The rest of the Top 20 flaws in Bishop Robinson’s book.

11. Bishop Robinson says it is wrong to teach that SSA Christians should not act on their desires. He says this reduces SSA to sexual acts. (Pg. 54) The fallacy is that he is then saying that we must all simply follow our feelings and desires and as long as our behavior is consistent with the way we personally feel, it is all just fine. He ignores the fact that we all have an obligation to govern our feelings and desires. Society cannot function on the theory of, “if it feels good, do it”. Every single human being on the face of the earth has to make conscious decisions to refrain from acts of dishonesty, aggression, anger, hatred, selfishness, lust, etc…, every day. If you subscribe to Bishop Robinson’s philosophy of carpe diem, our culture and society deteriorates within a generation.
12. He attacks 2000 years of theology in chapter 4 of his book which should have been titled, “Misinformation and Illusion”. The root of his wishful and adolescent interpretation of the bible comes from the fact that there is no ultimate authority in his faith. He can interpret scripture any way he likes because it all boils down to just Bishop Robinson and God. It is interesting that he feels licensed to then teach his personal interpretation to everyone else. In reality, his arguments are typical for any LGBT activist who wants to retain any claim to being a Christian. His omissions are very similar to the other LGBT activists and lobbyists. Not only does he forget Christ’s call to repentance, he forgets Matthew 19: 3-8. This passage is so important that I’ll quote it: “…Some Pharisees came to him, and to test him they asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?’ He answered, ‘Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’ They said to him, ‘Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?’ He said to them, ‘It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.” This passage speaks volumes about marriage, but it also speaks volumes about natural law and refers you back to Genesis 1:26-28. This makes it very clear that Christ teaches that marriage is between one man and one woman. But Bishop Robinson and the other LGBT activists and lobbyists avoid these two passages as though they don’t exist. If you do bring these up, those LGBT activists and lobbyists who wish to retain some claim of Christianity will either provide you with what they wish the bible says or they will engage in logical fallacy to avoid the discussion. Neither verse shows up in Bishop Robinson’s book.
13. Bishop Robinson waits until chapter 5 to pose the question, “What Would Jesus Do”. But we already know that Jesus treats SSA people with authentic love and compassion while calling for repentance. Again, Bishop Robinson forgets about the repentance part. Interestingly, Bishop Robinson says that people, “…are susceptible to our own biases and hoped-for outcomes…”. Talk about hitting the nail on the head? Bishop Robinson self-diagnoses his entire agenda on page 98 of his book. In that one short sentence, he summarizes and defines his decision to write a book that justifies his behavior. But he doesn’t stop with his personal agenda. He tries to tell us that Jesus agrees with him. After all, wasn’t it God that told Bishop Robinson to act on his SSA on page 10?
14. On at least two occasions Bishop Robinson seems to forget that same-sex couples are incapable of creating life. First he says that a SSM is “life-giving”. Later he talks about “any children that come from” the same-sex union. (Pgs. 110 & 124) Luckily we all realize that it takes a male and a female to create life, but it sounds like Bishop Robinson needs a little refresher on the basics of human reproduction.
15. Bishop Robinson loses sight of fact and fiction several times in the book. But it appears very clearly in a story he tells beginning on pg. 125. Bishop Robinson says that he received a call from a fellow Episcopal priest the very morning after New York passed its marriage equality law. If we are to believe Bishop Robinson’s story, this Episcopal priest, who lived in New York, was impressed that same-sex couples were so eager and willing to go through his church’s marriage preparation program. I believe it is unlikely that a New Yorker would have any experience with SSM preparation the day after the bill was passed. Might this be another sign that Bishop Robinson is simply susceptible to his own bias and hoped-for outcome? That could help explain why he stretches the truth to support his hoped-for outcome. However, it may simply be, that he surrounds himself with other LGBT advocates who also play loose with the difference between fact and fiction. If nobody is thinking critically about the issue, truth gets blurry, mistakes get overlooked and the only thing that matters is that everyone agrees.
16. On page 133, Bishop Robinson seems to suggest that one cause of the high divorce rate for traditional marriage is the number of SSA people who (like Bishop Robinson) divorce from their traditional marriage to pursue a same-sex relationship or LGBT lifestyle. I struggle to see how this could have any statistical impact on the national divorce rate when only 3.4% of the country identifies as homosexual. (Gallup: Special Report: 3.4% of U.S. Adults Identify as LGBT, October 18, 2012) If every single SSA American were married to a person of the opposite gender and then divorced this year in order to pursue a homosexual lifestyle, we would probably see a statistical change. That isn’t happening.
17. Bishop Robinson says that marriage is one of the lesser sacraments. (Pg. 140) He provides no source for this because providing the source would help you discover that this theory is the result of very poor theology and is based on fiction and a “hope-for outcome”. From a religious standpoint, demoting marriage to something less important than other sacraments helps Bishop Robinson justify his desire to change the definition of marriage. No sacrament (of which there are 7) is any less important than any of the other sacraments. Each sacrament was instituted by Christ and serves to infuse grace which perfects the couple’s love and strengthens their indissoluble unity. (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1641 & 1642) There is absolutely nothing “lesser” about marriage. But if you can get people to believe that marriage is nothing special, it makes it a lot easier to destroy it either intentionally or by recklessly adding things to God’s plan.
18. Bishop Robinson, a “man of the cloth”, devotes an entire chapter to downplaying the presence of God in traditional marriage and exaggerates the likelihood of marital failure so he can then propose SSM as either no worse or a chance to improve traditional marriage. (Pgs. 137-149). He fails to recognize that the sexual revolution of the late 60s and early 70’s was a disaster for marriage but that the divorce rate is not 50% and has been dropping over the past 20 years as people recognize the foolishness of the promises of free-love. Several sources show that marriages in which the couple prays together and keeps God at the center of the relationship lower their chances of divorce significantly. C.A. Johnson, S. M. Stanley, N.D. Glenn, P.A. Amato, S.L. Nock, H.J. Markman and M .R. Dion “Marriage in Oklahoma: 2001 Baseline Statewide Survey on Marriage and Divorce” (Oklahoma City, OK: Oklahoma Department of Human Services 2002). Bradley R.E. Wright, “Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites …and Other Lies You’ve Been Told,” (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2010), p. 133. SSM is simply a new and improved way to harm marriage and family. Americans need to realize that the state of traditional marriage isn’t quite as bad as most people think and that there are things we can all do to strengthen marriage in the U.S., that don’t include SSM.
19. In Chapter 9, Bishop Robinson gets right to the heart of things by explaining that marriage is really all about the happiness of the adults. In his estimation, happy adults make the world happy and if there are any kids around, they reap that benefit just as much as they suffer consequences of unhappiness. Therefore, the best way to deal with unhappiness in marriage is to obtain a divorce as that will eliminate the adult unhappiness and thereby benefit the children involved. Of course, if you take children out of the equation, everything still applies. In other words, the presence of a child doesn’t really impact anything. This is the result of the newly popularized belief that marriage is a status symbol, a means of obtaining equality, power, acceptance and ultimately focused on the happiness of the two adult in the relationship. This new definition of marriage is popular in our culture which puts personal pleasure, comfort and convenience ahead of all else. But marriage has always been about family, not simply happy adults.
20. Bishop Robinson also uses Chapter 9 to argue that same-sex parenting is beneficial for any children raised by the couple. He treats this as though it is a foregone conclusion but he ignores studies such as a study by Loren Marks, published by Social Science Research in July, 2012, and the study published in July 2012, by Mark Regnerus. These studies suggest that Bishop Robinson’s conclusions are not as solid as he would lead us to believe. Regnerus’ study is so challenging to the LGBT agenda that it is attacked by LGBT advocates from every angle. I’m not saying any of the studies are accurate or conclusive. What I am saying is that there is a deep need for thorough and unbiased research. Until then we have to admit that the issue is unresolved but that common sense suggests that there are differences between traditional families and same-sex parented families and that the effects of these differences will not be known for many years. It is prudent to wait until good studies can come from Canada and the European countries who have already legalized SSM before we introduce it in the U.S.A.

Marriage exists to bring a man and a woman together, in a committed, monogamous, permanent, relationship in order to create, nurture and educate any children with whom they are blessed. Marriage has always been, and will continue to be the least restrictive means of providing order to society and ensuring that the best interests of the child are observed. Marriage provides us with the best opportunity to ensure that every child is cared for and educated by his or her biological mother and biological father. Traditional marriage isn’t perfect, but it is better than most people think. As I mentioned in #18 above, the actual success rate of marriages in the U.S. is better than 50% and marriages in which the man and wife are both committed to their Christian faith, the success rate is significantly better than 50%. Even LGBT activists and lobbyists still agree that the best environment for any child is provided by a loving home with the child’s mother and father.

So what do we do about all of this in light of Bishop Robinson’s misleading book and the constant rhetoric we hear from the LGBT activists and lobbyists? I’ve got some ideas that I’ll share with you in my final blog in this series.