Pro-homosexual "marriage" activist attacks TFP banner that proclaimed marriage as it truly is: between a man and a woman. TFP members shouted "Aggressor!" as the assailant did his dirty deed. Later, a TFP member was hit in the head by a beer bottle thrown from a car passing by.

Folks, we’ve seen this nasty brand of homosexual bullying and intolerance so often that we’re no longer shocked by it. Watch the TFP Student Action video as peaceful TFP members shout “Aggressor!” as this troubled man walks up and destroys their banner, in Fairport, New York. Imagine if a bunch of pro-family activists did this to a pro-”gay banner” banner! (CBS, ABC, NBC, and CNN would be lining up to tell the story.) TFP is a Catholic group that has done yeoman’s work standing up for real marriage across the nation. Watch the TFP Student Action video at their website HERE. – Peter LaBarbera,. www.aftah.org

______________________________

Video: Pro-Homosexual Advocate Destroys Traditional Marriage Banner in New York

Contact: Contact: John Ritchie, American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, 717-495-5427

FAIRPORT, N.Y., June 6, 2011 /Christian Newswire/ — Volunteers with the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP) were assaulted while peacefully demonstrating for traditional marriage in Fairport, New York, on June 2.

As young TFP volunteers stood at the corner of Main Street and Church Street with signs, a pro-homosexualist hurled himself against the group’s thirteen foot long banner inscribed with “God’s Marriage = 1 Man & 1 Woman.” The banner, held by three volunteers, was knocked down and violently torn to pieces.

Watch video footage of the attack HERE.

The assailant also threatened to destroy the group’s cameras used to document their campaigns for moral values. “I’ll smash your camera,” he said.

Approaching another TFP volunteer who was holding a sign that read “Honk for Traditional Marriage,” the aggressor said: “Are you going to give me your sign, or do I need to rip it up too!?”

In a separate incident at the same demonstration, another supporter of “gay marriage” threw a beer bottle at TFP volunteer Michael Shibler from a moving vehicle. The glass bottle hit him on the forehead, causing it to swell and bleed. Local police are investigating both incidents.

“These bully tactics do not even slightly dampen my resolve to continue promoting the truth about marriage in charity. Our cause is noble and we will win,” said Shibler.

“Some say that same-sex ‘marriage’ doesn’t harm or affect anybody. Well, I think my throbbing forehead is a good example of how it does harm people. Anti-family proponents would like to completely silence my first amendment right to free speech,” he said. “While demanding tolerance for what they call ‘diversity,’ they are utterly intolerant of opposing viewpoints.”

TFP, a Catholic organization, was distributing flyers titled “10 Reasons Why Homosexual ‘Marriage’ Is Harmful and Must Be Opposed.” It calls on New Yorkers to firmly and peacefully resist the advance of the so-called gay-rights movement.

Christian Newswire release: http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/8927017115.html

GLBT-award-winning homosexual blogger Joe Jervis.

By Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

Wow. The analytical powers of atheist, homosexual perversion-defender Joe Jervis’ (of the Joe. My. God. blog)  are in full display as he exposes the sinister, long-concealed ”truth” that AFTAH has been trying to hide for decades — that we are aligned with the … KKK … yeah, that’s it … the KKK! Joe alone had the analytical skills to pull together the story: AFTAH (and by extension FRC, AFA, Liberty Counsel, ADF, PFOX, etc.) have partered with the Klan to stop gay equality!!

I jest, of course. But Joe is serious–that’s the sad part. (Apparently he didn’t get the memo that the first one to call the other guy a “Nazi” in a debate is the automatic loser — that is, unless your opponent, like Wayne Besen, is actually behaving like a Nazi.) Try to focus so you can comprehend at least a portion of GLBT-award-winning Jervis’ sophisticated political equation:

1. Peter LaBarbera opposes the un-American idea that committed Christian students like Jennifer Keeton would become ineligible to get a college degree in counseling because they refuse to deny their faith by affirming homosexuality.
2. The Ku Klux Klan — hateful racists that they are — rallies against the same misguided idea.
3. Ergo, Peter LaBarbera and the KKK are comrades-in-arms.

Jervis ends his piece: “Peter LaBarbera and the KKK, both on the same side of hate. Feels like a perfect match.” 

Such finely-honed logic. Such depth of reasoning and discernment. The nuances alone are worth pondering and studying for years to come. Joe, here’s the deal: your hatred of Americans For Truth and this writer (but more important, for the God who lovingly created you) is getting the best of you. Next time you set out to discredit AFTAH, try using a line of argumentation that wouldn’t embarrass a smart 5th-grader if he or she tried it.

Here’s Jervis’ post (beware: Joe’s web-groupies evince a level of hatred for Christians that almost makes Joe appear reasonable by comparison): http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2010/10/south-carolina-ku-klux-klan-to-rally-in.html

_______________________________________

Would Ann Coulter speak at an event for “Republicans For Responsible Porn Use,” or “Republicans for Higher Taxes,” or Republicans for Choice (Abortion) -- if such groups took legitimately conservative positions on other issues like gun rights?

Contact: Peter LaBarbera: 630-717-7631; e-mail: AmericansForTruth@gmail.com ; August 10, 2010

CHICAGO — Americans For Truth About Homosexuality President Peter LaBarbera today urged conservative pundit Ann Coulter to reconsider her appearance at “Homocon,” a September event for the homosexual Republican group GOProud. 

LaBarbera said: 

As a fan of Ann Coulter, it pains me to see her cave in to political correctness and lend credibility to the phony homosexual “conservatives” over at GOProud. Worse, Coulter is sending a dangerous message to young Americans that homosexuality is OK. (It’s actually a sin.) Fully half of GOProud’s top 10 federal priorities center on using the Government to advance homosexuality, including: 

#4 – “Repealing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’” – Homosexualizing the military is reckless, especially in wartime. GOProud claims to defend “individual liberty,” but what about the privacy rights of normal soldiers who don’t want to bunk and shower with men who lust after other men? Moreover, if DADT is repealed, the military will become a massive government bureaucracy for pro-homosexual “diversity” – subjecting millions of tradition-minded servicemen to Orwellian, same-sex propaganda to enforce its new lavender crusade. (Chaplains: beware.) 

# 7 – “Opposing any anti-gay federal marriage amendment.” Coulter must know that America might be just one Supreme Court justice away from legalizing oxymoronic homosexual “marriage” – which would undermine religious freedom in every state in the nation. A Federal Marriage Amendment could be the only way to stop this Roe v. Wade-like disaster. And since when did state-enforced homosexual “marriage” – with its corrosive effect on liberty and linkage to Homosexuality Promotion in schools — become “conservative”? 

GOProud's flier for Ann Coulter appearance Sept. 25 in New York City.

GOProud is non-committal on ENDA (Employment Non-Discrimination Act), which would federalize workers’ “rights” based on homosexuality and gender confusion. A truly conservative organization would fight this federal power grab — and GLBT lawyers’ dream legislation — tooth and nail. Ann, are you aware that these days it’s Christians like Julea Ward and Matt Barber who defend biblical truth – not “gays” – who are victims of corporate discrimination? 

One must ask Coulter, who professes Christianity: 

• Would you speak at an event for “Republicans For Responsible Porn Use,” or “Republicans for Higher Taxes,” or Republicans for Choice (Abortion) — if such groups took legitimately conservative positions on other issues like gun rights?
• Does God condemn only Democratic “men who lie with a male as one lies with a woman” – while giving Republican sodomists a pass?

Homosexual practice may be hip in New York City, but objectively it is always wrong and unnatural, and often unhealthy. Thankfully it’s also changeable, as proved by thousands of ex-gay men and ex-lesbians. Ann: why don’t you speak instead at a conference for former homosexuals? It’s not PC, but it would be far more consistent with your conservative principles than celebrating GOProud – which works directly against the Republican Party’s pro-family and pro-marriage platform. 

Please reconsider and nix your GOProud talk — in the name of true conservatism.­

For more information on this vile event — the “Folsom Street East” block party held June 21, 2009 in Manhattan — see our initial photo-story: “New York City Plays Host to Folsom-East Deviant Sex-Fest — Violating Lewdness Laws.” We will have more YouTube videos on Folsom Street East’s illegal public depravities; more background follows video:

This is footage from New York City “Folsom Street East” sadomasochistic “block party” in Manhattan (nudity is covered up) — shot by a New York volunteer for Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH). The event featured public perversions and nudity like this man tied to a St. Andrew’s cross — who, with genitals exposed, is being “electro-tortured” by another man wielding a remote control device.  Note the willing “victim” writhing in pain after his “torturer” clicks the remote. Such open public nudity and lewdness is a violation of several New York laws, yet police did nothing to intervene in this event.

Police later told AFTAH that they normally do not monitor private “block parties” ($10 gained entrance to Folsom East), but due to citizen complaints they will be more strict before issuing a permit to “Folsom Street East” organizers next year. Note: this NYC event is a copycat of the sadomasochism-celebrating “Folsom Street Fair” held annually in San Francisco. Information on contacting New York City officials, including police, is at the end of the video. — Peter LaBarbera

Related AFTAH stories: 

• “New York City Plays Host to Folsom-East Deviant Sex-Fest — Violating Lewdness Laws.”
• ‘’Tolerance Gone Wild’ in San Francisco as Cops Stand By Amidst (2007) Folsom Street Fair’s Public Perversions and Widespread Nudity”
• “Sodom & Gomorrah Would Blush: Homosexual Sadists Mock Jesus with Last Supper Take-Off in Poster for ‘Folsom Street Fair’”
• ‘Nudity Is Illegal’ but Public Nudity Was Everywhere at Folsom Street Fair (2008)
•  San Francisco’s Deviant Values: New (2009) Folsom Street Poster Mocks Family, Prop 8
• So Much for ‘Leather Pride’ — Folsom Organizers Try to Stop AFTAH from Exposing their Vile Event

Rev. Kristopher Okwedy, a Nigerian immigrant, thought he would have the freedom to proclaim Biblical truth about homosexuality in the “the land of the free and home of the brave,” but alas, New York City politicians banned his billboard (left). Judge Sonia Sotomayor joined a Second Circuit order that denied Okwedy’s free speech. The ruling was obviously hostile to religion despite the Court’s claim otherwise. 

________________________

American Family Association Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 26, 2009

SOTOMAYOR: It’s okay for Government to ridicule Holy Bible

In 2003, Judge Sonia Sotomayor joined a Second Circuit order that excused government hostility toward religion.  In 2000, Rev. Kristopher Okwedy and Keyword Ministries, Inc. –– a Christian Church –– put up a billboard sign quoting a verse of the Holy Bible, Leviticus 18:22, that says, “Thou shall not lie with a male as with a female –– it is an abomination.”  The sign included the postscript, “I AM YOUR CREATOR.”  After three days and much public outcry, Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari called the display “mean spirited” and said the Bible verse “conveys an atmosphere of intolerance which is not welcome in our Borough.”  He then attempted to have the sign removed or covered up.

Okwedy and Keyword Ministries sued in federal court, contending that Molinari’s statements violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, i.e., that the government must remain neutral in matters of religion.  The district court dismissed the case and Okwedy appealed.  A Second Circuit panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals that included Judge Sotomayor found no Establishment Clause violation because Molinari’s statement did not target a particular religious denomination or disapprove of religion.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has stated unequivocally that government must remain neutral in matters of religion,” said AFA General Counsel Patrick J. Vaughn.  “Judge Sotomayor joined a summary order that said it’s okay for government to condemn the Bible,” he added.  Don Wildmon, Chairman of American Family Association, observed that Sotomayor’s opinion “places a judicial stamp of approval on the comment of renowned communist Karl Marx that ‘religion is the opiate of the masses’ and further would permit a government official to say that the Bible is akin to Aesop’s Fables.”  Wildmon added that Sotomayor’s appointment to the Supreme Court would have “grave consequences for religious freedom.”

The case is Okwedy v. Molinari, 01-7941 (2d Cir. 2003) (unpublished summary order). To read a terrific albeit dated article about Okwedy and his billboard, see Stephen Crampton’s 2006 piece, “Okwedy’s Oddysey: The Bible as Hate Speech,” in Renew America.

American Family Association is a pro-family advocacy organization with over 2.5 million online supporters.

WARNING: Graphic Behaviors Described

Note on Nudity and Numbers: an atheist homosexual leatherman, Joe Jervis, has challenged our source’s reporting on the number of leatherman who exposed themselves at “Folsom Street East.”  Jervis, who mocks Jesus Christ (by calling him “Jeebus”) and revels in repeating the lie that AFTAH founder Peter LaBarbera is a closeted homosexual, attended the event … as the judge of a “porn star contest.” (He says he cannot show the photos from that — as if to prove our point.) We checked back with our New York videographer and he estimates that the number of men who walked around with genitals and/or buttocks exposed at 50 to 200. Whether the figure is 25 or 175, the photos below speak for themselves. And it is shocking that such illegal public nudity and lewd acts were allowed to go on at all. Click HERE to watch AFTAH’s video on Folsom Street East. — Editor]

“Shocking” Public Perversion in Big Apple: a sadistic homosexual engages in “electro-torture” by remote control of another man (exposed genitals covered up in all photos) at New York City’s “Folsom East” block party. (The hand-held remote control device is circled in photo.) New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg supports legalizing “gay marriage” but apparently he decided not to enforce anti-nudity and anti-lewdness laws in his own city on Sunday, June 21st. Click on photos to enlarge.

NEW YORK CITY — Americans For Truth About Homosexuality has obtained shocking video footage of a sadistic homosexual street fair in Manhattan Sunday (June 21, 2009) in which hundreds of men walked around naked and engaged in public lewd and sadistic acts in violation of state decency laws — as police did nothing, apparently under orders from New York City’s governing authorities.

Above is a photo of a man engaging in a public “electro-torture” of another man (his exposed genitals covered up in our photo) at the “Folsom East” street festival in New York City. The ‘torturer” is holding a remote control device (like a TV remote, circled in the photo) which sends an electrical current shock through the body of the man bound to a St. Andrew’s cross — who writhed in pain every time the torturer pressed the button (see photo at right). Dozens of men looked on with satisfaction at the grotesque spectacle.

Folsom East is a copycat of San Francisco’s über-perverse “Folsom Street Fair” and bills itself as “New York’s premiere SM-leather-fetish block party.” The “fair” was held in Manhattan on West 28th Street between 10th & 11th Avenues. AFTAH’s anonymous source said he spotted police on the outside perimeter of the event but saw none inside the actual boundaries of the block party. He said he saw hundreds of men walking around with their genitals and buttocks fully exposed. [See note above on numbers -- Editor]

Robert Peters, president of New York City-based Morality in Media and a New York attorney who is an expert on obscenity and related laws, said the Folsom East activities appeared to be in violation of New York State’s laws against: “Public lewdness” (Penal Law, Section 245.00); “Exposure of a person” (Section 245.01); and a “Promoting the exposure of a person” (Section 245.02).

Peters said the “electro-torture” demonstration shown in the redacted photo above may have also violated the New York Obscenity Law (Section 235.05(2), banning obscene performances), noting that the definition of “Obscene” in the law includes “sadism,” “masochism” and “lewd exhibition of the genitals.”

Ironically, proceeds from the “Folsom East” event (attendees paid $10 to get in) go to the New York City Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project (AVP) , according to the Folsom East website. In other words, “consensual” sexual violence is celebrated and tolerated by the same movement that attempts to link mainstream, faith-based pro-family organizations to acts of violence targeting homosexuals.

“Tragically, the New York City Police Department turns a blind eye towards violations of these laws during the ‘gay pride’ festivities each year,” Peters said.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has emerged as a vocal supporter of a bill to legalize same-sex “marriage” in New York State, a vote on which is expected today.

The Folsom East “block party” is only the latest example of “special rights” granted to homosexuals and other deviant-sex aficionados (otherwise known as perverts) across America, especially surrounding “gay pride” events in major cities. San Francisco is now cracking down on the public nudity at the sadistic “street fairs” there, after efforts by Americans For Truth and others to expose the non-enforcement of decency laws.

“I probably will get hate mail for saying this but this type of hookup culture is common in the homosexual world. Another guy in NY who did the same thing was murdered. And yes heterosexuals do it to, but no matter what type of sexual proclivity it is, SIN leads to death. The best course of action is to get out of the deadly sin business and live for Christ.“
–DL Foster, former homosexual and publisher of Gay Christian Movement Watch, commenting on the murder of homosexual New York City newsman George Weber.

DL Foster, founder of Gay Christian Movement Watch, and
the beautiful family that his former life of homosexuality could not have produced.

By Peter LaBarbera

Folks, I heartily recommend that you become regular readers of DL Foster’s important blog, Gay Christian Movement Watch, analyzing and monitoring the so-called “gay christian” movement. DL gets attacked often by loving and tolerant homosexual activists because he tells it like it is. Go there often, tell all your friends about it, and take a stand for truth with DL against those who would pervert the Gospel of Christ.

(Speaking of which, renegade Christian and Grove City College prof Warren Throckmorton now seems to be on a crusade against pro-family veteran Scott Lively — joined by Warren’s homosexuality-promoting buddies, of course. We think Warren ought to deal with that heretical log in his own eye –  Throckmorton agreed in a 2007 interview with “gay” activist Mike Signorile that “being gay” is “normal, natural and healthy” — before picking at the speck in Scott’s.)

But I digress. Below Foster comments on the sad irony that less than a year before his death, George Weber — who was murdered by a 16-year-old boy he hooked up with for sex — complained about evangelical Christians witnessing at an airport. “Jesus freaks,” he called them. DL is right: many of America’s problems can be traced to the fact that there is so little fear of God in this nation. There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is the ways of death (Proverbs 14:12).

Who can doubt that if Weber had stopped and listened to those “Jesus freaks” in the airport and allowed the Gospel of grace to penetrate his heart and change his life, he likely would have escaped putting himself in the dangerous circumstances that exposed him to a sadomasochistic, teenage, sex-crazed murderer. Go to “A Tragic and Ironic End” on the on the GCM Watch site to read the whole entry:

Little did the gay man [George Weber] who wrote that tragically ironic blogpost March 30, 2008 know that his soul would be required of him less than a year later.  George Weber, an ABC News broadcaster in New York was stabbed to death March 22, 2009, by a 16 year old boy he picked up for sex. The report said Weber routinely picked up men for sex from Craigslist. [source]

No one knows when their time to die will come. If you are reading this and you have not given your life to Christ, don’t delay. Don’t turn a deaf ear and go on enjoying your sin. Don’t mock God or the people he sends to you to tell you time is winding up and your soul is at stake. The only payment you can receive from sin is death.  And when death comes and you are not in relationship with Christ, hell and eternal torment await you. That’s not to scare you, its just the unfettered truth.

Read HERE to read what another man who turned his former “gay” life around by accepting Christ says about the Weber murder.

By Peter LaBarbera

Sometimes in advocacy work against sexual revolutionaries, you make arguments and inferences that you know are logical and sensible, but at the time they seem a bit theoretical, and it is easy to doubt yourself. The strange thing about the anything-goes world we have entered, though, is that the awful specter you predicted comes faster and more brazenly than you would have thought possible. It happened with “same-sex marriage” — an absurd mimicry of normalcy now embraced by many liberals — and it’s happening with other similarly bizarre concepts and sexual behaviors.

While homosexuals certainly cannot be blamed for the entire, sordid Sexual Revolution, the “gay pride” (GLBT) movement has paved the way for a perversion explosion among “heterosexuals.” For if it’s perfectly acceptable for men to sodomize other men in the name of “love” — and lesbianism and bisexuality and now transsexuality to be treated as OK (while it’s NOT OK to judge them as wrong) — then what on earth is stopping other perverts like Tristan Taormino (above left) from pursuing the same popularity and acceptance? And ditto for “poly rights” in the law.

In the case of Taormino, this is one of those rare instances in which calling someone a “pervert” seems like a quaint understatement. The author of a “lesbian erotic” book, she is also apparently the world’s biggest advocate of anal sodomy for women and also a champion of  “polyamorous” (or “poly,” i.e., multiple-partner) relationships. Taormino is also scheduled to speak at the “Winter Wickness” sadomaschistic event scheduled to be held tonight and tomorrow at the Holiday Inn Columbus-Worthington Hotel in Columbus, Ohio. Thousands of calls have poured into the hotel (614-436-0700) and its parent corporation, International Hotels Group (800-621-0555), from concerned pro-family Americans urging that the event be shut down — and from sadomasochistic activists urging the hotel not to block the event.

Below is her Amazon.com bio, showing her reach into pop and “mainstream” culture (say it isn’t so, Redbook!), followed by a “Poly Pride” keynote speech she gave in New York City.–Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

Tristan Taormino is an award-winning author, columnist, editor, and educator. She is the author of four books and editor of eighteen anthologies, including the Lambda Literary Award-winning series Best Lesbian Erotica. Her popular Village Voice column “Pucker Up” is nationally syndicated. Tristan has been featured in over 250 publications including The New York Times, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Entertainment Weekly, Details, New York Magazine, and Men’s Health. She has appeared on The Howard Stern Show, Loveline, Ricki Lake, and on HBO, CNN, MTV, and The Discovery Channel. She lectures at top colleges and universities and teaches workshops around the world.

___________________________________
Poly Pride Keynote Speech
Tristan Taormino
October 4, 2008; [emphasis added by AFTAH]

Thanks to Polyamorous NYC [New York City] for hosting this and all the other events this weekend in celebration of Poly Pride, and especially to Birgitte and Lyndell for inviting me to be here, and Antonia, Justen, Patrick, Rich, and Mark for their organizing efforts.

When I was researching my new book on open relationships, I read the classic 1973 book Group Marriage by Larry and Joan Constantine, which was based on interviews with people all over the U.S. who were living in group marriages. Back then, the Constantines found their first interview subjects through a very loosely organized group that published a newsletter called “The Harrad Letter” and held sporadic meetings somewhere in New England. From there, the couple tracked people down through word of mouth, even innuendo and gossip. They followed up every lead they got by writing letters to people asking them to participate in their study. Then, they packed up their Volkswagen Squareback and made six cross-country trips in three years to talk to these people. It’s pretty remarkable to think that they had the courage to literally drive to the homes of complete strangers, knock on their doors, and talk to them about something no one was talking about back then.

Thirty five years later, here we are in Central Park, and looking out into this crowd today, obviously a lot has changed. People interested in consensual non-monogamy have many resources at their disposal, and we no longer have to drive cross country to find each other. This is due in large part to the work of educators and activists within the growing polyamory movement. But while we can connect, network, and support each other, there is still a great deal of misunderstanding about our relationships. Many of us cannot be open with our loved ones about our lives for fear of being ostracized or discriminated against. We face ignorance and hostility because we dare to challenge two intertwined institutions: marriage and monogamy.

Marriage as we know it is changing. Conservatives would say it’s under attack, under fire. I say it’s just under construction. And hopefully, this fall on Election Day, we can also say it’s under new management. Queer people are at the forefront of the movement to re-define marriage right now, and unfortunately—with typical divide-and-conquer tactics—the Right Wing has pitted queers and polyfolk against one another. Conservative Stanley Kurtz said “Among the likeliest effects of gay marriage is to take us down a slippery slope to legalized polygamy and ‘polyamory.’ Marriage will be transformed into a variety of relationship contracts, linking two, three, or more individuals (however weakly and temporarily) in every conceivable combination of male and female.” As if that is a bad thing? Celebrating more love and more commitments between consenting adults?

Some gays and lesbians have responded to the charge of the “slippery slope” by calling it ridiculous, but others have defended gay marriage by denouncing polyamory. What about those of us who are queer and poly? Queers and polyfolk have a lot in common, and we need to recognize the ways we can help each other. Queer people must stand up and say we believe in the rights of everyone to love, commit to, and marry whomever they want. We must not throw polyamory under the bus in favor of advancing queer marriage rights.

We need to listen to each other and learn from each other. The polyamory movement can learn a lot from the GLBT movement. The poly community must strive to be an INCLUSIVE community. We cannot turn our backs on poly swingers or solo polyamorists or that one really slutty poly friend we all have. We cannot shrug off monogamous folks who want to be our allies. We need to embrace all those people around us who are challenging monogamy in some way and who believe in the rights of people to protect their relationships, whatever form they take. And we need to find a way to change the climate in this country, by creating community to foster a larger awareness and understanding of multi-love relationships.

People ask me a lot, “What did you learn from the people you interviewed for Opening Up? What do they all have in common? What makes open relationships work?” There are some common principles. Honesty. Self awareness. Trust. Communication. Boundaries. Commitment.

And this may be what is scariest of all to our enemies: we practice what they preach. We have values. We have many of the exact same values they that they claim over and over we don’t. Values is such a loaded term, it has become laced with religion and morality and the conservative right wing has tried to equate values, like family values, with a heterosexual, 2-parent, married, nuclear family. We need to reclaim the word values. We need to rip it out of the hands of pundits and bigots and stand up to defend OUR polyamorous values.

Our society is poised to change dramatically in the next decade. Like other minorities before us, polyamorous people need to come out when it’s safe to do so and educate our loved ones, our neighbors, our doctors and others around us about our lives. We need to tell our stories. I’ve had the privilege to hear the stories of hundreds of people in non-monogamous relationships. Like Leslie from Minnesota whose two husbands supported her through chemotherapy after she was diagnosed with cancer. Or Cat in Oklahoma, who lost custody of her children for being polyamorous. Or a poly circle of four in the Pacific Northwest who have owned a house and raised their kids together for over fifteen years. We must speak our truths. If we don’t tell the world who we are, people are left to imagine, to fall back on stereotypes, to create fictions which don’t represent us.

Larry and Joan Constantine took a leap of faith thirty five years ago and started knocking on doors to find others like them. We need to take a cue from them and start busting down some doors of our own. If we join together, support each other, and increase our visibility, we can only get stronger. And we need our strength because WE are at the forefront of those who will redefine love, commitment, and family in this century.

The following was sent out today by Gary Bauer as his “End of Day” e-mail for the Campaign for Working Families. Click HERE to sign up for Bauer’s excellent publication, which I enjoy reading every day. For a take on the Left’s reaction, here’s the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force’s press release on New York Gov. David Patterson’s imperious, pro-homosexual-”marriage” act. (What an ally for the governor: keep in mind that the loony Task Force in February gave its annual “Leather Leadership Award” to a homosexual sadistic sex activist who specializes in “consensual” sexual “slavery.”) — Peter LaBarbera

Emphasis added below:

Time To Get Serious

California officials have announced that the state will begin issuing same-sex “marriage” licenses on June 17th. Unless the state Supreme Court agrees to stay its ruling until after the November election, when the people will have the opportunity to vote on a marriage protection amendment, marriage licenses in America’s most populace state will no longer read “Husband” and “Wife,” but will instead list “Party A” and “Party B.” That’s just the beginning.

The words “husband” and “wife” will soon disappear from our lexicon altogether, having been banished as “hate speech” as they are exclusionary and discriminatory. The words will be banned from textbooks because they might offend some parent whose child doesn’t have a mother and a father, but instead two “parties.”

In response to an appeals court ruling brought by a homosexual couple “married” in Canada, the governor of New York [David Patterson] has just issued an executive order requiring the Empire State to recognize homosexual “marriages” performed in other jurisdictions, such as California, Canada and Massachusetts. According to the New York Times, New York will be the only state that recognizes homosexual “marriages” where homosexual “marriage” is not legal. How can that be? In 2006, the state’s highest court refused to recognize same-sex “marriage” and rightly said the issue should be decided by the legislature.

But the governor’s action effectively circumvents the state’s highest court, bows to foreign law and violates the principle of separation of powers by superseding the legislature. Again, we are witnessing the advance of the homosexual agenda by the most undemocratic means possible. The governor of New York and the appeals court judges should be impeached.

In response to earlier efforts to redefine the meaning of marriage, concerned citizens successfully passed marriage protection amendments in 27 states. All the amendments are subject to federal court review, which is probably coming sooner than we realize. To counter that threat, the pro-family movement has promoted a federal marriage amendment, but liberal Democrats in Congress have defeated it twice.

SAN FRANCISCO — A new variety of staph bacteria, highly resistant to antibiotics and possibly transmitted by sexual contact, is spreading among gay men in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles, researchers reported Monday. …

 

The risk of contracting this difficult-to-treat bug is 13 times greater for gay men than for the rest of the city’s population, researchers found….

 

What is unusual in this case is the high percentage of infections – up to 40 percent – occurring in the buttocks and genitalia. – San Francisco Chronicle story on new staph bacteria spreading among homosexual men

What a mystery … How could it be that so many infections are occurring in the “buttocks and genitalia” of San Francisco men (who have sex with other men)? …

Is this not an eerie reminder of the initial stories about AIDS — then called GRID (Gay-Related Immunodeficiency Disease) – 25 years ago? It is unfathomable that after that plague, disease specialists and the media are now surprised at the correlation of new infections with homosexual behavior.

Wake up, medical and political establishment: homosexual behavior is unhealthy — no matter how many secular sermons you preach against “homophobia.”  Due to liberal political correctness, which insists on treating aberrant — even deadly — behaviors and lifestyles as a “civil right,” we as a society don’t seem to have learned much from the AIDS pandemic.  This latest news begs some serious questions:

• Why aren’t all schoolchildren being taught that there are special health risks associated with homosexual behavior and that they should “just say no” to homosexuality? (Instead, schools are willy-nilly working to spread the PC idea among youth that certain people are naturally “gay,” and that this is a harmless identity);
• Why won’t the news media make the common-sense connection between these frequent stories about (male) homosexual behavior and disease — to the idea that perhaps it’s probably not smart for society and pop culture to celebrate homosexuality and bisexuality?;
• Why isn’t there a concerted government effort — akin to the current anti-smoking campaigns — to reign in homosexual promiscuity – beginning with closing down all sex businesses (bathhouses) that facilitate homosexual perversion?  (Of course, we favor closing down straight prostitution businesses as well.)  We know that bisexual behavior (men on the “down low”) help spread dangerous diseases to the general population: how many deaths and illnesses have to result from “second-hand sodomy” before authorities take corrective action? (Curiously, even President Bush’s White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, recently abruptly cut off a question by reporter Les Kinsolving critical of homosexual bathhouses);
• If any other behavior were as closely linked to death and disease as male homosexuality, would we be so careful not to criticize it – or would we offer healthy alternatives to it like abstinence and the ex-”gay” movement?

Here is just one Reader Comment to the Chronicle piece that makes a lot of sense:

luvgabe wrote:
We as a species just don’t seem to get it: There are consequences to behavior! We no longer take AIDS seriously anymore because of drug treatment, so we go back to doing the same behavior, which brings on a new epidemic that now threatens to jump the boundary to become a hetero scourge as well.

I have already heard a few horror stories from people who knew someone who has contracted MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) at a hospital, or who has tried to take extraordinary measures to get explicit assurances from doctors that their facilities are MRSA-free (I don’t know if this is possible). A friend writes: 

I have an older lady friend who has been battling MRSA since October when she had a knee replaced.  It’s just horrible — even though she got prompt treatment, the infection will ebb, but then surge again.  The doctors thought she was on her way back to health, but she’s back at the infectious disease specialist this month with increased sed rate and a hot knee. Very scary!

Be careful to ask questions about MRSA before you go in for an operation!  We’ll be watching this story carefully. Now watch as “gay” activists blast me and AFTAH for pointing out the obvious link between homosexual behaviors and the spread of diseases, new and old. — Peter LaBarbera

__________________________

As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle‘s medical writer, Sabin Russell; to read more Reader Comments to the Chronical story (some very interesting), go HERE (emphasis added): 

S.F. Gay Community an Epicenter for New Strain of Virulent Staph 

SAN FRANCISCO (Jan. 15) — A new variety of staph bacteria, highly resistant to antibiotics and possibly transmitted by sexual contact, is spreading among gay men in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles, researchers reported Monday.

The study released online by the journal Annals of Internal Medicine found the highest concentrations of infection by the drug-resistant bug in and around San Francisco’s Castro district and among patients who visit health clinics that treat HIV infections in gay men in San Francisco and Boston.

The culprit is a form of MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a bug that was once confined to hospitalized patients but, since the late 1990s, has been circulating outside medical settings, afflicting anyone from injection-drug users to elementary school students. A strain called USA300 has been a leading cause of MRSA infection in this decade, and an exceptionally drug-resistant variant of it is now on the loose, researchers say.

The study estimated that 1 in 588 residents living within the Castro neighborhood 94114 ZIP code area [San Francisco's famed "gay" center] is infected with that variant, which is resistant to six types of commonly used antibiotics. The risk of contracting this difficult-to-treat bug is 13 times greater for gay men than for the rest of the city’s population, researchers found.

“We probably had it here first, and now it is spreading elsewhere,” said Binh An Diep, a researcher at San Francisco General Hospital and lead author of the report. “This is a national problem, and San Francisco is at the epicenter.”

The germ typically causes boils and other skin and soft-tissue infections and, despite its resistance to some drugs, is still treatable by surgical drainage and several classes of antibiotics. What is unusual in this case is the high percentage of infections – up to 40 percent – occurring in the buttocks and genitalia.

Although researchers have stopped short of declaring this form of staph a sexually transmitted disease, the infections are found where skin-to-skin contact occurs during sexual activity.

Most of the infections are limited to the skin surface, but the bacteria can invade deeper tissues or disseminate through the bloodstream. According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, various forms of MRSA are causing 95,000 of these more costly and potentially life-threatening infections – and 19,000 deaths – annually in the United States.

Until last year, staph infections had never been linked to sexual activity. Early last year, New York City physicians traced three instances of staph infection apparently spread by sexual contact. Their report was published in February in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

A month later, doctors from the Albany Medical Center in New York reported in the Journal of Urology three cases of multi-drug-resistant staph in the groins of three patients – one of whom developed a form of rapid-tissue destruction popularly known as “flesh-eating bacteria” disease. The patients recovered after treatments with surgery and antibiotics.

San Francisco General Hospital physicians have been battling an aggressive strain of MRSA, called USA300, since 2001. The most recent study estimates that this strain alone is infecting about 2,000 city residents a year.

But the latest problem is being caused by a new variant of USA300 that was first detected in a San Francisco patient in 2003. Among the six antibiotics it is resistant to are three that are normally considered for treatment of suspected MRSA. The study estimated that 200 cases of this highly drug-resistant variant are turning up in San Francisco each year, mostly among gay men.

“We are nowhere near the peak,” Diep said. “The peak will occur when it spreads into the general population.”

Diep said there is reason to believe that the more drug-resistant strain will make that leap because it is just a slight variant of USA300, which became one of the most common strains of MRSA in the United States only a few years after it was first detected.

The latest study focuses on the spread of the more drug-resistant strain in San Francisco and Boston, but reports of the bug are turning up in New York and Los Angeles.

Just why the new, more drug-resistant variety is concentrated among gay men is not yet known. Patients infected with HIV appear to run a higher risk of infection, but the study suggests that gay men are being infected with the staph germ regardless of whether they are HIV-positive.

One factor that could be in play is a medical history of heavy use of antibiotics, which creates conditions for breeding drug-resistant strains. Any patient, HIV-positive or not, who has had high previous exposure to antibiotics might be more susceptible….

The good news is that, once the public is aware of the risk, there are ways to prevent the spread of drug-resistant staph. It can be as simple as soap and water.

“Taking a shower after sexual contact may minimize contamination,” said Dr. Chip Chambers, director of infectious diseases at San Francisco General, a co-author of the study. “Ordinary soap will do. It dilutes the concentration of bacteria. You don’t need antibacterial soap.”

Chambers stressed that some people, no matter how fastidious, could be more prone than others to staph infections. They could have unknown genetic traits or a history of antibiotic use that raises the risk.

“Despite one’s best efforts, it is still possible, of course, to get a staph infection,” he said. “This is why if one has a cut or open wound that it is important to clean it out and keep it clean.”

The new variant of USA300 is resistant to the antibiotics erythromycin, clindamycin, tetracycline, Cipro-like antibiotics and drugs in the penicillin family. It also does not respond to mupirocin – a gel that is often used to kill MRSA growing in people’s noses.

That still leaves a variety of antibiotics that will kill the new USA300 strain, but they tend to be more expensive and require intravenous drips. One common oral antibiotic, Bactrim, is still effective against it.

Chambers also pointed out that researchers at San Francisco General have shown that many skin sores and boils caused even by these drug-resistant strains of staph often can be treated without any antibiotics, just by surgical drainage of pus.

One of the paradoxes of bacterial infections is that using antibiotics to treat them is one of the quickest ways to promote antibiotic resistance. Although the drugs sometimes are essential, overuse is weakening their effectiveness worldwide.

 Convicted homosexual possessor of child pornography and confessed “boy lover” Nelson Garcia (see

Dear Americans For Truth Readers,
 
When you are in the business of fighting a sin-based movement, you come under attack from some pretty wicked and unsavory forces.  We’re used to that here at AFTAH.  But when a “boy-loving” homosexual militant who has been convicted of possessing child pornography comes after you with lies and hateful accusations, we put that in a special category.  After our appeal Wednesday for financial help, a homosexual activist operating under his “NG Blog” attacked me and Americans For Truth with a lie-filled post accusing us of “groveling for money.” 
 
Turns out that “NG Blog” is run by one Nelson Garcia, a New York City homosexual who was convicted of possessing child pornography.  Garcia is also a confessed “boy lover.”  (See http://www.wikisposure.com/NG.)  ‘Boy-lover’ is the twisted “gay” slang term used by the pederasty group NAMBLA, the “North American Man/Boy Love Association — which, by the way, once marched in big-city “Gay Pride” parades. 
 
Thanks to the good people at the Wikisposure Project — a branch of the Perverted-Justice Foundation, which exposes internet predators and pedophiles — Garcia’s secret is out. Here is part of Wiksposure’s post (http://www.wikisposure.com/NG) on our pedophile nemesis (emphasis added):

Nelson Garcia, aka NG, nlsngrc, and ng1260, would like the world to believe that he is merely an online gay activist. However, the reality is that he’s a pedophile, and one who has been convicted of sex crimes. He has admitted to being a boylover, although he has not expressed his preferred AoA [Age of Attraction].
 
A regular poster on BoyBliss and Boylover.net, Garcia was arrested and charged following a series of online chats with an undercover police officer from New Hampshire. During the course of those conversations, Garcia transmitted pornographic images of pre-pubescent boys who were engaged in sexual acts. He was sentenced to one year incarceration with no possibility of early release and was ordered to register as a level one sex offender with the New York State Sex Offender Registry.

 

Currently Garcia spends most of his online time blogging as a gay activist, but it should not be forgotten that he is truly a boylover pedophile. [NOTE: we have removed the disturbing pedophile links from this excerpt; they can be found at http://www.wikisposure.com/NG.]

 

Talk about audacity: Garcia continues to advocate against laws restricting child pornography on his radical “NG Blog.”   Moreover, he slanders pro-family advocates with outright lies, like calling me “Porno Pete” and parents rights advocate David Parker a “child abuser.”  How sick is that?
 
Garcia is also part of the homosexual blogging community.  We’ll see after Garcia’s “boy-loving” criminal record becomes well-known how “tolerant” other “gay” bloggers will be of this unrepentant apologist for NAMBLA’s agenda –who doesn’t seem to have learned much from being busted on child porn charges.  We’ll have more on Nelson Garcia in future posts at www.americansfortruth.org.  — Peter LaBarbera

P.S. Go HERE for more information on the anti-pedophile Wikisposure Project, including how to donate to this worthy effort.

TAKE ACTION:  Please help Americans for Truth protect children from the promotion of homosexuality with your tax-deductible donation of $100 or more  (go to www.americansfortruth.org/donate/), or whatever you can give.  Thank you to all those who have already given!  See below if you would also like to order our banquet video.

_______________________________ 
 
Order Charlene Cothran’s and David Parker’s Testimonies on DVD and support AFTAH!
Excellent teaching tool for young people who are being brainwashed to accept homosexuality!
 
To order a complete DVD (or CD) of both ex-lesbian Charlene Cothran’s and parental rights hero David Parker’s outstanding talks at the recent Americans For Truth banquet, make an online donation of at least $25 postpaid to Americans For Truth (please use the online form to specify ’2007 Banquet DVD’. You can substitute an audio CD but you must request this specifically.

To order by regular mail, send your check or money order specifying “2007 Banquet DVD” (or CD) to: Americans For Truth, P.O. Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522.

Bulk Orders available: 2 for $40; 3 for $55; 4 for $70; add $10 for each additional DVD or contact us (630-717-7631) for large bulk order pricing.

The following item was buried on page B5 in the Metro section of the New York Times, September 12, 2007:

MANHATTAN: RISE IN H.I.V. INFECTION — Rates of infection with the human immunodeficiency virus [H.I.V.] have risen substantially among New York men younger than 30, indicating a shift in the age of the population most vulnerable now to contracting H.I.V. and AIDS, city health officials said yesterday. Over six years starting in 2001, new diagnoses in men who have sex with men and who are under the age of 30 increased by 33 percent, officials said, while the rate for men over 30 decreased by 22 percent. The number of H.I.V. cases among men in the under-30 group increased to 499 in 2006, from 374 in 2001. The group with the fastest-growing rate of H.I.V. infection comprised males between the ages of 13 and 19, for which H.I.V. diagnoses doubled from 2001 to 2006, according to preliminary data from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. — Sarah Kershaw

The “gay” media group GLAAD — which smears Christians as “haters” and “homophobes” — has for years tried to pressure the New York Post into dropping cartoonist Sean Delonas. This cartoon plays off the recent New Jersey Miss America contestant who claimed someone was trying to force her out of the pageant through blackmail. Support Dalonas and free speech by writing the NY Post today.

TAKE ACTION: 

1. Read the censorious release from GLAAD attacking N.Y. Post cartoonist Sean Delonas for spoofing disgraced homosexual adulterer and former N.J. governor Jim McGreevey. Then write your own note to Delonis and his managing editor concerning the lampooning of immoral homosexual behavior. (See our note at bottom.)
2. Write Sean Delonas, his managing editor, and/or the New York Post. Here’s the contact info courtesy of GLAAD:

Mr. Jesse Angelo, Managing Editor
jangelo@nypost.com

Sean Delonas, Cartoonist
General Line: 212-930-8000
seandelonas@gmail.com

Letters to the Editor
letters@nypost.com
 

By Peter LaBarbera

Very bad behavior by public officials is rightfully the butt of jokes in a free society. Take former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey (D), a married father with children who resigned in 2004 after admitting to homosexual adultery.

Above, New York Post cartoonist Sean Delonas uses the time-honored tradition of exaggeration to lampoon McGreevey, whose disgrace was softened by a sympathetic media that hyped his “coming out” — McGreevey announced that he was “gay” as he resigned – as if somehow he was as much a victim as his suffering wife and children.

Homosexual activists are always on the offensive, and these days that often means attacking anything or anyone critical of “gay” behavior or homosexuals themselves. Apparently in the minds of humorless “gay” zealots, even jokes about disgraced politicians caught in homosexually-oriented sex scandals are off-limits.

Seems that GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) believes that you can make fun of everyone in society — except “gays.”

The ‘crime’ of being ‘anti-gay’ 

You may or may not like Delonas’ cartoon, but should he be banned from the newspaper world or treated any differently from cartoonists who, say, mocked televangelists caught in sex scandals? 

The homosexual activists’ penchant for wanting to censor critics — combined with the media’s dutiful political correctness on all things “gay” — should wake us up to the present threat to freedom: one day it’s a Christian billboard condemning homosexuality that gets banned (this has already happened in New York City); then it’s an edgy cartoonist who dares to challenge “gay” groupthink; and finally they come after the preachers — all that matters is that the Discriminators are “anti-gay” or “homophobic.”

In its anti-Delonas alert, the homosexual media group GLAAD intones, “NY POST PUBLISHES YET ANOTHER GRATUITOUS VULGAR ANTI-GAY CARTOON.”

Here’s GLAAD’s action step (emphasis added): “Please contact Colin Myler, Managing Editor for the New York Post, and Sean Delonas, and let them know what you think about their continued reliance on defamatory anti-gay stereotypes. Tell them it’s unacceptable for the New York Post to continue serving as a platform for tasteless anti-gay bigotry.”  

In other words, Sean Delonas is castigated as a “bigot” for poking fun at the man, Jim McGreevey, who infamously shamed the office of Governor of New Jersey. In the name of “tolerance,” GLAAD uses America’s wonderful freedoms to stifle dissenting speech on homosexuality. If they succeed, OUR freedom to be moral, or to at least disagree with a dangerous perversiona dangerous perversion – and yes, even make fun of it once in a while – will be eroded or lost. 

GLAAD wants to push the expression of Judeo-Christian morality on homosexuality out of the public square and into the church closet (not that they refrain from blasting religious people).  Years ago, it lobbied the media hard to deny and ban ads featuring former homosexuals.  We must fight back by appealing to the media to cover both sides of the “gay” debate fairly.

Anyway, here’s the note I sent to cartoonist Sean Delonas and his managing editor at the New York Post: 

Keep it up, Sean … Your McGreevey cartoon is hilarious…. 

 

… Don’t let the GLAAD Thought Police shut you down (or up). The humorless fellows at GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination) have no problem pitching bigoted, anti-Christian “stereotypes” to the media — e.g., smearing pro-family groups as “haters” and “homophobes.”  They are complete hypocrites and should not be taken so seriously by journalists. Ex-governor Jim McGreevey shamed himself and is a rightful target for spoofing.

 

Sincerely,

Peter LaBarbera
Americans For Truth
http://www.americansfortruth.org/
 
PO Box 5522
Naperville, IL 60567-5522

Published in the San Diego Gay and Lesbian Times, Thursday, July 12, 2007

By Bob Roehr 

The increase in syphilis cases among gay men, particularly among those who are HIV positive, has been a concern for years. Most troubling is the occurrence of early neurosyphilis, when the infection spreads to the central nervous system and the brain.

Now a review of 170 possible neurosyphilis cases in four cities – Los Angeles (74), New York (47), Chicago (32) and San Diego (17) – has shed new light on the risks for HIV-positive men who have sex with men (MSM). The review was published in the June 28 issue of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.”

The report looked at cases over a 30-month period, January 2002 to June 2004, and narrowed them to 99 patients who had evidence of syphilis in their blood and physical symptoms compatible with neurosyphilis. Of the total, 57 self-identified as MSM, while 49 were HIV positive.

About 75 percent of the patients reported visual disturbances or new onset of headaches, while 12 percent had symptoms of acute meningitis. About half had no other clinical symptoms of the infection, while almost a quarter did not know they were infected with HIV.

The findings come as no surprise to Christopher Hall, chief of clinical affairs for the California Sexually Transmitted Disease Control Branch of the Department of Public Health. He sees them as an indictment of medical providers for not routinely screening gay men for syphilis. That practice would catch syphilis soon after infection, before it could develop more serious manifestations in the brain.

“Gay men who are sexually active with more than one partner should be screened for syphilis at least every six months, and those who are more active should be screened as frequently as every three months,” he says, citing guidelines issued by the CDC…

…About half of the cases of syphilis in California are among persons who are HIV positive. Hall sees three major reasons for this. First is serosorting: Persons who are HIV positive seek out sexual partners of the same status and decide not to use condoms. This facilitates the transmission of all sexually transmitted diseases, including syphilis.

This feeds on itself, creating a higher prevalence of the infection within a relatively closed pool of people having sex with each other. Finally, there is the likelihood that these persons have more sex with different people and hence increase their risk of exposure.
Gonorrhea is a localized infection but syphilis is a systemic one that can affect all parts of the body. Hall says syphilis can be found in the central nervous system and brain of about 30 percent of recently infected persons, regardless of their HIV status.

Oral sex is a route of infection that many people often do not consider. A 2004 study from Chicago attributed 13.7 percent of syphilis infections to oral sex, as the participants claimed to only engage in that practice. Most persons have a wider sexual repertoire, and so the true number of transmissions through oral sex is likely to be higher.

Click HERE to read the full article in the San Diego Gay & Lesbian Times

“But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.” — Ephesians 5:3

…Under the rule being considered by the city’s Board of Health, which is likely to be adopted soon, people born in the city would be able to change the documented sex on their birth certificates by providing affidavits from a doctor and a mental health professional laying out why their patients should be considered members of the opposite sex, and asserting that their proposed change would be permanent.

Applicants would have to have changed their name and shown that they had lived in their adopted gender for at least two years, but there would be no explicit medical requirements.

“Surgery versus nonsurgery can be arbitrary,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the city’s health commissioner. “Somebody with a beard may have had breast-implant surgery. It’s the permanence of the transition that matters most.”

If approved, the new rule would put New York at the forefront of efforts to redefine gender…

Transgender advocates consider the New York proposal an overdue bulwark against discrimination that recognizes an emerging shift away from viewing gender as simply the sum of one’s physical parts…

“They should not change the sex at birth, which is a factual record,” said Dr. Arthur Zitrin, a Midtown psychiatrist who was on the panel of transgender experts convened by the city…

The change would lead to many intriguing questions: For example, would a man who becomes a woman be able to marry another man? (Probably.) Would an adoption agency be able to uncover the original sex of a proposed parent? (Not without a court order.)…

Continue reading at The New York Times…