And once again, we see evidence of how the Homosexual and Abortion Lobbies work hand in hand, with the nation’s largest homosexual pressure group (Human Rights Campaign) fighting the pro-life Stupak-Pitts amendment. One would think that homosexuals — with seemingly no interest in normal sex and its consequences — would not have much interest in the abortion issue. But here they are crusading for a bill change that will result in federal subsidies for abortion under the rubric of “health care” and “fairness.” (HRC President Joe Solmonese was once a senior staffer at the pro-abortion pac EMILY’s LIST.)

Click HERE for a copy of the Senate health care bill, HR 3590, and HERE for a Table of Contents page — with actual page numbers! — for the same bill, that was written by a Texas citizen.  (Apparently Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) didn’t have time to put one in as he rushed the monstrous bill to the floor.) A vote on cloture for the Senate bill is planned for tomorrow, Saturday.)  Click here for an excellent Family Research Council alert on Saturday’s cloture vote. – Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

From the Coral Ridge Ministries’ website:

WASHINGTON, D.C.  Thursday, Nov. 12, 2009 — As the Senate works behind closed doors to combine the newly passed House health care takeover bill with two Senate versions that have already passed separate committees, special interest groups are rallying their members to lobby for favored provisions. The House bill, the Affordable Health Care for America Act (3962), passed on Nov. 7 by a vote of 220 to 215. The Senate’s timetable is unclear, with Majority Leader Harry Reid pledging to complete a bill before Christmas, but many observers say that this is unlikely because of the sheer immensity of the proposal and the growing opposition.

Among the biggest winners in the House version were homosexual activists. According to the Human Rights Campaign, the largest “gay” pressure group, the House bill contains several key elements that “have been part of HRC’s legislative agenda as free-standing bills for many years,” says the group’s Website, which boasts that HRC lobbied hard to have them included. The only negative aspect in HRC’s eyes is the Stupak-Pitts amendment barring federal funding for abortions, which passed 240 to 194. HRC pledges to “work with our pro-choice coalition allies to help see that it is removed or revised as health care reform moves forward.” That’s a good bet, since President Obama promised Planned Parenthood that abortion subsidies would be part of health care reform.

Key pro-homosexual provisions highlighted by HRC include:

• Special treatment: A section designating “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as special categories would open up “health data collection and grant programs focused on health disparities related to sexual orientation and gender identity.” The “gay” lobby, which has been promoting the fiction, especially among schoolchildren, that homosexual behavior is natural and poses no health risks, admits here that the behavior involves unique health problems. Unmentioned are astronomically higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS among homosexual males, and increased rates of domestic violence, suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, and mental illness among both sexes.
• Domestic partner tax benefits: HR 3296 incorporates the language of the proposed Tax Equity for Health Plan Beneficiaries Act, which would apply marital-type tax advantages to same-sex couples. Currently, employer-provided health insurance costs for a married couple are excluded from gross taxable income. This is a way that companies and the tax code historically have supported marriage, which is regarded as a key factor in attracting the most stable, loyal employees. Under the bill, employees who have domestic partners would be treated the same as those with spouses.
• More HIV funding for the states: The bill incorporates the Early Treatment for HIV Act, which, according to HRC, “would permit state Medicaid programs to provide HIV treatment to individuals before they develop AIDS. The act would amend Title XIX of the Social Security Act to provide states with the option of covering low-income, HIV-positive people as ‘categorically needy.’ States taking advantage of this option would be provided with an enhanced federal Medicaid match.” This is the only provision that might make some sense—getting aid to people before they develop full-blown AIDS. But it needs more examination in light of its impact on Medicaid, etc.
• Pro-homosexual, comprehensive sex education: HR 3962 provides funding for comprehensive condom-focused sex education programs, while leaving out abstinence programs, which HRC dismisses as “discriminatory” because they don’t facilitate “safe” gay sex. Given that after three decades of “comprehensive” sex ed, that homosexual males are still by far the largest category of AIDS cases and deaths and represent the lion’s share of syphilis and other STDs, the claim to be able to teach “safe” gay sex should be regarded as an oxymoron. The HRC also does not like the emphasis that abstinence programs put on delaying sex for marriage and supports programs that sexualize children at younger and younger ages.
• Non-discrimination: The bill “prohibits consideration of personal characteristics unrelated to the provision of health care.” HRC sees this as elevating “sexual orientation” to a civil rights category within the health care system.

The two Senate versions so far “do not contain the important provisions for LGBT people incorporated in the House-passed bill,” HRC notes, promising to lobby for final inclusion of its list.

TAKE ACTION: Please contact your two U.S. Senators and urge them to oppose HR 3962 and the two Senate health care takeover bills, S1796 and S1679. Click here for an excellent Family Research Council alert on Saturday’s cloture vote. The Capitol switchboard is (202) 224-3121 [you can also call 202-225-3121 or write your representatives through www.congress.org].

Robert H. Knight is Senior Writer and Washington, D.C., Correspondent at Coral Ridge Ministries. He is the author of Fighting For America’s Soul (Coral Ridge Ministries, 2009).

ENDA Paves the Way: John Berry (left), President Obama’s openly homosexual director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, says that once the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is “enacted and signed into law, it is only a matter of time” before the rest of the administration’s sweeping homosexual and transsexual activist agenda will become law.

TAKE ACTION: write (preferably not just by e-mail) and call your U.S. Congressman and U.S. Senators at 202-224-3121; 202-225-3121; www.congress.org) and urge them to oppose this radical big-government legislation that would strip away Americans’ foundational right to act on their religious and moral beliefs.

The following is excerpted from the homosexual newspaper Washington Blade (emphasis added):

_________________________________

ENDA should be top priority – Berry

Says ‘Don’t Ask,’ DOMA repeal should also be pursued

By CHRIS JOHNSON, Washington Blade
September 28, 2009

The highest-ranking openly gay appointee in the Obama administration is encouraging LGBT Americans to make passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act their No. 1 priority and said its success would place within reach other civil rights goals.

John Berry, director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, called for greater focus on ENDA on Saturday following his keynote address at Out for Work’s national convention at the Westin City Center Hotel in D.C.

Berry advocated for the importance of ENDA — and identified repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act as other priorities — in response to an audience member’s question about possible legislative issues on the horizon and criticism that President Obama isn’t moving quickly enough on LGBT issues.

“The most important thing we can do right now is we got to … secure the passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act — and it’s got to include full transgender protections,” Berry said. “I believe that if we all concentrate our efforts where it needs to be concentrated, which is on the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, we can get the job done.”

Other pro-LGBT legislation can be more easily achieved, Berry said, if Congress were to pass ENDA.

“If we can get ENDA enacted and signed into law, it is only a matter of time before all the rest happens,” he said. “It is the keystone that holds up the whole bunch, and so we need to focus our energies and attention there.”

Berry was confident that there are enough votes in the House to pass a fully inclusive ENDA, but said a question remains over whether there are 60 votes in the Senate to end a filibuster.

“We’re very close to the 218 [votes in the House],” Berry said. “We’re within spitting distance, and I think we will get it. We are not as close on the 60 in the Senate, but we will be, and this will happen, so I think it’s going to take that focal energy point.”

The OPM director commended Obama for being “clearly on the record” in support of ENDA. …

Berry said Defense Secretary Robert Gates has “an open mind” on repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” but that the secretary also has to work to “balance some things,” such as military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Still, the OPM director noted that administration support alone is insufficient to overturn the law.

“This administration strongly supports the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ but in the end, having the president say that without 218 votes in the House and 60 in the Senate don’t get you far,” Berry said.

Also high among Berry’s priorities is overturning DOMA. The OPM director criticized Congress for passing the law in 1996 and said it was enacted for bad reasons.

“It was motivated only by hate, it was motivated by discrimination, it is a base law and it should be repealed,” Berry said.

Berry noted that Obama has called DOMA [discriminatory] and urged for its legislative repeal, but the OPM director added the best way toward overturning the law would be through the courts and not Congress.

“I will tell you personally I believe that I think the courts will strike this down before Congress will have to repeal it legislatively,” he said. “And thank goodness because, in this case, the backbone is not there in Congress.”

Support for repealing DOMA through litigation echoes the position of gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) on the issue. Frank has not signed on as a co-sponsor to the Respect for Marriage Act, a bill that would repeal DOMA, because he said Congress should tackle other LGBT priorities and a pending lawsuit against the statute better addresses the issue….

The following is reprinted from Gary Bauer’s “End of Day Report” put out by the Campaign for Working Families [sign up for Bauer's excellent email report HERE]:

President Misleads Again

By Gary Bauer

President Obama ran into a problem from an unlikely source yesterday during his television marathon of five Sunday talk shows. ABC host George Stephanopoulos confronted the president on whether the large penalties in the bill ($3,800 per family) for those who refuse to buy health insurance constitute a tax. The president, understandably, was adamant in denying it was a tax. If it is a tax, then he is violating his pledge not to raise taxes on middle class families –– a political disaster.

As Stephanopoulos pressed the point, Obama said, “No. That’s not true, George.” A few minutes later, he objected again, and said, “No, but, but, George, you – you can’t just make up that language and decide that that’s called a tax increase.” Stephanopoulos then cited a Webster’s dictionary, which defines “tax” as “a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes.” Obama objected again, and told Stephanopoulos that by looking up tax in the dictionary, he was “stretching a little bit right now.” Stephanopoulos gave up and asked, “But you reject that it’s a tax increase?” President Obama responded, “I absolutely reject that notion.”

The president may reject that notion, but right about now Congressman Joe Wilson might again need to yell “You lie!” Several news outlets took a look at the Senate bill to see what it called the penalties. There it was in black and white on page 29: “The consequence for not maintaining insurance would be an excise tax.” According to Politico, the legislation goes on to state that the tax would be collected: “through the tax code and applied as an additional amount of federal tax owed.”

So what should we conclude? Does the president not know what is in the bill he is pushing? Did he know, but chose to intentionally mislead Stephanopoulos and the millions of people watching the interview? Does President Obama think he can still get away with distortions and half-truths?

By the way, HERE is another $1,800 middle class tax increase the administration is pushing and trying its best to deny.

RSVP to aftahangela@gmail.com (847-722-5330) or and you can get additional information by calling 630-717-7631 or e-mailing americansfortruth@comcast.net. I hope to see some of you tomorrow evening!  — Peter LaBarbera, www.americansfortruth.org

Here are the event details:

WHO:  Dr. Michael Brown,  director of the Charlotte, NC -based Coalition of Conscience and president of FIRE School of Ministry in Concord, North Carolina. Dr. Brown, who holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University, is the world’s foremost Messianic Jewish apologist. (Messianic Jews are Jews who believe in Jesus Christ (who was Jewish!) as their Messiah.) Brown is the author of 20 books and in 2010 will publish “A Queer Thing Happened to America,” which exposes the extremist teachings of “queer theology.”

WHAT:  AFTAH’s monthly dinner-lecture: Dr. Brown will be preaching on how faithful Christians are called to both RESIST the radical homosexual activist agenda and REACH OUT in grace and love with the Gospel of Jesus Christ to men and woman practicing homosexuality.

WHEN:  Thursday, Sept. 17, 6:00-9:00 PM.  Casual dinner begins at 6:00, followed by Dr. Brown’s talk from 7:00-9:00.  There will be a time for Q&A after a mid-talk break for refreshments.  A free will donation will be taken to cover the cost of the event. This event will be videotaped and a tape will be offered by AFTAH for purchase.

WHERE:  AFTAH’s office at 25W560 Geneva Rd., in Carol Stream, IL.  We are located on Geneva Rd., just west of Gary Rd.; (Carol Stream is next door to Wheaton in Chicago’s western suburbs.)  Look for the “Kingsland” sign out front and park in the rear.

WHY YOU SHOULD COME (and bring your PASTOR): If you struggle with or wonder about questions like these, this event is a great opportunity for you to strengthen your heart and mind on the issue of the Christian approach towards homosexuality and “gay” activism:

• If as a Christian, I want to lovingly minister to gays and lesbians, shouldn’t I avoid the anti-homosexual-agenda “culture war”?
• As a pastor, how best can I minister to active homosexuals?
• What responsibility do I as a pastor have in helping to resist the homosexual activist agenda and to proclaim biblical truth outside my church doors about homosexuality?
• How does the “GLBT” agenda threaten our religious and First Amendment freedoms?
• How are “queer” theologians undermining and distorting the Word of God? How does the gay theologians’ “Jesus” differ from the biblical Christ?
• Can I still love my “gay” friends or relatives while helping the pro-family movement resist the demands of the  homosexual activist agenda?
• How do I respond to gay activists who compare the Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality to “wearing polyester” or eating shellfish? Why should I take what the Old Testament says about homosexuality seriously when it also advocates the stoning of rebellious children, etc.?
• How do I respond to people who tell me that I’m being judgmental if I don’t accept people being gay?
• Shouldn’t Christians stop condemning homosexuality as sin to show their love for the homosexual?
• Can a person be “gay” and a faithful Christian? Is the term “gay Christian” acceptable?
• Why are so many Christians AWOL in the Culture War?
• What have Christians done wrong in opposing the “gay” movement?
• Can homosexuals really change and leave their “gay” lifestyle and identity behind?
• What about the idea that churches should put a “moratorium” on preaching against homosexuality to help reach out to gays with the Gospel?
• My liberal friends tell me that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality: how do I answer that?
• If we’re against promiscuity, shouldn’t we let two people of the same sex who love each other and want to commit themselves to each other at least have their “civil unions” be recognized by the government? Shouldn’t we be FOR (same-sex) monogamy?
• If gays and lesbians didn’t choose their attractions, why is it a sin?
• Are transsexuality and cross-dressing sins in the Bible?
• I am not a Christian: give me some other reasons why I should oppose homosexuality in general, and “gay rights” laws in particular

Other AFTAH articles about Dr. Michael Brown:

• A Model Christian Response to ‘Gay’ Pride: ‘God Has a Better Way’ in Charlotte
• ‘Can You Be Gay and Christian?’ Dr. Michael Brown Invites Homosexual Clergy to Dialogue
• Should Christians Support Same-Sex Unions as a Matter of Justice? Dr. Michael Brown Responds to Jim Wallis
• LISTEN ONLINE: CWA Interviews LaBarbera and Dr. Michael Brown on ‘God Has Better Way’ Outreach
• Higgins Responds to Wayne Besen’s Screed against Dr. Michael Brown
• Dr. Mike Brown’s Debate with HRC’s Harry Knox to Air on Free Webcast May 5th

_____________________________
RSVP for the Dr. Michael Brown dinner-lecture to: aftahangela@gmail.com (847-722-5330) or and you can get additional information by calling 630-717-7631 or e-mailing americansfortruth@comcast.net. I hope to see some of you tomorrow evening!  — Peter LaBarbera, www.americansfortruth.org

Folks, take a look at the shocking photo at left and the Idaho Statesman article sent our way by conservative blogger Clayton Cramer — about a transsexual prisoner who received a state-funded “sex-change” operation. I agree with Gary Glenn of American Family Association of Michigan about the absurdity of how words are twisted to accommodate the “trans” agenda.

Glenn remarks:

“One of the both most inane and insidious aspects of the ‘transgender’ issue is the mainstream media’s depiction of delusion as if it were reality…

“She cut off her own testicles.”

“She amputated the tip of her penis.”

These reporters must either have mush for brains or, in rare cases, feel like total idiots for being forced to report something so obviously inane.

But this is a delusion that the opposition will compel us all by force of law to treat as reality.  And subsidize with our tax dollars.

Hmmm. I didn’t know “she’s” had testicles, but then again, Gary and I (and Clayton) are just a bunch of “transphobes” (another preposterous GLBT term).

Glenn was reacting to conservative blogger Clayton Cramer, who wisely points out that body-disfiguring “sex change” operations are already funded by the taxpayer, making it likely that they ultimately would be covered under “Obama-care” (just like abortions, by the way). That is, unless Americans stand up and say, “NO!” — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

TAKE ACTION: Call your Congressman and Senators (202-224-3121; 202-225-3121; www.congress.org) and urge them to reject Obama-care with its likely result of taxpayer-paid abortions and sex-change mutilations operations.  

______________________________________

Cramer writes:

Why I Get Real Nervous About Government Health Care

By Clayton Cramer

Here’s a purely elective medical treatment being done for convicted felons because a judge ordered it done. From the August 6, 2009 Idaho Statesman:

BOISE, Idaho — The Idaho Department of Correction has settled
lawsuits with two transgender inmates who castrated themselves after
they were denied feminizing hormone therapy.

The terms of the settlements were not disclosed, but the department
has changed its policy for identifying and treating transgender
inmates. The policy now limits the time inmates must wait for
treatment, specifies how they may be diagnosed, and clarifies when
they qualify for hormone therapy.

Josephime Von Isaak sued the state in 2006 and Jenniffer Ann Spencer
sued the following year. Both inmates, who were born with male
anatomy but consider themselves female, contended they were
subjected to cruel and unusual punishment because they were denied
treatment for gender identity disorder.

Spencer was serving time on a 2000 conviction for possession of a
stolen car and escape when she cut off her own testicles with a
disposable razor blade in 2004 an apparent effort to rid her body of
testosterone. Spencer survived the self-castration, and prison
doctors prescribed testosterone replacement therapy – refusing to
prescribe the estrogen Spencer wanted.

Isaak, who is serving a life sentence for second-degree murder, said
she was also compelled to remove her own testicles with a razor in
2004 after the state failed to diagnose and treat her disorder. Even
then, Isaak said in the lawsuit, she went without the estrogen
treatment she wanted, and a year after self-castrating she amputated
the tip of her penis with a razor blade.

The state cited Isaak’s birth gender and schizophrenia diagnosis
when it denied her female hormones and a surgical sex change. In
Spencer’s case, the state said a diagnosis of gender identity
disorder wasn’t warranted and that Spencer had lied about living as
a woman and taking birth control pills before her incarceration.

These are convicted felons — and a judge orders the state to provide them with medical treatment to assist them with self-inflicted sex changes.

What do you suppose the chances are that judges are going to order the “government option” to cover this?

“Coalition of Conscience” crowd of more than 500 prepares to offer Gospel witness at homosexual “pride” event in Charlotte, N.C.  Their message: “God has a better way.” See www.godhasabetterway.com.

Dear Readers,

I commend to you my friend Dr. Michael Brown’s and the Coalition of Conscience’s response to the “gay pride” movement in Charlotte, N.C. In a speech last week to Reclaiming Oklahoma for Christ, I said that the appropriate Christian response to homosexual/”trans” activism and homosexual strugglers is a tightrope walk — balancing a witness for truth on the one side and the gracious love of Christ for sinners on the other. I too often fall off that tightrope, but Michael hangs on it as well as any pro-family leader I have observed in the last 20 years. (My only cautionary note is Brown’s use of the term “homophobia” [see this excellent NARTH analysis] — an artificial construct that is now so elastically defined that almost any rejection of homosexualist goals (including same-sex “marriage”) can be and is deemed “homophobic” by “gay” activists and the liberal media. That said, his point it correct: it is wrong to fear and hate men and women trapped in homosexuality — people who need God’s love and grace.)

How I wish that decades ago Christian leaders in Chicago had taken Dr. Brown’s “God has a better way” approach of a mobilized witness against “proud” homosexuality and the dangerous agenda that goes with it. Perhaps if they had, we wouldn’t be seeing the annual, raucous, debauched homosexuality “pride” celebrations on Chicago streets with attendees (”gay” and straight) numbering in the hundreds of thousands. The Church of Jesus Christ in America has largely abdicated its role as a bold witness for truth and Biblical morality in the culture. (And who says proclaiming the Gospel and confronting sexual sin agendas must be mutually exclusive?) I challenged Oklahoma Christians to be as aggressive in defending God’s truth about homosexuality as self-described “queer” activists are in advancing their lies (enumerated below). Such is the spirit that Michael Brown and the Coalition of Conscience have displayed in Charlotte; believers across the nation would do well to learn from and imitate them. — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH, www.americansfortruth.org

P.S. As if to prove my theory that no matter how loving biblically faithful Christians are, they will always be cast as hateful, “homophobic” bigots by radical “queer” activists, click HERE to read homosexual militant Wayne Besen’s response to Michael Brown’s “God has a better way” campaign. It is vicious, even by Besen’s low standard.

_________________________________________________

Dr. Michael Brown

STATEMENT TO THE MEDIA, JULY 25, 2009
GOD HAS A BETTER WAY RALLY, CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA

DR. MICHAEL BROWN, DIRECTOR, THE COALITION OF CONSCIENCE [links added by AFTAH]
www.coalitionofconscience.org; www.godhasabetterway.com

We are here today to reach out and resist –– to reach out to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community with compassion, as neighbors and friends and fellow-workers, and to declare God’s great love for GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender] people. And we are here to resist the gay activist agenda and to send a message to the nation.

As followers of Jesus, we first confess our own sins –– our lack of ardent love for homosexual men and women, our lack of compassion for their struggles, our adding to their sense of rejection through insensitive words and deeds.

We acknowledge the fact that homophobia is alive and well in some churches, and we renounce and repudiate that hateful and destructive attitude.

Our love also compels us to speak the truth, and we do not believe that all sexual orientations should be celebrated.

We do not celebrate the fact that some people believe they are women trapped in men’s bodies;

We do not celebrate the fact that two men or two women cannot reproduce their own unique offspring and that same-sex families guarantee that a child will never have either a mother or a father;

We do not celebrate the fact that some people choose to surgically mutilate their God-given organs and must take hormones for the rest of their lives just to be at peace with themselves;

We do not celebrate the sexual confusion that exists in many young people today, to the point that they can only identify themselves “as genderqueer”;

We do not celebrate the pain and brokenness that exists in the lives of many of those attending Pride Charlotte today –– completely apart from societal rejection –– and we proclaim to our GLBT friends that God has a better way, that there is a place of wholeness and transformation to be found in Jesus. And we are here for the long-term to help them on that journey.

And because of our sense of justice and rightness, we take strong exception to the gay activist agenda. We watch its trajectory, we see where it has gone and where it is going, and we say, “It stops here in Charlotte.”

Since gay pride events have been rallying points for GLBT activism, we take our stand here today and declare:

We don’t believe that elementary school children should be taught to find their “inner-trannie” (meaning their inner transgender identity) as advocated in GLSEN’s training materials.

We don’t believe that it is in the best interest of our society to seek to eradicate gender or to multiply it exponentially.

We completely reject the Los Angeles Unified School District Reference Guide when it states that Gender identity “refers to one’s understanding, interests, outlook, and feelings about whether one is female or male, or both, or neither, regardless of one’s biological sex.”

We don’t believe it is good or right for four-year-old children to have their preschool teachers read them books like One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dad, Blue Dads or to be lined up by sneaker color rather than gender so they don’t feel “boxed in.”

We don’t believe in “Queering Elementary Education,” to use the title of a well-known book.

We believe it is outrageous when an African American woman is fired from her university position of vice-president of human resources because she writes an editorial objecting to the concept that sexual orientation is equivalent to skin color.

We believe it is outrageous for the media to cover up the gay identity of a sexual predator who repeatedly raped his adopted, five-year-old African American son and offered him for sex through the internet – for fear of making homosexual couples look bad.

We believe it is outrageous for the mayor of San Francisco to welcome warmly a public fair featuring nude, sado-masochistic displays, and to do so in the name of “diversity.”

And what does it say of our country today when our president, in the White House, could say “We are very proud of you” to a man who leads an organization devoted to making harder core pornography more readily available and who says that bestiality is fine as long as the animal doesn’t mind?

We don’t believe in fining a Christian photographer in New Mexico for politely declining to shoot a lesbian commitment ceremony, or punishing an Anglican bishop in England for choosing not to hire an openly gay youth worker, or for putting a lifetime ban on Christian leaders in Canada, forbidding them from expressing the biblical teaching on homosexual practice and threatening them with imprisonment.

We don’t believe in laws that could jail the owner of a Christian bookstore for choosing not to hire a cross-dresser as a receptionist.

We don’t believe in a Hate Crimes bill that is so flawed that even the ACLU is concerned that it could restrict freedom of speech.

We don’t believe it is right for major Charlotte-based companies like Bank of America and Wachovia and Duke Energy to pour tens of thousands of dollars into a radical organization like the Human Rights Campaign, an organization that has stated that supporters of male-female marriage are “right wing extremists” and that mandates that businesses must have special bathroom accommodations for employees undergoing sex-change surgery.

We are saddened by the fact that some of those who came out of the closet forty years now are now trying to put conservative Christians in the closet.

We don’t believe in tampering with the foundations of human society –– male-female marriage and family –– and creating a new institution previously unknown in human history.

We utterly reject the new theologies that advocate “Queering Christ” and writing “Queer Commentaries” on the Bible, and we say to Charlotte and the nation, “By God’s grace, it stops here.”

So, we say “Enough is enough” to the destructive goals of gay activism, and we say to the GLBT community, “Jesus loves you and God has a better way!”

Below we reprint the first of an excellent three-part series on the “Hate Crimes” bill (S. 909) by Pittsburgh Theological Seminary professor Robert Gagnon (left), probably the world’s foremost expert on the Bible and homosexuality from an orthodox (Bible-believing) perspective. S. 909 could be voted on as early as Thursday in the U.S. Senate. (So says the extremist National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.) For those who can’t wait on AFTAH for Parts II and III, go to this page on Gagnon’s website and scroll down for the full series.

TAKE ACTION: call or write your U.S. Senators (202-224-3121 or 202-225-1321; www.congress.org) today and urge them to oppose the “hate crimes” bill, which is likely to be tacked on as an amendment to the defense appropriations bill for a vote as early as Thursday. Federal “hate crimes” legislation including homosexuality and gender confusion will lay the groundwork for the persecution of religious Americans or anyone who acts on the belief that homosexuality is wrong — as well as pro-life activists working to save unborn babies and those who fight jihadist Islamo-fascism. Every red state with no “sexual orientation” laws will instantly be affected by this federal power-grab that guarantees unequal treatment in the law by awarding homosexuals, bisexuals and the gender confused specially protected “civil rights” status.

_____________________________

Gagnon writes:

Why a Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity “Hate Crimes” Law Is Bad for You

Part 1: Promoting hatred of people opposed to homosexual practice and transgenderism

by Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.

May 28, 2009

To print a clean copy with proper formatting and pagination go to the pdf version HERE.

The so-called “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act” (H.R. 1913), passed by the U.S. House of Representatives along party lines on Apr. 29 and introduced into the U.S. Senate shortly thereafter by Ted Kennedy (S. 909), is improperly named. The bill is really a hate-promotion bill as regards the inclusion of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” among the groupings slated to receive special protection.

Supporters of this bill who rightly believe homosexual practice to be unnatural and sinful have been duped into thinking that this bill is primarily about protecting homosexual and transgendered persons from violence. They hear the rubric “hate crimes” and think: Who can be for violence toward homosexual and transgendered persons?

The real objectives of the “hate crimes” bill (hint: it’s not about crime)

Supporters of this bill who believe homosexual practice to be immoral rarely stop to consider that all necessary laws are already in place protecting everyone from violent physical attacks or verbal threats to do bodily harm, including persons who engage in homosexual and transgendered behavior. Even homosexual columnist Andrew Sullivan has recently commented: “The real reason for hate crime laws is not the defense of human beings from crime. There are already laws against that—and Matthew Shepard’s murderers were successfully prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law in a state with no hate crimes law at the time.” There is absolutely no evidence that state prosecutors are systematically ignoring genuine crimes against homosexual and transgendered persons, once reported to law enforcement officials.

So why pass “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” so-called “hate crime” legislation? The reason has more to do with foisting an expansive homosexualist agenda on the nation than with concerns about crime. The bill serves the following vital aims of that agenda:

• It gets the federal government to enshrine in federal law “sexual orientation” (i.e. homosexuality and bisexuality) and “gender identity” (i.e. transsexualism and cross-dressing) as identity markers worthy of special protection and promotion alongside racial and gender diversity.
• This in turn gives federal backing to hatred of all persons who express opposition to homosexual practice and transgenderism as the moral equivalent of racists and misogynists (sexists), no matter how loving that expression of opposition may be.
• It also lays the foundation for a litany of future “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” bills that will markedly abridge the civil liberties of all who express moral disapproval of homosexual practice and transgenderism.

The foot in the door

This “hate crimes” bill is the proverbial foot in the door or camel nose in the tent that makes possible —— indeed inevitable —— all future laws involving “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” By simply placing “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” alongside of “race,” “color,” “national origin,” “gender,” and “disability,” this “hate crimes” bill does most of its damage. It ensconces in federal law the principle that homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality are as benign as race, gender, and disability —— an aspect of human diversity that must be affirmed and celebrated. Those who refuse to go along with this principle then become encoded in law as hateful, discriminatory bigots.

Note that while “religion” (an identity marker involving choice) is one of the protected categories of this “hate crime” bill, the bill mainly makes a connection between “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” on the one hand and a host of benign innate conditions on the other (i.e., the five other protected categories of the bill). I’ve never heard an advocate for homosexual practice and transgenderism make the connection between these behaviors and religious belief. The analogy is always made with race and gender.

The thought crime of “prejudice” against homosexual and transgender behavior

Make no mistake about the fact that this is an Orwellian thought-crimes bill. Suppose a young man and a 70-year-old grandmother push each at roughly the same time. The man does so after shouting out “You bigoted homophobe!” while the grandmother does so after responding “Well then, you are a sexual pervert!”

This “hate crime” bill would apply only to the grandmother and would do so solely on the basis that she believed that homosexual practice was a perversion of the natural sexual order. For the bill establishes this conviction to be a “prejudice,” stating that the federal government can intervene when “a crime of violence … is motivated by prejudice based on the actual or perceived … sexual orientation [or] gender identity … of the victim” (emphasis added). The bill effectively (but wrongly, go HERE) declares this conviction to be a hate that society must prosecute vigorously by enhancing penalties and calling for massive federal intervention.

However, the bill shows no concern for classifying as hateful prejudice the alternative conviction; namely, that advocates of a male-female requirement for sexual relations are hateful, ignorant bigots. Rather, the bill promotes this alternative conviction to society at large. It essentially declares to all sectors of society that it is “open season” on hating and ostracizing persons who find homosexual behavior and transsexualism to be morally repugnant, much as society hates and ostracizes members of the Klu Klux Klan or skinhead Nazi groups.

Recent cases in point are the widespread intimidation tactics employed by homosexualist opponents of California’s Proposition 8 against its supporters (for example, go HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE) and the smear campaign against Miss California, Carrie Prejean, for daring to disagree with a homosexual pageant judge’s affirmation of “gay marriage” (note that the point holds whatever Prejean’s deficiencies may be as a role model for Christian sexual modesty). Why shouldn’t those opposed to homosexual practice or transsexualism get special protection from the federal government? The reason is simple: They’re bigots.

The analogy of other sexual orientations

This bill thus goes beyond protection of homosexual, bisexual, and transgendered persons (who are already protected) to promotion of hatred —— hatred toward those opposed to homosexual and transgendered behavior. If you have any doubt about that, consider whether adding pedophilia (‘pedosexuality’) to the list would imply promotion of pedophilic behavior by the state and antagonism by the state toward perceived opponents of pedophiles. Surely it would.

Sadly, this may not be the best example since Rep. Steven King unsuccessfully introduced an amendment to the “hate crimes” bill in the House that would have excluded pedophilia from the definition of “sexual orientation.” If you can believe it, the Democrats in the House Judiciary Committee defeated the amendment along party lines, 13-10. To be sure, the Democrats are right that both “pedosexuality,” sexual desire for children, and “polysexuality,” sexual desire for more than one person concurrently, are “sexual orientations.” Where the Democrats err is in failing to recognize that this is a good reason for not having a “sexual orientation” provision.

Conclusion

So don’t fall for the line that, if you really love “gay,” lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons, you will support this “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” “hate crime” bill. No, support for this bill does not mean that you oppose hateful, violent acts against persons who self-identify as homosexuals, transsexuals, and cross-dressers. Existing laws already make that point. Rather, it means that you support stigmatizing, marginalizing, and penalizing people who, lovingly or not, oppose homosexual practice and transgenderism. This is a hate-promotion bill.

Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D. is associate professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Abingdon Press) and co-author of Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views (Fortress Press). See www.robgagnon.net for more information.

To view the president’s elitist slap at Americans who oppose homosexuality as adhering to “worn arguments and old attitudes,” start watching at the 1:00 mark of the YouTube video below of the June 29th White House reception with homosexual activists celebrating “gay pride month” (read AFTAH’s reaction to the speech HERE):

The following is the official White House transcript of Obama’s “LGBT”(lesbian, gay, bisexual transgender) speech June 29 (emphasis added):

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                                      June 29, 2009

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AT LGBT PRIDE MONTH RECEPTION

East Room

4:35 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Hello, everybody.  Hello, hello, hello.  (Applause.)  Hey!  Good to see you.  (Applause.)  I’m waiting for FLOTUS here.  FLOTUS always politics more than POTUS.

MRS. OBAMA:  No, you move too slow.  (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT:  It is great to see everybody here today and they’re just — I’ve got a lot of friends in the room, but there are some people I want to especially acknowledge.  First of all, somebody who helped ensure that we are in the White House, Steve Hildebrand.  Please give Steve a big round of applause.  (Applause.)  Where’s Steve?  He’s around here somewhere.  (Applause.)

The new chair of the Export-Import Bank, Fred Hochberg.  (Applause.)  Where’s Fred?  There’s Fred.  Good to see you, Fred.  Our Director of the Institute of Education Sciences at DOE, John Easton.  Where’s John?  (Applause.)  A couple of special friends — Bishop Gene Robinson.  Where’s Gene?  (Applause.)  Hey, Gene.  Ambassador Michael Guest is here.  (Applause.)  Ambassador Jim Hormel is here.  (Applause.)  Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown is here.  (Applause.)

All of you are here.  (Laughter and applause.)  Welcome to your White House.  (Applause.)  So –

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  (Inaudible.)  (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT:  Somebody asked from the Lincoln Bedroom here.  (Laughter.)  You knew I was from Chicago too.  (Laughter.)

It’s good to see so many friends and familiar faces, and I deeply appreciate the support I’ve received from so many of you.  Michelle appreciates it and I want you to know that you have our support, as well.  (Applause.)  And you have my thanks for the work you do every day in pursuit of equality on behalf of the millions of people in this country who work hard and care about their communities — and who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.  (Applause.)

Now this struggle, I don’t need to tell you, is incredibly difficult, although I think it’s important to consider the extraordinary progress that we have made.  There are unjust laws to overturn and unfair practices to stop.  And though we’ve made progress, there are still fellow citizens, perhaps neighbors or even family members and loved ones, who still hold fast to worn arguments and old attitudes; who fail to see your families like their families; and who would deny you the rights that most Americans take for granted.  And I know this is painful and I know it can be heartbreaking.

And yet all of you continue, leading by the force of the arguments you make but also by the power of the example that you set in your own lives — as parents and friends, as PTA members and leaders in the community.  And that’s important, and I’m glad that so many LGBT families could join us today.  (Applause.)  For we know that progress depends not only on changing laws but also changing hearts.  And that real, transformative change never begins in Washington.

(Cell phone “quacks.”)

Whose duck is back there?  (Laughter.)

MRS. OBAMA:  It’s a duck.

THE PRESIDENT:  There’s a duck quacking in there somewhere.  (Laughter.)  Where do you guys get these ring tones, by the way?  (Laughter.)  I’m just curious.  (Laughter.)

Indeed, that’s the story of the movement for fairness and equality — not just for those who are gay, but for all those in our history who’ve been denied the rights and responsibilities of citizenship; who’ve been told that the full blessings and opportunities of this country were closed to them.  It’s the story of progress sought by those who started off with little influence or power; by men and women who brought about change through quiet, personal acts of compassion and courage and sometimes defiance wherever and whenever they could.

That’s the story of a civil rights pioneer who’s here today, Frank Kameny, who was fired — (applause.)  Frank was fired from his job as an astronomer for the federal government simply because he was gay.  And in 1965, he led a protest outside the White House, which was at the time both an act of conscience but also an act of extraordinary courage.  And so we are proud of you, Frank, and we are grateful to you for your leadership.  (Applause.)

It’s the story of the Stonewall protests, which took place 40 years ago this week, when a group of citizens — with few options, and fewer supporters — decided they’d had enough and refused to accept a policy of wanton discrimination.  And two men who were at those protests are here today.  Imagine the journey that they’ve travelled.

It’s the story of an epidemic that decimated a community — and the gay men and women who came to support one another and save one another; and who continue to fight this scourge; and who demonstrated before the world that different kinds of families can show the same compassion and support in a time of need — that we all share the capacity to love.

So this story, this struggle, continues today — for even as we face extraordinary challenges as a nation, we cannot — and will not — put aside issues of basic equality.  (Applause.)  We seek an America in which no one feels the pain of discrimination based on who you are or who you love.

And I know that many in this room don’t believe that progress has come fast enough, and I understand that.  It’s not for me to tell you to be patient, any more than it was for others to counsel patience to African Americans who were petitioning for equal rights a half century ago.

But I say this:  We have made progress and we will make more.  And I want you to know that I expect and hope to be judged not by words, not by promises I’ve made, but by the promises that my administration keeps.  And by the time you receive — (applause.)  We’ve been in office six months now.  I suspect that by the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration.  (Applause.)

Now, while there is much more work to do, we can point to important changes we’ve already put in place since coming into office.  I’ve signed a memorandum requiring all agencies to extend as many federal benefits as possible to LGBT families as current law allows.  And these are benefits that will make a real difference for federal employees and Foreign Service Officers, who are so often treated as if their families don’t exist.  And I’d like to note that one of the key voices in helping us develop this policy is John Berry, our director of the Office of Personnel Management, who is here today.  And I want to thank John Berry.  (Applause.)

I’ve called on Congress to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act to help end discrimination — (applause) — to help end discrimination against same-sex couples in this country.  Now, I want to add we have a duty to uphold existing law, but I believe we must do so in a way that does not exacerbate old divides.  And fulfilling this duty in upholding the law in no way lessens my commitment to reversing this law.  I’ve made that clear.

I’m also urging Congress to pass the Domestic Partners Benefits and Obligations Act, which will guarantee the full range of benefits, including health care, to LGBT couples and their children.  (Applause.)  My administration is also working hard to pass an employee non-discrimination bill and hate crimes bill, and we’re making progress on both fronts.  (Applause.)  Judy and Dennis Shepard, as well as their son Logan, are here today.  I met with Judy in the Oval Office in May — (applause) — and I assured her and I assured all of you that we are going to pass an inclusive hate crimes bill into law, a bill named for their son Matthew.  (Applause.)

In addition, my administration is committed to rescinding the discriminatory ban on entry to the United States based on HIV status.  (Applause.)  The Office of Management and Budget just concluded a review of a proposal to repeal this entry ban, which is a first and very big step towards ending this policy.  And we all know that HIV/AIDS continues to be a public health threat in many communities, including right here in the District of Columbia.  And that’s why this past Saturday, on National HIV Testing Day, I was proud once again to encourage all Americans to know their status and get tested the way Michelle and I know our status and got tested.  (Applause.)

And finally, I want to say a word about “don’t ask, don’t tell.”  As I said before — I’ll say it again — I believe “don’t ask, don’t tell” doesn’t contribute to our national security.  (Applause.)  In fact, I believe preventing patriotic Americans from serving their country weakens our national security.  (Applause.)

Now, my administration is already working with the Pentagon and members of the House and the Senate on how we’ll go about ending this policy, which will require an act of Congress.

Someday, I’m confident, we’ll look back at this transition and ask why it generated such angst, but as Commander-in-Chief, in a time of war, I do have a responsibility to see that this change is administered in a practical way and a way that takes over the long term.  That’s why I’ve asked the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a plan for how to thoroughly implement a repeal.

I know that every day that passes without a resolution is a deep disappointment to those men and women who continue to be discharged under this policy — patriots who often possess critical language skills and years of training and who’ve served this country well.  But what I hope is that these cases underscore the urgency of reversing this policy not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it is essential for our national security.

Now, even as we take these steps, we must recognize that real progress depends not only on the laws we change but, as I said before, on the hearts we open.  For if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that there are good and decent people in this country who don’t yet fully embrace their gay brothers and sisters — not yet.

That’s why I’ve spoken about these issues not just in front of you, but in front of unlikely audiences — in front of African American church members, in front of other audiences that have traditionally resisted these changes.  And that’s what I’ll continue to do so.  That’s how we’ll shift attitudes.  That’s how we’ll honor the legacy of leaders like Frank and many others who have refused to accept anything less than full and equal citizenship.

Now, 40 years ago, in the heart of New York City at a place called the Stonewall Inn, a group of citizens, including a few who are here today, as I said, defied an unjust policy and awakened a nascent movement.

It was the middle of the night.  The police stormed the bar, which was known for being one of the few spots where it was safe to be gay in New York.  Now, raids like this were entirely ordinary.  Because it was considered obscene and illegal to be gay, no establishments for gays and lesbians could get licenses to operate.  The nature of these businesses, combined with the vulnerability of the gay community itself, meant places like Stonewall, and the patrons inside, were often the victims of corruption and blackmail.

Now, ordinarily, the raid would come and the customers would disperse.  But on this night, something was different.  There are many accounts of what happened, and much has been lost to history, but what we do know is this:  People didn’t leave.  They stood their ground.  And over the course of several nights they declared that they had seen enough injustice in their time.  This was an outpouring against not just what they experienced that night, but what they had experienced their whole lives.  And as with so many movements, it was also something more:  It was at this defining moment that these folks who had been marginalized rose up to challenge not just how the world saw them, but also how they saw themselves.

As we’ve seen so many times in history, once that spirit takes hold there is little that can stand in its way.  (Applause.)  And the riots at Stonewall gave way to protests, and protests gave way to a movement, and the movement gave way to a transformation that continues to this day.  It continues when a partner fights for her right to sit at the hospital bedside of a woman she loves.  It continues when a teenager is called a name for being different and says, “So what if I am?”  It continues in your work and in your activism, in your fight to freely live your lives to the fullest.

In one year after the protests, a few hundred gays and lesbians and their supporters gathered at the Stonewall Inn to lead a historic march for equality.  But when they reached Central Park, the few hundred that began the march had swelled to 5,000.  Something had changed, and it would never change back.

The truth is when these folks protested at Stonewall 40 years ago no one could have imagined that you — or, for that matter, I — (laughter) — would be standing here today.  (Applause.)  So we are all witnesses to monumental changes in this country.  That should give us hope, but we cannot rest.  We must continue to do our part to make progress — step by step, law by law, mind by changing mind.  And I want you to know that in this task I will not only be your friend, I will continue to be an ally and a champion and a President who fights with you and for you.

Thanks very much, everybody.  God bless you.  (Applause.)  Thank you.  It’s a little stuffed in here.  We’re going to open — we opened up that door.  We’re going to walk this way, and then we’re going to come around and we’ll see some of you over there, all right?  (Laughter.)  But out there.  (Laughter.)

But thank you very much, all, for being here.  Enjoy the White House.  Thank you.  (Applause.)

END                4:53 P.M. EDT

____________________________

TAKE ACTION: Call your U.S. Congressman and Senators and oppose “Hate Crimes” (S 909), ENDA (Employment Nondiscrimination Act) and all aspects of President Obama’s homosexual/transsexual agenda (see below). Call or write: 202-224-3121; 202-225-3121; www.congress.org.

____________________________

Americans For Truth About Homosexuality
www.americansfortruth.com

June 29, 2009; Contact AFTAH at americansfortruth@comcast.net

AFTAH Warns of Obama’s Radical Homosexual Agenda as President Meets Today with Gay Activists

Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) warns that President Obama will likely renew his radical promises to homosexual activists today at a White House “Pride Month” reception –– promises that, if fulfilled, will undermine the freedoms of the majority of Americans who affirm marriage and healthy, time-tested Judeo-Christian sexual values in their daily lives.

This afternoon, President Obama will meet with homosexual and transsexual activists at a “Reception for LGBT Pride Month.” AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera reminds voters that Obama has no mandate for his comprehensive “gay” agenda, since these agenda items were barely discussed in the general election campaign:

• Obama’s commitment to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act –– which could force pro-traditional-marriage states to recognize out-of-state homosexual “marriages”;
• Obama’s plans to homosexualize the U.S. military despite the plea of 1,100 high-ranking retired military officers not to overturn current law declaring homosexuality incompatible with military service;
• Obama’s plans to create federal workplace “rights” based on transsexuality;
• Obama’s Faith Advisory appointment of Harry Knox, who called the pope a “discredited leader” and homosexuality a “gift from God,” thus mocking holy Scripture;
•  Obama’s appointment of Kevin Jennings to head up “Safe Schools” at the Department of Education. As founder of Gay, Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN), Jennings presided over the 2000 “Fistgate” scandal in which a GLSEN-sponsored workshop exposed underage children to graphic discussions by homosexual adults on how to perform dangerous and bizarre gay perversions; Jennings also said “[F**k] ‘em” and “Drop dead” to religious conservatives in a 2000 speech [click HERE to read Scott Whiteman's shocking "Fistgate" affidavit];
• Obama’s appointment of John Berry as Office of Personnel Management Director, strategically placed to advance homosexual activism throughout the federal government;
• Obama’s agenda of federalizing pro-homosexual “hate crimes” and employment law (ENDA) –– which would undermine Americans’ freedoms and vastly increase the power of the state to punish moral-minded citizens by promoting homosexuality and gender confusion as official government policy;
• Obama’s goal to homosexualize immigration laws, thus further undermining marriage and incentivizing the immigration of homosexuals –– adding new stress to an already burdened system;
• The White House’s honoring of “gay pride” and radical, anti-Christian bigots like homosexual icon Frank Kameny –– who smears religious conservatives as “Christianofascists” –– and who cynically proclaims, despite being an atheist, that “gay is godly”; [Note: Kameny is also "Bestiality-tolerant"];
• Obama’s promotion of homosexual adoption, which (for intentionally fatherless lesbian-led households), contradicts his commitment to responsible fatherhood.

Homosexual activist icon Frank Kameny (left) with Obama’s homosexual director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), John Berry.

_____________________________________

Media Advisory

Americans For Truth About Homosexuality

June 16, 2009; Contact: Angela at 847-722-5330; americansfortruth@comcast.net

Coalition Press Conference: Obama’s Appointments and Policies Reflect Extreme Homosexual Agenda

CHICAGO, Ill. – Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) is organizing a news conference Wednesday, June 17th at 11:00 AM, to highlight President Obama’s radical homosexual appointments and overall “gay” agenda:

Where: 29 South LaSalle Street, Suite 610, Chicago, IL
When: Wednesday., June 17, 11:00 AM
Who: Scheduled speakers:

Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality
Matt Barber, Liberty Counsel;
Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern (R);
Hiram Crawford, pro-family, pro-life advocate, Chicago;
Mary Ann Hackett, Catholic Citizens of Illinois;
Diane Gramley, American Family Association of Pennsylvania;
David Smith, Illinois Family Institute;
Pastor Larry Rogers, Israel Methodist Community Church, Chicago;
Tom Brejcha, Thomas More Pro-Life Law Center;
Pastor Calvin Lindstrom, Church of Christian Liberty, Arlington Heights, IL

What: press event drawing attention to Obama’s emerging homosexual- and transsexual activist agenda:

• Obama’s radical appointments including anti-traditional-Catholic Harry Knox (of the homosexual lobby group Human Rights Campaign) and Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) founder Kevin Jennings;
• Hate Crimes bill;
• Obama’s radical promise to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), signed into law by President Clinton in 1996);
• Obama’s ENDA (Employment Nondiscrimination Act) plans to force businesses to approve of homosexuality;
• Obama’s plan to homosexualize the U.S. military (repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”);
• Obama’s confusion about Christianity, the Bible and homosexual practice;
• Obama’s lack of mandate to push the envelope on homosexual and transsexual issues

“Americans are largely ignorant about President Obama’s extreme pro-homosexual goals, which includes repealing DOMA and homosexualizing the U.S. military,” said AFTAH’s Peter LaBarbera. “We are thrilled that these organizations and leaders are coming together to expose Obama’s ‘gay’ and transsexual agenda –– for which he has zero mandate because these issues were almost completely ignored in the general election campaign.”

Matt Barber, Liberty Counsel attorney and AFTAH board member, said: “By pledging his support for every demand of extremist homosexual pressure groups, President Obama has revealed himself to be out of step with those he serves. For example, he has promised to homosexualize the military supplanting sound judgment with San Francisco vice. It’s dangerously irresponsible for the President to place political correctness above national security. Now is not the time for sexual revolution in this nation. Now is the time to return to the family values that made America great.”
_________________________________________

Americans For Truth Needs You! … Give $25 and Get a Free Book

We need your financial help and prayers to keep fighting the powerful “queer” lobby.  If you will help Americans For Truth with a tax-deductible gift of $25 or more, we will send you a free copy of the hard-cover book Homosexuality: A Freedom Too Far, by the late Dr. Charles Socarides, who dedicated his life to understanding homosexuality and helping people overcome it.  Will you consider a gift of $25, $100, $500 or even $1,000 or more to help Americans For Truth fight the powerful, well-financed Homosexual Lobby?  You can make your gift online at www.americansfortruth.com/donate, or mail your gift to: Americans For Truth, PO Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522.

MEDIA NOTE:  I will be the guest on Liberty Counsel’s outstanding new radio program, “Liberty Live” – airing today at 4:00-5:00 PM Eastern Time (3:00-4:00 Central).  The host (in Liberty Counsel Founder Mat Staver’s absence) will be my good friend, Matt Barber, LC’s Director of Cultural Affairs and an AFTAH Board Member.  (Matt is the guy who was fired by Allstate a few years back after writing a private web article against “gay marriage”– on his own time; this was God’s way of launching him into full-time pro-family work!)  “Liberty Live” airs on more than 150 stations through the American Family Radio Network.  You can also stream the show live and take part in the interactive blog discussion at www.afr.net or www.lc.org.  We’ll be discussing the Obama Administration’s and Log Cabin Republicans’ shared homosexual agenda.  Click HERE to listen to the archived show shortly after the program, and HERE to find AFR radio stations in your area.

TAKE ACTION AGAINST OBAMA’S “QUEER” AGENDA:  Meanwhile, please understand when you read the story below this one on AFTAH’s front page (”So Many Gender Identities, So Little Time”) that all major “queer”-oriented legislation on Capitol Hill – i.e., President Obama’s pro-homosexuality agenda, which was barely discussed in the general election – has a radical transsexual component.  That means, for example, if ENDA (Employment Nondiscrimination Act) becomes law, federal “discrimination” lawsuits and government prosecution could be brought against businesses and faith-based business owners and entrepreneurs who oppose using their private company resources to promote and subsidize gender confusion (and homosexuality).

Call Congress at 202-224-3121 (www.congress.org) to oppose:

1. “Hate Crimes” (Thought Crimes) bills HR 256 and HR 262;
2. Transsexuality-Promoting ENDA (think men in dresses entering corporate female restrooms);
3. Allowing open homosexuality in the military (Obama’s plan to overturn “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell”); and
4. The pro-homosexual immigration bill euphemistically called the “United American Families Act of 2009” – which would allow Americans caught up in immoral homosexual relationships to sponsor their foreign-living homosexual lovers for immigration into the United States.  We might rename this last bill the “Foreign Homosexual Lovers Importation Act of 2009.”

Thanks for taking action!  And thanks for the thousands of supportive phone calls and e-mails that have poured into the office of RNC Chair Michael Steele (202-863-8700; chairman@gop.com) urging him to reject the divisive “Log Cabin Republicans” homosexual agenda! (See this incredible article highlighting one LCR leader’s extremism and anti-Christian bigotry, and the other Log Cabin stories below on the main page of the AFTAH website.) God bless. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

The graphic below is a question (one of 70) from the “National Survey on Transgender Experiences of Discrimination in the U.S.,” sponsored by the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Sort of makes you yearn for the good old days when people were either “male” or “female.” Come to think of it, they still are. You would practically need a PhD., to keep up with the ever-expanding array of gender identities that fall under the “T” umbrella in the “GLBT” (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) equation. Check out this mind-numbing Wikipedia entry attempting to define “Genderqueer.”

Note that the choices offered below do not comprise a comprehensive list of identities associated with GLBT movement, leading to an expansion of that acronym to “GLBTQQ” (the “QQ” stands for “Queer” and “Questioning”) and even longer combinations of letters. (Check out this Unitarian Universalists document, which on its front page also encourages sadomasochistic, prostitution and “non-monogamous” identities for young “queers.” Pure evil.) Here is the NCTE survey question:

The report states, “The results of the survey will be part of an important report on discrimination against transgender people by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force to help create better opportunities for transgender and gender non-conforming people. We are grateful to Penn State University’s Center for the Study of Higher Education for hosting the survey and maintaining the integrity of our data.”

The survey will be used to support pro-”transgender” legislative goals, including “hate crimes” legislation and “working to include transgender provisions in a federal bill to protect lesbian, gay and bisexual workers from discrimination in employment.” The latter refers to including “gender identity” provisions in the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) bill, which would federalize “sexual orientation” law for businesses and organizations.

Leather Leadership, “Moral Leadership”? At its annual “Creating Change” conference for grassroots homosexual and transsexual activists, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force gave its “Leather Leadership Award” to Graylin Thornton, co-owner of a homosexual hard-core pornographic video company (see covered-up covers of videos below). Above is announcement in the Creating Change program. At the same conference in Denver, Task Force director Rea Carey extolled the “gay” movement’s “moral leadership.” The Task Force is heavily involved in promoting homosexuality and other deviancies to youth in the name of “sexual freedom.” Click on graphics to enlarge. 

By Peter LaBarbera

Homosexual activist “morality” is a strange concept indeed. At the same “Creating Change” conference where the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) presented a homosexual S&M pornographer with its “Leather Leadership Award,” Task Force Exective Director Rea Carey extolled the “moral leadership” of her  movement.

The Task Force presented Graylin Thornton, the co-owner of a company that sells homosexual porn videos, with its “leather” award at Creating Change, an annual conference for grassroots activists advocating the following sexual misbehaviors: male homosexuality; lesbianism; bisexuality; transsexuality; sadomasochism and other fetishes; prostitutes (”sex workers”); and “polyamory/nonmonogamy” (multiple-partner and open relationships).

Thornton runs Grey Rose Video Productions, which states on its website: “As active members of the BEAR, LEATHER, and AFRICAN AMERICAN communities, both Graylin and [business partner Chris Meister] are dedicated to continuing a standard of excellence in the production of videos featuring the hot, hung, hunky and hairy ‘real men’ that represent those communities.”

The porn company is selling videos with the following titles:

• Jake Mitchell’s [F--k] Buddies;
  
• JC Carter’s Sex Tape;
  
• This Bear Likes em Black;
  
• Beefy Boyz on the Road;
  
• Skin Tight and Busters Rubber Romp;
  
• Semenhole, Texas;
  
• Black, White and Hot
  

In her “State of the Movement” address Friday at Creating Change — which this year featured the innuendo-laden slogans “Power Is Sexy” and “Action Is Hot” — Carey touted the homosexual movement’s “moral leadership” (emphasis added):

We have much to offer this country.

So, now it is our time to contribute again — to express moral leadership and creative fortitude. … We are leaders in what is good and right and just in this country. When we insist that LGBT people be involved in the policy conversations about the economy, about health benefits, about tax policy, about immigration — as we have been doing with the Obama transition team and administration — we assert our community’s moral leadership.

When we win marriage equality [homosexual "marriage"] in Maine, Iowa, New Jersey and other states — and we will — we assert our community’s moral leadership.

When we pass a gender identity [transsexual]-inclusive ENDA — and we will — we assert our community’s moral leadership.

When we continue to work to get rid of useless abstinence only education, we assert our community’s moral leadership….

George Bush’s “Evil Empire”?

By giving a “leader leadership” award for “social justice” work to a homosexual porn entrepreneur, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is continuing its tradition of pushing the envelope as the most radical and leftist major homosexual organization. And not just on sexual issues: Carey jokingly referred to the George Bush administration as the “evil empire” – the words Ronald Reagan famously used to describe expansionist Soviet Communism. (Meanwhile, Iraqi citizens, benefiting from the American liberation of their country from despot Saddam Hussein, were preparing to vote in an another free election the day after Carey’s speech.)

Last year, Americans For Truth reported how the Task Force’s 2008 “Leather Leadership Award” recipient, Guy Baldwin, was an advocate of (consensual) “master-slave” sexual relationships — one of the bizarre subcategories within the BDSM (”bondage/discipline, dominance/submission, sadism/masochism”) movement. One year, the NGLTF conference featured as a workshop speaker the webmaster of a “Cruising for Sex” website that lists places where men find anonymous homosexual “public sex.”

The trend towards ever greater perversions and gender radicalism continues. The Denver “Creating Change” conference featured the following workshops and caucuses:

• Fostering Communication with the Fetish Community;
• Sex Worker [prostitutes] Caucus;
• What a Pisser! The Politics of Transgender Bathroom Use
• Sexuality Education as a Tool for the Movement

Even so, the Task Force draws major corporate givers and political supporters, including the Democratic National Committee. Several Colorado VIPs including Senator Mark Udall (D) wrote welcoming letters that appear in the front of the Creating Change program.

Talking Sex with Youth

The conference also included workshops directed at youth, including some focused directly on sex:

• Gaydar 101: a Queer Teens guied to dating;
• A Dialog with Youth: Talking about Sex and Sexual Freedom;
• Mentoring Queer Youth
• Quit Passing Notes: Let’s Talk about Sex … in the Classroom

AFTAH will be writing more about the Task Force’s extreme agenda, especially that part of it that involves confused GLBT youth.

Honoree’s Perverse Press Release

Task Force “Leather Leadership Award” honoree Thorton’s pornographic company posted this perverted press release on its website. Note the sex allusions:

Grey Rose Productions Teams With Mack Studios

Gay Porn Titans Jake Mitchell And Mack Manus Hook Up … Literally

Great teams aren’t just born, they are formed. Take Abbott & Costello. Laurel & Hardy. Martin & Lewis. Perhaps the funniest of all, McCain and Palin. Okay, scratch the last one, but still — the point is two talented people coming together can form an unbeatable, winning combination.

Just such a combination — the meeting of two of gay porn’s most popular actors-turned-producers — has been established to take two strong entities, namely Grey Rose Productions and Mack Studios, to create an even stronger product.

Jake Mitchell is beyond excited about the new business arrangement. “I couldn’t be more thrilled to be working with Mack Manus. He is a visionary; he knows how to make a truly hot product. We share a similar style.” Plus Mitchell adds, with a laugh, “He is one [f--king] hot stud!”

That Mack is a hot stud aside, and one of the hottest commodities in European porn, the business arrangement makes complete sense. The studios have similar audiences. And their videos are similar in that they can feature scenes that range from rape to romance, without skipping a beat. Or [an erection]. Guys who like hot, sweaty, tough, hard core, dominant, passionate man-on-man action … daddy scenes, leather, body hair, bears. Both of these companies, of course, are considered at the top of their genres, Mitchell Stateside and Manus across Europe.

To that end, a great teaming is born. Says Mitchell, “We are going to start selling the terrific and very hot Mack Studios videos on the Grey Rose web site and we are also going to have his scenes available for members on my Jake Mitchell site, too.”

Mack Manus is equally happy to be working with Jake Mitchell. Through a translation of his sexy French accent with traces of his native German tossed in, he says: “I’ve watched and enjoyed the Grey Rose brand for some time. Jake and I both started our companies about the same time. We share a very similar philosophy about the men we hire.”

True that. Both companies have earned praise from critics and fans alike for not hesitating to hire hot men, regardless of age or physical appearance. No wussy, fem, straight, gay-for-pretend guys for these studios. Manus says he does not hesitate to cast actors of any age or physical appearance for a role. That was one of the reasons Mitchell also created his company in 2002: more diversity in porn.

Mitchell met Manus, this being the Internet age, via the Web. They started chatting (which is kind of difficult because Mitchell’s French is rusty and Manus doesn’t speak much English.) Still, a little language barrier can’t keep a great team from coming together. Mitchell was planning a trip to Paris and decided they should meet. Mitchell says, “Once he arrived at my flat — and I saw his sexy smile and eyes, wavy hair and beefy body — I knew that we would be able to get past our language barrier.”

Sounds like Mitchell and Manus did more than discuss business. Laughs Mitchell “Well, let’s just say before we signed on the dotted line we had to see if we were compatible in all ways!” That sounds pretty hot. “Me trying to speak French, and him trying to speak English, well, it’s also hysterical at times! But, definitely hot.”

Not only do Mitchell & Manus have similar styles, studios and video product, they also have similar taste in men. Look for their first scene together (they tag team hunky J.C. Carter) soon.

Mitchell & Manus did a meet-and-greet together at the recent IML [International Mr. Leather] in Chicago. Their respective fans are already salivating at the possibilities. It’s truly a great partnership…and just getting started!

We’ve covered up the photo of this fellow — apparently one of Gay Task Force honoree Graylin Thornton’s porn actors — found in the “gallery” section of his company’s website. How this for “moral leadership”?

The Chicago Tribune ran this photo of Kari Rothkopf (left) and Victoria “Tori” Kirk, Illinois residents who had horrific, emasculating “sex change” operations in Thailand and are now suing the State of Illinois to switch the gender on their birth certificates from male to female. Not one to miss out on a politically correct opportunity to promote gender confusion and the GLBT agenda, the Tribune refers to these men with a female pronoun and calls them “women.” Pray for these terribly confused men, who have already successfully changed the sex identifier on their driver’s licenses, passports and Social Security cards. (Click to enlarge photo, by Tribune photographer Kuni Takahashi)

By Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute, first published 1/29/2009

In the Jan. 28, 2009 edition of the Chicago Tribune, there is a story about the two sexual amputees who are suing the state over the refusal of the state to change the “gender” designation on their birth certificates from “male” to “female.” Several important points must be made. First, it’s utterly reprehensible that anyone in the medical community would be complicit in facilitating a psychological disorder by amputating healthy body parts. There is a condition known as either apotemnophilia or Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) that is characterized by the desire to amputate a healthy limb. It is useful for comparison in that it is thought by many to be closely related to Gender Identity Disorder (i.e., transsexualism), which society is increasingly accepting as a valid identity that emerges from biological influences and whose behavioral manifestations are morally legitimate. Apotemnophiles, as they are referred to in some circles, identify with amputees and seek to align their bodies with their psychological identities through amputation of healthy body parts. Dr. Anne Lawrence explains the condition:

Desire for amputation of a healthy limb has usually been regarded as a paraphilia (apotemnophilia), but some researchers propose that it may be a disorder of identity, similar to Gender Identity Disorder (GID) or transsexualism. Similarities between the desire for limb amputation and nonhomosexual male-to-female (MtF) transsexualism include profound dissatisfaction with embodiment.

She further explores the similarities between Male-to-Female (MtF) transsexuals and those who seek limb amputation:

Persons who want to undergo limb amputation typically experience an intense desire or overwhelming compulsion to change their bodies to match their idealized images of themselves as amputees. . . . They usually describe their feelings as developing early in life, often before puberty. . . . most emphasize that they are primarily seeking a sense of wholeness or completeness or are attempting to correct a mismatch between their bodies and their identities.

There is debate about whether BIID should be included in the next edition of the DSM as a mental disease or disorder. There is also considerable debate surrounding causation and treatment with some theorizing that this condition “may in fact have a neurological basis.” American psychoanalyst Greg Furth, who suffers from apotemnophilia himself, and Scottish surgeon Dr. Robert Smith are both “committed to the position that surgery should be regarded as a viable therapeutic option for at least some individuals who suffer from apotemnophilia.” Dr. Smith, in fact, performed two elective amputations of limbs in order to align the bodies of people who experience B.I.I.D. with their psychological identities as amputees. Most people, rightly in my view, recoil in horror at this decision. But it is difficult to see how amputating a healthy arm or leg is substantively different from amputating a healthy penis or breasts.

Second, these two men remain men even without their penises, even with hormone-induced or prosthetic breasts, and even with hormone-induced female-ish voices. As I’ve written before, my mother was no less a woman following her mastectomy, hysterectomy, and oophorectmy than she was before her surgeries. The disordered desire of these two men does not change objective reality.

Finally, these two men are not merely asking the government to become complicit in their disordered delusion; and they are not merely asking the government and all of society to accept their delusion as reality; they are also asking the state to commit fraud. They are asking the state to affirm in a legal document a falsehood. Even these two men acknowledge that they were born male. If they hadn’t been born male, they couldn’t have had a “sex-change” operation.

What almost gets lost in this disturbing article is that these voluntary sexual amputees could have had their birth certificates changed if their surgeries had been performed in the United States rather than Thailand. Already the government has been complicit in this monumental deceit and delusion by allowing them to change their “gender” designation “on their driver’s licenses, passports and Social Security Card.” Just as the medical profession acts unethically when amputating healthy body parts in the service of a delusion, so does the government act unethically when changing legal documents to affirm a falsehood in the service of a delusion.

A just and merciful society treats all with respect and compassion. But respect and compassion do not entail complicity in deceit. Integral to real justice, real mercy, real respect and real compassion is truth.

Laurie Higgins is the Director of School Advocacy at the Illinois Family Institute, which first published this essay. Republished with the permission of IFI.

How Many More eHarmony “gay” sellouts under ENDA? Neil Clark Warren, founder of eHarmony.com, lost his courage and settled rather than fight a homosexual lawsuit filed under New Jersey’s “sexual orientation” law. So now Warren and eHarmony.com are facilitating immoral homosexual unions. If a federal ENDA bill becomes law, it will greatly enhance the power of homosexual activists to force businessmen and employers to accommodate and subsidize homosexual relationships against their will. The very freedom of Christians, Muslims and other moral-minded citizens to disagree with homosexuality hangs in the balance. 

TAKE ACTION: Answer the pro-homosexual lobby campaign! Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and have them connect you to your Representative (based on your zip code). Tell them: “I am a constituent and I would like you to please tell Representative _______ that I strongly OPPOSE the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) — which threatens Americans’ basic freedom to live out their faith and disagree with homosexual behavior. I also oppose expanding federal “hate crimes” law to add “sexual orientation” and opening up our Armed Forces to open homosexuality — especially during a time of war. Then, call back and leave messages with your two Senators too! Contact their local offices, which you can find through www.house.gov and www.senate.gov. 

__________________________________

By Peter LaBarbera

OK, everyone, vacation is over. Americans For Truth is back on the beat, fresh from being denounced and mocked by various pro-sodomy “queer” blogs at the end of 2008 (what an honor — more on that later). Below, please read an appeal for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) from a major homosexual activist group — and then DO THE OPPOSITE by calling your U.S. Congressman and Senators and urge them to vote AGAINST the ENDA bill.

We’re calling ENDA — a top priority for the Homosexual and Transsexual Lobbies — the “ENDA’ Our Freedom” Bill because it poses a severe threat to Americans’ First Amendment freedom to disagree with homosexuality. ENDA would be used to force small- and medium-sized businesses to subsidize immoral homosexual unions — and that’s un-American!

Here’s a paper I wrote for AFTAH on ENDA, but if you’re too busy or too lazy to read that, here’s how to think of ENDA:

Remember the recent outrage over eHarmony.com’s sellout to homosexual activism — when evangelical Christian founder Neil Clark Warren agreed to create a “gay” dating website under the auspices of eHarmony? Well, that sellout, unnecessary and misguided as it was, came at the point of a gun. And the “gun” was New Jersey’s state version of ENDA: a pro-homosexual “nondiscrimination” law. That very same New Jersey “sexual orientation” law was used to launch the legal assault against the Boy Scouts of America’s fundamental right to live by its own creed and NOT allow homosexual (or atheist) Scoutmasters.

Thankfully, the Boy Scouts (unlike eHarmony.com) did not capitulate and the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately preserved their freedom of association in a 5-4 decision that surely would have gone the other way if just one more liberal justice of the sort favored by President-elect Obama (and many other powerful Democrats) were seated on the Court.

Like the Boy Scouts’, our freedom to disagree with sexual immorality hangs in the balance. We must work hard against ENDA and the entire “queer” legislative agenda in Washington, D.C. The other side sees this as their moment and is engaged heavily in the fight to make homosexuality and gender confusion a “civil right.” And they have a new, pro-homosexual president, the liberal media and increased Democratic strength in Congress on their side. But never forget what they lack: the truth.

Let’s be blunt: the effort to mainstream homosexuality in American law and culture is evil, destructive to faith, marriage and the natural family and — like abortion-on-demand — part of an anti-God agenda. President-elect Obama is a deeply conflicted man on the homosexual issue — or at least he should be if he’s not. Obama professes Christianity but he has distorted Scripture (or minimized its importance) on the sin of homosexuality. However, he was elected with the overwhelming support of religious African Americans and many others who profoundly disagree with the homosexual “civil-rights” paradigm. (In California, Blacks carried both Obama and Prop 8 to victory.) Always remember: there are zero “former” African-Americans or “ex-Hispanics”; there are lots of happy ex-”gays” and former “lesbians” — evidence that homosexuality is about changeable behavior, not some inborn identity. (See former lesbian Charlene Cothran’s heartwarming testimony HERE.)

I was a poll-watcher on Election Day and I saw the tremendous pride of Blacks voting for the man who would become the first African-American president to lead these United States. One Black woman in her late-thirties was beaming as she voted for the first time. A tall African-American man came in and pronounced to the whole room (standing in front of the befuddled election officials): “I’m here to vote for BARACK OBAMA!” I did not vote for Obama due to his liberal agenda (I’d vote for a Black conservative in a heartbeat) but applauded in my heart the symbolic shattering of the idea — stoked by the Left — that America is a racist nation. We are not.

But racism and homosexual conduct do have something in common: they are both destructive sins, yet changeable through God’s grace.

Now we at AFTAH call on all Obama supporters — especially people of faith — who disagree with the notion that homosexuals’ supposed “right” to be affirmed supersedes the liberty of the rest of America to live by their our own moral and religious beliefs — please make your voices heard! Let President Obama know that the oppressive homosexual activist and “gay marriage” is not part of the “change” you wanted.

The clear reality is this: the homosexual agenda is more about AFFIRMING HOMOSEXUALITY and UNDERMINING JUDEO-CHRISTIAN VALUES than correcting injustice. There is no epidemic of homosexuals being fired; in fact, they are increasingly being courted by major corporations –  while it is faith-based employees like Matt Barber (an AFTAH Board Member, fired by Allstate in 2005) who face reprisals for opposing homosexuality and who are forced to endure faith-assaulting, pro-homosexuality/pro-transsexual “diversity” propaganda on the job.

_____________________________

TAKE ACTION: PLEASE DO THE OPPOSITE OF THIS “GAY” ACTIVIST ALERT FROM THE RADICAL LEFTIST “NATIONAL GAY AND LESBIAN TASK FORCE”:

Congress Swears In Today! Let them know you care about ENDA!
Filed by: Guest Blogger
January 6, 2009 12:00 PM

Editors’ Note: Guest blogger Rea Carey is Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund.

Today, January 6, Members of Congress raise their right hand and swear to uphold the Constitution as they begin the new legislative session.

Let’s make sure the first thing they hear about is the importance of an Employment Non-Discrimination Act that protects all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

In DC, make their phone ring! Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and have them connect you to your Representative (based on your zip code). Tell them: “I am a constituent and I would like you to please tell Representative _______ that I strongly support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that would ban discrimination against all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.”

Then, call back and leave messages with your two Senators too!

At home, set up a visit!
Request an in-person meeting for you and other community members with your two Senators and your Representative (or their staffs) in their home district offices. You can call the district offices to request these meetings but they often want you to fax a meeting request. To find contact info for district offices, go to www.senate.gov and www.house.gov.

Sample meeting request letters, and other talking points and resources for your meetings, are available in the following toolkits [Note: the following are pro-homosexual resources]:

The Task Force ENDA Grassroots Toolkit [pdf]
National Center for Transgender Equality’s Making Your Voice Heard [pdf]
PFLAG’s Bringing the Message Home

Let us know!

Let us know how your meeting went. Go to unitedenda.org and fill out the Lobby Report Form to tell us whether your Representative and Senators expressed support.

Barack Obama has promised a lot to self-styled “queer” activists: open homosexuality in the military, a federal “civil unions” law, “hate crimes” legislation, repealing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), enacting ENDA, etc. He has also pledged to use his bully pulpit as President to advocate for homosexual goals. Will pro-family Americans be able to put the brakes on Obama’s “gay agenda”?  Help AFTAH reach its goal of $5,000 in online donations by midnight tonight (central time) by making a tax-free gift at www.americansfortruth.com/donate/. Or become a monthly AFTAH Truth Team giver HERE.

Below are 10 good reasons to support Americans For Truth about Homosexuality as we head into a New Year.  Before we get to the 10 points, though here’s how to help us reach our goal of $5,000 in online donations by midnight tonight — we are three-fifths of the way there:

YEAR-END MATCHING GIFT: Go to our user-friendly giving page — ww.americansfortruth.com/donate/ — to make your tax-free donation using PayPal or your MasterCard or Visa.  ALL ONLINE GIFTS MADE BY MIDNIGHT CENTRAL TIME WILL BE COUNTED AS A TAX DEDUCTION ON YOUR 2008 TAXES! Or mail a gift here (postmarked by 12/31 if you want it to count for 2008; Jan. 1 and after will go toward 2009):  AFTAH, PO Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567.

TRUTH TEAM MEMBERSHIP:  To sign up as a Truth Team member by pledging $25, $50, $100, $250 or more per month to sustain AFTAH’s critical work, go HERE.

_____________________________________

Ten Reasons to Support Americans For Truth in 2009

By Peter LaBarbera

1. President-elect Barack Obama’s support for radical, pro-homosexual federal “hate crimes” legislation. Will homosexuals rise to the top of the politically correct hierarchy of victims in the United States?  Will pastors who teach correctly from the Bible that homosexual behavior is sinful be brought up as “accomplices” if someone who attends their church attacks a homosexual? All crimes involve hate at some level and all Americans — including homosexuals — deserve equal protection under the law without regard to special criteria.
2. Obama’s support for the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA), which would use federal power to force businesses to support homosexuality and subsidize homosexual employees’ relationships regardless of their faith- or morality-based opposition to homosexual conduct. Why should homosexuality-based “rights” (mandates) take precedence over Americans’ historic religious and First Amendment liberties?
3. Obama’s call to allow open homosexuality in the military — during wartime no less — and Obama’s promise to use the bully pulpit to advocate other pro-homosexual agenda goals such as homosexual adoption of children.  Will our Commander-in-Chief become the Gay-Propagandist-in-Chief? And what sort of homosexuality-affirming “Christianity” is Obama going to espouse (as he does in his book, Audacity of Hope)?
4. Obama’s pledge to work for the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which was signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1996 and which protects states from being forced to recognize out-of-state “gay marriages.” Mr. Obama: please forget this radical promise and defend marriage as president if you truly believe that it should remain between a man and a woman!
5. Obama’s support for a federal “civil unions” bill – essentially “gay marriage” by another name.  Honoring homosexual unions and rewarding them with government benefits only undermines genuine marriage in society.
6. Obama’s promise to sign the radical “Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which would eviscerate pro-life reform laws across the country that have helped save thousands of innocent unborn children’s lives.
7. The real possibility that the California Supreme Court will invalidate Proposition 8 – passed by the people of that state Nov. 4.  Do citizens’ votes count and do they have a right to stop liberal judges from imposing a radical redefinition of marriage by fiat?
8. Homosexual activists’ intolerance and anti-democratic behavior as exhibited following their loss on Prop 8 in California.  If homosexual militants behave like this now – declaring their counterfeit “marriages” a “constitutional right” and demonizing religious opponents as “hate-filled bigots” analogous to the KKK — imagine the potential for abuse should they gain federal power through passage of federal hate crimes and employment legislation (ENDA).
9. The ongoing, aggressive lobbying by the Gender Confusion Movement. Having learned well from their “gay’” allies, “transgender” activists seek to turn “gender nonconformity” into a legal civil right.  This would include the supposed “right” of a very young boy to come to school in a dress if he thinks he should be a girl.  (Now there’s an agenda item sure to be popular with most parents of school-age children….)  Memo to the Transgender Lobby: women do NOT want biologically-born men (wearing dresses and high heels) with male genitalia in their public restrooms—period.
10. The socially leftist media’s and Hollywood’s increasingly bold and arrogant promotion of all things “gay.”  When it gets so bad that Newsweek magazine runs a cover story positing (out of nowhere) that the Bible supports homosexuality-based “marriage,” the media has lost all perspective on this issue.  They are taking their cues directly from the homosexual lobby — which means increasingly they will be demonizing people of faith as “haters.”  And then they wonder why newspaper and magazine sales are down.  AFTAH will continue to speak out against the media’s and Hollywood’s secular bigotry.

There are many more reasons to support AFTAH but all involve our unshakable commitment to you to defend the truth against the homosexual activist agenda — boldly and without apology. The main question on this issue should not be: “What’s wrong with gay marriage?” or “How does my ‘gay marriage’ affect you?” but rather: “Why are all relationships built around unnatural, changeable, immoral and often unhealthy homosexual behavior somehow deserving of taxpayer-subsidized government recognition?  Or perhaps: “Why is it wise for our government to elevate and reward natural marriage and the mom-and-dad-with-children family over destructive, unmarried and unnatural relationships?”

The side that frames the issue wins the debate — and the pro-family side often loses because we allow radical, pro-homosexuality activists to frame the issue. Let’s get back to basics in 2009!

Thank you for supporting our important work! To give to AFTAH:

YEAR-END MATCHING GIFT: Go to our user-friendly giving page — ww.americansfortruth.com/donate/ — to make your tax-free donation using PayPal or your MasterCard or Visa.  ALL ONLINE GIFTS MADE BY MIDNIGHT CENTRAL TIME WILL BE COUNTED AS A TAX DEDUCTION ON YOUR 2008 TAXES!  Or mail a gift here (postmarked by 12/31 if you want it to count for 2008; Jan. 1 and after will go toward 2009):  AFTAH, PO Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567.

TRUTH TEAM MEMBERSHIP:  To sign up as a Truth Team member by pledging $25, $50, $100, $250 or more per month to sustain AFTAH’s critical work, go HERE.

1. the more liberal version of ENDA that includes “gender identity” (transsexual “rights”);
2. changing immigration law to treat homosexual couples (i.e., same-sex lovers abroad) like married couples;
3. expanding federal AIDS spending despite the disproportionate government monies spent on this behavior-driven disease compared to other serious maladies such as Alzheimer’s and heart disease;
4. federal recognition of homosexual “civil unions”; and
5. using the president’s bully pulpit to advocate for homosexual adoption and other homosexual activist policy goals.

I’m sure we’ve missed some homosexual agenda items. But if you are a Christian and/or consider yourself pro-natural-family — and you voted for Mr. Obama — perhaps it’s time to start contacting him to urge him NOT to pursue these misguided policies. (We assume that many strongly religious Obama voters were at least partly — and perhaps willfully — ignorant of his liberal-left plank on the moral issues of homosexuality and abortion.) We don’t know if the messages will get to him, but here’s a contact page for the Obama transition team: http://www.change.gov/page/s/contact. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

The Citizenlink story is below:
________________________

Citizenlink reports:

11-19-2008

President-Elect Obama Lays Out Pro-Gay Agenda President-elect Barack Obama is committed to creating special rights for homosexuals and trampling on traditional marriage. He laid out his agenda on his Web site [http://www.change.gov/agenda/civil_rights_agenda]:

• Expand hate-crimes legislation (which would create a new category of crime for actions said to be motivated by bias toward a person’s actual or perceived “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” Sexual-orientation hate-crimes laws have been used to prosecute speech in the U.S. and abroad);
• Support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (which would create special rights based on an employee’s actual or perceived sexual orientation and could force Christian employers to hire against their religious beliefs);
• Oppose a federal marriage-protection amendment;
• Repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (which would open the door to forcing all 50 states to recognize same-sex “marriage”)
• Expand gay adoption (which would leave vulnerable children without either a mom or a dad);
• Repeal the so-called “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy (which would jeopardize military readiness by allowing open homosexuality in the armed forces).

Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, said: “We need to support our men and women in the military and not expect them to carry the heavy burdens of social engineering.” She said no one has a “right” to serve in the military, as Obama seems to suggest. “To say that the armed forces should accept any and all people is a little absurd,” she told Family News in Focus. “Should we throw out all distinctions?”

_______________________

News Release, Americans For Truth about Homosexuality

Contact: Peter LaBarbera: 630-717-7631; americansfortruth@comcast.net

November 10, 2008

 “The Obama-Biden Transition Project does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or any other basis of discrimination prohibited by law.” –– Application for non-career federal jobs in an Obama Administration, http://change.gov/page/s/application

CHICAGO, Ill. –  Americans For Truth reacted to the news that an Obama Administration will likely enact “gender identity” as a nondiscrimination category by questioning whether federal female employees will be protected from transsexual men wearing dresses who demand to use ladies’ restrooms on the basis of their self-perceived “female identity.”

“Men who believe they are women, and vice versa, will be officially protected based under Obama on the basis of their ‘gender identity’ (read: gender confusion),” said Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth about Homosexuality. “Cross-dressing, ‘male-to-female’ activists already demand the right to use female restrooms on the basis of this same notion of ‘gender identity’-based rights. So will an Obama Administration allow these big-boned men in female clothing to use ladies’ restrooms in federal buildings?

“What will a President Obama do to protect the right to privacy of female federal workers who don’t want men wearing dresses – with male genitalia – sharing their women’s restroom?” LaBarbera said. “Will a President Obama request funds from Congress to embark on an ambitious ‘Transgender Restroom Construction Project’ to build special “trans” bathrooms in government buildings – so as not to subject female employees to sexual harassment and violations of their privacy?”

The ACLU is commending the Obama for including “gender identity” in its hiring criteria, calling it a “bold departure from the past.” The news is circulating on homosexual-oriented websites and e-mail discussion groups, increasing the likelihood that many men and woman embracing gender-confused “identities” will be applying for jobs in an Obama Administration.

The online Obama-Biden job application site stipulates that the presidential transition agency “does no discriminate” on the basis of “gender identity,” among other categories. President-elect Obama has boasted not only of his strong support for homosexual activist policy goals, but also transsexual rights (“gender identity” nondiscrimination). Obama supported a pro-transgender homosexual rights bill as an Illinois state senator, and backs the more liberal, transgender-inclusive version of the federal Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA).

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.

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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.

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P.S. Check out this AFTAH article to see the face of real diversity, as people of various ethnicities and religions unite to oppose a homosexual “special rights” law in Hamtramck, Michigan.

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Oct. 21, 2008

MassResistance Update

“In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
- George Orwell

What same-sex “marriage” has done to Massachusetts

It’s far worse than most people realize

by Brian Camenker

[Note: As the debate on this issue rages in states across the country, most people are unaware of what's really happened here. Get ready for an eye-opener.]

Anyone who thinks that same-sex “marriage” is a benign eccentricity which won’t affect the average person should consider what it has done in Massachusetts. It’s become a hammer to force the acceptance and normalization of homosexuality on everyone. And this train is moving fast. What has happened so far is only the beginning.

On November 18, 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court announced its Goodridge opinion, ruling that it was unconstitutional not to allow same-sex “marriage.” Six months later, homosexual marriages began to be performed.

The public schools

The homosexual “marriage” onslaught in public schools across the state started soon after the November 2003, court decision.

At my own children’s high school there was a school-wide assembly to celebrate same-sex “marriage” in early December, 2003. It featured an array of speakers, including teachers at the school who announced that they would be “marrying” their same-sex partners and starting families either through adoption or artificial insemination. Literature on same-sex marriage – how it is now a normal part of society – was handed out to the students.

Within months it was brought into the middle schools. In September, 2004, an 8th-grade teacher in Brookline, MA, told National Public Radio that the marriage ruling had opened up the floodgates for teaching homosexuality. “In my mind, I know that, `OK, this is legal now.’ If somebody wants to challenge me, I’ll say, `Give me a break. It’s legal now,’” she told NPR. She added that she now discusses gay sex with her students as explicitly as she desires. For example, she said she tells the kids that lesbians can have vaginal intercourse using sex toys.

By the following year it was in elementary school curricula. Kindergartners were given picture books telling them that same-sex couples are just another kind of family, like their own parents. In 2005, when David Parker of Lexington, MA – a parent of a kindergartner – strongly insisted on being notified when teachers were discussing homosexuality or transgenderism with his son, the school had him arrested and put in jail overnight.

Second graders at the same school were read a book, “King and King”, about two men who have a romance and marry each other, with a picture of them kissing. When parents Rob and Robin Wirthlin complained, they were told that the school had no obligation to notify them or allow them to opt-out their child.

In 2006 the Parkers and Wirthlins filed a federal Civil Rights lawsuit to force the schools to notify parents and allow them to opt-out their elementary-school children when homosexual-related subjects were taught. The federal judges dismissed the case. The judges ruled that because same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts, the school actually had a duty to normalize homosexual relationships to children, and that schools have no obligation to notify parents or let them opt-out their children! Acceptance of homosexuality had become a matter of good citizenship!

Think about that: Because same-sex marriage is “legal”, a federal judge has ruled that the schools now have a duty to portray homosexual relationships as normal to children, despite what parents think or believe!

In 2006, in the elementary school where my daughter went to Kindergarten, the parents of a third-grader were forced to take their child out of school because a man undergoing a sex-change operation and cross-dressing was being brought into class to teach the children that there are now “different kinds of families.” School officials told the mother that her complaints to the principal were considered “inappropriate behavior.”

Libraries have also radically changed. School libraries across the state, from elementary school to high school, now have shelves of books to normalize homosexual behavior and the lifestyle in the minds of kids, some of them quite explicit and even pornographic. Parents complaints are ignored or met with hostility.

Over the past year, homosexual groups have been using taxpayer money to distribute a large, slick hardcover book celebrating homosexual marriage titled “Courting Equality” into every school library in the state.

It’s become commonplace in Massachusetts schools for teachers to prominently display photos of their same-sex “spouses” and occasionally bring them to school functions. Both high schools in my own town now have principals who are “married” to their same-sex partners, whom they bring to school and introduce to the students.

“Gay days” in schools are considered necessary to fight “intolerance” which may exist against same-sex relationships. Hundreds of high schools and even middle schools across the state now hold “gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender appreciation days”. They “celebrate” homosexual marriage and move forward to other behaviors such as cross-dressing and transsexuality. In my own town, a school committee member recently announced that combating “homophobia” is now a top priority.

Once homosexuality has been normalized, all boundaries will come down. The schools are already moving on to normalizing transgenderism (including cross-dressing and sex changes). The state-funded Commission on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth includes leaders who are transsexuals.

Public health

The Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health is “married” to another man. In 2007 he told a crowd of kids at a state-sponsored youth event that it’s “wonderful being gay” and he wants to make sure there’s enough HIV testing available for all of them.

Since homosexual marriage became “legal” the rates of HIV / AIDS have gone up considerably in Massachusetts. This year public funding to deal with HIV/AIDS has risen by $500,000.

Citing “the right to marry” as one of the “important challenges” in a place where “it’s a great time to be gay”, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health helped produce The Little Black Book, Queer in the 21st Century, a hideous work of obscene pornography which was given to kids at Brookline High School on April 30, 2005. Among other things, it gives “tips” to boys on how to perform oral sex on other males, masturbate other males, and how to “safely” have someone urinate on you for sexual pleasure. It also included a directory of bars in Boston where young men meet for anonymous sex.
Domestic violence

Given the extreme dysfunctional nature of homosexual relationships, the Massachusetts Legislature has felt the need to spend more money every year to deal with skyrocketing homosexual domestic violence. This year $350,000 was budgeted, up $100,000 from last year.
Business

All insurance in Massachusetts must now recognize same-sex “married” couples in their coverage. This includes auto insurance, health insurance, life insurance, etc.

Businesses must recognize same-sex “married” couples in all their benefits, activities, etc., regarding both employees and customers.

The wedding industry is required serve the homosexual community if requested. Wedding photographers, halls, caterers, etc., must do same-sex marriages or be arrested for discrimination.

Businesses are often “tested” for tolerance by homosexual activists. Groups of homosexual activists often go into restaurants or bars and publicly kiss and fondle each other to test whether the establishment demonstrates sufficient “equality” — now that homosexual marriage is “legal”. In fact, more and more overt displays of homosexual affection are seen in public places across the state to reinforce “marriage equality”.
Legal profession

The Massachusetts Bar Exam now tests lawyers on their knowledge of same-sex “marriage” issues. In 2007, a Boston man, Stephen Dunne, failed the Massachusetts bar exam because he refused to answer the questions in it about homosexual marriage.

Issues regarding homosexual “families” are now firmly entrenched in the Massachusetts legal system. In many firms, lawyers in Massachusetts practicing family law must now attend seminars on homosexual “marriage”. There are also now several homosexualjudges overseeing the Massachusetts family courts.

Adoption of children to homosexual “married” couples

Homosexual “married” couples can now demand to be able to adopt children the same as normal couples. Catholic Charities decided to abandon handling adoptions rather submit to regulations requiring them to allow homosexuals to adopt the children in their care.

In 2006 the Massachusetts Department of Social Services (DSS) honored two men “married” to each other as their “Parents of the Year”. The men already adopted a baby through DSS (against the wishes of the baby’s birth parents). According to news reports, the day after that adoption was final DSS approached the men about adopting a second child. Homosexuals now appear to be put in line for adopting children ahead of heterosexual parents by state agencies in Massachusetts.
Government mandates

In 2004, Governor Mitt Romney ordered Justices of the Peace to perform homosexual marriages when requested or be fired. At least one Justice of the Peace decided to resign.

Also thanks to Gov. Romney, marriage licenses in Massachusetts now have “Party A and Party B” instead of “husband and wife.” Romney did not have a legal requirement to do this; he did it on his own. (See more on this below.)

Since homosexual relationships are now officially “normal”, the Legislature now gives enormous tax money to homosexual activist groups. In particular, the Massachusetts Commission on Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender Youth is made up of the most radical and militant homosexual groups which target children in the schools. This year they are getting $700,000 of taxpayer money to go into the public schools.

In 2008 Massachusetts changed the state Medicare laws to include homosexual “married” couples in the coverage.
The public square

Since gay “marriage”, annual gay pride parades have become more prominent. There are more politicians and corporations participating, and even police organizations take part. And the envelope gets pushed further and further. There is now a profane “Dyke March” through downtown Boston, and recently a “transgender” parade in Northampton that included bare-chested women who have had their breasts surgically removed so they could “become” men. Governor Patrick even marched with his “out lesbian” 17-year old daughter in the 2008 Boston Pride event, right behind a “leather” group brandishing a black & blue flag, whips and chains!
The media

Boston media, particularly the Boston Globe newspaper, regularly does feature stories and news stories portraying homosexual “married” couples where regular married couples would normally be used. It’s “equal”, they insist, so there must be no difference in the coverage. Also, the newspaper advice columns now deal with homosexual “marriage” issues, and how to properly accept it.

A growing number of news reporters and TV anchors are openly “married” homosexuals who march in the “gay pride” parades.
Is gay marriage actually legal in Massachusetts?

Like everywhere else in America, the imposition of same-sex “marriage” on the people of Massachusetts was a combination of radical, arrogant judges and pitifully cowardly politicians.

The Goodridge ruling resulted in a complete cave-in by politicians of both parties on this issue. Same-sex “marriage” is still illegal in Massachusetts. On November 18, 2003 the court merely ruled that it was unconstitutional not to allow it, and gave the Legislature six months to “take such action as it may deem appropriate.” Note that the Massachusetts Constitution strongly denies courts the power to make or change laws, or from ordering the other branches to take any action. The constitution effectively bans “judicial review” – a court changing or nullifying a law. Thus, the court did not order anything to happen; it simply rendered an opinion on that specific case. And the Legislature did nothing. The marriage statutes were never changed. However, against the advice of many, Gov. Romney took it upon himself to alter the state’s marriage licenses to say “Party A and Party B” and order officials to perform same-sex “weddings” if asked, though he had no legal obligation to do so. Technically, same-sex marriages are still illegal in Massachusetts.

Nevertheless, we are having to live with it. And furthermore, this abdication of their proper constitutional roles by the Legislature and Governor has caused a domino effect as “copycat” rulings have been issued in California and Connecticut, with other states fearful it will happen there.

In conclusion

Homosexual “marriage” hangs over society like a hammer with the force of law. And it’s only just begun.

It’s pretty clear that the homosexual movement’s obsession with marriage is not because large numbers of them actually want to marry each other. Research shows that homosexual relationships are fundamentally dysfunctional on many levels, and “marriage” as we know it isn’t something they can achieve, or even desire. (In fact, over the last three months, the Sunday Boston Globe’s marriage section hasn’t had any photos of homosexual marriages. In the beginning it was full of them.) This is about putting the legal stamp of approval on homosexuality and imposing it with force throughout the various social and political institutions of a society that would never accept it otherwise. To the rest of America: You’ve been forewarned.

For more information, visit MassResistance’s website.

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