Gary Sinise is Not Lieutenant Dan

Word is now circulating around the Catholic world that conservative hero Gary Sinise, along with Fox News anchor Bret Baier, both publicly professed faithful Catholics, cancelled their appearances at a Legatus Summit at the last minute under pressure from the LGBT crowd.

Legatus is the organization of Catholic CEOs founded by pizza billionaire Tom Monaghan to advance the spirituality of Catholic men and women in the higher echelons of American business. The primary work of Legatus and its members is the increased holiness of the members and spreading the gospel within corporate America.

Certainly there is a conservative tinge to the members of Legatus. It is almost inevitable that the CEOs of small and medium sized businesses who are also serious about their faith will tend toward the right politically and also toward tradition in the practice of their faith.

But, there is nothing liberal or conservative about the faith. There is only the faith. The whole of it, even and especially aspects of the faith the outside world finds offensive. Sometimes, with ever-greater frequency, the seamier aspects of outside politics will intrude upon the faith and upon the faithful.

There exists a highly organized cadre of LGBT activists whose job it is to monitor the American people for any deviance from what is approved thought and speech. But more than monitor, their job is rather like advanced scouts so that other LGBTs may then move in to target and punish. Their influence is pernicious, wicked and frankly un-American.

The body count continues to rise.

There are all those people who were exposed as donors to the Proposition 8 campaign. Many lost their jobs when LGBTs forced their names into the open. The most famous of these is Brendan Eich, who for a few weeks was CEO of Mozilla Firefox but had to step down under LGBT pressure because he supported the right of Californians to decide the definition of marriage.

Most recently, the fire chief of Atlanta was fired for stating his belief that homosexual behavior is immoral. There are many more who have lost their jobs, and more who self-censor, simply shut up out of fear.

Among the LGBT watchers is a man named Jeremy Hooper who runs a nasty little blog called Good As You, which he most certainly is not. Hooper is paid by the group GLAAD that is in business to defame and slander the good names of those who deviate from approved thought and speech. Professor Robert Oscar Lopez has documented the lies this group has spread about him. They have also lied about me.

Other LGBT outlets pile on, including something Joe.My.God. run by another gay named Joe Jervis, also in the business of slandering good people. He tells his readers that I support violence against LGBTs overseas even though I have spoken out against such things.

There are others who work mostly as trolls in the comment boxes. A man who calls himself Scott Rose actually threatened the life of Heritage scholar Ryan Anderson.

What happened this week is this: one of the LGBT advanced scouts was monitoring the website of Legatus and noted that a couple of famous speakers were lined up for the annual conference next week in Florida. Last year the gays were able to convince actor Bob Newhart to cancel his appearance there and so when they saw actor Gary Sinise and Fox News anchor Bret Baier scheduled to speak, they saw easy pickings.

Actors and anchors are not noted for either their smarts or their bravery.

Something called Pink News reported on Monday that Sinise and Baier were speaking. On Tuesday the odious Jeremy Hooper at Good As You picked this up. No doubt some of the LGBT staff members at Sinise’s operation, Fox News and the Washington Speaker’s Bureau raised the alarm. Their bosses were about to speak to a room full of haters.

There was no public outcry, no petitions, no press conferences pointing the finger at Legatus and its speakers. There was a charge made on some little LGBT blogs and poof, Sinise and Baier whimpered away like scalded dogs.

Sinise was already in Florida, just across town from Legatus headquarters and he refused even to meet with Legatus personnel. He agreed to a brief and perfunctory phone call with Legatus CEO John Hunt. Hunt emailed Baier through the Washington Speaker’s Bureau and so far has not heard a word.

Sinise issued a statement that he did not want his mission “which is designed to be unifying” to be disrupted by any controversies. He specifically mentioned “the controversy surrounding some of the participants, and their views on personal matters.”

The Washington Speaker’s Bureau specifically mentioned their worries about a speaker named Paul Darrow, former male super model who left the gay life when he joined the Catholic Church and who was the focus of a moving documentary about his conversion called Desire of the Everlasting Hills released late last year.

There is no controversy “surrounding” Paul Darrow. There is a tiny group of LGBT activists who cannot stand the notion that anyone would desert their ranks. These LGBT activists make up a tiny sliver of a tiny sliver, hardly enough to “surround” anything.

And is it really just a “personal matter” that homosexual behavior is morally problematic that should be resisted—and even more—can be resisted? Or is it an article of Sinise’s publically stated Catholic faith?

Sinise says he does not want what amounts to Catholic teaching to disrupt his unifying mission, but he has certainly taken sides hasn’t he? He has made it clear that the hard parts of faithful Catholicism are monstrosities to be shunned and he has done this in craven obeisance to what; 1percent of 1.6 percent of the population? And faithful Catholics say to Sinise, “You don’t’ want to alienate LGBTs? What about us?”

Gary Sinise has dined out for years on this notion that he is Lt. Dan from the film Forrest Gump. I have stood and cheered him talk about his work with wounded veterans. But—you know—that work is easy. It is right and good but it also comes with cheers.

Legatus did not ask Sinise to talk about gays. They asked him to talk about his faith and his work with veterans. But something else intruded, others intruded and brought a particular battle to him.

Frankly, none of us want to fight this battle. But the battle was brought to us and we accepted it. But when called upon to do something difficult, when called upon to stand with others who are also wounded and reviled, when called to stand with his faith and his church, Lt. Dan waved the white flag.

Gary Sinise acted cowardly. We have to remember, so did Peter. So do we all. But Sinise’s cowardice sure hurts today. It hurts real bad.