“Well, boys aren’t supposed to kiss boys and girls aren’t supposed to kiss girls.” – Kindergarten student in East Hartford, CT, responding to lesbian teacher and GLSEN activist Geraldine Burke revealing to the class that she kisses her girlfriend. Burke later compared her lesbian kisses to affectionate kisses between family members.

GLSEN Corrupts Children: the organization founded by Kevin Jennings, GLSEN, advocates teaching very young children — who don’t even know what sex is yet — one-sided lessons about homosexuality and transsexuality.

The following story is reprinted from The Lambda Report, the now-defunct printed flagship publication of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality. It is the first part of a story about 1999 GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian Straight Education Network) conference held that year in Atlanta. Kevin Jennings — whose appointment as Barack Obama’s “safe schools” czar in the Department of Education is now embroiled in controversy — founded GLSEN, which promotes the acceptance of homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexuality to children in K-12 schools. We found some updated information on Burke on two homosexual activist websites, which follows the article below.

The following is based on AFTAH’s firsthand attendance at the 1999 GLSEN conference:

_____________________________

How One Teacher Defended Her Lesbianism to Kindergartners

GLSEN panelist compares lesbian kiss to parental love

By Peter LaBarbera, Lambda Report, Fall-Winter 1999

ATLANTA — A lesbian gym teacher who told her kindergarten students  that kissing her female partner was like a father lovingly kissing his son or an affectionate kiss between sisters was applauded for her “honesty” at a national conference for pro-homosexual educators, held here October 1-4 [1999].

“I will tell you that your heart tells you who to love,” retired elementary school teacher Geraldine Burke said she told her young students, after one of them started the discussion by asking if she had a husband. Burke–who taught gym class for 30 years in East Hartford, Connecticut — related the story as a panelist at the third annual conference of the Gay, Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a fast-growing homosexual activist group. Her workshop was titled, “Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, except What to Do When I Hear the Word ‘Fag’ or ‘Dyke’ in Class.”

Burke’s was one of several panels at the GLSEN conference devoted to advancing homosexuality-positive attitudes among elementary school children — the most controversial part of GLSEN’s agenda. In recent years, “gay” education activists have championed the “right” of teachers to discuss their homosexuality in the classroom, as Burke did with her young charges.

She explained that at her school she was “out” as a lesbian to the principal and to most of the teaching staff, and that it was important for her to be “authentic” about her sexual identity. According to Burke, one day a student in her gym class asked if she had a husband. She said no, and then another student asked if she had a boyfriend. Burke said no. “As a matter of fact … I have a girlfriend.” After some of the children said, “Ohhhh!” as if shocked, they asked her if she kissed her girlfriend. Burke said that she did.

The kids responded again, “Ohhhh!” When she asked what was wrong, one of the students said, “Well, boys aren’t supposed to kiss boys and girls aren’t supposed to kiss girls.”

Burke then responded,” Some people think it’s OK, and some people think it’s not OK,” speaking of homosexuality.

Then the gym teacher asked one of the boys in her class,” Do you ever kiss your father goodnight?” He replied, “Yes.” She then asked one of the girls, “Do you ever kiss your sister to show her that you love her?” “Yes,” the girl responded. Burke then used the analogy between those kisses and her lesbian kisses as she told the children, “Some people will tell you that you shouldn’t love some people [but] … your hearts tells you who to love.” She said the next question was: “When is gym?” as the students moved on to other matters.

Burke said that she informed the school principal about how she “outed” herself to the students in class. She said that neither she nor the principal ever heard back from any parents about the sensitive conversation.

“This was a very, very important teachable moment … I was not in any way going to lie to my students,” Burke said of her conversation with the kindergarten gym class. “At the elementary level, the teachable moments are the really critical ones.”

____________________________________

More Information about Geraldine Burke:

We found some more current information on Geraldine Burke online in a newsletter of PFLAG (Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) Hartford (CT). The March-April 2009 PFLAG-Hartford newsletter reports:

Geraldine Burke is a retired elementary physical education teacher. She taught in East Hartford at the preschool through sixth grade level for most of her career. She has been an activist for LGBT civil rights since 1989, serving on the boards of GLSEN CT; True Colors, Inc.; Stonewall Speakers; and CT Stonewall Foundation, Inc.

Upon her retirement as a public school educator, in 1999, she expanded her passion to be a change agent and became more involved as a Stonewall Speaker and served as State Coordinator of Engagements from June 2001 until February 2006. She recently stepped down from the board of directors after serving for four years and continues to participate as a panelist. … Geraldine lives her woman-loving self openly and as an equal in the world.

(PFLAG newsletter: http://www.pflaghartford.org/caring/caringV18N2.pdf)

___________________________

From the conference, “True Colors XV: A Global Perspective on Sexual and Gender Minority Youth,” March 13-15, 2008, sponsored by True Colors, Inc. (”True Colors works to create a world where youth, adults and families of all sexual orientations and gender identities are valued and affirmed. We challenge all forms of oppression through education, training, advocacy, youth leadership development, mentoring and direct services to youth and those responsible for their well-being.”)

A Successful Model for Effecting Change in School Climate for Middle & High School Students, Faculty, and Administration: LGBT Personal Stories with Q & A

Same and different gender loving, pan sexual, and transgender people, and supportive allies from the Stonewall Speakers will present the model used when speaking at schools, colleges, workplaces and communities of faith. The goal of this group is to educate the community at large regarding sexual orientation and gender identity and expression. This program is informative to the general population and at the same time supports the mostly closeted queer students, families, and teachers in our schools and workplaces. This model has been presented for almost twenty years in more than 100 high schools in CT through integration into Health, Psychology, Current Issues and Human Sexuality classes as well as Diversity and Teen Awareness days.

Geraldine Burke is a member of the Board of Directors of the CT Stonewall Foundation, which provides funding and direction for the Stonewall Speakers program. She formerly served on the Boards of GLSEN and True Colors and was Stonewall Speakers state coordinator from 2001 – January 2007. As an activist for the civil rights of same gender loving, pan sexual, transgender, and intersex people, Geraldine finds her involvement with Stonewall Speakers both rewarding and fulfilling.

Source: http://www.ourtruecolors.org/cfs/TC15/TC15Guide.pdf

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.

“San Francisco is a microcosm of the illness called liberalism. It’s the least tolerant city in the country. It’s the meanest city in the country.”

– Conservative talk show host Michael Savage, on his radio program “Savage Nation,” August 25, 2009. Savage is based in San Francisco.

Above is the twisted 2009 promotional poster for the annual Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco — a huge outdoor event celebrating sadomasochism and various perversions — at which hundreds if not thousands of men walk the streets fully or partially naked. At Folsom (scheduled for Sunday, Sept 27), it is commonplace to see men being publicly whipped and flogged to the delight of onlooking crowds. Nothing illustrates Savage’s quotation better than San Franciscans’ double standard on “tolerance.” Even many straights in the city take pride in its laissez faire embrace of Folsom and other perverse spectacles that to date have been coddled by the police, who do not enforce decency laws.

Curiously, even as they enable public nudity, the SFPD does a poor job of protecting dissenters’ rights in the city. Last year, the police failed to use their authority to allow a small Americans For Truth-led pro-family press conference condemning Folsom to go on civilly outside City Hall. Our outdoor press conference was shouted down in classic leftist fashion by veteran “queer” militant Michael Petrelis — as police ignored our request to give our free speech a forum to be heard. (In most big cities, police separate opposing protesters so that each side can exercise its free speech rights.) As you can see, Petrelis and fellow “queer” activists were allowed to shout over our press event with impunity; note his immature mimicking of oral sex and emphatic endorsement of nudity and sex in San Francisco’s streets.)

Proceeds from Folsom go to the anti-Catholic hate group Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence — which doubles as a pro-homosexual “charity” in San Francisco. The “Sisters” are homosexual men painted in drag who call themselves nuns (with perverted names) and who are insulted when you don’t treat them as a serious “religious order”; see photo of “Sister” at right and click HERE for more on the notorious church-bashing “charity.”

Let’s review … “Tolerance” for open-air perversions and public nudity — but none for peaceful, pro-family dissenters. Mean, sadistic sex in the streets, as cops stand idly by and politicians look the other way. Mean and intolerant activists like Michael Petrelis. Heck, even the “charities” are mean and blasphemous in the City by the Bay. (That includes the shocking, annual “Hunky Jesus Contest” mocking Jesus Christ every Easter Sunday.)

Michael Savage is right: San Francisco epitomizes all that is wrong with modern liberalism. — Peter LaBarbera, www.afthah.com

__________________________

The 2007 Folsom promotional poster (below) pushed the envelope even by jaded San Francisco standards in mocking Da Vinci’s painting of Christ’s Last Supper with his disciples. Those are “sex toys” on the table including a red fist representing the bizarre and dangerous sadistic act of “fisting.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D), a Catholic, couldn’t bring herself to denounce this blasphemous artwork in her own congressional district — much less the annual Folsom Fair itself that represents the worst of those much-derided “San Francisco values.” Click on photos to enlarge.

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?

Folks, we hope that Rachel Maddow (left) — the lesbian MSNBC talker who is as “out” in her homosexuality promotion as in her left-wing activism — takes up the offer of my good friend Matt Barber and lets him appear as a guest on her show. That seems only fair after Maddow lied about Barber’s statement on Obama-care and “sex-change” operations.

We understand that liberals don’t want to talk (rationally, anyway) about Obama-care covering abortions and grotesque transsexual “sex-change” procedures as “health care.” That is why we must discuss these awful possibilities. (By the way, even before Barber’s column, below, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s blog noted that President Obama’s favorite think tank, the liberal-left Center for American Progress, was beating the drums for adding “sex change operations to the list of medical procedures that all health insurance policies in the nation must cover.”) — Peter LaBarbera, www.americansfortruth.com

BANQUET REMINDER:  Culture warrior and former professional boxer Matt Barber (right) is coming to Chicago on Saturday, Oct. 24 to keynote the AFTAH fundraising banquet. The dinner is being held at the Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights, IL, and tickets are $50 per person. You can prepay online (just note “AFTAH banquet” in the Paypal or Credit Card form) or mail your check (designate it “AFTAH Banquet”) to: Americans For Truth, PO Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522. Please spread the word and make plans to come! E-mail aftahangela@gmail.com or americansfortruth@comcast.net for more information.

_____________________________

Matt Barber writes:

Sex-Change-apalooza: ObamaCare Likely to Mandate Free ‘Sex-Change’ Surgeries

By Matt Barber, August 5, 2009

I got a call a couple days ago from a producer with MSNBC. He wanted a hard copy of a press release I sent out entitled: “ObamaCare Likely to Mandate Free ‘Sex-Change’ Surgeries.” In the release I addressed the likelihood that, under Obama’s monolithic socialized healthcare scheme, taxpayers may well end up funding elective and entirely cosmetic “gender reassignment” surgeries. I was happy to oblige and asked which program he produced. “Rachel Maddow,” he reluctantly divulged. I chuckled and joked, “Oh, I’m sure Rachel will give me a glowing review.”

I then suggested that it would be better still if Rachel actually had me on the show to defend and debate the substance of my release. He declined. Understandable, though. Ms. Maddow—a hard-left lesbian activist who plays a pseudo-journalist on TV—certainly wouldn’t want me confusing all 242 of her wide-eyed, spoon-fed, Kool-Aid swilling viewers with the facts. (By the way, Rachel, sweetheart, if you have the guts, the offer still stands.)

In what was apparently an awkward attempt at ridicule, Maddow then focused like a laser on the title of my release. True to form, she twisted and spun like the Michelle Kwan of yellow journalism. I was disappointed. Not because she transparently distorted my words. I counted on that. I was disappointed because I actually expected the allegedly clever, Oxford educated talking-head to pull it off with some degree of satirical dexterity.

She did not.

Did Maddow mock me for suggesting that ObamCare might provide taxpayer funded “sex-change” operations? No. Did she deride me for mean-spiritedness, insensitivity and “transphobia”? No. Instead, she just lied. She dishonestly suggested that I claimed the government was going to “mandate sex-change operations.” Get it? That, if ObamaCare becomes reality, healthcare officials will knock down your door, drag you away and force you to undergo a “gender reassignment” surgery. I know—Silly.

Still, what Maddow didn’t say speaks volumes. She didn’t refute any of the substance of my release. She didn’t deny the real likelihood that such cosmetic procedures will be covered at taxpayer expense. And she certainly didn’t give me the opportunity to respond to her propagandist obfuscation.

But it didn’t stop with Maddow. Those adorable, patchouli soaked little left-wing lemmings at the Daily Kos, Wonkette and elsewhere also picked up on my release. I was surprised to see that many of them, in fact, agreed with the substance of my argument. Quite a few opined that “sex-change” surgeries should be covered at taxpayer expense and a number of them conceded that they almost certainly will.

So what prompted me to break this story in the first place? Well, when Sen. Orin Hatch (R-UT) asked Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) whether President Obama’s proposed socialized healthcare plan will mandate taxpayer funded abortion, she admitted that it will require “any service deemed medically necessary or medically appropriate.” It now appears that the plan’s “medically appropriate” umbrella is far more expansive than most Americans could have imagined.

In addition to abortion on demand, the weight of the evidence indicates that, in fact, cosmetic “gender reassignment” surgeries for both U.S. citizens and illegal immigrants who suffer from APA recognized “Gender Identity Disorder” (GID) may indeed be provided—free of charge—courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. The current price tag for such a procedure can exceed $50,000.

Page 972 of the House version of the bill (H.R. 3200) provides for “standards, as appropriate, for the collection of accurate data on health and health care” based on “sex, sexual orientation [and] gender identity.” [Click HERE to read Peter Fleckenstein analysis of HR 3200 posted by Liberty Counsel.] The Senate draft indicates that the government will “detect and monitor trends in health disparities,” requiring the Department of Health and Human Services to “develop standards for the measurement of¬†gender.” (i.e., officially recognize subjectively self-determined “transgender” or “transsexual” gender identities). It further mandates “participation in the institutions’ programs of individuals and groups from…different genders and sexual orientations.”

So, does ObamaCare expressly stipulate that taxpayer funded “sex-change” operations will be provided? No, but neither does it explicitly require coverage for heart bypass surgery. Don’t forget; we’re talking about what’s “medically appropriate” here, and look who gets to make that subjective determination: Your doctor? No, it’s “Rachel Maddow-minded” bureaucrats within the Democratic Party. It’s a liberal-Democrat appointed government “Health Benefits Advisory Committee.” And if you think they’re not itching to pay back the homosexual, transgender and pro-abortion pressure groups that helped get them elected, I’ve got a house at 1600 Pennsylvania I want to sell you.

Still, there’s a gulf of difference between what Obama and liberals in Congress, and the American people deem “medically appropriate;” especially when it’s “we the people” footing the bill. It’s unconscionable to force Americans, against their conscience, to fund abortion on demand and to facilitate gender confusion by subsidizing the elective practice of genital “sex-change” mutilation.

But don’t just take my word for it. After hearing Sen. Mikulski’s “any service deemed…medically appropriate” admission, I was prompted to dig a little deeper. I contacted the offices of Sen. Harry Reid, Rep. Charlie Rangel, Rep. Barney Frank and the House Subcommittee on Health. I asked, very simply, for “an assurance that the proposed healthcare plan will not allow taxpayer funded ‘gender reassignment’ surgeries or hormone therapies.” When faced with the bill’s relevant language, every staffer I spoke with either declined to answer or would neither confirm nor deny that such procedures would be covered.

Indeed it’s no wonder that—as Americans find out what’s hidden within this socialized ObamaCare monstrosity—support for the plan is plummeting faster than MSNBC’s ratings.

It’s time for the mainstream press—yes you too Rachel Maddow—to do its job and demand straight answers. Instead of prancing around like little ObamaCare cheerleaders, journalists need to ask the same questions I did and refuse to take “no answer” for an answer.

But don’t hold your breath.

Thankfully, we don’t have to. Wanna have a little fun? Contact your Congressional representative (202-224-3121; 202-225-3121; www.congress.org) and ask the following question: “Will you personally guarantee that, under this plan, no taxpayer dollars will go to fund abortion or ‘sex-change’ operations?’”

Then sit back and watch them squirm.

Matt Barber is a Board Member of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), and an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. He serves as Director of Cultural Affairs with both Liberty Counsel and Liberty Alliance Action. Click HERE for information on Barber’s appearance as keynote speaker at AFTAH’s fund-raising banquet on Saturday, Oct. 24. Send comments to Matt at: jmattbarber@comcast.net .

Folks, you don’t have to be very politically sophisticated to predict that GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) activists and their liberal allies are going to demand “Tranny-Care” under a federal health insurance system, in the name of “fairness” and “inclusion” — even if it’s not passed initially as a “benefit.” And yes, the idea of subsidizing body-disfiguring “operations” surely would be considered “queer” by the average tax-paying American. Already, trans activists are strategizing on the best ways to get taxpayers to pay for their gender-confused mutilations “sex change” procedures — and Human Rights Campaign and other homosexual lobby groups boast of their support for same in cities like San Francisco. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.com

P.S. Go HERE to read Liberty Counsel’s posting of Peter Fleckenstein’s report exposing what is actually inside HR 3200, Obama’s Health Care Plan under consideration in the House of Representatives.

________________________________

Matt Barber Statement, August 4, 2009; contact: jmattbarber@comcast.net

ObamaCare Likely to Mandate Free “Sex-Change” Surgeries 

Washington, DC – When asked by Senator Orin Hatch (R-UT) whether President Obama’s proposed socialized healthcare plan will mandate taxpayer funded abortion, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) admitted that it will require “any service deemed medically necessary or medically appropriate.” It now appears that the plan’s “medically appropriate” umbrella is far more expansive than most Americans could have imagined.

In addition to abortion on demand, the weight of the evidence indicates that cosmetic “gender reassignment” surgeries for both U.S. citizens and illegal immigrants who suffer from APA recognized “Gender Identity Disorder” (GID) may also be provided – free of charge – courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. The current price tag for such a procedure can exceed $50,000.

Page 972 of the House version of the bill (H.R. 3200) provides for “standards, as appropriate, for the collection of accurate data on health and health care” based on “sex, sexual orientation [and] gender identity.” The Senate draft indicates that the government will “detect and monitor trends in health disparities,” requiring the Department of Health and Human Services to “develop standards for the measurement of gender.” (i.e., officially recognize subjectively self-determined “transgender” or “transsexual” gender identities). It further mandates ‘‘participation in the institutions’ programs of individuals and groups from…different genders and sexual orientations.”

Matt Barber, Director of Cultural Affairs with both Liberty Counsel and Liberty Alliance Action commented: “There’s a gulf of difference between what Obama and liberals in Congress, and the American people deem ‘medically appropriate;’ especially when it’s ‘we the people’ footing the bill. To force Americans, against their conscience, to fund abortion on demand and to facilitate gender confusion by subsidizing the elective practice of genital ‘sex-change’ mutilation is unconscionable.

“After hearing Sen. Mikulski’s ‘any service deemed…medically appropriate’ admission, I was prompted to dig a little deeper. I contacted the offices of Sen. Harry Reid, Rep. Charlie Rangel, Rep. Barney Frank and the House Subcommittee on Health. I asked, very simply, for ‘an assurance that the proposed healthcare plan will not allow taxpayer funded gender reassignment surgeries or hormone therapies.’ When faced with the bill’s relevant language, every staffer I spoke with either declined to answer or would neither confirm nor deny that such procedures would be covered.

“It’s time for the mainstream media to do its job and demand straight answers on this government healthcare scheme. Instead of acting as ObamaCare cheerleaders, journalists need to ask the same questions I did and refuse to take ‘no answer’ for an answer. I also call on the American people to ask their Congressional representatives the following question: ‘Will you pledge to oppose this legislation unless taxpayer funding for both abortion and sex change surgeries are expressly excluded?’

“It’s no wonder that, as Americans find out what’s hidden within this socialized ObamaCare monstrosity, furious opposition to it continues to skyrocket.”

PS. Don’t forget also to save Saturday, Oct. 24th for AFTAH’s fund-raising banquet featuring dynamic culture-warrior Matt Barber as our keynote speaker.

Concerned Women for America writes [click HERE to listen online]:

Homosexual “pride” events and street fairs are growing in number and size. A number of them are also becoming increasingly risqué despite their public nature; except in Charlotte, North Carolina. There, Dr. Michael Brown and the Coalition for Conscience have been taking a stand for truth while actively and civilly reaching out to those attending the “gay” pride gathering. Just this month, 500 Christians came to Charlotte to pray, worship and share the Gospel with those at the event, and proclaim that God Has a Better Way. Dr. Brown joins Peter LaBarbera from Americans for Truth in comparing the events in San Francisco and Chicago with those in Charlotte. Listen | Download

Related AFTAH links:

• No Nudity Crackdown in San Francisco – Police Again Allow Rampant Public Nudity, Sex Acts at Deviant ‘Up Your Alley’ Street Fair
• A Model Christian Response to ‘Gay’ Pride: ‘God Has a Better Way’ in Charlotte

____________________________

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.

TAKE ACTION: Call or write Nettelhorst Elementary’s principal, Cindy Wulbert, at Cw1411@gmail.com or (773) 534-5810.

I send the following note to Rex Huppke of the Chicago Tribune, reporter who wrote the article: “Chicago School to March in Pride Parade” (reprinted below):
_______________________________________

Mr. Huppke, have you ever been to a Gay Pride parade?…

… If you had, you might have covered the issue of rampant and inappropriate sexual misbehavior that goes on at such events.  In the past few years observing Chicago Gay Pride parades as a critic of the organized homosexual movement, I have witnessed:

• in 2004, a disgusting gay (oral-anal) sex act that was allowed to go on in the middle of the street (children were seen nearby) — right in front of a row of Chicago cops — involving two guys who were trying to get under the skin of a group of Christian protesters whom the cops were protecting; see http://www.illinoisfamily.org/informed/contentview.asp?c=26650;
• in 2007, a male transvestite (?) going topless with “his” breasts exposed for block after block as cops and parade organizers did nothing; see: http://americansfortruth.com/news/angry-mob-assaults-peaceful-christians-at-chicago-gay-pride-parade.html
• lewd acts (e.g., simulated sodomy) and gyrating sexual dances on floats — including one by an apparent lesbian cop who appeared to be drunk or high, riding atop a Chicago PD float;
• a contingent of sadomasochists marching in the parades as they do every year;
• blatant anti-religious and anti-conservative bigotry on display — usually equating Christianity or the Catholic Church with “hate”;
• after the 2007 parade, homosexual “pride” celebrants assaulted two peaceful men giving a Christian street witness in opposition to homosexuality; see http://americansfortruth.com/news/angry-mob-assaults-peaceful-christians-at-chicago-gay-pride-parade.html;
• a homosexual bathhouse called “Steamworks,” which fields a float every year at the parade.  Steamworks is a 24/7 sex club on Halsted Street in Boystown where men go for anonymous sexual liaisons with other men; see http://www.illinoisfamily.org/informed/contentview.asp?c=33904.

You get the picture. How does a parent answer the question: “Daddy, what’s Steamworks?” or, regarding gender-bending “transgenders”: “Mommy, is that a man or a woman?”  Or how about: “Why does that man have hardly any clothes on?” Do you think this is an appropriate, nurturing environment for young children?

Couldn’t you have at least gathered an opposing comment from a critic (rather than paraphrasing opponents in one paragraph without actually quoting them)?  “Gay” cheerleading is just that.  A modicum of balance on your part might have turned your piece into journalism, or at least something like it.  Such propaganda masquerading as reporting is one of the reasons why print journalism — with its arrogant disregard for common-sense and traditional viewpoints (not to mention historic Judeo-Christian mores) — is dying, in Illinois and across the country.

I can assure you that a large majority of Chicagoland residents would be appalled at the idea of placing young children in an atmosphere filled with the sexualized celebration of homosexual and transsexual behaviors. But what do they know? They’re just a bunch of homophobic “transphobes” out of step with elite, “progressive” Chicago values.

Perhaps you and the Tribune could balance your one-sided “gay pride” article with a thoughtful piece shedding light on how a massive outpouring of grassroots opposition across Illinois thwarted “gay” activists’ and the ACLU’s dream of turning Illinois into a “civil unions” state (see http://americansfortruth.com/news/civil-unions-decisively-defeated-in-illinois-a-pro-family-victory-with-national-significance.html).

Sincerely,

Peter LaBarbera
President
Americans For Truth About Homosexuality
www.aftah.org
Cell: 630-546-4439

Cc: Fran Eaton, IL Review; David Smith, Kathy Valente and Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Inst. (IFI); Mary Anne Hackett, Catholic Citizens of IL; Arlene Sawicki, longtime pro-family advocate; John Biver and Jack Roeser, Champion News; Joe Morris, Lincoln Legal Foundation; Bruce Tincknell, Dr. John Koehler and Jim Finnegan, Board Members, IFI; Jill Stanek, pro-life advocate; Tom Brejcha, Thomas More Law Society; Brent Bozell III and Tim Graham, Media Research Center; Cal Skinner, former IL State Rep., Protect Marriage IL Bd. Member and McHenry Co. blogger; Robert Unruh, WorldNetDaily.com; Jim Brown, OneNewsNow.com; Dan Zanoza, Republicans For Fair Media; Cliff Kincaid, Accuracy in Media; Robert Knight, Coral Ridge Ministries; Matt Barber, Liberty Counsel; Wendy Wright, Concerned Women for America (CWA); Janice Crouse, Beverly LaHaye Inst and CWA; Robert Peters, Morality in Media; Karen Hayes, CWA-Illinois; Peter Sprigg, Family Research Council.
_______________________________________________________________

Chicago Tribune article:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-gay-pride-parade-25-jun25,0,3925455.story

Chicago school to march in Pride Parade

Nettelhorst Elementary School to show solidarity with surrounding gay community
By Rex W. Huppke | Tribune reporter
June 25, 2009

Nettelhorst Elementary School parent Amy Goodman prepares a wagon for the 40th annual Pride Parade with daughter Sadie Blade, 3, while son Ben Blade, 6, plays in their home. (Tribune photo by Phil Velasquez / June 24, 2009)

The black metal fence in front of Nettelhorst Elementary School is obscured by thousands of strips of dyed fabric — yellows giving way to greens, then blues, purples and reds — each one tied on by the small hands of a student.

The ruffled, waist-high rainbow is a symbol of the school’s solidarity with its east Lakeview community, and a sign hanging by the gate trumpets that Nettelhorst this year “will be the first Chicago public school to march in the city’s gay pride parade.”

“We believe family means everybody,” the sign reads.

Amy Goodman agrees with that. She’ll be in the parade at noon Sunday with her husband, towing their 6-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter in a wagon bedecked in rainbows.

Brad Rossi agrees as well. He’ll be there with his partner and their 7-year-old daughter, along with more than 50 other families from Nettelhorst whose presence marks the latest expansion of a parade that began in the 1970s with drag queens and gay activists and has grown to reveal the full spectrum of the city’s diverse gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

In this, the 40th annual Pride Parade, there will be gay Democrats and gay Republicans, gay business people and gay artists, seniors and teens and Christians and veterans — and, as always, drag queens and activists.

“We’ve never had a grammar school, or a school for that matter,” said Richard Pfeiffer, who has coordinated the parade since 1974. “The remarkable thing about the gay pride parade is that it’s the one day that you get that full cross-section of the GLBT community. We’re young, we’re old and a growing portion of our community now has children. And I think that has often gone unnoticed.”

That’s why the Nettelhorst contingent will be near the front.

“I love that my kids will understand that there are all different kinds of families,” Goodman said. “When it comes to any kind of differences, I think the only way to really realize how much we have in common is to celebrate and acknowledge our differences.”

Chicago Public Schools spokeswoman Monique Bond stressed that Nettelhorst was not “officially involved” with the decision to enter the parade. Parents, both gay and straight, organized the school’s entry, viewing it as an important statement to make in a community with a large GLBT population.

“One of the fundamental tenets of being a community school is that you bring the community in,” said Jacqueline Edelberg, author of a book about Nettelhorst — “How to Walk to School: Blueprint for a Neighborhood School Renaissance” — and a straight mother of two Nettelhorst students.

More than 500 students attend the elementary school. While there’s no official number, Rossi and other parents say they know of at least eight same-sex couples with children enrolled at the school, which suggests that most of the Nettelhorst people marching will be straight.

“For the vast majority of parents who have come up to me, people have been really excited about it,” said Marcia Festen, a lesbian whose eldest daughter attends Nettelhorst. “I had one parent come up and say, ‘Oh my God, I don’t think the school should be doing this and it’s not a proper venue for kids.’ But it’s actually been a little shocking that the conversation has been so positive.”

One conservative blogger from Rogers Park denounced the school’s parade plans, and a group of Baptist protesters set up one day outside the school. But many parents, both straight and gay, say the reaction has been surprisingly muted.

Modesto Tico Valle, executive director of the Center on Halsted, a GLBT community center, said each year more and more of the gay and lesbian community has felt comfortable showing its face. Now seeing families from a public school join together as a single parade entry doesn’t surprise him.

“It’s like a domino effect,” Valle said. “Once this parade had picked up some clout and became very large, the politicians decided, ‘Oh, maybe I need to pay attention to this constituency.’ Then we started having news stations involved. The more we advance in our movement, the more people wake up and say, ‘These are human beings just like you and I. Let’s give them some respect and attention.’ ”

Rossi finds the support of other families from his child’s school heartening. Taking a break from painting parade banners this week, sitting not far from the fabric-covered fence at Nettelhorst, the 44-year-old thought back on his youth and how differently gays and lesbians were viewed.

As much as things have changed, he still worries that his daughter, Maria, could get picked on because her family is different:

“We can sit around and wait, and if something happens, we jump up and down and say, ‘This is an outrage.’ Or we can let people know we’re out here, so it eventually isn’t even a thing.

“So Maria has two dads? Big deal.”

rhuppke@tribune.com

Folks, this news story is so sad. Chastity Bono is now and will always be female, as God made her, but we can expect the media to repeat the GLBT Lobby’s praise of Bono for her “courage” as a celebrity “trailblazer,” blah, blah, blah. We certainly echo Laurie Higgins’ call to pray that Ms. Bono will never go through with a body-disfiguring “sex change” operation. Please pray for this woman. — Peter LaBarbera

___________________________

By Laurie Higgins, reprinted from Illinois Family Institute

Chastity Bono’s publicist announced that Chastity is pursuing a “sex change.” Chastity, as everyone knows, is the only daughter of Cher and the deceased Sonny Bono. Many years ago, Chastity made the decision to embrace homosexuality, and as of March, she has begun the process of “changing sexes.”

Of course, rational people realize that changing one’s name, cross-dressing, ingesting hormones naturally produced by the opposite sex, and electively amputating healthy parts of one’s sexual anatomy don’t really change one’s biological sex. The emperor was really wearing no clothes, and Chastity, who has assumed the moniker “Chaz,” will always really be a woman.

It’s utterly confounding that society en masse believes or pretends to believe that “transgenderism” reflects a real phenomenon of people actually trapped in the wrong body rather than a profound disruption in the development of a secure and proper sexual identity. Doctors who perform such surgeries are engaging in medical malpractice and violating the increasingly meaningless and antiquated Hippocratic Oath.

Governments and governmental bodies like departments of motor vehicles that permit people to formally change their sex on legal documents collude in fraud.

And friends, family members, schools, and churches that participate in the sexual confusion of “transgenders” lack both wisdom and compassion.

Someone who demonstrates both the wisdom and compassion so sorely needed in this time so suffused with sexual sin and the suffering it entails is Dr. Russell Moore, Dean of the School of Theology and Senior Vice President for Academic Administration at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He also serves as a preaching pastor at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky.

He has written an important and compelling document on how the church should respond to those who have had the woefully misnamed “sex reassignment surgery.” Unfortunately, this issue will increasingly affect the church as society increasingly affirms sexual confusion. I should clarify that it is unfortunate that the phenomenon of transgenderism is increasing, but it will be a good thing if those who experience such torment someday find themselves in the pews of a Bible-believing church where they can experience the forgiveness and healing that comes from submission to Christ. The church needs to be ready and waiting for them with open arms.

Please read Dr. Moore’s important document, send it to all the church leaders you know, and pray that Chastity Bono never has the surgery.

Send To Phone

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.

See our adjoining story: National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Talks of ‘Moral Leadership’ while Honoring Homosexual S&M Pornographer

Rea Carey of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force says her movement shows “moral leadership” to the nation — even as the Task Force presented its “Leather Leadership Award” to a homosexual pornographer. The Task Force’s “Creating Change” conference in Denver ran supportive workshops on: transsexuality; prostitution (“sex workers’ rights”), “polyamory/nonmonogamy”; and – most disturbing – pushing a “sexual freedom” (read: sexual license) agenda on youth.

Dear AFTAH Reader,

If you are reading this website, you are seriously concerned about the homosexual activist agenda.  So I have an assignment for you.  Please print out the enclosed “State of the Movement” speech by the Rea Carey, the new executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and read it all the way through (it’s about 8 printed pages with my introduction).  Now, why would a Christian pro-family organization send out a speech by a radical homosexual activist?  Because we need to know what our Culture War enemies are saying and this speech is very instructive for OUR cause of defending traditional morality and marriage in America.

If you can’t find time to read the whole “Creating Change” speech, at least read the parts of it that we have bolded below.  Note how Ms. Carey talks about “moral leadership” even as the Task Force gave its ‘Leather Leadership Award” to a hard-core homosexual pornographer at the same “Creating Change” conference.  (Talk about chutzpah!)  And note also how she refers to the Bush administration as the “Evil Empire” – Ronald Reagan’s famous description of expansionist Soviet Communism – just as Iraqi citizens were preparing to vote in another free election made possible by the U.S. liberation of their country from the grip of dictator Saddam Hussein.  Nobody lies like the Left, yet the liberal media rarely challenge groups like the Task Force on their many falsehoods and slanders.

Several observations about Carey’s speech:

• The sheer organization of the anti-Christian Left:  thousands of left-wing, grassroots activists attend these annual “Creating Change” conferences; there is no parallel on the social Right for this scale of people and groups working closely together toward common goals.  There are precious few organizing and political “how-to” conferences for pro-family conservatives.  The Left eats and breathes politics; the Right is more distrustful of government, worse at politics, but more oriented toward God, family and church (the latter is obviously a good thing).  All this helps explain why so much destructive social “change” has come to America, where political organization is rewarded in our democratic system.  (That said, we would not see such a progression of evil in our nation were our culture not so deceived, and its once-Christian character so worn down by faithless secularism.)  In the coming days, we will shed more light on the extremist Task Force agenda, which now includes sadomasochism, prostitution (“sex workers’ rights”), “polyamory/nonmonogamy,” and – most disturbing – pushing a “sexual freedom” (read: sexual license) agenda on youth;
• We must acknowledge homosexual-agenda “victories” before we can move forward:  the pro-family movement must take a sober look at where we are in the battle over homosexuality, and it’s not pretty.  While it is tempting to point to pro-marriage victories in November (California, Florida, Arizona) as evidence that our movement is healthy, underneath the surface we are losing the critical public-policy and cultural argument over the legitimacy of and government endorsement of same-sex relationships.  Homosexual activists are making steady, incremental advances, often with little pro-family opposition – e.g., passing “domestic partner” legislation like the bill currently moving through New Mexico’s legislature – as part of a longterm strategy for bigger victories ahead.  Many of the “gay” gains came in states targeted by homosexual moneymen like Tim Gill, who has successfully knocked out pro-family state legislators in Iowa, Colorado and other states.  This begs the question: why do such hardball efforts seem to succeed only on the Left and not the Right?  When will the pro-family Christian “Tim Gill” step forward to help our side?
• The dedication of evil:  if Christians were as devoted to defending God’s truth about sex and marriage as homosexual and transsexual activists are to promoting their destructive lies, we would be in a much better place.  The sad reality is that many Christians remain opposed to engagement in politics and public policy and are ambivalent about this cultural battle.  Some Christian leaders have made key concessions to pro-homosexualist ideology – or declared their neutrality on the issue – while they point judgmental fingers at the few groups that are trying to resist the “gay” juggernaut.  Meanwhile, there are no corresponding doubts on the Secular Left, which works unapologetically to radically redefine family and marriage and destroy the Judeo-Christian moral consensus that helped make this country great.  Ultimately, if the Left succeeds, Christians could see their faith-based freedoms to disagree with sexual sin disappear.
• Stealing “morality” (why not? The homosexual activists already stole the word “gay” and are trying to redefine “marriage,” “family,” “equality,” and “civil rights”):  Homosexual activists realize that to achieve total victory, they must separate Christianity from traditional (Christian) morality.  They aim to redefine right and wrong apart from God’s will for people’s lives, as clearly revealed in Scripture and nature with God’s beautiful, complementary design for man and woman united sexually in marriage to produce children.  “Queer” theologians are busy redefining the Bible and now brazenly claim that homosexuality is a “gift from God.”  The homosexual militants’ game plan is to reinvent Christianity by spouting religious-sounding yet subversive ideas for a nation that is still very religious, but largely ignorant of the Bible;
• The progression and unity of sexual sin … Face the evil:  at Americans For Truth, we’ve come face-to-face with homosexual extremism and have no problem labeling the overall GLBT movement as evil.  But many people are in denial about the nefarious homosexual agenda.  We need to admit that the media “soft sell” of homosexuality does not match what the GLBT Lobby has in store for our nation.  We ask: why does Rea Carey advocate for abortion (seemingly a non-issue for homosexuals) and against “useless” abstinence-focused education?   Why does the Task Force – which receives lots of corporate support — give an award to a purveyor of hard-core homosexual porn?  Why do they teach gender confusion (“transsexuality”) and “sexual freedom” to youth?  (The latter is a code term for no-limits sexuality including S&M.)  Why does the Task Force champion “nonmonogamy” even as it seeks to homosexualize “marriage”?  Because the Left unites around “mainstreaming” perversion and an anti-life, anti-nature, anti-God agenda.  Homosexuality.  Abortion.  Pornography.  Casual and deviant sex outside marriage.  The Task Force supports them all in its decidedly anti-moral quest.  This isn’t about “civil rights” but using the government to promote destructive, immoral and changeable behaviors.

Christians and moral traditionalists need to wake up: the other side is dead serious about “transforming society,” to quote Carey, and “imposing its morality” on us all.  It’s time for us to get serious in the Culture War, too.  God bless you.

Sincerely in Christ,

Peter LaBarbera
www.americansfortruth.com

________________________________________________________

THE FOLLOWING IS THE SPEECH BY REA CAREY, HEAD OF THE HOMOSEXUAL “TASK FORCE”:

Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2009
Subject: State of the Movement Address by Rea Carey, Executive Director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
From: “The Task Force”  …

National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey delivers State of the Movement address at 21st National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change

DENVER, Jan. 30 — National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey presented the annual State of the Movement address today at the 21st National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change, where 2,000 activists have gathered to strategize on how to advance LGBT equality in this new political climate. What follows below is the text of her speech:

I know many of us may be questioning the state of our movement, and I’ll get to that in a bit, but first, I can’t resist saying that we now live in a country with a community organizer in chief and since the Task Force literally has the trademark on Creating Change, we know that our moment has arrived!

I am honored to serve as the executive director of the Task Force following my friend Matt Foreman. In fact, pretty much since I came out at the age of 16 here in Denver I have watched, learned from and been inspired by the Task Force, so I consider myself to be incredibly fortunate to be part of it. I have come up through this movement and many of my teachers are here with us today, including a couple of former Task Force executive directors — Urvashi Vaid and Lorri Jean.

You’ve already met Russell Roybal, and I want to call up to the stage my other new partner in running the Task Force — a woman who you will be hearing a lot from — our new deputy executive director, Darlene Nipper.

I want to thank each and every one of you for being here. These are incredibly tough economic times and the fact that you have spent your precious time and limited dollars to be here — to gather with your fellow activists and allies from across the country and others who have joined us — speaks to your commitment to social change, to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality, and most importantly, to each other.

This gathering is the public square of the LGBT movement and our time together is made richer and more valuable because each of you is here.

First, let’s talk about the past year. You know, there are years when our movement for full equality jumps by leaps and bounds and other years when we toil to gain every inch of ground. This year has been a bit of both in which we made progress on the local and state level and our country elected its first person of color to the presidency! Yet our love for each other was attacked again by the majority at the ballot box; our right to marry was taken away in California; our transgender brothers and sisters were denied much needed protections; and federal policy continued to elude us under the evil empire — I mean the Bush administration.

It has been a bittersweet year, but the state of our movement is engaged!

This year, we made many gains — gains made because of your hard work, your strategic thinking, your long hours, and your dollars funding state and local efforts. With all of the attention paid to marriage, it would be easy to miss the progress made at the local and state level that improves the lives of LGBT people. And so much of this progress has happened not on the coasts, but in the middle part of the country.

This weekend we will invite you to text to screen all the accomplishments you’ve had this year but I will mention just a few of the many achievements for LGBT people in 2008:

Here in our host state of Colorado, Amendment 46, a Ward Connerly initiative that would have ended affirmative action in public employment, public education or public contracting was defeated.

In Arizona, voters rejected Proposition 202, which would have penalized businesses that hire undocumented workers. And in Oregon, voters rejected an English-only proposal.

In three states — California, Colorado and South Dakota — voters considered initiatives related to reproductive freedoms. And we won in every state.

Also, here in Colorado we expanded progress by passing a law protecting LGBT people from discrimination in housing and public accommodations.

Eight localities passed and held onto nondiscrimination laws: Gainesville and Broward County, Fla.; Columbus and Oxford, Ohio; Kansas City, Mo.; Detroit, Mich; Columbia, S.C.; and Binghamton, N.Y.

We also — with incredibly hard work — successfully defended one of our victories from last year: a transgender rights ordinance that passed in Montgomery County, Md., where the combined efforts of the Task Force, Equality Maryland, Lambda Legal and a host of other organizations came together to defeat the referendum and prevent it from even reaching the ballot.

In the area of family recognition, Connecticut joined Massachusetts in becoming a freedom-to-marry state and then beat back efforts that would have threatened it. Those of you from Connecticut and our great partners Love Makes a Family and Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, congratulations and thank you.

We won marriage in California and over 18,000 couples are now legally married — and we plan on keeping them married. Even though we lost that right temporarily, our community and allies rose up in the days after the election to say, “Enough!”

We have with us today one of the founders of Join the Impact, Willow Witte, who along with her fellow organizer Amy Balliett, used the power of online organizing to fill the streets! We’re proud that some of the Join the Impact crew cut their organizing teeth at Creating Change in Portland, Ore., a few years ago and are now sharing their skills with thousands across the country.

Cities and towns in many states including Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio and Utah, established domestic partnership or similar registries in 2008. There were domestic partnership expansions in Washington state and Washington, D.C. Maryland established limited domestic partnership recognition and New York has decided to respect out-of-state same-sex marriages. Maine had an unprecedented year of victories in 2008 culminating in an Election Day action that surpassed their wildest dreams. After waiting in line for an hour to vote, voters were waiting in line to sign pro-marriage postcards. When EqualityMaine ran out of 30,000 postcards, voters signed scraps of paper, jotting their names and addresses down on anything they could find.

Building on the momentum, EqualityMaine and its coalition partners recently introduced a marriage bill and they have a solid plan for winning marriage in the Legislature in 2009 and then protecting it in the inevitable referendum campaign.

And finally, this last year’s accomplishments include a record 450 out [homosexual] elected officials serving in local, state and federal offices including Colorado’s very own Jared Polis, who became the first openly gay man to run for and be elected to Congress, joining Reps. Barney Frank and Tammy Baldwin in the House.

For each and every one of you in this room who contributed to any of those victories and the many others we had, thank you!

What we continue to accomplish as a movement is electrifying. And, yet, some of this year’s results were bitter — extremely bitter — pills to swallow.

At the outset, let me say that I tend to be a glass-half-full person, so I can’t help but see this year’s anti-marriage and anti-family ballot measures as deeply painful but temporary defeats that demonstrated just how far we’ve come. But, it isn’t just my gut feeling that this is temporary, it is based on the concrete progress we have made. For example, just four years ago, we lost 13 anti-marriage ballot measures by huge margins — by an average of 67 percent, and as high as 86 percent. In California alone, the last time we faced a similar anti-marriage measure, we lost by over 20 points. This year, we lost by less than four. I know it doesn’t feel like it sometimes, but this is progress.

However, this was a particularly painful year because we lost the fundamental right that we had worked so hard to secure — the right to marry in California.

In the days and weeks after the election, so many in our community were searching for a quick answer as to why we lost in four states. My fellow activists, there is no easy answer.

The days and weeks after the election were some of the most painful I’ve experienced in my 24 years in this movement. I know they were painful for many of you and for our colleagues around the country, particularly in California, Arizona, Florida and Arkansas.  It was hard and painful enough to have lost four statewide ballot measures. But pain turned the corner into agony when we all started lashing out at each other, our allies and our would-be allies and didn’t let up.

Did the other side run excellent, although lie-filled campaigns? Yes it did. Could we all have done more or done things differently that might have moved us closer to defeating the four measures? Certainly. We at the Task Force are a particularly analytical and reflective group and we’ve been taking a hard look at what we could have done better to fight against these measures.

But our winning on any of the four statewide measures was always far from being a slam dunk. We need to learn what we can from this last year and we must move forward, as we have before in times far worse than this.

I want to specifically address the blaming of African-American voters for the passage of Prop. 8.

Sadly, shamefully, an incorrect statistic was put forth in the media and many people both in and outside of our community ran with it. I want to be clear — the blaming of African-American voters was wrong, despicable and inexcusable.

The Task Force released a study with authors Ken Sherrill and Pat Egan that included actual voting data that showed that party affiliation, conservative ideology, frequent church-going and the voter’s age trumped all other factors in the Proposition 8 vote — including race. The Task Force was criticized by some for being “politically correct.”

It is not politically correct to conduct sound research. It is not politically correct to challenge racism.

Have we done enough as a community to deal with our own racism and to make sure that our movement is one that reflects the true diversity of LGBT people? We sure haven’t. But the finger pointing and scapegoating was an affront to the many people of color and others who worked on and with the campaign and to our allied organizations. Furthermore, it avoids the complexity of the work we still have to do to win equality.

I have had enough. WE have had enough. Let us dig deep in ourselves and show others that we will not stoop to scapegoating, we will not turn our backs on our allies, and we will not give up.  There is a big difference between blaming and learning. Let us be learners so that we may be leaders.

As we look back on this year, our confidence has been shaken and our anger has been roused — but now is the time to turn our anger into action and our action into long-lasting change. We must now refocus on regaining marriage equality in California and winning across the country. But we need to remember that these anti-marriage ballot measures are fundamentally about the larger right-wing assault on the ever-expanding diversity in the United States, our freedom to live openly and to create and define our sexuality, our selves and our families.

I urge us not look at our movement as if it is only about this last election or only about marriage equality. Let us recall that our movement for liberation and equality has created much change since the police brutality in New York and other cities gave rise to the Stonewall riots, the activism of black and Latino gay men, and the birth of the modern LGBT movement.

If we do not come together again to fight another day, we can’t win our full equality. As the magnet on my grandmother’s fridge says, “Fall down seven times, get up eight!”

The state of our movement is resilient and we will win!

So, where are we headed as a movement? In order to take a look at where we are headed as a movement, we must first take a look at the broader social and political context in which we work for full equality. This context has now shifted radically.

The most obvious change is that for the first time in our nation’s history, we have as president, a black man, Barack Obama.  Candidate Obama recognized and affirmed a grassroots hunger for change. This year saw record numbers of young people, people of color and progressive people coming out to vote and we are now a better country for it.

This does indeed feel like a new political era for our country and our movement.  I believe the power of this historic moment is the seismic shift in this country from a culture of “I” to a culture of “We.” Obama ran with a mantra of “Yes we can!” Obama didn’t say, “Yes I can” or “Yes YOU can.” He said, yes WE can.

This mantra, of course, carries on the organizing legacy of the United Farm Workers and Dolores Huerta. This unifying WE invites each of us into the work ahead; into the reclaiming of a government that has turned its back on so many; into challenging the long held beliefs and practices of who holds power; how power is used; and who benefits from the use of power.

Obama’s “WE” challenges the culture of “I” that has been so core to this country’s identity — the image of rugged individualism, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. This imagery has been bolstered and perpetuated by scenes like Ronald Reagan riding his horse and by George Bush clearing brush on his ranch. This iconic imagery is finally being challenged. We are now off the ranch and have moved back into the WE of urban energy and creativity, the WE of close family ties and community in rural areas, the WE that has been at the center of the farm workers, civil rights, feminist and labor movements.

We are only just beginning to see the manifestations, the benefits of this cultural shift. And, our community — the LGBT community — is expert at showing the nation just what is possible when WE come together. This historic moment plays to our strengths.

After all, our community built an entire infrastructure of service and support for people with HIV when our own president did not have the decency to speak the syndrome’s name.  Our community overturned sodomy laws in a nation that possesses an intense fear of sexuality.  And our community put gender identity legislation and family protections on the political map.  WE have much to offer this country.

So, now it is our time to contribute again — to express moral leadership and creative fortitude. It is our time to hold steady as we are attacked at the ballot box and on the streets. To hold steady as we share our talents and ideas and are pushed back. To hold steady as we assert how we create family.

The state of our movement is expansive.  In fact, the success of our aspirations will only be limited by the expansiveness of our vision and the assertion of what is in our hearts. There are a few things we must do to make the most of this moment in history and to navigate the waters of this new era.

First, this moment calls for a new kind of leadership in the LGBT movement — not the leadership of one, but the collaborative leadership of many. Don’t get me wrong, the Task Force and I will assert leadership — but at the Task Force, we believe that strength comes not from hoarding power but by building power and sharing power and using power for good. It is why so much of our work is done through coalitions or convenings like Creating Change.

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 in Maine, Iowa, New Jersey and other states — and we will — we assert our community’s moral leadership.

When we pass a gender identity-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.

When we stand shoulder to shoulder with our friends in labor and women’s groups as the Task Force did yesterday morning at the White House for the signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act — we assert our community’s moral leadership.

When we promote, sustain and maintain people of color leaders — we assert our community’s moral leadership.

The second thing we must do is to think differently about who our playmates are. I was a Girl Scout when I was growing up and there was this song “make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other’s gold.”

We will certainly keep our LGBT organizational friends. But, it is time for us to make new, substantive and strategic friendships with non-LGBT organizations with which we share common concerns. The time for isolating ourselves as a movement is over. We will never win on our own.

So, in the coming years, you will see the Task Force partnering with some perhaps surprising organizations. We will ask them to show up for us and we will show up for them, as we have in our work with AARP on national policy and with Planned Parenthood and NAACP on ballot measures.

Third, so many of our straight friends and family are with us and we must find ways for them to make a difference in our pursuit of equality. They are near and dear to us. They’re willing to work with us; they’re wanting to work with us; they’re waiting to work with us. Among the most striking experiences for me in the last year have been my conversations with straight people across the country, not the least of which was with my own 92-year-old grandmother who has been my cheerleader and was crushed when she was not able to make it to our wedding.

Next week the Task Force will be a partner in launching a new campaign called, “Tell 3″ headed up by the ACLU and Join the Impact, along with other organizations. This campaign is simply about talking to the people in our lives about issues that matter to us as LGBT people.

We ask each and every one of you to go to our Web site next week and take part in what could be — with your help — the most massive friends and family education effort ever launched. If every one at Creating Change has meaningful, real conversations with three people about our lives, about the things we care about, we will have made progress in changing the hearts and minds of thousands of people — people who will be voting on our rights next year and the years after that.

Finally, organize, organize, organize — however you do it, walking door to door, talking to friends, going to meetings, sending tweets — I just did — connecting on Facebook or MySpace, or getting people elected.

Just organize!

For 35 years, the Task Force has been the home for people like you, like me, like hundreds of thousands of people across this country who know that we are part of a larger community of people reaching for full equality.

As you experience the Creating Change conference, you can’t help but see and hear and feel and know in your heart that the state of our movement is engaged, it is resilient, it is expansive and expanding, and it is stronger and more inspirational than ever before!  With all of us together –

We will win complete equality!
We will protect and defend our families!
We will change our communities and
We will transform society!

Thank you.

____________________________________________________________

Help Support Americans For Truth!

Will you help Americans For Truth stand as boldly for the Truth as homosexual activists do for their lies?  We appreciate your support:

TO GIVE TO AFTAH: Go to our user-friendly giving page — www.americansfortruth.com/donate/ — to make your tax-free donation using PayPal or your MasterCard or Visa.  Regular mail: 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 or copy http://www.americansfortruth.org/membership.php on your web browser.

_____________________________________________________________

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.

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).

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

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

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

Dear Readers,

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

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

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

__________________________________________________

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

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

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

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

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

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

Below is a list of speakers scheduled…

Government officials:

•      Abdul Algazali, City Councilman.

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

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

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

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

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

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

•      Abdul Latif Azom, imam of Al Falah mosque.

•      Abdul Salam, imam of Masjid Un Nur mosque.

•      Adbo Zindani, secretary of Eiman Islamic Complex.

•      Amin Alwagah, representing Algalazali mosque.

•      Saleh Algahaim, president of Eiman Islamic Complex.

•      Dzenan Kalanac, imam of Bosnia Islamic Center.

•      Mohammed Shehab Khan, imam Baitul Islam mosque

Community leaders:

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

•      Kamal Rahman, community activist.

•      Roberts Zwolak, former city councilman and city clerk.

•      Gregory Kirchner, businessman and Polish community leader.

•      Mohammed Delaware Hussein, community leader. …

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

==== 30 ===

———————————————-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Norman Spack: profiting off of gender confusion, endangering kids’ health.

“Spack injects children with hormone-blocking drugs to prevent them from developing secondary sexual characteristics, like breasts or facial hair. The idea is to give them a few more years to make up their minds if they want to be male—or female.”

We highly commend Breakpoint’s website, which is loaded with useful information and commentaries like this defending a Christian, pro-truth worldview. Note the excellent additional resources offered following this article.

We also recommend a terrific expose on the “transgender” agenda by Amy Contrada of MassResistance: see her 125-page report, “The Coming Nightmare of a Transgender Hate Crimes Bill.” Don’t read it unless you are serious about understanding this bizarre, aggressive movement and the threat it poses to children and society. Emphasis added in the Church Colson’s Breakpoint commentary below:

____________________________

It’s a Sick, Sick World
By Chuck Colson
Breakpoint Commentary, July 8, 2008

Prepping Kids for Sex Change

He has been called “demonic,” “barbaric,” and has been compared to Nazi doctors. And when you read about his work, it is easy to see why Americans are so outraged. Dr. Norman Spack is a pediatric endocrinologist at Boston Children’s Hospital. Not long ago, he opened a clinic for what he terms “transgendered” children. Incredibly, he is giving kids as young as seven drugs that delay the onset of puberty—the first step in sex-change surgery when they are older.

Spack injects children with hormone-blocking drugs to prevent them from developing secondary sexual characteristics, like breasts or facial hair. The idea is to give them a few more years to make up their minds if they want to be male—or female.

When these kids hit their teen years, they are given the option of taking cross-hormones for a few years—which will allow them to develop the characteristics of the opposite sex. Tragically, the treatment will condemn these teenagers to lifelong infertility.

Spack appears to think that that is a reasonable trade-off for teens who feel they are trapped in the body of the opposite sex: After all, the cross-hormone treatments will make it easier for them to “pass” as the opposite sex. For instance, men will not grow as tall as they normally would, nor will they develop beards or Adam’s apples.

In a fawning article about Spack, the Boston Globe referred to his treatment of gender-confused children as “modern medical care.” Medical care, my eye! This is medical mayhem. It is unconscionable.

Dr. Paul McHugh, a distinguished professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, agrees: He says that treating these children with hormones “does considerable harm, and it compounds their confusion. Trying to delay puberty or change someone’s gender,” he added, “is a rejection of the lawfulness of nature.”

Dr. McHugh knows what he is talking about. He and psychiatrist Jon Myer studied men who received sex-change operations at Johns Hopkins. His conclusion? “That Hopkins was fundamentally cooperating with a mental illness.” Better, McHugh thought, to concentrate on fixing their minds instead of taking the more drastic step of changing their sex.

Thanks to the research of Myer and others, this practice was stopped at Johns Hopkins. And it became possible to begin to make sense of the mental disorders that were driving the request for the surgeries.

So why are doctors like Spack altering young bodies instead of treating confused minds?

The answer is that many doctors have embraced the modern teaching that sexual identity, rather than being biologically determined, is a preference or a choice. According to this, people should be allowed to choose whatever sex they want to be.

But both science and the Bible teach otherwise: God created us male and female in His image. Shots and surgeries and politically correct teachings cannot alter this fundamental truth.

Tragically, some parents are now buying into this false teaching—and allowing their children to undergo destructive treatments.

You and I need to be spreading the word that legitimate treatment is available for people suffering from gender confusion—and it is a treatment that does not sacrifice the well-being of children to the political agendas of adults.

____________________________

Today’s BreakPoint Offer

Learn more about Breakpoint’s Wide Angle worldview video series with Chuck Colson and Rick Warren—perfect for small-group Bible studies!

____________________________

For Further Reading and Information

Pagan Kennedy, “Q&A with Norman Spack,” Boston Globe, 30 March 2008.

“Critics Slam Boston Doctor Who Offers Sex Change Treatment to Kids,” FOX News, 19 May 2008.

Ashley Smith, “Mom Accepts Transgender Manchester Tween,” Nashua Telegraph, 22 June 2008.

Paul McHugh, “Surgical Sex,” First Things, November 2004 (reprinted by GodSpy).

Stephen Reed, “Sex Change Operations . . . for Kids,” The Point, 19 May 2008.

Gina Dalfonzo, “Who Will Watch the Watchers?” The Point, 27 May 2008.

BreakPoint Commentary No. 050615, “The Wisdom to Know the Difference: Is Sexual Identity Malleable?”

BreakPoint Commentary No. 040209, “Gender Blender: Adolescent Girls and ‘Heteroflexiblity’.”

BreakPoint Commentary No. 061121, “Pick Your Nose, Not Your Gender: Postmodern Mischief.”

BreakPoint Commentary No. 070423, “Coming to a School near You: Normalizing Homosexuality.”