Admitted homosexual Judge Vaughn Walker

By J. Matt Barber

Proposition 8 is an amendment to California’s State Constitution. It was passed by a comfortable margin via ballot initiative in 2008. Prop 8 maintained the age-old definition of marriage in the Golden State as requiring binary male-female compatibility. It remains tied-up in Federal Court today.  

Back in February of 2010 it became rumored that retired Federal Judge Vaughn Walker – who presided over the case at the District level – was a practitioner of the homosexual lifestyle. It was further reported that he had a longtime male lover. Judge Walker refused to confirm or deny the rumors. At the time I was one of the few people to publicly call for his recusal. It’s inexplicable that attorneys defending Prop 8 didn’t make such a motion.

With Judge Walker’s recent admission that he does in fact practice homosexuality, the case for recusal has been proven. His ruling on the Prop 8 case should be immediately vacated as he possessed both an incontrovertible and disqualifying conflict of interest.

Federal law is clear. The code of judicial conduct requires that a judge step down from a case if “the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” or when he “has a financial … or any other interest that could be affected substantially by the outcome of the proceeding.”

By manufacturing from thin air a Constitutional “right” to same-sex “marriage” – something the Framers of the US Constitution could not have conceptualized, much less endorsed – Judge Walker abused his position on the bench to create for himself a new privilege that he previously did not possess. It’s undeniable that he had an “interest that could be affected substantially by the outcome of the proceeding.” 

Stemming from his own bizarre and contrived legal findings in the case, Judge Walker’s ruling made it possible for both he and his male sexual partner to “marry.” Prior to his ruling he could not. Subsequent to his ruling – and if the ruling is upheld – he could. This is not opinion. It’s an objective matter of fact. Judge Walker unilaterally and arbitrarily gave himself a newfangled “right.”

Furthermore, the U.S. Code, Section 455 (a) states: “Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” U.S.C. Section 455 (b) (1) also states that a judge must be disqualified if he “has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding.”

No reasonable person can deny that Judge Walker held a “personal bias” as his decision directly affected him on a very personal level.

A few proponents of so-called “gay marriage” have slapped me in the face with the following red herring: “Why, using your logic a heterosexual judge would also have to recuse himself. No judge could ever preside over a case involving same-sex ‘marriage.’”

This is apples-to-oranges nonsense. On a case concerning the novel question of radically redefining marriage to include same-sex pairs, a heterosexual judge, by definition, would not possess a personal “interest that could be affected substantially by the outcome of the proceeding.” A heterosexual judge is precisely what Federal law requires under such circumstances.    

By analogy, if a Federal Judge were presiding over a case to determine the merits of a new gambling law, and that judge happened to have a gambling addiction, law would require that he recuse himself due to a clear conflict of interest. At a minimum, “the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

Or consider an instance where a judge crossed state lines to legally use medical marijuana for cancer treatment. If he were later presented with a case covering issues related to the legality of medical marijuana, he would necessarily be disqualified and also expected to recuse himself.

An honorable man – an honorable judge must step down from any case where there is even the remote appearance of a conflict. In Judge Walker’s situation, the conflict proved to be absolute.

His was the textbook example of a conflict requiring recusal. It’s now the textbook example of judicial activism. This outrageous decision must be vacated and attorneys defending Prop 8 should immediately file a motion to that effect. 

Matt Barber (jmattbarber@comcast.net) is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. He serves as Vice President of Liberty Counsel Action. Barber is also a Board Member of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality.  Facebook/jmattbarber / Twitter/@jmattbarber (This information is provided for identification purposes only.)  

The SPLC's Mark Potok oversees the organization's de facto "campaign of defamation" painting groups like AFTAH that oppose homosexuality as "hate groups." Potok admits that the SPLC has never identified a single "gay" group as hateful even though militant homosexual organizations like ACT UP and Bash Back! have targeted churches with vicious attacks.

TAKE ACTION: Contact the Senate Judiciary Committee (members listed HERE; Senate Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121) — and the House Committee on Homeland Security (202-226-2616; members listed HERE; House Switchboard: 202-225-3121) and urge them to investigate the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) working relationship with the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. The leftist SPLC is now slandering conservative, Christian and Tea Party groups by mislabeling them as “hate groups” on a par with genuine, fringe hate groups like the KKK.  American taxpayers should insist that the federal government have no role in legitimizing the SPLC, which has politicized “hate” and turned it into a fund-raising business to demonize conservatives – including mainstream pro-family groups that oppose homosexual activism. To read an in-depth report exposing the SPLC’s unethical practices, go HERE.

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Below is a useful article by Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute — on the leftist Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) preposterous smear-job against mainstream pro-family groups (including AFTAH, IFI, Family Research Council, and AFA) as “hate groups” because we oppose homosexuality and LGBT (“gay”) activism. Technically, the SPLC would argue that AFTAH and the other groups opposed homosexuality in the wrong way, but let’s be honest: ideologically speaking, the SPLC is so deeply committed to pro-”gay” advocacy that it considers suspect any organization that opposes pro-LGBT activism. Predictably, the left-wing, pro-homosexual echo chamber is using the SPLC’s “findings” to discredit pro-family groups.

Indicative of the SPLC”s tendentious and polemical “hate reporting” is its description of this writer as a “longtime gay-basher.” Using such semantics, that would make SPLC staffers like Mark Potok “longtime Christian bashers.” To read an excellent set of reports on the SPLC’s escalating “campaign of defamation” against conservatives and traditionalists, read this special Social Contract Journal edition.

As Barb Anderson of the (potential future “hate” group?) Minnesota Family Council and I discussed in Part One of our AFTAH Radio Hour interview [click HERE to listen], the SPLC’s cynical “hate” dragnet is growing so wide that we have almost reached the point where if a pro-family group is NOT INCLUDED on the SPLC’s “hate” list, it must be slacking off in resisting the destructive homosexual agenda. I write “almost” because some of our good friends such as Liberty Counsel and Campaign for California Families have not yet officially been designated “haters”; their time will come. Of course, the truth is, nobody “hates” like the American Left — especially militant homosexual activists.

I like Laurie’s reference to the “Morality Police”; how ironic that the Left has become the mirror of what it hates:  the societal “moral” scold. Remember that the dogmatists on the Left once screamed against the “Religious Right”: “Don’t impose your morality on the rest of us!” Now it’s the pro-”queer” Left that works diligently to “impose its immorality” on America using every dirty tactic ever conceived by Saul Alinsky (e.g., “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it”; see this piece). I half expect Potok or SPLC co-founder Morris Dees to show up in Wheeling, West Virginia, claiming to “have in my hand the names of 57 newly designated anti-gay hate groups….”

Prior to Americans for Truth About Homosexuality’s “graduation” to full-fledged SPLC “hate” group, we were labeled a “hate” website by the SPLC — after a very… well, bigoted and hateful Marxist homosexual organization, the Gay Liberation Network (GLN), “reported” us to the Alabama-based SPLC. (You know those Communists are all about love, tolerance and honesty … one GLN leader, Bob Schwartz, a self-described Trotskyite, told me at a Chicago protest that he’d push me into oncoming traffic if it weren’t for the cops standing nearby; Schwartz has never denied making the threatening remark. I hereby report the GLN to the SPLC as a “hate” group for targeting sincere Christians with its slanderous and bigoted vilifications and protests.)

No hateful homosexuals?

You will recall that earlier this year SPLC Intelligence Project director Mark Potok confirmed to me via e-mail that no “gay” advocacy group has ever made the SPLC’s “hate” list — despite the fact that miltant homosexual organizations like ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) have engaged in numerous planned assaults against churches and other political opponents. (In 1989, as part of a huge protest againset then-Cardinal John O’Connor, ACT UP members stormed St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City during a Sunday mass; it was a particularly ugly, anti-Catholic attack in which protesters screamed and tossed condoms in the air, and even stomped on a consecrated wafer believed by Catholics to be the Body of Christ. More recently, in 2008, the homosexual activist group Bash Back! staged an invasion of a large evangelical church in Lansing, Michigan; the church was specifically targeted for its outspoken belief that homosexual practice is sinful and that “gays” can leave that lifestyle through faith in Jesus Christ. [Regarding that point and the SPLC's #10 "myth" below, we must ask: does the Southern Poverty Law Center "hate" former homosexuals?] A thorough investigation into the pro-homosexual “hatred” unleashed against Prop 8 supporters in California – especially churches — is in order.)

In the ensuing months since I corresponded with Potok, the SPLC appears not to have made even a token move to identify homosexual activist hate groups and websites (gay activist Dan Savage’s shockingly evil “Santorum.com” comes to mind [Warning: highly offensive content] — while it greatly expanded its list of alleged pro-family alleged “hate groups.” This contradiction alone demonstrates the SPLC’s extreme bias and the folly of taking seriously its self-appointed role as an objective, impartial hate-monitoring organization.

Higgins deftly exposes the shoddy “research”  of the SPLC (as we at AFTAH have personally experienced; the incompetent researchers for SPLC’s “Intelligence Report” initially confused me with Paul Cameron of the Family Research Institute). All this would be comical except that the SPLC is taken seriously by the liberal media and is used as an informational resource by the federal government’s Department of Homeland Security, so please take the action steps above.

Always remember: defending biblical morality is not ”bigotry” and disagreeing with homosexual activists is not “hate.” Thanks for standing with AFTAH for truth amidst all the politically correct lies. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org; write us at americansfortruth@gmail.com

Laurie Higgins writes:
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The Morality Police at the Southern Poverty Law Center

Evelyn Schlatter, Southern Poverty Law Center author of "hate groups" article

By Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute

Oh, for the good old days when the term “hate group” referred to groups that actually hated someone. Now the term “hate group” refers to any group that expresses political, philosophical, moral, or theological beliefs with which the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) disagrees.

Last week, the SPLC released the winter issue of Mark Potok’s ironically named “Intelligence Report.” The article, “18 Anti-Gay Groups and Their Propaganda,” by Evelyn Schlatter lists 18 organizations as “anti-gay” groups with 13 of those to be added to their formal list of “hate groups.” The American Family Association, Family Research Council, and the Illinois Family Institute are three of the 13 that will be included on a list with neo-Nazi organizations.

Schlatter explains that the “propagation” of “known falsehoods” about homosexuality will result in organizations being included on the SPLC’s “anti-gay” list and perhaps also their “hate groups” list. Here are the “known falsehoods” that she and co-author Robert Steinback cite in the companion article “10 Anti-Gay Myths Debunked”:

1. If an organization claims that homosexuals “molest children at far higher rates than heterosexuals,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
2. If an organization says that “same-sex parents harm children,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
3. If an organization claims that “people become homosexual because they were sexually abused as children or there was a deficiency in sex-role modeling by their parents,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
4. If an organization claims that “homosexuals don’t live nearly as long as heterosexuals,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
5. If an organization claims that “homosexuals controlled the Nazi Party and helped to orchestrate the Holocaust,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate-groups” list.
6. If an organization claims that “hate crime laws will lead to the jailing of pastors who criticize homosexuality and the legalization of practices like bestiality and necrophilia,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
7. If an organization claims that “allowing homosexuals to serve openly would damage the armed forces,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
8. If an organization claims that homosexuals “are more prone to be mentally ill and to abuse drugs and alcohol,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
9. If an organization claims that “no one is born a homosexual,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.
10. If an organization claims “Gay people can choose to leave homosexuality,” it goes on the SPLC’s “hate groups” list.

Under each of these “myths,” Schlatter and Steinback offer analyses and evidence of such poor quality that their arguments wouldn’t pass muster in many high school English classes in which there are actual standards for logic and use of evidence. I will examine just a few of the many problems in their analyses, which in turn will reveal the intellectual and ethical vacuity that pervades the SPLC.

Same sex parents harm children

The SPLC thinks that the belief that same sex parents harm children constitutes hatred. The first problem is that Schlatter and Steinback fail to define harm. If one believes that homosexuality is morally flawed, then a household centered on a morally flawed relationship cannot be beneficial.

It is entirely possible that a brother and sister in an incestuous relationship or that polyamorist parents could raise children, providing for their physical needs, comforting them, and teaching them their ABCs. But most of society believes that such relationships would harm children because they would teach children that incest or polyamory are morally permissible. Would Schlatter and Steinback include organizations on their “hate groups” list that propagate the belief that incestuous parents or poly-parents harm children?

The SPLC and many homosexuals are outraged over any comparison of homosexuality to adult consensual incest or polyamory because they view homosexuality as moral and incest and polyamory as immoral. But no one is obligated to accept the SPLC’s flawed comparison of homosexuality to race or to accept their moral assumptions. After all, who is the SPLC to impose their moral views on all of society? Why are IFI’s moral beliefs about homosexual acts hateful and the views of those who oppose incest or polyamory legitimate? Why do IFI’s moral beliefs about volitional homosexual acts land us on the “hate groups” list, while the moral beliefs of those who oppose incestuous parents or poly-parents do not land them on the “hate groups” list?

Homosexual parents teach their children that gender is irrelevant to marriage and to parenting. They teach them that homosexual acts are inherently moral. And they deliberately deprive children of either a mother or a father. Those corruptions of truth and essential human relationships harm children.

Childhood molestation, innateness (“born that way”) and homosexuality

The one point about which many on both sides of the homosexuality debate agree is that the causes of same-sex attraction are not known. Many believe that same-sex attractions result from a complex interaction of biologically shaped predispositions and environmental factors. If we do notknow the causes of same-sex attraction, and if some of the factors that contribute to it are environmental experiences, how can anyone declare that childhood molestation never contributes to the development of same-sex attraction? And if childhood molestation may contribute in some cases to the development of same-sex attraction, how can it constitute hatred to say so?

Oprah, an inveterate promoter of all things homosexual, recently did two powerful programs about men who were molested as children. One of her guests was a therapist who has treated hundreds of men who were molested as children. He stated that one result of the sexual molestation of boys is “sexual orientation confusion.”

Schlatter and Steinback also assert that it’s hateful, false, and mythical to say “no one is born homosexual,” and then virtually their entire analysis reveals that there is no research proving that people are “born homosexual.” Schlatter and Steinback write, “a great many studies suggest that it is the result of biological and environmental forces.”

Following their repeated assertions that there is no proof that homosexuality is congenital, Schlatter and Steinback suggest the false dichotomy that if people do not choose their same-sex attraction, they must be “born that way,” completely ignoring two essential truths. First, the fact that people do not choose their feelings does not mean that such feelings are biologically determined. Second, freely chosen behaviors that emerge from feelings shaped by biological influences are not automatically moral.

IFI has consistently said that although no one chooses their feelings, people do choose how to respond to them. Saying that people ought not to act upon same-sex attraction is no more hateful than saying that people ought not to act upon unchosen, powerful, persistent attractions to pornography, multiple people, or their siblings. All moral beings have to decide which of their unchosen, powerful feelings are morally legitimate to act upon.

Homosexual men and shortened life spans

Under the “myth” about the shortened life spans of homosexual men, Schlatter and Steinback made the following statement:

Bob Unruh, a conservative Christian journalist who left The Associated Press in 2006 for the right-wing, conspiracist news site WorldNetDaily, said shortly before the federal law was passed that it would legalize “all 547 forms of sexual deviancy or ‘paraphilias’ listed by the American Psychiatric Association.” This claim was repeated by many anti-gay organizations, including the Illinois Family Institute.

Either because of Schlatter’s and Steinback’s poor research or lack of ethics, they failed to include the fact that exactly one week after making the error regarding the DSM, writer Kathy Valente posted a correction which is still on our website. It reads as follows:

In the article entitled “Hate Crimes Bill Moves to Senate” (5/5/09), we mistakenly stated that the American Psychiatric Association’s actual definition of “sexual orientation” includes paraphilias. The APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) classifies “sexual orientation” as heterosexual, homosexual, and bi-sexual. The 547 mental disorders called paraphilias specifically involve non-human objects, physical pain, or unwilling partners as in pedophilia. IFI apologizes for the error.

I hope and assume that Schlatter and Steinback will demonstrate the integrity and professionalism that Ms. Valente did by publishing a correction and apology.

In their argument that talking about the shorter life spans of homosexual men constitutes an act of hatred, Schlatter and Steinback focused on research by Paul Cameron, while completely ignoring research by the well-respected International Journal of Epidemiology that found the following:

[W]e demonstrated that in a major Canadian centre, life expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 21 years less than for all men. If the same pattern of mortality continued, we estimated that nearly half of gay and bisexual men currently aged 20 years would not reach their 65th birthday. Under even the most liberal assumptions, gay and bisexual men in this urban centre were experiencing a life expectancy similar to that experienced by men in Canada in the year 1871.

The authors of this article, upset that conservative groups disseminated this troubling fact, issued an update that said, “if we were to repeat this analysis today the life expectancy of gay and bisexual men would be greatly improved. Deaths from HIV infection have declined dramatically in this population since 1996.”

Though mortality rates have dropped due to improved treatment protocols, HIV infection rates for “men who have sex with men” (MSM) are soaring. According to the CDC, “While CDC estimates that MSM account for just 4 percent of the U.S. male population aged 13 and older, the rate of new HIV diagnoses among MSM in the U.S. is more than 44 times that of other men.”

I wonder if Schlatter and Steinback are planning on publishing an addendum to their article in which they address HIV infection rates for homosexual men, or perhaps they’re going to include the CDC on their “hate groups” list.

Nazism

Schlatter claimed erroneously that I “compared homosexuality to Nazism,” which makes me wonder if she even bothered to read the articles in which I referred to Nazism. Here’s an excerpt from one:

Although genocide and homosexual acts are both sins, in man’s economy–and my own belief system–genocide is a far greater sin. And although I believe that all sin represents rebellion against God, I believe that homosexuality and genocide are by nature distinct….I never posited that homosexuals were the moral equivalents of Nazis. Rather, I compared the rationalizations church leaders offered for the silence of the church in the face of the evil of Nazism to the rationalizations church leaders offer for the silence of the church in the face of the evil of using public schools to promulgate destructive, erroneous views of homosexuality….The feckless or deceitful claim that I said homosexuals are equivalent to Nazis makes no more sense than claiming that someone who says the church should address both the sin of murder and the sin of gossip are saying that murderers and gossips are morally equivalent.

Sin in the closet

The SPLC believes it’s an act of hate to say that homosexuality should remain in the “in the closet.” Ms. Schlatter quoted an article in which I said, “There was something profoundly good for society about the prior stigmatization of homosexual practice…. [W]hen homosexuals were ‘in the closet,’ (along with fornicators, polyamorists, cross-dressers, and ‘transsexuals’), they weren’t acquiring and raising children.”

Many people believe that immoral behavior should be concealed from the public rather than paraded about or publicly celebrated. For example, many people–perhaps most–do not want polyamorists’ or cross-dressers’ behavior to be public where children can see it. Does the SPLC view those who don’t want their children to see manifestations of polyamory or cross-dressing as haters?

And many people believe that children have a fundamental right to be raised by the biological parents who procreated them. Many people, including Roman Catholics, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, and Protestants as well as people who follow no faith tradition, believe it is immoral for homosexuals to adopt or use in vitro fertilization and surrogacy to acquire children. Do they all deserve to be labeled “haters”?

My belief that it would be better for society if homosexuality were not publicly affirmed, normalized, or celebrated no more constitutes hatred of homosexuals than does other people’s belief that polyamory should not be publicly affirmed, celebrated, or normalized constitute hatred of polyamorists.

Ex-gays

The SPLC states that saying people can choose not to act on same-sex attraction or that they can leave a homosexual lifestyle constitutes hatred of homosexuals. Following that logic, what does it mean when someone says people can leave a polyamorous lifestyle or that they can choose not to act on their powerful attractions to multiple people? And what does it say to the hundreds of men and women who have abandoned their homosexual lives that the SPLC says discussing such a path is an act of hatred?

Conclusion

No longer is hate defined as, well, hatred. Anyone who finds the SPLC’s analogies faulty; their research selective; their concealing of inconvenient facts troubling; or their unproven, non-factual moral beliefs wrong, is now guilty of hatred.

The SPLC holds the unproven, non-factual belief that homosexuality is moral and arrogantly demands that all of society agree, or be silent, or be labeled a “hate group.” That strikes me as a strange manifestation of tolerance or respect for speech rights and diversity. Ironically, the SPLC has become the oppressor.

The SPLC hopes that their smear campaign will silence conservatives so that only the SPLC’s moral views will be heard in the public square. No one should allow the unprincipled bullying tactics and specious reasoning of the SPLC to intimidate them into silence. The SPLC’s ontological and moral beliefs about homosexuality are not facts, and dissent from the ethically impoverished SPLC’s beliefs does not constitute hatred.

Please take time to read this comprehensive indictment of the SPLC from the Social Contract Journal, which dedicated its spring 2010 issue to exposing the SPLC.

And if that’s not enough, click HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Ann Coullter comes to Chicagoland Thursday, Oct. 7th. Coulter outraged "queer" liberals like Perez Hilton when she told 'conservative' homosexuals at GOProud's "Homocon" event that same-sex "marriage" "is not a civil right -- you're not black!"

WARNING: GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS

[CORRECTION: we received a note from homosexual blogger Joe Jervis (Joe.My.God.) pointing us to a Human Events article by Lisa De Pasquale that clarifies some careless reporting by Politico of Ann Coulter's GOProud speech: it was not a GOProud member (as I reported, relying on Politico) but rather a joking Greg Gutfeld of the latenight FOX show "Red Eye" who "heckled" Coulter, blurting out, "What's wrong with fisting?" after she -- using her patented comic hyperbole -- accused liberals of wanting to teach kindergartners about "fisting." Coulter and Gutfeld are friends. (Her point of reference was surely the infamous 2000 Boston "Fistgate" incident, in which middle- high school kids actually WERE instructed verbally about "fisting" -- at a Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Netword (GLSEN)-sponsored conference. ("Fisting" is a dangerous homosexual sadomasochistic perversion in which a man inserts his arm up another man's rectum.) 

[We have removed the portion of this article in which we speculated that it was a GOPround member or supporter who asked, "What's wrong with fisting?" Also, it also should be noted that, despite the value of correcting the record on Coulter's speech, De Pasquale works for American Conservative Union, which supports GOProud and defended the homosexual group's sponsorship of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) -- against complaints by conservative Christian groups who accused CPAC of promoting the acceptance of homosexuality. AFTAH opposed GOProud's sponsorship of CPAC.  -- Peter LaBarbera, www.AmericansForTruth.org]

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By Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

Dear AFTAH Readers,

If you are near Chicago, I’d like you to consider attending an Ann Coulter speaking event a week from today — put on by my good friend Sandy Rios, president of Culture Campaign, a pro-family action group based in Illinois. Sandy, a FOX News contributor, is a brave truth-teller who surely would have gone farther in the media had she not stayed true to her Christian principles; please support her by coming out this Thursday night!

I know that’s sort of an odd request given the swirl of controversy and debate surrounding Coulter’s recent speech at ‘HomoCon,’ an event put on by the homosexual Republican group ‘GOProud.‘ But trust me, you will be blessed by this event — and you’ll be helping out a solid organization, Culture Campaign, that has stood strongly against the homosexualist agenda.

First, here are the details:

WHEN: Thursday, Oct. 7, 7:30 PM — less than a week away

WHERE: The Meadows Club, 2950 W. Golf Rd., Rolling Meadows, IL 60008 (suburb north of Chicago). Online map here: http://www.themeadowsclub.com/location.htm

WHO: Ann Coulter, feisty conservative pundit and author of “Godless: The Church of Liberalism,” “Guilty: Liberal ‘Victims’ and their Assault on America,” and other books.

COST: $50; $35 for students; tickes will NOT BE SOLD AT THE DOOR

HOW TO ORDER TICKETS: Go online to Culture Campaign’s online order form: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/747925064. Tickets can be ordered up to 3 hours before the event’s start time (7:30 PM, Oct. 7th).

SPECIAL VIP DINNER OPPORTUNITY: Before the main event you can be a part of an exclusive VIP Reception & Dinner that includes a photo with Ann along with a personally signed book. For more information on this limited seating function contact Michael Glenn, Executive Director of Culture Campaign, at mglenn@culturecampaign.com.  

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If you come, I will see you there. Here’s why I’m going – even after my disappointment with Ann Coulter for lending legitimacy to a Republican upstart “gay” group (GOProud) that talks a good game about being conservative but really isn’t. As GOProud Chairman Chris Barron said in an August 4 Twitter post: “We are a gay organization, we only work on gay issues, we have never claimed otherwise. My God people.”

(The core purpose of GOProud is to promote the acceptance of homosexuality and same-sex relationships. Promoting ”pride” in a sin, supporting a judge who imposes ”gay marriage” against the expressed will of millions of California voters, and backing governmental/taxpayer recognition of aberrant sexual relationships is not conservative — period. However, GOProud does take conservative positions on issues like gun control and lower taxes – and it has even endorsed the Republican opponent of homosexual Barney Frank (D-MA), for which they were pilloried by liberal activist homosexuals.)

All that said, I agree pretty much with Bryan Fischer of AFA below (writing for Renew America) that Coulter redeemed her much-discussed GOProud booking to defend truth, including the idea that “same-sex marriage” has nothing to do with civil rights. Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily went further in his recent debate with GOProud founder Christopher Barron in Miami — exposing GOProud’s hypocrisy in claiming to be for “limited government” while failing to condemn a federal judge (reported homosexual Vaughn Walker) for invalidating the people’s vote in California in favor of traditional marriage. After Walker’s ruling, GOProud’s Jimmy LaSalvia made these comments — perfectly reflecting GOProud’s desire to have it both ways on ”conservatism” and “gay marriage.” The FrumForum blog quotes LaSalvia:

“As long as the government is in the marriage business it should treat gay couples as equal to their straight counterparts.  Accordingly, we are pleased with the outcome of the Prop 8 case.”

That said, LaSalvia qualified his satisfaction by noting that, “As conservatives, however, we continue to have reservations about using the courts to achieve these ends.”

GOProud’s Barron debates WND’s Farah

Christopher Barron of GOProud (left) debates WND's Joseph Farah. Photo: WND.com

It took some guts for Barron to come to the WND “Take America Back” conference and debate Joseph Farah (see photo) — although it also fits Barron’s masterful PR strategy of using controversy to stay in the news. I attended the event, and it was fascinating as much for what was not debated as for what was. (For example, when questioned from the floor, Barron acknowledged that rights come from God but he was never asked whether and on what basis he defends homosexual practice itself as moral and “conservative.”) 

Suffice it to say that Barron played a good game of dodging and weaving regarding his promotion of homosexual activist goals – even stating that GOProud did not “celebrate” the recent court ruling invalidating Prop 8 in California when clearly – like all other homosexualist groups — GOProud cheered the radical decision. I would welcome a debate with Barron that is less restrictive and more free-wheeling than the WND event, with more opportunity for follow-up questions.

Some gays don’t want ”gay rights” laws

Despite his and GOProud’s previous cheap shot at me after I challenged Coulter on the GOProud speech, I could sit down over a cup of coffee and discuss issues with Barron and we’d probably agree on as much as we disagree on. (When I met Barron at the debate and challenged him on his attack on me, he responded that I specialize in cheap shots.) The fact is, there are many homosexuals who disagree with the demands of the largely liberal-Democratic Homosexual Lobby – and who also disagree with its anti-religious stridency. Many don’t want “special rights,” as conservatives once widely called “sexual orientation” laws. And while GOProud equivocates and tries to ride the fence by claiming neutrality on dangerous big-government-gay bills like ENDA (Employment Nondiscrimination Act), some homosexuals completely reject the “gay rights” political agenda and just want to be left alone. (Barron says he does support Americans’ First Amendment and religious right to disagree with homosexual practice, but by advocating for federal Domestic Partner legislation, he would essentially force all citizens to subsidize it with their tax dollars.)

Like Farah, I will grant Barron this: you can hold conservative positions on a number of issues like guns and taxes yet have a homosexuality problem (or a theological one: Barron considers himself a Catholic yet says he is “married” to another man). But if you form an organization dedicated philosophically to advancing homosexuality – thereby undermining the historic, biblically-based moral/religious basis for American freedoms and prosperity – that ain’t “conservative” because you are working to reconfigure — not “conserve” — marriage and family as God designed them.

As Farah said at the debate: “Chris, your argument is not with me. It is with God. It’s with 6,000 years of Judeo-Christian history and the founding principles of this country.”

The same could be said of anyone — straight or “gay,” conservative or liberal, socialist or libertarian, religious or secular — who advocates for “same-sex marriage” and/or state and corporate recognition of homosexual relationships as a social good – or of homosexuality as the basis for civil rights.

Coulter’s GOProud Gold

I didn’t see a full text of Ann Coulter’s GOProud speech, but good for her for nailing the fraudulent case for oxymoronic “gay marriage” and homosexuality as a “civil right” with a couple of catchy one-liners. From Politico’s Ben Smith, who attended the event:

Coulter’s jokes Saturday riffed on the theme that GOProud doesn’t make same-sex marriage central to its appeal; it considers, Barron says, national security and the economy more important.

Marriage “is not a civil right – you’re not black,” Coulter said to nervous laughter. She went on to note that gays are among the wealthiest demographic groups in the country.

“Blacks must be looking at the gays saying, ‘Why can’t we be oppressed like that?’”

Hello, Republicans… Want to get more black votes? Then don’t abandon the fight against homosexual “marriage”!

GOProud member to Coulter: ‘What’s wrong with fisting?’

I read this liberal homosexual account of Coulter’s GOProud appearance on the website of homosexual Hollywood gossip writer Perez Hilton, who titled his piece, “Ann Coulter Sinks to New Lows of Vileness!” (emphasis added):

According to Talking Points Memo’s Megan Carpentier:

In fact, despite opening her speech with a joke about the difficulty of “coming out” as a fiscal conservative to one’s parents — something she congratulated the attendees on — Coulter’s speech to GOProud mystifyingly focused on social issues and not the fiscal and foreign policy issues that brought most of the attendees there. For instance, she told GOProud that the conservative gay rights movement ought to make common cause with the anti-abortion movement because, she said, “as soon as they find the gay gene, you know who’s getting aborted.” Coulter also made a forceful case against sex education in schools, accusing liberals of attempting to teach kindergartners about “fisting” (which garnered her a heckler, who shouted out “What’s wrong with fisting?”) [Editor's Note: see clarification at top: the heckler was Coulter's friend and FOX "Red Eye" host Greg Gutfeld--making a joke] and told the crowd that most parents didn’t want their children learning about the “homosexual lifestyle” instead of reading and writing.

As for Coulter being accused of “vileness” by the intolerant, vulgar and über-obnoxious Hilton (the guy who trashed Carrie Prejean with his gay-potty mouth running wild), that definitely commends Coulter. (Hilton, ever the sophisticated critic, completed his attack on Coulter with one of his patented mark-ups of her web photo with horns and something white scribbled on her mouth (don’t ask).

Homosexual activist blogger Jeremy Hooper (“Good As You”) cited this remark by Coulter as evidence that she’s a B-A-A-A-D person:

Coulter: the gays “ought to start being antiabortion because “once they find the gay gene, guess who’s getting aborted”

Hooper is probably too young to know that Coulter was merely parroting the line of a homosexual group called PLAGAL (Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians), which — at the height of the media’s hype of over the supposed genetic basis for homosexuality – made news by arguing that homosexuals should be pro-life because most parents would abort their unborn child if he or she was discoverd in utero to possess the postulated ”gay gene.”

Gay Porn Kings for the GOP!

Somehow I doubt that homosexual porn magnates make up an important voting bloc for the GOP, but with GOProud’s help, the Republicans could make a dent in that slimy constituency. Check out this from Politico’s coverage of Coulter’s speech (emphasis added):

Coulter’s talk drew a mixed response, but her presence marked the increasingly mainstream Republican embrace of gay rights. Coulter had a falling out with a conservative website that has published her, WorldNetDaily, over her attendance. “She’s doing something important – she’s showing her base that it’s OK,” said one attendee, Michael Lucas. (Lucas also confided to a reporter, “I wonder what Ann will think about the fact that I am the biggest producer of gay porn on the East Coast and probably in the whole U.S.”)

Perhaps Lucas could form another gay offshoot: GOPorn, for Republicans, gay and straight, who proudly produce and use pornography — but who also favor low taxes and smaller government. Traditional morality-hating Libertarians would surely jump on board in solidarity.

In his extremism, Lucas illustrates our basic point: you can support the Republican Party for (most of) its conservative platform – even if, in other areas of your life, you are the farthest thing from “conservative” imaginable. But don’t pretend that forming an organization that will help to mainstream your particular immoral behavior is “conservative.”

I’ll see you at the Coulter event Thursday. She won’t get any questions from pornographers, to be sure. But this will be our opportunity to solicit her views in a friendly setting on the Republican Party, conservatives, and homosexual-agenda politics. We have so few friends in the pundit world … let’s see where Ann really stands on this issue.

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Below is a Renew America column by Bryan Fischer of American Family Association expressing satisfaction with Coulter’s GOProud speech:

September 27, 2010

Ann Coulter gets her “Warrior Princess” badge back

By Bryan Fischer

I criticized Ann Coulter last month when news surfaced that she had accepted an invitation to speak at HomoCon 2010, a gathering of so-called conservative homosexuals. (They can’t call themselves conservatives, for the simple reason that using the anal cavity for sex is not a conservative value.)

You also will notice that they have no hesitation calling themselves “homos,” as in “HomoCon,” but take umbrage if anybody else uses their own chosen moniker.

I did say that Ann might surprise us all and take the homosexuals straight on, but guessed that a desire not to upset her hosts, who surely paid a princessly sum to entice her into speaking and appearing on all their promotional posters, would likely prevent her from getting up in their business.

Well, I was wrong.

Ann took them straight on and gave them some straight talk I doubt they were ready for. There is no amount of sugar that will help this medicine go down.

According to the leftwing website Politico.com, she complimented the Christian audiences before whom she speaks by telling these homosexuals that the people who get her “gay jokes are gays.” Christians get them, she hinted, but “out of sweetness they don’t laugh at the gay jokes.” Alas, she was suggesting, if only Christians were as mean-spirited as everyone says they are! I have to leave my gay jokes in the green room because those Christians are just too darned civil and courteous and kind!

Then she let the air out of the tires on the tired argument that homosexual marriage is the civil rights issue of our day. Reminding them that blackness is an innate characteristic but sexual behavior is a choice, same-sex marriage, she said pointedly, “is not a civil right — you’re not black.”

As Gen. Colin Powell himself said, the comparison between homosexual behavior and race is “convenient but invalid.” People are born black, but they are not born gay. And many people who enter the homosexual lifestyle later leave it. So there are plenty of ex-gays, but you will never meet an ex-black.

Then she punctured a hole in the entire oppressed-minority argument by pointing out that homosexuals are among the wealthiest demographic groups in the nation, again making the civil rights argument utterly invalid.

Survey after survey has revealed that homosexuals tend to be more highly educated than their straight counterparts and have higher levels of income.

“Blacks must be looking at the gays, saying, ‘Why can’t we be oppressed like that?’” said Coulter.

So Christians are too tolerant to make fun of gays, homosexuals have no civil right to marry, and homosexuals can’t claim oppressed minority status. This from the keynote speaker at HomoCon, who got at least five figures to get right in the grill of her hosts.

Anybody at HomoCon want their money back?

And Ann, all is forgiven. Humble pie has never tasted so sweet. You are no longer the “Joan of Arc of homosexuality,” as I described you last month, you are now Daniella of the Lion’s Den. Good on ya, lass.

Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker

One need not rely on this disturbing item from NRO to conclude that American jurisprudence is in big trouble given the expanding number of judges who are, to use modern parlance, “openly gay” (which is to say: proudly practicing or inclined to practice perversion). If they regard their homosexuality as (part of) “who they are” and, by extension, view foes of homosexuality as akin to racists, it is difficult to imagine them being truly impartial on “gay”-related cases.

Having said that, given the ferocity with which many straight liberals promote homosexualist ideology today, there surely is plenty of left-wing judicial bias to go around without laying all or even most of the blame at the feet of America’s homosexual judges. A straight liberal who regards homosexuality as a pure “civil rights” issue is just as capable of being a reactionary, anti-religious bigot in his approach toward moral opponents of homosexuality as an openly homosexual judge.  — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

Related AFTAH story: “Gary Glenn Assails Focus on the Family’s ‘Moral Retreat’ on Openly Homosexual Judges”

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By Ed Whelan, National Review Online’s “Bench Memos”

Reprinted from NRO Online, February 07, 2010

Judge Walker’s Skewed Judgment

According to this column in today’s San Francisco Chronicle, “The biggest open secret in the landmark trial over same-sex marriage being heard in San Francisco is that the federal judge who will decide the case, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, is himself gay.”

In terms of his judicial performance in the anti-Proposition 8 case, the bottom-line question that matters isn’t whether Walker is straight or gay.  It’s whether he is capable of ruling impartially.  I have no reason to doubt that there are homosexuals who could preside impartially over this case, just as I have no reason to doubt that there are heterosexuals whose bias in favor of, or against, same-sex marriage would unduly skew their handling of the case.

From the outset, Walker’s entire course of conduct in the anti-Prop 8 case has reflected a manifest design to turn the lawsuit into a high-profile, culture-transforming, history-making, Scopes-style show trial of Prop 8’s sponsors.  Consider his series of controversial—and, in many instances, unprecedented—decisions:

Take, for example, Walker’s resort to procedural shenanigans and outright illegality in support of his fervent desire to broadcast the trial, in utter disregard of (if not affirmatively welcoming) the harassment and abuse that pro-Prop 8 witnesses would reasonably anticipate.  Walker’s decision was ultimately blocked by an extraordinary (and fully warranted) stay order by the Supreme Court in an opinion that was plainly a stinging rebuke of Walker’s lack of impartiality.

Take Walker’s failure to decide the case, one way or the other (as other courts have done in similar cases), as a matter of law and his concocting of supposed factual issues to be decided at trial.

Take the incredibly intrusive discovery, grossly underprotective of First Amendment associational rights, that Walker authorized into the internal communications of the Prop 8 sponsors—a ruling overturned, in part, by an extraordinary writ of mandamus issued by a Ninth Circuit panel consisting entirely of Clinton appointees.

Take Walker’s insane and unworkable inquiry into the subjective motivations of the more than seven million Californians who voted in support of Prop 8.

Take Walker’s permitting a parade of anti-Prop 8 witnesses at trial who gave lengthy testimony that had no conceivable bearing on any factual or legal issues in dispute but who provided useful theater for the anti-Prop 8 cause.

And so on.

Walker’s entire course of conduct has only one sensible explanation:  that Walker is hellbent to use the case to advance the cause of same-sex marriage.  Given his manifest inability to be impartial, Walker should have recused himself from the beginning, and he remains obligated to do so now.

In 2008, 15-year-old Amanda Collette was shot and killed by lesbian classmate Teah Wimberly after she resisted Wimberly's homosexual advances.

A SERIOUS NOTE: As you can see, below we are making light of the bald-faced hypocrisy of homosexual activists, who demand tolerance for themselves even as they maliciously attack and victimize their critics — and falsely accuse them of “hate.” However, we are not including the most vicious manifestation of homosexual hatred that occurred this year: the recent murder conviction of  Teah Wimberly, a lesbian student who shot and killed Amanda Collette, her 15-year-old classmate at Ft. Lauderdale’s Dillard High School — because Collette refused Wimberly’s same-sex romantic advances.

This is no joking matter, so Wimberly (courtroom photo below left) is not on our list. Needless to say, her conviction for the murder of the talented and beautiful Collette (pictured below right) — a murder directly tied to homosexuality — has not received anything close to the national media attention that made homosexual murder victim Matthew Shepard a household name. (Recall that the much-touted “anti-gay-hate-crime” motive for Shepard’s murder was later cast into serious doubt by ABC’s 20/20.)

Teah Wimberly was found guilty of murdering the target of her same-sex crush, Amanda Collette.

A little over a year ago, Amanda Collette became the ultimate victim of homosexuality when Wimberly shot her in the back at school. As the Miami Herald reported, “Collette, 15, a star dancer on the school’s hip-hop dance squad, had rejected romantic advances from Wimberly in the days before the shooting.” Minutes after the shooting, Wimberly cried in a call to the 911 operator: ”I didn’t want to kill her so I shot her in the back . . . I just wanted to give her the pain she gave me.”

Regardless of what other factors were involved in this tragedy, it is not unreasonable to assert that Collette would be alive today were it not for the modern GLBT activist movement, which aggressively seeks to mainstream sexual deviance and immoral gay/lesbian “relationships” as normal and acceptable — most tragically among young people.

Yes, Virginia, there was a time in America when young women did not have to worry about sexual harassment and sexual advances from other young women. And the GLBT movement is first and foremost to blame for the rising number of youth who are embracing homosexual behaviors and considering destructive “gay,” lesbian, bisexual, or “transgender” self-”identities,” at younger and younger ages.  We ask you to pray for the families of both Collette and Wimberly, and pray for the Christian conversion of Teah Wimberly as she awaits sentencing. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

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Nominees Sought for ‘Gay Grinch of the Year 2009′

By Peter LaBarbera

CAROL STREAM, Illinois — Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) is taking nominations for our first annual “Gay Grinch of the Year” Award for 2009 — given to the meanest, most deceitful, most socially destructive and/or most blasphemous “gay” activist of the year. Two Thousand Nine was a particularly “mean one” for the Homosexual Lobby — to quote the infamous theme song for the Grinch (which was sung by Thurl Ravenscroft and not Boris Karloff, by the way) — so the choice will be a tough one. We want your input: send your nominations, suggestions and documentary evidence of “gay” Grinchiness to americansfortruth@comcast.net. The Gay Grinch 2009 Award winner will be announced after Christmas.

As this is AFTAH’s debut “Gay Grinch of the Year” award, our procedures are still in flux. I am inclined to limit the competition to actual practicing homosexuals, bisexuals and “transgenders” but am open to the idea that we will need to give another award to the Grinchiest heterosexual advocate for “gay rights” (perhaps starting next year). We have noticed the growing arrogance and stridency of straight, pro-homosexuality activists — and some of the most caustic pro-”gay” rhetoric comes from straight sympathizers — so we don’t want to leave them out.

AFTAH has already received input from various pro-family experts in choosing Gay Grinch of the Year 2009 candidates. Please write to us at americansfortruth@comcast.net to cast your vote for the Grinchiest “gay” activist of the year, or to nominate one. Here is a partial list of the candidates that we have assembled (a few more nominees will be in another post):

• Perez Hilton — homosexual Hollywood online gossip columnist — for his vulgar, bigoted rant against Miss California Carrie Prejean during the Miss USA 2009 pageant (Hilton’s other mean and intolerant acts can count towards the award as well);
  

  Perez Hilton

• Wayne Besen — for his ongoing hatred and harassment of former homosexuals and Christians who help “gays” leave the lifestyle; Besen was videotaped screaming with a megaphone into the window of Boston’s Park Street Church that was hosting an “ex-gay” seminar; see MassResistance’s full story on the Park Street protest HERE.
  

  Wayne Besen leads fellow homosexual militants in harassing Boston's Park Street Church, which was hosting an "ex-gay" conference. Imagine if "Christian" activists did this to a "gay" church.

• Frank Kameny — this “gay” historical icon — who led the first public pro-homosexual protest in America — proclaimed that the God of the Bible is a “sinful homophobic bigot” who needs to repent (to whom, we wonder…) — in a letter to Americans For Truth’s Peter LaBarbera; Kameny is an atheist, yet he maintains that “Gay is Godly”;
• Rachel Maddow, resident lesbian talker 0n MSNBC — for suggesting that rather than tossing two tomatoes at Sarah Palin, an activist in Minnesota should have thrown a pie at the former Alaska governor (it’s more accurate). Especially coming from a “gay” activist, this recalls the infamous incident in which a homosexual militant threw a pie in the face of Anita Bryant — a very mean act indeed.  (Maddow too has plenty of other material that gives her a serious shot at the Gay Grinch 2009 award.);
• ChadMichael Morrisette and Mito Aviles — This West Hollywood homosexual couple erected a grotesque Halloween display on their rooftop: a nude female mannequin with “LIAR” written on the belly and a copy of the face of pro-traditional-marriage advocate Maggie Gallagher attached as the head (amongst other anti-religious images; see photos of the pathetically putrid and puerile prank HERE). This followed last year’s effigy of a Sarah Palin lookalike mannequin hanging from a noose. The vicious anti-Palin stunt in 2008 may have made the deviant duo a favorite for last year’s Gay Grinch award, but alas, we didn’t give one out. They remain dark horse for the 2009 Gay Grinch Award.
• Timothy Kincaid — this writer for the homosexual website “Box Turtle Bulletin” stepped into the competition for Gay Grinch 2009 when he preposterously accused pro-family advocate Laurie Higgins (a former high school writing instructor) of wanting to see students harmed — just because Higgins opposes the pro-homosexual “Day of Silence” and affirms the Scriptural condemnation of homosexual sin.
  

  Tim Kincaid

  Kincaid wrote: “Let’s be clear. Higgins does not oppose the Day of Silence because it is the wrong way to go about ending the bullying of gay kids. Rather, Higgins opposes the Day of Silence because she believes it is a Christian kid’s duty to bully his gay classmates.” This is a mischievous and awful lie, and Kincaid knows it, yet he and Box Turtle Bulletin’s editors have left it up on their “fact-checking” site for months — even after Higgins strenuously complained to Kincaid. (We understand from Laurie that the Grinchy Kincaid now regrets his word choice but not enough for BTB to remove their spurious hit-piece.) Read Higgins’ response to Kincaid’s “stunning display of malicious, deceitful non-reasoning” HERE.

• George Fornero — This homosexual superintendent of school District 113 in the northern suburbs of Chicago was caught red-handed spreading gossipy, lying e-mails about the same Laurie Higgins and her family. Higgins, now with Illinois Family Institute, is a former writing instructor at a District 113 high school. She filed a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request with the district — which revealed dozens of nasty, catty in-house e-mails by and between Fornero and other liberal educators and administrators.
  

  George Fornero: bad role model for students.

  Fornero’s most malicious lie occurred in the form of a constituent e-mail he forwarded that made this absurd claim about Higgins: “I have a pretty good idea that she doesn’t care for Jews.” The hate-filled missive erroneously asserted that Higgins had barred her son from attending a classmate’s bat mitzvah ceremony, and then added this über-Grinchy bit of nastiness: “”I guess the contamination would have spread to [Higgins' son's] pure heart nor did he attend her celebration–probably too many Christ killers there.” WRONG, writes Higgins, who corrected the record: her son “attended countless bat and bar mitzvahs, as did my other children.” Fornero should be fired as a mean-spirited activist and poor role model for students who does not practice the respect and tolerance that he demands from others. See the incredible story HERE and if you are a pro-family advocate who holds educators accountable: file a FOIA request at your child’s school!

Look for more Gay Grinch of the Year 2009 Nominees Tomorrow!

Frank Kameny with one of his original "gay" protest signs, as he was being honored by Smithsonian Museum of American History officials. The homosexual icon says the God of the Bible is a "sinful, homophobic bigot" who needs to repent.

Folks, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and every Republican who covers up for Schwarzenegger’s liberal follies are helping to destroy the GOP’s “pro-family” brand. Corrupting children’s minds and souls through manipulative school exercises like “Harvey Milk Day” is anti-family and anti-child to the core. You simply cannot be pro-sexual sin and pro-family at the same time.

Thanks to California’s moral weakling of a governor, millions of schoolchildren will be subjected to propaganda extolling San Francisco homosexual crusader Milk — who, as my friend Randy Thomasson of SaveCalifornia.com rightly says — is hardly an appropriate role model for children. Kudos to Randy and other pro-family Californians for working so hard trying to stop this public policy madness. – Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth

TAKE ACTION: Contact Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele (chairman@gop.com; 202-863-8700 or -8500) and also your local/state GOP representatives (in office and out) and tell them how offended you are at Republican California Gov. Schwarzenegger’s latest capitulations to the Homosexual Lobby. Tell Steele that moral issues are an important plank of the Republican Party and that “going gay” will sap the strength out of the conservative grassroots. If you are a Democrat, call or write Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine and urge the party to STOP pandering to homosexual activists and undermining traditional marriage. (Kaine is the current Governor of Virginia.)

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SaveCalifornia.com News Release, October 12, 2009

SaveCalifornia.com Appalled at Signing of ‘Harvey Milk Gay Day’

SB 572, opposed by overwhelming majority, signed by “People’s Governor”

CLICK HERE FOR MILK DOCUMENTATION AND BILL FACTS

Sacramento – SaveCalifornia.com, a leading West Coast pro-family, pro-child organization, is appalled that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed SB 572, “Harvey Milk Day,” into law.

“Harvey Milk* was a sexual predator of teens, an advocate of polygamous relationships, a public liar, and is in no way a good role model for impressionable schoolchildren,” said Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com. “Sadly, children in public schools will now have even more in-your-face, homosexual-bisexual-transsexual indoctrination. This provides the strongest impetus yet for loving parents to remove their children from anti-family public schools.”

“’Harvey Milk Day’ teaches children as young as five years old to admire the life and values of the notorious homosexual activist Harvey Milk” said Thomasson. “The ‘suitable commemorative exercises’ that are part of ‘Harvey Milk Day’ can easily result in cross-dressing exercises, ‘LGBT pride’ parades and mock gay weddings on school campuses — everything Harvey Milk supported.”

Schwarzenegger vetoed ‘Harvey Milk Day” last year; he signed it this year. The Governor also previously claimed to oppose same-sex “marriage,” but now supports destroying the definition of marriage as only between a man and a woman, in court, and by his signing of SB 54, to recognize out-of-state homosexual “marriages” in violation of Proposition 8.

For several months, SaveCalifornia.com has been leading parents and grandparents to call, email, fax, and petition Governor Schwarzenegger to veto “Harvey Milk Day.” The clear majority of correspondence to the Governor was opposed to SB 572. As a whole, Californians are 4 to 1 against the notion of statewide day of significance honoring the San Francisco gay activist.

For documentation of Harvey Milk’s values and further analysis of “Harvey Milk Day,” see SaveCalifornia.com’s SB 572 veto request letter.

* Randy Shilts, The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (1982)

– end –

Related link: Get more perspective on this issue on Randy Thomasson’s blog

SaveCalifornia.com is a leading West Coast nonprofit, nonpartisan organization representing children and families. We stand for marriage and family, parental rights, the sanctity of human life, religious freedom, financial freedom, and back-to-basics education.

America is getting to know the real Barack Obama — and he’s a lot more radical than a 2008 presidential candidate by the same name. This aggressively pro-homosexual speech by Michelle Obama to the Democratic National Committee’s Gay & Lesbian Leadership Council (June 27, 2008) had only 56,805 views on YouTube as of August 7, 2009. Most Americans have never seen this side of Michelle Obama, just as most have not seen the side of her husband that celebrated America’s biggest abortion “provider,” Planned Parenthood, in a 2007 campaign speech. (That speech had only 84,875 views on YouTube as of Aug. 7.) Social liberals and “gay” activists will cheer this speech by Michelle; everyone else won’t recognize her vis-à-vis the “apolitical” First Lady described by the national media. (A transcript follows the video; emphasis and web links added.) — Peter LaBarbera

To put it in perspective: timeless truth from that “obscure” passage in the New Testament.–Ed.:

“Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.” (Romans 1:26-27)

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Incomplete transcript of Michelle Obama speech to DNC’s Gay & Lesbian Leadership Council, June 27, 2008 (emphasis and web links added):

Reprinted from TransGriot website: http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2008/06/michelle-obamas-remarks-to-dncs-gay-and.html

Thank you Howard Dean [then Democratic National Committee Chairman], for all your hard work building our party. We are proud to have you as our party Chairman. I want to recognize the members of UNITE HERE Local 6 who are working this event tonight. And thank you all for inviting me to spend some time with you.

I’m honored to be with you in a week that reminds us just how far we’ve come as a country. Five years ago today, the Supreme Court delivered justice with the decision in Lawrence v. Texas that same-sex couples would never again be persecuted through use of criminal law. And on Saturday, we recognize the anniversary of the day people stood up at Stonewall and said “enough.”

These anniversaries remind us that no matter who we are, or where we come from, or what we look like, we are only here because of the brave efforts of those who came before us. That we are all only here because of those who marched and bled and died, from Selma to Stonewall, in a pursuit of that more perfect union that is the promise of this country.

Over the course of this campaign, we’ve seen a fundamental change in the level of political engagement in this country. We’ve seen a renewed sense of possibility and a hunger for change. We’ve seen people of all ages and backgrounds investing time and energy like never before; writing $20, $30, $50 checks; investing for the first time ever in a political candidate. We’ve seen people talking to their neighbors about candidates and issues; working hard to clarify misperceptions; challenging one another to think differently about the world and our place in it.

It’s precisely this type of individual engagement and investment that has been the mission of my husband’s life. Barack has always believed that there is more in this country that unites us than divides us; that our common stories and struggles and values are what make this country great; that meaningful change never happens from the top down but from the bottom up.

I’ll never forget the first time I realized there was something special about Barack. It was nearly 20 years ago this summer. Barack and I were just getting to know one another, and he thought the best way for me to get to know him better was to get a better sense of the work he cared about most — his work as a community organizer.

He took me to a small church basement on the South Side of Chicago, where a group of neighborhood residents were gathered; folks he knew from his years as a community organizer before he went to law school. They were desperate for change. They were regular Americans struggling to build a decent life for themselves and their families. Single mothers living paycheck to paycheck; grandparents raising grandkids despite an income that wouldn’t allow it; men unable to support their families because jobs had disappeared when steel mills closed. Like most Americans, they didn’t want much; they weren’t asking for much: just dignity and respect.

I watched as Barack walked into the room, took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and instantly connected with each and every person in that room. He spoke eloquently of “the world as it is” and “the world as it should be.” He said the key to change is understanding that our job as citizens of this nation is to work hard each and every day to narrow the gap between those two ideas. He explained that we often settle for the world as it is even if it doesn’t reflect our personal values. But he reminded us that it is only through determination and hard work that we slowly make the world as it is and the world as it should be one in the same. His words were powerful not only because they made us believe in him – they challenged each of us to believe in ourselves.

One of the many reasons I’m proud of the way Barack has handled himself in this campaign is that he is still the same man I fell in love with in that church basement. His unyielding belief in that simple idea – closing the gap between the world as it is and the world as it should be – is precisely why he’ll be a President you can be proud of.

Barack is not new to the cause of the LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] community. It has been a conviction of his career since he was first elected to public office. In his first year in the Illinois State Senate, he cosponsored a bill amending the Illinois Human Rights Act to include protections for LGBT men and women. He worked on that bill for seven years, serving as chief cosponsor and lobbying his colleagues to reject the political expedience of homophobia and make LGBT equality a priority. In 2004, his efforts paid off as that bill finally became law, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity in the workplace, in housing, and in public places.

He’s led on gender-based violence with his work on the Illinois Gender Violence Act, successfully reaching across the aisle to put in place the nation’s strongest law giving the survivors of sexual assault or domestic violence legal remedy against their attackers. He joined his colleagues in fighting to include explicit protections for the LGBT community in that act. He lost that battle, but his efforts brought gender violence in the LGBT community into the political consciousness like never before.

In 2004, after hearing from gay friends and supporters about the hurtful impact of DOMA, Barack went on record during his U.S. Senate race calling for its complete repeal. And as a U.S. Senator, he voted to protect our Constitution from the stain of discrimination by voting against the Federal Marriage Amendment.

Barack’s record is clear. There is so much at stake in this election. The direction of our country hangs in the balance. We are faced with those two clear choices: The world as it is, and the world as it should be. We have to ask ourselves: Are we willing to settle for the world as it is or are we willing to work for the world as it should be?

Despite the extraordinary challenges we face today, we have a candidate who believes that the country is moving in the right direction, despite the inequalities created over the last 8 years.

And then we have Barack Obama, who believes that we must fight for the world as it should be.

A world where together we work to reverse discriminatory laws like DOMA and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

A world where LGBT Americans get a fair shake at working hard to get ahead without workplace discrimination.

A world where our federal government fully protects all of us — including LGBT Americans — from hate crimes.

And, a world where our federal laws don’t discriminate against same-sex relationships, including equal treatment for any relationship recognized under state law.

A world that recognizes that equality in relationship, family, and adoption rights is not some abstract principle; it’s about whether millions of LGBT Americans can finally live lives marked by dignity and freedom. Barack has made crystal clear his commitment to ensuring full equality for LGBT couples. That is why he supports robust civil unions. That is why he has said that the federal government should not stand in the way of states that want to decide for themselves how best to pursue equality for gay and lesbian couples — whether that means a domestic partnership, a civil union, or a civil marriage. And that is why he opposes all divisive and discriminatory constitutional amendments – whether it’s a proposed amendment to the California and Florida Constitutions or the U.S. Constitution. Because the world as it should be rejects discrimination.

But, it’s not just about the positions you take, it’s also about the leadership you provide.

Barack’s got the courage to talk to skeptical audiences; not just friendly ones. That’s why he told a crowd at a rally in Texas that gays and lesbians deserve equality. Now, the crowd got pretty quiet. But Barack said “now, I’m a Christian, and I praise Jesus every Sunday.” And the crowd started cheering. Then he said, “I hear people saying things that I don’t think are very Christian with respect to people who are gay and lesbian.” And you know what? The crowd kept cheering.

That’s why he told evangelicals at Rick Warren’s Saddleback church that we need a renewed call to action on HIV and AIDS.

That’s why he went to Ebenezer Baptist Church and said that we need to get over homophobia in the African-American community; that if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll embrace our gay brothers and sisters instead of scorning them. And that’s why he stood up at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and told all of America that we refuse to be divided anymore.

That’s the choice in this election. Between slipping backward and moving forward. Between being timid or being courageous. Between fighting for the world as it should be, or settling for the world as it is.

My husband is running for President to build an America that lives up to the ideals written into our Constitution. We have just come through a historic primary election where a woman and a black man were running to become President of the United States. It hasn’t been painless, but change never is. As I travel this country, I am certain that we have arrived at a moment in our collective history where we are ready to move forward and create the “world as it should be.”

I know which world Barack will fight for each and every day as your President. But he can’t do it alone. As he said in that church basement, change happens when ordinary people are ready to take the reins of their own destiny. He needs you by his side every step of the way. That kind of change won’t be easy. There will be powerful forces who believe that things should stay just the way they are.

That’s where you come in. Your voices of truth and hope and of possibility have to drown out the skeptics and the cynics.

If you stand with my husband; if you reach for what is possible and if you refuse to let this chance get away; we can begin building that better world in November.

Thank you.