TAKE ACTION:  Read the C-FAM alert below and contact the White House using their comment page or call the White House comment line today (202-456-1111).  (You also can e-mail a comment to the U.S. State Department HERE or call their comment line at: 202-647-6575.) Respectfully urge the President to stop using the authority and goodwill of the United States of America to promote the normalization of homosexuality abroad. Tell the Administration that you oppose the USA voting to approve coveted United Nations consulting status for organizations whose mission is to push a pro-homosexuality agenda — including radically redefining marriage and promoting dangerous GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual) “identities” to vulnerable youth — on unsuspecting nations.

 

HATE CRIMES/ENDA ALERT:  While you’re at it, e-mail or call your U.S. Senators (202-224-3121) and urge them to oppose the “hate crimes” bill and the pro-homosexual/transsexual employment ENDA bill — which we’re calling the “Transgender Bathrooms for Businesses Bill” – which threaten to federalize “sexual orientation” law, thus curtailing your “freedom to be moral.”  Call 202-224-3121 or visit http://www.congress.org/.

Certainly, we as a nation can and should support true human rights without crusading for the acceptance of immoral lifestyles. Genuine human rights — and civil rights — are not based on sex, especially deviant sex. Countries should have the right to regulate homosexual sodomy — as we did in America from our inception until 2003, when the Supreme Court reversed a 17-year-old precedent in the Lawrence v. Texas sodomy law case. We should be careful as the world’s most powerful nation not to push the American Secular Left’s decadent values — abortion, homosexuality, condom “sex ed” – on poor countries. Radicals used to call that cultural “imperialism.”

Having America become a leading promoter of immoral-sex-based rights masquerading as “human rights” is a far cry from President Reagan’s vision for this nation being a “shining city on a hill.” Write or call President Bush today: 202-456-1111.– Peter LaBarbera

________________________

Friday Fax, Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM)

July 26, 2007 | Volume 10, Number 32
Dear Colleague,

Radical homosexual groups are flooding the UN accreditation process for non-governmental organizations and they seem poised to cause serious problems for traditionally minded countries.

Spread the word.

Yours sincerely,

Austin Ruse
President, C-FAM
 
Controversial UN Procedures Lead to UN Status for Homosexual Groups

By Samantha Singson

(NEW YORK — C-FAM) Overturning a prior decision by the NGO accrediting committee, the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) voted to grant official consultative status to the Coalition Gaie et Lesbienne du Quebec (CGLQ) and the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights (RFSL) in Geneva last week.

The voting process was mired in confusion over unclear language. Several delegate requests for clarification interrupted the roll-call vote and led Pakistan to call for a point of order and ask for a re-vote. No re-vote was taken. The motion to grant ECOSOC status passed with 22 countries voting in favor, 13 against, 13 abstaining and 6 absent.

An attorney for one NGO at the Geneva meeting told the Friday Fax, “Increasingly in the past several months, at meetings such as the CSW [Commission on the Status of Women], the Human Rights Council and now the ECOSOC council, there have been serious issues regarding transparency in the voting process.  After witnessing several of these types of incidents, one has to wonder whether voting at the UN really matters or if the result is preordained.”

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) and ARC International launched intense lobbying campaigns preceding the ECOSOC vote to ensure that both groups’ applications would be approved. 

In January, the 19-member NGO accrediting committee, a subcommittee of the ECOSOC, rejected CGLQ’s application and deferred RFSL’s request. Despite the fact that there had been a thorough examination of the evidence, the representative of the United Kingdom charged that the rejection of the homosexual rights groups was “straightforward discrimination.”

Debates within the NGO accrediting committee meetings over applications from homosexual rights groups have become increasingly heated in the last few years. While the ECOSOC council almost always accepts subcommittee recommendations, it has made exceptions twice in the last year in order to accredit radical homosexual groups.

The International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA), an NGO that was stripped of its ECOSOC status because of ties to pedophilia and whose repeated attempts to regain ECOSOC status have been denied, launched an international campaign in 2006 to encourage all of its 550 affiliate organizations to submit NGO applications for UN consultative status. Many have applied and been accepted.

ECOSOC members voting in favor of granting status to CGQL and RFSL included  the United States, the United Kingdom, Albania, Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal and Romania.

Voting against were Algeria, Belarus, Benin, China, Guinea, Indonesia, Iraq, Pakistan, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sri Lanka and Sudan.

Speaking to the press after the ECOSOC vote, CGLQ’s executive director and ILGA North America representative, Yvan Lapointe, said that his group now plans to use the UN as a platform for spreading “homosexual rights” to many of the same countries that voted against it.

For more news visit us at http://www.c-fam.org/; copyright 2007 – C-FAM (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute). Permission granted for unlimited use. Credit required.

The following is excerpted from LifeSiteNews.com, a must ”go-to” site for pro-family advocates and citizens no matter what country you live in. Needless to say, you would have heard a lot more about this huge Italian rally had it been an “anti-Bush” protest against the war, or maybe a pro-”gay marriage” protest. The people ”get it” regarding marriage and family; the secular media are obsessed with political correctness. One wonders how the political/cultural equation over homosexuality would be different if the media’s coverage were anything close to being fair rather than overwhelmingly pro-”gay”-activist as it is in most of the West today.– Peter LaBarbera  

1.5 Million Italians Turn Out in Massive Rome Protest Against Homosexual Civil Unions
Oraganizers Were Expecting Only 100,000

By Gudrun Schultz, LifeSiteNews.com

ROME, Italy, May 14, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Italians from across the country poured into Rome May 12 to join in a demonstration against a law that would give legal recognition to homosexual couples–reports showed up to 1.7 million people overflowed the St. John Lateran piazza. Organizers initially expected to draw about 100,000.

The proposed legislation would give homosexual couples–and unmarried heterosexual couples–similar rights to those of married couples, stopping just short of legalizing homosexual marriage.

“Living together is not family,” protester Anna Manara told the Associated Press.
“A commitment such as marriage cements the bond, while other models make it easier to be together and therefore end up making it less valuable.”

While the pro-family demonstration was backed by the Vatican and Italy’s Catholic bishops, it was organized by lay people independently of the Church. The “mind-blowing” success of the event is an outstanding example of the power held by ordinary citizens when sufficiently mobilized in support of traditional values, said Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, a priest in Rome who is the moderator of the Catholic Online Forum (see blogsite: http://wdtprs.com/blog/2007/05/winners-and-losers).

“The importance of this event is not merely that when left to their own devices the Italian people will support traditional values in great numbers, giving the lie to the script presented by the intellectuals in the press. It also means in concrete terms that the traditional values laity can organize and achieve results.”

“The success of “Family Day” also highlights a now deeply entrenched trend not only in Italy, but in the West: the marginalization of the Church from the public square,” Fr. Zuhlsdorf said. “Nearly everywhere the Church’s is being denied its right to speak freely. Committed Catholic and other religious politicians and public figures are pressured never to make reference to their religious convictions. The constant mantra is that religion should be a purely private matter than has no influence on public policy. Be religious, fine. But you may never act outwardly on your interior opinions.”

Former Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi decided to attend the event when he saw an anti-Catholic cartoon about “Family Day” in the Communist Il Manifesto. Speaking out against those who claim to be Catholic while holding positions in opposition to Church teaching, Berlusconi said, “Left-wing Catholics are an insurmountable contradiction.”

“You cannot be at the same time Catholics – and as such considerate of the doctrine of the Church and its teachings on various questions – and then stand with those who are cheek by jowl on the other side.”

He went on, “In these recent times there is an attack on the freedom of the Church to express its own convictions. There comes to my mind what happened in the Communist countries, the Church of silence that could speak only within the ambit of its own buildings.” (Translation by Fr. Zuhlsdorf.)

More than 1,000 U.S. rabbis joined in solidarity with pro-family demonstrators in Rome–Rabbi Yehuda Levin, with the Rabbinical Alliance of America and the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada, sent a statement of support and solidarity to organizers of the Rome event and the Warsaw pro-family Congress.

Rabbi Levin applauded “the millions of morally decent family orientated Italians who utterly reject any legislative efforts to accord recognition to homosexual unions.”

The rabbi said homosexual activism was “a problem of domestic moral terrorism by those who boldly, flagrantly and proactively agitate to undermine the most basic values of society, a reverence for innocent life, and the Biblically ordained family unit.”

“The attempted homosexualization of the Holy Land with sacrilegious parades in Jerusalem, an affront to all religions, as well as the constant homosexual onslaught specifically in the shadows of the Vatican, such as is demonstrated by the debauchery of the homosexual celebrations in Rome 2000, and now again with this evil legislation, is a calculated international disparagement of religion, religious values and religion’s leaders.”

To read the rest of the Lifesite article, go HERE.

Dear Colleague,

The power of the radical homosexual movement in Europe has just been shown. The European Parliament just voted to condemn Poland on what they term “homophobia.” What was Poland’s crime? The Polish Prime Minister said that Polish school children should not be subject to “homosexual propaganda.”

Polish authorities have also resisted demands from radical homosexuals that they be allowed to march in the streets. If you live in any major city you know these marches where leather boys and pedophiles march freely and disruptively through the streets.

The response of the European Parliament was to pass a resolution calling these sensible actions “hate speech” and asks competent legal authorities to take action against these officials and the government of Poland.

This is outrageous and all people of good will must stand with the Polish people against the radical homosexual movement in the European Union.

I ask you to go immediately to the petition “Homosexual Hands Off Poland” at www.c-fam.org/handsoffpoland.php.

The petitions will be delivered to the Polish authorities on Thursday, May 10. I will personally deliver them to Polish Members of the European Parliament and to members of the Polish government when I am in Warsaw for the World Congress of Families.

We only have a few days to get as many names as possible. I urge you to go to www.c-fam.org/handsoffpoland.php and sign the petition, then send this message to everyone you know. We need to deliver thousands of names of supporters from all over the world. I especially urge those in the EU countries to get this message to everyone you know. We must tell the radicals in the European Union to keep homosexual hands off of Poland!

Go to www.c-fam.org/handsoffpoland.php and sign the petition and send this email message to everyone in your address book.

Yours sincerely,

Austin Ruse
President
C-FAM

PS Poland stands almost alone in the European Parliament against an enormous coalition of radicals. Poland needs our help right now. Please sign the petition at www.c-fam.org/handsoffpoland.php and help Poland fight back.
 
 

For further resources on this issue, go to the Breakpoint website. We encourage you to sign up for these excellent daily commentaries by e-mail.

In George Orwell’s classic novel 1984, the government Thought Police constantly spies on citizens to make sure they are not thinking rebellious thoughts. Thought crimes are severely punished by Big Brother.

1984 was intended as a warning against totalitarian governments that enslave and control their citizens. Never have we needed this warning more urgently than now, because America’s Thought Police are knocking on your door.

Last week the House Judiciary Committee, egged on by radical homosexual groups, passed what can only be called a Thought Crimes bill. It’s called the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act. But this bill is not about hate. It’s not even about crime. It’s about outlawing peaceful speech—speech that asserts that homosexual behavior is morally wrong.

Some say we need this law to prevent attacks on homosexuals. But we already have laws against assaults on people and property. Moreover, according to the FBI, crimes against homosexuals in the United States have dropped dramatically in recent years. In 2005, out of 863,000 cases of aggravated assault, just 177 cases were crimes of bias against homosexuals—far less than even 1 percent.

Another problem is that in places where hate crimes laws have been passed, hate crimes have been defined to include verbal attacks—and even peaceful speech. The Thought Police have already prosecuted Christians under hate crimes laws in England, Sweden, Canada, and even in some places in the United States.

If this dangerous law passes, pastors who preach sermons giving the biblical view of homosexuality could be prosecuted. Christian businessmen who refuse to print pro-gay literature could be prosecuted. Groups like Exodus International, which offer therapy to those with unwanted same-sex attraction, could be shut down.

In classic 1984 fashion, peaceful speech will be redefined as a violent attack worthy of punishment.

This is the unspoken goal of activist groups. We know this because during the debate over the bill last week, Congressman Mike Pence (R) of Indiana offered a Freedom of Religion amendment to this hate crimes bill. It asked that nothing in this law limit the religious freedom of any person or group under the Constitution. The committee refused to adopt it. It also refused to adopt amendments protecting other groups from hate crimes—like members of the military, who are often targets of verbal attacks and spitting. They also shot down amendments that would protect the homeless and senior citizens, also often targeted by criminals. Nothing doing, the committee said—the only group they wanted to protect: homosexuals.

Clearly, the intent of this law is not to prevent crime, but to shut down freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of thought. Its passage would strike at the very heart of our democracy.

The full Congress may vote on this bill as early as this week. Unless you want Big Brother telling you what to say, what to think, and what to believe, I urge you to contact your congressman immediately, urging him or her to vote against this bill. If you visit the BreakPoint website, you’ll find more information about this radical law.

If we do nothing, 1984 will no longer be fiction, and Big Brother will be watching you and me—ready to punish the “wrong” thoughts.

A warning to Lithuania of the goals of homosexual movement, which has just begun to organize there.

I am Dr. Scott Lively, an American attorney and President of Defend the Family International, a human rights NGO. I hold a Doctor of Law and a Doctor of Theology, as well as special credentials in International Human Rights. I am the author of the Riga Declaration on Religious Freedom, Family Values and Human Rights (see www.defendthefamily.com), and an international lecturer on these topics.

I came to Lithuania to warn the Lithuanian people about the threat posed to your society by the global homosexual political movement, which has begun to organize in your nation. At the outset, let me say that I advocate a high tolerance for the people who define themselves by their choice of a homosexual lifestyle, even while I promote a low tolerance for homosexual conduct.

Homosexual activists would have you believe that tolerance for them requires total acceptance and approval of their lifestyle, but that is not obligatory, nor prudent. In fact, discrimination against homosexual behavior is necessary to protect your society from the consequences of “gay” culture, which always pushes for greater and greater liberalism in sexual attitudes, especially among young people. To see the danger of this we need look no further than Holland, where sexual liberalism promoted by the homosexual movement has led to the creation of a pedophile political party, whose right hold seats in parliament, to advocate for the legalization of adult/child sexual relationships, has been approved by the Dutch courts.

We should not, however, discriminate against persons who define themselves as homosexuals. They should be free to label themselves as they choose, no less so than other groups whose beliefs or goals are disapproved by the majority. Indeed, we can compare homosexuals to their chief adversaries, the radical nationalists. Both groups hate each other, and would like to do away with the other. Neither side is embraced by the majority, but both deserve the right to freedom of their beliefs and to freedom of speech within reasonable limits. The rest of us must be willing to tolerate these difficult neighbors to preserve civility for society as a whole.

The chief danger of the homosexual movement is that it always seeks to take away the freedom of speech from anyone who disapproves of homosexuality. In Canada, where homosexual activism has enjoyed considerable success, there are now so-called Human Rights Tribunals which have the power to punish anyone who publicly opposes homosexuality by making the offender pay a monetary fine. The money is then given to the homosexual who filed the complaint. The most recent incident involved a Catholic member of the City Council of Kamloops, British Columbia. His offence was to call homosexuality “unnatural.” One wonders if Pope Benedict himself would face arrest in Canada since he has repeatedly affirmed that homosexuality is “intrinsically disordered.”

Religious opinions are also silenced wherever homosexuals gain the power to do so. We can recall a case from Sweden. On June 29, 2004, Pastor Ake Green was sentenced to one month in jail for showing “disrespect” against homosexuals in the sermon he delivered in his pulpit in Borgholm. The title of his sermon was “Are people born with homosexual orientation or is it the result of influence by evil powers?” Pastor Green was eventually exonerated by the Swedish Supreme Court, but only over the vigorous objection of the “gay” activists in that nation (would the result have been the same if the judges were “gay“?).

Just this week In Britain, the House of Lords approved a bill to prohibit private Christian schools from teaching their students that homosexuality is wrong.

Read the rest of Scott Lively’s “Letter to the Lithuanian People” HERE

One of the fascinating aspects of the Canadian and European stories on pro-homosexuality “hate speech” enforcement is the mainstream nature of the speech now being censored. In Canada, a politician is fined for saying homosexuality is not natural or normal. Wow. Shocking, hateful stuff.

Now in France, a Member of Parliament (below) is fined for saying that heterosexuality is superior to homosexuality. Horrors. Jail this menace to society!

Two observations: 1) I sure am glad to be living in the good ol’ USA, where we have a First Amendment. When the American “Gay” Left tires of simply twisting the motives of pro-family advocates (e.g., comparing us to Nazis and calling Christians the “American Taliban,” as is the habit of lesbian blogger and prodigious name-caller Pam Spaulding), they will grow jealous of “hate speech” prosecutions abroad and start ratcheting up calls to ban “homophobic” speech here. Mark my words.

When that happens, the “gay” cause will lose considerable support from moderates and liberty-loving Americans who despise censorship. If it doesn’t, America as a free nation will be no longer. The good sign is that already, people are tiring of the creeping pro-”gay” Big Brotherism in corporations and the culture, dictating what can and cannot be said (e.g., “spouse”: bad; “partner”: good).

2) Where is the outcry among the American “gay” opinion-molders on the punishment abroad of Judeo-Christian “anti-gay” speech? Where is the angst over the erosion of freedom of speech in the once-”free” West? Why aren’t more homosexual leaders and writers swearing off such tyranny here, perhaps recognizing that the censors might turn on them some day?

One thing is clear: our noble cause of stopping the creation and proliferation of laws granting “rights” based on homosexuality (”sexual orientation”) is as much a freedom issue as it is a moral one.

——————————

The following is excerpted from French MP Fined for Using Homophobic Language, published Jan 25, 2007, by Independent (South Africa):

A court fined a conservative member of the French parliament €3 000 (about R28 000) on Thursday for abusive comments about homosexuals, the first time a politician had been prosecuted under a two-year-old law banning homophobic language.

Christian Vanneste, a member of the ruling UMP party, was quoted in the media as saying homosexuality was “inferior” to heterosexuality and would be “dangerous for humanity if it was pushed to the limit”.

The court also ordered him to pay €2 000 in damages and costs to three gay and lesbian groups who brought the case.

Gay and civil rights groups welcomed the ruling, saying in a statement it “aimed to punish homophobic comments which should be fought because they inspire and legitimise verbal and physical attacks”.

Continue reading in Independent…

According to French Politician Fined Under Gay Hate Law, published Jan 25, 2007, by the pro-homosexuality 365Gay:

…The maximum Vanneste faced was imprisonment…

Following the Douai court ruling gay activists who leveled the charge said in a statement they will continue to charge politicians who target gays, adding that hate speech inspires and legitimizes verbal and physical attacks.

Continue reading at 365Gay…

A new coalition of European Transgender and Transsexual Groups, TransGender Europe, has received recognition by the Austrian authorities this week.

We are of course deeply troubled that the Bush Administration has voted to give ILGA and two other international homosexual groups the coveted U.N.-affiliated status. It seems that in recent months, through various pro-homosexual actions, the White House has lost touch with the conservative, pro-family values that helped put George Bush in the Oval Office. We hope this trend doesn’t continue as Mr. Bush could soon be presented with pro-homosexual legislation (ENDA, “Hate Crimes,” repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”) coming out of the Democratic-controlled Congress. –Peter LaBarbera

———————————-

The following is from Radical Homosexual Groups Approved by UN with Bush Support, by Bradford Short, published Dec 28, 2006, by Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute:

The U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) recently granted official [consultative] status to three gay-rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs):

• the Danish National Association for Gays and Lesbians,

• the Lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany (LSVD) and

• the International Lesbian and Gay Federation (ILGA).

ECOSOC granted the consultative status to the gay-rights NGOs despite the fact that the UN Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations recommended against it, and the fact that one of the groups had clear links to pro-pedophilia organizations in the past.

ILGA is probably the most infamous of the groups granted ECOSOC consultative status last week. A “global federation of organizations and individuals seeking to” advance gay rights, ILGA, was repeatedly rejected for official UN status many times in the past several years for its connection to a child-sex group called the the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). NAMBLA is probably the leading pro-pedophilia group in the United States. ILGA is said to have expelled NAMBLA but, according to UN delegations, refused to condemn adult-child sex. ILGA said “these groups had joined ILGA at an earlier stage of ILGA’s development, at a time when ILGA did not have in place administrative procedures to scrutinize the constitutions and policies of groups seeking membership.” This claim, at least until last week, gave UN delegations pause since the name “North American Man Boy Love Association makes it fairly clear the group promotes homosexual sex between men and children.

Another approved group, the Danish National Association for Gays and Lesbians considers itself to be an organization that takes a “conservative” approach to gay-rights advocacy in Denmark. That is, its support for gay “marriage,” for gay adoption, and for laws that would force churches to bless gay unions, all are “conservative” endeavors because in doing these things Danish homosexuals do not “want to change the world,” they “just want to be in it on equal terms.” The Association does understand, however, the concerns of “subversive” Danish homosexuals, who want to prevent the “extensive heterofication of [Danish] society” that they say is happening because gays are pursuing “conservative” ends, such as marriage. In this way does the Association understand itself as a moderate gay-rights group.

LSVD includes member divisions such as “LSVD fresh,” which is supposed to be a support group “for youngsters” who are gay.

Twenty-three nations on the Council voted for the groups’ accreditation, while sixteen voted against it, and ten abstained. Among those voting in favor of the gay-rights groups was the United States, which has recently been voting in favor of groups that advance the homosexual agenda at the UN. One UN permanent representative told the Friday Fax that, “while the Bush Administration has been solid on life issues, it seems irrational to me that they insist on favoring gay groups that clearly seek to undermine marriage and the family.”

Two leftists in Italy’s ruling coalition on Wednesday outraged fellow lawmakers by placing four dolls representing homosexual couples near the baby Jesus in the official nativity scene in parliament.

The two parliamentarians from the small “Rose in the Fist” party said their gesture was to promote the legalization of gay marriage and granting legal recognition to unmarried couples.

Bruno Mellano and Donatella Poretti placed the Barbie and Ken-type dolls in the parliamentary nativity scene, each couple lying down embraced among the shepherds witnessing the birth of Jesus.

Each of the two doll couples, which parliamentary ushers removed after a few minutes, wore miniature placards with slogans in favor of gay rights.

“This is a vulgar and unacceptable double attack against both a (national) institution as well as a religious symbol,” a group of women parliamentarians of the opposition conservative Forza Italia party said in a statement.

Luca Volonte, a member of the small centrist opposition Union of Christian Democrats, called the gesture a “pure attack against the religion practiced by the majority of Italians”.

Continue reading at Reuters…

“Those who forsake the Law praise the wicked,
but those who keep the Law resist them.
Evil men do not understand justice,
but those who seek the Lord understand it fully.”
–Proverbs 28:4-5

Excerpted from Israeli High Court Orders ‘Gay Marriage’ Recognition, by Michael Foust, published Nov 21, 2006, by Baptist Press:

The land where Jesus once walked soon will recognize “gay marriage.”

In a landmark 6-1 decision, Israel’s Supreme Court Nov. 21 ordered the government to begin recognizing “gay marriages” from other countries, such as Canada. Although the decision doesn’t give homosexual couples the ability to “marry” within Israel’s borders, it nonetheless puts Israel at odds with countries such as Great Britain and the United States, neither of which recognizes foreign “gay marriages.” In fact, the U.S. government doesn’t even recognize “gay marriages” that occur within its borders in Massachusetts, the lone state where it is legal.

Four countries — Canada, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands — have legalized “gay marriage,” and a fifth one, South Africa, is expected to do so within days.

The ruling by the High Court of Justice — the name for Israel’s highest court — gives homosexual couples the same legal benefits as traditional couples, including tax breaks and the ability to adopt, The Jerusalem Post reported. The decision forces the government to register the “marriages” like it does any other marriages.

“We don’t have a Jewish state here. We have Sodom and Gomorrah here,” lawmaker Moshe Gafni told Israel’s Army Radio, according to the Associated Press. “I assume that every sane person in the state of Israel, possibly the entire Jewish world, is shocked, because the significance is … the destruction of the family unit in the state of Israel.”

The lawsuit was brought by five homosexual couples who were “married” in other countries and wanted to have their licenses recognized in Israel. One of the couples was Sefi Bar-Lev, 40, and Yaron Lahav, 29, the Toronto Star reported.

“This is a great step forward. But we are still at the beginning,” Bar-Lev told the Star. “The law in Israel is opening up, but whether you are gay or heterosexual, the rule here is still that unless you want to marry the religious Orthodox way, you must still leave the country to get married. So there is more struggle ahead to win the right to have civil ceremonies in Israel. But today we can see there is momentum in the right direction.”

The United States has a law known as the Defense of Marriage Act preventing the federal government from recognizing “gay marriages.” Homosexual activists hope to see it overturned in court someday, but the major homosexual groups have yet to file suit, saying the legal timing isn’t right.

In Britain, a court ruled in July that the government isn’t required to recognize “gay marriages” from Canada.

The Israeli court ruling was issued nearly two weeks after a “gay pride” parade in Jerusalem was cancelled following pressure from Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders and concern over Islamic terrorist violence. Despite the cancellation, in recent years homosexual activists in Israel have won legal and political battles that activists in America have not. For instance, homosexuals in Israel can serve openly in the military. America’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy prevents such open service, with U.S. military leaders saying open service would harm morale and cohesion.

“[The decision] shows that the homosexual agenda is global,” Peter LaBarbera, president of the conservative organization Americans for Truth, told Baptist Press. “America may have to stand alone, but we stand alone in a lot of things.”

The Israel ruling, LaBarbera said, is another example of how “gay marriage” laws in one locality can have a broad impact.

“It is essential to do everything you can to protect marriage wherever you are — in a state or a nation. You have to take precautionary measures. Here in Illinois, [marriage amendment opponents] would tell us, ‘We already have a law [prohibiting gay marriage],’” said LaBarbera, whose organization is based in the state. “Well, you know full well that they want to change the law or get some sort of court edict to change the law.”