Although the California Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of an amendment which says, “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California,” gays continued to demand extraordinarily large representation in public and even private arenas. A Zogby-GLCensus Partners poll of over 1500 participants identified legal recognition of same-sex marriage as a primary goal. Accordingly, in reversing his previously held position on marriage, President Obama lent unbridled support for same-sex marriage, likely the most socially fundamental issue of the twenty-first century.

The US Supreme Court unanimously approved a Wisconsin hate-crimes statute (Wisconsin v Mitchell, 2000), and its Lawrence ruling overturned Texas’ same-sex, anti-sodomy law. The Lawrence decision also rendered unenforceable what thirteen other state laws prohibited. In 2003 when the Massachusetts Supreme Court advanced the notion that gay marriage extended civil rights to disadvantaged groups (Goodrich v the Massachusetts Department of Public Health), even authentic advocates of the civil rights movement (Alveda King, for one) were incensed. The growing number of ex-gays proved that homosexuals likely possess no unchangeable characteristics. What’s more, far from disadvantaged, the gay community boasted incomes forty-one percent above the national average. Not robed judges, but God alone grants natural, unalienable rights.

A fair-minded person’s exercise of freedom of conscience is not hatred, bigotry, discrimination, or extremism, yet Senator Ted Kennedy likened said vitriol to “terrorism.” Fact is, San Francisco documented fewer cases of anti-gay violence than gay-to-gay domestic violence; but media spokesperson Paul Begala fingered “extremist, hate mongering conservative” groups — you know, the American Family Association and the Family Research Council — as brutal murderers.

• 2000s — Legitimization in the Media

Surprise, surprise! NBC’s Will and Grace exposed ex-gays as hypocrites, and the gay media strategy paid big dividends with daytime soap operas. Movies as Brokeback Mountain glamorized homosexuality, and Boyz magazine showcased it. Generous grants from the tax-funded National Endowment of the Arts supported the Los Angeles Gay-Lesbian Film Festival, Lesbian Visual Arts, and the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus — and retold the Passion Play from a gay perspective. Vocal opponents of taxpayers’ funding what the Bible calls “confusion,” “vile,” and “reprobate” were attacked, not necessarily for their ideas, but rather on a personal level. Following a yearlong gay activist “search and destroy” campaign, talk radio’s Dr. Laura Schlessinger was hounded off her conservative television show.

• 2000s — Legitimization in the Marketplace of Ideas

As the number of same-sex households soared, especially in Vermont and Delaware, freedom of conviction faced increasing opposition. “Miss Manners” of lesbianism Kathy Belge called it “just plain vindictive” should heterosexuals even suggest countering gay- with straight- pride events. Though tax moneys supported gay pride, heterosexual pride was unthinkably offensive. Canada’s Parliament sanctioned a law to criminalize speech even thought to be “anti-gay.” This, of course, begged the question, “Who decides?” You can bet it wasn’t Ann Coulter! Liberal monism prevailed. When two heterosexual women declined a lesbian as their roommate, the Madison Equal Opportunities Commission ignored their concerns by ordering the women to write a letter of apology, pay an exorbitant fine, and complete “sensitivity training.”

• 2000s — Legitimization in the Work Place

Despite voters’ registered opposition to gay marriage, ACT-UP and OUT activists for homosexual rights chanted, marched, and invaded businesses and government offices, Microsoft caved to gay rights, corporations introduced diversity training, and more than half of the US’s largest corporations extended health insurance to employees’ same-sex domestic partners. Wal-Mart pressured suppliers to give homosexuals preferential treatment — then, rolled out the red carpet in favor of gay marriage. In opposing Missouri’s efforts to license gays as foster parents, a Christian social worker was outright fired.

• 2000s — Legitimization in Education

Education emerged as the movement’s top industry (social services following), and American Airlines spread the love as official carrier of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Teachers’ network. Polls conducted even by liberal newspapers like The Boston Globe revealed opposition to gay marriage by as much as a two-to-one margin, yet public universities, high schools, and grade schools marginalized “we, the people” by openly championing the diversity agenda.

In school common areas, gay-friendly visual imagery portrayed the culture in favorable light, and Candlewick Press published the bizarrely explicit It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie H. Harris. Lesbian activists representing the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) advanced the FLASH curriculum and demanded that LGBT youth be singled out for specific — i.e., special — protection under school disciplinary codes. “Safe Zone” requirements forced teachers to validate lifestyles they privately opposed.

A GLSEN summer workshop taught gay sex techniques to curious high school students, and some tax-funded Gay-Straight Alliances advanced the pro-gay agenda via booster clubs. GLSEN-promoted, daylong National Days of Silence not only disrupted the educational process of some eight thousand American schools, but also denied nonparticipating students their legitimate right to a “least restrictive educational environment.”

In New York City, the Harvey Milk Public School focused on needs of homo- and bi- sexual students, the transgendered and questioning youth; and Chicago’s school board introduced new, anti-discrimination language into its books. When a school in Massachusetts celebrated “To B GLAD Day,” parents were not told that the acronym stood for “Transgender, Bisexual, Gay, and Lesbian Day” and would feature workshops about “Life Outside the Gender Norm,” “Being Gay in the Professional World,” and “Fighting Homophobia.” It’s no wonder that two-thirds of our nation’s high school seniors polled were shown to favor legalization of homosexual marriage. Even more favored homosexual adoptions, and fully ninety percent favored “hate crimes” laws that exceed protections afforded other groups.

San Francisco State University offered dozens of classes on gay issues, not to mention an undergraduate minor in LGBT studies. While Dartmouth featured studies in “Queer Theory” and “Queer Texts,” Brown offered “Unnatural Acts: Introduction to Lesbian and Gay Literature”; and Stanford students studied “Homosexuals, Heretics, Witches, and Werewolves.” George Mason University even elected a GT homecoming queen!

• 2000s — Legitimization in Government

While Massachusetts’ Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshal went so far as to characterize homosexuality as “a superior form of love,” Nebraska’s ACLU sued over a constitutional amendment affirming traditional marriages. The New York-based Lambda Legal Defense demanded approval, not just permission for civil unions. Vermont was first in line to recognize “marriage lite,” and Washington D.C. approved a bill recognizing same-sex marriages in other states. California law required companies that do business with the state to subsidize homosexual relationships. President Obama revoked conscience protection for health workers; and his AIDS Czar, Jeffrey Crowley, promoted free comprehensive health care for gays. The Local Law Enforcement Act (2000) expanded the scope of what’s considered a “hate crime,” and groundwork was laid for criminal pursuit of Bible-honoring Christian preachers. Under scrutiny of the Canadian Radio-TV and Telecommunications Commission, Canadians were forbidden to oppose or criticize the movement, and the Swedish parliament passed a constitutional amendment making it a crime to teach that homosexual behavior is immoral.

• 2000s — Legitimization on the Net

For not offering dating services to gays and lesbians, homosexual Eric McKinley from New Jersey sued the dating site www.eHarmony.com in March 2005. As part of the settlement, e-Harmony was forced to provide a new website, called “Compatible Partners,” pay the state fifty thousand dollars to cover the cost of the investigation, and an additional five thousand dollars for McKinley, likewise given a year’s free membership. Nice work, if you can get it.

• 2000s — Legitimization in Church

A report from the US Census Bureau identified what is characterized as a “post-family society,” also known as the “post-Christian society,” evidenced in gay-friendly Bible translations that radically retold Scriptures. In a gay newspaper, Steve Warren made the disconcerting admission that gays have on their side “the spirit of the age.” Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson referenced the “religious language” of lesbianism and “the sacred masculine.” Gay spirituality groups as Flesh and Spirit Community, Gay Mystics, Gay Spirit Culture Project, Q-Spirit, and the like identified Gay Pride with its own unique brand of interfaith spirituality, one which everyone must tolerate and even celebrate.

In the US, Reformed Judaism was the first major mainstream religion to adopt a national policy sanctioning homosexuality. By joining a mainline denomination — namely, the United Church of Christ — the world’s largest homosexual church (Cathedral of Hope in Texas) sought legitimization, seemingly successfully. Founder and CEO of Sojourners Jim Wallis included same-sex couples in the effort to strengthen marriage, and Presbyterians voted against mandatory fidelity in traditional marriage and chastity in singleness for its clergy and lay office holders. V. Gene Robinson was the first Anglican clergyman to live in an openly homosexual relationship, and, upon “marrying” her lesbian partner, Karen Dammann retained ministerial credentials in the United Methodist Church.

Traditionalists didn’t fare so well. For displaying a sign that read “Stop Immorality, Stop Homosexuality, Stop Lesbianism, Jesus is Our Lord,” Harry Hammond was convicted in a British court of law and, for distributing Christian tracts, Dale McAlpine served a jail sentence. Neither parroted the right kind of state-approved speech and, for that, they paid.

• 2000s — Legitimization in the Global Village

By the 2000s the gay agenda was firmly established in the Global Village. The UN and other global entities applauded sustainable, zero-population growth gay unions. CEDAW guaranteed the right for lesbians to marry. Iceland’s Prime Minister was among the first to marry her lesbian partner and, when President Obama publicly supported gay marriage, incoming French Socialist President François Hollande followed his lead. China’s policy granted “no approval, no disapproval, and no promotion”; however, in 2001 the Ministry of Health in China officially removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. Although Israel recognized same-sex marriages performed in foreign jurisdictions, the Knesset defeated a bill to legalize them. On the other hand, Canada was on board with the agenda in redefining marriage as “the lawful union of two persons to the exclusion of all others.”

Speaking at the World Day for Cultural Diversity, Dialogue and Development, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon demanded that diversity be acknowledged and celebrated. In popular culture, diversity spoke—not merely to acceptance of multiple ethnic cultures — but to “tolerance,” specifically as it relates to gays — their sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression; government recognition of same-sex relationships, anti-discrimination/sodomy laws, equal age of consent for same-sex activity, LGBT adoption and military service.

More to follow in Part 5 of 5.