Pro-life/pro-family advocate Jim Finnegan has fought long and hard in Illinois for "Choose Life" specialty license plates, which would raise funds for adoption. Democratic politicians, influenced by pro-abortion lobbyists, have stalled the plates for years.

This is Part One of AFTAH’s interview [listen HERE] with Jim Finnegan, a longtime pro-life and pro-family Catholic advocate in the Chicago area who is active with Defend Marriage Illinois. Finnegan is also leading the campaign for “Choose Life” specialty license plates in Illinois – thwarted for years by liberal Democrats. This interview was pre-recorded and aired February 18, 2012. Finnegan and AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera discuss the radical group Gay Liberation Network’s ongoing attacks on Cardinal Francis George, due to George’s and the Catholic Church’s opposition to homosexual “marriage” and homosexual acts.

LaBarbera describes the GLN’s hateful protest Feb. 12, 2012, directly in front of Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral, with signs mocking George as “Archbigot.” He also notes GLN’s refusal to condemn a pro-homosexual brick attack against a Christian school hosting AFTAH’s October 2011 banquet — and says that if he had refused to condemn such an assault on a homosexual group he would legitimately be called a “hater.” (See AFTAH report on GLN’s record of hate HERE.) Both men discuss a newly introduced “same-sex marriage” bill [more info HERE] introduced by three openly homosexual Illinois legislators — and how House Speaker Mike Madigan (himself a “Catholic”) has blocked pro-family bills in Springfield while allowing pro-homosexual bills to be considered.

HOW TO LISTEN: This is an mp3 file, supported in most operating systems by Windows Media Player, Quick Time and/or I-Tunes.  Real Player is not supported and there may be difficulty when attempting to listen with it.  Left click once on the link below to play. (Please be patient, depending upon the speed of your internet connection it may take a moment or two to load.)  OR right click the link then “save target as” to download the whole show.

2-18-12, Jim Finnegan, Part One

WARNING: vulgar language on graphic

Hate-note sent by pro-homosexual militant that accompanied stone brick pavers thrown through the glass doors at Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights, Illinois -- in a failed effort to intimidate CLA from hosting an Americans For Truth banquet. Scoot Lively is the pro-family veteran who was honored at banqet with the 2011 AFTAH "American Truth Teller" award. Click on graphic to enlarge.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Illinois, Oct. 19, 2011 – Pro-homosexual activists attacked the Christian Liberty Academy early October 15th – throwing two large, concrete brick pavers through its glass doors with a hate-note attached– and then issued an online statement claiming responsibility for the crime. The attackers demanded that CLA “shut down” a banquet it was hosting later that evening for the “homophobic hate group,” Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH). But their main target was pro-family veteran Scott Lively, who was honored at the event.

“This is just a sample of what we will do if you don’t shut down Scott Lively and AFTAH … [F**k] Scott Lively. Quit the homophobic [sh*t]!” read the note that accompanied the bricks thrown through CLA’s doors. The apparent “hate crime” against CLA did not deter the Christian school from hosting the banquet for AFTAH, which presented its 2011 ”American Truth Teller” award to Lively, founder of Defend the Family International and the author of “The Pink Swastika.”

Brick paver thrown the window of Christian Liberty Academy, with message, "Shut Down Lively." Pro-family veteran Scott Lively received AFTAH's 2011 "American Truth Teller" award.

Lively was targeted in the online statement for allegedly condoning violence against homosexuals in Uganda. (This is a false charge: Lively, like AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera, condemns all violence and genuine hatred against homosexuals.) The following excerpt is from the statement posted on the leftist Chicago Independent Media Center website:

“These chunks of concrete were thrown through these windows and doors for two reasons: to show that there is a consequence for hatred and homophobia in our community and to directly cause this event to be shut down. If this event is not shut down, and the homophobic day trainings do not end, the Christian liberty academy will continue to be under constant attack.”

After Arlington Heights police came to the scene, they cased the CLA building — a large, former public high school — with bomb-sniffing dogs, according to CLA Pastor Calvin Lindstrom. As it turned out, the assailants apparently did not enter the building.

Taking credit for a crime

The extraordinary aspect to this case is that pro-homosexuality activists boldly took credit for the attack, in an online statement that remains on the leftist “Chicago Independent Media Center” website — signalling a new brazenness by homosexual activists. What follows is a screen shot of the statement [link HERE] taking responsibility for this act of domestic terrorism. It was posted early in the morning of Oct. 15 – just a few hours after the brick-throwing attack by an anonymous author, “PISSED” (This same statement was e-mailed to Christian Liberty Academy, Americans For Truth’s LaBarbera, Scott Lively and others):

Here is the URL link for the Chicago Independent Media Center statement, which was still live as of Oct. 19: http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/95060/index.php.

The above statement repeats the extreme rhetoric and accusations against Lively by the Gay Liberation Network (GLN), a Chicago-based, Marxist homosexual activist group that routinely demonizes AFTAH and protests AFTAH events – including last year’s three-day Truth Academy. In the weeks leading up to the banquet, GLN announced that it would protest the AFTAH banquet. — and falsely accused Scott Lively of condoning violence against homosexuals in Uganda (and also Americans For Truth President Peter LaBarbera of honoring a man (Lively) who supports violence against homosexuals). The charge is slanderous as both Lively and LaBarbera — like every major pro-family advocate who works on the homosexuality issue — have repeatedly and consistently opposed violence against homosexuals.

At the banquet and a speaking event Friday and Grace Gospel Fellowship Church, Lively reiterated that he steadfastly opposed the death penalty provisions in Ugandan sex-crimes legislation — which has been simplistically translated by homosexual activists as the “Kill the Gays” bill. To read his previous rebuttal of the false GLN accusations, go HERE.

Lively follows American Family Association founder Don Wildmon and Ken Hutcherson, pastor of Antioch Bible Church and pro-traditional marriage advocate, as a recipient of the AFTAH “American Truth Teller” award.

GLN has denied involvement in the attack on Christian Liberty Academy — which is being investigated by Arlington Heights police. The Chicago Tribune reports that the case is not being treated as a “hate crime.” AFTAH, like most conservative Christian groups, opposes “hate crimes” laws — but questions why the attack on CLA is not categorized as a “hate crime” when it appears the victims (including the Christian Liberty Academy), have been targeted based on their religious beliefs about homosexuality. Both the Illinois and federal “hate crimes” laws consider religion and “sexual orientation” a protected category. Attacks targeting homosexual persons are routinely investigated as “hate crimes” from the outset.

Homosexuals blame AFTAH for crime

Shattered glass entrance door at CLA after pro-homosexual assault.

In the wake of the violent attack on the Christian school, homosexual militants immediately sought to cast doubt on the assault –  by claiming that it was likely the work of Americans For Truth About Homoseuxuality. Homosexual blogger Joe Jervis of the “Joe.My.God” blog took the lead, immediately charging on his Twitter account that LaBarbera had staged a fake “hate crime” as a publicity stunt leading up to the AFTAH banquet. Jervis has accused other pro-family groups with staging attacks against themselves. Other “gay” advocates denounced the attack on CLA and said it would only hinder the homosexual activist movement.

On the Chicago Independendent Media Center website containing the attacker’s statement taking credit for the crime, Jervis desperately posted this comment:

Does anybody know the person supposedly behind this post? This is an open and unmoderated site from what I can see. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to learn that LaBarbera and his foul cohorts staged this entire thing.

Lively recalls fake “gay” hate crime

Ironically, at both his talks for Americans For Truth, Lively recounted the amazing story from the early 1990′s of an infamous PRO-homosexual ”hate crime” hoax staged by a lesbian, Azalea Cooley – to fight a conservative statewide ballot measure known as ”Measure Nine,” which would have made it unconstitutional for the state to promote homosexuality. Lively served as statewide  media director for Oregon Citizen’s Alliance (OCA), a Christian group that sponsored Measure Nine, and recalled how Cooley, a black, supposedly wheelchair-bound lesbian, claimed 21 cross-burnings in her front yard after the campaign for Measure Nine was launched.

In the final days of the campaign, after the perpetrators of this series of “hate crime” were never caught, two rogue policemen decided to investigate for themelves; as they staked out Cooley’s home one night, they watched as she came out walking into her front yard holding a can of gasoline, and lit a cross on fire. According to Lively, strategically-placed homosexual activists within Oregon’s law enforcement agencies — including “gay” relatives of powerful officials — likely helped derail the proper investigation of Cooley’s antics.

But, as Lively told the AFTAH audiences Friday and Saturday, “it gets better.” The astounding fraud should have received saturation media coverage across the state, but instead was covered seriously only in Cooley’s hometown of Portland. To end the campaign, Measure Nine’s opponents held a massive “March Against Hate” ending in Portland — the final mobilization against the “evil” OCA ballot meaure. And who was heading up the march as a symbol of the progressive struggle against Religious Right “hate”? … Azalea Cooley, riding in her wheelchair.

“It is the central (but patently false) narrative of the left that all criticism of homosexuality leads inevitably to violence and murder.” – Scott Lively, recipient of AFTAH’s 2011 “American Truth Teller” Award; from his essay, “Murdering Uganda”

“Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.”—Jesus Christ, in Matthew 5:11 (NASB)

_______________________________________

Moody pastor Erwin Lutzer is being pressured by a hateful homosexual group to pull out as keynote speaker for AFTAH's Oct. 15 banqet.

Come out and support Scott, Dr. Lutzer and AFTAH! Please join us this Saturday, Oct. 15th at the AFTAH banquet with Dr. Lutzer (doors open at 6:00 PM at Christian Liberty Academy, 502 W. Euclid Ave., Arlington Heights, IL; tickets $10; $20 at the door). Dr. Lutzer will address the escalating persecution against Christians under pro-homosexuality laws. (Dr. Lively also will give a brief speech as we present him with the 2011 AFTAH “American Truth Teller” award.)

Friday speech by Lively: There is a second opportunity to hear Scott Lively, who will give a speech Friday, Oct. 14 at 7:00 PM at Grace Gospel Fellowship church in Bensenville, IL, (located on Route 83 just north of I-290)  The event is FREE but there will be a freewill offering taken for Americans For Truth – to help us combat homosexual extremism as typified by GLN.  This event will include time for Q & A with Scott.  Thank you for standing with us!

________________________________________

By Peter LaBarbera

Dear AFTAH Readers,

A Chicago Marxist group, Gay Liberation Network, is pressuring Moody Church Pastor Dr. Erwin Lutzer to pull out as keynote speaker at the Americans For Truth banquet this Saturday because AFTAH is honoring Scott Lively, who GLN falsely claims has a “history as a vicious gay basher.” At the October 15 event, AFTAH will present Lively with its 2011 “American Truth Teller” award for his years of defending truth on the homosexual issue.Scott Lively has been the target of a malicious homosexual campaign of lies claiming he supports violence against homosexuals.”]

Scott Lively has been the target of a malicious homosexual campaign of lies claiming he supports violence against homosexuals.

Lively sent me (and Dr. Lutzer) the following two letters in response to GLN leader Bob Schwartz’s outlandish claims. A verbatim copy of the contents of the GLN letter, sent to Lutzer by certified mail September 27, 2011, follows Scott’s letters below.

In his letter to Lutzer, GLN’s Bob Schwartz writes:

“Are you aware of Lively’s history as a vicious gay basher?…In addition, as you may know, LaBarbera’s organization [AFTAH] and Lively’s Abiding Truth Ministries are both described as ‘hate groups’ by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Are these the kinds of organizations with which you wish to associate the Moody Church? …[W]e take you at your word when you say you oppose violence against gays. We therefore assume that you would not want to be associated with those, like Lively and LaBarbera, who either support violence outright, or honor those who do.”

This is a monstrous lie. From the beginning of my involvement in the homosexuality debate, I – like Scott – have repeatedly and consistently condemned all violence and genuine hatred directed at homosexuals. So when Schwartz and the GLN urged Pastor Lutzer not to “[associate] with those, like Lively and LaBarbera, who either support violence outright, or honor those who do” – they slandered me as well as Scott.

The chutzpah of the Chicago-based GLN and its co-leader, Bob Schwartz, is hard to overstate – for it was Schwartz himself who once made a thinly-veiled threat of violence against this writer as I was standing in opposition to a Chicago “gay youth” event in downtown Chicago (as then-Executive Director of Illinois Family Institute). Schwartz pointed to a few Chicago policemen standing nearby and told me that if it weren’t for the presence of my “friends” (the police), he would push me into oncoming traffic. Since I began writing about the incident, Schwartz has never denied making the nasty remark. Of course, had it been the other way around and I’d made the same violence-tinged threat against a homosexual advocate like Schwartz, there likely would have been “hate crimes” charges filed against me!

From the Gay Liberation Network website: crass anti-Christian bigotry and distortion of biblical truth. Click on graphic to enlarge.

The Gay Liberation Network is one of the most vicious and extreme homosexualist organizations I have ever encountered.  They hatefully smeared Dr. James Dobson’s good name and accused him of “hate speech” when he was inducted into the Chicago-based Museum of Broadcast Communications’ Hall of Fame.  And they blasted Dr. Lutzer as a “hater” simply because he wrote a book against same-sex “marriage.”  (The GLN protesters even disparaged the venerable Moody Church as a “House of Hate”!) Also, see Bob Schwartz’s letter HERE supporting the University of Illinois’ firing of Catholic professor Ken Howell because he taught the Catholic, natural law opposition to homosexual practice (who was later reinstated).

Thus, it is completely in line with GLN’s malicious track record to see them cruelly malign and lie about Scott – a godly and courageous Christian man – as a “vicious gay basher.”  Still, as one who has also been lied about on a regular basis by homosexual militants, it grieves my heart to see this good man portrayed as evil (Isaiah 5:20).

We are grateful to Dr. Lutzer for not giving in to this deceitful and despicable GLN campaign against Lively — who daily models the Christian’s noble calling to speak Gospel truth in love – and who has been mercilessly demonized by the liberal media and LGBT activists for boldly proclaiming the unswerving truth about homosexuality, year in and year out.

Peter LaBarbera
Americans For Truth About Homosexuality
www.aftah.org
E-mail: americansfortruth@gmail.com

___________________________________________

Letter to Dr. Lutzer from Scott Lively Oct. 10, 2011:

Dear Peter [LaBarbera],

As you well know, I am a Bible-believing Christian who abhors violence against anyone, and have never advocated violence or hatred against homosexuals.  You may recall that when we first met in Framingham, MA in 1992, my wife and I and our four young sons had for several months been nursing a former homosexual man with AIDS in our own home.  He lived with us until his death from that horrific disease later that year.  I have worked with dozens of people seeking an exit from that lifestyle over the years, including my own sister (who repented and overcame it), and have worked with men seeking recovery from homosexuality in my inner-city church in Springfield, MA.  The website of my Springfield mission is www.redemptiongate.org.

GLN leader Bob Schwartz once told AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera that he would like to push him into oncoming traffic.

While I am compelled by Christ to love those who struggle with homosexual sin as individuals, I am also strongly opposed to the homosexual political agenda, which I view as an existential threat to Christian civilization around the world.  I have long considered myself a missionary to the global pro-family movement and have ministered in more than two dozen countries as a university lecturer, consultant to government officials and advisor to pastors and Christian leaders.  As you know, I hold a Juris Doctor degree from Trinity Law School, a TH.D. from the Pentecostal Assemblies of God, and a Certificate in Human Rights from the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

One of the countries in which I have ministered is Uganda.  I was keynote speaker at their first national pro-family conference, sponsored by the Minister of Ethics and Integrity in 2002(?).  My wife and I returned the following year to help the movement develop, and in 2009 I was invited to give a seminar to government officials and other community leaders about the homosexual issue.  They were planning to draft legislation to curb the rapid spread of homosexuality in the country.

The text for my lectures was based entirely on my textbook ”Redeeming the Rainbow: A Christian Response to the ‘Gay’ Agenda” which was then in manuscript form but has since been published in print form and in PDF; the latter is downloadable without charge at http://www.defendthefamily.com/rtr/.  I have also attached a copy.  You will not find a single sentence in this book that promotes hatred or violence against homosexuals.

During my 2009 trip I also addressed members of the Ugandan Parliament in their national assembly hall.  My advice to the MPs regarding the law they were contemplating but had not yet drafted was to focus on rehabilitation of homosexuals and not punishment.  I urged them to become the first government in the world to develop a state-sponsored recovery system for homosexuality on the model we have in the United States for alcoholism.

In contradiction to my advice, a few months after the seminar an MP introduced a bill to criminalize homosexuality.  The terms of the bill were harsh, as is very common in African countries, including capital punishment for a category of crimes called “aggravated homosexuality.”  That category was aimed at pedophilia and sexual abuse of disabled persons but was inartfully worded so as to potentially also encompass simple homosexuality.

I do not support capital punishment for any sex crimes, let alone simple homosexuality, which I view as a treatable behavioral disorder, and so I opposed the bill.  I was nevertheless accused in the international media of not only endorsing the bill but of advocating for it.  These false accusations were not deterred by my written responses which attempted to set the record straight.  The first was an editorial titled “The Death Penalty in Uganda” and the second was a copy of my letter to the Ugandan Parliament together with its response.  They are published on my website here  http://www.defendthefamily.com/pfrc/newsarchives.php?id=4480922  and here http://www.defendthefamily.com/pfrc/newsarchives.php?id=3261726.

I am no stranger to persecution for my commitment to Biblical truth, and over the twenty plus years I have worked primarily in this ministry I have been maligned and slandered to an extreme degree.  This is a tactic of all leftists but especially of the “gays,” who are the most adept and vicious of all in the use of malicious propaganda, as should be no surprise to any Christian familiar with Romans 1:26-31.

Following the introduction of the Uganda Bill I was personally attacked as the supposed “mastermind” behind it in feature stories in the New York Times, London Guardian, Canadian National Post, ABC News, and PBS, among others.  Later, not once, but twice, when supposed homosexual activists in Uganda were killed, it was implied by the liberal western media that I was responsible.  In both cases the accusations were published before the facts were even known to the police.  In both cases the deaths were later proved to be unrelated to the passions surrounding the Ugandan bill.  The first killing turned out to be the work of pagan witch doctors involved in some bizarre ritual.  The original story is no longer on the Ugandan news site but the following item from a “gay” blog admits their facts were wrong (while casting themselves as victims of a “hoax”):    http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/candacechellew-hodge/2930/hoax_underscores_urgency_for_lgbt_people_in_uganda/.

The second case, involving the grisly murder of Ugandan homosexual activist David Cato, turned out to be a crime of passion by a male prostitute whom Cato had bailed out of jail and taken to be his houseboy:   http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ihVH6Ahnbnhdo3CqrEDT3mCBknKg?docId=CNG.9057dbf4f3db02f92ea39216b26eb623.8a1

In neither of these cases was an apology written, nor was a correction on the facts made; neither did ANY mainstream media outlet issue a retraction of the false implication that I was somehow involved in these killings.

In the two years since the propaganda campaign against me was launched, I have received hundreds if not thousands of hate mails, including a plausible death threat which led to judicial action by the police.  I have been shunned as a resource by several Christian organizations (and numerous pastors), and my church has been picketed numerous times and a rock thrown through the front window once.  One time a man stuck his head in the door during my sermon to yell “Scott Lively is a murderer.”  I was also attacked on the front page of the Boston Globe in a purely gratuitous ”hit piece,” centered on the Ugandan story, designed to discredit my Christian mission in Springfield.

I am fully content to know that those who desire to live Godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution and I have not shrunk, nor will I shrink from standing boldly for the truth of God’s word, come what may.  Neither will I succumb to the urge for revenge or hatred toward those who hate and attack me with such hysteria.  They truly know not what they do.

I must, however, exhort my fellow Christians not to allow themselves to be influenced by the propaganda nor intimidated by the harassment tactics of LGBT activists.  It has always been the case that the cause of Christ is advanced only through selfless courage in the face of determined opposition.  Not even the gates of hell can prevail against us when we abide unshakably in Him.  Even today believers must stand fast to the point of death in some places in the world.  How can we dare to shrink from our challenge when we face merely slander by our foes and shunning by weaker brothers?

Many Blessings,

Scott

__________________________________________

Below is a short, subsequent message from Lively regarding the Gay Liberation Network’s cynical claim that he “justified anti-gay violence” toward Uganda’s most prominent pro-homosexuality activist; we have attached a copy of Scott’s piece, “Murdering Uganda,”

Hi Peter,

My prior message covers all the aspects of this letter except the accusation that I justified violence in Uganda.  Their quote is from my attached essay “Murdering Uganda” which shall serve as a complete rebuttal to their misrepresentation.  Please forward this to Pastor Lutzer along with my prior message to you.

In Jesus,

Scott

__________________________________________

Murdering Uganda

By Pastor Scott Lively, J.D., Th.D.

President, Defend the Family International

www.defendthefamily.com

Uganda is being murdered.  The nation once called “The Pearl of Africa” by Winston Churchill, a lush and beautiful country as fertile as the Nile Delta.  It is the nation that retained its self-rule through centuries of African colonialism, the society that survived even the atrocities of the cannibal cultist Idi Amin, the culture that has been thriving in Christian revival for over a dozen years.

This great and honorable nation, alone in Africa to have all but conquered the scourge of AIDS  through abstinence — and whose First Lady led a holy gathering of thousands of believers on the eve of the millennium, dedicating her homeland “to Jesus Christ for a thousand years” — this Uganda, a shining light in the Dark Continent, is being murdered.

The murderers are the lavender Marxists, the now-global network of sexual revolutionaries bent on remaking the entire world in their own perverted image, whose juggernaut has toppled even once mighty Britain, crushing under their lavender boots after eight centuries the symbol of its Christian power: the Magna Charta, whose first principle had proclaimed, “The English church must be free!”  These revolutionists of Sodom, who march triumphantly through all the major cities of the western world to flaunt their defeat of moral law, and who hold both Hollywood and the heart of America’s president in their iron grip: these very same zealots have fixed their malevolent gaze on Christian Uganda.

Uganda is the only country in the world with a national holiday commemorating its rejection of sexual perversion.  Every June 3 it honors the 22 young men and boys who were tortured and roasted alive in 1886 by homosexual King Mwanga, because they refused to submit to sodomy.   Is it any wonder, then, that Uganda has reacted violently against the army of agitators, led by George Soros, who now seek to re-homosexualize Ugandan culture?

It is as if the militant ranks of “Code Pink” were transported back to 1890s America to agitate for “sexual freedom.”  Our great grandparents would not have countenanced this.  There would have been violence, as there has now been in Uganda.  And that is, of course, the strategy: the agents provocateur are goading unsophisticated natives into over-reacting, while the “gay” media lie in wait to catch the images and spin the propaganda that is even now poisoning the gullible against the Ugandans.

Ugandan homosexual activist David Kato was recently beaten to death with a hammer, a horrific crime.  These very media rushed eagerly to judge this a hate crime and to blame those, like me, who have spoken against homosexuality in Uganda.  It is the central (but patently false) narrative of the left that all criticism of homosexuality leads inevitably to violence and murder. Yet the killer has now been caught and confessed that he was a live-in male prostitute who murdered Kato for failing to pay him as promised.  The “gay” hate-narrative has failed, the Ugandan rejection of “gay” culture has been vindicated, and the finger-pointing media have pulled quietly back into the shadows — for now.

There is indeed evil in Uganda today, but it is not the reaction of Christian and Moslem citizens to the rape of their culture. It is the pink-gloved hand of western powers that are cutting the throat of Africa’s most God-fearing country, and one of the world‘s most promising Christian democracies.

______________________________________

Gay Liberation Network letter to Dr. Erwin Lutzer, filled with falsehoods against Scott Lively and Peter LaBarbera:
Gay Liberation Network

4404 N. Magnolia, #420, Chicago, IL 60640

LGBTLiberation@aol.com
www.GayLiberation.net
773-209-1187

September 27, 2011

Pastor Erwin Lutzer

The Moody Church

1635 N. LaSalle Street

Chicago, IL 60614

Via certified mail, restricted delivery

Dear Pastor Lutzer:

We in Gay Liberation Network are aware that you are the scheduled main speaker at an October 15 fundraising dinner of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality. Do you know that one Scott Lively is to be honored at that dinner by Peter LaBarbera. Are you aware of Scott Lively’s history as a vicious gay basher?

LaBarbera identifies Lively as a “veteran Christian culture warrior who has been leading the resistance against the homosexualist juggernaut—in the USA and across the world.” LaBarbera says Lively has “suffered greatly for doing good and honoring God and His Truth.”

“Honoring God and His Truth”?

Scott Lively journeyed to Uganda in 2009 with other US evangelical gay bashers to stage a “Seminar on Exposing the Homosexual Agenda” even though homosexuality was already illegal in that nation. Lively helped stoke anti-gay animus by playing the “child molestation” card, asserting that gays are “looking for other people to prey upon, and that went they see someone from a broken home, it’s like they have a flashing neon sign over their head…male homosexuality has not traditionally been adult to adult, it’s men adult to teenager….The gay movement is an evil institution.”

It was following Lively’s “seminar” that legislation was introduced into the Ugandan parliament that would impose the death penalty for so-called aggravated homosexuality.” All gay meetings would be banned under this draconian measure, and heterosexuals could be jailed as well for any advocacy of homosexuality or defense of gay people. Please note that Scott Lively has supported this further criminalizing of homosexuality, even as some evangelicals like Rick Warren have distanced themselves from it. (Lively advised against death sentences for Ugandan gays, since it could result in “public sympathy” for them; he prefers forced “rehabilitation.”)

More recently, Lively justified anti-gay violence when Uganda’s leading gay advocate was murdered. Lively wrote, “It is as if the militant ranks of ‘Code Pink’ were transported back to 1890s America to agitate for ‘sexual freedom.’ Our great grandparents would not have countenanced this. There would have been violence, as there has now been in Uganda [emphasis added by Schwartz]

In addition, as you may know, LaBarbera’s organization [AFTAH] and Lively’s Abiding Truth Ministries are both described as “hate groups” by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Are these the kind of organizations with which you wish to associate the Moody Church?

Although our differences with you are sharp and distinct, due to your opposition to marriage equality for lesbian and gay people, we take you at your word when you say that you oppose violence against gays. We therefore assume that you would not want to be associated with those, like Lively and LaBarbera, who either support violence outright, or honor those who do.

We hope, therefore, you will rethink your decision to appear at LaBarbera’s banquet. Whatever your decision, we will be at the Christian Liberty Academy to protest those who oppose our equal rights, and particularly those who countenance violence against our community or participate in honoring those who do.

Truly yours,

Bob Schwartz

For the Gay Liberation Network

_________________________________________________

Biography of Dr. Scott Lively

Dr. Scott Lively is President of Defend the Family International, a United States-based human rights organization which defends family values and religious freedom. An attorney, author and ordained minister, Dr. Lively is a staunch advocate of what he terms “Masculine Christianity,” — a scripturally-rooted doctrine of Christian cultural and political assertiveness.  Dr. Lively is also an internationally recognized expert on the global homosexual movement, which he identifies as a leading threat to Christianity in the modern age.

Education:

Dr. Lively holds the degrees of Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, from Trinity Law School in Santa Ana, California, and Doctor of Theology from the School of Bible Theology Seminary and University in San Jacinto, California.  He also holds a Certificate in Human Rights, from the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

Published Works:

Redeeming the Rainbow: A Christian Response to the “Gay” Agenda, (2010);

My Life in His Hands: A Testimony of God’s Grace and Goodness (2007);

The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party, 4^th Edition (2002), with co-author Kevin E. Abrams;

The Poisoned Stream: “Gay” Influence in Human History (1996);

Seven Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child (1997);

Why and How to Defeat the “Gay” Movement (2001);

Defeating “Gay” Arguments With Simple Logic (2003);

Balance in the Classroom: A teacher’s guide to explaining the pro-family viewpoint in non-religious terms (2003);

Reprobate Theology: the homosexual seduction of the American Church (2003).

Professional History

Senior Pastor, The Coffee House Church, Springfield, MA, 2010-Present.

Founder and President, Redemption Gate Mission Society, Springfield, MA 2008-Present, www.redemptiongate.org;

Founder and President, Abiding Truth Ministries (parent-organization of Defend The Family International), 1997-Present, www.defendthefamily.com;

Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Lively, Ackerman & Cowles Law Firm, 2003-2006.

Founder and Chairman, The Pro-Family Law Center, 1999-2006.

State Communications Director, Oregon Citizens Alliance, 1989-1997.

Personal History

Raised in a home shattered by the mental illness of his father, Scott Lively became an alcoholic at age 12, a drug addict by 14, was homeless at 16.  After sixteen years in the throes of addiction, several of them as a penniless drifter, Scott was miraculously healed and delivered in prayer in 1986, going on to become a leading Christian social activist and later an attorney and pastor. Scott is married to Anne, and has four grown sons.

You may reach Dr. Lively through his website at www.defendthefamily.com or by writing to Abiding Truth Ministries, PO Box 2373, Springfield MA 01101.

Stephen Black, who left the homosexual lifestyle and has now been married 25 years, says Gospel truth must be preached to "gays," in the love and humility of Jesus Christ.

Here is Part Two of our pre-recorded interview with Stephen Black [click HERE to listen] of First Stone Ministries, based in Oklahoma City. This interview with Black (www.stephenblack.org), who once considered himself “gay,” aired July 9, 2011. Stephen and AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera discuss the ideal of speaking the truth about homosexual sin, in the love of Christ. They criticize the soft, defensive message of “emergent” Christians like Andy Marin (author of “Love Is and Orientation”) – as a false form of love bereft of biblical truth. (Marin is reluctant to call homosexual practice sinful and has launched an “I’m Sorry” campaign whereby evangelicals apologize to homosexuals (and others) for the alleged “homophobic” shortcomings of the Church; see the video of pro-same-sex-”marriage” evangelical Peggy Campolo currently at the top of Marin’s blog HERE [dated July 14th].) Black and LaBarbera agree with ex-”gay” Andy Comiskey that the ”emergent”-type approach like Marin’s is a “gutless gospel.”  Yet they also agree that harsh or insensitive Christians can preach a lot of truths about homosexuality. but without the love and humility demanded of those advancing the Gospel (Black says some have been “cruel and mean” toward homosexuals). Stephen gives a short version of his personal testimony, but in Part One of this interview he lays out his life story (including being molested as a boy) and exodus from homosexuality; click HERE for Part One.  You can visit the archive page containing all the AFTAH Hour interviews HERE.

P.S. LaBarbera has extended an open invitation to Andy Marin to appear on the AFTAH radio show, or speak/debate at at a neutral forum on the proper attitude of Bible-believing Christians toward people practicing homosexuality. We hope he accepts; you can contact Marin at info@themarinfoundation.org.

HOW TO LISTEN:  Left click once on the link below to play. Please note: This is an mp3 file, supported in most operating systems by Windows Media Player, Quick Time and/or I-Tunes.  Do not use Real Player.  It is not supported and there may be difficulty when listening with it.  (Please be patient, depending upon the speed of your internet connection it may take a moment or two to load.)  OR right click the link then “save target as” to download the whole show.

7-9-11, Stephen Black, Part Two

Perverts Take Over Hotel: Hyatt Regency Chicago sign alerts public to "private event" occupying the hotel. The "private event" is International Mr. Leather, one of the most bizarrely obscene, homosexual perversion celebrations on the planet.

Folks, to people who proudly practice homosexuality (sin), this is “Gay Pride Month.” But there doesn’t seem to be much to be “proud” of in this account of the vendor area at “International Mr. Leather,” Chicago’s annual, mostly homosexual sadistic-sex celebration. AFTAH writer and experienced pro-family activist Lynn Thomas had a hard time reporting on this awful spectacle because, well, she is normal. The sheer perverseness of homosexual sadomasochism (including “consensual” “master-slave relationships”) – embraced and celebrated as the “leather community” under the LGBT umbrella – makes it difficult to expose.

The country talks about the “Heartland” and “Midwestern values,” but the reality is that Chicago has become one of the most perverted cities in the world. Of course, this is due in part to it being one of the most homosexual-friendly cities in the world. Chicago even has its very own Perversion Museum, our name for the truly bizarre Leather Archives & Museum (LA&M) — which carefully documents the sadomasochistic deviancies of mostly homosexual “leathermen,” and some hetero and lesbian perverts. (See below the twisted painting from the LA&M, which is housed in a nondescript building in the city’s Rogers Park neighborhood on the north side.)

This “Leather Museum,” and the welcoming home that the Windy City has become to proud sexual deviants of various stripes, speaks volumes about the slippery-slope of tolerance toward  abetting evil; the organizing power of a sin movement; but most importantly of America’s staggering, post-Christian moral decline. – Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

TAKE ACTION: Tell the Hyatt Regency Chicago [312-565-1234; hit “0” and ask for the Executive Offices] that it is wrong and un-hygienic to profit off perversion-fests like IML – no matter how much the Hyatt was paid by IML organizers for this revolting event (see photos). We don’t know what kinds of special chemicals are required for the clean-up after the orgies and sodomies committed in spades at “International Mr. Leather.” (And pity the poor maids.) But would you want to sleep in the same bed where a homosexual orgy – or drunken, orgiastic encounter between two “leathermen” — took place – with body fluids and feces flying here and there? Neither would we. Call the Hyatt at: 312-565-1234; hit “0” and ask for the Executive Offices.

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AFTAH Writer Is Grossed Out by International Mr. Leather Perversion-Fest Held at Hyatt Regency Chicago

Hyatt Regency Chicago

By Lynn Thomas, Special to Americans For Truth

CHICAGO — Walking to the front of the building, there was nothing noticeable on the outside that I could see that identified the fact that Mr. International Leather was being held at the Hyatt Regency. Other than men dressed in leather boots or leather pants who gathered at the front of the building hugging each other with their luggage, ready to catch a cab, and the fact that few females were visible walking the grounds, it could have been a convention of any type. Except there was a flagrant homosexual theme if you sized up the men: some were holding hands; some were cuddling or kissing. Coming in through the front door, this sign warned that the entire hotel was reserved for a “private event.” 

There were a lot of ‘sentries’ at the top of escalators, and traveling down one level there was a ‘desk’ by the escalator, where a number of flamboyantly dressed men were gathered and making small talk.  They told me to go downstairs to ‘register’ and pay my $5.00 for admission.  When I got downstairs, they told me to go upstairs, I wound up by with that same group of men, and so one of them escorted me personally to where I needed to go. I was met with sneers along the way as though they knew I didn’t belong there. I tried to play up the illusion that I am ‘pro gay.’ I stood in line, took out my ID, which I had to show when I paid. There were a number of circular tables in between where you paid and showed your ID and where you got your wrist band put on.  At the tables everyone had to take their waiver form and fill it out and sign it. With that filled out and in hand, people travelled down a line toward the booths to receive the wristband that would allow you to come in and out of the vendors’ area. While in that line, they checked IDs again.  Then we reached the last area where we had our wristbands fastened to our wrists, and showed ID’s one last time.

From there it was another escalator ride down to the basement level. The basement was dark, and there were double doors to enter the vendor area. 

Going into the “leather market” was an experience. I started at the back of the room, with the intention of weaving my way through the aisles, so as not to miss anything and see all of the vendors. But I was inundated with images of rough men doing rough things to one another, and paraphernalia on sale for people to do rough and obscene things to one another. There were whips and chains and straps to tie people down; dildos [fake penises] in the size and shape if animal species’ erect penises. They were labeled baby elephant, donkey, horse…and the thought of where those things would go and what would be done with them, made me nauseous.

Earlier in the day, I went to NightTours.com, where I read a description from someone about “International Mr. Leather at Hyatt Regency Hotel Chicago”: 

The exhibits in the host hotel are for examination or purchase of just about any and every type of leather, bondage, or fetish gear you can imagine.  Many are small distributors (or designers) alongside major national and international labels.  From cock rings and handkerchiefs, to electro shock and stimulators, to rubber cat-suits and body armor: it can be found there and purchased with credit cards.  As an added bonus, most major adult studios have booths for their stars to take photos with fans and sell the latest DVDs and give away free promotional material.”

I didn’t get too far through the vendor displays — with leather-clad men gathered in clumps turning to look at me — before I had a panic attack and needed to exit the building. The sadistic-sex “market” was in the basement, the carpet was dark, and the vendors’ wares were horrific.

Twisted painting advertised by the Chicago "Leather Archives & Museum" at IML. We've covered up the genitalia here.

I exited the market a few times to go back to my car and take a breather and settle my nerves somewhat. I had intended on taking pictures of the attendees like I did at last year’s outdoor Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco, where the attendees were happily snapping their little cameras to capture their own personal photos of Folsom. Mr. Leather didn’t have any snap-happy people; I didn’t see a single person with a camera or shooting photographs.

Leather, and sadomasochism, was everywhere, and far more serious than what I saw at Folsom in San Francisco. There were medical devices for such things as inserting saline solution into a man’s scrotum to expand it. I took a picture of a man who had done that at Folsom; the paraphernalia including syringe was available at Mr. Leather. There also was paraphernalia for ‘cutting’ (skin) which, like other forms of torture, has erotic value to Mr. Leather fans. The “cutting” paraphernalia was in the same booth as the device with the needle to insert the saline solution into the scrotum to blow it up like a balloon.  I asked the vendor how exactly that was done, and he pointed out someone who had experience with it.  He said it ‘feels good’ and it takes a few days for the saline to get absorbed back into the system.

I saw a small Asian man who was in handcuffs–the same man I saw in San Francisco at Folsom, only this time he was wearing a little mesh skirt that you could see through.  He was completely naked underneath, and you could see his penis.

Another mam I encountered had a long dark dong hanging down that I was trying not to look at, and what he had to offer is a foreskin that would increase a man’s penis size. For some reason he thought I would appreciate it, and gave me some information about the prooduct; it was disgusting in its detailed description.

An activist explains more about the hosting hotels for IML [Edtior’s Note: we do not know if the Hyatt Regency allowed non-IML guests to stay in the hotel; however, this phenomenon of surprised outsiders accidentally stumbling upon IML and other homosexual events has been observed often through the years]:

The host hotel has changed through the years. That is where most of the action happens, so if you have a chance to go, book your room early. It fills up fast. Keep in mind that most of the entire hotel will be full, but not ALL of the rooms will be used for IML activities, so you may see some bewildered, amused or frightened MidWesterners in the hotel too, clutching tightly to their children.

He is right–there were masks, dog masks, and medieval-looking shackles on the vendors’ tables, men with kilts walking about, men wearing tight leather pants, and quite a few were shirtless with harnesses of some type on their torsos. I found out in the Mr. Leather brochure what that harness is all about when it showed a picture of two porn stars that were going to do a ‘show’ at the booth for Steamworks, a local “gay” bathhouse where men go for anonymous sodomitic hook-ups.

At the head of one of the escalator was a man wearing a dog mask, although I didn’t see anyone in a dog cage like I saw at Folsom San Francisco. They usually wear collars that are attached to leashes, and the ones playing the dogs are on hands and knees; sometimes they bark. I saw this also at Folsom in San Francisco, but the man with the dog mask at the escalator was just sitting on a chair checking for wristbands, giving a thumbs up to passersby who wore their wristband, an indication you could proceed down to the next level to get to the market.

I had the feeling of heavy security at this event. And understandably so, considering the extreme subject matter.

This image is from the website of "Fort Troff," one of the vendors at International Mr. Leather. This Atlanta-based company sells "Pig Sex Gear" for homosexual orgies. Shame on hotels like the Hyatt Regency Chicago for profiting off the celebration of such perversion.

There was a contraption for tying someone down to a bed, and the explanation card said the d-rings could be hidden when not in use, apparently a selling point for the device. There was a video of a man tied up in a harness, face down, breathing heavily, his buttocks bright red, with a man sitting or standing while masturbating next to the table. The standing, masturbating man whipped the man who was tied down with what looked like a riding crop.  Eventually the masturbating man ejaculated all over the tied up man’s back, and then threw himself on top of him.  If I’m not mistaken, he literally bit the tied up man, and then the camera fades.

The most shocking thing I saw at this event was a video of a thin, naked and pale white man hanging from the ceiling in handcuffs. His legs were drawn upward toward his chest, and he was literally swinging from side to side from the force of another man shoving his arm into the hanging man’s rectum, all the way up to his elbow. (This is known as “fisting,” another homosexual perversion.) He pulled it out and shoved it in again, and that was all I could stomach watching before I felt the urgent need to leave the event permanently.

Booth after booth of sadomasochistic sickness was too much for me to take, and because of the stares I was getting from groups of men, I was literally afraid to take photographs. Deviance was the “norm” at IML: I went out into the hallway, and saw a woman getting whipped by her female partner – with the one receiving the whipping yelling and swearing. There were other people gathered around, evaluating the riding crop-looking thing that was being used as the whipping device. It had some kind of tip on the end of it to inflict pain.

I picked up a card showing a miniature version of an oil painting called “Statue-tory Rape, by the artist Pierre Etienne [see covered-up photo]. The actual painting is on display at the Leather Archives & Museum (a sponsor of IML). I picked up another card titled, “Leather Archives & Museum Presents: Multi Media History – The Leather SINS Screening Room.”

With so much evidence in my face of the twisted behaviors these people engage in, and remembering how horrific the homosexual activists were to the pro-family attendees at the recent “Defend Marriage Rally” in downtown Chicago, I packed it in and went home after two hours without taking a single picture of any of the vendors’ tables.

But though my camera was empty, I went home with lots of vividly disturbing mental images that I am still having trouble flushing from my mind.

CNN evening anchor Don Lemon has declared his homosexuality — to the surprise of few who have followed his biased reporting on homosexuality issues – including his direct promotion of the “gay” activist political agenda. (In 2006, as a Chicago newsman for NBC5, Lemon hosted a fundraiser for Equality Illinois, a homosexual lobby group, thus violating the principle of journalistic non-involvement in politics.) In the 2010 CNN video below about the alleged  pederastic activity of Atlanta mega-pastor Bishop Eddie Long [Read DL Foster's "Gay Christian Movement Watch" post on Bishop Long HERE.], Lemon reveals that he was molested as a boy (about 5:21 in the YouTube video).  What is perplexing is that Lemon, like so many self-styled “gay” men, apparently does not view his molestation as a major causative factor in his homosexual identity and behavior. “People are going to say: ‘Oh, he was molested as a kid and now he is coming out [as homosexual].’ I get it,” Lemon told the New York Times dismissively, in discussing his new book. “Transparent,” in which he reveals his homosexuality. To me, there is no greater proof of the perverse self-deception of homosexuality than to behold how sexually confused adults incorporate their victimization at the hands of pedophiles into their out-and-proud “gay” identity. Which is to say — even before reading his book: ”Don, you are not ‘gay,’ but the victim of a homosexual child molester, who corrupted your mind, body and soul — and innocence — at a tender young age!” More on this later. – Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

Note: it is outrageous that the State of lllinois would even consider FORCING religious adoption agencies (or irreligious agencies, for that matter) to place children in homes that are motherless or fatherless by design. Adults (proudly) practicing homosexuality are not good role models for impressionable children, who need a mom and a dad. (No, the sexes are not  interchangeable.) The new Illinois “Civil Unions” law — rammed through Springfield in a lame-duck session — must be repealed to preserve religious liberty in the Land of Lincoln. ”Exemptions” — even if they are strengthened – won’t preserve freedom.

In the meantime, a new movement has been launched to place an Advisory Referendum on “same-sex marriage” (and “civil unions”) on the Illinois ballot in 2012. Almost 300,000 signatures of Illinos voters must be gathered and turned into the Illlinois Board of Elections by April 2012 to make that happen. To get involved, go to www.DefendMarriageIllinois.org and download a petition and instructions. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org   

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                     

CONTACT:  Tom Ciesielka, 312-422-1333; tc@tcpr.net; June 7, 2011                                                                                                                   

Catholic Leaders Take Legal Action Over Risk of Losing Foster Care Services

Catholic Charities in Illinois Seek Remedy for Best Interests of Children, Families

(SPRINGFIELD, IL) Leaders of three Catholic dioceses – the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, Peoria and Joliet – took legal action today as their charities fight to continue their work in serving the best interests of thousands of needy children and families throughout the state.

In March of this year, the Attorney General’s office issued a letter stating that the office “received notice that Catholic Charities … discriminates against Illinois citizens based on race, marital status and sexual orientation” in the provision of foster care and adoption services and demanded that Catholic Charities turn over a wide range of documents in response. The June 1 law authorizing civil unions in Illinois has raised further questions and criticism about Catholic Charities’ longstanding position not to place children for adoption and foster care with non-married couples who live together – regardless of sexual orientation.

This lawsuit, filed in Sangamon County Circuit Court, seeks a declaration that the charities are in full compliance with Illinois law in their current practices and an injunction against further action by Illinois government officials to the contrary. The charities argue both that the Illinois Human Rights Act exempts religious adoption agencies from the provisions relied upon by the Attorney General’s office and that the new Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act includes an express protection for the religious freedom of entities like Catholic Charities.

The charities ask the court to declare that they are legally justified to continue their current practices of working only with married couples and single, non-cohabiting individuals. Civil union couples are free to choose among dozens of other organizations for these services.

“Child welfare advocates know it is in the best interest of Illinois children for Catholic Charities to stay in this business,” said Steven Roach, Executive Director for Catholic Charities in the Springfield Diocese. “It’s tragic that there are people who believe unnecessarily disrupting the lives of thousands of vulnerable children is an acceptable outcome in this situation.”

Catholic Charities have served thousands of children and families with top-quality, nurturing care since 1921 and handle about 20 percent of the cases in Illinois. Charities’ leaders are extremely concerned what will happen with those children and families if they are forced out of this work.

“Religious and faith-based entities need not check their beliefs at the door when providing vital social services for the benefit of needy and vulnerable children and families in Illinois. Catholic Charities has a clear right under Illinois law to pursue its charitable good works in the true spirit of the Gospels and the Sermon on the Mount, faithful to the essential tenets of its Catholic faith. We will advocate strongly to protect Catholic Charities’ continuing its mission of social service,” said Tom Brejcha of the Thomas More Society, which is representing the charities in the lawsuit.

About the Thomas More Society

Formed in 1997, the Thomas More Society is a national public interest law firm based in Chicago. The Society defends religious liberty, marriage, and the sanctity of human life in courtrooms across the country. For more information, please visit www.thomasmoresociety.org.

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CONTACT: Peter LaBarbera (630)717-7631; americansfortruth@gmail.com

Christian business owners Jim and Beth Walder could be tied up in litigation for years to stop an attempt by homosexual activists and the State of Illinois to force them to host homosexual "civil union" ceremonies -- against their religious beliefs -- at their bed-and-breakfast in Paxton, Illinois. Here the Walders are shown with their five children.

SPRINGFIELD, Illinois – Americans For Truth President Peter LaBarbera said today that Springfield’s first-ever “Gay Pride” celebration is another tragic watershed for the Land of Lincoln – and said aggressive homosexual activism encroaching on America’s heartland will surely undermine the First Amendment and religious liberties of citizens who stand for traditional, biblical morality.

LaBarbera and AFTAH (Americans For Truth About Homosexuality) will stand in silent counter-protest to the Springfield homosexual “pride” festival near the state capitol (on Capital Avenue between Fifth and Sixth Streets), under the banner: “Homosexuality: Wrong. Unhealthy. Unnatural. Changeable.”

AFTAH expands on the banner’s message below:

•  Wrong:  Historic Judeo-Christian teaching  – Old and New Testament — holds that homosexual practice is sinful. (See Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Professor Robert Gagnon’s website, www.robgagnon.net, which ably refutes various LGBT attempts to affirm homosexuality as consistent with Christian ethos.) The Roman Catholic Church teaches that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.” Other major religions including Islam similarly teach that homosexual practice defies the Creator.

Naturally, efforts to transform American law to affirm people practicing same-sex behavior have collided with the religious and First Amendment liberties of those who disagree with homosexuality. In Illinois, shortly after lame-duck passage of the ”civil unions” bill, a homosexual  male couple targeted Paxton bed-and-breakfast owners Jim and Beth Walder, who have held wedding ceremonies on their property. The “gay” activists seek to use the new law to FORCE the Walders to use their own private business (and property) to host homosexual “civil union” ceremonies against their Christian conscience. Similarly, LGBT activists are maneuvering to FORCE private, religious adoption agencies in Illinois to place children in homosexual-led households against their religious beliefs.

•  Unhealthy:  Astonishingly consistent data from public health agencies continue to affirm homosexual practice as leading to disease rates vastly disproportionate to the tiny numbers (1-3 percent) of practicing homosexuals in society. For example, in 2008, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) surveyed “men who have sex with men” (MSM) in 21 major U.S. cities [see this CDC Fact Sheet] and found that one in five MSM had contracted HIV, and 44 percent of those did not even know it. (Ironically, today’s debut “Springfield Pride” is organized by the Phoenix Center, a local HIV/AIDS organization.)

•  Unnatural.  Even homosexual advocates admit to the high risk of practicing “gay” sex. Homosexual author Jack Hart writes that “some practices common among gays – especially rimming [anal-oral intercourse] and anal intercourse – are highly efficient at transmitting disease.” Moreover, Transgender activists celebrate the horrific surgical removal of healthy breasts and sex organs as part of their pitiable (and futile) quest to “become” the opposite sex. Nevertheless, pro-LGBT messages are given to youth in schools in the guise of promoting their “safety.”

•  Changeable:  Despite the sometimes vicious efforts of LGBT militants to deny the possibility of healthy change away from homosexuality, untold thousands of men and women have left the homosexual lifestyle behind. An example is Chicago’s Linda Jernigan, a one-time proud lesbian who now, as an ex-“gay” Christian, helps other people overcome homosexuality. Jernigan is black and cannot change her skin color, though with God’s help she successfully abandoned her immoral behavior and false lesbian identity. She was among those lobbying in Springfield against “civil unions” legislation.

“The truth is that homosexuality, bisexuality and gender confusion are nothing to be proud of,” said LaBarbera. “We hope and pray that some of the proud homosexuals attending ‘Springfield Pride’ would find freedom from homosexuality through Christ, and become content in healthy, wholesome sexuality – as so many ex-‘gays’ and ex-lesbians have.”

LaBarbera will be speaking at a rally in downtown Chicago May 27^th – at St. Peter’s Church in the Loop at 11:00 AM — where he will be announcing a major new ballot campaign to put Illinois voters on record in 2012 as supporting the preservation of marriage as between one man and one woman.

CONTACT: Peter LaBarbera: 630-717-7631; americansfortruth@gmail.com 

WARNING: Offensive descriptions and photos of materials that should NOT be promoted to college students 

Books on display at "Leather Library" exhibit hosted and sponsored by University of Chicago. Book at center, "Macho Sluts," combines S&M, incest and pedophilia. Other books promote sadistic perversion and public sex. Photos: Peter LaBarbera; click to enlarge.

[First of several reports on U-Chicago's corruption of students]

TAKE ACTION: Call the University of Chicago at 773-702-1234 and ask for President Robert Zimmer’s Office. [e-mail him at president@uchicago.edu]. Let him know that you are appalled that the Universiity is promoting sexual sadism and deviant pornography – even pedophilia – to its students.  The Chicago Sun-Times reports that U-Chicago could be the first of MANY colleges to host the perverse ”Leather Library” exhibit — but it also could be the last if this academic abuse causes the appropriate controversy. So make your voice heard on this today.

Keep this story alive: Lastly, contact Sun-Times reporter Kara Spak at kspak@suntimes.com [312-321-3000; press #5 twice] and: 1) thank her for doing the story; 2) tell her that most Americans would be outraged to learn of this academic abuse; and 3) urge her to keep following this shocking story of U-Chicago directly promoting S&M to students in the name of “diversity.”

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University of Chicago Promotes Sadomasochism and Pedophilia to Students — in the Name of Diversity 

CHICAGO–The University of Chicago provided nearly $3,200 to a “kink” student group for a traveling sadomasochistic “leather library” exhibit at the University that eroticized pedophilia, incest, and the most deviant pornographic perversions known to mankind. 

Americans For Truth about Homosexuality (AFTAH) sent a reporter yesterday to the exhibit – at the University’s International House – and came back with photos of the shockingly perverse offerings of the “Carter Johnson Leather Library,” including: 

• The lesbian porn book “Macho Sluts,” by Pat Califia, which includes a story about a mother who engages in sadistic, violent “sex play” with her own 13-year-old daughter;
• Numerous books celebrating “Master-Slave” relationships;
• “Gay” male pornographic fiction books with pederastic themes, including one 1975 book, “Small Town Boy,” about a 15-year-old boy who meets up with and is sodomized by an adult businessman visiting from New York City;
• Photos and posters depicting the twisted violence and “consensual” degradation and cruelty of S&M – including one of a woman caning her ball-and-chained male ”slave.”

The University of Chicago "leather" exhibit featured dozens of homosexual porn fiction books like this one, "Small Town Boy," about a 15-year-old boy who williingly is sodomized by an adult man visiting from New York City.

Incredibly, the University of Chicago now officially sanctions a “student group” for sexual sadists: RACK (Risk-Aware Consensual Kink), through which the traveling “leather library” exhibit was funded. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, RACK “received nearly $3,200 in university grant money to bring the display to campus.” 

The grant for the “fetish” exhibit came from the “Uncommon Fund,” a $40,000, student-run program that “offers a chance for students to pursue a wide range of ideas that can benefit the campus community and campus life,” a U-Chicago spokesman told the Sun-Times. 

Photo-"art" from the Leather Library shows a woman beating her male "slave," who has a ball-and-chain attached to his ankle. Why would the University of Chicago pay to promote such "sexualized cruelty" to its students?

The sadistic-sex exhibit was free and open to the public, and while AFTAH’s reporter was present, a few young women and men – who appeared to be around 20 – came to view the depraved materials. Exhibit creator Vi Johnson exulted to the Sun-Times: “Being able to bring this display to a college campus, put a 300-year-old book [about deviant sex] in the hands of a 20-year-old and say, ‘Here’s your history’ – it’s such a rush.” 

Just down the street from the International House is the University of Chicago Laboratory School (where Malia and Sasha Obama once attended). Around 3:00 PM Wednesday, as the “Leather Library” exhibit was winding down on its third and final day at the private university, dozens of elementary school children from the Lab School spilled onto the sidewalk. 

Poster advertises conference for bizarre dog-and-master perversion.

Coulter Lounge at University of Chicago's International House, where the "Leather Library" exhibit was hosted for three days.

“There could not have been a more jarring contrast between the innocence of children and the potential corruption that awaits them a mere decade later – at the hands of academic elites brandishing a particularly toxic form of tolerance,” said AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera. “I doubt many U-Chicago parents or alums are aware that U-Chicago is using its funds to expose young men and women to high-risk, vile behaviors – all in the name of ‘diversity.’”

One of hundreds of sadistic-sex books on display at University of Chicago's "Leather Library" exhibit.

:
As the Sun-Times reported, the University of Chicago’s promotion of sexual sadism to youth follows another S&M sex scandal — at Northwestern University, on the north side of Chicago, where, “in February, two non-student fetishists performed a live sex act with a custom designed sex toy in an optional, after-class Human Sexuality seminar.” Read Illinois Family Institute writer Laurie Higgins’ account of it HERE.

IFI Executive Director Dave Smith got lied to by a few "pro-family" legislators who caved on Civil Unions in Springfield.

This interview with David Smith, Executive Director of Illinois Family Institute (IFI), aired Dec. 11, 2010 [click HERE to listen]. Smith was lobbying in Springfield against the “Civil Unions” bill successfully pushed by the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate, and by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn. (See the Civil Unions roll call in the Illinois Senate and the House.) Smith describes how supposedly pro-family legislators reneged on their “No” pledge as they caved under the tremendous pressure that the Democratic leadership brought to bear on legislators. Several politicians who had indicated they were against Civil Unions switched their vote – as House Speaker Mike Madigan and Quinn wheeled and dealed to secure passage of legislation that constitutes a giant step toward recognizing “same-sex marriage” in the Land of Lincoln. (Madigan and Quinn are ”cafeteria” Catholics who disregarded the Illinois Catholic Conference’s strong opposition to the bill.) 

AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera comments on the lone Senate Republican who voted to pass Civil Unions: Sen. Dan Rutherford, who was just elected Illinois Treasurer. He notes that Rutherford’s alleged homosexuality is a fairly open secret (or widely suspected) among the state’s Republican activists. In 2005, LaBarbera, then executive director of IFI, challenged Rutherford — who (mis)represents a conservative, rural district in central Illinois –to be forthright and honest about his sexual behavior, after Rutherford made his first major pro-homosexual vote (a pro-homosexual “sexual orientation/gender identity” bill). Rutherford avoided the question. Smith and LaBarbera also note the pathetic GOP opposition to Civil Unions in the state House — with just two Republicans rising on the floor to speak against the bill.

LaBarbera commends Smith and IFI for leading the opposition to this homosexual-agenda bill (along with the Catholic Conference). Smith says that even through the legislative defeat many Republicans and Democrats were exposed to a former homosexual for the first time, in the person of Linda Jernigan, who joined him as a lobbyist in Springfield. (See the AFTAH Hour interviews with Jernigan HERE; and with IFI writer/analyst Laurie Higgins HERE).

HOW TO LISTEN: This is an mp3 file.  Left click once on the link below to play.  (Please be patient, depending upon the speed of your internet connection it may take a moment or two to load.) OR right click the link then “save target as” to download the whole show. 

12-11-10, Dave Smith, All

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No hateful homosexuals?

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute

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

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

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

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

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

Same sex parents harm children

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Homosexual men and shortened life spans

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nazism

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

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

Sin in the closet

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

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

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

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

Ex-gays

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

"Queer" sex columnist Dan Savage believes straight married couples should have outside sex (like many homosexual male couples) as a way to help reduce the divorce rate. Few in the LGBT movement have a record as extreme and hateful as Savage when it comes to vulgar demonizations of pro-family leaders like former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.

[CORRECTION: Note HERE our technical correction to this article: Dan Savage correctly points out that his and his male partner's "three way" trysts were with acquaintances -- NOT "strangers" as we originally reported in this piece.]

TAKE ACTION: Call taxpayer-funded WTTW at 773-583-5000 (9-5:00 Central Time M-F; hit “0″ and ask for Phil Ponce). Or contact WTTW CEO and President Dan Schmidt. Let WTTW know that it is hypocritical and shameful that they were so  respectful toward a hate-filled, vulgar anti-religious homosexual extremist like Dan Savage. Eight percent of WTTW’s budget comes from the taxpayers: urge the station to balance their in-depth interview with the anti-Christian Savage with an extended interview with a pro-family leader opposed to mainstreaming homosexuality.  You can e-mail the program at chicagotonight@wttw.com. Or leave an online message on Chicago Tonight’s contact form HERE. You can also contact your Congressman at 202-224-3121 (www.Congress.org) regarding cutting off all federal funds the far-left-biased Public Broadcasting System [contact PBS' Ombudsman HERE].

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Folks, I sent a version of the letter below to WTTW, Chicago’s main public TV station, and its daily evening  program, “Chicago Tonight.” Apparently, like most of the rest of Chicago’s Left-dominated media, WTTW has decided that there is no legitimate “other side” on the homosexuality issue. Hence Wednesday they felt free to do an embarrassingly uncritical interview with renegade ex-Catholic Dan (“Saliva Terrorist”) Savage – who is as radical and perverted a Christian-basher as there is in the LGBT movement. [To view Ponce's fawning interview with Savage, go HERE.]

I forgot to mention in my letter Savage’s admitted “three way” gay sexual romps — he, his “husband” Terry and a male acquaintance [NOTE: see AFTAH clarification: we originally reported that the three-ways were with "strangers"] — while Terry and he were co-adoptive “daddies” of “The Kid” (the title of Savage’s book). AFTAH wondered: who babysat “The Kid” during their orgy? Savage is a leading booster of “gay parenting” and homosexual adoption — once even landing as a guest on the conservative Michael Medved Show (Medved said he was unaware of Savage’s advocacy of “nonmonogamy” and his history of viciously maligning Christians.)

Savage is living proof that nobody hates like hard-core homosexual activists — yet because he is a “gay” activist and Christians are the target of his bile, Savage not only gets a pass from the media but is treated with deference and respect. (While in Chicago, Savage was also the featured speaker at the Chicago Humanities Festival.)

More Savage Hate

Wikipedia reminds me of one of Savage’s most cruel and vile stunts.  In 2003, the “Savage Love” columnist – upset at remarks by then-Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) linking homosexuality to other sexual sins — asked his readers to create a malicious definition for “Santorum” [see the "Political Advocacy" Wikipedia section HERE; watch a YouTube where Savage explains it HERE.]. We won’t reprint the winning entry [see this link; WARNING: graphic and disgusting], but suffice it to say that to achieve the desired grossness in his attempt to smear the good senator, Savage ironically but appropriately had to resort to using the by-product of anal sex for his sick “definition.” (That’s why homosexual sodomy was once described as the “Infamous Crime Against Nature,” Dan; the only thing more disgusting than describing its after-effects is actually doing it in the first place.)

Would WTTW air an ingratiating interview with a “conservative” activist who mocked, say, Sen. Harry Reid, by forever linking his last name online to the revolting byproduct of  perversion? Of course not.

Only “progressives” and hopelessly biased media would honor a toxic perv like Dan Savage with his seemingly boundless capacity for demonizing pro-family leaders, creatively reaching into the depths of his very, very dirty — and reprobate – mind.

According to FY 2009 figures [see p. 27 HERE], two percent of WTTW’s comes from the State of Illinois and six percent comes from the federal government. YOU, the taxpayers, just helped fund the promotion of this smutty, anti-Christian zealot; now take action to either de-fund PBS or get some balance and decency on this government-subsized network. See the Action Steps at top.  – Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

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Peter LaBarbera’s letter to WTTW:

Dear Sirs,

WTTW's Phil Ponce

I am stunned and appalled at Phil Ponce’s sycophantic interview with Dan Savage (11/17/10), who is a radical homosexual activist with starkly bigoted and hateful views against Christianity and traditionalists. Phil seemed to adore Savage as if he were some respected icon rather than a man so possessed with hatred for religious conservatives that he actually LICKED THE DOORKNOBS of the Iowa campaign office of evangelical presidential contender Gary Bauer in a twisted attempt to give Bauer a cold. Yep, a real role model for LGBT youth….

But it gets… worse….

Savage opines that straight married couples should tolerate outside sex (like many gay male couples) and that this would help lower the divorce rate (!). Why didn’t Phil raise any of these extreme opinions in questioning Savage — much less Savage’s routine use of the pejorative term “homophobe” (amidst other polemical cliches) to belittle traditional people of faith?

Savage obviously harbors a serious hatred against Christians — but somehow Ponce didn’t pick up on that or even make a pretense of querying Savage on his malice toward religious opponents of homosexuality. And by the way, Savage’s ridiculous slams against biblical orthodoxy on the issue of sinful homosexual behavior are easily answered — not that Phil thought to challenge him on that (see www.robgagnon.net for sound defenses of biblical teachings on homosexuality).

Would Ponce similarly “roll over” in an extended interview with a religious conservative? I doubt it. Would WTTW even consider doing an uncritical interview with a conservative columnist who has a long record — like Savage — of making extremist, vulgar, and hate-filled attacks against moral critics? Not a chance.

The only way for WTTW to right this example of journalistic malpractice and restore some sense of balance and impartiality on this issue is to invite a Christian, conservative opponent of the homosexual activist agenda on the program — and give him or her the same time and deferential treatment accorded Savage. Your very credibility as a “news” program and organization is on the line. I will be happy to provide you with a list of names of people who could fill that role.

Sincerely,

Peter LaBarbera

President,
Americans For Truth About Homosexuality
Carol Stream, IL
www.aftah.org
americansfortruth@gmail.com

New York City homosexual activist blogger Jeremy Hooper (right) and his boyfriend/"husband" can attend AFTAH's banquet Saturday, but they will not get our $50 Married Couples Discount, even though they went through a legal "marriage" ceremony in Connecticut.

When:  Saturday, Nov. 13, 2010; 6:00 PM; doors open at 5:30.

Who/What: Pastor Ken Hutcherson, keynote speaker. Catering by Maggiano’s Little Italy. Hutch is founder of the “Mayday for Marriage” rallies, a former NFL linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys and Seattle Seahawks, and pastor of Antioch Bible Church in Redmond, WA. [More info on Hutch HERE.] There may also be a testimony by a former lesbian who now helps others change through the Gospel of Christ.

Where:  Christian Liberty Academy, 502 W. Euclid Ave., Arlington Heights, IL 60004.

Tickets:  $75 per person (after Nov. and at the door. Married couples discount (one man/one woman only!): $100 per couple, no matter when you sign up.  Pay online at www.americansfortruth.com/donate. Or mail your check to: AFTAH, PO Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522. Pastors attend FREE; sponsor a pastor with your extra gift of $50!

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Yes, AFTAH Discriminates…in Favor of Real Marriage

By Peter LaBarbera, President of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality:

Dear Readers,

It struck me yesterday as I was reviewing my recent e-pitch for our AFTAH banquet — this Saturday, Nov. 13^th at Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights — that I wasn’t quite clear about the “discriminatory” intent of our invitation. Well, I wouldn’t actually use that word, but our fanatical homosexual activist opponents certainly would. You see, AFTAH is offering a Married Couples Discount for the banquet of $100 per married couple – a savings of $50 off the cost for last-minute registrants (and those at the door), who normally would have to pay $75 per person (or $150 per couple).

Here’s what I forgot to mention in the e-mail: our Married Couples Discount is available only to legitimately married couples (one man, one woman) – not homosexual “couples” playing house and pretending to be “married” as they practice a changeable and destructive lifestyle that defies their loving Creator and mocks the bedrock institution that they’ve politically appropriated in the name of “equality.”

And no: we will absolutely NOT give our discount even to those coupled homosexuals possessing legal “marriage” certificates from the following states: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire and California. Those pieces of paper – though efficacious to garner marriage-like benefits and status in those corrupt states — are bogus in the eyes of God and in light of America’s Judeo-Christian moral tradition – as they make a mockery of the very institution they are meant to “equalize.”

So to the ACLU I say: go ahead and sue us, because unlike those sorry states, Americans For Truth will not incentivize blasphemous and phoney “marriages.” (As Clint Eastwood said, Go ahead, make my day. We’ll count on our good friends at Liberty Counsel to defend us.)

Homosexuals welcome

This is not about “hate,” as so many (hateful) homosexual activists allege, but principle. A little discrimination can be a good thing, to quote my friend and Wisconsin pro-family advocate Ralph Ovadal (who has been brutally assaulted by “tolerant” pro-”gay” activists while defending truth on this issue). We all “discriminate” (definition: use good judgment) in healthy ways — e.g., choosing where to send our children to school –  and that’s exactly what the current societal effort to preserve marriage in our profane culture is all about.

If I and AFTAH hated homosexuals, we wouldn’t welcome (non-disruptive) people practicing homosexuality to come to our banquet. (A radical, lying Marxist homosexual group, the Chicago-based Gay Liberation Network, is leading a protest outside of the event.) I want them to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ as presented by our keynote speaker, Pastor Ken Hutcherson. [Listen to my recent interviews with Ken on the Americans For Truth Hour Here: Part 1; Part 2; and Part 3.] But homosexually-joined couples will have to fork over the extra 50 bucks if they choose to come.

‘Gay equality’ vs. true liberty

Election results for three Iowa Supreme Court judges who supported "gay marriage" and then were rejected Nov. 2 by the state's voters. Thankfully, Iowans showed "discriminating" judgment in favor of preserving real marriage. Click on graphic to enlarge.

Consider this a lesson in how homosexual “marriage” laws destroy the freedom of religious- and moral-minded Americans to live out their faith. Say you are an orthodox Jew and you own a business in Iowa (where in 2009 seven arrogant and socially left judges imposed counterfeit “marriage” on that state’s citizens; three of those judges were denied retention on Nov. 2!). You are a family-oriented guy trying to recruit good workers, so you offer generous employee benefits to all your married employees. Then one of your female homosexual employees takes advantage of the outrageous 2009 Iowa Supreme Court ruling by “marrying” another woman.

Under Iowa’s new marriage law, if you offer marriage benefits to your other employees, you must now extend those benefits equally to your homosexually “married” employees. So you face a choice: either get rid of the benefits for all married employees or join the Sin Subsidizing business with your hard-earned entrepreneurial profits. Fearing lawsuits and the well-heeled “Gay” Lobby, I’m afraid that most employers will probably go for the second option.

Note that in any state where the government rewards homosexual “domestic partners,” “civil unions” – or counterfeit “marriages” – the taxpayers, too, become subsidizers of homosexual misconduct.

Nature discriminates against homosexuality

Healthy, God-honoring societies do not subsidize and encourage destructive behaviors – especially through noble institutions like marriage. Yet that’s where America is heading, thanks to the work of revolutionary homosexual activists and their liberal allies.

The charter for the United States of America – our Declaration of Independence – references the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” Nature, created by God, obviously discriminates against homosexuality (who can doubt this—can two men make a baby together?). That is because homosexuality is not part of God’s plan — unlike marriage, His wonderful design for a man and a woman to “become one” and unite to make a family.

In fact, our true rights come from God and are consistent with His natural, created order – not sexual perversion! Liberty was never intended to advance unnatural sin, but the godly good. As England’s Sir William Blackstone –the father of English common law, and hence American law – wrote (emphasis added):

By the absolute rights of individuals we mean those which are so in their primary and strictest sense; such as would belong to their persons merely in a state of nature, and which every man is entitled to enjoy, whether out of society or in it . . . . Human laws define and enforce as well those rights which belong to a man considered as an individual, as those which belong to him considered as related to others.

For the principal aim of society is to protect in the enjoyment of those absolute rights, which were vested in them by the immutable laws of nature; … Hence it follows that the first and primary end of human law is to maintain and regulate these absolute rights of individuals . . . .

The absolute rights of man, considered as a free agent, endowed with discernment to know good from evil, and with power of choosing those measures which appear to him to be most desirable, are usually summed up in one general appellation and denominated the natural liberty of mankind. This natural liberty consists properly in a power of acting as one thinks fit, without any restraint or control, unless by the law of nature; being a right inherent in us by birth, and one of the gifts of God to man at his creation, when he endued him with the faculty of free will.

It is fascinating that with the growing acceptance of homosexuality and other sexual sins in our increasingly decadent, post-Christian culture, we once again face the very threat that Thomas Jefferson feared – and which inspired our First Amendment: governments encroaching on Americans’ free exercise of religion. The homosexual activists’ desperate push for affirmation, lately aided by the State, has driven them into the realm of persecuting others by arguing that their newfound “right” to practice homosexuality (in all its manifestations, including homosexual-led families) supersedes the natural liberty of others NOT to accept, much less subsidize, ungodly conduct.

We must not allow government to suppress our natural, God-given liberties for the pursuit of an egalitarian agenda that posits a false “equality” between two things — real, man-woman marriage and counterfeit homosexual “marriage” — that are anything but equal.

The following is video of the August 5 protest against the AFTAH Truth Academy by a coalition of pro-homosexuality groups led by the Marxist Gay Liberation Network. The Chicago-based GLN attempted to smear the Truth Academy as “teaching hate,” but the real hate came from some of the protesters — not Truth Academy instructors like Ryan Sorba (featured prominently in this video). Several Academy presenters including Matt Barber, Greg Quinlan and AFTAH founder Peter LaBarbera joined Sorba in wading into the crowd, engaging various protesters on the question of “hate.” The first video below was shot by Illinois conservative Lynn Thomas, creator of Cao’s Blog, and Janet Aldrich [a second YouTube follows the jump]:

This video of the protest was shot by Lynn Thomas; in it Gay Liberation Network co-leader Bob Schwartz says hopefully about Truth Academy instructor Cliff Kincaid — who exposed GLN’s deep linkage with pro-Communist organizations like the Sparticist League: “maybe he could get hit by a car” (now that’s tolerance….):

HOW TO LISTEN: This is an  mp3 file.  Left click once on the link below to play.  (Please be patient, depending upon the speed of your internet connection it may take a moment or two to load.) OR right click the link then “save target as” to download the whole show.

7-24-10, Wayne Lela & John McCartney, All

The Gay Liberation Network's Bob Schwartz celebrated U. of Illinois' firing of Catholic professor Kenneth Howell (above) -- strange behavior for a group that crusades against "discrimination."

The homosexual hate group Gay Liberation Network (GLN) — whose co-leader Bob Schwartz celebrated the University of Illinois’ recent firing of Catholic professor Kenneth Howell — has announced that it will protest the AFTAH Truth Academy, which will be held Aug. 5-7 at the Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights, Illinois.

GLN is a Marxist-oriented street protest group that attempts to equate Judeo-Christian opposition to homosexuality with “hate” — and which uses its protests to intimidate businesses from hosting pro-family events. For its extreme anti–Christian bigotry and hateful rhetoric — including vicious ad hominem attacks against pro-family critics (e.g., calling AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera “Satan’s Lover”)  – we label GLN a homosexual hate organization.

GLN, formerly the Chicago Anti-Bashing Network, once smeared the historic Moody Church in Chicago as a “House of Hate” because Moody’s revered pastor, Erwin Lutzer, wrote a book critical of “same-sex marriage.” GLN has repeatedly pilloried Chicago’s Catholic leaker Cardinal Francis George with similar accusations because George defends Catholic teachings on sex and marriage.

Beyond that, Schwartz once told LaBarbera — who was protesting a “gay youth” rally in downtown Chicago as then-executive director of Illinois Family Institute – that if it weren’t for the police standing nearby, he would push him into the busy street. (Schwartz has never denied making this comment after it was reported by IFI.) LaBarbera maintains that had such a veiled violent threat been made against a homosexual by a conservative or Christian, it could have been the basis for a criminal charge under Chicago’s ”hate crime” law.

Thus it is a great irony that the nasty GLN played a proud role in lobbying the leftist Southern Poverty Law Center to label AFTAH a “hate site.”

Here is an excerpt of GLN’s ludicrous attempt to distort the Truth Academny’s true purpose:

Youth should not be taught to hate their peers and thus fuel the cycle of self-loathing, depression and suicide which too many LGBTQ youth experience. Bigotry must be vocally and publicly opposed, especially when haters try to recruit young people.

Gay Liberation Network activists specialize in name-calling. Ironically, the Marxist-oriented, Christian-bashing hate group played a role in lobbying the Southern Poverty Law Center to label AFTAH a "hate" website.

Defending historic Judeo-Christian moral truths and the natural family is not “hate.” Teaching young people to revere biblical teachings and God’s natural design for the family — and how to answer GLBT misinformation in the public sphere – is not “bigotry.” However, GLN’s vicious name-calling and ugly condemnations of traditionalists as “haters” — and its regular lies about religious leaders who oppose homosexual practice – is a form of secular, anti-Christian bigotry. This neo-intolerance must be resisted at every turn by the avid participation of pro-family Americans at events like the Truth Academy.

Linda Jernigan (www.RescuingHomosexuals.net) has found freedom from lesbianism through Jesus Christ.

Here is Part One of AFTAH’s June 19, 2010 interview with Linda Jernigan, a former lesbian who — beginning at the tender age of 12 — was lured into the homosexual lifestyle by an older woman who was supposed to be her “mentor.” Linda’s Chicago-based ministry, Rescuing Homosexuals, now helps people get out of the “gay” lifestyle, like she did through the grace of God. 

HOW TO LISTEN: This is an mp3 file.  Left click on the link below to play.  (Please be patient, depending upon the speed of your internet connection it may take a moment to load.) OR right click the link then “save target as” to download the whole show.

6-19-10, Linda Jernigan, All

“It is important to say that under Rehoboth law this was not against the law … In this case, they had male genitalia; therefore, they are not guilty of a crime.” - Rehoboth, Del., Police Chief Keith Banks

If transgender 'she-males' go topless, is it public nudity? Cops in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, say "No." Above, a male-to-female transsexual bares his presumably hormone-induced breasts while riding atop a float at the 2007 Chicago Gay Pride parade. The "she-male" rode for blocks in the parade as police took no action against him. Covered photo: Americans For Truth.

God help us. We have become a sick and very weird culture. In the good old days (before “she-males” existed), they would just call such people “perverts.” America was better off then. Check out in the piece below the anger of the local homosexual activist at the end of this story: no, Steve, what is truly “horrific” is that men are pretending to be woman, growing hormone-induced “breasts,” demanding “rights” based on their twisted gender choices, and then making even a bigger circus out of it all by going “topless” in public.

Can you see the misogyny in action here? In many ways, male transsexuals create in their reconstructed image a crude and deviant caricature of women (what they imagine being a woman is all about). I suppose in this case (and that of the “gay pride” photo above), we see men attempting to “live out” their fantasy — or delusion — of “being” slutty women. Too weird. Besides, in our depraved culture, aren’t there enough slutty women out there already that we don’t need men to “create” some more?

Only a nation that has kicked God to the curb would be on the verge of creating federally-guaranteed employment “rights” based on such unbelievable gender confusion. (That’s what ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, would do.) Imagine all the trouble that activist “trannies” could cause for employers once they figure out the special treatment they can get merely by crying “discrimination!” Heck, they might show up at the company picnic in a low-cut halter top with lots of (fake) “cleavage” showing — just for the fun of it. The rest of us will have to bite our tongues or risk a Lambda Legal lawsuit. Don’t tell me this is what Martin Luther King died for! – Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

P.S. Big surprise: Rehoboth is a popular “gay” destination.

____________________________________

WUSA9.com reports:

Transgendered Men Go Topless In Rehoboth

(delawareonline.com) June 3, 2010– Rehoboth Beach and the local Internet have been buzzing for days after a few transgendered men caused a stir on the beach over the holiday weekend by removing their tops and revealing their enhanced breasts.

Police there were called to the beach after lifeguards requested that the sunbathers replace their tops.

“Passers-by came up to the lifeguard and said they were alarmed and unhappy with the females showing their breasts,” Police Chief Keith Banks said. “The lifeguard responded and saw that they were males.”

Banks said police were called because the men originally refused to put their tops back on, but had consented before police arrived. Officers made sure the situation was under control, and no citations were issued.

Banks said it could have been difficult to issue a citation because Rehoboth law defines indecent exposure two ways:

“A male is guilty of indecent exposure if he exposes his genitals or buttocks under circumstances which he knows his conduct is likely to cause affront or alarm to another person.

“A female is guilty of indecent exposure if she exposes her genitals, breasts or buttocks under circumstances which she knows her conduct is likely to cause affront or alarm to another person.”

So the men’s behavior may have been upsetting, but it was not illegal.

“It is important to say that under Rehoboth law this was not against the law,” Banks said. “In this case, they had male genitalia; therefore, they are not guilty of a crime.”

Banks said police only enforce the laws and want to make sure that people who visit the beach are comfortable. Police have not had previous problems with this kind of behavior, and there is no need for a specific law to address it, Banks said.

Not all are so sure.

“We’ll see if we need to address it,” said Kathy McGuiness, one of Rehoboth’s commissioners. McGuiness said this will be a topic at a town hall meeting next week.

“I can’t speak for the mayor or anyone else. I can speak for myself because I am a commissioner. I hardly see us reversing the topless law. I don’t think we are going to repeal it and allow women to go topless. Now if someone is going to go through the process of having implants, then they probably should think about following the laws of the person they would like to become,” McGuiness said.

Steve Elkins, executive director of CAMP Rehoboth, a nonprofit based in Rehoboth that aims to promote a positive environment for the gay and lesbian community, essentially agreed.

“Technically it wasn’t against the law. However, there are situations where people who — because of feelings about their birth, because of who they are — perceive themselves as females. I think we have to respect that, but on the other hand since they chose to identify themselves as females, they have to respect the law.”

Elkins said he also thinks that it is horrific that some people who voiced outrage through radio talk shows and the Internet only have a problem because they were transgendered.

“Whoever called and complained [initially] complained about a woman having her top off,” he said. “The people now trying to make something about the fact that they were also men, they are trying to have it both ways. You can’t have it both ways.”

From the Bi Health Summit’s website’s report on its conference in Chicago Friday, Aug. 14 (emphasis added):

Research presented by Cheryl Dobinson, MA, and Stewart Landers, JD, MCP, from their two separate studies was remarkably similar.  Bisexuals reported suffering from depression and anxiety in higher rates than heterosexuals or lesbians and gay men.  In terms of attempting or thinking of attempting suicide, bisexual men were 7 times higher, while gay men were 4 times higher, than straight men; bisexual women were 6 times higher, while lesbian women were 4 times higher, than straight women.  An Australian study revealed that middle-aged bi women were 24 times more likely to engage in self harm, like cutting, than straight women, as a coping mechanism.

Dobinson’s research revealed that only 26% of bisexuals did not experience child sexual abuse.  I’ll be getting more information on violence, domestic violence, and physical or sexual abuse, since she whizzed through a lot of that information and I don’t wish to misquote her findings.

I would also like to speak more with Cheryl Dobinson regarding her findings in anal sex for bi women and men.  Her research shows that bi men have fewer male partners than gay men and engage in anal sex less with men, but are more likely to have unprotected anal sex with men; while bi women have higher rates of anal sex with men than straight women and are more likely to report being HIV+.  … I would really like to discuss the 2005 CDC study with her that showed 44% of straight men and 35% of straight women engaged in anal sex.

Stewart Landers’ information from the 2001-2006 Massachusetts’ Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey — which is just the kind of huge population study bi researchers are looking for — revealed similar levels of depression, anxiety, suicidality, self-harm, and suffering from violence.  Bisexual adults report poorer health and greater risks across a whole spectrum of health factors, including alcohol, substance abuse, and tobacco use.  Heart disease seems to be up 3 times higher than straight people, asthma rates reported higher than straight people but fairly equal to lesbians and gay men.

Landers’ study showed a surprising finding that people 18-24 were the largest group identifying as bisexual.

See also a related report from the Bi Health Summit: “Half of Homosexuals are Bisexual: Homosexual Newspaper.”

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

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

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

_______________________________________

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.