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.
Biased, leftist SPLC has never reported hateful homosexual groups like ACT UP
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….”
Perverted and Christian-hating sex columnist treated with great respect in Chicago
"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.)
AFTAH banquet’s Married Couples Discount not available to counterfeit homosexual “marrieds”
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.
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!
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. 13th 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.”
GLN leader says hopefully that Academy instructor Cliff Kincaid “could get hit by a car”
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]:
Here is Part Two of our interview with Wayne Lela (founder of H.O.M.E.) and John McCartney, two Chicago men who for years have reached out to college youth in the Chicagoland area with facts about homosexuality that the liberal media and pop-culture ignore. This interview aired July 24, 2010. (Listen to Part One HERE.) In this interview they discuss the four themes they stress in their interaction with students, including the severe health risks of male homosexuality. Both Lela and McCartney will be attending our Truth Academy: Chicago 2010 next week (Aug. 5-7) at the Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights, IL. You can access the archive of Americans For Truth interviews 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.
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.
[NOTE: JERNIGAN TALK POSTPONED: Due to a death in the family of a dear friend, Linda Jernigan's dinner-lecture presentation at AFTAH tomorrow (Friday, June 25) has been postponed]
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.
Americans for Truth
P.O. Box 5522
Naperville, IL 60567-5522
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and at the door. Married couples discount 
