By Peter LaBarbera

Dear Readers,

Imagine this nightmare scenario: four days ago, your family received a letter out of the blue from a homosexual activist organization notifying you, in “respectful” language, that your family is the target of a protest. Upset that you sent money to support Proposition 8 in California — reinstating marriage as between a man and a woman — the “gay” group informs you that about ten homosexual couples will show up on the sidewalk in front of your house on July 22nd (today) at 5:00 PM and engage in prolonged same-sex kissing with each other.

Wielding their public deviance as a political tool, the militant “gay” protesters call their event a “kiss-in” — knowing that you regard their homosexual behavior as unnatural and immoral, that it makes you extremely uncomfortable, and that it will embarrass you in front of your neighbors (and the media, whom they called in). Nevertheless, they assure you that they “respect” you and your religion and that they are happy to engage in “dialogue” with you in between their lip-locking acts of homoerotic defiance.

Well, your nightmare is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ (LDS) reality as they face another homosexual “kiss-in” protest at their San Diego temple this evening. After reading the Associated Press story about the San Diego “kiss-in” on the “gay” news site “355Gay.com,” I posted the following comment responding to it:

Homosexual activists are the ultimate hypocrites when it comes to “tolerance.” You see nothing wrong with offending the religious sentiments and moral beliefs of Mormons with your obnoxious “kiss-in” outside an LDS temple. Then you cry foul when religious people offend you with their heartfelt beliefs that same-sex “marriage” is wrong. The only good that comes from your incessant religion bashing is that it reveals your true hatred for traditionalists to the wider public. Stop lying by telling Americans that your “respect” their faith teachings and the right to live them out in the public square. You clearly do not.

Going to the “Empowering Spirits Foundation” website, I found this incomprehensibly self-serving description of their homosexuality-celebrating “kiss-in”:

This is to be a peaceful rally to encourage dialogue between LDS [Mormon] officials and those seeking equal rights. Love unites, and we will join together to not only display our endless support for equality, but for those with differing opinions, including the LDS church. We’ve also invited officials from the Mormon Church to engage in dialogue with us through this letter.

Please refrain from any profanity during the protest and do not bring signs that demean any religious organization, including the LDS church.

Orwellian “dialogue”

Let’s deconstruct the Empowering Spirits’ Orwellian Gayspeak. They are rubbing their perversion in the face of a church in the name of “respectful dialogue.” “Don’t offend the Mormon church by swearing,” they say, as though they truly respect the Mormons’ morality, “but it’s fine to flaunt your homosexual behavior outside their temple even though LDS teachings regard homosexual acts as sinful … Because it’s all about “dialogue,” you know.”

The poor “gay” activists are totally caught up in their own self-righteous delusion that their cause somehow approximates a “civil rights” movement. Yes, they even seem to believe that their homo-fascist stunts are “respectful” toward their targeted victims. And they are so convinced that their misguided goal of legalizing homosexual “marriage” is noble that they employ a crude ends-justifies-the-means approach to everything, including harassing a church.

Definition of marriage is ‘trivial’?

In this portion of a letter sent to LDS President Thomas Monson just three days before the scheduled “kiss-in,” Empowering Spirits Executive Director A Latham Staples characterizes the LDS teaching on marriage as a mere “pious triviality”:

Surely by now, the Church understands the value of teaching tolerance…Differing sides may not always agree, but we must not focus on pious trivialities as this corrupts our society.

Preserving the age-old definition of marriage as a “pious triviality”? This isn’t respect. It’s contempt. It’s not “dialogue” but coercion. Call it Perversion Coercion, it you will, and the goal is to intimidate religious people and churches into submission. And ex-”gay” Christian activist James Hartline has it right when he says that Empowering Spirits would never try to pull a “kiss-in” stunt like this in front of a mosque. That might upset the preposterous “gay-Muslim” alliance that will disintegrate when everyday adherents of Islam realize that the Homosexual Lobby despises their religion, too — or at least the part that teaches that homosexual acts are always wrong.

Here’s the AP story (which reads more like a “gay” press release) in 365Gay.com, followed by the posted comments as of last night, in which some react with a four-letter cuss word to express their attitude toward the Mormons’ defense of natural marriage:

___________________________

San Diego group plans ‘kiss-in’ at Mormon temple
By The Associated Press
07.21.2009 1:33pm EDT

(Salt Lake City) A gay rights group plans to stage a mass kissing demonstration outside the San Diego Mormon temple as a show of support for a gay couple cited for trespassing in Utah after sharing a kiss on church property.

The Empowering Spirits Foundation says the “kiss-in” is intended as a peaceful rally to encourage dialogue between The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the gay community.

The event is scheduled for Wednesday evening at the temple near La Jolla, Calif.

It would be the third kissing demonstration held since Matt Aune and Derek Jones were cited for trespassing on the church-owned Main Street Plaza on July 9 in Salt Lake City.

The couple refused to leave the plaza when security guards who saw the kiss said the behavior was inappropriate.

___________________________

Posted Comments (expletives cleaned up by AFTAH):

* Samantha said (July 21st, 2009 at 1:39 pm):

Good for them!

* Lorion said (July 21st, 2009 at 1:59 pm):

Go for it. ..and do make it a community ‘even’t ALL couples invited.

* Peter said (July 21st, 2009 at 2:01 pm):

Let’s see EVERY POSSIBLE COMBO in that crowd – kissing till the cows come home!!!!

* Allan said (July 21st, 2009 at 2:52 pm):

I’ve come across this letter from the organization holding the rally to the church, which I think fully describes the intent of the rally. It’s a peaceful rally to encourage dialogue with the church, not a protest. I must admit that A. Latham Staples is very eloquent in his attempt to engage in conversation with LDS officials.

http://www.empoweringspirits.org/PRDocServer/LDS_Unity_Rally_072009.pdf

* Michael said (July 21st, 2009 at 4:17 pm):

This is awesome. I always thought it would be really fun to do something like this on the one day a year the temples open to the public for tours. Have gays and lesbians walk through as couples and hold hands etc. [F**k] the mormons. They suck.

* Matteo said (July 21st, 2009 at 4:45 pm):

@ michael: don’t you see that saying “[f**k] the mormons, they suck” is just as ignorant and ultimately pointless as people on forums who say “[f**k] the gays, they suck.”

Sure, as we eventually progress to equal rights, we shouldn’t snub groups that are routinely hostile to people who identify as LGBT. We should be the bigger men and women and progress graciously. We should certainly be as open-minded, honest, and positive as (a) we would like people to be with us and (b) the doctrine of the people who seek to halt our rights.

The letter written by the people who are organizing this event reflect those sentiments and I believe progress will be made faster and less hatred will be felt on all sides the more we keep our hearts and minds open.

Ultimately we are working for the open inclusion, freedom, dignity and rights for everyone prescribed by our constitution, are we not?

Hatred can’t be defeated by hatred, nor fire deflected with more fire. Heaping more fire onto the pile will just cause everything to burn together.

* Jay said (July 21st, 2009 at 5:09 pm):

Good. We need more direct action. We have been too passive too long. Too many of us are too comfortable in the back of the bus. We need to stand up for our rights more aggressively.

* John said (July 21st, 2009 at 5:20 pm):

Well said Matteo! The GLBT community needs to take the high road, where there is less traffic.

Calling people names does not change minds and will not win the P.R. battle for these civil rights.

For many Mormons, this was simply a trespassing/private property issue. For GLBT people this was about equal treatment, respect and fairness.

If we just yell and scream at each other, we might feel better in the short term, but in the long term we won’t get to where we way we want to go.

If you want love and respect, you need to give love and respect.

* Porter said (July 21st, 2009 at 5:20 pm):

This is good news thats what this world is lacking love it the only thing thats universal and it wont be denied !!

* Gary A. said (July 21st, 2009 at 6:22 pm):

I second thaat, [F**K] THE MORMANS, THEY SUCK

* John said (July 21st, 2009 at 9:18 pm):

Ditto what Michael says: [F**K] THE MORMONS!

___________________________

I found this highly informative article from FrontPageMg.com in a quick web search after reading that the U.S. Embassy in Iraq (under the Obama presidency) will be hosting its first-ever “Gay Pride” party tonight, May 29th, 2009.  President Obama’s “lavender diplomacy” is the latest embarrassment for the United States of America abroad — as we showcase our decadent values and give everyday Muslims in the Arab world another reason to hate the U.S.  Once again homosexual activists put their desires and “rights” ahead of the country’s national interest with this party that rubs our “gay pride” in the face of a people whose religion teaches that homosexual acts are shameful. Change, indeed. — Peter LaBarbera

P.S.  Other AFTAH articles dealing with Christianity, Islam and homosexuality:

• Small-c ‘christianity’ Cowers Before the H Lobby
• Muslims, Catholics, Buddhists, Evangelicals and Hindus Unite Against Hamtramck [MI] Gay-rights Ordinance
• Stoning Homosexuals: Which Is The Real Voice of Hatred? [difference between tradition Christianity and radical Islam on homosexuality]

_______________________________________

Emphasis added below:

WWW.FRONTPAGEMG.COM

Islam’s Love-Hate Relationship with Homosexuality

By: Serge Trifkovic, January 24, 2003

On the one hand, Islam officially condemns homosexuality. But there is also a reason that the Moslem world enjoyed a reputation as a haven for sex with boys and men well into the twentieth century. . .

One in a series of excerpts adapted by Robert Locke from Dr. Serge Trifkovic’s book: The Sword of the Prophet: A Politically-Incorrect Guide to Islam [order from Amazon HERE]

“This sin, the impact of which makes one’s skin crawl, which words cannot describe, is evidence of perverted instincts, total collapse of shame and honor, and extreme filthiness of character and soul… The heavens, the Earth and the mountains tremble from the impact of this sin. The angels shudder as they anticipate the punishment of Allah to descend upon the people who commit this indescribable sin.” (1)

There are many sins in Islam that may fit this description, from idolatry, atheism, and apostasy, to drunkenness, adultery, and questioning the divine origin of the Koran. In this particular instance it refers to homosexuality, for which a death sentence remains on the statute books and is enforced in several Islamic countries.

In Saudi Arabia on April 16, 2001, five homosexuals were sentenced to 2,600 lashes and 6 years in prison, and four others to 2,400 lashes and 5 years’ imprisonment for “deviant sexual behavior.” Amnesty International subsequently reported that six men were executed on charges of deviant sexual behavior, some of which were related to their sexual orientation, but it was uncertain whether the six men who were executed were among the nine who were sentenced to flogging and imprisonment in April (2).

It is difficult to establish precisely the number of homosexuals that have been executed in Iran since the Islamic revolution in 1979, since not all sentences are widely publicized, but estimates range from several hundred to 4,000 (3).  According to Amnesty International, at least three homosexual men and two lesbians were publicly beheaded in January 1990. The Islamic Penal Law Against Homosexuals, approved in July 1991 and ratified in November of that year, is simple. Article 110: “Punishment for sodomy is killing; the Sharia judge decides on how to carry out the killing.” Article 129: “Punishment for lesbianism is one hundred (100) lashes for each party.” Article 131: “If the act of lesbianism is repeated three times and punishment is enforced each time, the death sentence will be issued the fourth time.”

While the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, it regularly executed homosexuals. Islamic jurists in Kabul and Kandahar only differed on the method of killing. One group of scholars believed the condemned should be taken to the top of the highest building in the city and hurled to their deaths, while others advocated placing them in a pit next to a wall which was to be toppled on them, so that they are buried alive. Both methods were solidly grounded in authoritative tradition, and both were applied. At least five men convicted of sodomy by Afghanistan’s sharia courts had been “placed next to walls by Taliban officials and then buried under the rubble as the walls were toppled upon them.” In one such incident, three homosexuals were punished thus while Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar watched along with thousands of spectators. After the 30-minute waiting period, the three men were still alive, but two died the next day. What became of the third is unknown (4).  The punishment by stoning is derived from the Koranic account of Sodom’s destruction by a “rain of stones,” which was itself the product of Mohammed’s misunderstanding of the Hebrew story of “fire and brimstone,” i.e. sulfur:

“We also (sent) Lut: he said to his people: “Do ye commit lewdness such as no people in creation (ever) committed before you? For ye practice your lusts on men in preference to women: ye are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds.” And his people gave no answer but this: they said, “drive them out of your city: these are indeed men who want to be clean and pure!” But We saved him and his family, except his wife: she was of those who lagged behind. And We rained down on them a shower (of brimstone): then see what was the end of those who indulged in sin and crime!” (5)

The Koranic claim that homosexuality was unknown before it first appeared in Sodom is a uniquely Islamic concept; so is the notion that its destruction was exclusively due to the homosexual practices of its inhabitants, a departure from the Hebrew Scriptures. In addition to the Koran many hadiths or authoritative traditional sayings mention liwat, (homosexual intercourse) e.g. “When a man mounts another man, the throne of God shakes,” and “Kill the one that is doing it and also kill the one that it is being done to (6).”  Mohammed’s first successor Abu Bakr reportedly had a homosexual burned at the stake. The fourth caliph, Mohammed’s son-in-law Ali, ordered a sodomite thrown from the minaret of a mosque. Others he ordered to be stoned. One of the earliest and most authoritative commentators on the Koran, Ibn ‘Abbas (died 687) blended both approaches into a two-step execution in which “the sodomite should be thrown from the highest building in the town and then stoned.” Later it was decided that if no building were tall enough, the he could be shoved off a cliff. Regardless of the exact method,

“Moslem Jurists agree that, if proven of guilt, both of them should be killed. However, jurists differ on the methodology of capital punishment (7).”

There are seven countries in the world that carry the death penalty for homosexual acts, and all of them justify this punishment with sharia.

In Moslem nations, the suppression of liaison between men and women outside prearranged wedlock has produced frustrated sexual tension that has sought and found release in homosexual intercourse through the centuries. Those denied access to licit sexuality have sought and obtained outlets that have produced chronic contradiction between normative morality and social realities. Male and female prostitution and same-sex practices — including abuse of young boys by their older male relatives — have been rampant in Islamic societies from the medieval to the modern period. It should be emphasized that those societies stress a distinction between the sexual act itself, which was deemed acceptable, and emotional attachment, which was unpardonable:

“Sexual relations in Middle Eastern societies have historically articulated social hierarchies, that is, dominant and subordinate social positions: adult men on top; women, boys and slaves below (8).”

A Moslem who is the active partner in sexual relations with other men is not considered a “homosexual” (the word has no pre-modern Arabic equivalent); quite the contrary, his sexual domination of another man may even confer a status of hyper-masculinity. He may use other men as substitutes for women, and at the same time have great contempt for them.  This depraved view of sex, common in mainstream Moslem societies, is commonly found in the West only in prisons. In all cases it is the presence of love, affection, or equality among sexual partners that is intolerable. Equality in sexual relations is unimaginable in Islam, whether heterosexual or homosexual. Sex in Islamic societies has never been about mutuality between partners, but about the adult male’s achievement of pleasure through domination.

Historically, this state of affairs was not concealed from Western observers who were fascinated, shocked, and often attracted by the outward appearances of rampant, barely concealed pederasty. By 1800, a European traveler to Egypt wrote:

“The inconceivable inclination which has dishonored the Greeks and Persians of antiquity constitutes the delight, or, more properly speaking the infamy of the Egyptians … the contagion has seized the poor as well as the rich.”

The “contagion” in question was spelled out more bluntly by an earlier writer, Thomas Sherley, describing the Turks:

“For their Sodommerye they use it soe publiquely and impudentlye as an honest Christian woulde shame to companye his wyffe as they do with their buggeringe boys (9).”

A 17th century French visitor to the Middle East went so far as to claim that Moslems were bisexual by nature, and many male authors gave descriptions of “licentiousness” (lesbianism) among women in harems and bath houses. Homosexuality became known to the English as the “Persian” or “Turkish” vice.

This peculiar aspect of the Middle East has never entirely disappeared. The sight of men, even soldiers in uniform, strolling along a street hand in hand, strikes first-time visitors as extraordinary even today. The Moslem world enjoyed a reputation as a haven for sex with boys and men well into the twentieth century. The proclivities of many Western authors like Gustave Flaubert, Oscar Wilde, or Andre Gide, reflected the pederast and homosexual attractions of the Islamic world; the fascination continues in the “gay culture” of our own time:

But the bottom line – and it’s coming from a devout bottom – is that there’s still something extremely sensual and potent about the image of the Islamic male. You only have to compare the stiff, asexual frigidity of Bush and his bookmarmish wife with the moist-eyed, sensitive and soft-spoken quality of the bearded Bin Laden, feminine yet virile, with his multiple wives and vast progeny, to grasp the difference (10).

The author of this passage, a self-confessed promiscuous homosexual, has intuited something important, and dangerous. Excessively doting, downtrodden mothers fixated on their offspring, and aloof, mostly distant and domineering fathers, create preconditions for what is known in clinical psychology as the “lost object homosexuality,” as opposed to the pre-Oedipal polyformous homosexuality, which is “love for men.” The cry for the missing father, that emanates across the Moslem world into the endless void from a hundred thousand minarets five times each day, can never be answered. The hatred that motivates Bin Laden and his “feminine yet virile” followers is not the normal aggressiveness of the child for the father at the Oedipal stage, which can be mediated and managed, but hard-core psychotic homosexuality of the son abandoned by his father, a near-incurable condition that can lead to homicidal, delusional paranoia.

This condition is well known to the practitioners of clinical psychology and psychoanalysis in Great Britain, where thousands of sons of upper and upper-middle-class families end up in neo-Islamic establishments known as Public Schools. It is not too far-fetched to conclude that British Islamophilia under Disraeli and after was not merely due to the usual game of balancing the powers:

“I sometimes wonder if there is not some horrifying attraction, especially for English boys brought up in a public school, to the brutal manliness that regards sodomitic rape as an expression of virility. In any event, a series of Anglo-Saxon males who have gone in search of their manhood found it in Islamic culture: Sir Richard Burton, T.E. Lawrence, and Pasha Club are at the head of a large pack, whose rear is brought up by the academic camp-followers and foundation executives who find, in their defense of Islam, the excuse for their hatred of Jews (11).”

Men and women have been created different, and the recognition of those differences is essential in any society that does not want to follow the path of post-modern depravity. The denial of that difference is essential in the Faustian experiment to which the West is subjecting itself, and those who do not wish to partake in the proceedings may find Islam’s frank admission of difference between sexes alluring; but that is the lure of dementia as the cure for cancer.  Islam has found the opposite extreme of the modern West’s bed-hopping unisex feminism, and has found it equally a source of opposite, though equally poisonous, pathologies.  The traditional Western view, a balance between sexual equality and sexual difference, between freedom and restraint, is the best answer.  Islam’s problem of homosexuality, a reflection of the deeper psychosis endemic to the Islamic world view, illustrates a problem that cannot be solved short of Islam’s thorough and comprehensive reform and revision.

____________________________________

Footnotes:

1. Dr. Abdul Aziz Al-Fawzan, The Evil Sin of Homosexuality http://www.islamweb.net/english/family/sociaffair/socaff-84.html

2. Associated Press, April 16, 2001.

3. http://www.iranian.com/Letters/1999/September/gay.html

4. Amnesty International report, May 1998

5. 7:80-84

6. Further examples are listed at http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_isla.htm

7. http://www.jamaat.org/qa/homo.html

8. Bruce Dunne, “Power and Sexuality in the Middle East,” Middle East Report, Spring 1998.

9. Brian Whitaker in The Guardian, November 19, 2001 http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4302213,00.html

10. http://www.brucelabruce.com/Moslem/right.html

11. Th. Fleming, Chronicles (1999), op. cit.

Serge Trifkovic received his PhD from the University of Southampton in England and pursued postdoctoral research at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. His past journalistic outlets have included the BBC World Service, the Voice of America, CNN International, MSNBC, U.S. News & World Report, The Washington Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Times of London, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He is foreign affairs editor of Chronicles.

Gosh, I think Jesus Christ might be reconsidering his endorsement of the divine institution of marriage now that actor Jack Black (playing Jesus in the blasphemous video below) thinks it’s wrong to prevent two guys from getting hitched. I mean, after all, Black is the star of “School of Rock”; what greater cultural authority do we need than that? (Oh, I forgot: Ellen DeGeneres is also mad at Prop 8 — well that settles it: God is wrong!)

Here we have anti-religious bigotry and Hollywood snobbery at its worst. There are a lot of things funnier than this video, but one of them is the idea that a bunch of spoiled Hollywood actors have any moral authority on right vs. wrong, Christian truth, marriage, etc.  Note how money (alleged “gay” tourist $$$ for homosexual “weddings”) tops transcendent morality in the video. We’ll deal with the silly shellfish canard later. — Peter LaBarbera

If the GOP or any party wants to reach minority and religious voters, it might consider the defeat of “gay rights” in Hamtramck, Mich. Here, Muslims and Catholics gather for meeting to defeat the Detroit suburb’s “sexual oriention/gender identity” law. The multi-ethnic coalition rejected the homosexual measure by 55-45 percent — even though 87 percent of Hamtramck citizens voted for Barack Obama. (Did they know Obama favors enacting a federal version of the “gay/transgender” law?)

Election Results from Hamtramck, Michigan:

President

Obama: 4,945
McCain: 708

Obama wins with 87% of vote

Hamtramck “Gay Rights” Ordinance

YES: 2,333
NO: 2,903

Pro-family coalition defeats “gay” agenda by 55-45%

Dear AFTAH Readers,
Pro-family initiatives swept to victory Tuesday in all five ballot initiatives opposing the homosexual activist agenda: the three marriage-defense amendments in California, Florida and Arizona; a ballot measure in Arkansas banning adoption by unmarried couples; and the grassroots, pro-family rejection of a Hamtramck, Mich. homosexual/transgender ordinance, as reported below.

Said Gary Glenn of American Family Association of Michigan: “California voted overwhelmingly Democratic and at the same time voted to constitutionally protect one-man, one-woman marriage, with minority voters overwhelmingly supporting the Marriage Protection Amendment.  In Hamtramck, Michigan, a Detroit suburb, residents voted nearly 90 percent for Barak Obama, while rejecting a so-called “gay rights” ordinance by a 10-point margin.

“As the Republican Party’s braintrust starts casting about for issues consistent with their party’s values that appeal to minorities and Democrats, perhaps they’ll choose to embrace — rather than keep running away from — the issue of stopping the threat that the homosexual activists’ political agenda poses to marriage, traditional family values and religious freedom,” Glenn said.

___________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tues., Nov. 4, 2008

CONTACT:   Gary Glenn through www.afamichigan.org

Hamtramck voters reject “gay rights” ordinance

HAMTRAMCK, Mich. — A statewide family values organization Tuesday congratulated a multicultural coalition of Hamtramck citizens on their successful campaign to reject a so-called “gay rights” ordinance that would have established special “protected class” status on the basis of homosexual behavior and cross-dressing.

Voters rejected the ordinance by a vote of 2,903 to 2,333, a 55-to-45 percent margin of victory identical to the percentage by which Hamtramck voters approved Michigan’s Marriage Protection Amendment in 2004.

Gary Glenn, Midland, co-author of that amendment and president of the American Family Association of Michigan, said Hamtramck voters “once again defeated homosexual activists ’special rights’ agenda by soundly rejecting this discriminatory ordinance.”

“AFA-Michigan congratulates the diverse and multicultural citizens coalition that stood in defense of traditional family values, religious freedom, and the privacy rights of women and children,” Glenn said.

He noted the campaign was highlighted by a rally at which three Catholic priests and six Muslim imams spoke out against the proposed ordinance.

“We salute Father Andy Wesley for his courage and leadership in being the first to stand against this discriminatory ordinance at a time when the city’s political establishment and news media were intent on demonizing and caricaturing anyone who dared oppose homosexual activists’ fraudulent ‘rights’ agenda,” Glenn said. “In the end, voters had the last word, standing with Fr. Wesley and repudiating the mayor and city council and the local newspaper.”

Glenn said in other jurisdictions that have adopted such ordinances, the language has been used to penalize and discriminate against Catholic Charities, the Boy Scouts, the Salvation Army, and other groups and individuals who refuse to endorse homosexual behavior and cross-dressing.  Such ordinances have also been used to allow men who dress as women to use women’s restrooms and changing rooms in schools and shopping centes and other public buildings.

AFA-Michigan last summer drafted the citizens petition required to force the ordinance onto the ballot and recruited Wesley and others to launch the successful petition drive which did so.  The group’s national affiliate, the American Family Association, donated $5,000 to the local citizens committee that opposed the ordinance, Hamtramck Citizens Voting No to Special Rights Discrimination.

The organization later exposed to the media Hamtramck city officials’ attempt to confuse voters by wording the ballot question in such a way that opponents of the ordinance would have been forced to vote ‘yes.’  As a result, officials were forced by the secretary of state’s office to reverse the ballot question’s wording.

Glenn also said the defeat of the ordinance would not have been possible without the efforts of campaign manager Jay McNally, a Catholic activist who commuted from Ypsilanti to manage the winning campaign, and the Thomas More Law Center, which provided legal counsel to the campaign and a regular speaker at campaign rallies, attorney Brian Rooney.

# # #

http://www.hamtramck.org/family/

Click on photo to enlarge. Opposition to homosexuality- and gender-confusion-based “sexual orientation” laws is something that all committed religious people can agree on — because these laws invariably oppress religious people’s freedom to live out their beliefs. At right is multi-religious, multi-ethnic rally held Oct. 12 in Hamtramck, Michigan against a proposed “gender identity”-inclusive homosexual law.

Press Release
Contacts: Jay McNally: 734 717-1174; Fr. Andrew Wesley: 313 892-1310;
Akm Rahman: 313 293-7343; e-mail:  HamtramckFamily@gmail.com

Dear Readers,

It always strikes me as odd to see homosexual activists aligning themselves with American Muslims, who oppose homosexual practice as sinful in accordance with the religion, like faithful Christians and Bible-believing Jews. These photos from a rally in Hamtramck, Michigan reflect the appropriate political/sociological equation against homosexual activism: religious people (and moral people who are irreligious) cannot abide “rights” based on same-sex misbehavior (sin). In fact, as we’re seeing in California (where Christian doctors will now be forced to perform artificial inseminations for lesbians) and across the nation, the very outworking of government-enforced homosexuality-based “rights” is to oppress religious freedom.

Americans will have to decide whether creating aberrant-sex- and gender-confusion-based “rights” — including “same-sex marriage” and its cowardly cousin, “civil unions” — is worth trampling on the historic religious and First Amendment freedoms that have defined the American republic since its beginning.  –Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

Here is the Hamtramck Citizens Opposing “Special Rights” press release put out before the rally; under that is an article on the coalition’s website explaining the coalition’s position:

__________________________________________________

Catholic, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu Religious Leaders Speak Out Against Hamtramck Gay-rights Ordinance at campaign rally

HAMTRAMCK (Oct. 10) – Nearly a dozen religious leaders in the City of Hamtramck and a nationally prominent lawyer will speak at a campaign kick-off rally for the group Hamtramck Citizens Voting NO to `Special Rights’ Discrimination.

The rally will be held Sunday, Oct. 12th, from 5 to 6:30 p.m. at the Knights of Columbus Hall, 9632 Conant St. Admission is free.

The speakers will all urge a NO vote on the Nov. 4 referendum concerning the city’s new ordinance that provides special protection to people based on sexual identity, sexual orientation and sexual behavior.
The ordinance provides no new rights for anyone except for homosexuals, as all other rights are covered by state and federal law.

Speakers will explain – in Arabic, Bengali, English and Polish — why the controversial ordinance is a threat to religious freedom, free speech, and women’s privacy rights.

The keynote speaker will be Brian Rooney, attorney for the Thomas More Law Center and legal expert on discriminatory “gay rights” legislation.

Below is a list of speakers scheduled…

Government officials:

•      Abdul Algazali, City Councilman.

Religious leaders (the imams represent various ethnic communities – Yemeni, Bosnian and Bengali}:

•      Rev. Andrew Wesley, pastor of St. Ladislaus Church and co-chair of the group Hamtramck Citizens Voting NO.

•      Najim A. Quddus, imam of the Al Islah Islamic Center in Hamtramck.

•      Masud Khan, president of the Al Islah Islamic Center.

•      Rev. Dharmananda Bikkhu, Budhist monk and founder of the International Peace Community in Hamtramck.

•      Showrob Chudhury, secretary of the Hindu community in Hamtramck.

•      Abdul Latif Azom, imam of Al Falah mosque.

•      Abdul Salam, imam of Masjid Un Nur mosque.

•      Adbo Zindani, secretary of Eiman Islamic Complex.

•      Amin Alwagah, representing Algalazali mosque.

•      Saleh Algahaim, president of Eiman Islamic Complex.

•      Dzenan Kalanac, imam of Bosnia Islamic Center.

•      Mohammed Shehab Khan, imam Baitul Islam mosque

Community leaders:

Several community leaders will also speak, including Akm Rahman, community leader and co-chair of Hamtramck Citizens Voting No.

•      Kamal Rahman, community activist.

•      Roberts Zwolak, former city councilman and city clerk.

•      Gregory Kirchner, businessman and Polish community leader.

•      Mohammed Delaware Hussein, community leader. …

The group’s Web site is www.hamtramck.org/family.

==== 30 ===

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Below is an article on the website of Hamtramck Citizens Voting NO to `Special Rights’ Discrimination:

Why Hamtramck’s “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” ordinance a
threat to religious freedom, free speech, and women’s privacy rights.

In the 2004 election, 55 percent of Hamtramck voters voted in favor of a Marriage Protection Amendment to our state constitution, helping preserve one-man, one-woman marriage for future generations of children.

But in June 2008, by a 6-to-1 vote of its politically correct city council, Hamtramck is now among the handful of cities in Michigan whose local ordinances – in conflict with federal and state law – treat homosexual behavior and cross-dressing as the moral, social, and legal equivalents of immutable characteristics such as race, color, and sex.

Obviously, many Hamtramck residents reject that comparison — based on religious, medical, and philosophical concerns.

For example, a compassionate society that rationally discourages smoking because of the clearly identified health consequences should not irrationally enact laws giving special protection to homosexual behavior that has been scientifically associated with a dramatically higher incidence of domestic violence, mental illness, substance abuse, eating disorders, life-threatening disease — AIDS, cancer, and hepatitis — and premature death by up to 20 years.

The Vatican expressed similar concerns in a 1992 letter to Bishops of the Catholic Church – authored by then-Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI – regarding legislation to “Tmake discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation illegal,” which according to Ratzinger, “may in fact have a negative impact on the family and society.”

“Even when the practice of homosexuality may seriously threaten the lives and well-being of a large number of people, its advocates remain undeterred and refuse to consider the magnitude of the risks involved,” Cardinal Ratzinger wrote.  “’Sexual orientation’ does not constitute a quality comparable to race, ethnic background, etc., in respect to non-discrimination. Unlike these, homosexual orientation is an objective disorder and evokes moral concern.”

“Including ‘homosexual orientation’ among the considerations on the basis of which it is illegal to discriminate,” Ratzinger wrote, “can easily lead to regarding homosexuality as a positive source of human rights…(and)…to the legislative protection and promotion of homosexuality.”

The American Family Association of Michigan strongly agrees.  However, the practical effects of such legislation extend beyond medical or religious concerns.

Proving to have exactly the opposite effect of their supposed intent, so-called “sexual orientation” ordinances have a track record of being used to discriminate against individuals and organizations who don’t support homosexual activists’ political agenda.

Detective Richard Stern, a fifteen-year veteran and president of the Ann Arbor police officers union, was fired after the chairman of the city’s “rights commission” formally accused him of violating that city’s “sexual orientation” ordinance.  Stern’s offense?  On behalf of his union, in a public forum for police chief candidates, he “was accused of saying that one of the candidates had a gay-rights agenda,” according to Between the Lines, a Detroit homosexual advocacy newsmagazine.

“Stern’s comments were clearly in violation of a human rights ordinance that includes sexual orientation,” the newsmagazine commented, making clear that homosexual activists believe so-called “sexual orientation” ordinances outweigh our Constitutionally-guaranteed free speech rights.  Stern’s union disagreed, charging in a lawsuit that he was “illegally and discriminatorily” discharged by the city.

Also in Ann Arbor, the city council – once again specifically citing its discriminatory “sexual orientation” ordinance — banned donations to the United Way through city employees’ payroll deduction plan.  Why?  Because the United Way financially supported local Boy Scout troops, which appropriately refuse to allow adult males who engage in homosexual behavior to take 13-year old boys on overnight camping trips.

“A council majority believes its own anti-discrimination ordinance prohibits it from supporting Boy Scouts in any fashion, including using staff time and city computers for payroll deductions that go through the United Way to the Boy Scouts,” the Ann Arbor News reported.

In an Ann Arbor News commentary supporting the city council’s action, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan said the Boy Scouts’ stand made them comparable to “white supremacist groups.”

Similarly, the homosexual activist group Triangle Foundation threatened to sue the city of Detroit, demanding that city officials cut all funding of local Boy Scout troops, deny the Scouts access to public parks and facilities, and prohibit sponsorship of Scout activities by the police and fire departments, the Detroit News reported.  The Scouts’ refusal to allow openly homosexual Scoutmasters, Triangle charged, “is in direct violation of the City Charter and Human Rights Ordinance…(that) expressly forbid discrimination based on sexual orientation.”

In Philadelphia, under authority of its “sexual orientation” ordinance, the city is currently evicting the local Boy Scout council from offices it has occupied in a city park for nearly 80 years.

In Chicago, Cook County officials refused to hire the Salvation Army to deliver services to low-income residents, saying “the county’s ordinance banning employment discrimination against gays and lesbians bars it from contracting with the Salvation Army,” a traditional Christian denomination whose religious doctrine teaches that homosexual behavior is a sin.

Under Massachusetts’ “sexual orientation” law, Catholic Charities was given an ultimatum: either agree to process adoptions of children to homosexual couples in violation of the church’s moral opposition to such adoptions, or abandon its century-old adoption referral service altogether.  To its credit, Catholic Charities chose the latter.

The “sexual orientation” language now included in the Hamtramck ordinance is disturbing even beyond its proven discriminatory effects in other cities.

The Oakland Press reported in March 2005: “Bill Scharffe, director of bylaw and policy services for the Michigan Association of School Boards, advises local districts not to include the term ‘sexual orientation’ in their anti-harassment policies.  ‘Schools need to be very careful with that,’ he said, noting that neither federal nor state civil rights laws consider people of a particular sexual orientation a protected class.  He added that literal interpretation of ‘sexual orientation’ could include people who gravitate toward any sort of sexual activity, including that with animals, children and corpses.”
Not content with adding the discriminatory “sexual orientation” language to city law, homosexual activists and their political allies succeeded in adding the words “gender identity” as well.

Simply put, “gender identity” refers to delusional men who claim to believe they’re really females stuck in a man’s body and insist on wearing a dress and high heels to work.

This “gender identity” language is so radical in its potential effects that even openly homosexual Congressman Barney Frank, D-Mass., refuses to include it in his federal “gay rights” legislation.

Rep. Frank said: “There are workplace situations — communal showers, for example — when the demands of the transgender community fly in the face of conventional norms and therefore would not pass in any Congress.  I’ve talked with transgender activists and what they want — and what we will be forced to defend — is for people with penises who identify as women to be able to shower with other women.”

Don’t take Barney’s word for it?  Consider the case of “Naomi Snyder,” a Lansing man who applied through the mail – using a female name – for membership at a women’s health club.  His membership approved, he showed up in person, and being obviously a man, was refused entry to the women’s locker room and shower.  According to Between the Lines, the Michigan ACLU threatened to sue for “discrimination,” but Lansing voters in a 1996 ballot vote had wisely rejected adding “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” to their local civil rights ordinance; thus, there was no legal basis for the threatened suit.  But in Hamtramck, now, there would be.

Thankfully, Hamtramck residents who want to protect the privacy of women and girls and prevent discrimination against people of faith and community groups such as the Boy Scouts, the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, and the United Way can by law conduct a petition drive to force this issue onto the ballot for a vote of the people.  On behalf of our supporters who reside in the city, the American Family Association of Michigan stands ready to assist in any way we can.