The American Psychological Association is facilitating exactly what many pastors and Christian leaders, including this humble writer, predicted when so-called same-sex "marriage" was legalized.
With concerted voice, we warned "marriage" between people of the same sex would not be the end of the matter---because it is a slippery slope.
The APA has launched a task force seeking to normalize all kinds of sexual relationships under the banner of "marriage."
Be informed.
We told you so.
When Washington State went through the effort to protect marriage from those obsessed with redefining it, I, who served as spokesman for the group and a few others in leadership to protect marriage, was constantly mocked publicly for suggesting redefining marriage was a slippery slope.
Essentially, all the media mocked us---particularly our claim regarding the "slippery slope."
I was interviewed countless times by Dave Ross on KIRO radio in Seattle. Every time, he mocked the notion of the "slippery slope."
It's now clear that we and thousands of other pastors and leaders across the nation who have fought the fight for marriage were right about the "slippery slope."
Most of us would have preferred to be wrong about the slope---but we weren't.
The American Psychological Association is pushing marriage down the slope.
The American Psychological Association has launched a task force that will encourage "awareness and inclusivity" for any kind of sexual impulse.
The APA has said the task force is dedicated to "Consensual Non-Monogamy" and is advocating for "people who practice polyamory, open relationships, swinging, relationship anarchy and other types of ethical, non-monogamous relationships."
The task force website says,
"Finding love and/or sexual intimacy is a central part of most people's life experience. However, the ability to engage in desired intimacy without social and medical stigmatization is not liberty for all. This task force seeks to address the needs of people who practice consensual non-monogamy, including their intersecting marginalized identities."
Clearly, the APA has lost its way. The Constitution does not offer group sex rights to people.
Dr. Van Mol, a board-certified family physician in California and co-chair of the committee on adolescent sexuality for the American College of Pediatricians, says this is what happens when "ideology replaces science."
He laments that most mental healthcare experts "have largely given up on their job of investigating underlying factors that may be contributing to marginal sexual behavior...leaving only a cult of affirmation."
The APA began down the slope of their "anything goes" approach to sexual behavior in 1973 when they removed homosexuality as a mental disorder. In 2009, they rejected therapy to help those with unwanted same-sex attraction to resist that tendency.
The APA, in my opinion, is directly responsible for misleading and accommodating thousands, if not millions of people regarding human sexuality.
Their decisions have helped foster acceptance of behaviors believed to be deviant and destructive from man's earliest recorded history in Old Testament text.
The APA is being aided by a resounding silence from too many pulpits.
Every major religion and every successful culture has rejected homosexuality and embraced a form of traditional man-woman marriage. Every major religion affirms marriage as between a man and a woman.
Family Research Council has produced an excellent paper on "The Slippery Slope of Same-Sex Marriage."
I encourage you to take some time and read the study.
Some of the highlights:
A man and his horse.
In what some call a denial of a basic civil right, a Missouri man has been told he may not marry his long term companion. Although his situation is unique, the logic of his argument is remarkably similar to that employed by advocates of homosexual marriage.
The man claims that the essential elements of marriage---love and commitment---are indeed present: She's gorgeous. She's sweet. She's loving. I'm very proud of her...Deep down, way down, I'd love to have children with her.
Why is the state of Missouri...displaying such heartlessness in denying the holy bonds of wedlock to this man and his would-be wife?
The threat to marriage.
The Missouri man and the homosexual "marriage" proponents categorically reject the definition of marriage as a union of a man and a woman. Instead, the sole criterion for marriage becomes the presence of "love" and "mutual commitment."
Once marriage is no longer confined to a man and a woman, it is impossible to exclude virtually any relationship between two or more partners of either sex---even non-human partners.
Once the pure definition of marriage was changed, what basis would the state be able to now deny marriage to anyone---including animals, buildings (one woman argued that she wants to marry a building in Seattle that she has fallen in love with) or groups of people.
The polyamory movement
Here's what polyamory means: "Sean has a wife. He also has a girlfriend. His girlfriend has another boyfriend. That boyfriend is dating Sean's wife."
The movement to redefine marriage has found full expression in what the APA is now advocating under the guise of science.
These group arrangements are also referred to as "polyfidelity" and in every case, it seeks to become normalized and remove the construct of traditional marriage.
The word "polyamory" is derived from Greek and Latin roots, and is loosely translated "many loves."
One of the primary arguments by polygamists and polyamory advocates is that they have a "right" to have their love relations affirmed and recognized by the government.
Polyamorists reject the "myth" of monogamy and claim to practice "harmonious love and intimacy between multiple poly partners."
The Polyamory movement was essentially birthed from the 1961 sci-fi novel, "Stranger in a Strange Land."
The movement initially took hold within the academic community and is thriving there today. It has become so influential now that they are trying to eventually abolish the institution of marriage itself. Scholars enamored with polyamory within the academic community are now trying to start a social revolution that would replace traditional marriage and family law.
Their method for advancing this kind of group marriage is the same as the advocates for same-sex marriage---incrementalism.
David Chambers, professor of law at the University of Michigan, says, "By ceasing to conceive of marriage as a partnership composed of one person of each sex, the state may become more receptive to units of three or more."
Clearly, the American Psychological Association has lost its way---if it ever had a scientific way.
The same people who are working to deny counseling for people with unwanted same-sex desires also want to promote sexual anarchy and make "open relationships" a protected class.
Dr. Van Mol says:
"We should expect the Task Force to take its sexual tenets mainstream as well. Their (APA) sexuality divisions have long since been taken over by by extremists...It won't be long before this will be taught to our children in school with the usual emotional blackmail that to do otherwise is to stigmatize."
In 2015, Princeton University Professor Robert P. George---a strong advocate for traditional biblical marriage--- wrote an article for the American Interest titled, "Is Polyamory Next?"
He said the redefining of marriage "paves the way for mainstreaming of multiple persons in a marriage."
"If gender doesn't matter for marriage," he said, "then ask why number should matter? If love makes a family , as the slogan went when the cause being advanced was gay marriage, then why should their family be treated as second class? Why should their 'marriage' be denied legal recognition and the dignity and social standing that come with it?"
Things that can be shaken are being shaken.
Be Steadfast. Be Faithful. Be Informed. Be Vigilant. Be Prayerful.