Christian Action League
April 25, 2016
RALEIGH – Monday, approximately 5000 people came to the Halifax Mall in Raleigh for a rally in support of HB 2. Media reports on the bill have been inaccurate, even deceptive.
The rally was an incredible success with numerous national and state speakers, as well as state lawmakers. It was a powerful showing of the overwhelming support for the measure. The vast majority of North Carolinians support this common sense legislation and they want our Governor and state lawmakers to stay the course.
Below is the full text of Dr. Mark Creech’s speech at the rally, which was met with an exuberant response from the crowd. Dr. Creech is the executive director of the Christian Action League of North Carolina.
Love Rejoices Not In Iniquity, but Rejoices in the Truth
By Dr. Mark Creech
Speech for HB 2 Rally
A few days ago, I received an email from a former colleague of mine with the subject line: “Sad and outraged.” The text of the correspondence chided me for my support and advocacy of HB 2.
The e-mail read:
“Under any theological interpretation, I fail to see how this becomes the basis on which HB 2 is written, enacted and signed, ‘You shall love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.’”
I responded to the email with the following:
“I too am sad and outraged. Sad and outraged that you would interpret the greatest commandment to mean that women and young girls should be forced to undress or shower in the presence of men – violating their fundamental right to privacy. I am sad and outraged that you would have me and others suspend our right – our God-given right – to live and work according to our peacefully expressed beliefs – something that the Charlotte ordinance would have taken away. I am sad and outraged that you would think that this is somehow neighborly love. I am sad and outraged at such perversions of the meaning of love.
“’Love rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth’ (I Cor. 13:6).”
Another person sent me an email that called me a “phony Christian” because of my support for HB 2.
Let me ask you something, what could possibly be more phony or hypocritical than a sexual predator that passes himself off as a woman, exploits a loophole in a City ordinance (like the one passed in Charlotte), positions himself in a woman’s restroom and preys on women and children?
Yet because I would rejoice in the truth and warn others of a public policy that abandoned all common sense and exacerbated the dangers of sexual assault and rape already prevalent in public restrooms, I am somehow at fault? I will not even be nuisanced by such false guilt.
Neither should any of you who support HB 2. Neither should our lawmakers who passed the measure or our Governor who signed it. Quite the contrary, they did the right thing!
When I was the tender age of 12, I foolishly jumped into waters far over my head, not knowing how to swim. Two boys about my own age dove in to rescue me, but I nearly drowned them because of all my violent thrashing about. Still, it was their love for me that made them willing to chance their own safety to preserve my life.
Love, my friends, is when you are courageous and willing to risk your own well-being for the sake of another – you’re willing to endure the thrashings – you’re willing to endure the erroneous perceptions – you’re willing to endure the insults – the wrath – in order to protect or save some person or group.
When North Carolina lawmakers passed HB 2 they were well-aware they would be pounded by the left – knowing how the press would likely misrepresent their motives, as well as the facts – knowing the issue would wrongly be framed as a civil rights matter – knowing that the harmful tide of political correctness might wash over them – even wash them away – knowing it could cost them politically. Yet they did it anyway. And what they did, I suggest, was a very loving act.
We should be more than suspicious of the feigned calls by groups like the Human Rights Campaign, or Equality North Carolina, or the CEOs and celebrities that tout love and tolerance while they hold our state’s economy hostage to their demands.
Love doesn’t rejoice in iniquity but rejoices in the truth.
Yes, I will agree that we’ve got a mess. But the truth of the matter is the Charlotte City Council and Mayor Jennifer Roberts are responsible – they started this mess – despite the efforts of thousands of the citizens of Charlotte, Rep. Dan Bishop of Mecklenburg County, and Governor McCrory who begged them not to pass that egregious ordinance.
Attorney General Roy Cooper’s only job is to defend the laws and the Constitution of our state, but he was so preoccupied with running for Governor, he refused to do it. Because of his failure to do his job, another solution had to be found. And the only recourse for protecting our state’s women and children from an unreasonable imposition on their fundamental right to privacy – the only recourse for preventing government from overreaching into private businesses and churches and forcing them to promote ideas and participate in events that conflicted with their peacefully held beliefs – was the swift passage of HB 2.
Love doesn’t hang the heroes who tried to get us out of danger; love instead censures the culprits who actually put us in harm’s way.
Because love doesn’t rejoice in iniquity but rejoices in the truth.
I believe the eyes of the whole country are watching North Carolina, especially the 29 other states that have laws with similar levels of anti-discrimination protections as our own.
They’ll be watching us to see if a leftist media and the LGBT so-called “inclusion and diversity” police, the Pink Political Goliath, can succeed in forcing certain objectionable behaviors on private businesses and churches or creating a new and outrageous so-called “right” for men to go into women’s restrooms and showers.
They’ll be watching us to see the prospects of the whole country descending into madness. Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist, and a member of the Fox News Medical A-Team, recently summed it up well when he wrote:
“The bathroom debate is really a debate about the fundamental way we Americans will define any truth – whether as something simply felt by an individual or something scientifically demonstrable and verifiable…if we believe that transgender individuals must use the restrooms they choose, one could argue that many of our cultural institutions must flex away from fact. And one could argue that cultural chaos will result.”
This is not hyperbole. More importantly, this must not happen. This is why love for God and love for our neighbor requires us to fight this fight and not surrender.
One thing is for certain, we shall never prevail if we do not endure until the very end. No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom (Luke 9:62). None of us knows what to expect in the future. We only know what to expect of ourselves.
Frederick William Robertson, once said, “There are three things that deserve no mercy, hypocrisy, fraud, and tyranny.” I suggest the political agenda of the opponents of HB 2 embody all three. And it should be given no quarter.
I suggest to the chagrin of many that believe otherwise, to resist any repeal of HB 2 is to show love. It is a tough love. Nonetheless, the struggle to support the measure is a proper application of loving God with your entire being and your neighbor as yourself.
For love rejoices not in iniquity, but in the truth.