Dr. Voddie Baucham discusses his new book, "It's Not Like Being Black: How Sexual Activists Hijacked the Civil Rights Movement" and why he doesn’t believe LGBTQ activists can claim the mantle of civil rights. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.
Morning Wire
Voddie Baucham: How Sexual Activists Hijacked the Civil Rights Movement | 7.7.24
(upbeat music) LGBTQ activists have claimed for years that their political efforts are a natural extension of the civil rights movement to end racial segregation. But some minority voices are beginning to object to what they say is an inappropriate attempt to co-opt the achievements of the black community. In this episode, Daily Wire Culture reporter Megan Basham speaks to Dr. Vody Bockam, pastor and dean of the School of Theology of African Christian University in Lusaka, Zambia. His new book, It's Not Like Being Black, How Sexual Activists Hijack the Civil Rights Movement, argues that the LGBTQ movement is fundamentally different from the fight for civil rights. I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief, John Bickley. It's July 7th, and this is a Sunday edition of Morning Wire. - College is expensive, but being a man shouldn't be. Score 60% off Jeremy's razors one year of shaving and dominate campus life. While others can form, you'll stand out. Clean shaving and unapologetic. The Precision 5 delivers an exceptionally smooth and close shave designed with a precision trimmer for keeping your edge in an ergonomic handle for superior control. Major in masculinity@jeremesraisers.com today. - The following is an interview between Daily Wire Culture reporter Megan Basham and Dr. Vody Bockam. - Well, Dr. Bockam, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate your time and this fascinating new book that you have out. And you know, one of the first things that occurred to me as I was reading through it is that the LGBT movement has equated Obergefell, that ruling that legalized gay marriage to the 1967 case, Loving the Virginia, which outlawed bans on interracial marriage. And you talked a lot in your book about why that was flawed logic. What's your argument there? - Yeah, I actually have a whole chapter on that. And quite simply what happened with the Loving case was government was actually prohibiting people from doing something that the government doesn't have the right to prohibit. You know, marriage is antecedent to culture, to government, it came before. The government didn't define marriage, the government didn't give us marriage, marriage is a creation ordinance. And so the government didn't have the right to say that, you know, you can't enter into this simply because you are this race or this ethnicity or whatever. Whereas with Obergefell, the government basically, it didn't give the right of marriage to same-sex couples. That's a complete misunderstanding. What it did was it redefined marriage so that we can then call what these same-sex couples are doing by the same name as marriage. Because for example, nobody before Obergefell was given a test to see if they were homosexual or not before they got married. There is no test, right? People weren't being denied based on that. People were just not being allowed to redefine this institution that has existed throughout the whole history of mankind. - You know, you speak in your introduction about how the gay rights movement hijacked the legitimate grievances of the civil rights movement in ways that undermine the very foundations upon which Western civilization is built. Can you explain what those foundations are and how the gay rights movement's hijacking the civil rights movement undermines them? - Yeah, you know, marriage sits at the foundation of not just Western civilization, but of civilization, period. But it's not just that. What we have here is what I like to call our Caesar is Lord moment. The government has now said, we get to tell you what truth is. If the government says to us, look at those two men and you must call that marriage. The government says, look at that man and you must call him a woman. And you must do it because we say so. So, you know, Western civilization is built on and rooted in ideas of biblical Christian worldview, right? Whether people like it or not. And it's inconsistent with the idea that the government in terms of what is not only what's moral, but in terms of what is basic reality can then dictate to us things that are opposed to this world as God created it. That's hugely problematic. - So how would you say that the LGBTQ movement claiming the mantle of civil rights creates a collision course with religious liberty that the original civil rights movement didn't? - Yeah, we've seen it already, right? Bake the cake or lose your business. Make the dress or lose your business. Eventually it's gonna be do the wedding or lose your church. It's declare the pronouns or lose your job. It's here already. And essentially what it's saying is anyone who believes what the Bible teaches about not just sex and marriage, but about male and female, about reality. Anyone who believes that and holds to it and is not willing to bow the knee and say, Caesar is Lord, will face wrath. And it's illogical to think that this won't come to the church's door in many forms that will be catastrophic. - You know, when you look at the broad landscape of how the evangelical churches have responded to this moment and maybe in the last 20 years to the gay rights movement claiming that they are the new civil rights front, how do you think the church has responded to it? Has it been effective? Has it been biblical? - There's either been no response or there's been capitulation. And the problem with the capitulation is you can't go far enough. You know, one of the things that I'm arguing in this book is that this is a continuation of the critical social justice movement. The social justice I've often likened to a train with many box cars. We had the racial justice box car and there's the climate justice box car and all these other box cars. And this whole alphabet mafia box car is part of that same social justice train. And there are a lot of people who have begun to capitulate just like they did on the so-called racial justice issue. And just like with anti-racism, you can't be anti-racist enough. And the moment you slip up, I knew it all along. It's the same here, right? Okay, I'll go to the wedding. Fine, you think that's going to end it? It won't. Eventually, you're gonna be back into a corner. They're gonna demand something that you can't give and you either bow the knee, confess that Caesar is Lord or you say no, and then they negate every area where you capitulate it. And unfortunately, that's been the response of many to just capitulate again and again and again until there's nothing left. - So what is your response then to those pastors? And even I've seen large ministries using language like sexual minorities, which is obviously playing on the idea of racial minorities. - I think it's unfortunate that we don't see the play there. And the key to understanding this is to look at the gay pride progress flag. Now, the gay flag is the rainbow flag, right? Everybody's familiar with the rainbow flag, but the new flag, the pride progress flag, has the chevrons over on the end of the flag coming toward the middle. And these chevrons, white, pink, maybe blue, bringing trans and everything else into that flag. But pay attention to the last two chevrons. They're brown and black. Why are they brown and black? It's a reference to brown and black people. And this flag brings everything together under the banner of the critical social justice movement. So at the end of the day, this is cultural Marxism. This is neo-Marxism. This is the oppressor oppressed struggle manifesting itself all over again. And the reason that they refer to themselves as sexual minorities is because they look at the cultural hegemony, which by the way, is Christian morality, and Christian morality is the evil oppressor, right? And the evil oppressor in this regard is oppressing people who don't measure up to this cis, heteronormative, you know, whatever view of Christian sexual morality. So they refer to themselves as sexual minorities based on that worldview. And the brown and black stripes in the chevrons of the Pride Progress flag are the smoking gun. - And you know, something that strikes me when I think about this, and as I was reading your book was how quickly we're seeing a lot of Western countries, including the US, starting to outlaw what could be termed repentance in terms of calling it reparative therapy. And so they're saying we're outlawing reparative therapy. How do you confront that when you're a Christian who believes that we have to repent, but the law has now said you are not allowed to teach repentance if it looks like it could be termed reparative therapy? - Yeah, this goes back to the earlier question, right, about religious liberty, and whether or not this is going to be an issue. It's already an issue. I talk in the book about Canada's Bill C4, and it's incredibly ironic, because on the one hand, we are saying that if someone wants to identify as the opposite sex, we can mutilate them. We can give them drugs to sterilize them, to stop their bodies from going into puberty. We can cut off healthy breast tissue. We can do all this to mutilate people's bodies. And it's okay. We call that gender affirming care. But if somebody wants counseling because they're struggling with same-sex attraction, and we step in to help them with that, well, then we've crossed the line, and we're doing something that is brutal and unacceptable. I mean, it's absolutely clown world. I've told people recently that the three most important books right now are The Bible, Animal Farm, and 1984. I mean, we're seeing this, and it's not new. It's not a surprise. We know this game. - Well, you know, and something else you kind of explored was how when we talk about approaching these issues from a question of science, the original civil rights movement was acknowledging something that was scientific, that there is no difference between people of different skin colors. There are not actually different races. There's just different ethnicities. And it was recognizing that, whereas with the LGBTQ movement, it's become very unscientific in the sense of biology and other scientific questions. Can you talk a little bit about that? - You know, the contradiction here is seen even in the acronym. 'Cause if you think, for example, about the last generation and lesbians and gays, what were they doing? They were arguing that this issue was biological. You need to accept us because it's biological. So you had pheromone studies and brain studies and all these things trying to prove that it was in the genes, that it was in the, they were looking for a gay gene, right? This is biological. Well, then you have the T's who come along and say, biology means nothing. And they're coexisting within the same movement in spite of this massive contradiction. Well, the reason that they're able to coexist is because at the end of the day, this is about neo-Marxism. This is about the oppressor, oppress paradigm. And all you have to do is say, we're sexual minorities. You get there in a way that's completely contradictory to the way that we get there, but it doesn't matter because this is a power play. This is about us rebelling against the biblical order, rebelling against Western civilization because ironically, we recognize that Western civilization is built on the Bible. So we wanna deny that in civics class and then we wanna rebel against it in queer theory. So it's all completely contradictory. - Are you familiar with Christopher Caldwell's book, The Age of Entitlement? And it's an argument that the Civil Rights Act created a rival constitution that is now taking precedence over our original constitution. What is your reaction to that argument? - It's brilliant. I wish that I'd gotten the hold of it before I finished with it's not like being black. I mean, it's brilliant. And the thing I love about it is he's coming from a very different perspective from worldview that you or I would be coming from, but man, truth is truth. And I think he's made a very important argument. And it's because of the truth of his argument that we now have a de facto constitution that overrides our desure constitution. It's because of that that these people are able to exercise the kind of authority and influence that they're able to exercise because there are laws now that override all the rest of our laws. And those are the laws that say you got to make the cake or you got to make the dress. You got to do the wedding. So yeah, I think it's a very important book right now. - So do you see a way to restore then the originalist constitutional principles that the Civil Rights Act eventually undermined without dismantling the advances that happened in the 1960s regarding issues like segregation, Jim Crow laws, that kind of thing? - That's a lot to unpack. And the first thing I want to say is we've had advancements that go beyond civil rights legislation. And we've had advancements that are more important than civil rights legislation. There have been transformations in our culture in terms of the way people see one another and the law didn't do that, right? The law doesn't change hearts and hearts have changed. And that's a good thing. And I think it's unfortunate that we give so much credence to the law on that and not recognizing what has happened and the great blessing that we've experienced in terms of people's hearts being changed. How do we see a transformation in the right way that we need to see it without undoing things that have been good? And the answer to that is what we need is not a new law. What we need is changed hearts. We need revival. We need repentance. We need awakening. We need spiritual restoration. We have been at war with God. And we have been war with our foundations that are rooted in biblical and godly ideologies. And the answer to that is for us to lay down our arms and to plead with God for mercy. - I guess the obvious question then is do you see any return to founding principle without spiritual revival? Is there any other mechanism? - Well, yes, but is it theoretically possible to return to founding principles without the spiritual mechanism? Yes, it is, but I don't think that's what any of us wants. What we want is changed hearts. We don't want just principles and laws. Those are not enough. What we want is to be a people. - So maybe second to last question here. In your experience, what's the broader reaction of the black community when they hear the civil rights struggle that they went through being equated with the aims of the rainbow coalition? - It's really interesting. One of the things that I talk about in the book is Proposition 8 in California. That was back in 2008. And everybody thought that California would be the first domino to fall. And that'd be this great victory for same-sex marriage in California. But the pro-same-sex marriage ideologues were defeated in California in 2008. Just let that sink in for a moment, right? You can't imagine that today. But the other thing that was troubling to the movement was that they were defeated, especially, and significantly, right, with black and brown people. And they were shocked by this and kind of enraged by it. They couldn't show too much rage because they need that group of people and then they need that, oh, gaze the new black argument in order to move forward from 2008. But they were shocked by it and absolutely brooding over it. The fact of the matter is that black Americans tend to be very conservative in a lot of ways. And this is one of those ways. And the other thing is even people who tend to be more open to the pro-LGBT ideology, they also tend to not like the fact that they are equating themselves with the struggles of black people. So it's interesting, it's fascinating how that dynamic has even worked out in light of the way that black people have felt about it. - Okay, so last question then. What is the most important element of your book, then, that you think readers need to come away with for, I would say, a very pivotal moment in our nation's history with regards to how we're defining civil rights? - Yeah, that's a good question. And what I'm trying to do here, I'm not trying to start a political revolution. I want people to be informed and equipped and striving for that, but at the end of the day, I also want them to be prepared. I want them to be prepared for what's ahead. I don't think Christians are aware of the consequences of this movement. I don't think they're aware of the price people are already paying and the price that we're going to be required to pay for standing up for biblical truth, for proclaiming the gospel in the marketplace of ideas. And so I want people to go in this with their eyes wide open and to recognize that we're being asked to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Christ. And that the price that we're being called to pay is well worth it, so that Christ might indeed have the fullness of the reward for which He died. - All right, well, it is certainly a groundbreaking book, Dr. Bacham, and we thank you so much for joining us and for giving us a sneak peek at it. - It's been my pleasure. Thank you for having me, and thank you for your work. - That was Daily Wire Culture reporter Megan Basham interviewing Dr. Vodie Bacham. And this has been a Sunday edition of Morning Wire. (upbeat music) - My cure and brewer from Walmart always comes in super clutch. I got it so I can keep grinding on my paper. You know I'm hitting that deadline. I also got it so I can stay up late to do some exam cramming. And of course, you know I'll be ready to stroll into my morning class, sipping in style. I guess you could say it's a literal lifesaver. Cheers to that. Shop your coffee if you will needs at Walmart. [BLANK_AUDIO]