Will Obama’s Executive Order against Gay discrimination Affect Seventh-day Adventist Institutions?

AdventMessenger.com | Editorial

On July 21, 2014 President Obama signed and issued an executive order to protect lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered [LGBT] from being discriminated in the workplace. This order forces all federal contractors to accept the gay agenda which includes religious groups and faith-based organizations that partner with the federal government [US Aid] and receive federal money to address hunger, poverty, diseases, and disaster and relief services in the developing world.

Some of these faith-based federal contractors that receive government money include Catholic Relief Services, Adventist Development and Relief Agency, United Methodist Church Relief, the Salvation Army, Lutheran World Relief, Christian Reformed World Relief, and several other Evangelical, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, and non-denominational groups. President Barack Obama’s executive order prohibiting workplace discrimination against lesbian, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered is the devil’s perfect plan to force the Christian churches, including Seventh-day Adventists, to accept homosexual behavior.

Adventist Development and Relief Agency [ADRA] is the Seventh-day Adventist humanitarian relief organization that contracts its services with the US Government. According to ADRA’s 2012 annual report posted on Adra.org, only 8% of their total budged comes from the Seventh-day Adventist Church. 62% comes from the U.S. Government [$81 million for 2012 alone] and the rest comes from other non-U.S. governments and private donations. What does this mean for ADRA and all of these Christian organizations? The options are very clear: (1) They will either lose the hundreds of millions

of dollars that they are given or (2) they will not be able to discriminate against the LGBT lifestyle in the workplace. Now if we don’t want to have to hire lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered then we can’t be doing business with the federal government. But if we are going to take federal dollars then we must hire them in our institutions or face federal lawsuits for discrimination. We can’t have it both ways. This is why Jesus nor any of the apostles sought for public funding from Caesar. They didn’t want to compromise the sanctity of the gospel with the policies of this world.

Adventists, in an attempt to circumvent this dilemma and guarantee their government funding added their signature to a petition to President Obama pleading with him to provide religious exemption for church groups with regards to the Presidential order. Dwayne Leslie, Director of Legislative Affairs at the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists added his name to a long list of Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Baptists, Methodists, and other religious organizations pleading with President Obama to exempt religious organizations from having to hire people from the LGBT community. Of course President Obama ignored them because he believes that gay rights is the most important agenda of the day that that gay rights are above every other rights in America, including religious liberty. With the stroke of the pen President Obama denied the request of the churches and signed an executive order denying federal money to contractors who are unwilling to openly hire gay employees.

But this is just the beginning. The militant gay agenda will not end there. The gay lobby is working to impose their lifestyle upon every organization in America, religious or otherwise, and anyone who does not go along with the program will be cut off from all earthly support. Remember Jesus said that His coming would be just like in the days of Lot (Luke 17:28-30). Seventh-day Adventists are the largest non-profit Protestant healthcare provider in the United States. And guess what? Our hospitals also partner with [Caesar] the federal government to accept Medicaid and Medicare, both government issued insurance. The federal government can refuse to reimburse hospitals for Medicare or Medicaid claims if they believe that the hospital in not in compliance with whatever new policy the government implements. And don’t think for a second that the gay lobbyists are going to sit back and not push for these issues too. The gay lobby in America is far more in advance in their work that we can ever imagine.

Take for example Gordon College in Massachusetts which is currently in a struggle to retain its accreditation because of its Biblical position of not hiring gay faculty at its Christian institution. The Boston Globe, in a July 11, 2014 article entitled “Accrediting agency to Review Gordon College,” reported that: “The region’s higher education accrediting agency will review whether its standards are being violated by Gordon College after the Christian school’s public opposition to hiring protections for gays and lesbians shed light on its longstanding policies prohibiting gay activities among students, faculty, and staff.”

The Boston Globe reported that the reason for this accreditation review is that it turns out that the President of Gordon College, Dr. Michael Lindsay also wrote President Obama asking for exemption from his executive order. As you can also imagine, Seventh-day Adventist institutions of higher learning also partner with the government to accept federal grants for its student body. Because we have departed from God’s blueprint on how our schools should operate, most Adventists colleges and universities would not be able to operate without federal funding. Will Seventh-day Adventists institutions become the next target of the “Gay Inquisition?” These things happen when we have worldly accreditation and worldly recognition and when we partner with the world and receive “secular” dollars to fund our “sacred” institutions. We are coming to a crisis in which we will either have to accept the culture of Sodom and Gomorrah by hiring them or we will eventually have to depend solely on the Lord to sustain our institutions.

“In the last great conflict of the controversy with Satan those who are loyal to God will see every earthly support cut off. Because they refuse to break His law in obedience to earthly powers.” Desire of Ages, pp. 121, 122.