Americans for Truth

This lesbian couple traveling with Soulforce — the “Rasmus-Ford family” — says, “God created us [as lesbians] exactly as we are with purpose and intention.” Should mega-churches like Willow Creek have agreed to meet with a homosexual activist group whose goal is to “cut off homophobia at its source – religious bigotry”? Sonja Dalton (below) says NO and Michael Brown says YES (under certain conditions).

This is a Point/Counterpoint on the question of whether Willow Creek Community Church (in South Barrington, Illinois) and other mega-churches should have met with the pro-homosexual activist group Soulforce, which aims to “cut off homophobia at its source – religious bigotry.” Below is a commentary by my good friend Sonja Dalton, who argues AGAINST such meetings. Click HERE to read an opposing column by Dr. Michael Brown, who says they can be used — with proper discernment — for Christian outreach.

We will allow each writer to respond to the other’s arguments, and welcome input from our readers, too; write us at americansfortruth@comcast.net. (Sorry, but we’re not interested in publishing pro-homosexuality pieces — there are plenty of “gay” websites for that.) Footnotes are at bottom:

_______________________________

Willow Creek Church Should Not Have Met with Soulforce

Point/Counterpoint [to read Michael Brown’s opposing column, click HERE]

By Sonja Dalton

A fundamental question has been lost amid the sensation over the recent meeting between Willow Creek leadership and pro-homosexuality activists affiliated with the group Soulforce:

Did Pastor Bill Hybels have Biblical authority to welcome, meet with, and dine with Jay Bakker and Soulforce?

First, let’s examine who these Willow Creek “guests” [1] were…

Jay Bakker (right) is the cigarette-puffing, tattooed, punk-rocker son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker; he’s the star of the Sundance Channel series “One Punk Under God” and “pastor” of the “gay”-affirming Revolution NYC [2]. He is quoted as having said:

“…I felt like God spoke to my heart and said ‘[homosexuality] is not a sin.’” [3]

(You might want to pencil that into your Bible, somewhere near Leviticus 18:22 or I Corinthians 6:9-11. Or not.)

Read the rest of this article »

Americans For Truth Press Release
www.americansfortruth.org

Contact: Peter LaBarbera: 630-717-7631.

TAKE ACTION: Contact WTTW online or through their main switchboard at 773-583-5000; ask for WTTW CEO/President is Dan Schmidt and/or Programming Director Dan Soles. Or you can call WTTW’s “Member Services” phone number at 773-509-1111, ext. 6 (between 9-5:00 Central); hit “6″ and you will get a live person; kindly communicate your opposition to WTTW’s pro-homosexual programming and the blatant anti-Christian bigotry that is part of it. Click HERE to find the PBS TV station in your area to check if they are engaged in the same “Gay Pride Month” biased programming and let us know what you find: americansfortruth@comcast.net.

__________________________________

AFTAH Condemns WTTW, PBS for Airing Anti-Christian Programming Celebrating Homosexuality During ‘Gay Pride Month’

NAPERVILLE, Illinois — Americans For Truth President Peter LaBarbera today accused the Chicago public TV station WTTW, and by extension the Public Broadcasting System, of using taxpayer monies to celebrate homosexuality and worse, air programs that displays flagrant anti-religious bigotry during “Gay Pride Month.”

“It is unconscionable that WTTW would show such blatant disregard for its faith- and tradition-minded viewers that it would use anti-Christian programs celebrating homosexuality for its fund-raising telethons,” LaBarbera said. “Public television must be impartial on controversial moral issues. We call on WTTW and PBS to balance their pro-homosexual programming with faith-based educational material from the other side, or stop it altogether.”

Last night (and apparently on June 1), WTTW used the documentary, “The Power of Harmony,” featuring the Dallas-based Turtle Creek Chorale, as a fund-raiser. It included:

• The homosexual men’s choir singing the song, “I Ain’t Afraid,” which contains the following refrain denigrating faithful Christians, Jews and Muslims: “I ain’t afraid of your Yahweh, I ain’t afraid of your Allah, I ain’t afraid of your Jesus, I’m afraid of what you do in the name of your God”;
• Repeated assertions that God made homosexuals that way and that portray Christians who disagree as hateful, ignorant or prejudiced. Said one homosexual man’s mother: “God created homosexuality. It’s just part of a person.” Historic Christian teaching holds that homosexual acts are sinful but that this behavior pattern – like other sinful lifestyles – can be overcome through faith in Christ;
• Testimonies by bitter “gay” men who despise and attack the religion of their upbringing because it does not sanction their lifestyle;
• A homosexual male couple adopting a Guatemalan baby.

Read the rest of this article »

Steve Bennett, a former homosexual, and his wife Irene, with their two beautiful children, are a wonderful testimony to the possibility of healthy change for homosexuals. So if we already know that men and women can leave homosexuality behind, why isn’t this phenomenon studied in the academy? What are “queer” activists and liberal researchers afraid will be discovered?

Check out this fascinating nugget from a near-three-decades-old Time Magazine article on (pro-”gay”) sex researchers William Howell Masters and Virginia Johnson. Note the high success rate of homosexuals seeking change. This begs the question: why isn’t the potential for change for homosexuals studied in the academy today, or the environmental factors common in the development of homosexual identity? Instead, all we hear about are studies — many funded through taxpayer dollars — seeking to prove that homosexuality is genetic.

Read the rest of this article »

Willow Creek Community Church’s chief of security (the man pointing and talking to police in the photo) became belligerent as he tried to deny Americans For Truth our First Amendment freedom to stand on a public sidewalk outside the entrance to the church grounds. Police informed him that he was wrong and that indeed we could stand with our banner on a public sidewalk. Our message responding to the homosexual activist (non-) “christian” group Soulforce was: “Homosexuality Is Sin. Case Closed — God (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). Photo: Dan Musick.

NOTE: we’ll have more on the Willow Creek-Soulforce story in upcoming posts. The following was posted on the Chicago Tribune religion reporter Manya Brachear’s blog, “The Seeker,” which contains a report on Willow Creek’s meeting last weekend with Soulforce homosexual activists.

By Peter LaBarbera

I wonder: is transcendent truth conditional on the age of the person receiving it? Either homosexual behavior is a changeable sin or it is not — 1,000 years ago, today, and 1,000 years in the future. The Word of God is clear that it is. I have met far too many EX-gays to believe that homosexuality is some fixed identity (”orientation”) into which people are born — and most of these FORMER gay men and ex-lesbians testify to the power of Jesus Christ in setting them free from homosexuality.

Read the rest of this article »

LaBarbera urges return to ‘journalistic neutrality’ on controversial issues; event raises funds for Orlando “GLBT youth’ group

Americans For Truth sent the following letter today to WKMB (Orlando, Florida) anchorwoman Lauren Rowe. You can reach Rowe through her web profile page, and WKMB’s News Director HERE (scroll down on the pull-down menu to “News Director”)

____________________________

Dear Ms. Rowe [Anchorwoman, WKMB, Orlando, FL],

I’m writing as President of Americans For Truth and as a pro-family conservative opposed to the homosexual activist agenda, to express our concern about your decision to serve as “host MC” for the Orlando “Gay Days” Kickoff Party tonight. Here’s the web link citing your participation: http://www.gaydays.com/events/kickoff/.

Pro-family advocates and conservatives are rightly concerned about escalating media bias surrounding the homosexual debate. It is difficult for a well-known newsperson like yourself to maintain a reputation for fairness and neutrality while simultaneously hosting a “Gay Days” event that celebrates homosexuality. You must know that homosexuality and related issues like “same-sex marriage” are deeply divisive issues in our culture, and I would hope that you see it as your role, as a professional journalist, to “play it down the middle” in this debate. Also, the fact that Orlando Gay Days centers around Disneyworld — a destination for children and families — makes this homosexual celebration all the more concerning to pro-family Americans.

Read the rest of this article »

Concerned Women for America, May 13, 2008
By J. Matt Barber

Take Action

Don’t let this egregious and discriminatory action by the University of Toledo be ignored. Please contact University of Toledo President Lloyd Jacobs and respectfully request that he immediately reinstate Crystal Dixon (pictured at left) and issue a public apology to her, the African-American community and to Christians worldwide. (e-mail: UTPresident@utoledo.edu or phone him at 419-530-2211 / Fax: 419-5304984)

____________

The University of Toledo (UT) has sent a message: African-American Christians need not apply.

The University of Toledo (UT) has sent a message - loud and clear - to potential employees and students: African-American Christians need not apply.

UT President Lloyd Jacobs has betrayed his own anti-Christian bigotry and intolerance in what amounts to a prima facie violation of the U.S. Constitution, Ohio’s state constitution and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Recently, Jacobs, who portrays himself as a bastion of “tolerance” and “diversity,” overtly and shamelessly discriminated against Crystal Dixon, a black, Christian employee, because of her constitutionally protected, factually based and popularly held viewpoint relative to — ironically — civil rights. Understandably, many in the Christian and African-American communities are outraged.

Dixon, who was Associate Vice President of Human Resources at UT, has been arbitrarily fired from her job because she publicly defended the integrity of African-American civil rights struggles and further expressed her sincerely held religious beliefs relative to those struggles.

Read the rest of this article »

Cybercast News Service reports:

College Official Fired for Column on Homosexuality
By Pete Winn
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
May 12, 2008

(CNSNews.com) - Cybercast News Service has learned that a University of Toledo administrator has lost her job because she wrote a newspaper commentary that questioned whether homosexuality is a civil rights issue.

Crystal Dixon, the associate vice president of human resources at the state university, had earlier been put on paid administrative leave for the Apr. 18 column published in the Toledo Free Press, as detailed in a previous CNSNews.com report.

“She has been fired,” said Brian Rooney, spokesman for the Thomas More Law Center, an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based legal-defense group which is representing Dixon.

Rooney told Cybercast News Service that the university had offered Dixon “another position, in a different part of the university, not in human resources” because she had argued in her editorial that sexual orientation is not an immutable characteristic like race or sex and should not be afforded the same protection under civil rights laws.

“She said no, that’s when she was fired,” Rooney said. “We are going to do everything we can within the law to try to show that the firing was improper and potentially illegal.”

Click HERE to read the entire CNSNews article

The following is excerpted from ex-lesbian Janet Boynes’ website, www.janetboynesministries.com. To read Janet’s full testimony and learn more about her ministry, click HERE:

For fourteen years I lived the lesbian lifestyle, moving from one relationship to the next. My old habits came back as well and I struggled in and out of treatment, even getting in to trouble with the law. Throughout all of those years, I always knew that I would one day return to God, that He was calling me, but I wasn’t ready to come back.

Finally I met a woman at a grocery store who invited me to church. I went a few Sundays later and recommitted my life to Jesus Christ. Soon, all of my habits began falling away. It wasn’t easy, but with the help of the Holy Spirit and with the support of those around me, I gave up drugs, alcohol, and smoking. I joined a women’s Bible study and began to feel God calling me out of the homosexual lifestyle as well.