A homosexual man who has a blog on Sen. Barack Obama's campaign website is suing two major Christian publishers for violating his constitutional rights and causing emotional pain, because the Bible versions they publish refer to homosexuality as a sin.

30 year old Bradley LeShawn Fowler, of Canton, Mich., is seeking $60 million from Zondervan and another $10 million from Thomas Nelson Publishing in lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, the Grand Rapids Press reported.  Fowler filed his claim against Grand Rapids-based Zondervan Monday, alleging its Bibles' references to homosexuality as a sin have made him an outcast from his family and contributed to physical discomfort and periods of "demoralization, chaos and bewilderment," the paper said. He filed suit against Tennessee publisher Thomas Nelson in June.

Zondervan says that even if Fowler's claim is credible, he's suing the wrong party. A company spokesman told WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids that Zondervan doesn't translate the Bible or own the copyright for any of the translations but relies, instead, on the "scholarly judgment of credible translation committees."

U.S. District Judge Julian Abele Cook Jr. refused Monday to appoint an attorney to represent Fowler in the Thomas Nelson case, saying the court "has some very genuine concerns about the nature and efficacy of these claims."

Fowler, who is representing himself in both lawsuits, says in his complaint against Zondervan that the publisher intended to design a religious, sacred document to reflect an individual opinion or a group's conclusion to cause "me or anyone who is a homosexual to endure verbal abuse, discrimination, episodes of hate, and physical violence ... including murder."

So here we go...the gay agenda is suing publishers of Bibles and if only they could sue the original authors of the Bible (Moses, Paul, Matthew, et.al) or even the inspiration for the Bible (God), they still won't be happy.  On a recent episode of Breakpoint, Church Colson noted that "Fowler is suing the wrong party, but perhaps he realizes he is likely to have difficulty hauling the real author into court."

Colson calls what is now happening in the continuing saga of litigations by the gay community "Molly Coddling" and then tells us that "we ought to take such attacks on Christian teaching seriously: We are going to see many more of them if same-sex “marriage” is foisted upon us by the courts."

As Seana Sugrue explains in The Meaning of Marriage, marriage is a pre-political institution, rooted in biology and moral obligations. Sugrue writes, “The reality of sex differences between men and women, leading to the potential for offspring, is essential to the pre-political foundation of marriage.”

But marriage as a political form of social order, independent of the state, “is precisely what advocates of same-sex ‘marriage’ seek to change,” according to Sugrue. “Marriage rooted in procreation and sexual differences is to be replaced by marriage for the gratification of two consenting adults.”

Yet Sugrue warns that unlike traditional marriage, “same-sex marriage requires a condition of soft despotism to exist.  In claiming for homosexuals the right to marry,” she reasons, the “state also claims for itself the ability to declare what constitutes marriage . . . It transforms marriage from a pre-political obligation into its own creation.”

But as an artificial creation of the state, same-sex “marriage” is “an institution that needs to be coddled . . . Its very fragility demands a culture in which it is protected.” This means, as Sugrue argues, that “once marriage becomes a statist institution for the sake of consenting adults, the state will increasingly be called upon to create the social conditions to protect these unions.”

The need for coddling means the state will use public education for this end, and align itself against churches that refuse to recognize same-sex “marriage.”  So, the state has to use its power against two of society’s civil institutions: the family and the church.

I think Sugrue is right: We are already seeing the courts go after institutions and people who refuse to recognize the legitimacy of same-sex “marriage” where it is imposed. State-ordered gay “marriage” is an attack, not only on legitimate marriage, but upon religious freedom and the freedom not to have one’s children indoctrinated into alien ideas about marriage.

We need to understand the reasoning here so that we can present this argument in a winsome way to our neighbors. And we better be supporting efforts to pass constitutional amendments and laws defining marriage as one man and one woman; the issue is up in Florida, Arizona, and California this year. We also need to find out what the presidential candidates want to do, because they will be choosing the next Supreme Court justices who will ultimately decide this issue.

If we do not act, lawsuits against Bible publishers will not any longer be a joke, but a despotic reality. Of course, lawsuits against churches and pastors will become a reality and Christianity may well be headed for the underground.