Hate Crimes Prosecution

LISTEN: AFTAH Interviews Paul Blair and Matt Barber – Part Two

Friday, December 30th, 2011

Hear ‘gay’ activist’s phone-mail death threats against OK City pastor

This is Part Two of my interview with Oklahoma City pastor Paul Blair and Matt Barber, AFTAH Board Chairman and Director of Cultural Affairs at Liberty Counsel. This pre-recorded interview aired Dec. 17, 2011. Blair, a former NFL lineman, and his church, Fairview Baptist Church, were on the receiving end of some phoned-in death threats after he testified against an Oklahoma City “sexual orientation” ordinance. You can hear of a few of the death threats in this interview. (To listen to Part One of the interview, go  HERE.)

HOW TO LISTEN: This is an mp3 file, supported in most operating systems by Windows Media Player, Quick Time and/or I-Tunes.  Real Player is not supported and there may be difficulty when attempting to listen with it.  Left click once on the link below to play. (Please be patient, depending upon the speed of your internet connection it may take a moment or two to load.)  OR right click the link then “save target as” to download the whole show.

12-17-11, Paul Blair & Matt Barber, Part Two

 

Gov. Rick Perry Signed Pro-Homosexual ‘Hate Crimes’ Bill into Law in Texas

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011

Texas Gov. Rick Perry

Gary Glenn, Executive Director or American Family Association of Michigan, wrote yesterday:

Friends,
 
I was disappointed to learn today that Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, in 2001 signed homosexual activists’ so-called “hate crimes” legislation into law in that state.
 
As with the federal law signed by President Obama, the Texas statute signed by Perry establishes special “protected class” status under law, including enhanced sentencing for crimes allegedly motivated by bias against it, expressly on the basis of so-called “sexual preference” (homosexual behavior).
 
As lead plaintiff in a federal civil rights lawsuit (http://bit.ly/ilz0mP) asking the courts to declare the Obama-signed law an unconstitutional and chilling violation of religious free speech rights, honesty requires that I be equally critical of Gov. Perry for signing into law the exact same type of legislation, which — it’s clear from the enforcement record of such laws in Europe and Canada — poses the greatest single threat to religious free speech rights in America today.
 

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Barber: Southern Poverty Law Center Officially Declared ‘Left-Wing Hate Group’

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

Pictured above is the 'hateful' and 'violence-prone' Matt Barber, Board Member of Americans For Truth, in his days as a professional boxer.

By J. Matt Barber

Though always left of center, the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) once had a reputation as a fairly objective civil rights group. Founded by direct-marketing millionaire Morris Dees and partner Joseph Levin Jr. in 1971, the SPLC made important and honorable contributions to many of the historic civil rights gains of the 20th Century. According to its own materials, the SPLC was “internationally known for tracking and exposing the activities of hate groups.”

Alas, “power corrupts,” as it goes, and the SPLC, having amassed tremendous power and wealth over the years, has regrettably become corrupt to its core. By way of an ever-escalating wave of “us-versus-them” money-grubbing schemes, Today’s SPLC has morphed into a far-left political activist outfit, famous for promoting a panoply of extreme liberal causes.

Ken Silverstein, writing for Harper’s Magazine, addressed this untoward metamorphosis in 2000:

“Today’s SPLC spends most of its time – and money – on a relentless fund-raising campaign, peddling memberships in the church of tolerance with all the zeal of a circuit rider passing the collection plate. ‘He’s the Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker of the civil rights movement,’ renowned anti-death-penalty lawyer Millard Farmer says of Dees, his former associate, ‘though I don’t mean to malign Jim and Tammy Faye.’

“The American Institute of Philanthropy gives the Center one of the worst ratings of any group it monitors,” continued Silverstein. “Morris Dees doesn’t need your financial support. The SPLC is already the wealthiest civil rights group in America, though [its fundraising literature] quite naturally omits that fact. … ‘Morris and I…shared the overriding purpose of making a pile of money,’ recalls Dees’ business partner, a lawyer named Millard Fuller (not to be confused with Millard Farmer). ‘We were not particular about how we did it; we just wanted to be independently rich.’” (You say Fuller. I say Farmer. The two Millards say “call the whole thing off.”)

So, what happens when a dragon slayer – paid per dragon head – runs out of real dragons to slay? Well, he invents new ones, of course. Gotta keep those sprinklers-a-sprinklin.’ (According to Harper’s, “Dees bought a 200-acre estate appointed with tennis courts, a pool, and stables.” SPLC’s 2008 Form-990 shows net assets of over 219 million at the beginning of that year. Yup, there’s a spate to be made in the hate trade.)

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SPLC Plays Politics with Hate, Smears Americans For Truth as ‘Hate Site’

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

Dear AFTAH Readers,

Homosexual activist Wayne Besen screams with a bullhorn into the window of Boston's Park Street Church, which was hosting an "ex-gay" seminar last April. Will the SPLC investigate virulent anti-Christian activists like Besen in its ostensible campaign against "hate"? How would the SPLC react if right-wing conservatives were to terrorize a homosexual church in the same way?

Well, now I think I’ve seen it all. A Chicago-based Marxist “direct action” group, the Gay Liberation Network (GLN) — which smears Chicago’s historic Moody Church as a “House of Hate,” attacks Catholic Cardinal Francis George as a “homophobe,” and compares the Boy Scouts to racist fringe groups  — has successfully lobbied the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to label AFTAH’s website a “hate site.” The GLN and its co-leader, Bob Schwartz, know a thing or two about hate: in 2005, Schwartz told me, as I was standing in opposition to a “gay youth” event in downtown Chicago, that he would have pushed me into the busy city street were it not for the presence nearby of my “friends,” the police. (Read my 2005 account as Executive Director for Illinois Family Institute HERE; imagine if I had made such a veiled, physical threat against Schwartz: I probably would have been arrested on “Hate Crime” charges right then and there.)

There are few things as sinister, and as cynical, as the Left’s manipulation of “hate” as a political weapon to malign Christians and patriotic, conservative Americans. Thankfully, it seems the only people taking the SPLC seriously anymore are the liberal media and hardened, ‘Move On’-types on the Left. The SPLC is a spent force when it comes to moral authority — and even some honest liberals are seeing through its disingenuous campaign to redefine morality as “hate” and “bigotry.” (Don’t look to the SPLC to investigate homosexual haters like Wayne Besen’s notoriously nasty “Truth Wins Out” anytime soon; Besen is shown at right screaming with a bullhorn into the window of Park Street Church in Boston; click here to read the MassResistance story on the shocking 2009 demonstration.)

GLN's Bob Schwartz knows about "hate" ....

The Left is so steeped in its own ideology and self-righteousness that it is oblivious to how out of step it is with everyday Americans. Sure, there are haters on the right like Fred (“God Hates Fags”) Phelps (who despicably pickets U.S. soldiers’ funerals, and whom AFTAH has repeatedly condemned). But there are far more haters on the Left, and they are much better organized and dangerous to American liberty than those on the opposite end of the political spectrum.

On behalf of Americans For Truth, I am gratified at the outpouring of support we have received from pro-family advocates across the country in response to the SPLC’s shenanigans. We’ll say it again: to defend historic Judeo-Christian moral norms is not “bigotry,” and to disagree with homosexual activists is not “hate.” You can contact the Southern Poverty Law Center HERE. God bless you. – Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org; e-mail us: americansfortruth@comcast.net>

Matt Barber’s statement on the SPLC follows the jump:

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VICTORY: ‘Hate Speech’ Language Removed from Mass. Bill — Would Have Criminalized Criticism of Homosexuality

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

“Anti-bullying” bill now moves on to Mass. House – text is still troubling

Congratulations to the vigilant pro-family activists over at MassResistance for stopping this proposed “hate speech” provision in an “anti-bullying” bill (see the proposed text in box at right). It is victories like this that made it easy for me to praise this gutsy organization and its founder, Brian Camenker (and MR blogger Amy Contrada) as a speaker at their recent fund-raising banquet.

For years — no, decades — homosexual activists have been telling us that their agenda (oops, I forgot…there is no “gay agenda”) does not pose a threat to freedom. Then we watched in Canada as religious critics of homosexuality were forced to defend themselves against “discrimination” suits brought through Orwellian government “human rights” tribunals — simply for expressing their beliefs against homosexuality. To label these state-sanctioned spectacles  “nuisance suits” would be to trivialize the great harm they have done to their innocent victims. Meanwhile, in Britain and Sweden, Christians also faced government oppression for opposing homosexuality. Other countries stand poised to criminalize “homophobia.”

The silence among American homosexual activists against this escalating PRO-”gay” oppression has been deafening. After all, justifying state censorship of your critics isn’t easy when you’re playing the victim card.

And now we see the first, rudimentary attempts at legislating a “hate speech” regime here in the United States. Consider the removed paragraph above in light of the common homosexualist accusation that groups like Mass Resistance and Americans For Truth “hate gays.” Self-described “queer” militants routinely equate traditional religious tenets or moral beliefs with hatred (all the while demonstrating consistent “malice” of their own with abundant lies and nasty smears against pro-family opponents).

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Letter/Correction – GOProud Does NOT Support Hate Crimes Laws

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

Folks, I mistakenly implied that GOProud — the aspiring “gay conservative” group whose co-sponsorship of CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) this February has sparked talk of a social conservative boycott — endorses the full agenda of other GLBT groups. Actually, it opposes “hate crimes” laws, as Damien Geminder of the blog http://conservathink.blogspot.com writes below. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

Damian Geminder’s letter to AFTAH:

From: Damian G. [-------]
Sent: Wednesday, December 16, 2009 1:53 PM
To: americansfortruth@comcast.net
Subject: [AFT Web Site] RE: GOProud article

The following message was sent from the Americans for Truth Web site:
——————————————————————————–
In your article about CPAC’s sponsor GOProud, you questioned libertarians for supporting “redefin[ing] criminal prosecution to factor in people/s thoughts (hate crimes).” Actually, GOProud was largely formed as a result of homosexual conservatives who opposed the Log Cabin Republicans’ pro-hate crimes stance. GOProud is for many pro-gay causes, but hate crimes is not one of them.

VIDEO: Matt Barber Assails President Obama’s Radical Gay Agenda at AFTAH Press Conference

Friday, August 14th, 2009

We’re proud to have Matt Barber as our keynote speaker at Americans For Truth’s fund-raising banquet on Saturday, Oct. 24 at the Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights, IL. Below is Matt’s appearance at AFTAH’s pro-family coalition’s press conference in Chicago June 17, 2009 calling attention to President Barack Obama’s radical homosexual agenda. More information beneath video:

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

This pro-family press conference — largely ignored by the dominant liberal media — was organized by Americans For Truth About Homosexuality. Matt Barber, director of cultural affairs at the Liberty Counsel (and an AFTAH Board Member), was fired by Allstate Insurance Company in 2005 because he wrote an online article — on his own time — critical of organized homosexuality. Since then, he has risen to his current position as one of Americas leading defenders of natural marriage and family. He will be the keynote speaker at AFTAH’s fund-raising banquet outside Chicago on Oct. 24, 2009.

Higgins Responds to Wayne Besen’s Screed against Dr. Michael Brown

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

besen_terrorizes_boston_church1.jpg Imagine if this Scenario Were Reversed: One might suppose that homosexual militant Wayne Besen would be the last fellow to question the idea that “gay” activism threatens religious freedom in America. At left, Besen is photographed harassing a Boston church hosting an ex-”gay” conference — by yelling through a bullhorn into the window of the church during the conference. (Click HERE for MassResistance’s full story on the homosexual protest, and HERE for a report on a much larger and more violent pro-homosexual protest against another Boston church in 2005.) What if a bunch of Christian activists terrorized a meeting at a homosexual church in a similar manner? We suspect that Besen and fellow “gay” advocates might accuse them of using fascist tactics, and rightly so. Go HERE to read Besen’s hate-filled screed against Christian activist Michael Brown and his “God Has a Better Way” Gospel outreach at the Charlotte, NC “gay pride” festival.

By Laurie Higgins

Homosexual activist Wayne Besen of the oddly named Truth Wins Out described Dr. Michael Brown’s group of evangelists (the “God Has a Better Way” campaign responding to the Charlotte, N.C. “gay pride” parade) as “uninvited locusts” descending on Charlotte. With that description in mind, I wonder how conservatives should describe the thousands of participants in “pride” parades and “fairs” who pollute our streets with illegal nudity and public sex acts to which law enforcement agents, who are paid by the public to enforce laws, turn a blind eye.

When Besen said that “the notion that gay people in conservative North Carolina needed Brown to educate them about religious fundamentalism was farcical,” he revealed his ignorance about Biblical and Historical Theology. Although the belief that homosexual acts violate God’s will is a belief held by “fundamentalists,” it also integral to all orthodox theological traditions and has been since the beginnings of the church. His ignorance is not surprising, however, since Besen is a member of the homosexual activist movement that regularly makes numerous ludicrous exegetical claims, including the claims that Ruth and Naomi and David and Jonathan had homosexual relationships.

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