Americans for Truth

From the website of Rob Gagnon, Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and probably the world’s foremost authority on the Bible and homosexuality. I have heard Prof. Gagnon present on several of these topics and suffice it to say that it is no mystery why “gay” revisionist theologians are loathe to debate him. I highly recommend that you order and study this important resource. (You can also order his book, The Bible and Homosexual Practice, on Amazon HERE.) I also commend Gagnon’s work to those homosexual activists who claim to be in pursuit of truth, and those who want to truly understand the heart of God on this vexing issue.–Peter LaBarbera.

“Love, the Bible, and Homosexual Practice”: A 4-Hour 3-DVD Presentation by Robert Gagnon (2008)

… with excellent high-definition picture and sound, along with slides; taped professionally at Grace Chapel in Franklin, Tenn. on Apr. 12, 2008 for Mastering Life Ministries (see online sites at www.MasteringLife.org and www.purepassion.us/Home.asp), along with an hour-long CD. $35 plus $7 shipping and handling. To order click HERE or go to http://www.purepassion.us/OnlineStore.asp.

DVD 1: What’s at Stake & What Are the Closest Analogies (83 min.)

Treats why we disagree in the church about homosexual practice; what’s at stake in this debate; why the oft-cited, alleged analogies to Gentile inclusion, slavery, women in ministry, and divorce and remarriage are not in fact good analogies to the Bible’s prohibition of homosexual practice; what the main problem with homosexual practice is; why adult-committed incest and polyamory are the closest analogies; and responses to audience questions.

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NOTE: In AFTAH’s email version of this story, we erroneously cited the “firing” of Crystal Dixon. She has been suspended only and we apologize for the mistake.

The Open Letter below (emphasis added) is simply too informative not to pass on. Rob Gagnon is one of the world’s leading authorities on homosexuality and the Bible; Having heard him speak, I highly commend him as a visiting speaker at your church, synagogue or place of worship. The pro-homosexual theological revisionists — you know, the ones who make outlandish claims like that David and Jonathan in the Old Testament were “gay lovers” — are afraid to debate Rob. No wonder. You can learn more about Prof. Gagnon’s important work at www.robgagnon.net. — Peter LaBarbera
_____________________________

Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Professor Rob Gagnon’s open letter to the President of the University of Toledo, who suspended Ms. Crystal Dixon, Associate Vice President of Human Resources at the University, for rejecting an equation of homosexuality with ethnicity

(WND news story at www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?pageId=63459; Lifesite story at www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/may/08050605.html).

“I take great umbrage at the notion that those choosing the homosexual lifestyle are ‘civil rights victims.’ Here’s why. I cannot wake up tomorrow and not be a black woman.” — Crystal Dixon

TAKE ACTION: Read this letter, send it to all your friends and associates to educate them on the homosexual issue, and contact University of Toledo President Lloyd Jacobs (UTPresident@utoledo.edu) at: President Dr. Lloyd A. Jacobs, University Hall, Room 3500, Phone: 419.530.2211; Fax: 419.530.4984

From: Robert Gagnon (rgagnon@pts.edu)

Sent: Tue 5/6/2008 5:04 PM

Dear [U. of Toledo] President Jacobs,

I have read of your action in connection with Ms. Crystal Dixon, Associate Vice President of Human Resources at the University of Toledo (www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?pageId=63459). Your suspension of Ms. Dixon for rejecting an equation of homosexuality with ethnicity constitutes, in my view, a gross injustice and an expression of the very intolerance that you claim to abhor. It is also predicated on a lack of knowledge and, as such, an abundance of prejudice.

Ms. Dixon is absolutely right that sexual orientation is not akin to race or sex. Unlike a homosexual orientation, race and sex are 100% congenitally predetermined, cannot be fundamentally changed in their essence by cultural influences, and are not a primary or direct desire for behavior that is incompatible with embodied structures.

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This month iMAPP (Institute for Marriage and Public Policy)  in conjunction with the Marriage Law Foundation, is announcing a new monthly e-publication, the “Marriage Law Digest.”

Edited by Bill Duncan, the Marriage Law Digest aims to provide readable summaries of key legal opinions affecting marriage and family life in the U.S., with links to the opinions themselves where possible.

Each month, the Marriage Law Digest will be available (free) online at www.marriagedebate.com. You can download this month’s edition here. If you don’t care to receive an e-mail notice when iMAPP’s Marriage Law Digest is published each month, please reply to joshua@imapp.org and indicate “unsubscribe” in the subject line.

But I think and hope you’ll find it as useful as I do each month.

Best,

Maggie Gallagher
Institute for Marriage and Public Policy (iMAPP)

I was greatly encouraged by the many letters AFTAH received responding to 14-year-old ”Joe,” who wrote via our website explaining that he is a gay atheist who hates Americans For Truth. I will be passing on all the notes to Joe, and publishing a few, including this from suburban Chicago writer Laurie Higgins (emphasis added)–Peter L.:
_________________________________________________________________________
 
Dear Joe,
 
What you have said, what you feel, and what you think break my heart. All reveal the deception that our culture has taught our children. Mr. LaBarbera doesn’t hate you or homosexuals. And even though I firmly believe that homosexual conduct is not moral, I do not hate you either.
 
I no more hate you than I hate those who engage in other behaviors that I consider immoral, and those would include me, my husband, and my children. Every single human who has ever lived, save one, engages in immoral behavior. Our task is figuring out what constitutes moral and immoral behavior. You have appropriated one philosophical perspective on what determines right and wrong: you believe that if a behavior doesn’t directly harm another person physically, then it’s moral. But some of the greatest thinkers who have ever lived define morality differently. Defining morality as you have would permit adult consensual incest, lying, selfishness, polyamory, and apotemnophilia.
 
Neither Mr. LaBarbera nor I believe that homosexuals choose the feelings they have anymore than those who are attracted to adolescents or children or their siblings choose their powerful attractions, or those married men who are attracted to other women choose those attractions, or those who are powerfully drawn toward gambling or alcohol or drugs choose those attractions. We do believe, however, that those who experience same-sex attraction choose how they will respond to their desires, just as I choose how to respond to my selfish, or greedy, or angry, or lustful desires. Some in society tell you that acting on same-sex impulses is legitimate and good. They have lied to you, and it is a cruel lie.
 
You ask why someone would care about the sexual practices of others. I care that others are teaching children lies. I care that others are teaching kids that homosexual conduct is morally equivalent to heterosexual conduct when it’s not. I care because that lie carries devastating emotional, psychological, physical, and spiritual consequences. I care because I care about truth and its impact on the lives of individuals and on society.
 
Joe, homosexuals do have the full complement of civil rights.  They even have marital rights. Every homosexual can get married; they simply can’t redefine marriage. They can’t eliminate the criterion of complementarity, just as those who “love” children cannot eliminate the minimum age criterion, and those who love relatives cannot eliminate the consanguinity requirement, and those who love multiple partners cannot eliminate the binary requirement. The fact that homosexuals cannot redefine the institution does not mean the institution is unavailable to them.
 
As to your comment that homosexuals can think logically: You’re absolutely right, Joe; you were created in the image and likeness of God, and, therefore, you possess the gift of reason. It is not just religious traditions that inform us that homosexual conduct is wrong. Natural law tells us that. You are heterosexual, Joe. All humans are. Species cannot procreate homosexually. Our bodies are not designed for homosexual sex. They are exquisitely designed for heterosex. Desires do not define identity. And the male sex drive is so powerful, it can be misdirected to a whole host of inappropriate objects and activities. Don’t allow the unbidden presence of desires, impulses, or attractions define who you are. None of us should.
 
Please, do not dismiss arguments that emerge from religious tradition. Speaking as one who deeply values logic, evidence, and intellectual argument, I can attest that Christianity holds up intellectually. And remember, atheism too is based on faith. You are no more able to prove the non-existence of God than I am able to prove unequivocally God’s existence. But search out some “apologetics.” I would recommend the website of Ravi Zacharias. And read about the conversions of atheists like Mortimer Adler who was a famous University of Chicago philosopher, or British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, or more recently the physicist Anthony Flew. And it’s not just the Christian Bible that teaches that homosexuality is wrong; the Old Testament does also, as does the Koran.
 
By the way, there are no scientific studies that prove that homosexuality is genetic. In fact, most scientists, even those who identify as gay and whose studies are most often cited, believe that at most, biology may play a part in desire, but that environmental influences are significant. In addition, the presence of biological influences tells us precisely nothing about morality.
 
Joe, there is freedom, truth, beauty, joy, and peace available to you. Seek them relentlessly, and know this, except for a very few fringe wackos, those who hold traditional beliefs do not hate you. On the contrary, they grieve for the lies you’ve been taught and desire nothing but that which is truly good for you.
 
If you would like to talk more, and your parents are agreeable to us talking, I would love nothing more. You can contact me through AFTAH. 
 
Laurie

“Because American marriage is inextricable from Christianity,
it admits participants as Noah let animals onto the ark.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.

In 1972 the National Coalition of Gay Organizations demanded
the ‘repeal of all legislative provisions that restrict
the sex or number of persons entering into a marriage unit;
and the extension of legal benefits to all persons who cohabit
regardless of sex or numbers.’

Would polygamy invite abuse of child brides,
as feminists in Muslim countries and prosecutors in Mormon Utah charge?
No. Group marriage could comprise any combination of genders.”

– Pro-homosexuality and pro-pedophilia author Judith Levine
in Stop the Wedding!: Why Gay Marriage Isn’t Radical Enough,
The Village Voice, published July 23-29, 2003
(cited by Robert Knight at Talking Points on Marriage)

By Peter LaBarbera

When it comes to chutzpah, homosexual activists have it in spades. They work their lavender tushes off revolutionizing the age-old Judeo-Christian definitions of marriage and family; fight for “gay/straight” clubs in middle- and high schools, and homosexuality-affirming lessons for all students–even toddlers; lobby for open homosexuality in the armed forces; oppose marriage-preference adoption laws based on the absurd proposition that a child having two “gay daddies” is no worse off than one having a mother and a father; make outrageous claims that esteemed historical figures like Abe Lincoln were “gay”; and radically reinterpret the Bible to change homosexuality from an abomination to a “gift from God.”

Then they turn around and ridicule the idea that there is a “gay agenda.”

Here’s an entry from lesbian blogger Pam Spaulding:

“The Homosexual Agenda is an elusive document. We’ve been looking around for a copy for quite some time; the distribution plan is so secret that it’s almost like we need a queer Indiana Jones to hunt the master copy down. The various anti-gay forces are certain that we all have a copy and are coordinating a attack to achieve world domination.” –Pam Spaulding

Memo to Pam: you don’t have to risk being chased by a giant boulder in the Amazon to find a copy of that elusive agenda; just click this link for the 1972 Gay Rights Platform. Note the last two demands under “States” in the 1972 document: “Repeal all laws governing the age of sexual consent” and “Repeal all legislative provisions that restrict the sex or number of persons entering into a marriage unit.”

Or try this link for the 1987 (Homosexual) “March on Washington.” No agenda here, other than the calls for:

• “The government should provide protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, public accommodations and education just as protection is provided on race, creed, color, sex, or national origin”;
• “Anti-homophobic curriculum in the schools”;
• “The government should ensure all public education programs include programs designed to combat lesbian/gay prejudice … Institutions that discriminate against lesbian and gay people should be denied tax-exempt status and federal funding.”
• “A massive [federal] AIDS education and prevention program that is explicit, culturally sensitive, lesbian and gay affirming and sex positive”;
• “Public and private institutions should support parenting by lesbian or gay couples”;
• All people must have access to free abortions and contraceptives on demand regardless of age.” (Strangely, abortion advocacy has long been part of the homosexual activist agenda.)

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Excerpted from The Confession, by Stanley Kurtz, published Oct 31, 2006, by National Review:

Suppose a large group of same-sex-marriage activists came together and made the following confession to a group of same-sex-marriage skeptics:

“Look, we’re going to level with you in a way that we haven’t up to now. We all support same-sex marriage, but for many — even most — of us, gay marriage isn’t an end in itself. It’s a way-station on the path to a post-marriage society. We want a wide range of diverse families — even ‘polyamorous’ groupings of three or more partners — to have the same recognition, rights, and benefits as heterosexual married couples. In short, your worst fears are justified. The radical redefinition of marriage you’ve been worried about for so long is exactly what we want…

“And consider the complex families created when three or even four gay men and lesbians combine through, say, artificial insemination, to bear and raise children. We want recognition for these sorts of unconventional families too, even — or especially — if such recognition leads to legalized polyamory. Pretending that certain aspects of the gay community don’t exist only weakens our diverse families. The way we live is the way we live. Up to now, we’ve tried to hide it. But at last we’re ready to own up to reality, and to push for legal recognition for all types of families, even if that expands the definition of marriage until the very idea of marriage itself is stripped of meaning.”

For all practical purposes, this confession has already been offered. A good part of the substance of the above message was conveyed this past July, when hundreds of self-described lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) and allied activists, scholars, educators, writers, artists, lawyers, journalists, and community organizers released a manifesto entitled, “Beyond Same-Sex Marriage.” Among other things, that statement called for recognition of “committed, loving households in which there is more than one conjugal partner.”

Continue reading at National Review…