A Shocker from Salt Lake City:

The LDS (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Church now officially endorses so-called “gay rights” laws, specifically a Salt Lake City law prohibiting “discrimination” on the basis of “sexual orientation” (homosexual behavior) and “gender identity” (cross-dressing).

From the official LDS Church website: http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/church-supports-nondiscrimination-ordinances

ASSOCIATED PRESS: “Mormons throw support behind gay-rights cause”

DESERET NEWS: “Mormon church supports Salt Lake City’s protections for gay rights”

Astoundingly, both the Massachusetts and California supreme courts expressly and specifically cited their states’ identical “sexual orientation” laws regarding employment and housing as a legal justification for their rulings legalizing so-called homosexual “marriage.”  That indisputable fact alone renders the Church spokesman’s claim that its endorsement of the “sexual orientation” ordinance poses no threat to marriage to be utter nonsense, especially since the Church’s new position will certainly boost homosexual activists’ ongoing efforts in the Utah Legislature to enact an identical state law.

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Goodridge v. Mass. Dept. of Health: “Several amici suggest that prohibiting marriage by same-sex couples reflects community consensus that homosexual conduct is immoral. Yet Massachusetts has a strong affirmative policy of preventing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. See G.L. c. 151B (employment, housing, credit, services); G.L. c. 265, § 39 (hate crimes); G.L. c. 272, § 98 (public accommodation).” Page14 at: http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/conlaw/goodridge111803opn.pdf

California Supreme Court, In Re: Marriage Cases: “See, for example, Civil Code section 51 (barring sexual orientation discrimination in the provision of services by any business establishment); Government Code sections 12920 (barring sexual orientation discrimination in employment), 12955 (barring sexual orientation discrimination in housing)… In light of this recognition, sections 1 and 7 of article I of the California Constitution cannot properly be interpreted to withhold from gay individuals the same basic civil right of personal autonomy and liberty — including the right to establish, with the person of one’s choice, an officially recognized and sanctioned family — that the California Constitution affords to heterosexual individuals.” pp 68-69 at: http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/archive/S147999.PDF

U.S. House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, reaffirmed the threat such “sexual orientation” laws pose to marriage in commenting on the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), legislation which would add “sexual orientation” to federal civil rights laws regarding employment.  If enacted, Boehner said, ENDA would “put activist judges in the position of imposing same-sex marriage and civil union laws on states. Simply by using ENDA as the basis of their decisions – just as state Supreme Courts have done with state-level ENDA laws in the past – liberal judges will be empowered under this legislation to single-handedly undermine state and federal marriage laws across the country. I’m disappointed that the Majority turned back a straightforward proposal offered by House Republicans to protect state and federal marriage laws from being overturned, modified, or restricted by activist judges as a result of this deeply flawed legislation.” http://republicanleader.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=78178

Such laws have also been used to discriminate against and punish individuals and businesses who refuse to approve of homosexual behavior and cross-dressing.

It is difficult to believe that LDS officials could be so grossly ignorant of the demonstrably proven threat such laws pose to marriage and to the religious freedoms of the individual, special exemptions for “religious organizations” and the government notwithstanding.  It’s further astounding that church officials would endorse a law banning “discrimination” based on “gender identity,” rendering it illegal for an employer to refuse to hire a man because he (1) dresses as and claims to believe he’s a woman; and (2) demands on that basis to use the women’s restroom at work.

It’s notable in contrast that the Catholic Church refuses to endorse forcing such “sexual orientation” laws on the rest of society just because homosexual activists are politically calculating enough to (at least temporarily) exempt churches. [Editor's Note: in certain areas such as Maine, Catholic bishops or leaders have endorsed homosexual activist laws against the teachings of their Church; such backing in heavily Catholic states usually makes the difference in passage of pro-homosexual legislation.]

From a Vatican directive instructing Catholic bishops to oppose so-called “sexual orientation” laws: “Where a matter of the common good is concerned, it is inappropriate for church authorities to endorse or remain neutral toward adverse legislation even if it grants exceptions to church organizations and institutions. The church has the responsibility to promote family life and the public morality of the entire civil society on the basis of fundamental moral values, not simply to protect herself from the application of harmful laws.”  http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CDFHOMOL.htm

We deeply sympathize with the shock that will no doubt be felt by many members of the LDS Church who do understand the implications of so-called “sexual orientation” laws and have expended great effort to oppose them and to educate others.

For example…

Meridian Magazine / The Place Where Latter-day Saints Gather: “Of course, the problem here is that the term ’sexual orientation’ has no innate meaning (in contrast with ‘race’, which does) and no historic or community value (such as ‘religion’) and would require the Utah State Legislature to fabricate its definition.  In other words, adding the term ’sexual orientation’ to Utah law, as demanded (by homosexual activists), would give lawyers standing to attack employers and property owners.” http://www.ldsmag.com/ideas/090204six.html

United Famlies International: “We adamantly oppose the UNHRC sexual orientation provisions for three reasons: 1. Attempts to legalize same sex marriage around the world would be substantially strengthened if homosexual behavior becomes an internationally recognized ‘human right.’” http://meridianmagazine.com/familywatch/040319newsletter.html

UFI brochure on “Sexual Orientation,” perhaps the best and most comprehensive single source on the subject we’ve ever seen… http://unitedfamilies.org/products/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=17

Folks, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and every Republican who covers up for Schwarzenegger’s liberal follies are helping to destroy the GOP’s “pro-family” brand. Corrupting children’s minds and souls through manipulative school exercises like “Harvey Milk Day” is anti-family and anti-child to the core. You simply cannot be pro-sexual sin and pro-family at the same time.

Thanks to California’s moral weakling of a governor, millions of schoolchildren will be subjected to propaganda extolling San Francisco homosexual crusader Milk — who, as my friend Randy Thomasson of SaveCalifornia.com rightly says — is hardly an appropriate role model for children. Kudos to Randy and other pro-family Californians for working so hard trying to stop this public policy madness. – Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth

TAKE ACTION: Contact Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele (chairman@gop.com; 202-863-8700 or -8500) and also your local/state GOP representatives (in office and out) and tell them how offended you are at Republican California Gov. Schwarzenegger’s latest capitulations to the Homosexual Lobby. Tell Steele that moral issues are an important plank of the Republican Party and that “going gay” will sap the strength out of the conservative grassroots. If you are a Democrat, call or write Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine and urge the party to STOP pandering to homosexual activists and undermining traditional marriage. (Kaine is the current Governor of Virginia.)

_____________________________________

SaveCalifornia.com News Release, October 12, 2009

SaveCalifornia.com Appalled at Signing of ‘Harvey Milk Gay Day’

SB 572, opposed by overwhelming majority, signed by “People’s Governor”

CLICK HERE FOR MILK DOCUMENTATION AND BILL FACTS

Sacramento – SaveCalifornia.com, a leading West Coast pro-family, pro-child organization, is appalled that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed SB 572, “Harvey Milk Day,” into law.

“Harvey Milk* was a sexual predator of teens, an advocate of polygamous relationships, a public liar, and is in no way a good role model for impressionable schoolchildren,” said Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com. “Sadly, children in public schools will now have even more in-your-face, homosexual-bisexual-transsexual indoctrination. This provides the strongest impetus yet for loving parents to remove their children from anti-family public schools.”

“’Harvey Milk Day’ teaches children as young as five years old to admire the life and values of the notorious homosexual activist Harvey Milk” said Thomasson. “The ‘suitable commemorative exercises’ that are part of ‘Harvey Milk Day’ can easily result in cross-dressing exercises, ‘LGBT pride’ parades and mock gay weddings on school campuses — everything Harvey Milk supported.”

Schwarzenegger vetoed ‘Harvey Milk Day” last year; he signed it this year. The Governor also previously claimed to oppose same-sex “marriage,” but now supports destroying the definition of marriage as only between a man and a woman, in court, and by his signing of SB 54, to recognize out-of-state homosexual “marriages” in violation of Proposition 8.

For several months, SaveCalifornia.com has been leading parents and grandparents to call, email, fax, and petition Governor Schwarzenegger to veto “Harvey Milk Day.” The clear majority of correspondence to the Governor was opposed to SB 572. As a whole, Californians are 4 to 1 against the notion of statewide day of significance honoring the San Francisco gay activist.

For documentation of Harvey Milk’s values and further analysis of “Harvey Milk Day,” see SaveCalifornia.com’s SB 572 veto request letter.

* Randy Shilts, The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (1982)

– end –

Related link: Get more perspective on this issue on Randy Thomasson’s blog

SaveCalifornia.com is a leading West Coast nonprofit, nonpartisan organization representing children and families. We stand for marriage and family, parental rights, the sanctity of human life, religious freedom, financial freedom, and back-to-basics education.

Read Goldberg’s thoughts on “gay marriage” below:

________________________________________

Gay ‘Marriage’: Bad Science, Bad Politics

[Note: we have taken the liberty of putting quotation marks around "marriage" when used in a homosexual or "group marriage" context. We also added a web link for "polyamory." --Ed.]

By Arthur Goldberg and Michelle Cretella
SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH STATE
June 19, 2009

Legislation is presently pending in the New Jersey state legislature to approve same-sex “marriage.” There is a strong effort by gay activists and their allies to push such a bill through the legislature rather than asking the citizens of the state to vote for its approval. Because informed public policy decisions should be based on rational judgment grounded in fact rather than fiction, it is helpful to review a few of the key considerations relevant to this debate.

Nearly every argument favoring same-sex “marriage” is based on the belief that homosexual orientation is inborn and immutable. Thus, the argument often is made that just as interracial marriage gained approval so, too, should gay “marriage.”

But sexual orientation is not like skin color; it is not genetic. An avowed lesbian, Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling, professor of developmental biology and gender studies at Brown University, admits “[Although the claim that homosexuality is genetic] provides a legal argument that is, at the moment, actually having some sway in court, [f]or me, it’s a very shaky place. It’s bad science and bad politics.”

No genetic earmark distinguishing homosexuals from heterosexuals has ever been identified. Homosexuals and heterosexuals are genetically indistinguishable. As stated in a British medical journal, “From an evolutionary perspective, genetically determined homosexuality would have become extinct long ago because of reduced reproduction.”

Indeed, taking the question further, more than 100 scientific studies indicate that change of sexual orientation is possible for many motivated individuals. The father of the Diagnostic Statistical Manual (the Bible of psychiatry), Dr. Robert Spitzer, changed his own lifetime view. He published a study in 2003 confirming that many dissatisfied homosexuals are able to make substantial long-term changes in orientation.

Another premise of the same-sex “marriage” debate claims homosexual coupling involves stable, long-term relationships equivalent to heterosexual marriages. Drs. David McWhirter and Andrew Mattison, both openly homosexual, studied 156 male couples who had lived together for 20 years or more. To their dismay, they found that the longest period of sexual monogamy for those couples was five years; the average was under two years.

Within the gay subculture, the concept of monogamy is simply not synonymous with sexual exclusivity. Gay activist Andrew Sullivan writes: “homosexuals have a need for extramarital outlets.” Lesbian writer Camille Paglia notes how gay magazines glamorize “the bigger bang of sex with strangers” and advocate “monogamy without fidelity” in same-sex couplings.

The instability of same-sex relationships and prevalence of polyamory cannot be attributed to social discrimination or “homophobia.” During the 1990s many gay-affirming countries legalized same-sex “marriage.” The instability of homosexual relationships, however, remained unchanged. For example, a 2003 Dutch study found the average male homosexual partnership lasted only 1.5 years (Compare that figure to a CDC U.S. study of heterosexual marriages showing 50 percent of heterosexual marriages lasting 15 years or more.) Similarly, a 2004 Swedish study found that homosexual unions had a 50-percent higher divorce rate than heterosexual unions.

Inherent health risks of the gay lifestyle present another issue. Life expectancy for men who have sex with men, according to a 1997 International Journal of Epidemiology study is eight to 20 years less than that of heterosexual men. There is also a higher rate of intimate partner violence between same-sex couples.

Higher parent mortality and promiscuity increased rates of domestic violence and greater rates of divorce are not healthy for children. Consequently, acceptance of gay “marriage” requires a disregard for the best interests of children. It follows logically that if marriage is defined merely by “who we love” regardless of what is in the best interest of children, then the government has no right to discriminate against those with other sexual orientations including orientations toward children or animals. This is why advocates of pedophilia, group “marriage,” bestiality and incest cite gay “marriage” victories as their own. It is also no coincidence that within 10 years of legalizing same-sex “marriage” every Scandinavian country legalized polygamy.

Clearly, New Jersey has an interest in promoting and protecting traditional marriage. Decades of research demonstrate that children fare best physically, emotionally, and academically when nurtured by a married mother and father. Fatherless families, in particular, are associated with higher rates of violence, poverty, delinquency, substance abuse, sexual promiscuity, and teen pregnancy, all of which cause an increase in tax dollars required to fund remedial social programs. Clearly, if Americans want to improve the economic health of our nation and maximize the well-being of our children, traditional marriage must be strengthened.

The European experience, however, demonstrates that same-sex “marriage” weakens the institution overall. Every Scandinavian nation legalizing same-sex “marriage,” for example, has seen an unremitting decline in traditional marriage rates, and a surge in cohabitation and out of wedlock births. Predictably, the cost of social programs in those countries has risen sharply.

To summarize, homosexuality is not genetic like skin color. Interracial marriage never changed the definition of marriage; marriage remained the exclusive and faithful union of one man and one woman. Defending traditional marriage is not bigotry. Defending traditional marriage protects the greater common good for everyone — including those with homosexual attractions.

Arthur Goldberg, J.D., C.R.S., is the author of “Light in the Closet: Torah, Homosexuality, and the Power to Change.” Michelle Cretella, M.D., is chair of the Sexuality Committee, American College of Pediatricians. Here’s a description of the book, available at Amazon.com:

Light in the Closet: Torah, Homosexuality, and the Power to Change by Arthur Goldberg Can homosexuals transform their sexuality? Torah, Talmud and time-tested advances in gender psychology answer YES! The Co-Director of JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality) tells how. This groundbreaking book explodes the “gay gene” mystique, offering hope, compassion, direction and vitally needed information to gay strugglers, their families, friends, and surrounding community.

April 3, 2009                    Contact: Peter LaBarbera: 630-717-7631

CHICAGO– Today’s Iowa Supreme Court decision imposing “same-sex marriage” as a constitutional “right” is an assault on not just the Judeo-Christian moral foundations of that state, but also on the God we ask to “Bless America” — and the common-sense, pro-family values of the Midwest, said Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality.

LaBarbera, who is also on the board of Protect Marriage Illinois, issued the following statement regarding the court’s reckless decision:

“Today Iowa becomes the first state not on either of the nation’s two liberal coasts to impose counterfeit, homosexual ‘marriage’ or its mischievous twin, ‘civil unions,’ on its citizens through judicial tyranny. To call this decision bankrupt is to understate its perniciousness. The evil genius of the pro-sodomy movement is that it targets noble institutions like marriage and adoption in the name of ‘rights,’ and then perverts and uses them to normalize aberrant and destructive behaviors.

“Homosexual ‘marriage’ is wrong because homosexual behavior itself is wrong and destructive – as proved by its role in the needless, early deaths of countless ‘gay’ men. We must shake loose of the secularists’ and libertarians’ amoral nonchalance regarding ‘same-sex marriage’ by asking questions like this: how exactly would two men consummate their ‘gay marriage”’ Answer: by engaging in what one Founding Father, Noah Webster, writing in saner times, rightly defined as a ‘crime against nature.’

“’Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,’ said abolitionist Wendell Phillips, and the evidence keeps pouring in that the entire homosexualist agenda is at war – not just with our nation’s Biblical heritage – but with the freedoms that made the United States of America great and blessed among nations. When the courts order society to effectively pretend that changeable sexual misbehavior is a ‘civil right,’ the law itself becomes perverted by punishing people of faith for their proper opposition toward deviant sex. The battle between ‘gay rights’ and religious freedom is a ‘zero-sum’ game – as even lesbian Georgetown law professor Chai Feldblum admits.

“I’m afraid that the pro-family movement – eager to provide secular, public-policy arguments against ‘gay marriage’ – has failed to convey the monstrous evil of expanding, state-sanctioned homosexualism in our midst.  Our Creator is pure, perfect and holy, and homosexual behavior is diametrically opposed to His will for people’s lives and His purpose for sex within the healthy boundaries of marriage, for the procreation of children. This same God graciously provides a way out of this sinful lifestyle through His son Jesus Christ, a path many former homosexuals have taken – including those now living in real (man-woman) marriages.

“It is high time for pastors, in Iowa and across the land, to shake off their stifling, politically correct timidity and again become the prophetic voices for Truth they were called to be: by boldly warning Americans – Christian and non-Christian alike — about the perils of our growing accommodation with the sins of proud homosexuality, and sex outside marriage in general.”

The following is a legislative alert from my friend Kevin McCoy, presidet of West Virginia Family Foundation and state director of the American Family Association of West Virginia. Kevin is the leading activist in West Virginia fighting against the imposition of homosexual “superior rights” in that state. (We argue that so-called “gay rights” go beyond mere “special rights” because many homosexual activists now claim that such aberrant-sex-based “rights” supersede traditional citizens’ First Amendment liberties, including freedom of association based on faith/moral beliefs.)

I’ve worked with Kevin for more than a decade and he is one of the most effective and hardest working pro-family advocates I have ever met. Give me 100 Kevin McCoys and America is a far different nation (I’m not exaggerating)! You can read about some of Kevin’s and WVFF’s accomplishments HERE. If you are a West Virginia resident — or even if you aren’t — please consider sending WVFF a donation to continue their outstanding work defending life, marriage and the traditional family. Thank you. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.com

_______________________________________________

West Virginia Family Foundation

ACTION ALERT!

Liberal WV Legislators Again; Seek “Civil Rights” Status for
Homosexual Behavior

West Virginia Legislators have introduced multiple pro-homosexual bills to mandate West Virginians to accept the homosexual lifestyle as a “civil rights” protected class in WV Code.

SB-134 & SB-238 would grant “civil rights” status within the WV Human Rights Act, West Virginia Fair Housing Act, and West Virginia employment regulations, for bi-sexual, homosexual and gender identity (sex change) lifestyles.  The House liberals have sponsored similar bills such as HB-2454, HB-2925 and HB-2954.

This legislation, if passed, would remove the rights of West Virginia employers not to hire, and West Virginia land owners not to rent to, transvestites, openly homosexual individuals, and others with a perverse “sexual orientation.” If this legislation becomes law, Christians and conservatives violating the new law could be sued and/or have civil penalties imposed by a West Virginia court of law.

Click on the links below for full descriptions of the bills and for the names of the legislators who introduced these horrible bills. Tell them you are not going to forget their immoral act for supporting the legalization of sexual lifestyle perversions. Tell them you are going to hold them accountable in the next election cycle!

Senate Bill No. 134 – Relating to unlawful discriminatory practices generally.

Senate Bill No. 238 – Relating to unlawful discriminatory practices generally.

House Bill No. 2454 – Prohibiting discrimination based upon age and “sexual orientation.”

House Bill No. 2925 – Prohibiting discrimination based upon age and “sexual orientation.”

House Bill No. 2954 – Prohibiting discrimination based upon age or “sexual orientation.”

Click HERE to donate to West Virginia Family Foundation.

“Recent court decisions in other states have similarly made clear that providing benefits to same-sex couples, no matter how minor and even if accompanied by statement of intent meant to protect marriage, will be treated as evidence that the legislature does not object to redefining marriage.

“In each of the State high court decisions mandating a redefinition of marriage (in Massachusetts, California and Connecticut), the majority opinions have pointed to the extension of benefits to same-sex couples in those States in support of its conclusion.[3] This was the case in Massachusetts even though the legislature had specified in one bill that “[n]othing in this act shall be construed so as to legitimize or validate a ‘homosexual marriage’, so-called.” – William Duncan, Marriage Law Foundation

TAKE ACTION:  “Civil unions” and “domestic partner” bills are used by activist judges to legalize “same-sex marriage,” as Bill Duncan of the Marriage Law Foundation shows below. Such bills are being considered in several states. “Sexual orientation/Gender Identity” bills create the foundation for artificial, homosexuality-based “rights,” culminating in homosexual “marriage.”  A “civil unions” bill just advanced in Illinois, and several pro-homosexual bills will be considered soon in Florida. Take action in the following states (this list is not comprehensive):

TO FIND OUT WHO YOUR STATE AND FEDERAL REPRESENTATIVES ARE, go to www.congress.org and plug in your zip code.

FLORIDA: OPPOSE the pro-homosexual/-transsexual “Civil Rights” bill (HB397); the “Domestic Partnership” bill (SB1642); and the pro-homosexual-adoption bills (SB500, HB413); also, OPPOSE the repeal of Abstinence Education (S268,  H0019); here is the Florida legislature website;

ILLINOIS: Oppose the “civil unions” bill, HB 2234, that just passed out of the Youth and Family Committee; urge House Speaker Mike Madigan to stop blocking the marriage amendment (HC002); for more information and an action letter template on HB2234, go to Illinois Family Institute’s website; here is the Illinois General Assembly website;

MICHIGAN: Gary Glenn, head of AFA-Michigan, reports that the following bills are under consideration in Michigan: state-level ENDA (HB 4192); state-level hate crimes; State-level bullying bill (SB 0159 and SB 0275); State-level authorization of homosexual couples being allowed to adopt children. All the bills include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” language. Click here for the Michigan legislature website;

NEW MEXICO: Americans For Truth provided crucial information that helped defeat SB12, a “civil unions” bill in New Mexico — read about the pro-family victory HERE. Thank the state senators who voted against SB 12; you can find a roll call at the end of this article; click here for the New Mexico legislature’s website;

NEW YORK: Urge your legislators to OPPOSE efforts to legalize counterfeit (”gay”) “marriage”; homosexual activists in New York hope to make it the first state to pass “gay marriage” legislation; read a homosexual magazine account HERE; and go here for the New York State Assembly website.

OHIO: OPPOSE SB 55 and 57, pro-homosexual “comprehensive” (anti-abstinence-based) sex-ed bills; here is the Ohio legislature website;

PENNSYLVANIA: Diane Gramley of AFA of Penn. reports that yesterday H.B. 300 was introduced – adding ‘sexual orientation and gender identity or expression’ to the PA Human Relations Act.  Also, one senator has indicated he will reintroduce a hate crimes bill in the near future. So OPPOSE HB300 and “Hate Crimes” legislation. Here’s the Pennsylvania General Assemby website;

UTAH:  Oppose “Common Ground InitiativeWe” legislation; for more information, go to the Southerland Institute website’s “Legislation” page; here is the Utah legislature’s website;

WEST VIRGINIA:  the West Virginia Family Foundation lists the “sexual orientation” bills (OPPOSE) and the state marriage amendment (SUPPORT) in the legislature; go here for the West Virginia legislature website.

 _________________________________________________

Here’s a very important article by Bill Duncan, who has put in many years of good work defending marriage:

Utah’s “Common Ground” Package a Trojan Horse

By William C. Duncan, Marriage Law Foundation

A group called Utah Equality has proposed a package of legislation meant to increase the rights of same-sex couples in Utah. The package has been presented against a backdrop of widespread intimidation directed towards supporters of marriage as the union of husband and wife, including churches.

One of the bills this group includes in its package (expanding eligibility for unmarried people to pursue wrongful death actions) is currently pending in the Utah Legislature. The most significant part of the package would repeal a provision of the Utah Constitution that prevents the creation of legal statuses—such as civil unions– equivalent to marriage that have been understood as a prelude to redefining marriage in California and Connecticut.

Supporters of the package have presented this legislation as the only way for supporters of marriage to show they are acting in good faith.

For instance, a recent article in the Los Angeles Times says: “If the LDS [Latter Day Saints] Church were to support McCoy [the legislative sponsor of the currently pending bill] it would show that it really does believe in love, compassion and equal rights. If it does not, the church’s supposedly conciliatory stance would simply be one more obfuscation in support of truly bigoted intentions.”[1]

While there may be a particular measure included in the package that may not be objectionable taken in isolation , the sponsors of this package have precluded individual consideration of the ideas by creating a package of “bundled” measures and declaring an intention of “incremental advances” on gay rights while the “marriage dialogue” is “set aside . . . for a while.”[2]

Don’t be Fooled

Recent court decisions in other states have similarly made clear that providing benefits to same-sex couples, no matter how minor and even if accompanied by statement of intent meant to protect marriage, will be treated as evidence that the legislature does not object to redefining marriage.

In each of the State high court decisions mandating a redefinition of marriage (in Massachusetts, California and Connecticut), the majority opinions have pointed to the extension of benefits to same-sex couples in those States in support of its conclusion.[3] This was the case in Massachusetts even though the legislature had specified in one bill that “[n]othing in this act shall be construed so as to legitimize or validate a ‘homosexual marriage’, so-called.”[4]

Sound legal and public policy does not require the Utah Legislature to support legislation as a way of rebutting attacks on the integrity of defenders of marriage. If a measure is necessary it should be accompanied not by accusations of bad faith but by evidence of a need for that measure, including a showing that the measure’s purposes cannot be accomplished in a way that provides no threat to marriage (such as by private contract).

Thus, Utah Equality describes the need for wrongful death legislation as “help[ing] families [of those killed as a result of negligence or malpractice] stay in their homes by removing existing barriers to inheritance and insurance.”[5] At a minimum, then, sponsors of the legislation should be able to show that:

1. people are losing their homes because of the absence of the legislation; and
2. these goals could not be achieved through joint ownership of a home, life insurance policies or other private arrangements including wills, that are currently accessible to any person.

These showings will require study and deliberation. It is neither necessary nor wise for the legislature to endorse a package of legislation meant to change the State’s sound public policy in regard to marriage.

Notes
1 Rick Jacobs, “Why We’re Mad at the Mormon Church,” Los Angeles Times , December 8, 2008 at http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oew-jacobs8-2008dec08,0,3004487.story.

2 Steve Gehrke, “More Than Mischief: Are Recent Acts of Church Vandalism Tied to Bigotry?,” Salt Lake Tribune , November 24, 2008; Aaron Falk, “Gay Rights Battle Heads to Capitol,” Deseret News , December 10, 2008, B4; see also Kirk Johnson, “Gay Leaders in Utah Plan 5-Bill Attack in Legislature,” New York Times , November 11, 2008, A15.

3 Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, 798 N.E.2d 941, 962 & 967 ( Mass. 2003); In re Marriage Cases, 183 P.3d 384, 428 ( Cal. 2008), Kerrigan v. Department of Public Health, 2008 WL 4530885, *15 ( Conn.
2008).

4 Mass. General Laws Ann. 151B §4; see Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, 798 N.E.2d 941, 977 ( Mass. 2003) (Spina, J., dissenting).

5 Equality Utah , “Common Ground Initiative” at http://www.equalityutah.org/CommonGroundInitiative.html.

March 4, 2009; www.LC.org

San Francisco, CA – [Today, March 5] the California Supreme Court will hear arguments regarding Proposition 8, which defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Shortly after the amendment passed, three lawsuits were filed at the California Supreme Court by same-sex marriage advocates, claiming Proposition 8 is itself unconstitutional. Liberty Counsel has represented the Campaign for California Families defending the state’s marriage laws since 2004 and has argued at the trial, appellate and state Supreme Court levels. Liberty Counsel also filed an amicus brief at the California Supreme Court in defense of Proposition 8.

The legal question is simple, as the California Supreme Court previously stated:

1. Is the amendment “an enactment which is so extensive in its provisions as to change directly the ‘substantial entirety’ of the Constitution by the deletion or alteration of numerous existing provisions?”; or
2. Does the amendment “change … the basic plan of California government, i.e., a change in its fundamental structure or the foundational powers of its branches?”

The answer to both questions is “No!” The California Supreme Court also stated: “The right of initiative is precious to the people and is one which the courts are zealous to preserve to the fullest tenable measure of spirit as well as letter.” And as the California Supreme Court said in its May 15, 2008, decision, “the provisions of the California Constitution itself constitute the ultimate expression of the people’s will.” In re Marriage Cases, (2008) 43 Cal.4th 757, 852.

Liberty Counsel’s brief argues that invalidating Proposition 8 would have a devastating effect on the constitutional rights of those who exercised their right to vote on the initiative. The California Supreme Court should continue to honor a cornerstone of California’s constitutional foundation – separation of powers. If the Court does not uphold Proposition 8, it will no longer be anchored to the bedrock principles that have held this state republic together for 150 years. Instead the court, legislatures, and voters would be left standing on shifting sand to be tossed about by the winds of social and political change. Liberty Counsel’s brief also argues that Proposition 8 invalidates all same-sex marriages entered into prior to November 4, 2008, because Prop 8 states that only marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized in California.

Mathew D. Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law, commented: “The Constitution cannot overrule itself. When the people passed Proposition 8, it became part of the state Constitution and no judge, irrespective of how high or mighty, may stand above the rule of law. After the passage of Proposition 8, only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California. In the same way that the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished a slaveholder’s title and the Prohibition Amendment divested the right to sell liquor, Proposition 8 makes same-sex marriage licenses invisible and void.”

How Many More eHarmony “gay” sellouts under ENDA? Neil Clark Warren, founder of eHarmony.com, lost his courage and settled rather than fight a homosexual lawsuit filed under New Jersey’s “sexual orientation” law. So now Warren and eHarmony.com are facilitating immoral homosexual unions. If a federal ENDA bill becomes law, it will greatly enhance the power of homosexual activists to force businessmen and employers to accommodate and subsidize homosexual relationships against their will. The very freedom of Christians, Muslims and other moral-minded citizens to disagree with homosexuality hangs in the balance. 

TAKE ACTION: Answer the pro-homosexual lobby campaign! Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and have them connect you to your Representative (based on your zip code). Tell them: “I am a constituent and I would like you to please tell Representative _______ that I strongly OPPOSE the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) — which threatens Americans’ basic freedom to live out their faith and disagree with homosexual behavior. I also oppose expanding federal “hate crimes” law to add “sexual orientation” and opening up our Armed Forces to open homosexuality — especially during a time of war. Then, call back and leave messages with your two Senators too! Contact their local offices, which you can find through www.house.gov and www.senate.gov. 

__________________________________

By Peter LaBarbera

OK, everyone, vacation is over. Americans For Truth is back on the beat, fresh from being denounced and mocked by various pro-sodomy “queer” blogs at the end of 2008 (what an honor — more on that later). Below, please read an appeal for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) from a major homosexual activist group — and then DO THE OPPOSITE by calling your U.S. Congressman and Senators and urge them to vote AGAINST the ENDA bill.

We’re calling ENDA — a top priority for the Homosexual and Transsexual Lobbies — the “ENDA’ Our Freedom” Bill because it poses a severe threat to Americans’ First Amendment freedom to disagree with homosexuality. ENDA would be used to force small- and medium-sized businesses to subsidize immoral homosexual unions — and that’s un-American!

Here’s a paper I wrote for AFTAH on ENDA, but if you’re too busy or too lazy to read that, here’s how to think of ENDA:

Remember the recent outrage over eHarmony.com’s sellout to homosexual activism — when evangelical Christian founder Neil Clark Warren agreed to create a “gay” dating website under the auspices of eHarmony? Well, that sellout, unnecessary and misguided as it was, came at the point of a gun. And the “gun” was New Jersey’s state version of ENDA: a pro-homosexual “nondiscrimination” law. That very same New Jersey “sexual orientation” law was used to launch the legal assault against the Boy Scouts of America’s fundamental right to live by its own creed and NOT allow homosexual (or atheist) Scoutmasters.

Thankfully, the Boy Scouts (unlike eHarmony.com) did not capitulate and the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately preserved their freedom of association in a 5-4 decision that surely would have gone the other way if just one more liberal justice of the sort favored by President-elect Obama (and many other powerful Democrats) were seated on the Court.

Like the Boy Scouts’, our freedom to disagree with sexual immorality hangs in the balance. We must work hard against ENDA and the entire “queer” legislative agenda in Washington, D.C. The other side sees this as their moment and is engaged heavily in the fight to make homosexuality and gender confusion a “civil right.” And they have a new, pro-homosexual president, the liberal media and increased Democratic strength in Congress on their side. But never forget what they lack: the truth.

Let’s be blunt: the effort to mainstream homosexuality in American law and culture is evil, destructive to faith, marriage and the natural family and — like abortion-on-demand — part of an anti-God agenda. President-elect Obama is a deeply conflicted man on the homosexual issue — or at least he should be if he’s not. Obama professes Christianity but he has distorted Scripture (or minimized its importance) on the sin of homosexuality. However, he was elected with the overwhelming support of religious African Americans and many others who profoundly disagree with the homosexual “civil-rights” paradigm. (In California, Blacks carried both Obama and Prop 8 to victory.) Always remember: there are zero “former” African-Americans or “ex-Hispanics”; there are lots of happy ex-”gays” and former “lesbians” — evidence that homosexuality is about changeable behavior, not some inborn identity. (See former lesbian Charlene Cothran’s heartwarming testimony HERE.)

I was a poll-watcher on Election Day and I saw the tremendous pride of Blacks voting for the man who would become the first African-American president to lead these United States. One Black woman in her late-thirties was beaming as she voted for the first time. A tall African-American man came in and pronounced to the whole room (standing in front of the befuddled election officials): “I’m here to vote for BARACK OBAMA!” I did not vote for Obama due to his liberal agenda (I’d vote for a Black conservative in a heartbeat) but applauded in my heart the symbolic shattering of the idea — stoked by the Left — that America is a racist nation. We are not.

But racism and homosexual conduct do have something in common: they are both destructive sins, yet changeable through God’s grace.

Now we at AFTAH call on all Obama supporters — especially people of faith — who disagree with the notion that homosexuals’ supposed “right” to be affirmed supersedes the liberty of the rest of America to live by their our own moral and religious beliefs — please make your voices heard! Let President Obama know that the oppressive homosexual activist and “gay marriage” is not part of the “change” you wanted.

The clear reality is this: the homosexual agenda is more about AFFIRMING HOMOSEXUALITY and UNDERMINING JUDEO-CHRISTIAN VALUES than correcting injustice. There is no epidemic of homosexuals being fired; in fact, they are increasingly being courted by major corporations –  while it is faith-based employees like Matt Barber (an AFTAH Board Member, fired by Allstate in 2005) who face reprisals for opposing homosexuality and who are forced to endure faith-assaulting, pro-homosexuality/pro-transsexual “diversity” propaganda on the job.

_____________________________

TAKE ACTION: PLEASE DO THE OPPOSITE OF THIS “GAY” ACTIVIST ALERT FROM THE RADICAL LEFTIST “NATIONAL GAY AND LESBIAN TASK FORCE”:

Congress Swears In Today! Let them know you care about ENDA!
Filed by: Guest Blogger
January 6, 2009 12:00 PM

Editors’ Note: Guest blogger Rea Carey is Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund.

Today, January 6, Members of Congress raise their right hand and swear to uphold the Constitution as they begin the new legislative session.

Let’s make sure the first thing they hear about is the importance of an Employment Non-Discrimination Act that protects all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

In DC, make their phone ring! Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and have them connect you to your Representative (based on your zip code). Tell them: “I am a constituent and I would like you to please tell Representative _______ that I strongly support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that would ban discrimination against all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.”

Then, call back and leave messages with your two Senators too!

At home, set up a visit!
Request an in-person meeting for you and other community members with your two Senators and your Representative (or their staffs) in their home district offices. You can call the district offices to request these meetings but they often want you to fax a meeting request. To find contact info for district offices, go to www.senate.gov and www.house.gov.

Sample meeting request letters, and other talking points and resources for your meetings, are available in the following toolkits [Note: the following are pro-homosexual resources]:

The Task Force ENDA Grassroots Toolkit [pdf]
National Center for Transgender Equality’s Making Your Voice Heard [pdf]
PFLAG’s Bringing the Message Home

Let us know!

Let us know how your meeting went. Go to unitedenda.org and fill out the Lobby Report Form to tell us whether your Representative and Senators expressed support.

__________________________

“Down with Prop 8!”
Angry “gays” said it was all about “hate.”
Their hypocrisy uncanny,
They roughed up a granny
As for liberal court activism they wait.

– by Peter LaBarbera, www.americansfortruth.com

ALL GAY, ALL THE TIME: National Gay and Lesbian Task Force leader Rea Carey urged fellow homosexuals to promote “gay marriage” to family and friends over the Thanksgiving holiday. Carey is wrong: homosexual unions are NOT equal to real marriage — as proven by the fact that homosexual couples cannot produce children without help from heterosexuality.

Dear AFTAH Readers,

I suppose if you are a pro-homosexuality activist, there’s never a time that’s not appropriate to promote the acceptance of your lifestyle. In the e-message below, the new head of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund, Rea Carey, presses her group’s followers to turn Thanksgiving into a persuasive moment for homosexual “marriage” and same-sex “equality.” If only Christians were this “evangelistic”!

Carey’s letter is wrong and troubling on many levels. First, note how she chalks up as a Task Force “accomplishment” that the California Supreme Court is reviewing a ballot amendment voted in by the citizens of that state on November 4. The Task Force spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to defeat Prop 8 and lost — even after the California Attorney General changed the ballot language to make it more favorable to the homosexual side. Now the Task Force and other “gay” organizations are fighting democracy itself and undermining the integrity of a statewide vote. If they prevail and a few judges overturn the people’s expressed will, there will be a constitutional crisis in California that reverberates across the country.

Second, let’s address the misleading “gay” mantra of “equality.” Carey and fellow LGBT activists — and straight fellow travelers like libertarian Margaret Hoover (who masquerades as a conservative commentator on FOX) — like to plead for “marriage equality” for homosexuals. But it is easy to demonstrate that whatever homosexual “marriages” are, they are NOT equal to natural, God-ordained marriages. For one thing, there is the simple, indisputable fact that same-sex unions cannot produce children on their own. They can acquire children only with the help of heterosexuality and procreative-enhancing science, but they can’t reproduce or “have children,” as homosexual activists like to say. In contrast, normal marriages produce children and families without any help from homosexuality.

In their desperation to answer this obvious point on marriage and procreation, “gay” activists point to infertile hetero couples, who also need the help of science and adoption to create a family. “Should conservative commentator Pat Buchanan and his wife Shelley be denied marriage because they are childless?” they ask. But this is a silly argument. For one, infertile normal couples meet the basic requirement of marriage: a man and a woman. Secondly, when they seek to adopt children or benefit from reproductive science, they are merely mimicking the natural, complementary, mom-and-dad family — not creating intentionally motherless or fatherless homes and subjecting children to a radical reinvention of “family,” with two “dads” or two “moms.” Lastly, such straight, infertile couples desiring children turn to bountiful, procreative heterosexuality — not homosexuality, or apple trees for that matter — to fulfill their dream of a family.

So here’s a challenge to our homosexual critics: prove that same-sex “marriages” are EQUAL to the real deal given their procreative deficit, or stop this nonsense about “marriage equality.” (I understand that this is an unrealistic request;  if homosexuals and their liberal allies cared about the real meaning of words, they wouldn’t have called homosexual unions “marriage” in the first place.) As my friend John Shepard writes, “Aristotle may have been the first in recorded history to say in his Politics, ‘It is unjust to treat unequal things as equal.’ This is why it is patently unfair to treat homosexual sex as marriage. Heterosexuality is intrinsic to marriage. Marriage is consummated by heterosexuality, not sodomy.”

But back to Thanksgiving Day, which was established for Americans to give thanks to God for all His blessings in our uniquely blessed nation. That same God — the God of the Bible — opposes homosexual behavior as a sin (see Leviticus 18:22 in the Old Testament and 1 Timothy 1:10 in the New Testament). And He celebrates when someone trusts in Him and leaves sin behind (the sin of homosexuality, or any sin). Conversely, the advance of sin (e.g., the pro-homosexuality, -abortion, and -pornography agendas) in the United States or any society is not a “blessing” but a repudiation of our loving God. To use Thanksgiving as a homosexual lobbying day is a symbolic act of defiance appropriate to a movement that elevates its same-sex feelings and errant sexual desires over the revealed wisdom of our Creator.

One more point: people are tired of hearing pro-homosexuality messages all the time — at home, at work, during the holidays, on TV, at the movies — it’s “all gay, all the time” as we are bombarded with anti-God, anti-nature messages that equate a sexual relationship between two people of the same sex with “civil rights.” (The youth have it worse: now MTV is marketing a reality TV dating show involving beautiful bisexual female twins who each will choose their partner from a bevy of male and female contestants.) Enough already: the ubiquitous promotion of deviance is obnoxious and homosexuality is not a civil rights issue — as 70 percent of African American voters in California affirmed loudly and clearly by casting Yes votes for Prop 8.

The next time you are confronted with immoral homosexual advocacy, hold your ground, defend God’s wonderful created order of man and woman uniting in marriage — and if you are a Christian, defend your Savior. The God who made the universe can help people overcome sexual addictions and gender/sex confusion — but they have to humble themselves, lose that selfish “gay pride,” and repent of their sins as part of receiving God’s miraculous gift of transforming grace.

I hope you had a blessed Thanksgiving as we enter the season that celebrates Jesus Christ’s birth.

Peter LaBarbera
Americans For Truth about Homosexuality
www.aftah.org
______________________________________

Here’s is Rea Carey’s “Thanksgiving Gay” message:

Dear [Task Force Follower],

It’s amazing what we’ve accomplished together these last few weeks.

The California Supreme Court has agreed to review the legal challenges to Proposition 8, and the protests and the actions of thousands in our community have forced the public eye on the inequality that LGBT people face every day.

But our fight is far from over. In fact, there’s one thing you can do this week to help move the needle even further.

Talk.

Talk to your family and friends when you sit down to Thanksgiving dinner. Talk to your co-workers when they ask what you are doing for the holiday. Talk to your neighbors when you stop to chat outside your apartment or home.

Tell them about your life, your relationships, how you feel about the state constitutional amendments. It seems simple, but far too many of us know how hard it can be to talk honestly about our lives. Telling our stories is what will make a difference in our pursuit of equality. Hearing from you, hearing about your life is what will change the hearts and minds of every American, one by one — starting with those closest to you.

So take the time this week to talk. Your story is important to this movement and it truly matters.

From all of us at the Task Force, I’d like to wish you and your loved ones a Happy Thanksgiving and thank you so much for your ongoing support.

Sincerely,

Rea Carey, Executive Director
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund

Press Release, November 25, 2008

www.LC.org

Miami, FL – Today, an activist Miami State Court Judge ruled that a 1977 Florida law that bans homosexual adoption is unconstitutional. Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman claims that the law violates equal protection rights for homosexuals and that there is no valid reason to consider sexual orientation when approving adoption. The state has already filed an appeal. Liberty Counsel successfully defended the same law at the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which upheld the law banning homosexual adoption against a constitutional challenge.

The law has also been ruled to be constitutional by state courts of appeal. Although the decisions by the appeals courts are binding on the circuit judge, Judge Lederman lawlessly disregarded these legal precedents.

Earlier this month voters in Arkansas passed a law which bans unmarried heterosexuals and homosexuals from adopting children. In September, the Kentucky Court of Appeals strongly rebuked an activist lower family court for permitting a lesbian woman to illegally “adopt” her female companion’s child, in clear violation of both Kentucky law and the Kentucky Constitution. The higher court reaffirmed that in Kentucky, stepparent adoptions are only legal when the stepparent is married to a biological parent and that same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.

Most states ban homosexual adoption through legislation, regulation, or court precedent. These states ban adoption by homosexuals because the best interest of children is served by placing them in homes with a mom and a dad or where there is a likelihood of a mom and a dad. A homosexual home automatically excludes one gender, either the mom or the dad. Only a handful of states actually permit homosexual adoption.

Mathew D. Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law, commented: “In the short term, this ruling by an activist judge is a tempest in a teapot. In the long-term it will be overturned on appeal. The law that bans homosexual adoption prefers that children be placed in a household with a mom and a dad. Homosexual adoption would permanently preclude a child from having the opportunity from having a mom and a dad. Moms and dads do matter to the well-being of children.”

From the Becket Fund website (emphasis added). We’ve left the word (same-sex) “marriage” without quotation marks, which we would normally insert to clarify the false notion that two people of the same sex can marry. Also, we would note that the issue of “competing liberties” — as stated below — existed with the passage of the first pro-homosexuality “sexual orientation” law — long before same-sex “marriage” became an issue.

Becket Fund is well intentioned in its advocacy of strong religious exemption laws, but Americans For Truth supports the full repeal of all sexual orientation laws as fundamentally incompatible with historic American freedoms. One problem with religious exemptions is that they leave out the non-religious opponents of homosexuality — essentially creating a new set of “special rights” for religious people — the right to live by one’s moral beliefs. Secular foes of aberrrant sexual and gender behaviors should not lose that same right.

Another problem is that such exemptions give pastors and (officially) religious organizations an incentive to pull out of the cultural struggle over the normalization of homosexuality — even as Christian and religious businessmen are being forced to violate their own freedom of conscience under pro-”gay” laws. Exemptions may appear to be a short-term solution but they are not the answer; reasserting the primacy of historic, genuine American freedoms over newly-theorized “rights” based on homosexual misbehavior and gender nonconformity is. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

_____________________________________

Becket Fund writes Nov. 10, 2008:

Becket Fund Releases Study of Religious Liberty Implications of Same-sex Marriage, Surveys Anti-Discrimination Laws in 50 States

Over 350 separate state anti-discrimination laws would likely be affected by the legal recognition of same-sex marriage, according to a new study by The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

The Becket Fund surveyed over 1,000 state anti-discrimination laws — specifically those prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender, or marital status — to assess how those laws would affect religious dissenters to same-sex marriage if same-sex marriage were legally recognized.

The study found that all 50 states prohibit gender discrimination in some way, and only 37 states have explicit religious exemptions to these provisions, many of them quite narrow. This lack of robust exemptions could become a problem if (as has happened in some instances) religious objections to same-sex marriage are treated as a kind of gender discrimination. In addition, 33 states prohibit at least some discrimination based on marital status, and only 13 of these states provide religious exemptions, some with a wide latitude of exemption, others with only narrow exemptions. Of the 20 states that prohibit sexual orientation-based discrimination, 18 provide exemptions for religious objection.

Based on the data, The Becket Fund concludes that if same-sex marriage is recognized by courts or legislatures, people and institutions that have conscientious objections to facilitating same-sex marriage will likely be sued under existing anti-discrimination laws—laws never intended for that purpose.

When considering same-sex marriage, both legislatures and the judiciary should recognize the competing religious liberty rights involved. If legislators or judges do recognize same-sex marriage, they should carve out robust religious exemptions for religious dissenters. Additionally, academic institutions and public interest groups should stimulate public discussion on these conflicts and ways to avoid them.

Click HERE to see the full Executive Summary of the study.

Click HERE to see a chart detailing which states have sexual orientation, marital status, or gender anti-discrimination laws and which have religious exemptions.

The Washington-based Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is a nonpartisan, interfaith, public-interest law firm dedicated to protecting the free expression of all religious traditions.

Resources & Documents:

•  Same-Sex Marriage Issues Brief With Appendices (PDF, 409.99KB)
•  Chart of State Discrimination Laws and Religious Exemptions (PDF, 113.48KB)

E-PERVERSION.COM? Born-again Christian Neil Clark Warren and the company he founded, eHarmony.com, have capitulated to a New Jersey “sexual orientation” complaint using the state’s homosexual “rights” law– by expanding its dating service to homosexuals. The Boy Scouts fought the same law rather than cave on their principles. Click HERE for the settlement and HERE for a news release by New Jersey’s Attorney General. TAKE ACTION: write Warren at ncwarren@eharmony.com. 

Americans For Truth sent out the following e-letter today to: Dr. Neil Clark  Warren, founder of the eHarmony online dating company; eHarmony’s management team; and various pro-family groups and leaders (listed at bottom). We refer you to WorldNetDaily’s story, “eHarmony to Match ‘Gays,’” detailing the company’s capitulation to New Jersey following a “discrimination” complaint by a homosexual activist. Some excerpts from the WND story are at bottom. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

TAKE ACTION: Contact Dr. Neil Clark Warren at ncwarren@eharmony.com. An eHarmony contact page and blog for comments can be found HERE (several management e-mails listed bounced back).

________________________________

Subject: Dr. Warren et al, you sold your soul (or at least eHarmony’s)…

Importance: High

FR: Peter LaBabera, Americans For Truth

TO: Dr. Neil Warren, founder of eHarmony, and eHarmony’s Management:

Dr. Warren et al, you sold your soul (or at least eHarmony’s)…

… It is a shame that you chose not to follow the lead of the Boy Scouts of America by standing up for your legal rights as a moral company that believes in REAL marriage – one that would not promote homosexuality and ungodly, unhealthy relationships. (You will recall that the Scouts, too, were challenged under New Jersey’s “sexual orientation” law, but New Jersey was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court.)  I suppose this means you have now officially joined the list of Companies Promoting Immorality (CPI) – a growing list, indeed. How tragic that eHarmony’s resources – and your good name — will be used to advance the cause of homosexual behavior, a changeable sin.

You could have set an example to Christians and freedom-loving Americans everywhere by fighting on principle for your company’s First Amendment right not to be bullied into submission by a politically correct state bureaucracy. Instead, you capitulated. In addition to hurting the cause of Christianity, you have damaged the cause of freedom and particularly religious freedom in America. It appears that eHarmony is no longer a “match” for Integrity.

Your attorney told WoldNetDaily that eHarmony “spent three years defending against this proceeding …It was a burden in terms of the high costs of litigation and the time and resources management devoted to it.” Do you know what is a far greater burden? Forcing Americans bit by bit to lose their liberty by abandoning their faith and moral creed to appease modern, worldly notions of sexuality — in which behavior once universally regarded as sinful is now a mere “orientation” and the basis for “civil rights.”

Evidence that homosexuality is a behavior — and not an “identity” — issue can be found in the many ex-gays and ex-lesbians who have found freedom from homosexuality through Christ — and true love and marriage with a member of the opposite sex.

I would like a written response giving your justification for now promoting relationships that you, Dr. Warren, (presumably) at least once believed were against God’s will. But please do not try to argue that eHarmony was forced into this sellout, because you could have chosen a brave and noble course of resistance rather than submit to state tyranny.

I will join other pro-family organizations in encouraging singles to use other dating services that have not sold out their God and their moral beliefs for the almighty dollar.

Sincerely,

Peter LaBarbera
President, Americans For Truth about Homosexuality
Naperville, Illinois
www.aftah.org

630-717-7631

Cc. Various pro-family leaders representing: Family Research Council, Liberty Counsel, Culture & Media Institute, American Family Association, Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America, Maine Family Policy Council, Illinois Family Association, West Virginia Family Foundation, American Family Association of Michigan; Family Policy Network; WorldNetDaily; attorney Jan LaRue; American Family Association’s “One News Now”; CNSNews.com

Ref: “eHarmony.com to match ‘gays,’” WorldNetDaily: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=81446

____________________________________

WorldNetDaily reports:

 eHarmony.com to match ‘gays’

Dating site originally promoted by James Dobson bows to lawsuits

Posted: November 19, 2008

By Chelsea Schilling
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Internet dating service eHarmony has officially agreed to begin matching homosexual couples, beginning next year.

The popular California-based service has been known for focusing on long-term relationships, especially marriage, which has been said to align with founder Clark Warren’s early work with Focus on the Family’s evangelical Christian base and perspective.

Warren, a psychologist with a divinity degree, has had three of his 10 books on love and dating published by Focus on the Family. It was an appearance on James Dobson’s radio program, in 2001, that triggered a response of 90,000 new referrals to the website, starting a climb of registered participants on the site from 4,000 to today’s 20 million clients.

As WND reported, the company originally said it was ” based on the Christian principles of Focus on the Family author Dr. Neil Clark Warren.” It stood firm on its decision to reject homosexuals from its profiling and matching services. Its entire compatibility system is based on research of married heterosexual couples.

In 2005, Warren told USA Today the company’s goal is marriage and that same-sex marriage is illegal in most states.

“We don’t really want to participate in something that’s illegal,” he said. …

Last week, eHarmony agreed to begin providing an eHarmony-affiliated “Compatible Partners” service to gays and lesbians, with listings labeled “male seeking male” and “female seeking female” by March 31, 2009.

For complying, the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights has dismissed the complaint against eHarmony, and Warren is considered “absolved of liability.” Also, the dating site has been ordered to pay the division $50,000 for investigation-related administrative costs and give McKinley $5,000. It has agreed to provide a free one-year membership to its “gay” service to McKinley, plus free six-month memberships to “the first 10,000 users registering for same-sex matching within one year of the initiation on the same-sex matching service,” according to the settlement.

A news release by New Jersey’s Office of the Attorney General reveals that eHarmony has also agreed to the following terms:

• eHarmony, Inc. will post photos of same-sex couples in the “Diversity” section of its website as successful relationships are created using the company’s same-sex matching service. In addition, eHarmony, Inc. will include photos of same-sex couples, as well as individual same-sex users, in advertising materials used to promote its same-sex matching services
• eHarmony, Inc. will revise anti-discrimination statements placed on company websites, in company handbooks and other company publications to make plain that it does not discriminate on the basis of “sexual orientation”
• the company has committed to advertising and public relations/ marketing dedicated to its same-sex matching service and will retain a media consultant experienced in promoting the “fair, accurate and inclusive” representation of gay and lesbian people in the media to determine the most effective way of reaching the gay and lesbian communities….

Click HERE for the full WND story.

Sacramento, California — In response to today’s decision by the California Supreme Court to hear the challenges to Proposition 8, the California Marriage Amendment, Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, a leading California-based pro-family organization, issued the following statement:

“It’s unfortunate that the judges are giving time to the mushy, subjective arguments of homosexual activists who reject the clear reading of the constitution and the clear reading of Proposition 8. If the court disobeys the constitution by voiding Prop. 8, it will ignite a voter revolt. It will also threaten the validity of all future constitutional amendments.

“The court is playing with fire by threatening to destroy the people’s vote on marriage. The California Constitution clearly says that the voters have the right to alter the highest law of the land. It’s the beauty of the American system of government. The four Supreme Court justices who unconstitutionally invented homosexual ‘marriages’ — Ron George, Joyce Kennard, Kathryn Werdegar and Carlos Moreno — seem to be ignoring the fact that the people get the last word, not the judges.

“The clear reading of the constitution, as well as California’s legal and legislative history, tells us there is a world of difference between a constitutional amendment and a constitutional revision. Proposition 8 is a single-subject, voter-initiated amendment, not a legislature-initiated, multi-issue, whole-scale revision that alters many sections of the state constitution.

“If Prop. 8 gutted the constitution, why is it only one subject in one section of the constitution? If Prop. 8 doesn’t stand, then our constitution doesn’t mean anything, the people’s vote doesn’t mean anything, marriage has been utterly disrespected, and judges lied when they swore to uphold the constitution. Prop. 8 must stand, because the constitution is above the judges, not the other way around.

“Marriage is, was, and should always remain a natural, beautiful relationship between a husband and a wife. Marriage between a man and a woman is an essential, beneficial role model for children to emulate.

“Fortunately, the California Constitution tells us ‘all political power is inherent in the people’ and that ‘they have the right to alter or reform it when the public good may require’” (California Constitution, Article II, Section 1).

Explaining the clear distinction between an amendment and a revision is University of California, Berkeley Department of Public Science Chairman Emeritus Dr. Eugene C. Lee, who, in 1991, wrote:

Specific changes to the California constitution may be proposed by amendment. Substantial changes may be proposed by a constitutional convention or by the legislature as constitutional revisions. Regardless of their origin, all changes must be approved by a majority of the electorate voting on the issue.

Legislative amendments, the method most commonly used, require a two-thirds vote in each house of the legislature. Initiative amendments may be placed on the ballot by a petition of registered voters equal in number to 8 percent of the total vote cast in the preceding gubernatorial election. By explicit language in the constitution concerning initiatives and by court interpretation with respect to measures arising in the legislature, amendments are required to be limited in scope. As far back as 1894, the California Supreme Court distinguished between a revision of the constitution and a mere amendment thereof (Livermore v. Waite, 102 Cal. 113). As reiterated in 1978, the court held that a revision referred to a “substantial alteration of the entire constitution, rather than to a less extensive change in one or more of its provisions” (Amador Valley Joint Union High School District v. State Board of Equalization, 22 Cal.3d 208).

Whether in the public and explosive setting of a constitutional convention, as in 1879, or in the relatively calm, almost academic environment of a revision commission some 90 years later, the revision process is intensely political….To be successful, revision requires gubernatorial as well as legislative leadership. Given the requirement of a two-thirds legislative vote, revision involves negotiation and compromise. The agreement implied in an extraordinary legislative vote does not guarantee popular support. Thus, an effective political campaign is essential. But even with a good campaign, success at the polls is not assured. Constitutional revision can be a high-risk endeavor and will continue to be so. These conclusions should be taken seriously in any legislative consideration of constitutional revisions. In addressing the current imperfections of the California constitution, the costs and risks of revision must be weighed carefully against the alternative of carefully targeted amendments.

– Eugene C. Lee, “The Revision of California’s Constitution,” April 1991, commissioned by the California Policy Seminar, University of California, Berkeley

– end –

CAMPAIGN FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES (CCF) is a leading West Coast pro-family organization empowering citizens to live out their values. Sign up today for CCF’s FREE Email Bulletins at www.savecalifornia.com.

Your partnership empowers CCF’s innovative work on behalf of children and families in culture, media and government. Please support CCF by making a secure online donation or by sending your tax-deductible gift to:

Campaign for Children and Families
Randy Thomasson, President
P.O. Box 511, Sacramento, CA 95812
(916) 265-5650
www.savecalifornia.com
www.saveamerica.net

Envelopes with suspicious white powder were discovered at two Mormon temples, including this one in Salt Lake City, and a Knights of Columbus printing plant in Connecticut — probable “gay” terrorist retribution for the Mormons and the Catholic group’s strong support for Proposition 8 in California. “Queer” intolerance for dissent is out of control — but where are the “gay” leaders reigning in their fanatics? When asked on FOX News today about the escalating anger and protests targeting churches, Joe Solmonese of Human Rights Campaign — which has sought to link Christian pro-family groups to “hate violence” against homosexuals — could barely bring himself to say a negative word against the radicals on his side. Americans need to know: are the Justice Department and FBI watching out for coordinated acts of homosexual “hate violence” and churches, synagogues and mosques?

Matt Barber, who is director of Cultural Affairs with both Liberty Counsel and Liberty Alliance Action and associate dean with Liberty University School of Law — and  a Board Member of Americans For Truth — puts all the “queer” anger, intolerance, and even violence in perspective below. Send you comments to Matt at jmattbarber@comcast.net.

____________________________

WorldNetDaily.com; posted November 14, 2008

Counterfeit Marriage and its Counterfeit Movement

With a unified voice amplified several million-fold through the ballot box megaphone, African-Americans have spoken on the issues of marriage, family and human sexuality. Whether young or old, male or female, Democrat or Republican, blacks are justifiably fed up with the deceptive antics of the self-described and craftily contrived “gay rights movement.”

For decades now, well-organized, well-funded and highly influential “gay” political pressure groups have, with impertinence, hijacked the language of the authentic civil rights movement. In what amounts to a sort of soft racism, self-styled “queers” have disingenuously and ignobly hitched their lil’ lavender wagons to a movement which, by contrast, is built upon the genuine and noble precepts of racial equality and humanitarian justice.

An illegitimate offspring of the ’60s sexual revolution, the newfangled “gay rights” cult is today’s postmodern, sex-centric cause célèbre. Its core tenets include, among other things, mandated moral relativism, social androgyny and forced acceptance of a pleasure-based, though demonstrably destructive, lifestyle. Apart from practitioners of “the sin that dare not speak its name,” its devotees are in large part institutional fringe elitists confined to blue-state America who almost universally suffer the insufferable pangs of white guilt.

Like an addict jonesing for a hit, they long for that rush of self-righteous affirmation associated with belonging to something perceived as larger than themselves. Central to the movement’s success is the ability to draft adherents who are easily manipulated through superficial slogans, appeals to emotion via anecdotal parades of horribles, and a mindless propensity to conform to nonconformity.

By drawing artificial parallels between the systematic persecution experienced by blacks over centuries past to the inherent aversion most have toward biologically unnatural, traditionally immoral and objectively perverse sexual behaviors, the homosexual lobby trivializes and diminishes the African-American struggle for civil rights. It’s dishonest and offensive for people who choose to define their identity based upon aberrant sexual proclivities to compare sexual temptation and volitional sexual conduct to immutable and innocuous biological traits such as skin color.

“Don’t compare your sin to my skin,” goes the African-American mantra. Or, as influential black pastor Ken Hutcherson notes, “It has been said loudly and proudly that gay marriage is a civil rights issue. If that’s the case, then gays would be the new African-Americans. I’m here to tell you now, and hopefully for the last time, that the gay community is not the new African-American community.”

Understandably, blacks want all this nonsense to stop. Exit polls indicate that in the Democratic stronghold of “left coast” California, African-Americans – 96 percent of whom voted for Barack Obama – also voted to pass California’s marriage protection amendment (Prop by an overwhelming 70 to 30 percent. As luck would have it, the unprecedented turnout of black voters for Obama very likely tipped the scale and restored the enduring definition of natural marriage to the Golden State. This has made “gay” activists mouth-foaming furious.

Click HERE to read the rest of Barber’s column in WorldNetDaily [AFTAH will be posting this piece in its entirety tomorrow]

_________________________________

A Special Report:

Passage of the Florida Marriage Protection Amendment: the Triumph of the Common Man over Cultural Elites

Dear Friend,

We did it — You did it — And ultimately God did it!  After four long years of hard work and some rather stunning opposition along the way, the Florida Marriage Protection Act is now a permanent part of the Florida Constitution under Article I, Section 27.  This is simply a remarkable and historical victory.  Well over four and a half million Floridians comprising 62.1% of the electorate voted for the common sense idea that marriage will remain between one man and one woman.

Thank You So Much
Yesterday Dr. James Dobson called to congratulate me and to interview me on the national Focus on the Family broadcast.  Dr. Dobson asked me to personally thank every single person in Florida who labored and supported this great cause.  I also wish I could speak face to face with every single one of the hundreds and thousands of pastors, county coordinators, phone bankers, sign waivers, volunteers, and people who just asked their family and friends to vote “Yes on 2” and personally thank them also.

Educating Ourselves into Imbecility
From my perspective, this victory is really a triumph of the common man over the cultural elite.  This vote represents the views of the vast majority of Floridians who are hard working, have families and children, love their country and whose faith is not some rabbit’s foot in their pocket but a real and vibrant part of who they are and what they stand for.  On the other hand, every single daily newspaper in Florida (all 27 of them) openly opposed Amendment 2 not just once– but several times in their editorial pages.  All this reminds me of what English Journalist Malcolm Muggeridge said about the modern man: “We have now educated ourselves into a state of complete imbecility.”

Consider the Opposition We Faced Along the Way
The opposition we have faced over the last four years was simply stunning.  Consider what we have overcome together:

1. The rules changed after we started the petition effort from requiring a 50% approval to pass a state amendment to a new 60% approval needed to pass it.  We opposed this change initially but accepted the challenge once it was passed.
2. A so-called “gay” church in Jacksonville tried to intimidate Florida voters who signed the marriage petition by publishing their names online with a “Know thy Neighbor” campaign.  We used the website as a tool to help us find friends and family who had not yet signed the petition!
3. City of Sunrise police officers threatened to arrest me for displaying petitions in “public view” on a table at a Promise Keepers conference where we paid $800 to exhibit in a parking lot.  Two of the male officers mocked our volunteers by kissing each other while they were being photographed.  We filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the bad cops.
4. Hours after holding a press conference in Tallahassee to announce we had collected over the number of signatures needed, the Division of Elections website lowered the online number to below the required signatures needed.
5. The Miami Dade Supervisor of Elections “accidentally” double counted 22,000 petitions requiring an emergency effort on our part to get an additional 22,000 signatures in only 13 days. We ended up collecting over 92,000 in 13 days!
6. The Scripps Howard Newspaper service mistakenly published a month old news story (as if it were breaking news) in 4 south Florida newspapers and in local TV news stories reporting that we had made the petition goal while the emergency collection effort was still underway. The newspaper then refused to report their major mistake as news!
7. Our opponents collectively outspent us almost 3 to 1.  But we had a hundred times more volunteers then they did.
8. Our opponents pumped out a predicted avalanche of fraud, deception and false claims in TV ads. Their tactic was to prey upon Florida’s most vulnerable and precious citizens—our seniors.  We reached out to seniors and warned them of this deception.
9. Untold thousands of yard signs were stolen, vandalized and destroyed.  Billboards were defaced.  Cars with Yes2Marriage bumper stickers were keyed.  Ugly e-mails, faxes and hate mail were a daily occurrence in the main office.  We turned the other cheek and obeyed the law.
10. In desperation as they were slipping in the polls, opponents filed last-minute complaints against us with the Division of Elections and then only days before November 4, they filed a completely frivolous lawsuit timed to be heard the day before the election as a cheap publicity stunt. The “emergency” lawsuit was denied by the judge on all counts.
11. The day before the election former President of the United States Bill Clinton made a quarter of a million robo calls trying to scare people into voting no on 2!   We prayed that God would give us favor higher than any sitting President.

And in spite of all this opposition — and because of your efforts and support — we were still victorious!

What does this means for Florida’s Future?
What the passage of Amendment 2 means for Florida is that as a matter of law marriage will be held in esteem and respected as a special and unique relationship which is vital to our success. Gender differences and words like “mother and father” not be removed from the law and declared bigoted. It means that kindergarten girls and boys will not come home with “diversity” packets containing brochures entitled “Am I gay?”. It means that second graders will not learn to read from books like Heather has Two Mommies and the King and King. It means that crafty homosexual activists will not be able to create gay marriage and try and call it something else like what happened in California and Connecticut.  It really means that a whole of array of legal and policy nonsense aimed at radically redefining natural marriage and family structures will never see the light of day.

Major Thanks!

While the leaders and staff of the Florida Family Policy Council were the primary force behind spearheading this historic effort, there was a diverse coalition of thousands of churches, demoninations, businesses and organizations that participated on and off along the way.  But there are some organizations and persons that have to be thanked and recognized for their full and unconditional support of this effort the entire way through this four year process. They are: Focus on the Family, Focus Action, Florida Baptist Convention, Liberty Counsel, Florida Catholic Conference, Knights of Columbus, Family Research Council, American Family Association, National  Organization for Marriage, The High Impact Coalition, Christian Coalition, Community Issues Council, Exodus International, Eagle Forum of Florida, Florida Family Association and the Christian Family Coalition.  Senator Dan Webster, State Rep. Frank and Juda Atkisson, former Senator Tom Lee, Pastor Clayton Cloer, Pastor Tom Messer, Bishop Harry R. Jackson, and Pastor Guillermo Maldonado.  In addition to the above major supporters there were also thousands of others who participated and supported the effort at various stages along the way.  These volunteers have spent hours, weeks, months and in some cases years working tirelessly for this effort.  These men, women and young people too many in number to list are the real unsung heroes and have my respect and admiration above all else.  And finally to the members of the staff and campaign team you all were simply amazing!  To all of them we offer our heartfelt thanks.

Again, thank you for your tireless efforts.  I am so grateful to God and so proud of for your help and support.  We changed the course of history and generations of children yet unborn will someday thank you for your efforts.

Sincerely,

John Stemberger
State Chairman, Yes2Marriage.org

PS- You can check the specific results of the final vote in your county HERE:

___________________________________
Recent News Clips:
Associated Press: Not Totally Blue: Florida Bans Gay Marriage
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/758471.html

Palm Beach Post: Gay Rights Advocates Suffer Defeat in Four States
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/nation/epaper/2008/11/05/a18a_
ballotmeasures_1106.html

Miami Herald: Gay Marriage Foes Get Several Victories
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/758798.html

Times Union: Marriage Defined, Supporters Tout Moral Values
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/110608/met_352581374.shtml

Lakeland Ledger: Marriage Issue Not Dead
http://www.theledger.com/article/20081105/NEWS/811050378/-1/NEWS36?Title=Marriage_Issue_Is_Not_Dead__Say_Friends__Foes_Of_Amendment

Dear Americans For Truth Reader,

Please go to the California “Protect Marriage” website and view their compelling video on the desperation of “No on 8″ forces trying to derail the proposed constitutional amendment to preserve the natural definition of marriage as one-man, one-woman.

Note the hypocrisy of the “gay marriage” forces — you know, the ones who like to lecture the rest of us on  “tolerance.” Come to think of it, it looks like the “No on 8″ activists could use some diversity training.

Seriously, it is imperative that California citizens VOTE TODAY on this critically important issue and urge your friends to do likewise! Ditto for voters in Florida and Arizona who also have the opportunity to preserve and protect natural marriage at the ballot box. (Florida’s amendment requires a 60-percent “Yes” vote.)

To everyone else outside those states the message is the same: please vote today, and do not let the liberal media decide this election. If you are in the western half of the country, please do not even consider not voting — even if you have heard that exit polls on the eastern half of the country are running against your candidate or your preferred party! Your vote counts — not just for deciding who will be our next president, but for deciding a host of local races and the composition of the United States House and Senate.

Again, I urge you: don’t throw your vote away by failing to show up on Election Day! America’s fighting men have given their lives to guarantee the freedom to vote for Iraqis in that far away land. Let’s not dishonor their sacrifice by failing to exercise our same precious right here in America. God bless you. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

__________________________________

Below is a letter from California Proposition 8’s campaign manager, Frank Shubert:

Dear Friend,

With every recent poll showing Proposition 8 slightly leading or surging with support, our opponents are growing increasingly desperate.

They have aired two new commercials this weekend that are nothing short of shameful. In one, they compare people who believe in traditional marriage to those responsible for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. And in another they call backers of traditional marriage, “intolerant” and “offensive.”

Did you ever dream that because you believe marriage is between a man and a woman you’d be called “intolerant,” “offensive” and have it suggested you are racist to boot?

Do the tactics of our opponents anger you? They anger me. But let’s not lash out. Let’s use this as motivation to maximize our get-out-the-vote efforts so that we send a powerful message on Tuesday: Proposition 8 will pass because traditional marriage matters.

The commercials from our opponents are so desperate and over the top that I think there is a very good chance they will backfire with voters. Still, our opponents’ smear campaign cannot go unanswered. That’s why we have created a new video to remind California voters – and our dedicated Yes on 8 volunteers — about which side has truly displayed intolerant and offensive behavior in this campaign.

Watch the video HERE.

I’ve never seen such boorish behavior and such utter disregard for principles of fair play – not to mention respect for freedom of expression – as I have seen from opponents of Proposition 8. For a community that demands tolerance from others, they seem completely incapable of showing tolerance for anyone who may disagree with them on traditional marriage.

There are some important things you can do to fight back against these latest attacks. First, please share our new video with your friends, family, colleagues and neighbors so they can evaluate our opponents’ outrageous claims for themselves. Most importantly, please sign up to work on Election Day. We’re in the process of mobilizing 100,000 people to help us get Yes on 8 voters to the polls. We need people to phone voters and knock on doors to remind our supporters that Tuesday is “D-Day” for marriage.

Even though support for Proposition 8 is surging and we have momentum, the race is very close. Every vote matters. Please forward our new video now, and make sure you are part of our volunteer army on Election Day.

The institution of marriage is in our hands. It’s up to us to save it.

Sincerely,

Frank Schubert
Campaign Manager
ProtectMarriage.com – Yes on 8

P.S. Check out this AFTAH article to see the face of real diversity, as people of various ethnicities and religions unite to oppose a homosexual “special rights” law in Hamtramck, Michigan.

__________________________________

Oct. 21, 2008

MassResistance Update

“In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
- George Orwell

What same-sex “marriage” has done to Massachusetts

It’s far worse than most people realize

by Brian Camenker

[Note: As the debate on this issue rages in states across the country, most people are unaware of what's really happened here. Get ready for an eye-opener.]

Anyone who thinks that same-sex “marriage” is a benign eccentricity which won’t affect the average person should consider what it has done in Massachusetts. It’s become a hammer to force the acceptance and normalization of homosexuality on everyone. And this train is moving fast. What has happened so far is only the beginning.

On November 18, 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court announced its Goodridge opinion, ruling that it was unconstitutional not to allow same-sex “marriage.” Six months later, homosexual marriages began to be performed.

The public schools

The homosexual “marriage” onslaught in public schools across the state started soon after the November 2003, court decision.

At my own children’s high school there was a school-wide assembly to celebrate same-sex “marriage” in early December, 2003. It featured an array of speakers, including teachers at the school who announced that they would be “marrying” their same-sex partners and starting families either through adoption or artificial insemination. Literature on same-sex marriage – how it is now a normal part of society – was handed out to the students.

Within months it was brought into the middle schools. In September, 2004, an 8th-grade teacher in Brookline, MA, told National Public Radio that the marriage ruling had opened up the floodgates for teaching homosexuality. “In my mind, I know that, `OK, this is legal now.’ If somebody wants to challenge me, I’ll say, `Give me a break. It’s legal now,’” she told NPR. She added that she now discusses gay sex with her students as explicitly as she desires. For example, she said she tells the kids that lesbians can have vaginal intercourse using sex toys.

By the following year it was in elementary school curricula. Kindergartners were given picture books telling them that same-sex couples are just another kind of family, like their own parents. In 2005, when David Parker of Lexington, MA – a parent of a kindergartner – strongly insisted on being notified when teachers were discussing homosexuality or transgenderism with his son, the school had him arrested and put in jail overnight.

Second graders at the same school were read a book, “King and King”, about two men who have a romance and marry each other, with a picture of them kissing. When parents Rob and Robin Wirthlin complained, they were told that the school had no obligation to notify them or allow them to opt-out their child.

In 2006 the Parkers and Wirthlins filed a federal Civil Rights lawsuit to force the schools to notify parents and allow them to opt-out their elementary-school children when homosexual-related subjects were taught. The federal judges dismissed the case. The judges ruled that because same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts, the school actually had a duty to normalize homosexual relationships to children, and that schools have no obligation to notify parents or let them opt-out their children! Acceptance of homosexuality had become a matter of good citizenship!

Think about that: Because same-sex marriage is “legal”, a federal judge has ruled that the schools now have a duty to portray homosexual relationships as normal to children, despite what parents think or believe!

In 2006, in the elementary school where my daughter went to Kindergarten, the parents of a third-grader were forced to take their child out of school because a man undergoing a sex-change operation and cross-dressing was being brought into class to teach the children that there are now “different kinds of families.” School officials told the mother that her complaints to the principal were considered “inappropriate behavior.”

Libraries have also radically changed. School libraries across the state, from elementary school to high school, now have shelves of books to normalize homosexual behavior and the lifestyle in the minds of kids, some of them quite explicit and even pornographic. Parents complaints are ignored or met with hostility.

Over the past year, homosexual groups have been using taxpayer money to distribute a large, slick hardcover book celebrating homosexual marriage titled “Courting Equality” into every school library in the state.

It’s become commonplace in Massachusetts schools for teachers to prominently display photos of their same-sex “spouses” and occasionally bring them to school functions. Both high schools in my own town now have principals who are “married” to their same-sex partners, whom they bring to school and introduce to the students.

“Gay days” in schools are considered necessary to fight “intolerance” which may exist against same-sex relationships. Hundreds of high schools and even middle schools across the state now hold “gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender appreciation days”. They “celebrate” homosexual marriage and move forward to other behaviors such as cross-dressing and transsexuality. In my own town, a school committee member recently announced that combating “homophobia” is now a top priority.

Once homosexuality has been normalized, all boundaries will come down. The schools are already moving on to normalizing transgenderism (including cross-dressing and sex changes). The state-funded Commission on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth includes leaders who are transsexuals.

Public health

The Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health is “married” to another man. In 2007 he told a crowd of kids at a state-sponsored youth event that it’s “wonderful being gay” and he wants to make sure there’s enough HIV testing available for all of them.

Since homosexual marriage became “legal” the rates of HIV / AIDS have gone up considerably in Massachusetts. This year public funding to deal with HIV/AIDS has risen by $500,000.

Citing “the right to marry” as one of the “important challenges” in a place where “it’s a great time to be gay”, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health helped produce The Little Black Book, Queer in the 21st Century, a hideous work of obscene pornography which was given to kids at Brookline High School on April 30, 2005. Among other things, it gives “tips” to boys on how to perform oral sex on other males, masturbate other males, and how to “safely” have someone urinate on you for sexual pleasure. It also included a directory of bars in Boston where young men meet for anonymous sex.
Domestic violence

Given the extreme dysfunctional nature of homosexual relationships, the Massachusetts Legislature has felt the need to spend more money every year to deal with skyrocketing homosexual domestic violence. This year $350,000 was budgeted, up $100,000 from last year.
Business

All insurance in Massachusetts must now recognize same-sex “married” couples in their coverage. This includes auto insurance, health insurance, life insurance, etc.

Businesses must recognize same-sex “married” couples in all their benefits, activities, etc., regarding both employees and customers.

The wedding industry is required serve the homosexual community if requested. Wedding photographers, halls, caterers, etc., must do same-sex marriages or be arrested for discrimination.

Businesses are often “tested” for tolerance by homosexual activists. Groups of homosexual activists often go into restaurants or bars and publicly kiss and fondle each other to test whether the establishment demonstrates sufficient “equality” — now that homosexual marriage is “legal”. In fact, more and more overt displays of homosexual affection are seen in public places across the state to reinforce “marriage equality”.
Legal profession

The Massachusetts Bar Exam now tests lawyers on their knowledge of same-sex “marriage” issues. In 2007, a Boston man, Stephen Dunne, failed the Massachusetts bar exam because he refused to answer the questions in it about homosexual marriage.

Issues regarding homosexual “families” are now firmly entrenched in the Massachusetts legal system. In many firms, lawyers in Massachusetts practicing family law must now attend seminars on homosexual “marriage”. There are also now several homosexualjudges overseeing the Massachusetts family courts.

Adoption of children to homosexual “married” couples

Homosexual “married” couples can now demand to be able to adopt children the same as normal couples. Catholic Charities decided to abandon handling adoptions rather submit to regulations requiring them to allow homosexuals to adopt the children in their care.

In 2006 the Massachusetts Department of Social Services (DSS) honored two men “married” to each other as their “Parents of the Year”. The men already adopted a baby through DSS (against the wishes of the baby’s birth parents). According to news reports, the day after that adoption was final DSS approached the men about adopting a second child. Homosexuals now appear to be put in line for adopting children ahead of heterosexual parents by state agencies in Massachusetts.
Government mandates

In 2004, Governor Mitt Romney ordered Justices of the Peace to perform homosexual marriages when requested or be fired. At least one Justice of the Peace decided to resign.

Also thanks to Gov. Romney, marriage licenses in Massachusetts now have “Party A and Party B” instead of “husband and wife.” Romney did not have a legal requirement to do this; he did it on his own. (See more on this below.)

Since homosexual relationships are now officially “normal”, the Legislature now gives enormous tax money to homosexual activist groups. In particular, the Massachusetts Commission on Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender Youth is made up of the most radical and militant homosexual groups which target children in the schools. This year they are getting $700,000 of taxpayer money to go into the public schools.

In 2008 Massachusetts changed the state Medicare laws to include homosexual “married” couples in the coverage.
The public square

Since gay “marriage”, annual gay pride parades have become more prominent. There are more politicians and corporations participating, and even police organizations take part. And the envelope gets pushed further and further. There is now a profane “Dyke March” through downtown Boston, and recently a “transgender” parade in Northampton that included bare-chested women who have had their breasts surgically removed so they could “become” men. Governor Patrick even marched with his “out lesbian” 17-year old daughter in the 2008 Boston Pride event, right behind a “leather” group brandishing a black & blue flag, whips and chains!
The media

Boston media, particularly the Boston Globe newspaper, regularly does feature stories and news stories portraying homosexual “married” couples where regular married couples would normally be used. It’s “equal”, they insist, so there must be no difference in the coverage. Also, the newspaper advice columns now deal with homosexual “marriage” issues, and how to properly accept it.

A growing number of news reporters and TV anchors are openly “married” homosexuals who march in the “gay pride” parades.
Is gay marriage actually legal in Massachusetts?

Like everywhere else in America, the imposition of same-sex “marriage” on the people of Massachusetts was a combination of radical, arrogant judges and pitifully cowardly politicians.

The Goodridge ruling resulted in a complete cave-in by politicians of both parties on this issue. Same-sex “marriage” is still illegal in Massachusetts. On November 18, 2003 the court merely ruled that it was unconstitutional not to allow it, and gave the Legislature six months to “take such action as it may deem appropriate.” Note that the Massachusetts Constitution strongly denies courts the power to make or change laws, or from ordering the other branches to take any action. The constitution effectively bans “judicial review” – a court changing or nullifying a law. Thus, the court did not order anything to happen; it simply rendered an opinion on that specific case. And the Legislature did nothing. The marriage statutes were never changed. However, against the advice of many, Gov. Romney took it upon himself to alter the state’s marriage licenses to say “Party A and Party B” and order officials to perform same-sex “weddings” if asked, though he had no legal obligation to do so. Technically, same-sex marriages are still illegal in Massachusetts.

Nevertheless, we are having to live with it. And furthermore, this abdication of their proper constitutional roles by the Legislature and Governor has caused a domino effect as “copycat” rulings have been issued in California and Connecticut, with other states fearful it will happen there.

In conclusion

Homosexual “marriage” hangs over society like a hammer with the force of law. And it’s only just begun.

It’s pretty clear that the homosexual movement’s obsession with marriage is not because large numbers of them actually want to marry each other. Research shows that homosexual relationships are fundamentally dysfunctional on many levels, and “marriage” as we know it isn’t something they can achieve, or even desire. (In fact, over the last three months, the Sunday Boston Globe’s marriage section hasn’t had any photos of homosexual marriages. In the beginning it was full of them.) This is about putting the legal stamp of approval on homosexuality and imposing it with force throughout the various social and political institutions of a society that would never accept it otherwise. To the rest of America: You’ve been forewarned.

For more information, visit MassResistance’s website.

——————————————————————————–

Special announcement:

Starting today, the MassResistance website will now be updated DAILY (Monday-Friday, and Saturday evening).  We have an overwhelming number backlog of material, plus new things constantly happening. Check it out!

——————————————————————————–

This is your movement!  Our funding comes from individuals. Please donate – invest in MassResistance’s efforts!

Donations can also be mailed to: MassResistance, PO Box 1612, Waltham, MA 02454
ALL donations are confidential. MassResistance does not sell or lend any of its lists.

Contact us if you want to get involved.

Also, check out the MassResistance blog (for even more in-depth coverage)!

[If you are on this list by mistake, or do not want to get our email information alerts, please accept our apologies. Please call us at MassResistance at 781-890-6001 or email us back, and we'll immediately take you off the list. We've tried to only include people who've contacted us at some point or otherwise indicated they would like to hear from us.]

Also, if this is being forwarded to you and you want to be on our primary list, please let us know!

_______________________________________________

HELP AFTAH MATCH 2nd 10,000 GRANT!

Americans For Truth has received a second $10,000 grant from another generous donor.  Please help us to double this gift with your tax-deductible donation to AFTAH of $1,000, $500, $100 or whatever you can give. You can give online using a credit card or PayPal at www.americansfortruth.com/donate.  Or mail your gift to:  AFTAH, PO Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567.

Please also consider becoming a monthly AFTAH “Truth Team” Partner with your regular pledge of $250, $100, $50 or $25/month to Americans For Truth; sign up at http://americansfortruth.com/membership.php.  Thank you for helping us expose the truth about the freedom-crushing homosexual agenda — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

The following was reported by the Gay and Lesbian Leadership SmartBrief regarding the California Marriage Protection Amendment, Proposition 8, and the No on 8 homosexual counter-campaign to defeat it (emphasis is added). Patrick Guerriero, a Massachusetts homosexual activist who used to run the Log Cabin Republicans, is now on loan to “No on 8″ from the Gill Action Fund, which has worked to take out Republican pro-family legislators across the nation. All this provides more evidence that Log Cabin, with its tiny membership of 20,000 nationwide, sees its strategic priority as advancing homosexuality first, and the Republican Party second. And what a shocker this: the California Teachers Association and Hollywood elites oppose traditional marriage:

Guerriero: LGBT Californians must give to stop marriage ban

Veteran activist Patrick Guerriero, who is the new director of California’s “No on 8″ campaign, said the key to defeating the constitutional marriage ban lies with securing the financial backing of the state’s estimated 1 million LGBT residents. “If every single LGBT adult would, over the next couple of days, make a donation to this campaign, we will win,” he said. “And if they don’t, we will lose.” Advocate.com (10/15)

Hollywood, teachers union muster funds to defeat Proposition 8: Barbra Streisand and actor-director Rob Reiner are among the Hollywood celebrities expected to attend a $25,000-a-plate fundraiser to support the “No on 8″ effort on Tuesday at the Los Angeles home of billionaire Ron Burkle. In related news, the California Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers union, has pledged $1 million to the campaign to defeat the marriage ban, and producer Steve Bing is giving $500,000, the biggest individual donation thus far from the entertainment industry. Yahoo!/Reuters (10/16) , Washington Blade/The Associated Press (10/16) , Variety/Wilshire & Washington blog (10/15) , San Jose Mercury News (Calif.) (10/15)

San Francisco politicians voted to ban the sale of cigarettes in city drug stores — while they extol the Folsom Street Fair with its illegal public orgies, celebration of hyper-promiscuous homosexual “pig sex,” and promotion of disease-spreading gay sex clubs like “Blow Buddies” and Steamworks. Meanwhile, Folsom doubles as an AIDS fundraiser and the San Francisco Department of Public Health has two booths at the event — go figure. 

Below is the statement that I read at our press conference Friday, over the shouts of intolerant homosexual activists. Can you imagine if our national media reported on America’s moral decline with the urgency that it has covered the current economic crisis?–Peter LaBarbera

Statement by Peter LaBarbera, President, Americans For Truth, at press conference condemning San Francisco Folsom Street Fair, Sept. 26, 2008, San Francisco City Hall:

I want you to forget for a moment that the four people who stand before you are religious or that we represent conservative organizations diametrically opposed to the GLBT movement.  Discount that three of us come from outside the Bay area and put aside, if you can, the stereotypes that some of you have of the so-called “Religious Right.”

Now consider what we are here to expose and criticize.  Every year – in fact, twice a year now – San Francisco plays eager host to street fairs like the Folsom Street Fair this Sunday that feature the following (most of which I have personally witnessed as a critical observer):

•    Rampant public nudity including men walking the streets in nothing but their socks and sneakers;
•    Public street orgies in which men engage in heinous sex acts – as depicted on these enlarged photos [blow-ups of AFTAH web photos like those HERE and HERE] — as thousands of fairgoers walk by;
•    Public sadistic whippings, acts of “consensual” degradation including men urinating on one another – for pleasure — and “master-and-slave” partners or perverse arrangements in which one partner plays the role of an animal, led around on a dog-collar by his “master”;
•    Blatant anti-Christian bigotry – e.g., the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” — transvestite mock “nuns” who work closely with Folsom; and religious-themed “sex toys” sold by vendors;
•    Public health hazards: Folsom promotes local gay sex clubs like “Blow Buddies” and Steamworks, a Berkeley bathhouse where men go for anonymous sexual encounters with other men (including condomless, “barebacking” anal sex) that spread diseases;
•    Police blame their inaction amidst all the illegal, debauched acts on politicians who tell them not to intervene or enforce the law. At the same time, the SFPD recruits at this sordid affair [the police have a booth at Folsom again this year] — an all-time low and embarrassment for men in blue everywhere whose mission is supposed to be “law enforcement.”

As our nation deals with a severe economic crisis – in the swirl of intense media glare – America faces an equally grave moral crisis that flies under the politically correct media’s radar. In the name of “tolerance and diversity,” we are casting aside all boundaries, some dating back to the beginning of recorded time. In that sense, redefining marriage outside its natural male-female state — and  Folsom’s shocking, police-protected public perversions — are mere markers of a nation in steep decline, a nation that is leaving God behind.

It is no coincidence that the man who took it upon himself four years ago to illegally and radically redefine marriage – Mayor Gavin Newsom – now enthusiastically welcomes the Folsom Street Fair with its unbelievable public depravities – an event that makes San Francisco a subject of ridicule and opprobrium the world over.

Why is it that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – who considers herself a faithful Catholic — refused to denounce the blatant anti-Christian bigotry of last year’s Folsom Street Fair with its artwork turning da Vinci’s “Last Supper” painting of Christ and his disciples into a sadomasochistic, fetish-celebrating farce?

And how is it that a city that ostensibly cares so much about protecting citizens’ health that it bans the sale of cigarettes in pharmacies, still allows the proliferation of sex clubs where men plop down ten bucks or so to engage in anonymous, reckless sexual encounters with complete strangers? We here today say, close down “Blow Buddies,” Steamworks and other disease-spreading gay sex clubs — and in the process help preserve the lives of homosexual men, not to mention the female spouses of men on the “down low.”

There is no excuse for any city – no matter how “tolerant” – to allow the public sex and nudity documented on these and countless other photos. The way back from anarchy is a return to enforcement of the rule of law. No special interest group – including homosexuals – deserves the “special right” to redefine nature and marriage itself and put its wants above the law.