The pattern is so old now it has become almost boring, which is probably why it still works.
First, the left demands tolerance. Just tolerate us. Just let us exist. Just leave us alone. Then tolerance becomes acceptance. Acceptance becomes affirmation. Affirmation becomes celebration. Celebration becomes compulsory participation.
And when Christians still refuse to bow, when they still refuse to clap for the parade, when they still refuse to baptize sexual rebellion in the name of niceness, the movement reaches for the Bible.
Of course it does.
There, outside the San Francisco Giants stadium, amid the rainbow colors and cameras and media chatter, stands a man holding a sign that read, “NO BIGOTS IN SF,” with “Matthew 22:39” written beneath it.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
That’s the verse. And there it was, scribbled onto poster board like a divine endorsement for the homosexual revolution. A Bible verse reduced to a protest chant. A command of Christ turned into a bludgeon against Himself. The Word of God, hijacked with a Sharpie.
This is what the left does when it cannot get Christians to surrender outright. It starts vandalizing the furniture inside the house. It takes Christian words—love, justice, mercy, oppression, neighbor, dignity—and hollows them out until they can be filled with whatever political meaning the moment requires. Then it hands the empty shell back to us and demands that we call it Christianity.
The woke church did this with justice—remember Russell Moore, Tim Keller, JD Greear?
Feminism and egalitarianism are doing it—just look at the current war between feminists and Southern Baptists.
Mainline denominations have done it for decades with “love.”
The pro-homosexual movement has turned the ruse into an art form. Take a verse. Rip it out of context. Strip it of holiness. Remove repentance. Remove judgment. Remove the law of God. Remove Christ’s authority. Then hold up the mutilated remains and say, “See? Jesus agrees with us.”
No, He does not.
Matthew 22:39 does not mean what that clown holding that sign wants it to mean. It does not mean “affirm whatever your neighbor desires.” It does not mean “celebrate whatever sin your neighbor is practicing.” It does not mean “suspend moral judgment whenever someone accuses you of being unloving.”
It certainly does not mean Christians are required to treat sexual anarchy as righteousness because somebody outside a baseball stadium wrote a verse reference under the word “bigots.”
