Grove City College professor Warren Throckmorton -- who is on record affirming homosexuality as "natural, normal and healthy" despite the College's biblical faith charter -- has joined homosexual activists in crusading against Uganda's proposed Anti-Homosexuality law. Perhaps Throckmorton, who has lost his faith in the ability of Jesus Christ to help "homosexuals" leave the lifestyle, could learn something from the more biblically faithful Ugandans.

TAKE ACTION: contact Grove City College HERE and GCC President Richard G. Jewell (rgjewell@gcc.edu; 724-458-2500) and request a written explanation as to why they employ an activist professor who undermines the Bible’s clear teachings on homosexuality as a changeable sin (and not a natural “orientation”).

___________________________

Folks, I’ve been trying to avoid the Ugandan “Culture War” on homosexuality because I figure we’re busy enough with our own here in the USA. But that hasn’t stopped American homosexual activists and fellow travelers like Professor Warren Throckmorton of the “evangelical” Grove City College from insinuating themselves into the Ugandan situation. (Sadly, Warren has lost his faith in the ability of God to radically change homosexuals through Christ, and now busily works — even in Uganda! — to promote the faithless and disheartening message that most “gays and lesbians” cannot change their basic “orientation”; see his Uganda Independent column in which he makes that assertion HERE.)

Here’s the question I keep asking myself about the Uganda controversy: just what is it that qualifies the United States of America to lecture the Ugandans about homosexuality? Is it our public policy that enshrines immoral sexual behavior (oops: “sexual orientation”) and gender confusion (er…”gender identity and expression”) as a “civil right”? Is it our homosexual “marriage” laws that make a mockery of this divine institution (laws about which Prof. Throckmorton is curiously silent)? How about our pro-homosexuality educational propaganda in K-12 schools that corrupts young students’ minds in the name of “tolerance”? Or the 24/7 “gay bathhouses” and sex clubs that proliferate in urban centers across the United States to facilitate quick-and-easy (and anonymous) deviant sexual hook-ups? (“Come to America: where you can have all the safe sodomy you want! Discounts for students (no joke) and free condoms available for your perverted pleasure!”)

Tell me: does Uganda have something to learn from Christian “defectors” like the opportunistic Prof. Throckmorton — who is now a de facto promoter of homosexuality as normal, natural and healthy while ostensibly still claiming some sort of “Christian” mission at GCC? (Grove City College boasts in evangelical circles that it is “authentically Christian” — an advertising claim of diminishing accuracy the longer it abides likes of Throckmorton.)

[TAKE ACTION: contact Grove City College HERE and GCC President Richard G. Jewell (rgjewell@gcc.edu; 724-458-2500) and request a written explanation as to why they employ an activist professor who undermines the Bible's clear teachings on homosexuality as a changeable sin (and not a natural "orientation").]

Challenge to Accommodationists: I stand corrected if Prof. Throckmorton or any Grove City prof — indeed, any homosexual activist or pro-”gay” apologist — can show me anything resembling “sexual orientation” in the Bible as this concept is currently understood and posited in academia, the media and society.

Nope. What we’re seeing here is sheer Western activist arrogance. (Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media calls it “Homosexual Imperialism.”) I haven’t yet studied the proposed Ugandan legislation but I agree with Bob Knight’s analysis below — and AFTAH is clearly on record opposing draconian penalties for homosexuality like those imposed by jihadist Islamic radicals. But I do know this: Uganda would do well to avoid the example set by America of a cultural-elite-driven society that celebrates homosexuality (along with other sexual immoralities) — and then reaps the whirlwind that results, including the following:

• devastating (public) health crises that are prolonged by the politically correct protection of the very sexual misbehaviors that helped spread the disease in the first place;
• the proliferation of “gay” activist groups that war against Judeo-Christian values and cruelly smear people of faith who dare to defend those values;
• pro-homosexuality, politically correct indoctrination — even on the job — masquerading as “diversity” — i.e., the gradual replacement of Christian proselytization with the institutional advocacy of sin, disguised as tolerance;
• public immorality and annual “gay pride” parades that subject children to immoral displays including public nudity;
• the undermining of historic Judeo-Christian teachings on sex and marriage; “queer” theological attacks on the Bible and sacred texts due to their unambiguous teachings against homosexual acts;
• the rise of “gay”-sympathetic, anti-religious bigotry and even laws that criminalize the outworking of a biblically-informed conscience against homosexuality; legal and cultural harassment of moral-minded organizations like the Boy Scouts and Salvation Army that refuse to treat homosexuality as a civil right;
• the corruption and victimization of children — including ever younger “coming out” ages for children declaring their supposed “gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender” (“queer”) identity.
• turning the public schools into indoctrination zones for the “GLBT” ideology — all in the name of tolerance and “protecting kids”; the spread of “gay” school clubs, first to high schools, then to middle schools, and ultimately to grade schools.

As you can see, most of America’s “lessons” on homosexuality for Uganda are negative ones. Could it be that the more faith-filled and Bible-trusting African Christians have something to teach jaded Americans like Barack Obama and Warren Throckmorton about homosexuality?  – Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org ; send us your thoughts at americansfortruth@comcast.net

__________________________________

The following is a column by Bob Knight in World Net Daily:

____________________________________________

All the bile that’s fit to print

Exclusive: Robert Knight hits N.Y. Times for ‘knee-jerk spasms’ targeting Christians

Posted on WND January 13, 2010

You cannot find a better example of selective outrage and character assassination than the Jan. 5 New York Times editorial, “Hate begets hate.”

This humdinger of a self-descriptive screed has it all: wild, unsubstantiated charges; villains; hysterical calls for action; and a smug, holier-than-thou tone that would put “Saturday Night Live”’s Church Lady to shame.

At issue is Uganda’s proposed law criminalizing homosexuality. But the editorial’s real focus is crucifying Christians who had given talks in Uganda and any part of Christendom that has not bowed its knee to the gay gods.

The Times notes that “three evangelical Christians, whose teachings about ‘curing’ gays and lesbians have been widely discredited in the United States, helped feed this hatred.” The editorial names Scott Lively, Caleb Lee Brundidge and Don Schmierer, who “gave a series of talks” last March that “claimed that gays and lesbians are a threat to Bible-based family values.”

I don’t know Mr. Brundidge, but I do know Mr. Lively and Mr. Schmierer. Both are honest and courageous men who, out of Christian compassion, dare to tell the truth about homosexuality. For this, the Times brands them as hatemongers.

While Mr. Lively has written perceptively and passionately about countering the homosexual activists’ political and cultural agenda, there is no evidence of “hate.” Trying to steer someone away from destructive, immoral, changeable behavior is an act of love, not hate. And it is beyond absurd to label as a bigot a man like Don Schmierer, who supports AIDS ministries and reaches out to sexually conflicted people with the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ. Casting the gentle, soft spoken Mr. Schmierer as a “hater” is like calling Mother Teresa a foul-mouthed harpy.

These men discuss sexual behavior and its consequences for individuals, families and societies, and the blessings of God-given hope. As is typical for a fully owned subsidiary of the homosexual activist movement, the Times falsely claims that the Christian leaders oppose the people themselves. The Times has bought into and promoted the media-fed fiction that people are born gay, cannot change and therefore their volitional sexual behavior is synonymous with identity. In gay parlance, it’s “who they are,” not what they do.

This is nonsense. If we are defined by our sexual behavior, then men addicted to pornography are nothing more than “pornophiles.” It is homosexual activists who have insisted on making sexual desire the be-all and end-all of personal identity. They did this to hijack the moral capital of the black civil-rights movement, equating “sexual orientation” with immutable characteristics like skin color or ethnicity. One big problem remains for them, though. Skin color and ethnicity are morally neutral. Sexual behavior is fraught with moral, social and physical consequences and has been regulated by every society since time began.

The Times ignores the Christian men’s pointed criticisms of the proposed Uganda law and says, “We don’t have much hope that they will atone for their acts.”

Well, we don’t have a whole lot of hope that the Times will atone for its many portrayals of Christians as hate-filled bigots whenever the “gay” issue surfaces. They are following the playbook of “After the Ball,” a gay strategy manual from 1989 that instructs activists to “jam” opponents into silence through threats of guilt by association, outright smears and phony “scientific” claims that go unexamined. The strategy has worked brilliantly, as even conservative voices have been frightened into silence or into steadily ceding moral ground, circling the wagons only around the word “marriage.”

The Times is not alone, of course, in its relentless pursuit of homosexual orthodoxy. On Jan. 7, the Washington Post ran an editorial about Uganda entitled, “A barbaric proposal.” The Post editors, at least, did not engage in Christian bashing, and stuck to very real problems with the proposed law. They did repeat a gay mantra, however: “Being gay is not a choice.”

Science has by no means settled the issue. None of the highly publicized studies by gay researchers in the 1990s has been replicated, and several have been discredited. Then, too, there is the inconvenient existence of many people who engage in homosexuality for years and later embrace the straight life. The “ex-gay” movement is large and growing, but the media are keeping it one of the best-kept secrets out of deference to militant gay activists in the newsrooms.

Uganda has been in the cultural elites’ hot water before by bucking the U.S.-backed condom crusade in Africa and slashing its AIDS rate with campaigns for abstinence and fidelity. The current homosexuality bill is seriously flawed. It contains such overreaches as jail terms for people who do not report homosexual activity and life imprisonment for people who engage in the behavior. But the Times and the Post go beyond criticizing the harsher aspects of the law and attack the underlying concern of Ugandans to defend marriage and family, avoid the corruption of their children and put the brakes on AIDS and other diseases.

The Times and the Post warn that Uganda will become a “pariah” nation “shunned globally” if the law is passed. That may be so. But it might behoove the press to take a closer look at some other countries in Africa whose governments, in the grip of Muslim extremism, routinely cut off people’s heads merely for changing religions. Some nations, such as Egypt, have governments that look the other way as young Christian girls are abducted, raped and forced into Muslim marriages. Do these nations qualify as “pariahs”?

The Times’ editors need to come to terms with their knee-jerk spasms against evangelical Christians and others who defend family values. They routinely depict pro-marriage Americans as motivated solely by hatred and prejudice, never by genuine, heartfelt concerns.

In their editorial’s own words: “You can’t preach hate and not accept responsibility for the way that hate is manifested.”

If this is so, the next equipment the Times should order for its newsroom is … a mirror.

____________________________

Robert Knight is senior writer and correspondent for Coral Ridge Ministries and the author of “Fighting for America’s Soul” (Coral Ridge 2009) and the upcoming book “Radical Rulers.”

The following is the account by Linda Harvey, my friend and the founder of the Ohio-based group Mission America, about our walk through the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco September 28. We were joined by Diane Gramley of American Family Association of Pennsylvania, whose account we will also post. –Peter LaBarbera

_______________________________

By Linda Harvey

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

SAN FRANCISCO, Cal., Sept. 30 — The need to pass California’s Proposition 8, upholding marriage between one man and one woman, has never been greater in my view after spending an afternoon at the San Francisco Folsom Street Fair on September 28.With well over 100,000 attendees, it’s unfortunately the third largest street event in California.

Folsom Street displayed the fully ripened rotten fruit of ‘tolerance’ and showed where it takes us: toward public nudity, public sex and consensual sex violence. The goal of same sex ‘marriage’ is the legitimate-appearing sister with an ugly evil twin: the movement toward total pansexual license throughout our culture. And concern for the effect on kids? Out the window.

We observed many buttons and signs urging ‘no’ votes on Prop 8 and also many signs supporting Barack Obama. This is the kind of wise public policy we can anticipate as a Folsom Fair mentality gains legitimacy, which it clearly has in San Francisco.

Along with the heads of several other pro-family groups, I spent four excruciating hours walking through the fair, documenting its horrors. One might ask, why bother? Two reasons. Here in San Francisco, most no longer have a problem with such outlandish behavior. These radical, misguided and lost people need to be challenged out of their comfort with this depravity. Can any of them be pulled from this fire?

But local officials seem entrenched in the endorsement of depravity. Mayor Gavin Newsom issued a letter last week congratulating the Fair on its 25 year anniversary. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, third in line for the presidency, represents San Francisco but she has yet to utter a word of criticism against the Fair, even with its history of virulent anti-Christian blasphemy.

A second concern, at least as important, is the need to warn the rest of America: sit out this dance with the homosexual agenda, and Folsom Street and its offspring will be on your doorstep, beckoning your children, within a short time. Already, some of these elements—nudity, sex acts, sado-masochism– are popping up in the growing number of street parties and ‘gay’ pride parades around the country.

The folks in San Francisco are woefully out of touch with mainstream America. Do you find whipping, being tied up (bondage) and master-slave role playing just normal variations of sexual behavior? We didn’t think so. But we had a chance to talk with the spokesperson for a national sado-masochism group, Susan Wright, who believes conservatives are few and far between, greatly eclipsed by a majority who accept these behaviors. She also thinks sado-masochism is an inborn “sexual orientation,” worthy at some point of legal recognition. In other words, some people are genetically wired to desire being whipped or chained for sexual pleasure. Current sexual orientation policies could be utilized to establish this new identity category, she believes.

What we witnessed at the Fair was almost beyond belief. Half or more of the crowd consisted of homosexual men, some fully nude. The smell of marijuana was everywhere. Masters and their ‘slaves’ strolled about. One man and woman were wrapped in pythons. Many college age kids and young adults were present.

We witnessed at least one open sex act, and many more episodes of male-to- male groping. Several vendor areas featured sado-masochistic acts. At one, they held a ‘charity whipping.’ The Fair itself donates much of its revenue to charity, which evidently excuses the perversion. Some goes to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the twisted men-in-drag so infamous for mocking Christianity, heterosexuality and the Catholic church. The ‘sisters’ collect the entrance fee donations at the Fair gates. When I asked for an interview, one of them declined when he learned I was with a conservative Christian group.

So at the Society of Janus whipping booth, we witnessed a girl and a guy tied up and flogged. The girl, nude from the waist up, looked like she was in real pain. There was a huge group congregated around this area. I was truly sickened in an atmosphere of palpable spiritual evil.

At other booths, blasphemous sex toys were on sale. One could purchase items named after the Father, Jesus, Mary and so on. Homosexual pornography was available everywhere. And one vendor, ‘Pan’s Devil Horns,’affixed horns onto the heads of eager fair-goers.

It was at this booth that we experienced an encounter with the truly dark side, as we were spotted and identified as Fair critics. A tall, scantily- dressed older guy pointed at Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth, and shouted, ‘It’s the religious right! They want to shut down the Fair! They’re here to take away your rights and to stop gay marriage!’ A sea of heads turned as this man followed us relentlessly for several blocks and continued to shout and point. He shoved LaBarbera, who told him to stop or he would call the police. When asked what his name was, our harasser replied, ‘Beelzebub!’ Indeed.

Another episode of overt spiritual warfare occurred after we exited the Fair to avoid our pursuer and re-entered at another gate (the Fair encompasses thirteen city blocks). We spotted a group of what appeared to be young teens laughing and dancing, apparently quite intoxicated. One boy was dressed as a girl. We approached them and asked if we could talk. One insisted he was eighteen; another said twenty. They looked more like fifteen or sixteen.

In an extended conversation with the ‘eighteen-year-old,’ I was told his parents didn’t care what he did. He held a triple X-rated ‘gay’ porn DVD evidently obtained at the Fair. Yet he was eager to talk to me, insisting he did not want to be homosexual and had tried to stop since he was eleven. I challenged him: then why are you here? Do you really want to stop? If so, don’t come to events like this. He said he just couldn’t help himself. I gently urged him to re-think his identity—that God had made him a guy, wonderfully able to have a relationship with a girl. He nodded. ‘I know,’ he said.

Just at that moment, before we could continue, the youth’s ‘boyfriend’ began screeching insults and obscenities at me. ‘You’re an *&##!’ He continued this screeching rant, growing louder and more out of control, until finally, a passer-by said, ‘Oh, leave her alone!’ We never continued the dialogue, because the group of boys disappeared into the crowd.

We spoke with police twice, after noting their consistent failure to detain any of the naked men strolling by. I asked a policeman why they didn’t do something about the nudity. He told us that his supervisors had given instructions to leave it alone. We got truly mixed signals about the legality of public nudity and public sex acts. Liberty Counsel researched California law and found that three California state laws (Sections 311.6, 313 and 314 of the California Code) applied to public indecency, with jail time of up to six months. And signs going into the Fair announced, ‘Nudity is Illegal.’ With so many openly nude men, this was almost comical.

Confusion or deception abounds. We were told by Susan Wright, our sado-masochism activist, that nudity is not illegal. One TV reporter asked why we focused solely on Folsom Street, since there’s a huge race called Bay to Breakers in San Francisco in the spring where many of the race participants, both men and women, are fully nude. So much for the rule of law in California.

In years past, young children were observed in the Folsom Fair crowd. Our group only spotted one stroller with a child this year— one too many– but there were definitely many teens.  Signs and written notices at the entrances gave heightened warnings about the attendance of children, stronger than previous years, perhaps due to criticism by pro-family groups.

Among other vendors was the San Francisco Department of Health, with two huge penises in their booth, presumably so their public health oversight could be taken seriously. AIDS education groups were also present, using taxpayer funds wisely.  Also on hand was one of my personal favorite groups, PFLAG, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. While we will not be able to show them to you in a pro-family context, it was easy to photograph nude men posing for cameras in front of the PFLAG booth. PFLAG is a consistent advocate of homosexuality and gender change among teens and even children.

The New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle had booths also, casting aside all pretense of objectivity.  And the San Francisco Police Department had a recruiting booth, so apparently the blind can continue to lead the blind.  I wonder: were nude men welcome to fill out applications?

By 6 pm, the vendors were closing down, intoxicated and high attendees were staggering away, and trash was blowing everywhere. We were wrapping up an extended interview LaBarbera had with Susan Wright. It was surreal, talking with an apparently coherent official spokesperson for this depravity. She firmly believes that children should not be exposed to this, that there are ethics about sexual experimentation and sado-masochism, that all these radical behaviors can be ‘managed’ carefully. I felt like shouting at her: look around you. This dark and depressing climate is the predictable result of ‘progressive’ ideas.

This de-humanization is actually regressive. There’s nothing new here: it’s primitive tribalism and the sins of the Old Testament pagan nations reincarnated, spiraling downward into barbarism. Only the sane and discerning can save California and the rest of America from its debased exports.

Christ came to save people from drowning in their own excess, but in the City by the Bay, drowning is not only apparently acceptable, it is eagerly pursued. So sad.

http://www.missionamerica.com/homosexual.php?articlenum=71

SEE Part 1, now at
http://www.missionamerica.com/homosexual.php?articlenum=72

FOR PHOTOS and MORE, go to Americans for Truth photo-story:

http://americansfortruth.com/news/nudity-is-illegal-but-nudity-was-everywhere-at-folsom-street-fair.html

Coverage by the San Francisco Chronicle:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/29/BAVP137PGV.DTL

Two previous AFTAH photo-stories exposing San Francisco public perversion and nudity:

• 2007 Folsom Street Fair: “Tolerance Gone Wild in San Francisco”
• 2008 Up Your Alley street fair: “Nudity Fills San Francisco Streets as Cops Look on and Do Nothing at ‘Up Your Alley’ Street Fair”

_________________________________
More from Mission America:

Why is America’s youth being drawn into primitive practices and weird sexuality? Find out in Linda Harvey’s new book,”NOT MY CHILD: Contemporary Paganism and the New Spirituality.” Order it HERE on ChristianBook.com.

Get your children out of the public schools NOW, or start today fighting anti-Christian, pro-homosexual teaching!

For the latest news about the homosexual agenda in our schools, go to Mission America’s companion web site,

www.truthatschool.org/news.htm

AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera says, “Mission America is one of the finest organizations in America: please help support Linda’s vital work on behalf of our children and public school students.”

Mission America
PO Box 21836
Columbus, OH 43221

www.missionamerica.com

Soulforce founder Mel White, pictured here with his homosexual lover Gary Nixon, accused Christians who adhere to historic Church teachings on the sinfulness of homosexuality of “spiritual violence” against homosexuals. Despite his and Soulforce’s manipulative tactics, God’s Word is not negotiable.

Folks, in reading this release by Gary Cass, I cannot help but wonder if the several churches that agreed to meet with the homosexual activist group Soulforce — including Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois — were naive about its radical agenda. Soulforce and its founder, Mel White, have always used manipulative and deceptive strategies (including the wordsmith White’s calculated accusation that faithful Christians are guilty of “spiritual violence” against homosexuals).

Soulforce is a nefarious organization that seeks to undermine Biblical truth about one particular sexual sin — homosexuality. Their pleadings for “dialogue” with Christians are merely a tactic — the camel’s nose in the tent, as it were — part of their larger goal of duping believers into compromising on God’s Word. We ask again: would Willow Creek Church or other mega-churches enter into (forced) “dialogue” with a “Christian porn” group? We hope not. Pray for White and the entire Soulforce crew — including “straight allies” like Jay Bakker, who claims to have received a special pro-homosexual revelation from God.

Christians must minister the Gospel in love to sinners in need of Christ’s forgiveness and healing power. But unless we are open to “dialoguing” with advocates of other sins, we shouldn’t do so with activists who twist the Bible to accommodate homosexuality. God’s Word is not negotiable.–Peter LaBarbera

________________________________

Christian Anti-Defamation Commission

News Release

June 13, 2008

In an outrageous example of sloppy journalism, Newsweek’s Lisa Miller defamed Pastor Rick Warren, the best-selling Christian author and mega-church pastor. Miller reported Warren compromised on the matter of homosexuality.

The bogus claims originated with a homosexual activist group, Soulforce. It issued a press release stating they were meeting with Rick Warren for a “conversation” and that Warren was inviting homosexual fathers to come to church on Father’s day.

Timothy Egan of The New York Times furthered the lie. Neither major news outlet fact checked the story.

Rick Warren responded: “Newsweek quoted a Soulforce press release headline that was 100% false. We did not invite this group and I will not be meeting with them. They invited themselves to draw attention to their cross country publicity stunt.”

“Soulforce is not trying to have a ‘conversation,’ it is trying to force its pro-homosexual agenda on to churches. Newsweek and the New York Times owe Rick Warren an apology for publishing reports he compromised the Christian view of family,” said Dr. Gary Cass, of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission.

“God ordained marriage to be between ‘one man for one woman for one lifetime.’ Warren would never intentionally undermine that standard,” said Cass. “Soul Force’s attempt to legitimize its radical homosexual views by associating themselves with Rick Warren’s ministry is deceitful and shameful.”

Soulforce is the middle of a mega-church blitz called “The American Family Outing.” This trip is an effort to “spark a conversation” between the gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgender families and the members of the six mega-churches. The tour ends at Warren’s Saddleback Church in California.

“Soul force says they want to ’spark a conversation.’ Too bad for Soul Force they just set their own pants on fire,” said Cass. “If Soulforce can rationalize their homosexuality and work to destroy God’s institution of marriage, then defaming a faithful Christian minister along the way must apparently not be a that big of a deal.”

ACTION ITEM: E-mail Newsweek’s editor and ask that they issue a retraction and an apology to Rick Warren for publishing a false report that he compromised the Christian value of traditional family. Send email to WebEditors@newsweek.com.

CADC
PO Box 39875
Ft. Lauderdale, FL. 33339
(866)508-2232
www.christianadc.org

To contact the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission email contact@christianadc.org.

Media ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ about Key Ruling
Court’s affirmation of military policy goes unreported even by AP, which instead exhorts Democrats to rescind ban on homosexuality.

By Robert Knight and Julia Seward
Culture and Media Institute
June 12, 2008

When it comes to reporting on court rulings about the military’s ban on homosexuality, the media seem to have their own “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

A case in point was Monday’s ruling by the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Cook vs. Gates upholding the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy, established by Congress and President Clinton in 1993, which enables the military to remove open homosexuals from service.

There was no coverage by the TV networks, nor by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today or the Washington Post. The Associated Press (AP) ignored the story as well. Only the Boston Globe and Boston Herald carried brief articles on it, because the case originated in Boston.

In contrast, the New York Times had a 511-word piece by Adam Liptak on a Ninth Circuit Court decision reinstating a lesbian Air Force major’s lawsuit against the policy. AP had a preview article on May 21 and coverage of the decision on May 22. The latter article, by Gene Johnson, had the usual inclusion of a pro-gay spokesman “hailing” the ruling, and no one defending the military’s policy. CNN also ran a brief piece on it.

On Wednesday, Associated Press continued its biased coverage of the issue by running a story by Anne Flaherty titled, “Dems reluctant to take on ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’

The article, which was picked up by ABCNews.com, does not mention the federal court ruling two days before, nor the May 22 ruling. Flaherty begins:

“Democrats say the nation should be ashamed of its ban on gays serving openly in the military. It discourages qualified people from joining the ranks at a time when the armed forces are stretched by two wars, they say, and is degrading to those willing to serve their country.

“So what have the Democrats done about it? Nothing, really.”

Substitute the word journalists for the word Democrats and you get a precise picture of where the media are on this issue. Many reporters are past pretending to be objective, and sometimes even descend to taunting fellow liberals for not moving fast enough on their pet issue.

When something happens that they don’t like, such as a federal court ruling, they sometimes respond with a news blackout. In this case, they followed up by hectoring public officials.

AP writer Flaherty’s story is a classic example of biased journalism. Flaherty quotes Nathaniel Frank, identifying him only as “a senior research fellow at the Michael D. Palm Center in Santa Barbara, Calif., who supports eliminating the ban.” She does not share with readers that the Palm Center is a pro-homosexual advocacy group formerly called the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at UC Santa Barbara.

Click HERE to read the rest of the story on CMI’s website

The following was sent out today by Gary Bauer as his “End of Day” e-mail for the Campaign for Working Families. Click HERE to sign up for Bauer’s excellent publication, which I enjoy reading every day. For a take on the Left’s reaction, here’s the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force’s press release on New York Gov. David Patterson’s imperious, pro-homosexual-”marriage” act. (What an ally for the governor: keep in mind that the loony Task Force in February gave its annual “Leather Leadership Award” to a homosexual sadistic sex activist who specializes in “consensual” sexual “slavery.”) — Peter LaBarbera

Emphasis added below:

Time To Get Serious

California officials have announced that the state will begin issuing same-sex “marriage” licenses on June 17th. Unless the state Supreme Court agrees to stay its ruling until after the November election, when the people will have the opportunity to vote on a marriage protection amendment, marriage licenses in America’s most populace state will no longer read “Husband” and “Wife,” but will instead list “Party A” and “Party B.” That’s just the beginning.

The words “husband” and “wife” will soon disappear from our lexicon altogether, having been banished as “hate speech” as they are exclusionary and discriminatory. The words will be banned from textbooks because they might offend some parent whose child doesn’t have a mother and a father, but instead two “parties.”

In response to an appeals court ruling brought by a homosexual couple “married” in Canada, the governor of New York [David Patterson] has just issued an executive order requiring the Empire State to recognize homosexual “marriages” performed in other jurisdictions, such as California, Canada and Massachusetts. According to the New York Times, New York will be the only state that recognizes homosexual “marriages” where homosexual “marriage” is not legal. How can that be? In 2006, the state’s highest court refused to recognize same-sex “marriage” and rightly said the issue should be decided by the legislature.

But the governor’s action effectively circumvents the state’s highest court, bows to foreign law and violates the principle of separation of powers by superseding the legislature. Again, we are witnessing the advance of the homosexual agenda by the most undemocratic means possible. The governor of New York and the appeals court judges should be impeached.

In response to earlier efforts to redefine the meaning of marriage, concerned citizens successfully passed marriage protection amendments in 27 states. All the amendments are subject to federal court review, which is probably coming sooner than we realize. To counter that threat, the pro-family movement has promoted a federal marriage amendment, but liberal Democrats in Congress have defeated it twice.

MRSA Outbreak Among ‘Gays’ – Let the Whitewash Begin  

By J. Matt Barber

Reprinted with permission of CWA, which posted this article January 25, 2008

By even reporting on this study the media has ticked off that 500-pound homosexual activist gorilla.

You can’t help but feel a little sorry for Amanda Beck. She’s a reporter from Reuters who was among the first to cover a new study conducted by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, which warns about an outbreak of a virulent, drug-resistant, and potentially deadly strain of Staph infection afflicting certain segments of the homosexual community.

Although outbreaks of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, have primarily been confined to hospitals in the past, the study determined that, due to “high risk behaviors” beyond hospital walls – such as “anal sex” – men who have sex with men are now 13 times more likely to contract the infection.

Because this particular strain can be transmitted through “skin-to-skin contact,” researchers fear the outbreak “has the potential for rapid, nationwide dissemination” and will spread to “the general population.” Once it does, they say it will be “unstoppable.”

The initial reporting by some in the mainstream media, even The New York Times, was fairly accurate and balanced. It superficially addressed the study’s lucid data and sound conclusions.

But all that quickly changed.

You see, by even reporting on this study, Amanda Beck and her media codefendants deviated from the script. They broke the rules. And in so doing, they really, really ticked off that 500-pound homosexual activist gorilla and his yappy, apple polishing lapdogs back at media central.

Here’s where Amanda went wrong. She objectively provided scientific information to the public which cast “high risk” homosexual conduct in a negative light. She led people to a credible medical study that underscores the potential consequences of a demonstrably dangerous and desperately empty lifestyle.

She dared to report the study’s genuine findings, and for that, Amanda Beck and her media co-condemned will, no doubt, be working the obits beat in journalistic Siberia until they’ve successfully completed obligatory “sensitivity” training.

Dr. Binh Diep, the researcher who led the study, told Reuters, “Once this reaches the general population, it will be truly unstoppable … ‘We think that it’s spread through sexual activity.’”

And the fan was thusly and most directly hit.

Now began the backpedaling: “Move along, folks, nothing to see here,” seemed to bark The New York Times, Newsweek and other media outlets. “Ignore that homosexual pressure group behind the curtain.”

Following the lead of “gay” activists, the mainstream media desperately scrambled to change the subject, engaging in a classic “kill-the-messenger” strategy. The researchers who conducted the study were even attacked, and calls by groups like Concerned Women for America (CWA) to end political promotion of the “high-risk behaviors” associated with the outbreak were warped through a prism of obfuscation and misdirection.

Homosexual groups and the media set up a mean ol’ straw man and took to knocking the stuffing out of him. Conservative organizations were suggested to have claimed the outbreak was “the new AIDS,” a “new gay disease” and “the gay plague,” all things which nobody I know ever implied.

They mischaracterized a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statement on the controversy as a repudiation of the study (which, of course, it was not). “There is no evidence at this time to suggest that MRSA is a sexually-transmitted infection in the classical sense,” read the statement. Again, nobody said MRSA was “a sexually-transmitted infection in the classical sense.” (Emphasis added). The study merely found that, as it pertains to certain segments of the “gay” community, it was being transmitted through “high-risk” sexual behaviors.

The New York Times disingenuously reported that the researchers had “issued an apology” for releasing “their findings.” “We deplore negative targeting of specific populations in association with MRSA infections or other public health concerns,” said Dr. Henry Chambers in what hardly amounted to “an apology.”

But the coup de grace came when Kevin Berger – some cat over at Salon Magazine – personally attacked me. He noted that a handful of professional football players with turf burns had also contracted MRSA.

So desperate was he to downplay this behaviorally related MRSA outbreak among “gays” that he wrote an entire article built around the premise that, “It is fair to reason that more American men play football than have sex with one another.”

That little bit of flapdoodle was so rich that I was tempted to respond in kind with an article but decided against it. This poor fellow’s tortured logic betrays his folly. I wouldn’t want to pile on. It’d be like pulling a little girl’s pigtails, and I hate to appear “mean-spirited.”

Nonetheless, Berger’s dodgy rationalization perfectly encapsulates the strategy employed by both the homosexual lobby and the rest of his media cohorts. They can’t possibly be this deep in denial, so the cover-up must be intentional.

Still, the actual study left little room for rationalization. It determined that the spread of MRSA, “among men who have sex with men is associated with high-risk behaviors, including use of methamphetamine and other illicit drugs, sex with multiple partners, participation in a group sex party, use of the internet for sexual contacts, skin-abrading sex, and history of sexually transmitted infections.”

Ultimately, the study warned that, “Having male-male sex seems to be a risk factor for [MRSA] … The infection frequently manifests as an abscess or cellulitis in the buttocks, genitals, or perineum, and male-male sex was a risk factor.”

The study found that this behaviorally related “[MRSA] epidemic probably started in San Francisco and has been disseminated by the frequent cross-coastal travel of men who have sex with men.”

It all boils down to this: The human body is quite callous in how it handles mistreatment and the perversion of its natural functions. When two men mimic the act of heterosexual intercourse with one another, they create an environment, a biological counterfeit, wherein disease can thrive. Unnatural behaviors beget natural consequences.

The medical community has known for decades that homosexual conduct, especially among males, creates a breeding ground for often deadly disease. In recent years we’ve seen a profound resurgence in cases of HIV/AIDS, syphilis, rectal gonorrhea and many other STDs among those who call themselves “gay.”

But don’t take my word for it. Ask one of their own. Prolific author and homosexual activist, Jack Hart:

“Many sexually transmitted diseases occur more often among gay men than in the general population. Several factors contribute to this difference: Gay men have the opportunity to engage in sex with more people than do most heterosexual men, and some practices common among gays – especially rimming [anal-oral intercourse] and anal intercourse – are highly efficient at transmitting disease.” (Gay Sex: A Manual for Men Who Love Men, Allyson Books, 1998, pp. 212-213).

Still, don’t just take Jack’s word for it:

“The same patterns of increased sexual risk behaviors among men who have sex with men … have been driving resurgent epidemics of early syphilis, rectal gonorrhea, and new HIV infections in San Francisco, Boston, and elsewhere,” concluded the MRSA study.

So finally, I ask this question, and it is a troubling one indeed: What can one say about the character of organized political activists and mainstream journalists who would intentionally place a deceptive political agenda above the health and well-being of Americans, including members of their own community? … Who would choose to deliberately quash valuable medical information which might save lives simply because it creates a setback to narrow political ambitions?

I know what I’d say, and it sure ain’t nice.

Matt Barber is one of the “like-minded men” with Concerned Women for America. He is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law and serves as CWA’s policy director for cultural issues.

The following item was buried on page B5 in the Metro section of the New York Times, September 12, 2007:

MANHATTAN: RISE IN H.I.V. INFECTION — Rates of infection with the human immunodeficiency virus [H.I.V.] have risen substantially among New York men younger than 30, indicating a shift in the age of the population most vulnerable now to contracting H.I.V. and AIDS, city health officials said yesterday. Over six years starting in 2001, new diagnoses in men who have sex with men and who are under the age of 30 increased by 33 percent, officials said, while the rate for men over 30 decreased by 22 percent. The number of H.I.V. cases among men in the under-30 group increased to 499 in 2006, from 374 in 2001. The group with the fastest-growing rate of H.I.V. infection comprised males between the ages of 13 and 19, for which H.I.V. diagnoses doubled from 2001 to 2006, according to preliminary data from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. — Sarah Kershaw

The following is Allyson Smith’s first installment on the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) conference in San Diego — which she attended representing Americans For Truth. Note the casual mixing of homosexual media with “mainstream” media – all sharing and strategizing around a pro-gay perspective — and the complete lack of opposing voices present at the NLGJA panels. (Allyson tells me that at one panel on “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell,” the moderator said that opponents of homosexuals in the military were invited to speak but declined to attend.)

All this begs the question of whether homosexual reporters working in establishment media can truly be objective — i.e., fair and balanced –  especially when they are assigned to cover homosexual-related issues. Also, note that for ease of reading, we have not put quote marks around the word “gay” as we would normally do. – Peter LaBarbera

By Allyson Smith

Gay Activists & Journalists Mingle and Strategize Together at National Gay Journalists Conference: Day 1 at the NLGJA

On Thursday, August 30, I attended the first of three days of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association convention, held at the Westin Horton Plaza Hotel in downtown San Diego. Although I have been to many homosexual conferences and events since the dawn of the millennium, at times using my real name and at other times an assumed name, this would be my first time to attend such a convention as a totally “out” Christian conservative reporter under the auspices of an organization many homosexual activists hate: Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), headed by longtime pro-family activist Peter LaBarbera.

“What will all these homosexuals do,” I wondered, “once they find out someone from Americans For Truth is here? Will they kick me out? Will they try to embarrass me? Will they call me names? Will they just ignore me?”

Having “prayed up” before arriving at the NLGJA convention, I felt that deep peace which passes all understanding as I opened the Westin’s door. After checking in at the registration desk – so far, so good – I headed to the first session, titled The Right Approach: Covering LGBT Conservatives.

Wayne Besen ’Outs’ Me
Entering the conference room, I encountered session moderator Wayne Besen. Besen is the executive director of Truth Wins Out, described on its website as “a non-profit think tank and educational organization that counters right-wing disinformation campaigns, debunks the ex-gay myth, and provides accurate information about the lives of GLBT people.” Besen is also author of the books Anything But Straight: Debunking the Scandals and Lies behind the Ex-Gay Myth and, most recently, Bashing Back: Wayne Besen on GLBT People, Politics and Culture.

[Editor's Note: for more on Wayne Besen, see AFTAH's posts: Wayne Besen Has Been Taking his Hate Pill again; ‘Gay’ Militant Seeks to ‘Shut Down’ Americans For Truth and Files False Complaint to Illinois AG; CWA Interviews LaBarbera Regarding Deceptive Wayne Besen Complaint.]

It wasn’t the first time I’d encountered Besen that day. Earlier in the morning, while I was still at home getting ready to go to the convention, his name had appeared in my inbox as the result of his copying me on an e-mail discussion he was having with pro-family advocate Guy Adams of ValuesUSA, over the cause of Idaho Senator Larry Craig’s recent bathroom bust. According to Besen, such episodes occur because “fundamentalists” “drive people deep into the closet (or ex-gay ministries, a fancy closet).” Adams and other conservatives, on the other hand, had attempted to point out that homosexual behavior is actually the cause.

Thus, this e-mail conversation was fresh on my mind as I met Besen in the conference room doorway. He glanced at my name badge, noting that I was with AFTAH. I shook his hand, introduced myself, and told him that Peter LaBarbera had sent me. Using the epithet he coined and by which a few of the more nasty homosexuals activists refer to Mr. LaBarbera, Besen in turn told me to say hello to “Porno Pete.” (Ironically, the conference would later feature a session about how to cover stories involving name-calling against homosexuals.)

“Now, just wait,” I thought, “he’ll announce me to the whole room.”

Besen opened the session by introducing the other three “LGBT conservative” panelists:  Dan Blatt, a Los Angeles-based writer who blogs on the GayPatriot.net website and founded the Log Cabin Republican Club of Northern Virginia; Scott Olin Schmidt of West Hollywood, an elected member of the 42nd District Republican Central Committee who also serves on the executive committee of the Los Angeles County Republican Party; and James Vaughn, director of Log Cabin Republicans of California, who said it’s his job to tell Republicans why they’re wrong.

That Larry Craig was on many conference-goers’ minds was evident when Besen fired off his first question to the panelists, asking them for their take on the scandal.

Blatt responded that there had been “terrible saturation” coverage by the media and that Craig had exercised “terrible judgment.” Schmidt said, “This isn’t a gay issue; this is an issue of people who pursue anonymous sex.” Vaughn asserted that Craig’s behavior “shows how dangerous the closet is.” Most of the scandals, he said, came from people living in the closet, not those who live as open homosexuals.

About 20 minutes into the discussion, Besen announced, “We have a friend of ours here, Allyson, from Americans For Truth Against [sic] Homosexuality.”

Waving my hand, I said light-heartedly, “I’m from the right wing. I’m the opposition researcher.” Many people in the room laughed. “I’m friendly; I don’t bite,” I assured them, and the discussion continued.

GOP Drifting ‘Gay’-ward?
Besen asked what it’s like for a gay Republican to walk into a party convention. “Is it better or worse than when you walk into a gay bar?” Here he was joking about his expose a few years back exposing that John Paulk – then an ex-gay spokesman with Focus on the Family – had visited a homosexual bar while on a business trip to D.C.)

The gay Republican, Vaughn, drew laughter as he answered, “Absolutely. It is much easier . . . to walk into a Republican convention and say you’re gay than it is to walk into a gay bar and say you’re a Republican.” Vaughn said he’d been having a lot of meetings recently with elected officials — and that most of them or their staffers said, “We’re with you,” and that homosexuality is not an issue for them.

Vaughn said that conservative groups like Lou Sheldon’s Traditional Values Coalition can’t hold a meeting that would fill a small conference room these days, when in the past they used to fill convention centers, “because they’re just not relevant anymore. They’re fading; they’re going away. People are getting over the gay issue.”

“What we lack in the Republican Party is not support. What we lack is leadership,” he said, confirming that elected officials have told him privately they support same-sex “marriage” but don’t dare say so publicly for fear of their constituents’ reactions.

Blatt, the Los Angeles writer, confirmed a similar experience, saying he finds it easier to be gay in Republican circles than to be Republican in gay circles. Libertarian in many of his views, Blatt said he does not support hate crimes legislation or the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), because he favors less government.

Schmidt asserted that there is a big divide between activist Republicans and the rank-and-file. “Most Republicans are moving toward the center.”

Blatt said, “The party knows it can’t win by being anti-gay.” Vaughn added that if enough GOP leaders “come out” in favor of homosexual issues, it will help to change the party’s rhetoric.

As I was leaving this session, a young woman approached and asked if she could interview me. She turned out to be a Georgia State University student who was attending the conference, along with several other college students from throughout the United States, to report on the NLGJA conference proceedings. According to the NLGJA conference booklet, this is the 10th year that student journalists have come to the convention. We made arrangements to conduct the interview later in the day.

‘Gay Games’/Clear Channel Media Marketing
The next session I attended was Mainstream Media and the LGBT Press: Co-opting or Cooperation? Moderated by Court Passant, executive producer of CBS News on Logo, the panel included Cynthia Laird of the homosexual newspaper Bay Area Reporter, San Diego Union-Tribune writer Pat Sherman, Jared Cohen of Clear Channel Communications, and Kevin Boyer, director of public relations and marketing for All Terrain in Chicago.

Cohen described his experience being interviewed by Clear Channel. Cohen told the interviewer that, if hired, “I would develop a gay and lesbian wing for Clear Channel,” adding that he explained a model and a method for a national development that could be tailored to local markets. “Two years later, we’re in 19 markets . . .”

Boyer discussed some of the strategies and methods he used to publicize the 2006 “Gay Games,” held in Chicago. He said that he had to do a mainstream public relations effort because he wanted the mainstream media to report on the Gay Games the way the LGBT press would, through sports stories, business stories, and the like. [The event was covered that way by the local, Chicago-area media – especially the Chicago Sun-Times, which also sponsored the “Gay Games” -- as if an event for homosexual athletes was something of daily interest to the media-consuming public. – Editor]

Boyer said he employed one strategy for the mainstream press and another for the homosexual press. Key themes were “inclusion,” “everybody enjoys sports,” “personal best,” and “straight people are always welcome at the Gay Games.” With the mainstream media, he helped educate reporters on homosexual issues; did athlete profiles, making sure to include men, women, elders, youth, and heterosexuals; and promulgated the message “This is a human interest story, not just a gay story.”

Cynthia Laird talked about some of the areas of cooperation and dissension between the mainstream media and the homosexual press. For example, she said there was a lot of support in the mainstream media for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” after General Peter Pace commented that homosexuality is immoral. On the other hand, she said, mainstream papers fail to give credit to GLBT papers. 

Citing Bill Gates’ recent $26.2 million investment in PlanetOut, Pat Sherman said the gay press is not in danger of being usurped by the mainstream media. “People will always want to go to the gay press” because it can provide history that the mainstream press cannot.

Sherman later added that there is room for both types of media, but the gay press may have to adapt and move toward niche publications, since it lacks the money or resources of the mainstream media.

During the question and answer period, discussion ensued regarding whether homosexual newspapers should report the names of men arrested for public sex. David Webb, a staff reporter for the Dallas Voice, noted that the Dallas police department has begun publicizing names and wondered how such stories should be reported if they involve prominent gays. One respondent said both the good and the bad must be reported.

After this session, I gave an interview to the college student.

Hillary Goes to ‘The Advocate’
Sponsored by the Gill Action Fund and Gill Foundation, organizations founded by Denver software entrepreneur Tim Gill to advocate and finance homosexual causes, the luncheon plenary was themed 40 Years of The Advocate: A Conversation with Anne Stockwell. The Advocate is a national homosexual magazine and website.

However, editor-in-chief Stockwell was unable to participate, so the magazine sent publisher Michael Phelps and deputy editor Rachel Dowd in her place. During the plenary, which was moderated by homosexual blogger and news reporter Rex Wockner, Phelps and Dowd discussed how The Advocate, whose parent corporation is PlanetOut, has evolved and stays relevant, as well as upcoming style and editorial changes planned for the magazine.

Dowd said “The Advocate used to be the only place to hear gay news, and now that’s just not the case . . . We’re not only covering same-sex issues, but we’re also covering things the New York Times is covering.”

When Wockner asked what the magazine will do to make gay people want to pick it up, Phelps answered, “We do a lot of exclusive interviews that you can’t find anywhere else.” An upcoming issue, he said, would feature an exclusive interview with [a major Democratic presidential candidate]. “She decided to do an interview with gay media, and of course sees The Advocate as the one and only place so far. And for a presidential candidate to come and seek you, a gay publication, this far in advance, really is groundbreaking.”

Larry Craig, Covering ‘Public Sex,’ and ‘Emotional Entrapment’
Wockner brought up the Larry Craig scandal and noted that there are some questions he hasn’t seen answered yet: “Why is it illegal to tap your foot in a bathroom? How is that breaking the law? To what extent was he [Larry Craig] entrapped into this?”

“How are you going to cover this story?” Wockner asked the panelists.

The Advocate’s Dowd said she had been involved in an editorial meeting about that topic just the previous day. “When did the bathroom become a beat? It’s kind of an odd question. So that was one angle we were actually looking at.” Another angle, said Dowd, is “perspective.” “We reached out to [former New Jersey governor] Jim McGreevey to write a piece for us on what happened to Larry . . . and it’s from his perspective. We look at it as a Republican phenomenon, what’s going on of living a double life, but that Jim understands perhaps emotional entrapment as being in Congress, and how political personas and political life creates a natural closet.”

Not all was sweetness and light, however, in the open question and answer period that followed. One audience member said, “I don’t feel The Advocate has much relevance to me and my life as I get older” because he isn’t familiar with a lot of the pop culture personalities it features. Another complained that the magazine used to address police entrapment issues, but not anymore, and wondered how many readers had canceled subscriptions as a result.

Gays in Charge of Gay Images
The final session I attended was Gay Panic: LGBT Media Merger Mania, where participants discussed mergers within the homosexual media and whether “gay” media will ever merge with “straight” media.

Moderated by Libby Post, a nationally syndicated commentator on homosexual issues for Q Syndicate and WAMC/Northeast Public Radio, the panel included Stephen Macias, a senior vice president at here! Networks; Sue O’Connell, publisher of Bay Windows, New England’s largest homosexual newspaper; Fred Kuhr, editor of Press Pass Q; editor Kevin Naff of the Washington Blade, “the nation’s oldest and largest LGBT newspaper;” and Joanne Jacobson, vice president of business development and operations at Logo, MTV Network’s homosexual cable channel, whose parent company is Viacom.

Post asked Macias how media mergers impact the way the gay community sees itself. He answered that one benefit is “you have gays and lesbians in charge of gay and lesbian images, whether it’s a media company that is as enormous as Viacom or an independent company like our company predominantly being run by gays and lesbians.”

O’Connell talked how homosexual community newspapers lose local flavor when they are owned by large conglomerates, harkening back to the early days of the homosexual press: “We were all picking up the mimeographed bar rags, and we were not looking at them to see where our rights were coming from. We were looking at them to see where drag night was going to be held.”

Kuhr lamented the fact that there are often identical stories on homosexual websites such as Gay.com and Advocate.com because they are owned by the same parent company.

In response to a questioner who said he still picks up the Washington Blade every Friday but no longer reads it because it lacks “local voices,” editor Naff responded in part, “I always tell people, ‘Write something.’” O’Connell agreed, citing the difficulty getting and keeping good writers due to the fact that they can now write for the mainstream press or blogs, as well as the poor pay.

As she said this, I nodded my head, remembering some of my own experiences as a freelance writer trying to collect payment. Fred Kuhr noticed and said, “Even she’s nodding.”

“We have the same issues in the conservative press,” I said.

One audience member asked Jacobson why there was no one from the gay press, yet there were non-journalists like lesbian rock musician Melissa Etheridge, on the panel during the recent presidential forum on homosexual issues, which was broadcast by the MTV offshoot Logo.

Jacobson replied that she had been at Logo from the beginning, and that she was one of the people who “pitched” Logo to Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone. “Is everything we do perfect? No. But were we able to do a national forum where these guys were seen in 28 million homes about issues that are important to us? Yes. Would I have picked Melissa Etheridge personally? I’m not answering that question (laughter). . . Afterwards, the quotes that were picked up [were hers], and everyone said that she really had the voice of the community.”

After this session, I left the conference for the day, missing the LGBT Media Summit Closing Reception, the Chapter Meet & Greet, the NLGJA Newcomers’ Reception, the Welcoming Reception with remarks by NLGJA national president Eric Hegedus (whose column equating pro-family critics of homosexuality to racists can be seen HERE on the NLJGA site) and executive director David Barre, and a screening of the documentary film Tell – a film critical of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy on homosexuals.

Look for the Next Installment on the 2007 NLGJA Conference

The photo at right appeared in the homosexual newspaper Dallas Voice’s story on Allyson Smith, who attended the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists (NLGJA) conference in San Diego representing Americans For Truth. Smith received a lot of attention at the annual event as a lone voice opposed to homosexuality. The NLGJA event is financed and sponsored each year by “mainstream” media corporations, including FOX News, which also recruited there. 

The following article first appeared on the blog of Mike Heath, who directs the Christian Civic League of Maine, and who is Chairman of the Board of Directors at Americans For Truth. As one who has both attended several National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) conferences (openly, as a critic), and even spoken as a panelist at one, I will add that the NLGJA events have an odd mix of activism and journalism. They prominently feature activists like Besen who can fairly be described as pro-homosexual culture warriors, but they also are attended by professional journalists who claim to be objective, mostly as open homosexuals. (I would suspect that the typical media consumer has no clue that the NLGJA reporter they’re reading, watching, or listening to is “gay.”) 

Wayne’s predictable jibes are far less important than the question of whether openly (or “closeted”) homosexual journalists can cover homosexuality-related issues with any semblance of objectivity and fairness. — Peter LaBarbera 

A ‘Christian Crusader’ amidst the World of ‘Gay Journalism’
By Mike Heath | September 7, 2007

Most of us don’t even know that there is such a thing as a homosexual press.  If someone told us there was one we’d look at them askance and wonder which airport bathroom stall they just crawled out of.  Alas, not only is there such a thing … it is thriving.  How do I know?  It wasn’t FoxNews that told me.  Turns out FoxNews sponsors the homosexual press, and recruits from their ranks.  Fox was one among many familiar news sources who showed up to sponsor the National Gay and Lesbian Jounalist Association convention in San Diego a couple weeks ago.

One intrepid truth teller took time to show up.  Allyson Smith, a San Diego resident, attended the entire conference representing (openly) Americans For Truth.  It is important to know that Allyson lives in San Diego.  Truth tellers about homosexuality in the west have learned to live on fund-raising fumes.  It is harder to raise funds for truth telling about homosexuality than it is for Larry Craig to figure out his “intent.”  If Smith didn’t live in San Diego, the important and underrated organization Americans for Truth wouldn’t have had anybody at the conference.  They don’t have the money.  It is easy to raise money by loving all things gay, hating gays or helping gays.  It is hard to raise money to tell the truth about the so-called “gay” movement.

Send your check today to Americans for Truth by visiting their website HERE.

Since Allyson Smith was close by, she was able to attend the conference that was a sinkhole for immorality — sponsored by many in the mainstream media.  Maybe it would be more accurate, given the news these days, to describe the conference as a toilet down which the objectivity and credibility of the media is being flushed.

I’ll bet you didn’t know there’s a homosexual newspaper called “The Dallas Voice.”  Being that this Convention was for journalists it is only right that they would practice on Allyson.  The Dallas Voice wrote a story about Allyson’s presence entitled “Christian Crusader.”  While they obviously use the term “crusader” to evoke scary images of Muslim fanatics, Allyson is — I’m sure – undeterred.  Allyson, unlike most people today, knows what the Crusades were really all about.

Included in the “Voice” article about Allyson is the token soundbite of what passes for “gay” reasoning these days.  Wayne Besen is a master.  He is the one the “Voice” turned to for a quote.  Besen allows that Allyson is nice, and turns her kindness around on her.  He perverts, if you will, her motives.  No surprise that a master of perversion would use this tactic, I suppose.

Then Besen is quoted indicating that Allyson represents something terribly evil and insidious.  He says that, “Her sole purpose of being at this conference was to demean and smear gay and lesbian people and to distort and twist everything that was said. That was her mission.”  He then concludes, “they are just really trying to take away your rights and essentially put you in a cage by passing sodomy laws and having you arrested.”

In the lexicon of gay-speak, “demeaning and smearing” is what reasonable people call truth-telling.  If you don’t believe me, just go to the Americans for Truth website and read it.  There is nothing “demeaning or smearing” on it.  And, the only distorting and twisting I’ve seen over the years has been done by “gay” activists.  They are always distorting and twisting everything.  Everybody knows that.

The last point Besen makes might be worth addressing.  He suggests that we want to take away rights and jail homosexuals.  There is a problem with this argument.  There is no such thing as a legal right to do wrong.  Think about adultery.  Homosexuality is morally no different from adultery.  If there were a loud and powerful adultery rights group clamoring for rights, would that mean that adultery isn’t wrong anymore?  Substitute any sinful behavior.  You see what Besen is doing.  I don’t know what the technical word is to describe this rhetorical twisting and distorting, but I’m no fool.  Only fools are drawn in by arguments like this.  There are many fools around today, aren’t there?  You need look no further than FoxNews.

The Bible says that only the fool says in his heart that there is no God.  Paul the Apostle tells us in Romans that the end of foolishness is vile affections for one another.  Paul reports that the public embrace of homosexuality is a clear sign of Godless priorities.

Thank God for courageous truth tellers like Allyson Smith.  Go and read the truth today.  Go to the Americans for Truth website.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/RobertKnight/2007/08/30/the_story_stalls_here

The Story Stalls Here
By Robert Knight
Thursday, August 30, 2007

As Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was figuratively dragged out of the restroom and into the spotlight this week, the media have been ignoring another compelling story about sex in public toilets.

Fort Lauderdale’s Democratic mayor, Jim Naugle, has incurred the wrath of homosexual activists for publicly addressing the problem of men having sex in public places. 

It all came to a head, so to speak, in July, when the mayor backed an idea that would frustrate the thrill seekers: switching to automated stalls.  Automated stalls make it difficult for trolling swingers to hook up, and they protect small boys from walking in on lewd behavior. 

The reaction was brutal.  The local South Florida Sun-Sentinel ran a piece effectively accusing Naugle of gay-bashing.  Predictably, the “gay community” came out of the woodwork, attacking the mayor as “homophobic,” “bigoted” and full of “hate.”  Critics said Naugle was undermining Broward County’s carefully cultivated reputation as a “gay-friendly” vacation destination.

Responding to the media-fed flood of criticism, the mayor, like so many pols before him, announced that he would apologize at a press conference on July 24.  The local press gathered, notebooks ready and cameras rolling, to enjoy the latest example of self-immolation on the pyre of political correctness.

Naugle delivered an apology all right, but not the expected groveling before the rainbow flag.  Instead, he apologized to “the children and parents of our community” for not being informed about “how serious the problem was of sexual activity that’s taking place in bathrooms and public parks.” Then he made a shocking assertion: that Broward County leads the nation in new AIDS cases. 

Say what? Did he just do what we think he did? How many Americans do you suppose would have found this interesting: a newsy city’s mayor under siege who, instead of kowtowing, comes out fighting and even raises the stakes? 

National press coverage of the Naugle saga has been skimpy.  CNN finally covered the story on August 6.  In a news segment of 5 minutes, 10 seconds, CNN gave Naugle a total of 35 seconds to speak. Reporter Susan Candiotti noted Naugle’s explosive claim that Broward has “a record increase of new AIDS cases in the county, the highest in the nation,” but she didn’t explore the significance of the statistics.

Here’s what Candiotti ignored:  According to the Broward County Health Department, AIDS Surveillance data, in 2006, 70.2 percent of new HIV cases involved men having sex with men (MSM) and another 2.8 percent involved MSM who inject drugs intravenously, for a total of 73 percent.

On August 13, CNN gave the story another 5 minutes, 12 seconds. Anchor Rick Sanchez affected a skeptical, aggressive tone, but to his credit, Sanchez gave Naugle time to make his case.  Sanchez showed no interest in the public health concerns. ….

Click HERE to read the rest of Bob Knight’s column on Townhall.com

Getting a Kick out of Falwell’s Death 

By Robert Knight
Culture and Media Institute
May 18, 2007

In many of his talks to Liberty University students, the Rev. Jerry Falwell emphasized the importance of “finishing well.”

Last Tuesday, he was at the top of his game when he unexpectedly died in the college office where he was planning more expansions of the fast-growing university that he founded in 1971.

The Rev. Falwell did a lot of things well, ticking off liberals right up to the end. How else would he have garnered the kind of tribute from a major newspaper’s religion writer that was headlined, “Sigh of relief over Falwell death.”

To make sure no one mistook her, Chicago Sun-Times Religion Writer Cathleen Falsani’s May 18 column explains her reaction to the news about Dr. Falwell on May 15:

“…My very first thought upon hearing of the Rev.  Falwell’s passing was: Good.  And I didn’t mean ‘good’ in a oh-good-he’s-gone-to-be-home-with-the-Lord kind of way. I mean ‘good’ as in ‘Ding-dong, the witch is dead.’”

Falsani, who claims to be a Christian, learned of this apparent good news in the airport departure lounge in Key West, a place where Jerry is not held in great esteem.

She went on to compare the good reverend to the foul-mouthed TV mobster Tony Soprano, and accused Falwell of saying “insensitive, mean-spirited, sometimes downright hateful things …in the name of Christ.”  She did do a bit of backing up, saying that maybe, in his own way, God used Jerry so that “lives were changed for the better by his ministry, his college, and the flip side of the endeavors he made in Jesus’ name.”

Meanwhile, she informed readers of her own apparent spiritual superiority, noting that “not all of us are that self-righteous, judgmental and holier than thou.”

I guess that openly enjoying the death of a fellow Christian and utterly distorting his Christian message into a caricature of hate is the mark of the nonjudgmental. I think it’s somewhere in the Sermon on the Mount.

Of course, Falsani is not the only journalist to use Rev. Falwell’s death as one more opportunity to cast fiery darts at him.

Virtually every major news outlet made sure that Falwell’s controversial comment following 9/11 and his notorious “outing” of the “gay Teletubby” Tinky Winky got ink and airtime.

The New York Times noted that it was an article in the National Liberty Journal, which Falwell published, that touched off the Teletubbies ruckus.  But the article failed to mention that the Liberty Journal piece quoted The Washington Post’s outing of Tinky Winky, and that the gay press and several other mainstream outlets had cheered openly for a year that the boy in the purple suit, carrying a purse and bearing the homosexual symbol, an upside down triangle, on his head, was clearly the first openly “gay” character in a children’s program.

I recall faxing The Washington Post article to the National Liberty Journal back in February 1999.  I had also faxed an article from a gay newspaper in which one of Teletubbies’ creators boasted openly that Tinky Winky’s character, which combines a deep daddy’s voice and mommy’s handbag, was a deliberate attempt to make children think differently about gender.  The Liberty Journal editors decided to stick with the Washington Post as the main source, which seems like a wise thing to do.  But in the end, it didn’t matter.

In the 10 years since, the press magnified and sustained the myth that Jerry Falwell “outed” Tinky Winky with no apparent evidence. He just did it for the heck of it, to be mean to gays.  As smears go, it made him easy to ridicule. Try as they might, that was the best they could do, since they unearthed no hint of scandal involving his integrity. In March 1999, Liberty Journal Senior Editor J. M. Smith pointed out the media’s distortions, but the myth continued to gain strength. Dr. Falwell himself took it in stride, even placing a stuffed Tinky Winky on top of his computer as a joke. Given his own generous spirit and lack of vitriol, he didn’t seem to understand the damage that was done to his reputation.

Click HERE to read the rest of Bob Knight’s column on the Culture & Media Institute website

To listen online to this sermon, click HERE; to read the entire sermon, go HERE. To learn more about John Piper, visit HERE.

By John Piper October 11, 1998  

Romans 1:24-28

Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. 25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. 28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper.

Astonishing Relevance
In our exposition of Paul’s letter to the Romans, we come now to this astonishingly relevant section in 1:24-28 where Paul touches on the reality of homosexuality. It is relevant for many reasons. For example, yesterday there was conference called “Here I Stand” to address the issue of homosexually active clergymen in the ELCA (Star Tribune, 10/10/98). On the front page of the Star Tribune there was the story of what appeared to be a hate crime against a homosexual student at the University of Wyoming who was in critical condition after being tied to a fence and beaten. In August, 641 Anglican bishops from around the world gathered for the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, England, and voted overwhelmingly to affirm that homosexual practice is “incompatible with Scripture.”

Full-page ads were recently [in 1998] taken out in USA Today and the New York Times and the Washington Post showing some 850 former homosexuals who gathered last summer at the Exodus conference and who declared there is power in Christ to be changed. Here in Minnesota, legal cases continually crop up about child custody and adoption of children by homosexual people. And most immediate of all, here in our church there are people who have homosexual desires and many more people among us who have people in their families whom they care about very deeply who consider themselves homosexual. The reality of homosexuality is inescapable today, and this would come as no surprise to the apostle Paul, and therefore should not to us.

One of the things that makes matters unusual today is the effort on the part of some people to defend the legitimacy of homosexual behavior from the Bible. Most common, for example, is the claim that the denunciations of homosexuality in the New Testament are not references to committed, long-term homosexual relations, which these people say are legitimate, but rather refer to promiscuous homosexual relations and to pederasty, which are not legitimate. To use the words of one scholar, “What the New Testament is against is something significantly different from a homosexual orientation which some people seem to have from their earliest days. In other words, the New Testament is not talking about what we have come to speak of as sexual inversion. Rather, it is concerned with sexual perversion” (Paul Jewett, Interpretation, April, 1985, p. 210).

To read Piper’s whole sermon, click HERE.

We are intrigued by the fact that the same movement that once cried out for “privacy” and “to be left alone” feels free to publicly declare people’s homosexuality for them (Anderson Cooper, No. 2, and Jodie Foster, No. 43). On the other hand, if OUT is right, it might explain Cooper’s bias in his reporting on the homosexual issue: in a recent interview that the CNN host did with pro and con advocates on a ”gay parenting” story, he blatantly favored the “gay” side in his questioning.

Regardless of whether Cooper practices homosexuality, as a professional he should be completely even-handed in his treatment of this controversial moral question. So, by the way, should the New York Times — Gay Mafia (No. 7) or no Gay Mafia. — Peter LaBarbera

1. David Geffen
2. Anderson Cooper
3. Ellen DeGeneres
4. Tim Gill
5. Barney Frank
6. Rosie O’Donnell
7. The New York Times Gay Mafia: Richard Berke, Ben Brantley, Frank Bruni, Stuart Elliott, Adam Nagourney, Stefano Tonchi, and Eric Wilson
8. Marc Jacobs
9. Andrew Tobias
10. Brian Graden
11. Jann Wenner
12. Andrew Sullivan
13. Suze Orman
14. Joe Solmonese
15. Fred Hochberg
16. Christine Quinn
17. Perez Hilton
18. Scott Rudin
19. John Aravosis
20. Sheila Kuehl
21. James B. Stewart
22. Nick Denton
23. Tom Ford
24. Nate Berkus
25. Adam Moss
26. Jim Nelson
27. Lorri L. Jean
28. Adam Rose
29. Annie Leibovitz
30. Simon Halls and Stephen Huvane
31. Bryan Lourd
32. Bryan Singer
33. Jonathan Burnham
34. Brian Swardstrom
35. Robert Greenblatt
36. Chi Chi LaRue
37. Dan Mathews
38. Neil Meron and Craig Zadan
39. Ingrid Sischy
40. Marc Cherry
41. Carolyn Strauss
42. Irshad Manji
43. Jodie Foster
44. Christine Vachon
45. André Leon Talley
46. Hilary Rosen
47. Matthew Marks
48. Benny Medina
49. Mitchell Gold
50. David Kuhn

Michael Dillon wanted nothing more than to be invisible, to be one of the guys. Problem: he was born with a woman’s body. Everything he did toward realizing his humble dream — the cross-dressing, the hormones and surgeries and the chimera that resulted — pushed it further from his grasp. He went through life as the most visible sort of human being: a physical anomaly. He was the first person on record to undergo surgery (13 operations between 1946 and 1949) to change his gender…

Happiness eluded Michael Dillon. Isolated, depressed, hounded by the press, he traveled to India and, bizarrely, to a series of ever more remote Tibetan monasteries. He could not speak the language of his fellow novices, but with his shaved head and robes, he felt he fit in someplace. Sadly, he faced prejudice in the monasteries too, and his visa ran out before he was allowed to become a full-fledged monk. In 1962, he died impoverished near the border of Ladakh. He was 47, and had been trying to get back to the monastery where he’d felt at home.

Continue reading in The New York Times… 

Tonight (Thursday), Mar 15, 2007, the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NJGJA) hosts its 12th Annual New York Benefit. This isn’t the first time that FOX has given to the homosexual journalists’ group — whose national president made the spurious analogy that seeking both sides in media coverage on homosexuality is like going to “white supremacists” for a story about interracial marriage.

The following are sponsors for tonights event:

• FOX News is a “Silver Sponsor” with anchor Martha MacCallum (pictured below) as “special guest.”
• ABC News is the “Diamond Sponsor and Host” with anchor Brian Ross serving as master of ceremonies.
• CNN is a “Platinum Sponsor” with Soledad O’Brien of American Morning as “special guest.”
• NBC is a “Platinum Sponsor” with Rita Cosby of MSNBC, Natalie Morales and Meredith Viera of Today Show, and Carl Quintanilla of Squawkbox (CNBC) as “special guests.”
• CBS News is a “Gold Sponsor” with anchor Jason Bellini of LOGO, anchor Russ Mitchell, and Erin Moriarty of 48 Hours as “special guests.”
• The New York Times is a “Bronze Sponsor” with Robert Lipsyte as “special guest.”

Tickets to the VIP reception cost $500. With polls showing that about half the country supports Gen. Peter Pace’s belief that homosexual acts are immoral, we wonder how FOX and the dominant media can claim to be impartial in covering “gay”-related issues when they financially support pro-homosexual organizations like the NLGJA?

TAKE ACTION – Let FOX News know that you are not pleased with their contribution to tonight’s event.

Homosexual sex may not carry the “risk” (or as we Christians like to think if it, the great blessing) of pregnancy, but homosexual sex practices (lesbian, “gay,” or “trans”) substantially increase the risk of physical, emotional, and spiritual damage to the human body and soul. If Suze Orman has been in a lesbian relationship for seven years, she is no virgin. If you “experiment with” or engage openly in homosexual sex (or are heterosexually intimate, even without intercourse), you cannot please God unless you repent (ie, change). – Sonja Dalton

——————————

The following is excerpted from She’s So Money (an interview with financial guru Suze Orman), by Deborah Solomon, published Feb 25, 2007, by New York Times Magazine:

Q: Are you married?

A: I’m in a relationship with life. My life is just out there. I’m on the road every day. I love my life.

Q: Meaning what? Do you live with anyone?

A: K.T. is my life partner. K.T. stands for Kathy Travis. We’re going on seven years. I have never been with a man in my whole life. I’m still a 55-year-old virgin.

Q: Would you like to get married to K.T.?

A: Yes. Absolutely. Both of us have millions of dollars in our name. It’s killing me that upon my death, K.T. is going to lose 50 percent of everything I have to estate taxes. Or vice versa.

Continue reading at New York Times Magazine…

On 11/29/06, Neela Banerjee, religion reporter for The New York Times, emailed me to ask my views on “gay evangelicals” and about whether I thought “such a term can be honestly used.” On the same day I emailed my response. She took two quotes from my response for her article in the Times on Tuesday, Dec. 12, entitled “Gay and Evangelical, Seeking Paths of Acceptance” (front page, continued on p. 18; temporarily available on the web here). She was pleasant in her email. However, her handling of my response merits some comment and qualification. Here is the excerpt from the article that quotes me, along with the immediate context of her article and with boldface added to the quotations of my words:

But for most evangelicals, gay men and lesbians cannot truly be considered Christian, let alone evangelical.

“If by gay evangelical is meant someone who claims both to abide by the authority of Scripture and to engage in a self-affirming manner in homosexual unions, then the concept gay evangelical is a contradiction,” Robert A. J. Gagnon, associate professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, said in an e-mail message.

“Scripture clearly, pervasively, strongly, absolutely and counterculturally opposes all homosexual practice,” Dr. Gagnon said. “I trust that gay evangelicals would argue otherwise, but Christian proponents of homosexual practice have not made their case from Scripture.”

In fact, both sides look to Scripture. The debate is largely over seven passages in the Bible about same-sex couplings. Mr. Gagnon and other traditionalists say those passages unequivocally condemn same-sex couplings.

Those who advocate acceptance of gay people assert that the passages have to do with acts in the context of idolatry, prostitution or violence. The Bible, they argue, says nothing about homosexuality as it is largely understood today as an enduring orientation, or about committed long-term, same-sex relationships.

For some gay evangelicals, their faith in God helped them override the biblical restrictions people preached to them…

Here is the email that I sent Ms. Banerjee, from which she extracted the quotes (I have placed the quotations in boldface):

Dear Neela,

Are there “gay evangelicals”? Yes and no.

YES: Well, there certainly are self-described evangelicals who experience homosexual impulses and, more, affirm these impulses as something good–just as there are evangelicals who both experience various sinful impulses and sometimes even wrongly attempt to justify these impulses from Scripture. For example, there are evangelicals who attempt to justify sexual relations outside the covenant bond of marriage (i.e., evangelicals who are also fornicators). The apostle Paul’s “first” letter to the Corinthians rebukes the Corinthian Christians for affirming an incestuous relationship between a member of their community and his stepmother (chap. 5) and later goes on to warn the Corinthian believers not to be adulterers, men who have sex with other males, or men who have sex with prostitutes lest they risk not inheriting the kingdom of God (chap. 6). Such persons who are “one spirit” with Jesus scandalously involve Christ in a sexually immoral “one flesh” union. So the phenomenon of Christians acting in ways that are contrary to the call of the Christian gospel, and even affirming such behavior, is as old as Christianity itself.

NO: But if by “gay evangelical” is meant someone who claims both to abide by the authority of Scripture and to engage in a self-affirming manner in homosexual unions, then the concept “gay evangelical” is a contradiction in terms–all the more if one understands “gay” to be a self-constructed identity that seeks to justify and gratify preexisting homosexual impulses. It is a contradiction in terms because Scripture clearly, pervasively, strongly, absolutely, and counterculturally opposes all homosexual practice. I trust that “gay evangelicals” would argue otherwise but Christian proponents of homosexual practice have not made their case from Scripture (see my website at www.robgagnon.net for this; start with my critique of your colleague Nicholas Kristof at http://www.robgagnon.net/homoAPReporter.htm and work your way to my critique of a recent book by Myers/Scanzoni at http://www.westernsem.edu/wtseminary/assets/Gagnon2%20Aut05.pdf). So to construct a self-identity around behavior that Scripture deems to be an egregious instance of sexual immorality, all the while claiming to be an evangelical Christian who upholds the authority of Scripture, is to engage in a self-contradiction. At best one might speak of “self-deceived gay evangelicals.”

Since Jesus himself would have found any self-affirming, unrepentant homosexual activity to be appalling, putting the perpetrator at risk of not inheriting the very kingdom of God that he proclaimed (see pp. 56-62 in my article cited in the last link above), he would have rejected any attempt to construct an identity around the affirmation of homosexual impulses as incompatible with the call to Christian discipleship. To be a true disciple (learner) of Jesus one must (according to Jesus himself) take up one’s cross, deny oneself, and lose one’s life. So the expression “gay Christian”–not just “gay evangelical”–is a contradiction of terms, just as “self-affirming polysexual Christian” or “self-affirming adulterous Christian” is a contradiction of terms.

We all sin and are regularly in need of God’s grace and forgiveness. But there is a difference between this and engaging in serial, unrepentant sin of a severe sort. Jesus called the adulterous woman out of sin, “lest something worse should happen” to her. The church should do the same in love for self-professed “gay evangelicals.”

Hope this helps.

Rob

I appreciate that Ms. Banerjee quoted parts of three of my sentences, which is more than most scholars espousing a position against homosexual practice could expect to get in a major newspaper heavily invested in promoting homosexual relationships, like The New York Times. Yet there are several corrections and comments worth noting here:

* Ms. Banerjee misconstrued my remark “Christian proponents of homosexual practice have not made their case from Scripture” to mean that such proponents in my view had not even tried to make a case from Scripture. To this Ms. Banerjee responds in the article: “In fact, both sides look to Scripture”—as if I were unaware of this obvious fact. She then goes on to explain—again, as if I were unaware—that “those who advocate acceptance of gay people assert that the passages have to do with acts in the context of idolatry, prostitution or violence” and not with acts in the context of “an enduring orientation, or about committed long-term, same-sex relationships.”

Now it should have been obvious to Ms. Banerjee that I knew about the frequent attempts on the part of many to neutralize the Bible’s clear opposition to homosexual practice. My publications on the subject of the Bible and homosexual practice over the last 6 years have dealt with all of these arguments in detail. Had Ms. Banerjee checked out the links that I provided her, or read any of my print publications on the subject, she would have known this. She would then have realized that my point was that Christian proponents of homosexual relationships have failed to make a good and convincing case from Scripture. (See the links above and, added to these, my recent extensive critiques of Jack Rogers’s recent book on the subject of the Bible and homosexuality, on my website; start here and then proceed here, here, here, here, and here.) The idea that Scripture says nothing against loving homosexual behavior entered into by homosexually oriented persons is akin to arguing that the Bible poses no obstacle to committed incestuous unions engaged in by consenting adults or that the New Testament is open to committed polyamorous (multiple-partner) unions entered into by confirmed “polysexuals.”

To her credit, when I pointed out this error, Ms. Banerjee acknowledged in an email that she had misunderstood me and apologized. I appreciate that. I doubt, though, that the Times will issue any public correction.

* In answer to Ms. Banerjee’s question about whether the term “gay evangelicals” can be “honestly used,” I said “yes and no” and explained both responses. Ms. Banerjee noted only the “no” part of my answer. My response is considerably more nuanced than the Times article would suggest. Of course, on an empirical level there are people who claim to be both “gay” (involving a self-affirmed identity around the acceptability of homosexual relationships) and “evangelical” (involving a belief in Scripture’s supreme authority for matters of faith and practice). But, since Scripture cannot be made serviceable to the acceptance of homosexual practice, it is a contradiction in terms to claim that one is an “evangelical” while affirmingly constructing an identity based on behavior that would have appalled all the authors of Scripture, to say nothing of Jesus.

* Ms. Banerjee was not quite accurate in characterizing my position as claiming that “gay men and lesbians cannot truly be considered Christian, let alone evangelical.” This way of wording things can convey a meaning different from my stated position to her, namely, that the term “gay Christian” is “a contradiction in terms”—“just as,” so I noted in my email to her, “‘self-affirming polysexual Christian’ or ‘self-affirming adulterous Christian’ is a contradiction of terms.” First, I made clear in my email that I understood “gay” as a label for someone who not merely experiences homosexual impulses but who, more, “engages in a self-affirming manner in homosexual unions.” Clearly, someone can be a Christian and experience homoerotic desires, just as Christians experience an array of sinful desires on a daily basis that ought not to rule their lives. Second, a person can even be a Christian while engaging in a self-affirming manner in homosexual practice, just as (again noted in my email) Paul dealt with the case of an incestuous Christian in 1 Corinthians 5-6. However, such a person would be a Christian at risk of exclusion from God’s kingdom (1 Cor 6:9-11 and often). So a “gay man” or “lesbian woman” who calls him- or herself a Christian while engaging in serial, unrepentant, and self-affirmed homosexual activity could be “considered” a Christian who is at risk of not inheriting eternal life.

* Ms. Banerjee left out my concluding word on the importance of love and the distinction between succumbing to homosexual temptation out of weakness and actively affirming the homosexual behavior that one engages in. Such a note might have provided some balance to an article that otherwise appeared to be working hard to paint a sympathetic portrait of self-affirming “gay evangelicals.” It is also puzzling that Ms. Banerjee didn’t solicit any quotes from Christians who “take up their cross and deny themselves” as regards homosexual impulses.

On Ms. Banerjee’s behalf I can say that I’ve seen far worse reporting on this issue. At least Ms. Banerjee solicited my comments, was polite, and actually used most of three of my sentences. Moreover, she ended her article on the helpful note that relatives of one “gay Christian” in a homosexual relationship tell him, “We love you, but we’re concerned.” These features of her article and reporting should be applauded even as we continue to seek improved reporting on the subject of Christianity and homosexuality from the Times and other major media publications.

Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D., is a professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics. He can be reached at gagnon@pts.edu.

The following was excerpted from On the Web, Pedophiles Extend Their Reach, by Kirk Eichenwald, published Aug 21, 2006, by the New York Times. Mr. Eisenwald was a guest on today’s “Oprah” program, a detailed description of which may be found on her website. I hope you agree with me that the most outrageous element of this story is the pathetically paltry jail sentences these child molestors are receiving. (Personally, I’m open to the idea of castration as a penalty.) Hopefully, with the lobbying efforts of Oprah and thousands of others across the country, that will change. –Peter LaBarbera, AFT

In a chilling article, New York Times reporter Kirk Eichenwald explores the online world of pedophiles:

…Today, pedophiles go online to seek tips for getting near children — at camps, through foster care, at community gatherings and at countless other events. They swap stories about day-to-day encounters with minors. And they make use of technology to help take their arguments to others, like sharing online a printable booklet ["Straight Talk for Boys"] to be distributed to children that extols the benefits of sex with adults.

The community’s online infrastructure is surprisingly elaborate. There are Internet radio stations run by and for pedophiles; a putative charity that raised money to send Eastern European children to a camp where they were apparently visited by pedophiles; and an online jewelry company that markets pendants proclaiming the wearer as being sexually attracted to children, allowing anyone in the know to recognize them.

…In this online community, pedophiles view themselves as the vanguard of a nascent movement seeking legalization of child pornography and the loosening of age-of-consent laws. They portray themselves as battling for children’s rights to engage in sex with adults, a fight they liken to the civil rights movement.

Mr Eichenwald reports that chat room visitors might discuss:

• Sexual attraction and sexual relationships with their own children or their friends,
• What a man might do to “prepare” an 8 year old girl for full intercourse,
• Sharing fantasies about intercourse with infants,
• The need to disguise pedophilia in order to qualify as a foster parent.

Oprah’s program featured a shocked former wife of NAMBLA member and convicted pedophile, “the smiling dentist” Todd Calvin; FBI Agent Robert Hamer, who infiltrated NAMBLA, resulting in eight convictions (including Todd Calvin); and Chris Hansen of Dateline, who works with a group called Perverted Justice to televise pedophile stings on NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” specials. Oprah’s website shows two pendants or charms – jewelry that designates a pedophile.

We encourage you to read about this program online or watch it online!

]]> http://americansfortruth.com/news/nyt-pedophiles-extend-their-reach-online.html/feed 0 http://americansfortruth.com/news/138-fully-pro-homosexual-corporations.html http://americansfortruth.com/news/138-fully-pro-homosexual-corporations.html#comments Fri, 22 Sep 2006 04:44:35 +0000 Sonja Dalton /news/138-fully-pro-homosexual-corporations.html From America’s pro-homosexual giants: 2006, published Sept 20, 2006, by WorldNet Daily:
Below is the list of companies scoring a perfect 100 percent on the Human Rights Campaign’s 2006 Corporate Equality Index, with policies beneficial toward homosexuals:

1. Adobe Systems
2. Aetna
3. Agere Systems
4. Agilent Technologies
5. Allianz Life Insurance
6. Alston & Bird
7. American Express
8. AMR Corp. (American Airlines)
9. Anheuser-Busch
10. Apple Computer
11. Arnold & Porter
12. AT&T
13. Avaya
14. Bain & Company
15. Bank of America
16. Bausch & Lomb
17. Bell South
18. Best Buy
19. Boeing
20. BP America
21. Bright Horizons Family Solutions
22. Bristol-Myers Squibb
23. California State Automobile Association
24. Capital One Financial
25. Cargill
26. Carlson Companies
27. Charles Schwab
28. Chevron
29. ChoicePoint
30. Chubb
31. CIGNA
32. Cisco Systems
33. Citigroup
34. Clear Channel Communications
35. Clorox
36. CMP Media
37. CNA Insurance
38. Coca-Cola Company
39. Consolidated Edison
40. Coors Brewing
41. Corning
42. Credit Suisse First Boston
43. Cummins
44. Daimler Chrysler
45. Dell
46. Deloitte & Touche USA
47. Deutsche Bank
48. Dorsey & Whitney
49. Dow Chemical
50. DuPont
51. Eastman Kodak
52. Eli Lilly & Co.
53. Ernst & Young
54. Estee Lauder Companies
55. Faegre & Benson
56. Fannie Mae
57. Ford Motor Co.
58. Freescale Semiconductor
59. Gap Inc.
60. General Mills
61. General Motors
62. GlaxoSmithKline
63. Global Hyatt
64. Goldman Sachs Group
65. Google
66. Harvard Pilgrim Health Care
67. Heller Ehrman
68. Hewitt Associates
69. Hewlett-Packard
70. Honeywell International
71. Hospira
72. ING North America Insurance
73. Intel
74. IBM
75. Intuit
76. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
77. Jenner & Block
78. Johnson & Johnson
79. Kaiser Permanente
80. Keyspan
81. Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group
82. KPMG
83. Kraft Foods
84. Lehman Brothers Holdings
85. Levi Strauss & Co.
86. Lexmark International
87. Liz Claiborne
88. Lucent Technologies
89. McDermott Will & Emery
90. McKinsey & Co.
91. Mellon Financial
92. Merck & Co.
93. Merrill Lynch
94. MetLife
95. Microsoft
96. Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams
97. Morgan Stanley
98. Morrison & Foerster
99. Motorola
100. Nationwide
101. NCR Corp.
102. New York Times Co.
103. Nike
104. Nixon Peabody
105. Nordstrom
106. Northrop Grumman
107. Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe
108. Owens Corning
109. Pepsico
110. Pfizer
111. PG&E
112. Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman
113. Powell Goldstein
114. PriceWaterhouseCoopers
115. Prudential Financial
116. Raytheon
117. Replacements
118. SC Johnson & Son
119. Schering-Plough
120. Sears Holdings Corporation
121. Sempra Energy
122. Sprint Nextel
123. Starcom MediaVest
124. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide
125. State Street
126. Sun Microsystems
127. SunTrust Banks
128. Tech Data Corp.
129. The Olivia Companies
130. US Airways
131. Viacom
132. Visa International
133. Volkswagen of America
134. Wachovia
135. Walgreens
136. Wells Fargo
137. Whirlpool
138. Xerox