Though it flew largely under the radar here in the United States, recent remarks from Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte portend a coming ideological confrontation for conservative Christians that isn't likely to end well politically for those who hold to biblical teaching on human sexuality.
In early June, the parliament of Hungary passed a law that forbid the indoctrination of young children with curriculum that pushed LGBT ideology in the country's schools. The measure was a response to the success several gay/trans-affirming organizations have had throughout much of the European Union. Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban described the law as defending the innocence of children and the rights of parents.
"The law is about to decide what kind of way parents would like to sexually educate their kids, [with that right] exclusively belonging to the parents," Orban explained.
To say that position didn't sit well with the immensely powerful LGBT lobby that currently controls the public narrative would be an understatement. Utilizing public school systems is one of their most effective and therefore preferred means of influence in the West's ongoing sexual revolution, after all.
Rutte affirmed as much when he provocatively stated his desire to "bring Hungary to its knees on this issue." The Dutch prime minister took to Twitter to tout his disdain for Hungarian leadership on the issue of parental rights, suggesting that they "must leave" the EU if they refuse to submit to the pro-LGBT "values" of the organization.
It's nothing short of international, geopolitical blackmail perfected by "leaders" whose intellectual curiosity and diplomatic statesmanship never evolved past juvenility: "Either submit to our will on the sexual indoctrination of children or you can't be part of our club."
As gross as that is, it's reality. It's reality for Hungary, who for their part seem to be holding firm:
But it's also reality for Christians throughout the West who attempt to conduct business in the public square. This forced submission to LGBT political demands is the next step down the ladder into moral oblivion that the pseudo-equality brigades have been forcing for years. Anyone who believed that peaceful coexistence with traditional or Christian sexual convictions was an objective of the LGBT movement was willfully ignorant.
Despite what many well-intentioned people have been led to believe, the LGBT political cause was never about the right to marry. It was always about forcing the Christian clerk to give the marriage license, the Christian photographer to take the pictures, the Christian baker to make the cake, and soon the Christian minister to conduct the ceremony in the Christian church's sanctuary.
It's never been about providing legal protections to gay people; it's always been about removing legal protections for the faithful.
It's never been about civil rights; it's always been about using the coercive power of government to obliterate the conscience rights for those who object – whether they are county clerks, private cookie makers, or parliaments and prime ministers of European countries.
Hungary is now facing the international manifestation of the same reality County Clerk Kim Davis faced, that baker Jack Phillips dealt with, that photographer Elaine Huguenin encountered: the rigid and unforgiving dogma of an LGBT movement utterly committed to using the force of law to run roughshod over the rights of those who live and believe differently than they do.
The European Commission's president Ursula von der Leyen has left no ambiguity about where the EU collectively stands, appealing to – of all things – "values" as justification for punishing Hungary. French President Emmanuel Macron called the controversy "an existential question for Europeans."
Indeed it is, though there is little doubt about whose side will carry the day politically, culturally, and legally. What's happening with Hungary is just the latest harbinger announcing that the future for the church of Jesus and those in the West who have held to traditional views of sexual morality is unlikely to be a pleasant one.
