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Bennet emphasizes, "We have to address the main issue. This is about homosexuality" BY LifeSiteNews.com Interview Date: March 1, 2004LifeSite:  I’d to ask you some questions about your January 23rd press release, “‘It’s not about marriage’ says ex-gay.”Stephen B:  SureLifeSite: One of the things you say in that release is “Bennett warns that countless hours and millions of dollars are being invested and wasted into what will only boil down to preserving the word ‘marriage’”. So all the current efforts against the idea of redefining marriage, according to what I’m reading here, are not being properly directed. Could you expand on that a little more?Stephen B:  I sure could. First, next week we are releasing a two CD set called “Gay Marriage: America’s Leaders Respond.”  We’ve gotten the top echelon, all across America, in the major pro-family ministries, D. James Kennedy, Gary Bauer, Concerned Women for America - all the organizations – to respond and to lay out a complete groundwork and foundation on this entire thing. One of the areas that I was addressing in my Jan.23rd release was the Musgrave federal marriage amendment. (Proposed by Rep. Marilyn Musgrave). In the beginning there was a real split in the pro-family movement here in the States about this amendment. For example, Musgrave is just saying that marriage will be between a man and a woman, simple and put. However, she goes on to say that, if States want to legalize full marriage, etc. through civil unions, that’s up to them; they can do whatever they want. Many people within the pro-family ministries were very upset over that, saying “why are we wasting time, why are we wasting money, trying to amend the constitution now, to state that marriage is between a man and a woman, when they’re going to go ahead and get all the same benefits anyways, just under a different name.LifeSite: So, what you’re saying, if I’m interpreting this correctly, is that there are important matters not addressed by the Musgrave amendment.Stephen B:  Yeah, well, sort of.  Things have shifted now from a fifty/fifty split in the pro-family movement on this federal marriage amendment. Now its about ninety-five percent of people who have come in, because they believe that the president did the best he could on the federal level and stopped right there and said “listen, I can’t go any further than this because this whole idea of civil unions is really up to the States”. So what people are saying is “listen, from a federal level, let’s protect the word ‘marriage’. Let’s get that secured, over and done with, so it’s no longer going to be a question, and then let’s revitalize everybody at the state levels now, to go ahead and do what they need to do in their state to prevent civil unions from happening.”LifeSite: So, that’s good then?Stephen B:  Well, I guess that’s good. Since I wrote that press release, I’ve swayed a bit more to understanding things a little deeper. I still would be one of the first ones to say, “listen, we have to address the main issue. This is about homosexuality. No matter what kind of picture you try to paint on this thing, we should not enable homosexuals to remain trapped in a dysfunctional, destructive and potentially deadly lifestyle. We should really try to reach out to these people and help them come out of this. So do not give them anything: do not give them gay marriage, same-sex civil unions, gay adoption, any of these things, because these things are enabling them to remain trapped in this lifestyle.” I understand now from the federal level that the president can only do so much. He’s doing the best thing he can on the federal level to protect the word ‘marriage’ and then people within their own states are going to have a lot of grass-roots work to do.LifeSite: Is there anything that you and others are asking him to do beyond what he has done already?Stephen B:  Uh, just to continue his rhetoric about taking a stand against same-sex marriage. But I would really love to see this president take a stand against and address the issue of homosexuality. We know it’s not going to happen. But I would really love to see him doing that. It’s very difficult for a man of faith to be in the office that he’s involved in because he’s being pulled from both sides. He’s receiving counsel from godly and un-godly people, and from pro-gay/homosexual people themselves, so it’s a very difficult position that he’s in. I guess we should just count our blessings for what he’s done already.LifeSite: Are you aware of the situation in Canada, where the Canadian courts and two provinces have imposed an interpretation of our Canadian Charter of Rights that says that gays must be given the rights of marriage and allowed to marry?Stephen B:  RightLifeSite: There is a lot of talk, even amongst evangelicals and Catholics, that a compromise might be to accept civil unions being given a greater status. Does that sound like it will produce anything positive or that it is any less than changing the definition of marriage in law?Stephen B:  Well yeah, it’s basically you’re giving them the same rights, I mean it’s just marriage with another word, it’s just fake marriage - anything else that tries to come across as marriage but with a different name. I have been so tempted to head out to Canada and start speaking. We need to be getting some churches to stand up and to continue preaching publicly and start addressing this issue of homosexuality.LifeSite: Well, what’s happening so far is that most of the churches are addressing marriage but not homosexuality.Stephen B:  Right. Here in the U.S. there are some people in the pro-family movement who are only addressing the issue of marriage, of protecting marriage. They’re afraid to address the real issue, which is homosexuality. So that’s what has really spurned us to do this two CD set, and this is going to be distributed through all the major pro-family ministries around the country. It lays clear groundwork on how this all began over fifty years ago, with gay activist Harry Hay, and how it’s continued now, and how this has been planned, decades ago. And now we’re seeing complete anarchy around the country, activist judges and anarchist public elected officials taking it upon themselves to redefine millennia of the way marriage has always been. It’s a very sad time in this country.LifeSite: There seems to be an uncanny acceptance and support for this by all kinds of people at high levels of government and in institutions.Stephen B:  Because they don’t understand what this is really about. They’ve bought into the gay spin-zone as far as I’m concerned. They’ve bought into the rhetoric and this new lingo that gay activists have been talking of ‘tolerance’ and all these other words and believing that ‘well, these people are born this way, you know, we’ve got to give them the same rights’; they’ve changed a moral issue into a civil rights issue, and this is far from a civil rights issue. I am one of thousands of men and women who are living proof that there is no basis whatsoever to pass any legislation equating homosexuality with heterosexuality. It’s a lie. It’s simply a lie. Again, from myself, coming out from that lifestyle years ago, I’m the first to tell you that it’s nothing but a deceptive counterfeit. It doesn’t bring forth life, it brings forth death. It’s not birthed out of anything good, it’s birthed out of trauma and out of dysfunction and things early on in childhood that have caused people to go down this path. These public officials, they just don’t understand. If they were willing to open up and listen to the truth about this, we wouldn’t even be in this position today. I always give people the example that here in the state of Connecticut we have a group of government officials who are trying to secure two million dollars for highway renovations. They are going to debate this thing for about three years in their committees and sub-committees but, it seems that on the issue of homosexuality people have bypassed the table of logic. There has been no discussion. Homosexual activists have just forcefully said “we don’t care what you think and we’re just gonna do what we’re gonna do, simply put.” And they’ve used the media as their major conduit to introduce all kinds of gay characters, to desensitize people to the issue of homosexuality. There was a book that came out in 1991 called “after the ball”, written by two homosexual social scientists, and I say that this book was the Osama Bin Laden video tape of 9/11. They clearly spelled out how they were going to convert America over a ten year period to buy into the idea that gay is ok. These people have completely succeeded. Their book is like a book of the bible of prophesy which has been almost completely fulfilled. So America has been duped, the tables have been turned, and now we’re suffering the consequences, and I say we are literally all like lambs being led to the slaughter right now and people are just buying into this false misinformation campaign of the gay activists.LifeSite:You do a lot of speaking engagements, correct?Stephen B:  Yes.LifeSite: How many over the last year for instance?Stephen B:  Uh, we were probably at close to forty or fifty churches around the country, on top of numerous media appearances on Fox , CNN, radio interviews, magazines and newspapers, things of that nature. That’s what we do.LifeSite: I read that some of the major media, including Bill O’Reilly, wouldn’t allow you to reveal your former homosexual background.Stephen B: A lot of times we get slammed in secular venues; it’s just part of the territory. You have to just bite the bullet when it happens and address it. For example I was on Anderson Cooper on CNN, and he introduced me as a “self-described former homosexual”. And I said, “No! I am a former homosexual.” You know, it’s unbelievable what people will try to pull.LifeSite: What would you very briefly say to pastors that might wake them up, or that you feel they’re not aware of, of all the various denominations?Stephen B: Well, I would say that if anyone is really interested in finding out what this is about, call me. Call me here in Connecticut. Bring me to your church. I will come to your church in Canada. I will preach on this message. I’ll share my testimony. I will make sure that everyone in that church clearly understands what this issue is about and how to be able to address the issue effectively, with anybody. The more people hear the truth and then go and spread that message, the more people are going to hear and understand what this is about, and hopefully then this will collapse the gay activist movement.LifeSite:Do you speak to people of other denominations as well?Stephen B: Oh, we sure do. I’ll go to any church that will open their doors. I’ll go to any public venue. I can speak from a secular perspective on this, just as powerfully as any man who has come out of that background. You don’t need to be a Christian to come out of homosexuality, just as you don’t need to be a Christian to come out of drug addiction or alcoholism. So we can address this from a secular or a spiritual perspective. See the Stephen Bennett Ministries web site at www.SBMinistries.org/media.html http://www.lifesitenews.com/resources/lifesite-interviews-former-homosexual-stephen-bennett-on-marriage-amendment/

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