Folks, below my friend Laurie Higgins ably rebuts the spurious, ongoing “gay” activist attempt to blame Christians and religious people for tragic, violent attacks on homosexuals, like the August 1 slaughter at a “gay youth” center in Tel Aviv. Many homosexual activists apparently are compelled by their rejection of Biblical morality to lie in such a way about Christians. (At the same time, they malign us for highlighting gay-on-gay violence and for pointing out the obvious: that homosexual practice threatens longevity.)  The claim that Christian, conservative and religious speech causes “anti-gay violence” will continue to be used to advance a totalitarian homosexualist agenda, here and abroad. All lovers of freedom must fight this Orwellian agenda that has as its end game the very destruction of liberty as we know it — all in the name of “civil rights.” Please send this article to your friends. — Peter LaBarbera, www.americansfortruth.com

P.S. Unlike the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, I would support the death penalty for the Tel Aviv murderer (though Israel abolished the death penalty for such crimes). That would be far more effective than “hate crimes” laws in deterring such attacks in the future.

_________________________________

Higgins writes:

Are Christians Responsible for Anti-Homosexual Bloodbath in Tel Aviv?

By Laurie Higgins, reprinted from Illinois Family Institute, 8/3/09

Yet another tragic, horrific, and utterly unjustifiable murder of homosexuals has taken place, this time in Tel Aviv, Israel at a youth center for homosexual teens. Saturday night [August 1], two were killed and thirteen wounded when a gunman opened fire in a club where homosexual teens meet. The unspeakable carnage exposes how very dark the mind of fallen humans can become.

And this recent mind-numbing crime provides yet another occasion for homosexual activists and those who support their social and political goals to lay an unbiblical, unchristian, indefensible crime at the feet of all Christians who hold biblical views on the nature and morality of homosexuality and who deplore murder.

Mourning for those young people whose lives were violently taken had not even begun before attacks on Christians could be found in the comments section of homosexual blogs. For example, last night one blog comment read, “The extremist religious people in our society, especially those like [National Organization for Marriage] and other anti-gay religious organizations (Pat Robertson, et al) are the cause of this kind of violence against the GLBT community. Members of these organizations spew their hatred on television and in their churches, and the weak-minded grab hold of their hateful words and act on them.”

Another read, “Last night I was at evening Mass in my home town. The priest began his sermon by talking about the ‘culture of death’ and his disapproval of euthanasia. How did he get from that to an attack on gays and lesbians? I don’t know, but somehow he did. He ranted about the introduction of civil partnerships for gays and lesbians in the UK and the adoption of children by gays and lesbians, and said that God had shown his attitude to ‘active homosexuality’ once and for all by his destruction of those ‘wicked people’ of Sodom and Gomorrah. We see from the events in Tel Aviv exactly where that kind of thinking leads.”

In an exploitative effort to silence Christians, homosexual activists rush in to impute culpability directly and speciously to orthodox Christian teaching on the morality of homosexual acts.

Can any homosexual activist provide evidence that those who are responsible for crimes associated with hatred of homosexuals are or were serious, committed followers of Christ who loved the Lord and His Word, knew Christian doctrine, and sought to live a life that would bring glory to God?

How specious to claim that the deaths of Nir Katz and Liz Trubeshi in Tel Aviv, Sakia Gunn, Sean Kennedy, Lawrence King, Jose Sucuzhanay (who was presumed to be but was not homosexual), Scotty Joe Weaver, or Carl Walker-Hoover and Jaheem Herrera (who were not homosexual but called anti-homosexual epithets) were caused by the orthodox beliefs of those who desire nothing more than that all should come to Christ so that they can know “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” and the “fullness of joy.”

How specious to claim even implicitly that the convicted offenders Richard McCullough, Stephen Andrew Moller, Brandon McInerney, Hakim Scott, Christopher Gaines, Nichole Kelsay, Keith Phoenix, and the schoolyard bullies who harassed children were true followers of Christ who believed that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.

One of the problems with the line of reasoning manipulated by homosexual activists is that they make the error of claiming that because two disparate groups of people share one idea in common, they must share all ideas in common. In other words, homosexual activists falsely claim that because orthodox Christians believe homosexual acts are wrong and anti-homosexual haters believe homosexual acts are wrong, both groups share all ideas in common and are equally culpable for the acts of violence that only one group endorses and in which only one group engages.

That would be like saying that Quakers who opposed the war in Viet Nam but rejected violence and the Weather Underground that opposed the war and endorsed the use of violence were equally culpable for the violence committed only by the Weather Underground.

Or it would be like saying that all people who oppose the exploitation of the environment are culpable for the acts of ecoterrorism engaged in by the Earth Liberation Front.

It’s exactly the same kind of charge that pro-abortionists level at all pro-lifers. Pro-abortionists offensively claim that those who oppose the killing of the unborn and reject murderous vigilantism are responsible for the murderous acts of vigilantes.

Are homosexuals who believe that polyamory, or “swinging,” or adult consensual incest is immoral guilty of creating a climate of hatred and danger to those who are in plural relationships, open relationships, or incestuous relationships? Do all moral claims about behavior constitute hatred toward people and contribute to climates of danger and fear, or is it just the moral claims with which homosexuals disagree that create climates of hatred, danger, and fear?

The kind of reasoning employed by homosexual activists is akin to the logical fallacy of “guilt by association.” Homosexual activists are attempting to coerce orthodox Christians into either self-censorship or outright rejection of the belief that homosexuality is immoral by associating it with a group with whom no one, including orthodox Christians, would want to be associated. But as one writer explains, “the fact that someone does not want to be associated with people she dislikes does not justify the rejection of any claim. For example, most wicked and terrible people accept that the earth revolves around the sun and that lead is heavier than helium. No sane person would reject these claims simply because this would put them in the company of people they dislike (or even hate).”

This line of reasoning also employs the logical fallacy of “hasty generalization” in which all members of a group are assumed to have all the characteristics of one or a few of its members.

In the book After the Ball [see MassResistance analysis HERE], homosexual tacticians Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, architects of what is referred to in the book’s acknowledgments as a “gay manifesto,” urge homosexual activists to “learn from Madison Avenue, to roll out the big guns. Gays must launch a large-scale campaign. . . .We’re talking about propaganda” which “relies more upon emotional manipulation than upon logic, since its goal is, in fact, to bring about a change in the public’s feelings.”

Kirk and Madsen’s goal is to “make homohating beliefs and actions look so nasty that average Americans will want to dissociate themselves from them.” What must be made clear is that what Kirk and Madsen mean by “homohating beliefs” are any negative views of homosexual acts, including even those that involve no hatred whatsoever. They go on to say that they “intend, by this tactic, to make the very expression of homohatred so discreditable that even Intransigents will eventually be silenced in public.”

Then they offer their truly pernicious tactic:

“The public should be shown images of ranting homohaters whose associated traits and attitudes appall and anger Middle America. These images might include:

• Klansmen demanding that gays be slaughtered or castrated;
• Hysterical backwoods preachers, drooling with hate to a degree that looks both comical and deranged;
• Menacing punks, thugs, and convicts who speak coolly about the ‘fags’ they have based or would like to bash;
• A tour of Nazi concentration camps where homosexuals were tortured and gassed.”

I’m sure Kirk and Madsen would have liked nothing more than to be able to associate the Tel Aviv masked gunman’s bloodbath with orthodox Christianity.

Christians ought not to fall victim to this tactic. Christianity teaches not only that homosexual acts are sinful but also that no person shall commit murder; that hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses; that we are to love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God; that anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love; that we are to do good to those who hate us and bless those who curse us and pray for those who mistreat us; and that all are created in the image and likeness of God.

Orthodox Christians who are living out the entirety of Scripture do not hate, commit acts of murder, or endorse acts of murder.

Now is the time to pray for those who were injured and for the loved ones of those lost in Saturday’s carnage and to administer the full weight of civil justice to the guilty party: the man with the seared conscience who opened fire on a group of teens.

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.

Israel records homosexual “marriage” for first time

For the first time in history, Jerusalem has recorded the “marriage” of a homosexual couple. Two men who wish to be identified as “Binyamin and Avi Rose” were “married” in Canada over the summer of 2006 and moved back to Israel where their marital status is now being recorded through the Interior Ministry’s Population Registry. Israel’s highest Court ruled in November that same-sex “marriages” that have been legally performed in foreign countries will now be included in Israel’s records. Concerned Women for America (CWA) prays that the nation of Israel will embrace and defend the Biblical definition of one man, one woman marriage and not go down the slippery slope that seeks to destroy traditional marriage.

CWA’s Policy Director for Cultural Issues Matt Barber said,

“Christians, Jews and all people of faith from around the world will no doubt be saddened and shocked by this alarming development in Israel – as should anybody who recognizes the tremendous benefits conferred upon humanity by the institutions of legitimate marriage and family. It defies logic that the state of Israel would grant any official recognition to counterfeit ‘same-sex marriage.’

“God ‘made them male and female.’ The Biblical model irrefutably defines marriage as between one man and one woman. It provides that all sexual relations are to occur within the bounds of marriage.

“But this is not just a spiritual issue. Even within secular society, marriage has, by definition, joined male to female since time immemorial. Unless the Israeli government reverses course here, it has now inexplicably capitulated to the radical and destructive redefinition of marriage.”

“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.”