This interview [click HERE to listen] with Illinois pro-family lobbyist Ralph Rivera was conducted on February 4, 2013. Rivera is a lobbyist for the Illinois Family Institute – which is sponsoring a Defend Marriage Lobby Day against the homsoexual “marriage” bill in Sprinfield on Wednesday, Feb. 20th. Along with AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera and co-host John Kirkwood (of Grace Gospel Fellowship church), Rivera discusses the pro-homosexual-”marriage” bill looming in the state’s General Assembly. (The Illinois Senate is reportedly slated for a floor vote on the bill on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14.)

Rivera explains the bill’s threat to religious liberty — e.g., how in its original draft (likely to be amended) it would force churches and religious institutions that rent their facilities to the public to host homosexual “weddings.” There is also a discussion of how legalized “gay marriage” effectively forces pro-homosexual ”lessons” into public schools. In addition, the three discuss the Boy Scouts of America’s proposed change allowing openly homosexual Scoutmasters and Scouts. Rivera is also a longtime pro-life lobbyist for Illinois Citizens for Life.

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 to load.)  OR right click the link then “save target as” to download the whole show.

2-4-13, Ralph Rivera

TAKE ACTION — ILLINOIS CITIZENS:  1) Call or write your state representatives immediately and urge them to vote against the homosexual “marriage” bill [the so-called "Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act"]. IL Capitol Switchboard: 217-782-2000. According to the Illinois Review, the ”same-sex marriage” bill is amended to an automobile rental bill and could come up for a floor today – in the lame duck session that ends January 9. The situation is fluid but Democrats need Republican votes to get the bill passed. Click these links for Illinois Senate Members and Illinois House Members. See IllinoisReview.com for timely updates on the bill.

Who knew that when Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady called for “Change for Illinois,” he was referring to legalizing oxymoronic homosexual “marriage”?

ILLINOIS REPUBLICANS: Make your voice heard regarding IL-GOP Chairman Pat Brady’s stunningly ill-advised endorsement of homosexual “marriage” in Illinois. Many conservatives including AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera have called for Brady’s resignation. The IL-GOP can be reached at 217-525-0011 or info@ilgop.org. Contact your local Republican Party officials through this link. 

What did “gay marriage” do to Massachusetts?  For an excellent report on the effects of legal homosexual “marriage” — including the proliferation of pro-”gay” propaganda in schools, the loss of parental rights, and the harassment of Christian employees – see Brian Camenker’s excellent Mass Resistance report: “What same-sex ‘marriage’ has done to Massachusetts.”

“77 Non-Religious Reasons to Support Man/Woman Marriage”: Informative PDF by Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse of the Ruth Institute: http://www.johnbiver.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/77reasons.pdf

For key updates on Illinois same-sex “marriage” vote and IL-GOP politics: 

Illinois Family Institute: www.IllinoisFamily.org

Illinois Review: www.IllinoisReview.com

Capitol Fax (run by liberal advocate Rich Miller but a useful source): http://capitolfax.com/

John Biver’s “Dispatches”: http://www.johnbiver.com/

Republican News Watch: http://republicannewswatch.com/wp/

______________________________

Background: Is the Illinois GOP Going ‘Gay’?

There is a saying popular among American conservatives: the Democrats are the liberal party and the Republicans are the stupid party. Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady provided further evidence for the latter as he reportedly is lobbying Republican lawmakers in Illinois to support a bill legalizing homosexual “marriage” — leading to a new surge in conservative calls for his resignation.

If the IL-GOP pursues this course of abandoning natural marriage and pro-family values, it will sink into permanent minority status in the Land of Lincoln. Illinois is not unlike the rest of the country in one respect: voters deserve a clear choice between party philosophies and policy goals — not a false choice between Democrat and “Democrat-lite.” Already, conservative dissatisfaction with the IL-GOP is so great that many have left the Party or become disillusioned with politics altogether.

Social liberals now dominate the Illinois Republican Party and they are actively undermining its conservative platform. These two influential IL-GOP leaders are working against pro-family values:

Sen. Mark Kirk — this pro-”gay” senator, recovering from a debilitating stroke, boasted in his successful run for U.S. Senate of his support from Planned Parenthood. Kirk is the de facto head of the state GOP and apparently backs Pat Brady;

Dan Rutherford — this former state senator, current Illinois State Treasurer, and effective GOP campaigner (although he ran Mitt Romney’s losing Illinois campaign) cast two key votes to advance the homosexual agenda in Illinois. His lone Republican vote for the Illinois “Civil Unions” bill was critical to its passage and paved the way for a law that led to religious persecution in the state. Incredibly, despite the anti-Christian aftermath of the “Civil Unions” law, liberal proponents of the same-sex “marriage” bill have the audacity to include “religious freedom” in its name. Rutherford is widely rumored to be homosexual himself — and this writer has publicly challenged him to answer questions about whether he has a personal stake in “gay”-related legislation.

Illinois is in such economic and moral decline that people are leaving the state in droves for conservative-friendly states like Texas. Pat Brady’s reckless experiment in “Republican Gay Activism” will only accelerate the decline. If Illinois’ own grassroots citizens do not take action, their “leaders” will bring ruin to the state. AFTAH will closely monitor legislative and court action on same-sex “marriage.” (An openly lesbian judge, Sophia Hall, will rule on the constitutionality of Illinois’ existing law upholding natural man/woman marriage in the state.) Please take action to make your voice heard in Springfield, and in the Illinois GOP. – Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH, Naperville, Illinois

_____________________________

The conservative Illinois Review reported Jan. 2:

ILGOP Chair Sees Gay Marriage as ‘Equality Issue’ and ‘True Conservative Position’

Not unexpectedly, the gay marriage bill seems likely to move through committee today and to a floor vote tomorrow. As pro-family forces attempt to rally the grassroots to voice their opposition, the growing question seems to be which Republican(s) might break with the GOP’s traditional stance on the issue and vote in favor of the bill.

Sources reported that Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady has been making calls to legislators in support of the gay marriage bill. When asked, Brady told Illinois Review that he believes it is an “equality issue”, and that the “true conservative position is in favor” of allowing gay marriage.

He also made it clear that this is his personal view only, and not in his role as Chairman of the ILGOP.

The bill presents a problem for Illinois Republicans in that voting in favor would not only be unpopular with the Party’s base, but would seem to be in contradiction to its platform, which states:

1. …The ideal environment for children is within a two‐parent family based on the principle of marriage between one man and one woman. The Republican Party endorses a constitutional amendment protecting our Defense of Marriage Act and enshrining in constitutional law marriage as it is defined in “DOMA.”

2. Our laws should strongly support and celebrate the loving commitment a man and a woman make to each other in marriage. …No law should undermine the importance of that union, divide that union nor unduly burden the efforts of parents to rear a family in a safe and nurturing environment.

Romney’s IL campaign chief Dan Rutherford says offended pro-family conservatives “can go someplace else and drink”

Above is a copy of a portion of homosexual pressure group Equality Illinois’ online petition against Chick-fil-A. It reads: “This petition will be given to stakeholders in Illinois who lease, rent or allow Chick-fil-A to continue to sell its hate-filled homophobic ‘Chikin,” asking them to cut ties.” Equality Illinois was allowed to sponsor an IL-GOP event at the Republican convention in Tampa. Click on graphic to enlarge on separate screen.

_________________________________

By Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH Exclusive

Folks, there is a reason that conservatives often jokingly call the Republican Party “the stupid party” (as opposed to the Democrats being the liberal party). We learned today from the Chicago Sun-Times that the Illinois Republican Party delegation to the GOP convention in Tampa — led by former legislator and current Illinois State Treasurer Dan Rutherford — is partnering with a homosexual activist group that is pushing to close down what it calls the ”hate-filled, homophobic” Chick-fil-A restaurants in the state.

Equality Illinois (EQ), the leading “gay” pressure group in the state, is sponsoring the IL-GOP event by covering the bar tab at the IL-GOP “Beachside Cocktail Hour” this evening in Clearwater, FL, where the Illinois delegation is staying. EQ, which lobbies aggressively to legalize homosexual “marriage” in the state, curiously combined its sponsorship with a fierce condemnation of the GOP’s conservative platform — particularly the party’s call for a federal marriage amendment.

Recently, Equality Illinois led a pro-homosexual “Flick-the-hate” campaign to pressure leasing and rental companies to cut ties with the 19 Chick-fil-A restaurants in Illinois. Equality Illinois’ online petition (shown above) “will be given to key stakeholders in Illiniois who lease, rent or allow Chick-fil-A to continue to sell their hate-filled homophobic ‘Chiken,’ asking them to cut ties.” EQ joined other homosexual groups across the country in attacking Chick-fil-A after its COO, Dan Cathy, defended Christian family values including natural marriage as one-man, one-woman.

Read the rest of this article »

Cook County judge is member of homosexual judges group, advocated for “gay” cause; pro-family attorneys say she should recuse herself from case

Cook County Circuit Court Judge Sophia Hall as she appears in 2007 photo of her being honored along with 13 other openly homosexual judges. (See larger photo below.) Hall is a member of a Chicago-area homosexual judges group that celebrates homosexual unions and marches annually in Chicago’s “Gay Pride” parade.

By Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH exclusive

CHICAGO—Cook County Circuit Court Judge Sophia Hall – who will rule on combined pro-homosexual lawsuits challenging Illinois’ existing law defining marriage as one-man, one-woman — is an open lesbian and pro-homosexuality advocate, according to information widely available online but which has gone unreported by the media.

Judge Hall’s homosexuality is not a secret, nor an ”open secret” –as it was with  Vaughn Walker, the California judge who last year issued a decision overturning that state’s Proposition 8 marriage amendment only to subsequently reveal his “gay” identity. In contrast, Hall is a “charter member” of a homosexual judges organization in Chicago, the Alliance of Illinois Judges, which marches in Chicago’s annual “gay pride” parade. Last year, the AIJ sponsored — along with the “gay” activist organizations Lambda Legal and Equality Illinois – a public outdoor ceremony attended by city officials celebrating Illinois’ new “civil unions” law; AIJ judges officiated the “civil unions” for homosexual couples.

In a perusal of recent media reports on the Chicago “gay marriage” lawsuit, Judge Hall’s lesbianism and membership in a homosexual judges group that advocates for “gay rights” went unreported. Thus their implications for the case have not been publicly scrutinized, even by leading Illinois conservatives. Meanwhile, two pro-family attorneys contacted by AFTAH said Hall should recuse herself from the homosexual “marriage” case due to her personal conflict-of-interest. The pro-homosexual-”marriage” lawsuits were brought jointly by the ACLU and Lambda Legal, a homosexual legal group. Illinois’ Attorney General, Lisa Madigan, is supporting the homosexual activist lawsuits rather than defending her state’s marriage law.

Judge Hall herself has openly advocated for pro-homosexual causes, saying in a 2010 speech that she has “focused on efforts to combat the injustice of racism, gender bias, bias against gays and lesbians, and other stereotypes that belittle those who are stereotyped.”

The graphic below is a modified version of what appears in the July 2007 newsletter of the Lesbian and Gay Bar Association Chicago (LAGBAC) — which hosted a reception honoring Judge Hall and 13 other openly homosexual judges in Cook County:

The same edition of the LAGBAC newsletter announced two $4,000 scholarships to law students interning at Lambda Legal, one of which was “doing a myriad of assignments surrounding the Iowa same-sex marriage case.” Two years later, on April 3, 2009, homosexual “marriage” was legalized by the Iowa high court in a 7-0 decision.

Calls for Recusal

News of Judge Hall’s membership in and association with Chicago homosexual advocacy groups brought calls for her to recuse herself from the case that could bring legal homosexual “marriage” to Cook County (if not all of Illinois, although her decision will almost certainly be appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court). Said Professor Rena Lindevaldsen, Associate Dean of the Liberty University School of Law:

Read the rest of this article »

“Either resign from the Scouts’ Executive Board or stop undermining the BSA with your pro-homosexual advocacy”

By Peter LaBarbera

I sent a version of this letter today to Jim Turley, CEO of Ernst & Young, who is reportedly lobbying the Boy Scouts “from within” to change their policy against homosexuality. Turley and Ernst & Young’s progressive, “global,” pro-”gay” values conflict with the Boy Scouts’ wholesome moral values — so naturally he is working to overturn the Scouts’ values! Please read this Townhall column by Chuck Norris taking Turley and his close ally, President Barack Obama, to task for their “gay” advocacy, which now again makes the beleaguered Boy Scouts a major target of aggressive LGBT activists. See this website page by the homosexual pressure group GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) for more background on the escalating LGBT lobbying campaign against the Scouts.

Scouts Respond: For their part, the Boy Scouts issued a press release stating, “Contrary to media reports, the Boy Scouts of America has no plans to change its membership policy. The introduction of a resolution does not indicate the organization is “reviewing” a policy or signal a change in direction.” [See full BSA release HERE.]

My letter follows:

Dear James Turley, CEO of Ernst & Young,

I respectfully ask you to pull back from your pro-”gay” lobbying directed at the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) and leave this fine organization alone with regard to its longstanding “morally straight” policy against openly homosexual and atheist members and Scoutmasters. You are abusing your role on the Scouts’ Executive Board by publicly advocating that the Scouts change their homosexuality policy. At the very least, your actions are helping to energize other, more militant, activists in their ongoing (and often hateful) campaign against the Scouts. For the sake of the Scouts, it is incumbent upon you to either resign from the Scouts’ Executive Board or stop undermining the BSA with your pro-homosexual advocacy.

For many years now, the Boy Scouts have endured tremendous persecution and harassment at the hands of homosexual activists, including being dragged into a protracted legal battle that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court (which in 2000 upheld the BSA’s freedom to adhere to its own moral code). We ask you to refrain from opening up that wound again in the name of a modern “tolerance” that is shockingly intolerant of Judeo-Christian moral and religious teachings.

You err in assuming that homosexuality is mainly a “civil rights” issue; it is actually a matter of changeable, unhealthy, volitional behavior — and a contentious moral issue. Most parents simply would not be comfortable with the idea of ”modeling” that unnatural behavior to their sons through Scouting activities. (It should go without saying that it is not “bigotry” but rather common sense for parents to be wary of sending their sons on camping trips with adult homosexual men.) A pro-homosexual posture by the Scouts (in the name of “non-discrimination”) would drive away many parents and prospective Scouts.

Read the rest of this article »

Studies find male bisexuals conduits of HIV to heterosexual women

By Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH Exclusive

• “MSMW [men who have sex with men and women] may serve as a conduit for HIV transmission between MSM [men who have sex with men] and heterosexuals.”
• “Consistent with previous studies, compared with MSW [men who have sex with women], MSMW reported significantly higher numbers of sex partners and were significantly more likely to engage in anal intercourse with their female partners.” – Journal of Urban Health, July 2009, “Behaviorally Bisexual Men and their Risk Behaviors with Men and Women”

CHICAGO–Talk about marketing perversion and unhealthy behavior to kids: take a look at these photos of “Captain Bisexual” marching in Sunday’s Chicago homosexual “pride” parade. He is the ostensibly child-friendly face of a group called Bisexual Queer Alliance Chicago. Click on the photos to enlarge them and notice the youth in the background. Even though it appeared that organizers had dialed down the more raunchy floats compared to past “Chicago Pride” parades (I’ve observed three or four Chicago parades), there were still some X-rated contingents and spectacles like this that were utterly inappropriate for children. And yet, as you can see, many children looked on from the sidelines.

What exactly is “Bisexual Justice,” anyway? (What about Bisexual Injustice, i.e., the role of bisexuals in spreading HIV from homosexual men to heterosexual women? [See this 2009 study in the Journal of Urban Health and this short essay.]) And what would “Bisexual Marriage” look like? It is troubling that parents of young and teenaged children would bring them to a parade where popular youthful images (comic-book superheroes) are used to normalize unhealthy and immoral behaviors:

AS YOUNG CHILDREN LOOK ON: 'Captain Bisexual' of "Bisexual Queer Alliance Chicago" waves his "Bisexual Justice" banner as he strolls down North Broadway St. in Chicago's "gay" pride parade, June 25, 2012. Photos: Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH.org.

Read the rest of this article »

Stay tuned for our photo-coverage of Chicago’s “Gay” Pride Parade, as homosexual activists and their political allies ramp up their campaign to force homosexual “marriage” by judicial fiat on the people of Illinois. Below is the float of Lambda Legal, the leading national homosexual lawyers’ organization — and one of three top homosexual activist groups operating in Illlinois. (The other two are the ACLU and Equality Illinois.) The slogan at the bottom reads: “Bringing Marriage Equality to the Midwest.” Lambda Legal and the ACLU are suing to overturn Illinois’ existing marriage law defining marriage as what it actually is: the union of a man and a woman. They have been joined by Illinois’ Attorney General, Lisa Madigan (D) – and other top elected officials (all Democrats) — who chose to side with the pro-homosexual-”marriage” lawsuit rather than defend the marriage law:

Folks, it is pretty pathetic but I believe Rep. David Reis is the only Illinois Republican lawmaker to put out a press release (below) in opposition to Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s (D) unprecedented decision NOT to defend the state’s law defining marriage as one-man, one-woman, but rather to support two pro-homosexual lawsuits to overturn it. Hopefully the dysfunctional IL-GOP and the state’s conservatives and Christians will wake up before it is too late and Illinois has homosexual “marriage” imposed on it by judicial fiat, like its neighbor to the West. – Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH

____________________________

Press Release, Office of St. Rep. David Reis

June 08, 2012

Olney, IL.–State Representative David Reis (R-Ste. Marie) is calling upon Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to recuse herself and the resources of her taxpayer-funded state office from supporting two lawsuits questioning the constitutionality of Illinois’ gay marriage ban.

“As Attorney General, it is her office’s duty to support the Illinois Constitution. Statutorily, it has been long established in Illinois that marriage is between a man and a woman,” Reis said. “Madigan’s use of scarce taxpayer resources is an injustice to the oath of office she swore to uphold.”

Attorney General Lisa Madigan stated her office would not defend the state’s marriage definition by law, saying her office will “present the court with arguments that explain why the challenged statutory provisions do not satisfy the guarantee of equality under the Illinois Constitution.”

“The current statutory definition banning gay marriage in Illinois does not violate Illinoisans constitutional rights. In fact, it is just the opposite,” Reis said. “Allowing gay marriage in Illinois would violate our citizens’ religious freedoms by forcing religions to recognize marriages not in accordance with their beliefs.”

Read the rest of this article »