Government departments, educational establishments and even, God help us, the Church need to sever all links with Stonewall
A glimmer of light begins to shine at the end of a long dark tunnel. In a welcome and long overdue move, the media watchdog Ofcom has become the latest organisation to withdraw from Stonewall's Diversity Champions' programme, citing as a reason the need to avoid conflict or a risk of perceived bias.
In a statement, while reasserting their support for maintaining the rights and freedoms of LGBTQ+ people, Ofcom said, "As the communications regulator, an important part of our responsibility is to ensure we remain impartial and independent at all times."
Wonder of wonders! By implication it would seem Ofcom is finally acknowledging that the Diversity Champions scheme – touted by Stonewall as a programme to ensure all LGBTQ+ staff achieve their full potential in the workplace – far from being a benign effort to promote 'inclusivity' - operates as an ideological pressure group designed to normalise and promote the lifestyle behaviour and choices of a mere 2 per cent of the population. Support for which does indeed mean their impartiality is compromised.
The response from LGBTQ+ activists has been swift, but mixed. For instance, Lord Michael Cashman, co-founder of Stonewall, fumed, "Utterly shameful and twisted. Your organisation no longer wishes to champion diversity and hides behind weasel words as you cave into pressure from shrill sirens opposed to equality."
He appears then to be blaming feminists, for their vocal assertion that biological sex matters, and their vehement opposition to Stonewall's promotion of transgenderism. But against that, acclaimed gay actor Simon Callow has described Stonewall's ideological position on transgenderism as "tyrannical", saying that it has been pursued with "extraordinarily unproductive militancy'.
The real problem, however, goes far beyond an internecine spat over transgender rights, and to confine the debate to feminist protest is entirely to miss the point. What's really at issue is the covert and duplicitous attempt to reconfigure society.
As LBGTQ+ activists have gained a stranglehold on power – deliberately targeting government and government departments, so as to build an impregnable cadre of influence – so they have become increasingly intolerant towards those who dare voice concern or a lack of support for behaviours formerly regarded as deviating from the norm. Especially since they have become intolerant to what they disparagingly call outdated Christian morality.
The fact those views are laid out and derived from the Bible is immaterial. To LGBT activists, religious belief is part of an anachronistic patriarchy that has no part in the modern world, so that it must be either reformulated or removed. God must be brought into the 21st century and remade in man's flawed image.
So the merest hint of a Biblical counter-narrative – no matter how sincerely such beliefs might be held – is enough to provoke charges of bigotry and intolerance. Offenders, even if simply attempting to respond honestly to an enquiry about their faith, are liable to be reported and charged with hate crime. Before the juggernaut of LGBT displeasure, they may well find themselves sacked or sent for diversity training, or removed from a much-loved course at university.
Because the sad truth is, LGBTQ+ activists no longer seek 'equality' and the freedom to be who they are. Rather, they seek dominance. And Stonewall, with its diversity champions' programme, has led the charge.
But it doesn't even stop there. In recent years Stonewall, and other LGBT groups involved in education, have launched an all-out assault on the nation's young, seeking to make the whole of the curriculum followed in UK schools LGBT compliant. Is this really just to stop bullying, so that LGBT children can 'be themselves'? No, the clear and expressed aim is to normalise and promote same-sex behaviours and lifestyle choices, so that children grow up with unquestioning acceptance of values once classed as harmful to the wellbeing of society.
It is nothing less than an attempt by stealth to take over and control society. It is revolution, every bit as vicious as the power grab made by communism in Russia and China. And as people are coerced into accepting this new ideology, so the family gradually but inexorably splinters apart, the birth rate catastrophically falls, and chaos prevails. Christ will have died in vain.
And this is the real reason why government departments, educational establishments and even, God help us, the Church need to sever all links with this pernicious organisation. Not just to maintain 'impartiality', but to ensure the future wellbeing and continuance of the human race.
Rev Lynda Rose is founder of Voice for Justice UK, a group which works to uphold the moral values of the Bible in society.