A high-stakes, zero-sum game is unfolding in the heartland of America. And along with it, a glimpse into the brave new world that is being fashioned by homosexualists[1] and abetted by the timid souls that increasingly “man” the Republican party.

For anyone unfamiliar with the term, “zero-sum” conditions exist whenever any gain on one side in a game or conflict is met with a corresponding loss for the other. Poker or the way two teams move or defend the position of a football on the playing field are two classic examples. But now another, far more ominous one is unfolding in the arena of civil rights. The campaign to normalize homosexuality is threatening to not just push Christians into their own end zone, but out of the stadium as well.

This past Tuesday, Indiana’s Governor Mike Pence did an about-face from his earlier defense of Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Faced with having himself and the state of Indiana branded with the dreaded “H” word (homophobic) as well as potential economic losses due to threatened boycotts (it’s money and not principle that matter in the end after all), Pence threw the bill back to the House, declaring that it needed to be rewritten so it wouldn’t “permit discrimination against gays and lesbians.” And today (Thursday), Republican lawmakers also bowed the knee, offering an amendment that not only gutted the original purpose of the bill (protecting religious liberty and freedom of conscience) but virtually guaranteed an open season on Christians who dared to not compliantly serve the homosexualist campaign. (To learn more the implications of this amendment, read Matt Barber’s insightful commentary here.)

Given the confusion ginned up by the “gay” left and their cohorts in the popular media, it’s important that people understand two things about the original Indiana bill.

First, its language pretty much mirrors the federal version that was signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1993. Championed by the likes of Ted Kennedy, the bill passed the House unanimously and by a 97-3 margin in the Senate.

Second, the idea that the act would, for example, grant a restaurant owner the right to refuse service to homosexuals is a complete myth, a propaganda point invented for the sole purpose of furthering the homosexualist agenda. The Indiana law simply notes that individuals and business owners’ religious values are important and should be taken into account when those beliefs conflict with other policies and values in the public arena. In other words, a Catholic pharmacist doesn’t necessarily have to dispense drugs that induce abortion. A bed and breakfast inn run by a devout Christian family doesn’t necessarily have to allow a homosexual couple to honeymoon under their roof. And wait for this (because it is coming, trust me) – a Christian church can’t necessarily be prevented from firing their choir director after he announces that he has married another man and is having faux sex with him.

Note the italics: the protection of religious liberty is not ironclad but simply recognized by the law as important and to be balanced against compelling government interests so as to find the least restrictive means of furthering that interest.

Big whoop.

But even this flimsy token was an affront to the intolerance police on the left. Bowing before their ire, Hovernor Pence not only caved, he revealed the zero-sum nature of what he is helping unleash when he added this glittering nugget of newspeak: “Nobody should be harassed or mistreated because of who they love or what they believe in.”

Really? What if that somebody happens to love God and believe He created marriage and sex and ordained that they be uniquely realized within a covenant (marriage) relationship between one man and one woman? No soup for you. “Heterosexists” and “dinosaurs” (thank-you Miley for sharing your sinsights with us) can and should be harassed at will and further be forced to either offer a pinch of incense to Dionysius or whatever other idol to sexual debauchery man’s rebellion wants to trot out…or lose the right to engage in commerce. (Here it might be good for the reader to consider the broader outlines of Rev. 13:17.)

And herein lies the rub, a simple truth that every American needs to grasp without flinching: when it comes to the inevitable collision between “gay rights” and the religious liberty of the increasingly silent majority that deep down know that homosex is neither righteous or conducive to human, familial and societal flourishing: we are ineluctably on a zero-sum game playing field.

If you don’t believe me, listen to a key playmaker on the other side of the ball. Chai R. Feldblum has served as a Commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission since 2010. She is a former Georgetown law professor, a noted expert on civil – most notably gay – rights, and herself a lesbian. In a 2006 interview, she used the very term “zero-sum game” in describing the conflict and then explained:

“When we pass a law that says you may not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, we are burdening those who have an alternative moral assessment of gay men and lesbians…” She went on to say that there should be a ” respectful awareness of the religious position” but then concluded that when push comes to shove, it’s the religious position that needs to give up her seat and move to the back of the bus:

“…when religious liberty and sexual liberty conflict, she admits, ‘I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.'”

Then in a moment of startling, “Tell me your name” honesty, she revealed the true bottom-line in all of this: “Sexual liberty should win in most cases. There can be a conflict between religious liberty and sexual liberty, but in almost all cases the sexual liberty should win because that’s the only way that the dignity of gay people can be affirmed in any realistic manner.” (“Banned in Boston: The coming conflict between same-sex marriage and religious liberty,” The Weekly Standard, May 15, 2006, Vol. 11, No. 33)

There we have it: the dignity of gay people trumps all.

Make no mistake about where this dignity train ultimately, logically leads. Homosexuality – and progressively this will include all its myriad subsets (bi and trans-sexuality, pederasty, promiscuity, S&M, open “marriages”, etc.) – must be treated and viewed to be just as good, true and beautiful – just as conducive to human, familial and societal flourishing – as biblical marriage. Heather being raised by her biological mom and dad, this brave new world will insist, will not have the slightest advantage over the Heather being raised by two moms or two dads where at best only one of them has any biological connection to her. Speech, actions and even thought that fall short of glorifying this Orwellian/Huxleyian ideal will have to be suppressed and eventually eradicated. Why? Because to allow anything else will be to tarnish the dignity of gay people.

“You exaggerate!” some (many?) will say. Well, perhaps a bit. But then again, maybe not. The same or worse would have been said of anyone in 1995 who warned that if the American people and her professing Christians (like Pence or Hovernor Scott Walker in Wisconsin, who is waging a similar campaign in his state) continued their decline into lawlessness and doing “what is right in their own eyes,” that homosexuality and gay marriage would become widely accepted in twenty years.

Oooops.

[1] Individuals that accept homosexuality as a moral and social good, on a par with heterosexuality, and want to see it normalized both legally and socially.