Nequa Valley High School math teacher, Hemant Mehta (aka "The Friendly Atheist" blogger).

“The [AFTAH] Truth Academy has been made necessary by the absolute censorship in public education of traditional views of the nature and morality of homosexuality. It is a fact that public schools, particularly high schools, expose students to numerous resources and activities that espouse, either implicitly or explicitly, unproven and controversial “progressive” theories on the nature and morality of homosexuality, while at the same time censoring all resources that espouse dissenting views. This ideological monopoly transmogrifies education into indoctrination.” — Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute

Folks, we are delighted to have Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute as an instructor at the upcoming Americans For Truth Academy August 5-7. Laurie’s well-reasoned dissections of flawed homosexualist arguments and polemics have become required reading in Illinois and, increasingly, across the country.

Of course, Higgins is correct about Hemant Mehta, a supposedly “Friendly Atheist” blogger and high school math teacher who not only can’t seem to understand the difference between “hate and bigotry” and disagreeing with homosexuality, but whose lack of judgment (i.e., using the F-word on a blog surely read by many of his students) makes him a poor role model for youth. But the biggest problem for Neuqua Valley students and their parents is Mehta’s vocal atheist activism. Something tells me that numbers and equations aren’t all that Mehta is talking about in his classroom. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

This article is reprint from the IFI website:

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The Friendly Atheist: Poor Role Model for Teens

6/22/2010 9:14:00 PM
By Laurie Higgins, Director of IFI’s DSA -Illinois Family Institute

Naperville/Aurora’s [Illinois] Neuqua Valley High School math teacher, Hemant Mehta (aka “The Friendly Atheist”), weighs in on a California Court decision in his usual uncivil, disreputable way.

Bradley Johnson, a California public school teacher, has had a large banner hanging in his classroom for seventeen years on which appear the following phrases:

• “In God We Trust”: the official motto of the United States and a phrase that appears on American currency
• “One Nation Under God”: a phrase from our Pledge of Allegiance
• “God Bless America” and “God Shed His Grace On Thee” (from “America the Beautiful”): phrases from two songs that are part of our national heritage and have long been taught in public schools
• “All Men Are Created Equal, They Are Endowed By Their Creator”: a phrase from the Declaration of Independence

Drew Zahn reported that after the principal ordered Johnson to remove the poster, while allowing other teachers “to hang Buddhist, Islamic and Tibetan prayer messages on their classroom walls,” Johnson sued, claiming that his constitutional rights were being violated. Johnson won, and the Court issued a stinging rebuke to the school:

May a school district censor a high school teacher’s expression because it refers to Judeo-Christian views, while allowing other teachers to express views on a number of controversial subjects, including religion and anti-religion? On undisputed evidence, this court holds that it may not.

That God places prominently in our nation’s history does not create an Establishment Clause violation requiring curettage and disinfectant for Johnson’s public high school classroom walls. It is a matter of historical fact that our institutions and government actors have in past and present times given place to a supreme God….

Ironically, while teachers in the Unified Poway School District encourage students to celebrate diversity and value thinking for one’s self, [they] apparently fear their students are incapable of dealing with diverse viewpoints that include God’s place in American history and culture.

And what does Neuqua Valley High School teacher Hemant Mehta have to say about that finding? He says, “What. The. [F**k.]”

For the uninitiated, this kind of adolescent, intemperate, obscene language, language unfit for civilized, respectable adults, is commonplace on Mehta’s blog.

At least as troubling, however, is that on his blog, this role model for students is also publicly encouraging teens to be deceitful.

IFI’s good friend and ally, Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), is hosting a Truth Academy* this August. As is customary for those who seek to normalize homosexuality, Mehta mischaracterizes this as a hate-promoting event. He fails to provide any evidence for such an absurd and pernicious claim, but the absence of evidence never stops homosexuality-affirming activists from making wild claims or hurling epithets. What makes his blog post about the Truth Academy even more problematic is that Mehta actively and openly solicits teenagers to engage in deceit:

[A Seminar for Bigots-in-Training]

Aww… isn’t this cute? Peter LaBarbera, president of the group Americans for Truth about Homosexuality — a group that spreads lies about homosexuality – is announcing a seminar for young people who want to become little homophobes like him….

I was all set to pay the registration fee and sign up myself until I read this…

Prospective attendees will need to be approved with references; this is not open to pro-homosexual activists but only to those who share AFTAH’s belief that homosexuality is immoral and that the GLBT movement is destructive to America and a direct threat to our religious freedom.

Hmph. They’re onto me.

That said… if anyone aged 14-25 wants to attend and write about the event for this site, I’ll cover your registration. We’ll find a way to take care of the references, too. I don’t want you to be disruptive. Just get the materials, listen to what they say, and share it with the rest of us (emphasis added).

I wonder what Neuqua Valley High School parents, administrators, and school board members think about a teacher encouraging teens to, in effect, lie.

As I wrote a year ago, parents should think carefully about the kind of people who become role models for their children. Decades ago, parents could rely on teachers serving as good role models for their kids. We can’t count on that any more.

And parents, you might want to spend as much time googling your children’s teachers as your children do.

*The Truth Academy will be held from August 5-7 in Carol Stream, IL, outside of Chicago. Tentative list of instructors is:

• Robert Knight, Coral Ridge Ministries
• Peter LaBarbera, Americans for Truth About Homosexuality
• Ryan Sorba, Young Conservatives of California
• Prof. Robert Gagnon, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
• Prof. Rena Lindevaldsen, Liberty University Law School
• Matt Barber, Liberty Counsel
• Greg Quinlan, Parents and Friends of Gays and Ex-Gays
• Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute

Click HERE for more information or call Peter LaBarbera at (630) 717-7631, or e-mail americansfortruth@gmail.com. IFI is encouraging parents to send their high school or college students to the Truth Academy.

Despite the familiar and false accusations made by homosexual activists, the Truth Academy is decidedly not about promoting hatred. The goal of the Truth Academy is to undo the damage done to individuals and the culture through the widespread dissemination and acceptance of deceitful and destructive fictions about homosexuality.

The Truth Academy has been made necessary by the absolute censorship in public education of traditional views of the nature and morality of homosexuality. It is a fact that public schools, particularly high schools, expose students to numerous resources and activities that espouse, either implicitly or explicitly, unproven and controversial “progressive” theories on the nature and morality of homosexuality, while at the same time censoring all resources that espouse dissenting views. This ideological monopoly transmogrifies education into indoctrination.

If public school teachers were compelled to fulfill their now empty verbal commitments to “honoring all voices,” “fostering diversity,” and “developing critical thinking skills,” there would be no need for a Truth Academy.

WARNING: Offensive Language (required to expose hateful “gay” extremism)

Lying Leatherman: homosexual atheist blogger Joe Jervis (left) didn’t appreciate that Americans For Truth called attention to the vicious comments posted by his online followers against Patricia Mauceri (below right) — the Christian soap actress who was dumped by ABC’s “One Life to Live” after objecting to a pro-homosexuality story line. And it looks like Mauceri is not the first soap actor to object to the faith-undermining requirements of pro-”gay” political correctness in the business. Blogs like Jervis’ “Joe. My. God.” give evidence that no activists are as mean and hateful as homosexual activists — who project their beef with the Creator (unacknowledged, in Joe’s case) on to His followers.

TAKE ACTION: contact ABC and tell them enough is enough with their promotion of the homosexual agenda and sexual immorality in general. Tell them you are outraged at the politically correct firing of Patricia Mauceri (right). And ask them to cast happy, contented “ex-gays” in major TV roles and sympathetic Christian/religious characters who remain faithful to their faith convictions — for the sake of diversity. 

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Ah, I see that Joe Jervis (above), the non-average “Joe” behind the homosexual activist “Joe. My. God.” blog, has focused his intellectual energies (or should I say bigoted, emotional impulses) into crafting a response to AFTAH’s post about his blog yesterday. We were simply highlighting some of his buddies’ crude and very mean attacks on Patricia Mauceri, the Christian soap actress who says she was fired for objecting to a pro-homosexual story line.

Here is the essence of Jervis’ response:

1. I have a comb-over hair style (ouch — problem here is I have so little hair to comb over — if this were true it would really be an exercise in futility: see tragic evidence at right);
2. I’m really a gay-porn-obsessed homosexual (hence the nickname: “Porno Pete”: this smear term was actually invented by Wayne Besen, the truth-challenged professional homosexual zealot behind the “ex-gay”-bashing group “Truth Wins Out”; some “gay” activists have stopped using Porno Pete in favor of the much more mature “The Peter” — peter being a boyish slang term for the male sex organ);

1. I have a small penis (note the continuing theme: Jervis is a gay “leatherman,” so we’ll cut him some slack on this one since by definition he has an unhealthy interest in male genitalia);
2. I am one of the biggest homosexual “closet cases” on the Internet (here Joe is applying that strange and creepily self-hating homosexualist putdown: the more you criticize the homosexual agenda, the more you are likely to be a secret homosexual yourself. Applying this curious standard to other causes, right-wing Republicans covertly support Obama and can’t wait to have their taxes raised — and lurking inside every pro-life activist is a person yearning to kill unborn babies).

Let’s see. Am I forgetting anything? Well, Jervis has filed his response under these categories:

• assholism (I didn’t know that was a word);
• closet cases (lest you forget that I, Peter LaBarbera — father of five and happily married for 20 years — am a covert homosexual-wannabe; Joe wrote a previous piece on me entitled — this is not a joke – “Peter LaBarbera Wants To Have Sweaty Mansex With Every Single One Of You”; strangely, I couldn’t find the “mansex” post among the AFTAH-bashing pieces on Jervis’ site – don’t tell me you’re embarrassed about that one, Joe?);
• needledicks (see #3 above);
• Peter LaBarbera

Wow, you must be doing something right when your name is an actual category on several “queer” websites. (One nasty homosexualist website uses my last name as an “award” to put down other conservatives fighting the “gay” agenda.) Jervis ends with a swipe at me for not allowing reader comments on the AFTAH website, but frankly, it would require a full-time staffer just to monitor the infantile, crude and hate-filled posts that would end up as “comments” on Americans For Truth’s site. And that doesn’t even factor in the “gay” activists who would pose as “Christian fundamentalists” to post irrational, homosexual-bashing (even violent) comments to make conservatives look bad. (This is not to say that there are no wacky fundamentalists like Fred “God Hates Fags” Phelps out there, but AFTAH has denounced such extremism — as opposed to atheist Jervis, who stokes it on his website.)

Christians, pray for this New York City blogger Joe Jervis, a lost soul if there ever was one. The same “Jeebus” (Jesus) he and other Christian-bashers mock one day will judge them (2 Timothy 4:1 and 4:8). Homosexual activists like Jervis seem to project their own hatred — of God’s moral law — against the pro-family advocates who are only trying to defend it. (Jervis has a special animus against AFTAH because our actions put a damper on the disgusting leather orgies that he supports.) Thankfully, it’s never too late to cease the rebellion and come back to God; they didn’t call them “gays” but there were “homosexuals” and former homosexuals in Bible times (note emphasis):

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11)

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TAKE ACTION: contact ABC and tell them enough is enough with their promotion of the homosexual agenda and sexual immorality in general. Ask them to cast happy, contented “ex-gays” in major TV roles and sympathetic Christian/religious character who remain faithful to their faith convictions — for the sake of diversity. 

Gov. Arnold Schwarzegger (R) chose to elevate political correctness over truth in responding to the California Supreme Court’s arrogant ruling for homosexual “marriage.”

The Dead Kennedys punk rock band prophetically sang in 1979:

Your kids will meditate in school!
Zen fascists will control you…
Now it is 1984
Knock-knock at your front door
It’s the suede/denim secret police
They have come for your uncool niece…California über Alles.

Whether people recognize it or not, we live not in a California-created world but in a divinely-created world, where government gets its binding authority (the sword) from God to promote good conduct and disallow bad. This is why the state governor is introduced as “his Excellency.”

We now observe a “brave new world” of radical, “cool” diversity, where the word “excellence” is politically incorrect. It’s everywhere. Last week, the British government okayed the creation of animal/human embryos, legalized, for the sake of lesbian maternal desires, the elimination of the father as an essential part of a family, and the European Court on Human Rights agreed to hear a case brought by a chimpanzee (actually its handlers). By increments, our modern world abandons all belief in human dignity as bearing the image of God. In the same week, not to be outdone, California legalized gay “marriage.”

Already “His Excellency,” the [California] Governator [Arnold Schwarzenegger], has:

• greeted this legal decision with enthusiasm;
• stated that personally he is against it;
• refused to back a future public referendum in favor of exclusive heterosexual marriage;
• salivated about the economic boom that such “weddings” will bring to California.

So much for moral excellence–or even rational coherence.

Four “California-dreaming” judges made legal what the Bible calls “unnatural,” using of the sword, not to restrain evil but to compel citizens to embrace it. Going beyond Massachussets, they granted “strict scrutiny” to “sexual orientation,” that is, the highest protection of law in all areas of society. Gay groups understand. “The suede/denim secret police,” the “gentle people,” already have plans to bring the full force of the “law” on those “uncool nieces” who oppose this half-baked legal ruling, including the removal of the right of ministers to perform heterosexual weddings, the end of tax-exempt status of their churches, and the risk of jail for refusing to homosexuals “equal treatment.” Already Gavin Newsome, mayor of San Francisco, announces that civil servants who have conscience problems should find another job!

A culture, founded on deeply considered religious principles, must now ditch two thousand years of Western civilization, and be forced to affirm the rightness of acts that have never been shown to be anything but behavioral choices. There is no scientific evidence of a “gay gene.” Who or what belongs in this non-defined category of “orientation”? What do we do with “ex-gays”? What is an “ex-black,” or someone with an Hispanic “orientation”? Can two gay brothers now marry?

Is this the point where God “gives over” a culture” to the implications of its immoral choices, cosmetically gussied up as “law,” and where Christians speak up and go to jail?

Certainly we must use the little swords we are given–the vote and other legal means–to counter the trend towards sexual license. We must uphold the law in order to bless all creatures and bring people to Christ. At the same time, we must realize that we are opposing the rising star of libertine neo-paganism, capturing the minds of our youth with the seductive message that everything, including sex, is evolving to new forms, and that God the Creator is a dispensable, even dangerous myth. Many are being seduced by ideas like “transhumanism” that sees the human species as only at beginning of its evolutionary progression, while “progressive Christian” liberals tell us that the “Christian tradition…must situate [itself]…within the evolutionary processes of the earth.”

For the first time in human history, homosexual “marriage” has been given a binding, legal status. It is therefore the watershed issue, the flashpoint of a deeper agenda. By judicial fiat, “hetero-cosmology,” the belief in difference–between male and female, right and wrong, and, by implication, between God and the creation–is declared illegal. Only “homo-cosmology,” the belief in sameness–of sexes, of religions and of divine and human, now enshrined in school text books and UN documents–will be tolerated. Those supporting it will eventually promote a polysexual and polytheistic society; those opposing it will affirm the male-female binary and the creator/creature distinction as the over-arching cultural norm. The choice is not new–its between Baal or Jahweh.

Right now, even many pastors fail to see these vast implications. Emergent (evangelical) pastor, Brian McLaren, refuses any judgment on “gay marriage”–to avoid offense! Emergent (evangelical) pastor, Doug Pagitt, openly affirms the compatibility between homosexuality and Christianity, having already openly denied the Creator/creature distinction! The Baptist minister of a large LA church, asked by the Los Angeles Times what he would do if requested to perform a gay “wedding,” incredibly replied: “I’d have to prayerfully think about it”! That confused cleric, alas, is prayerfully half way down the aisle, California über alles oblige.

“Gay marriage” causes us all to pray, not just for homosexuals and for our homophile culture, but also for the defense of Church and for the next generation of Christians against this great seduction!

Born in Liverpool, England, and a boyhood friend of John Lennon, Peter Jones (cwipp@cwipp.org) has a Th.M from Harvard and a Ph.D from Princeton. He taught New Testament in France for 18 years, and at Westminster in California for 12 years, where he is now scholar-in-residence and Adjunct Professor. Author of many books (see cwipp.org), he is Executive Director of truthXchange, a ministry devoted both to understanding the nature of the “new spirituality” and to formulating a Christian response. He can be reached through CWIPP at 760-480-8474.

Jones has a BA from the University of Wales, an M.Div from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and is currently an ordained minister with the Presbyterian Church in America. He is married to Rebecca and they have seven children.

If you have been helped by this newscwipp from Dr. Jones, and know a young person (or a pastor!) struggling with these issues, check out his book, The God of Sex, available for purchase on our website, www.cwipp.org. With a gift of $40.00 or more for our ministry, truthXchange, you will receive a complimentary copy for your own library.

The following is the Executive Summary of the Culture and Media Institute’s (CMI) special report, “Apostles of Atheism: How the broadcast and print media helped spread the Gospel of Godlessness in 2007,” by Kristen Fyfe. Click HERE for the full report in HTML, and you can view the PDF Version HERE.

[Related AFTAH articles: "Chuck Norris on the Marketing of Atheism to Young People"; "Homosexuality and Atheism."]

CMI’s Fyfe writes (emphasis added):

_____________________________

By Kristen Fyfe, Culture & Media Institute

Only eight percent of Americans are atheists, according to the National Cultural Values Survey,* yet atheism was the “it” religion in 2007, with just three best-selling books generating much of the media coverage. Christianity Today put the topic at No. 2 in its Top 10 list of religion stories for last year. “The Roar of Atheist Books” was the seventh biggest religion story of 2007 according to Time magazine.

Media indifference and even hostility toward religion in general and Christianity in particular has been well documented by the Media Research Center for years. With the ascendancy of atheism as a “religion” story, the Media Research Center’s Culture and Media Institute wondered whether the media gave atheism the same degree of scrutiny as Christianity and other religious faiths? To assess the news media’s coverage of atheism in 2007, CMI examined the morning, evening, late night and weekend news programs on all three broadcast networks, all issues of the three leading weekly news magazines (Newsweek, Time and U.S. News and World Report), and four programs aired on taxpayer-funded National Public Radio (Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, All Things Considered and Talk of the Nation).

CMI found 105 stories either featuring atheism or introducing the views of atheists while reporting on other issues. Among the key findings:

• 80 percent (17 out of 21) of feature stories about atheism or atheists had a positive tone, exemplified by Time’s December 3 story on a Sunday school for atheists. 20 percent were neutral. No feature stories were negative.
• Atheists were used to challenge religious viewpoints more than journalists used religious viewpoints to challenge atheism. Fifty-four percent of atheist-themed stories included a religious counterpoint, but 71 percent of the Christian-themed stories included atheist counterpoints or were written from an atheistic perspective. The most striking example was Newsweek’s choice of avowed atheist and Mother Teresa-basher Christopher Hitchens to critique a book detailing Mother Teresa’s spiritual struggles.
• Atheism stories or commentaries by atheists were present in 51 percent (25 of 49) of the issues of Newsweek and 35 percent (17 out of 49) of the issues of Time. This included features, mentions in stories on other issues and groupings of letters to the editor from atheists. In sharp contrast, only one issue of U.S. News and World Report referred to atheism.
• ABC provided the most enthusiastic television network coverage of atheism, exemplified by features on an atheist Web site called Blasphemy Challenge and an atheist convention held in Baltimore. The network addressed the subject 24 times in five of its six news programs. This number is just under the combined total for CBS (16) and NBC (11). ABC also aired more produced packages (5) on the subject than CBS (4) and NBC (2). ABC’s Nightline devoted an entire program to a live debate between atheists and Christians.
• Six out of seven news organizations considered in this study addressed the concerns and interests of atheists in the upcoming presidential election. Only Republican candidates for President were asked how they would treat atheists.

This report concludes that, whether deliberately or not, the news media did not subject atheism or atheists to the same skepticism to which they subject Christians and Christianity. By airing unchallenged interviews and reporting predominantly positive-toned features, the news organizations in this study effectively promoted atheism and held it in higher regard than other religions. While the media are not obligated to treat all religions and belief systems equally, their failure to subject atheism to the levels of skepticism directed at Christianity and other religions suggests a deplorable double standard.

Using atheism as a foil against Christianity, but not against any other religion, suggests an anti-Christian bias. If journalists call on atheists to comment on one religion, they should use atheists to comment on all. Further, if reporters use prominent atheists to offer opposing views on religion-themed stories, they should –– in equal measure –– invite leading believers to provide perspective on stories about atheism. Journalists who look at America’s majority religion through a skeptical prism should equally apply their critical faculties to atheism.

* The National Cultural Values Survey was conducted for the Culture and Media Institute in December, 2006.

Click HERE for the full CMI report, “Apostles of Atheism” in HTML
and HERE for the report in PDF format