Endorse homosexuality or lose your religious liberties.

I've always thought the biggest threat to religious liberties in the United States is the aggressive homosexual movement. They intend force people to accept or endorse homosexual behavior or else lose their businesses, churches, and/or free speech.

A recent Washington Post article gives a number of examples of homosexuality trumping religious freedom.

Faith organizations and individuals who view homosexuality as sinful and refuse to provide services to gay people are losing a growing number of legal battles that they say are costing them their religious freedom.

The lawsuits have resulted from states and communities that have banned discrimination based on sexual orientation. Those laws have created a clash between the right to be free from discrimination and the right to freedom of religion, religious groups said, with faith losing. They point to what they say are ominous recent examples:

-- A Christian photographer was forced by the New Mexico Civil Rights Commission to pay $6,637 in attorney's costs after she refused to photograph a gay couple's commitment ceremony.

-- A psychologist in Georgia was fired after she declined for religious reasons to counsel a lesbian about her relationship.

-- Christian fertility doctors in California who refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian patient were barred by the state Supreme Court from invoking their religious beliefs in refusing treatment.

-- A Christian student group was not recognized at a University of California law school because it denies membership to anyone practicing sex outside of traditional marriage.

"It really is all about religious liberty for us," said Scott Hoffman, chief administrative officer of a New Jersey Methodist group, the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, which lost a property tax exemption after it declined to allow its beachside pavilion to be used for a same-sex union ceremony. "The protection to not be forced to do something that is against deeply held religious principles."

And let's be clear; this is about behavior not the individual. When persons identify themselves as gays and lesbians they are by definition identifying themselves by what they do -- same sex sexual behavior. It's not an immutable trait one can observe. It's a behavior which is demonstrably unhealthy.

Certainly, people who identify with homosexuality should have the same first amendment and legal protections under the law. But not special protections based on their behavior. And that's what they are now demanding of society and individuals.