New York Times resident "conservative" David Brooks says it is hard to take Sarah Palin seriously, yet he relied on specious "queer" theology in an attempt to justify legal homosexual "marriage" as a supposed moral cause that conservatives should support. Turning the Bible on its head, Brooks says NOT allowing homosexuals to get married is an "abomination."

By Peter LaBarbera

New York Times columnist and TV pundit David Brooks is a liberal’s kind of conservative. The other day, Brooks made news deriding Sarah Palin as a “joke” on a Sunday talk show. Liberal Palin-haters couldn’t be more pleased, as they always are when “moderate” (read: socially liberal) Republicans deride pro-family conservative Republicans.

Said Brooks about the former Republican Governor of Alaska and GOP vice-presidential candidate:

“She’s a joke. I can’t take her seriously,” he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “The idea that this potential talk show host is considered seriously for the Republican nomination, believe me, it will never happen. Republican primary voters are not going to elect a talk show host.”

I agree with conservative media critic Bernard Goldberg in explaining the dominant elite media’s contempt for Palin: she is a popular, pro-life, conservative, Christian woman — a mix that smug west- and east coast liberals don’t like and certainly not the kind of woman they want to see succeed, much less be President. Surely they are incredulous and envious of her popularity and power, which is far bigger than theirs will ever be (Brooks included).

But what about Brooks? His arrogant, rapid-fire put-down of Palin epitomizes the disdain that RINO (Republican In Name Only) Republicans have for the true, blue, pro-family conservatives who are the collective backbone of the GOP. Socially liberal Republicans whine about “tone” and “tenor” and the alleged harshness of the “religious right,” but I find that it is often the “moderates” who are cutthroat and even nasty in their dealings with religious conservatives in the party.

I don’t know who I will support for the GOP nomination in 2012, or even if Sarah Palin is running.  I hope she does. Palin has earned respect for her accomplishments and her generally principled, conservative positions and she should not be written off as some Republicans like Brooks are doing. Besides, anyone who has taken the hits that she has from the Left deserves a certain degree of appreciation — something the tone-deaf Brooks might have considered if only to keep from losing his truly conservative readers.

Yes, Palin certainly has all the right enemies — including snotty New York Times opinion writers who cheerlead for homosexual “marriage” as a moral — even a “sacred” — cause.

Brooks Backs Buggery

It’s funny. Just before I learned of Brooks’ rash and gratuitous slam on Palin, I stumbled upon a quotation of his that appeared in a booklet put out by the Human Rights Campaign — a powerful homosexual lobby organization — titled, “Answers to Questions about Marriage Equality.” HRC identifies Brooks as a “conservative columnist,” but no true “conservative” worth his salt gets cited favorably by a “gay” activist group that traffics in the worst kind of hateful, anti-Christian bigotry — and that spends millions of dollars every year electing mostly pro-homosexual-agenda and pro-abortion-on-demand Democrats. (HRC also backs a few socially left Republicans like Illinois’ Congresswoman Judy Biggert to create the appearance of bipartisanship.)

Here’s the Brooks’ quote cited by HRC (on page 13) from his November 22, 2003 column in the New York Times, “The Power of Marriage”:

We shouldn’t just allow gay marriage. We should insist on gay marriage. We should regard it as scandalous that two people could claim to love each other and not want to sanctify their love with marriage and fidelity.

Below is the full context of that quotation from Brooks’ 2003 column; this excerpt follows the contrast that he commendably draws between the noble “culture of fidelity” and the selfish “culture of contingency,” in which men flake out of their marital pledge like some “easily canceled contract.” He writes (emphasis added):

Still, even in this time of crisis, every human being in the United States has the chance to move from the path of contingency to the path of marital fidelity — except homosexuals. Gays and lesbians are banned from marriage and forbidden to enter into this powerful and ennobling institution. A gay or lesbian couple may love each other as deeply as any two people, but when you meet a member of such a couple at a party, he or she then introduces you to a ”partner,” a word that reeks of contingency.

You would think that faced with this marriage crisis, we conservatives would do everything in our power to move as many people as possible from the path of contingency to the path of fidelity. But instead, many argue that gays must be banished from matrimony because gay marriage would weaken all marriage. A marriage is between a man and a woman, they say. It is women who domesticate men and make marriage work.

Well, if women really domesticated men, heterosexual marriage wouldn’t be in crisis. In truth, it’s moral commitment, renewed every day through faithfulness, that ”domesticates” all people.

Some conservatives may have latched onto biological determinism (men are savages who need women to tame them) as a convenient way to oppose gay marriage. But in fact we are not animals whose lives are bounded by our flesh and by our gender. We’re moral creatures with souls, endowed with the ability to make covenants, such as the one Ruth made with Naomi: ‘‘Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried.”

The conservative course is not to banish gay people from making such commitments. It is to expect that they make such commitments. We shouldn’t just allow gay marriage. We should insist on gay marriage. We should regard it as scandalous that two people could claim to love each other and not want to sanctify their love with marriage and fidelity.

When liberals argue for gay marriage, they make it sound like a really good employee benefits plan. Or they frame it as a civil rights issue, like extending the right to vote.

Marriage is not voting. It’s going to be up to conservatives to make the important, moral case for marriage, including gay marriage. Not making it means drifting further into the culture of contingency, which, when it comes to intimate and sacred relations, is an abomination.

Here Brooks, though ostensibly on the right, evinces the Social Lefts’ disdain for biblically-based morality — and its penchant for stealing religious terminology and using sloppy, politically driven exegesis to advance a man- (not God-) centered agenda in the name of piety.

Not bound by our gender? Is Brooks a guest-lecturer in the Women’s Studies Department at Smith College? Whatever  happened to the truth of Genesis — of man and woman as God’s distinctive and complementary creations — as echoed by Jesus Christ:

“And He answered and said to [the Pharisees], ‘Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said,  ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and  the two shall become one flesh’? — Matthew 19:4 (NKJV)

Yes, God created two “genders” (sexes) — not five or seven or whatever the number claimed by radicals is these days.

Homosexualizing Holy Scripture?

And why did Brooks’ choose the biblical example of Ruth and Naomi for his dubious proposition, anyway?  In the biblical account, Naomi was Ruth’s mother-in-law, and the devoted Ruth (a “woman of excellence”) went on to marry Boaz — so what does this noble relationship between two women have to do with homosexual “marriage”? In fact, although Brooks lacked the guts to come right out and say so, his allusion to the Book of Ruth is a mischievous sop to activist, homosexuality-affirming theologians who twist the Bible to claim that Ruth and Naomi were lesbian lovers [see the Human Rights Campaign's self-serving "Out in Scripture" interpretation of Ruth and Naomi's relationship HERE].

Thus Brooks joins the homosexualists in sexualizing and perverting a wonderful story about selfless love and faithfulness in a desperate attempt to legitimize sinful behavior. By including this nonsensical, “queer” theological misinterpretation of Scripture — which is rejected by the vast majority of serious Bible scholars — Brooks demonstrates his profound ignorance of theology and insensitivity toward pious Jews and Christians. He owes all Bible believers an apology, but as a mere Christian in flyover country (who doesn’t hate Sarah Palin) I’m not holding my breath.

Sacred Sodomy?

Brooks continues in his sophistic folly. He views the prohibition of homosexual “marriage” as scandalous when an intellectually honest reading of Scripture would lead us to declare it “scandalous” to attach marriage — the model of the relationship between Jesus Christ and his Church — to deviant relationships whose “love” is expressed by acts of homosexual sodomy clearly condemned as “detestable” by our loving Creator.

God created sex as the sublime expression of love, unity and commitment between husband and wife, for the purpose of procreation — that is, filling the earth with humankind. In contrast, two men attempting a sexual union produces … disease. The plain truth of the Bible is that secular liberals hate is that homosexual (erotic) love is always illegitimate — the outworking not of “sexual orientation” but the sinful orientation with which each human being struggles. The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah’s words about our deceitful hearts are relevant here. Tough love dictates that we uphold God’s truth about homosexual sin while reaching out with the love of Christ to those who struggle with this sin.

Nature clearly discriminates against homosexuality and, by extension, the oxymoronic notion of “gay marriage.” What larger purpose does anal sodomy serve — with its many health hazards? Can two women produce children without borrowing from heterosexuality? (So much for “equality” — and please, don’t even go there with the silly analogy between homosexual and normal, albeit infertile, couples: the latter do not model aberrant, immoral conduct. Rather, they only seek the blessing of children that their opposite-sex union would normally provide.)

Moving toward his dramatic conclusion, Brooks cavalierly implies that homosexual “intimacy” can be “sacred.” But such a claim begs the question: who defines sacred and what is sacredness? Who determines moral right from wrong?  Christians believe that a holy God defines moral truth and reveals it to man through his divinely inspired Word, the Bible. The Bible is the gold standard of moral authority and Truth — which is why the Homosexual Lobby, as the latest in a long line of rebels, is working so hard to undermine it and distort its teachings. (One HRC staffer, Harry Knox — who also sits on President Obama’s  “Faith Advisory Council” — defiantly declares that “being gay or lesbian is an immutable, unchangeable gift from God, one for which I am very grateful. And it would fly in the face of my respect for God to give that gift back.”)

Harry is playing with fire and needs to repent: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20).

Here we must go to Noah Webster’s original 1828 “American Dictionary of the English Language” definition of “sacred,” which avoids the liberal corruption that associates the word with anything “spiritual” (including homosexualized religion):

SACRED, a …from L. sacer, sacred, holy …The sense is removed or separated from that which is common, vulgar, polluted …

1. Holy; pertaining to God or to his worship; separated from common secular uses and consecrated to God and his service.
2. Proceeding from God and containing religious precepts …;
3. Narrating or writing facts respecting God and holy things ….

Note that far from keeping the truly sacred things separate from the corruption of the world, Brooks and other fellow travelers with the “Gay” Lobby are intentionally corrupting the sacred by attempting to fuse it with sin. In their pride, they seek to create a New Morality based upon their own foolish ideas (of which “gay pride” is one). Insidiously, the most radical manifestation of “queer” activism is not the high-heeled drag queens marching down city streets every June — but the “conservative,” domesticated version of homosexual activism that redefines and dumbs down noble institutions like marriage and family — and Truth itself — to the point where words have no meaning.

Besides, even in their gut most people recognize that there’s something deeply wrong with homosexual acts: why else would we cringe at the thought inspired by this question: How do two men consummate their “same-sex marriage”?

Yuck. Behavior — not politically charged abstractions like “gay identity,” is the issue.

Sodomy is not sacred. Sodomy is sin. Homosexual behavior cannot be “sanctified” because it is directly opposed to God’s revealed will and His moral law, as confirmed by thousands of years of Judeo-Christian tradition. Thankfully, many men and women have found freedom from this destructive lifestyle through the healing power of Jesus Christ — but something tells me that David Brooks will not be writing a sympathetic column about happy and successful former homosexuals anytime soon. (If he did, would the Times run it?)

One last turn of the knife

But wait. It’s not over: Brooks saves his most obnoxious “gotcha” assault on biblical morality for his final sentence — proclaiming it an “abomination” for conservatives NOT to make the “moral” case for “gay marriage.”

What is it about secular, big-city elitists like Brooks that they are driven not only to redefine historic morality, but in so doing they appropriate the language of the divine to define deviancy up (to quote Charles Krauthammer)? Is it because — even though they regard ancient moral norms like keeping sex limited to marriage as quaint anachronisms –  they understand the power of traditional religion to define right and wrong authoritatively, even in this jaded modern era?

My Open Bible (Nelson: 1985; NASB) lists passages about “abominations” as “things utterly repulsive.” Is David Brooks really suggesting that it is “repulsive” to God for his followers to resist cloaking detestable behaviors like homosexual sodomy — which God condemns — in the beautiful robe He created called “marriage”?

Indeed, he is, but cheap rhetorical gimmicks make bad theology. The New Liberal “Morality” is bankrupt and has no compelling, divine authority — I’d use an Emperor-Has-No-Clothes reference but it hits too close to home. Therefore it must steal the words of holy revelation to feign legitimacy. Just as two domesticated homosexual lovers with their adopted child are playing house (to quote my ex-”gay” friend Steve Bennett), social liberals like Brooks who exploit holy words of old to promote trendy sins are playing church.

And boy do they love to “preach” their hollow, false “gospel” without boundaries to Americans, even as they ridicule our appeals to a Higher Authority for moral guidance.

So my message to Sarah Palin and all victims of Christian-bashing is this: don’t let social leftists — even those on the “Right” — get you down. Wear their derision as a badge of honor. In fact, take the fight to them and aggressively defend the old truths while tearing down their rootless, fake “morality” that preposterously elevates sin as “sacred.” You can even quote your Bible if you really want to drive the elitists nuts! Because, to paraphrase Brooks, when secularized liberals, libertarians and media pundits attempt to redefine moral Truth by manipulating and distorting the language of faith, it’s really hard to take them seriously.

Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.
Let all that you do be done in love. (1 Corinthians 16:13-14; NASB)

__________________________________

Peter LaBarbera is president of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality and an evangelical Christian.

Here’s the YouTube of the ABC “This Week” episode in which David Brooks attacks Sarah Palin:

From an article yesterday in the conservative CNSNews.com, “Obama: Homosexual Relationships ‘Just as Real and Admirable’ as Heterosexual Marriage”:

Tuesday, October 13, 2009
By Pete Winn, CNSNews.com Senior Writer/Editor

(CNSNews.com) – President Obama delivered an unprecedented message to the Human Rights Campaign Saturday night. Sounding more like a homosexual activist than a sitting president, Obama went well beyond his expected message of “I’m here with you” on the homosexual agenda.

“My expectation is that when you look back on these years, you will see a time in which we put a stop to discrimination against gays and lesbians — whether in the office or on the battlefield,” Obama told an estimated audience of 3,000. “You will see a time in which we as a nation finally recognize relationships between two men or two women as just as real and admirable as relationships between a man and a woman.”

Even Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese was stunned at the breadth of  Obama’s statement, calling it “something quite remarkable.”

“This was a historic night when we felt the full embrace and commitment of the President of the United States,” Solmonese said in a post-speech statement. “It’s simply unprecedented.”

But Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, called the president’s remarks “appalling.”

“Barack Obama is … declaring that these relationships are basically equal to the real thing,” LaBarbera told CNSNews.com. “I think this is the ultimate Obama audacity play –– for him, just declaring it seems to make it so.”

The president pointedly used the pronoun “we” – not “you” –– throughout much of his speech.

“Do not doubt the direction we are headed and the destination we will reach,” Obama said at one point….

LaBarbera said Obama’s comments went far beyond using the presidency as a bully pulpit.

“The condescension is glaring,” LaBarbera said. “He’s really putting down millions and millions of faithful, moral-minded citizens and dismissing traditional beliefs with such arrogance, it is almost indescribable. It really is amazing.”

“It’s just hateful rhetoric,” LaBarbera added. “It’s a different kind of hate, to be sure, but it is hate –– he hates our Judeo-Christian tradition.”

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary
__________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                                        October 10, 2009

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AT HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN DINNER

Walter E. Convention Center
Washington, D.C.
8:10 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, everybody. Please, you’re making me blush. (Laughter.)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: We love you, Barack!

THE PRESIDENT: I love you back. (Applause.)

To Joe Solmonese, who’s doing an outstanding job on behalf of HRC. (Applause.) To my great friend and supporter, Terry Bean, co-founder of HRC. (Applause.) Representative Patrick Kennedy. (Applause.) David Huebner, the Ambassador-designee to New Zealand and Samoa. (Applause.) John Berry, our Director of OPM, who’s doing a great job. (Applause.) Nancy Sutley, Chairman of Council on Environmental Quality. (Applause.) Fred Hochberg, Chairman of Export-Import Bank. (Applause.) And my dear friend, Tipper Gore, who’s in the house. (Applause.)

Thank you so much, all of you. It is a privilege to be here tonight to open for Lady GaGa. (Applause.) I’ve made it. (Laughter.) I want to thank the Human Rights Campaign for inviting me to speak and for the work you do every day in pursuit of equality on behalf of the millions of people in this country who work hard in their jobs and care deeply about their families — and who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. (Applause.)

For nearly 30 years, you’ve advocated on behalf of those without a voice. That’s not easy. For despite the real gains that we’ve made, there’s still laws to change and there’s still hearts to open. There are still fellow citizens, perhaps neighbors, even loved ones — good and decent people — who hold fast to outworn arguments and old attitudes; who fail to see your families like their families; who would deny you the rights most Americans take for granted. And that’s painful and it’s heartbreaking. (Applause.) And yet you continue, leading by the force of the arguments you make, and by the power of the example that you set in your own lives — as parents and friends, as PTA members and church members, as advocates and leaders in your communities. And you’re making a difference.

That’s the story of the movement for fairness and equality, and not just for those who are gay, but for all those in our history who’ve been denied the rights and responsibilities of citizenship — (applause) — for all who’ve been told that the full blessings and opportunities of this country were closed to them. It’s the story of progress sought by those with little influence or power; by men and women who brought about change through quiet, personal acts of compassion — and defiance — wherever and whenever they could.

It’s the story of the Stonewall protests, when a group of citizens — (applause) — when a group of citizens with few options, and fewer supporters stood up against discrimination and helped to inspire a movement. It’s the story of an epidemic that decimated a community — and the gay men and women who came to support one another and save one another; who continue to fight this scourge; and who have demonstrated before the world that different kinds of families can show the same compassion in a time of need. (Applause.) And it’s the story of the Human Rights Campaign and the fights you’ve fought for nearly 30 years: helping to elect candidates who share your values; standing against those who would enshrine discrimination into our Constitution; advocating on behalf of those living with HIV/AIDS; and fighting for progress in our capital and across America. (Applause.)

This story, this fight continue now. And I’m here with a simple message: I’m here with you in that fight. (Applause.) For even as we face extraordinary challenges as a nation, we cannot — and we will not — put aside issues of basic equality. I greatly appreciate the support I’ve received from many in this room. I also appreciate that many of you don’t believe progress has come fast enough. I want to be honest about that, because it’s important to be honest among friends.

Now, I’ve said this before, I’ll repeat it again — it’s not for me to tell you to be patient, any more than it was for others to counsel patience to African Americans petitioning for equal rights half a century ago. (Applause.) But I will say this: We have made progress and we will make more. And I think it’s important to remember that there is not a single issue that my administration deals with on a daily basis that does not touch on the lives of the LGBT community. (Applause.) We all have a stake in reviving this economy. We all have a stake in putting people back to work. We all have a stake in improving our schools and achieving quality, affordable health care. We all have a stake in meeting the difficult challenges we face in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Applause.)

For while some may wish to define you solely by your sexual orientation or gender identity alone, you know — and I know — that none of us wants to be defined by just one part of what makes us whole. (Applause.) You’re also parents worried about your children’s futures. You’re spouses who fear that you or the person you love will lose a job. You’re workers worried about the rising cost of health insurance. You’re soldiers. You are neighbors. You are friends. And, most importantly, you are Americans who care deeply about this country and its future. (Applause.)

So I know you want me working on jobs and the economy and all the other issues that we’re dealing with. But my commitment to you is unwavering even as we wrestle with these enormous problems. And while progress may be taking longer than you’d like as a result of all that we face — and that’s the truth — do not doubt the direction we are heading and the destination we will reach. (Applause.)

My expectation is that when you look back on these years, you will see a time in which we put a stop to discrimination against gays and lesbians — whether in the office or on the battlefield. (Applause.) You will see a time in which we as a nation finally recognize relationships between two men or two women as just as real and admirable as relationships between a man and a woman. (Applause.) You will see a nation that’s valuing and cherishing these families as we build a more perfect union — a union in which gay Americans are an important part. I am committed to these goals. And my administration will continue fighting to achieve them.

And there’s no more poignant or painful reminder of how important it is that we do so than the loss experienced by Dennis and Judy Shepard, whose son Matthew was stolen in a terrible act of violence 11 years ago. In May, I met with Judy — who’s here tonight with her husband — I met her in the Oval Office, and I promised her that we were going to pass an inclusive hate crimes bill — a bill named for her son. (Applause.)

This struggle has been long. Time and again we faced opposition. Time and again, the measure was defeated or delayed. But the Shepards never gave up. (Applause.) They turned tragedy into an unshakeable commitment. (Applause.) Countless activists and organizers never gave up. You held vigils, you spoke out, year after year, Congress after Congress. The House passed the bill again this week. (Applause.) And I can announce that after more than a decade, this bill is set to pass and I will sign it into law. (Applause.)

It’s a testament to the decade-long struggle of Judy and Dennis, who tonight will receive a tribute named for somebody who inspired so many of us — named for Senator Ted Kennedy, who fought tirelessly for this legislation. (Applause.) And it’s a testament to the Human Rights Campaign and those who organized and advocated. And it’s a testament to Matthew and to others who’ve been the victims of attacks not just meant to break bones, but to break spirits — not meant just to inflict harm, but to instill fear. Together, we will have moved closer to that day when no one has to be afraid to be gay in America. (Applause.) When no one has to fear walking down the street holding the hand of the person they love. (Applause.)

But we know there’s far more work to do. We’re pushing hard to pass an inclusive employee non-discrimination bill. (Applause.) For the first time ever, an administration official testified in Congress in favor of this law. Nobody in America should be fired because they’re gay, despite doing a great job and meeting their responsibilities. It’s not fair. It’s not right. We’re going to put a stop to it. (Applause.) And it’s for this reason that if any of my nominees are attacked not for what they believe but for who they are, I will not waver in my support, because I will not waver in my commitment to ending discrimination in all its forms. (Applause.)

We are reinvigorating our response to HIV/AIDS here at home and around the world. (Applause.) We’re working closely with the Congress to renew the Ryan White program and I look forward to signing it into law in the very near future. (Applause.) We are rescinding the discriminatory ban on entry to the United States based on HIV status. (Applause.) The regulatory process to enact this important change is already underway. And we also know that HIV/AIDS continues to be a public health threat in many communities, including right here in the District of Columbia. Jeffrey Crowley, the Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy, recently held a forum in Washington, D.C., and is holding forums across the country, to seek input as we craft a national strategy to address this crisis.

We are moving ahead on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. (Applause.) We should not be punishing patriotic Americans who have stepped forward to serve this country. We should be celebrating their willingness to show such courage and selflessness on behalf of their fellow citizens, especially when we’re fighting two wars. (Applause.)

We cannot afford to cut from our ranks people with the critical skills we need to fight any more than we can afford — for our military’s integrity — to force those willing to do so into careers encumbered and compromised by having to live a lie. So I’m working with the Pentagon, its leadership, and the members of the House and Senate on ending this policy. Legislation has been introduced in the House to make this happen. I will end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. That’s my commitment to you. (Applause.)

It is no secret that issues of great concern to gays and lesbians are ones that raise a great deal of emotion in this country. And it’s no secret that progress has been incredibly difficult — we can see that with the time and dedication it took to pass hate crimes legislation. But these issues also go to the heart of who we are as a people. Are we a nation that can transcend old attitudes and worn divides? Can we embrace our differences and look to the hopes and dreams that we share? Will we uphold the ideals on which this nation was founded: that all of us are equal, that all of us deserve the same opportunity to live our lives freely and pursue our chance at happiness? I believe we can; I believe we will. (Applause.)

And that is why — that’s why I support ensuring that committed gay couples have the same rights and responsibilities afforded to any married couple in this country. (Applause.) I believe strongly in stopping laws designed to take rights away and passing laws that extend equal rights to gay couples. I’ve required all agencies in the federal government to extend as many federal benefits as possible to LGBT families as the current law allows. And I’ve called on Congress to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and to pass the Domestic Partners Benefits and Obligations Act. (Applause.) And we must all stand together against divisive and deceptive efforts to feed people’s lingering fears for political and ideological gain.

For the struggle waged by the Human Rights Campaign is about more than any policy we can enshrine into law. It’s about our capacity to love and commit to one another. It’s about whether or not we value as a society that love and commitment. It’s about our common humanity and our willingness to walk in someone else’s shoes: to imagine losing a job not because of your performance at work but because of your relationship at home; to imagine worrying about a spouse in the hospital, with the added fear that you’ll have to produce a legal document just to comfort the person you love — (applause) — to imagine the pain of losing a partner of decades and then discovering that the law treats you like a stranger. (Applause.)

If we are honest with ourselves we’ll admit that there are too many who do not yet know in their lives or feel in their hearts the urgency of this struggle. That’s why I continue to speak about the importance of equality for LGBT families — and not just in front of gay audiences. That’s why Michelle and I have invited LGBT families to the White House to participate in events like the Easter Egg Roll — because we want to send a message. (Applause.) And that’s why it’s so important that you continue to speak out, that you continue to set an example, that you continue to pressure leaders — including me — and to make the case all across America. (Applause.)

So, tonight I’m hopeful — because of the activism I see in this room, because of the compassion I’ve seen all across America, and because of the progress we have made throughout our history, including the history of the movement for LGBT equality.

Soon after the protests at Stonewall 40 years ago, the phone rang in the home of a soft-spoken elementary school teacher named Jeanne Manford. It was 1:00 in the morning, and it was the police. Now, her son, Morty, had been at the Stonewall the night of the raids. Ever since, he had felt within him a new sense of purpose. So when the officer told Jeanne that her son had been arrested, which was happening often to gay protesters, she was not entirely caught off guard. And then the officer added one more thing, “And you know, he’s homosexual.” (Laughter.) Well, that police officer sure was surprised when Jeanne responded, “Yes, I know. Why are you bothering him?” (Applause.)

And not long after, Jeanne would be marching side-by-side with her son through the streets of New York. She carried a sign that stated her support. People cheered. Young men and women ran up to her, kissed her, and asked her to talk to their parents. And this gave Jeanne and Morty an idea.

And so, after that march on the anniversary of the Stonewall protests, amidst the violence and the vitriol of a difficult time for our nation, Jeanne and her husband Jules — two parents who loved their son deeply — formed a group to support other parents and, in turn, to support their children, as well. At the first meeting Jeanne held, in 1973, about 20 people showed up. But slowly, interest grew. Morty’s life, tragically, was cut short by AIDS. But the cause endured. Today, the organization they founded for parents, families, and friends of lesbians and gays — (applause) — has more than 200,000 members and supporters, and has made a difference for countless families across America. And Jeanne would later say, “I considered myself such a traditional person. I didn’t even cross the street against the light.” (Laughter.) “But I wasn’t going to let anybody walk over Morty.” (Applause.)

That’s the story of America: of ordinary citizens organizing, agitating and advocating for change; of hope stronger than hate; of love more powerful than any insult or injury; of Americans fighting to build for themselves and their families a nation in which no one is a second-class citizen, in which no one is denied their basic rights, in which all of us are free to live and love as we see fit. (Applause.)

Tonight, somewhere in America, a young person, let’s say a young man, will struggle to fall to sleep, wrestling alone with a secret he’s held as long as he can remember. Soon, perhaps, he will decide it’s time to let that secret out. What happens next depends on him, his family, as well as his friends and his teachers and his community. But it also depends on us — on the kind of society we engender, the kind of future we build.

I believe the future is bright for that young person. For while there will be setbacks and bumps along the road, the truth is that our common ideals are a force far stronger than any division that some might sow. These ideals, when voiced by generations of citizens, are what made it possible for me to stand here today. (Applause.) These ideals are what made it possible for the people in this room to live freely and openly when for most of history that would have been inconceivable. That’s the promise of America, HRC. That’s the promise we’re called to fulfill. (Applause.) Day by day, law by law, changing mind by mind, that is the promise we are fulfilling.

Thank you for the work you’re doing. God bless you. God bless America. (Applause.)

END 8:35 P.M. EDT

Obama’s Expanding Anti-Christian Agenda: Photo of President Obama appearing on the website of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the world’s most powerful homosexual lobby group. Obama was the keynote speaker at the group’s annual fundraising dinner. He echoed HRC’s talking points by claiming that homosexuality-based relationships are “just as real and admirable” as normal and natural relationships between a man and a woman.

CHICAGO, Illinois — President Obama used the bully pulpit tonight to defy the Creator, by brazenly declaring before a homosexual activist audience that homosexuality-based relationships are “just as real and admirable” as normal relationships between a man and a woman.

Here is how influential one homosexual activist — Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign, whose annual fundraising dinner Obama keynoted tonight — reacted to the president’s unprecedented endorsement of the homosexual lifestyle:

“Finally, we heard something quite remarkable from the President:  ‘You will see a time in which we as a nation finally recognize relationships between two men or two women as just as real and admirable as relationships between a man and a woman.’

“This was a historic night when we felt the full embrace and commitment of the President of the United States. It’s simply unprecedented.”

Americans For Truth About Homosexuality President Peter LaBarbera issued this response:

President Obama has taken his ‘audacity’ to new levels tonight, equating sin-based ‘relationships’ to the normal and natural male-female relationship that finds its best fulfillment in God-ordained, procreative marriage.

During the presidential campaign, Obama once punted on an abortion-related query as to when life begins, saying that was above his “pay grade.” Too bad he didn’t attempt a similar evasion on  homosexuality. The president has gone way over his pay grade on this one. Homosexual practice is a moral issue, settled by the Creator and His clear design of nature since the beginning of time. Obama can no more declare with any authority that abnormal, homosexuality-based relationships are as “admirable” as normal relationships than he can proclaim that each day will now have 30 hours instead of 24 to increase American productivity.

The president could not be more wrong. Homosexual relationships are not to be admired, they are to be pitied, as immoral “unions” that can only pretend to copy real marriage. Moreover, when the government treats such aberrant relationships like marriage, it risks placing hundreds of thousands of children in homes that are motherless or fatherless by design, through “gay adoption” — another misguided homosexual demand advanced by Obama.

Perhaps the president needs to meet at the White House with some “ex-gays” — former homosexuals who now live in natural, man-woman marriages — people like Steve Bennett, Yvette Schneider, and Alan Chambers — to see the error of his ways.

We have yet to analyze Obama’s entire speech, but his declaration about admiring immoral homosexual relationships alone is the latest in a series of acts of spectacular hubris that have marked his political career. But Obama has a problem: he sold himself to the American electorate as a moderate Christian who believes deeply in traditional marriage between a man and a woman. Yet the more he panders and postures to his impatient homosexual allies, the more Obama’s supposed embrace of husband-and-wife marriage becomes a farce — one apparently designed to fool voters who knew next to nothing about his real, radically pro-homosexual and pro-transsexual agenda.

We don’t blame Obama’s “queer” allies for asking: if you truly believe same-sex relationships are as “real and admirable” as male-female relationships, then why NOT support “gay marriage”? Equal is equal, right? The truth, of course, is that homosexuality-based relationships are anything but equal to the real thing: they cannot produce children; they are based on destructive and changeable behavior that has been condemned by Christianity and other major religious throughout most of civilized human history; and in celebrating their particular sin and attaching it to the noble institution of marriage, they force the teaching of homosexuality and counterfeit “marriage” as normative to schoolchildren in the name of tolerance and equality.

Barack Obama is a man whose “audacity” and pride seem to know no bounds — he even distorts the Bible to justify his “gay” advocacy. In his mind, he knows better than God, or so it would seem. Yet in this respect Obama is not unlike other pro-abortion and pro-homosexuality politicians — mostly Democrats but some Republicans — who take it upon themselves to redefine right and wrong based on their subjective “feelings.” As the prophet Isaiah said long ago, they call good evil and evil good (Is. 5:20).

We hope that Obama’s cynical habit of talking out of both sides of his mouth on the homosexual issue (like other issues) will be his undoing. Now it is time for moral-minded Americans — especially those who voted for Obama  — be they Christian, Muslim or Jew; black, white or brown — to let the White House and Congress know that they will oppose all of the Obama Administration’s legislative efforts to create a bogus “civil right” out of the human wrong of homosexuality.

NOTE TO READERS: the following Americans For Truth transcript, derived from an audiotape recording of a speech made at a 1997 GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network) conference, is at the source for the current “Harry Hay-NAMBLA” controversy surrounding GLSEN founder Kevin Jennings — President Obama’s “Safe Schools” deputy at the Department of Education. (The left-wing group Media Matters cites it HERE.) This transcript was provided by Brian Burt, then a volunteer writer/reporter for the Americans For Truth publication “Lambda Report.” We will endeavor to provide the tape to the public to counteract the absurd attempts to discredit this and other first-hand AFTAH reports on Jennings and GLSEN simply because AFTAH is a conservative organization. — Peter LaBarbera, President, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, www.aftah.org

P.S. It would seem fairly easy for Jennings to clarify his position on NAMBLA — all he has to do is issue a clear statement of his opposition to this evil “man-boy love” organization. Homosexual activist groups and leaders similarly denounced NAMBLA — which marched in early “gay pride” parades and whose “right” to do so was enthusiastically defended by “gay” icon Harry Hay –  when they perceived that being tied to the notorious pederasty group was an impediment to their progress.

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Have Kevin Jennings and GLSEN almost won? Obama Department of Education appointee Kevin Jennings looked forward to the day when people would shrug their shoulders at the news that “gay” groups like the one he founded (GLSEN) are “promoting homosexuality” in schools. Has America become so corrupt and decadent that this “queer” activist’s twisted vision has become true?  TAKE ACTION: write Education Secretary Arne Duncan (arne.duncan@ed.gov) or call him (202-401-3000) with the message that you do not want your tax dollars spent on “promoting homosexuality” in schools. Also, urge your Senators and Congressman (202-224-3121) to call on Duncan to withdraw the appointment of Jennings — an anti-religious bigot who said (in a church) “[F**k] ‘em” and “Drop dead” to religious traditionalists — as “Safe School” Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Department of Education. Photo at left is from MassResistance’s coverage of the 2009 homosexual “Youth Pride” parade.

The following transcript of a 1997 speech by Kevin Jennings is reprinted from the Lambda Report, Jan.-Feb. 1998 [LR, published by Peter LaBarbera, preceded Americans For Truth About Homosexuality]:

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GLSEN’s Jennings: ‘That is our mission from this day forward’

The following is a transcript of GLSEN founder and executive director Kevin Jennings’ comments before “Looking to the Future” panel at GLSEN’s Mid-Atlantic conference, held October 25, 1997 at the Grace Church School in New York City. A few incidental words and phrases have been removed for clarity:

Two years ago, one of our board members, one named Ann Simon, was called to testify before Congress when they had hearings on the promotion of homosexuality in schools. And we were busy putting out press releases, and saying, ‘We’re not promoting homosexuality, that’s not what our program’s about. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.’ And my best friend, who’s a straight women who lives in London, e-mailed me…and she said, ‘So what if you are?’ And I thought of how I can get so wrapped up in my own defensiveness, and…the day-to-day struggle, and stuff, that being finished might some day mean that most straight people, when they would hear that someone was promoting homosexuality, would say ‘Yeah, who cares?’ because they wouldn’t necessarily equate homosexuality with something bad that you would not want to promote. And when we were talking there, and Mike said, ‘You know, and I’d like five years from now—right now let’s face it, for large swells of people they think of GLSEN and kids, and they think, ‘GLSEN is bad for kids.’ They do because of their stereotypes and misinformation—I’d like five years from now for most Americans when they hear the word GLSEN to think, ‘Ooh, that’s good for kids.’’

I’d like you to step back for a second if you can, and I know that many of you here are going to return to meetings on Monday where the euphoria of today will dissipate quite quickly…But if you could just close your eyes for a second. I know this is very Californian. Close your eyes for a second and think, ‘What would the world look like if we were through with our work? If we were done. If we could close the doors on 27th street [GLSEN’s New York City headquarters], and shut down the chapters, and disband the board. What would be happening?’… [Audience responses]

…As the son of a Baptist preacher from North Carolina…I can remember a time when having a conference like this, for me, certainly as a teenager, seemed completely impossible. And I would see in certain people’s faces when people would say certain things, or this visioning part, and we’d get little snickers, like,  ‘Yeah, [bulls--t].’ This is the only thing that can stop us, is if we believe that our dreams cannot come true.

One of the people that’s always inspired me is Harry Hay, who started the first ongoing gay rights groups in America. In 1948, he tried to get people to join the Mattachine Society [the first American homosexual “rights” group]. It took him two years to find one other person who would join. Well, [in] 1993, Harry Hay marched with a million people in Washington, who thought he had a good idea 40 years before. Everybody thought Harry Hay was crazy in 1948, and they knew something about him which he apparently did not—they were right, he was crazy. You are all crazy. We are all crazy. All of us who are thinking this way are crazy, because you know what? Sane people keep the world the same [sh*tty] old way it is now. It’s the people who think, ‘No, I can envision a day when straight people say, ‘So what if you’re promoting homosexuality?’ Or straight kids say, ‘Hey, why don’t you and your boyfriend come over before you go to the prom and try on your tuxes on at my house?’ That if we believe that can happen, we can make it happen. The only thing that will stop us is our lack of faith that we can make it happen. That is our mission from this day forward. To not lose our faith, to not lose our belief that the world can, indeed, be a different place. And think how much can change in one lifetime if in Harry Hay’s one very short life, he saw change from not even one person willing to join him to a million people willing to travel to Washington to join him. You can see the same changed happen in your lifetime if you believe you can.’’

– Brian Burt, Lambda Report, Jan.-Feb. 1998

Kevin Jennings, founder of the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network and President Obama’s new Deputy Assistant Secretary for Safe and Drug-Free Schools.

Promoting Human Wrongs in the Name of Human Rights: HRC and its president, Joe Solmonese, love to smear defenders of traditional marriage and the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality (including preachers) as “haters” and “extremists.” Barack Obama demeans the office of the presidency of the United States by celebrating this radical and profoundly anti-Christian organization.

President Barack Obama is telegraphing his left-wing sympathies and defiance of America’s historic, Judeo-Christian-based morality to the world. The same man who didn’t have time for the National Day of Prayer has worked into his busy schedule a keynote address at a fundraiser Saturday for the world’s largest homosexual lobby group — one that glories in its anti-religious bigotry (masquerading as tolerance, of course). Yes, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is really all about Human Wrongs — whether it’s demonizing as “extremists” Americans who are simply trying to protect the age-old definition of marriage; crusading for legislation that denies our First Amendment right to defend normalcy and Judeo-Christian mores; lobbying for taxpayer funding of transsexual “sex-change” mutilations operations; or its ongoing attempt to redefine the clear Word of God to serve the sinful cause of “proud” homosexuality. (HRC’s Harry Knox — an Obama “faith council” appointee — outrageously calls his own homosexuality a “gift from God.”) At bottom is the HRC press release below highlighting Obama’s address Saturday evening.

Obama’s friend, HRC President Joe Solmonese (above left), is to true respect and “tolerance” what John Edwards and Mark Sanford are to “family values.” Solmonese revels in his role as D.C.’s top homosexual power-broker. A former exec with the pro-abortion PAC EMILY’s List, he embodies the spirit of the age that elevates subjective feelings and libertine, godless ideologies over timeless revelation of right versus wrong. Moreover, Solmonese and fellow “queer” advocates arrogantly behave as if there is no legitimate “other side” to their homosexual movement. He has no problem castigating religious foes of the homosexualist agenda — including pastors, who he accuses of “preaching hatred from the pulpit” for merely agreeing with God about homosexual sin. (Much as they hate religious “fundamentalists,” those homosexual activists sure do have their own set of absolute “fundamentals” down pat, huh?)

Solmonese even has the chutzpah to accuse the Vatican of having a “truth” problem when the Catholic Church tries to deal with its crisis caused by homosexual priests (you know, the ones with a sexual preference for adolescent boys). What he and fellow “gay” activists call a witch-hunt was actually an attempt by the church to prevent further man-boy predations that have badly damaged its reputation. When the pope condemns same-sex “marriage,” HRC and Solmonese dismiss him as “anti-gay” and say he is out to divide “faithful Catholics.” (Last I heard, people who champion sins are not called “faithful.”)

I remember way, way back when HRC joined other “gay” organizations in blacking out its websites following the murder of college student Matt Shepard — and shamelessly used the tragedy as an opportunity to promote “Hate Crimes” legislation. They cynically demonized Christian pro-family groups as somehow having a role in the crime. This is a profoundly anti-Christian organization, so when President Obama celebrates HRC and helps it raise funds, he honors their particular brand of animus and bigotry, which equates genuine, God-fearing Christians (and orthodox Jews, and traditional Muslims) with “hatred” and vile prejudice. That makes this a hateful act by Mr. Obama, and one that demeans the office of the presidency of the United States. Pray for Obama — he cannot serve both God and a Bible-distorting sin group. You can contact the White House HERE. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

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HRC’s press release follows:

President Barack Obama to Deliver Keynote Address at the 13th Annual Human Rights Campaign Dinner

U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy will also present first Edward M. Kennedy National Leadership Award to Judy and Dennis Shepard

10/5/2009

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization, announced today that President Barack Obama will deliver the keynote address at the 13th Annual National Dinner on Saturday, October 10th, in Washington, D.C.  U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy will also present the first-ever Edward M. Kennedy National Leadership Award to Judy and Dennis Shepard.  The award is named in honor of the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), a champion in the fight for LGBT equality.

“We are honored to share this night with President Obama, who has called upon our nation to embrace LGBT people as brothers and sisters,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese.  “It is fitting that he will speak to our community on the night that we pay tribute to his friend and mentor Senator Edward Kennedy, who knew that as president, Barack Obama would take on the unfinished business of this nation – equal rights for the LGBT community, and for every person who believes in liberty and justice for all.”

The event will begin at 7 p.m. at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.  All media planning to attend the Human Rights Campaign National Dinner must pre-register by Thursday, October 8.  ….

The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. By inspiring and engaging all Americans, HRC strives to end discrimination against LGBT citizens and realize a nation that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all.

WARNING: Offensive photos depicting San Francisco’s perversion of “tolerance”

Me: Naked Black Slave on leash; You: White Master: Is this what big city liberals and pro-”gay” activists mean when they extol “diversity” and “sexual freedom”? (Note the two cops in the background who took no action against this public nudity.) We covered up the exposed genitals of the African-American man at left, who with his white, female “master” (holding leash) attended the 2009 Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco Sunday afternoon. Despite the SFPD’s promises earlier this year to crack down on public nudity at such events, police and city (and state) authorities again “tolerated” full frontal nudity at Folsom. (More firsthand Americans For Truth photos to come from our man on the scene.)

Consensual “master-slave” “relationships” are just one of the demented perversions that fall under the sadomasochistic (”leather”) umbrella.  Powerful homosexual groups like the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force promote such deviance — see our stories HERE and HERE on the Task Force’s annual “Leather Leadership Award.” The same Task Force — which purports to support “monogamous” values for homosexuals as it injects itself into Maine’s current battle over  “same-sex marriage” — manages to vilify Christian pro-family groups as “extremists” despite its own promotion of twisted and dehumanizing “S&M” perversions.

Daddy “Master,” Boy “Slave”:  Below, another “master-slave couple,” this one homosexual, poses for the camera at Sunday’s Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco. Note that the “slave” — who appears to be considerably younger than his “master” — is bound by a leash to the older man. We had to cover it up, but the younger man also is wearing a “sex toy” contraption that hangs from his shoulders and attaches to the base of his testicles. 

Ironic Indignation: will Speaker Pelosi work use her unprecedented influence to stop the anti-Christian intolerance and gross incivility toward people of faith in her own congressional district?

Recently, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) accused Americans protesting Obama-care at congressional townhall meetings of engaging in “un-American” conduct. Wrote Speaker Pelosi August 10: “These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task [health care reform] for decades.”

Speaker Pelosi, representing the intolerant glass house of San Francisco, should hardly be throwing stones with her selective outrage designed to discredit Americans opposed to expansive government. In her city, “shouting down” opponents has become an art form for the Left. Below is a video by veteran homosexual activist Michael Petrelis, founding member of the homosexual extremist group ACT UP, in which Petrelis shouts down an Americans For Truth-led coalition protest last year condemning San Francisco’s allowance of public nudity and sex in the streets (i.e., at the annual deviance sex-fest known as the Folsom Street Fair). Note in this homosexual activist video how the police officer ignores my plea for speech rights and allows Petrelis to disrupt our press event. — Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth

In future posts, we’ll have more on Pelosi’s subsequent ironic pleas for civility. Note the vulgar Petrelis’ simulation of a sex act on a banana and his enthusiastic defense of public sex and nudity in his city. In most other cities, police put a distance between opposing sides so that each can exercise its right to speak out. Shown in the video are AFTAH’s Peter LaBarbera (asking police to prevent Petrlelis from disrupting the press conference), Diane Gramley of American Family Association of Pennsylvania, and Linda Harvey of Mission America. The coalition press conference occurred September 27, 2008, a day before the perverse “Folsom Street Fair,” which again “tolerated” public nudity.

The FBI today announced child-pornography charges against four men from Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana, accusing them of operating a ring that distributed pornographic images and videos and referred to themselves by the name “Boy Lovers.”

Charged are Jose Carlos Garcia, 22, of Schererville, Ind.; Neal Maschke, 40, of West Chicago; Corey Stinefast, 27, of Kenosha, Wis.; and Mark McGill, 24, of Crest Hill.

According to the complaints, the FBI began investigating the men in June after arresting one in their group. That man admitted to “possession, receipt, distribution and manufacture of child pornography,” the complaint said. The man “also stated he had contacts with many other child pornography enthusiasts, some of whom were molesting children.”

The man became a cooperating witness and may still face federal child-exploitation charges himself, according to the complaints.

In several recorded conversations — in person, via phone and Internet chat — the witness and Garcia allegedly discussed child pornography, and he and Garcia arranged to meet to exchange and view images and videos together.

In one phone exchange on July 11, Garcia allegedly told the cooperating witness that he had traveled to St. Louis and met with a man whom he filmed engaging in sexual activity with a young boy, the complaint against Garcia states.

On Aug. 25, the witness, Garcia and Stinefast allegedly went to a local amusement park, the complaint states. During the trip, Stinefast allegedly gave Garcia a computer disk containing child pornography that the witness later turned over to federal investigators.

The witness and undercover FBI investigators met with Garcia and Maschke in a hotel room in Skokie on Saturday night to exchange pornographic computer images and videos. Those two defendants were arrested at that time and were found to have child pornography with them, according to the FBI. Stinefast was arrested in Kenosha the same night.

McGill was taken into custody this morning. Officials say he gave a USB drive to the witness on Aug. 29 that contained over 3,500 images and 60 videos of child pornography.

If convicted of the charges against them, Garcia, Stinefast and McGill face between five and 20 years in federal prison, while Maschke faces up to 10 years in prison.

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From the archives of Concerned Women for America’s online “Culture and Family Institute” newsletter (Oct. 30, 2002):

Father of ‘Gay Rights’ Dies; Media Ignore NAMBLA Connection

Harry Hay Was Sexualized Early, Defended Pedophiles to the End

By Peter J. LaBarbera, CWA, 10-30-2002

In noting the passing of Harry Hay — the man who first organized homosexuals as a political minority — no mainstream media outlets reported that Hay was an advocate of pedophile rights and the notorious group NAMBLA.

NAMBLA is the North American Man/Boy Love Association, a group that advocates for the legalization of sex between men and boys, and an end to all “age of consent” laws.

Hay, who died on October 24, at age 90, formed the first American homosexual activist group, the Mattachine Society, in 1950. He conceived of the idea of organizing homosexuals at a time when most were afraid to even be discovered as such. Hay was also a committed Communist who married to hide his homosexuality so that he could join the Party.

He went on to found The Radical Faeries, a shamanistic spirituality movement for homosexual men. “Gay pride” parades frequently include local contingents of “Faeries” — semi-naked men prancing and dancing in variations of Native American rituals.

Hay strongly opposed the notion that “gays” should assimilate into larger “straight” culture. Thus, in the eighties and nineties, when homosexual activists began banning NAMBLA from “gay pride” parades to clean up their public image, he and other “gay” liberationists were outraged.

In 1994, Hay, then in his eighties, was among the signers of a “Spirit of Stonewall” proclamation that argued that efforts to ban NAMBLA from the New York “pride” parade violated the spirit of the original Stonewall “rebellion,” which is revered by homosexual activists as the spark of the modern “gay rights” movement. (In 1969, homosexuals and others then regarded as deviants rioted in response to a police crackdown of the Stonewall Inn in New York City.)

The Spirit of Stonewall (SOS) declaration read in part:

Stonewall was the spontaneous action of marginal people oppressed by the mainstream — of teenaged drag queens, pederasts, transsexuals, hustlers, and others despised by respectable straights and “discreet” homosexuals. …

SOS is an ad hoc committee of lesbian, gay and other individuals and groups formed to bring Stonewall 25 [celebrating the 25th anniversary of the riots] back to the principles of gay liberation. We focus on one of the most glaring departures from those principles: the attempt to exclude [NAMBLA] . …

NAMBLA’s record as a responsible gay organization is well known. NAMBLA was spawned by the gay community and has been in every major gay and lesbian march. … NAMBLA’s call for the abolition of age of consent is not the issue. NAMBLA is a bona fide participant in the gay and lesbian movement. NAMBLA deserves strong support in its rights of free speech and association and its members’ protection from discrimination and bashing.

In 1986, Hay’s pro-NAMBLA activism had a role in what became known in homosexual circles as the “Harry Hay incident.” As part of a protest against the Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade, Hay taunted organizers for excluding the North American Man/Boy Love Association by wearing a sandwich board that read, “NAMBLA Walks with Me.” This event is chronicled by Hay’s biographer, homosexual writer Stuart Timmons, in The Trouble with Harry Hay: Founder of the Modern Gay Movement. The book includes a photo of Hay in the NAMBLA sandwich board.

More recently, Hay wrote an essay for the pederasty magazine GAYME, according to a “queer” magazine Web site. GAYME is a magazine for men who are sexually “into boys,” according to one Web reviewer. It is produced by former NAMBLA Bulletin editor Bill Andriette.

Timmons’ sympathetic biography of Hay reveals that he had his first homosexual sexual encounter at age nine, with another boy. At age 14, in a grove of trees, he “discovered his first [homosexual] lovemaking” with a 25-year-old sailor named Matt. Hay refused to describe the experience as “molestation,” according to Timmons, “to make the point of how sharply gay life differs from homosexual norms.” The account continues:

“As a child,” [Hay] explained, “I molested an adult until I found out what I needed to know.” … Far from being an experience of “molestation,” Harry always described it as “the most beautiful gift that a fourteen-year-old ever got from his first love!”

A Nexis database search of Harry Hay obits in over 30 print news outlets — including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Associated Press and Time Magazine — turned up no mention of his pro-NAMBLA advocacy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ObamaCare Likely to Mandate Free “Sex-Change” Surgeries 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Laurie Higgins

Homosexual activist Wayne Besen of the oddly named Truth Wins Out described Dr. Michael Brown’s group of evangelists (the “God Has a Better Way” campaign responding to the Charlotte, N.C. “gay pride” parade) as “uninvited locusts” descending on Charlotte. With that description in mind, I wonder how conservatives should describe the thousands of participants in “pride” parades and “fairs” who pollute our streets with illegal nudity and public sex acts to which law enforcement agents, who are paid by the public to enforce laws, turn a blind eye.

When Besen said that “the notion that gay people in conservative North Carolina needed Brown to educate them about religious fundamentalism was farcical,” he revealed his ignorance about Biblical and Historical Theology. Although the belief that homosexual acts violate God’s will is a belief held by “fundamentalists,” it also integral to all orthodox theological traditions and has been since the beginnings of the church. His ignorance is not surprising, however, since Besen is a member of the homosexual activist movement that regularly makes numerous ludicrous exegetical claims, including the claims that Ruth and Naomi and David and Jonathan had homosexual relationships.

Then Besen makes a patently false assertion when he states that homosexual activists are “falsely accused of working to undermine freedom of religion.” He may want to read the words of Georgetown University lesbian law professor, Chai Feldblum who writes that when same-sex “marriage” is legalized, conservative people of faith will lose religious rights.

Besen’s clouded vision is manifest in this description of a group of Christians engaged in evangelism: “Most alarming are these charlatans’ deliberate perpetuation of paranoia by trumpeting alleged religious persecution that exists only in their warped minds.” Perhaps Besen should talk to the Christian infertility doctors in California whom a lesbian sued when their religious convictions prevented them from inseminating a lesbian. Or perhaps he should talk to the Christian owners of a New Mexico photography studio who were sued and fined for “discrimination” when their religious beliefs prevented them from photographing the commitment ceremony of two homosexuals.

Perhaps Besen (left) should talk to the Christian mother in Alameda, Cal., whose public school is introducing pro-homosexual resources to first-graders next year. The school is refusing to notify parents prior to the presentation of these resources and is refusing to allow parents to opt out. Or perhaps he should talk to me about the efforts of change.org to get a hotel to break a legal contract with Illinois Family Institute because of our religious conviction that homosexual acts are immoral. Sounds remarkably like religious persecution to me.

What is confusing in Besen’s diatribe are these two seemingly contradictory claims: first, he said, “Brown tries to cover his tracks by sprinkling his apocalyptic rhetoric with calls for non-violence. Good orators, however, understand the principle of ‘layering’ messages. If in one sentence you speak of violence and in the next of non-violence, the listener will almost always embrace the words that support his or her belief system.” This clearly implies that Dr. Brown “spoke of violence in one sentence.”

But shortly thereafter, Besen said, “Brown, of course, doesn’t actually have to make an overt pitch for mayhem,” which seems to imply that Dr. Brown did not, in fact, “speak of violence.”

Besen takes issue with the proposition that the movement to normalize homosexuality tampers “with the foundations of human society.” Surely, he knows that this belief is not unique to Dr. Brown. It is widely held by theologians from most denominational traditions and by many legal scholars, philosophers, political commentators, sociologists, psychologists, and ordinary people of all educational backgrounds and walks of life. Many, many people view heterosexual marriage between one man and one woman who together produce and nurture future generations of children to be the foundational institution of any healthy society. Once society divorces marriage from children and marriage from gender, the institution becomes meaningless and the culture dies.

Besen goes on to say in his apoplectic way that “It is time for Brown and his comrades to abort their increasingly hostile and combative tactics before it leads to more wanton death.” This tactic of misrepresenting any public opposition to the ideologies and political actions of homosexual activists and their supporters as hate mongers, fomenters of violence, and bigots is the stock-in-trade of the “LGBT” movement. The logical implication of the argument that the expression of opposition to one group’s moral claims represents hatred, bigotry, and incitement to violence, however, would be that Besen’s words represent hatred, bigotry, and incitement to violence against Christians, and Orthodox Jews, and Muslims, and secular conservatives.

Besen’s screed is laden with overheated, inflammatory, intolerant rhetoric. Kudos to Dr. Brown for doing what faith leaders should have done decades ago. Let’s hope more brave men step forward.

One last point on another topic: I noticed that Besen (shown with the bullhorn at right) refers to Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth as “Porno Pete” which I also find ironic in light of the homosexual community’s purported opposition to name-calling.  It’s not just ironic; it’s hypocritical. It’s just one more revelatory sign of the intellectual and ethical vacuity of the homosexual movement.

Laurie Higgins is the Director of Illinois Family Institute’s Division of School Advocacy.

You know, it’s pretty hard to play the victim when propagandistic “gay” images and characters saturate the airwaves. But leave it to GLAAD (the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) to try. I wonder though: what about Hollywood and EX-”gays”? (GLAAD fails to see the hypocrisy of its ongoing “defamation” of them.) It took decades after Roe v. Wade for Hollywood to produce movies like Juno that are unapologetically pro-life. How long will it take for the entertainment industry to catch up with reality and cast a sympathetic former homosexual character who is content with his sexuality? — Peter LaBarbera

P.S. A reminder to Mr. Link: five percent exceeds the homosexual population in society.

——————————–

David Link writes for the Independent Gay Forum:

We’re Here, We’re Queer, We Were on Primetime Network TV 647 Hours Last Year (Not Counting Cable)

Posted on IGF: July 26, 2009

I’m really wondering whether we need GLAAD anymore.  They’ve just released their Network Responsibility Index for 2008-09 to “serve as a road map toward increasing fair, accurate and inclusive LGBT media representations.”  ABC led the pack among networks; of its 1,146.5 total hours of primetime programming, 269.5 hours (24%) included LGBT impressions.  The CW came in second with 138 LGBT-inclusive hours, or 20% of its primetime offerings.  CBS gave us the back of their hand, devoting only 60 hours — 5% of its schedule — to us.  For shame.

In 1985, when GLAAD was a startup, this kind of monitoring was not only valuable, but necessary.  Back then, the New York Times had a specific editorial policy against use of the word “gay,” to describe us.  GLAAD is the reason that changed, and they can claim credit for much more.  They’ve helped us change the world.

But now we are in the position where we can complain when one network only shows us five percent of the time — a number pretty close to our actual percentage in the population.  Anyone tuned only to ABC would have had to put up with 269.5 hours of us.  How helpful is it, really, that we know, to the decimal point, total network hours, percentages (subdivided by race, as well; Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives lose serious GLAAD-cred on that point) and year-over-year differentials of GLAAD-approved achievement?  Are we studying stuff now, not because we need to, but just because we can?

I don’t know how much it cost to do all this monitoring, and slicing and dicing of the data, nor how much was spent to produce the 39-page, very glossy report.  But in a world where we have some important and expensive political work to do in (for example) Maine, New York and possibly Washington (and let’s not forget California), is this really the best use of $11 million?  Do we really need GLAAD as an institution any more?  More important, if we ever decided we didn’t, would it be possible to get rid of them?

I sent a version of the following letter to Jeff, who wrote Americans For Truth in February urging us to respect the “civil rights” of homosexuals (who he believes are born that way). Jeff’s letter is beneath mine at bottom. — Peter LaBarbera:

Peter LaBarbera’s Letter to Jeff:

…Jeff, I doubt the accuracy of your numbers (I believe 1-3 percent of the population is homosexual), but did you know that there are many men and women who once identified as “gay” or “lesbian” who left that lifestyle and are now living happy lives free of homosexuality?  I respect them and their choices; do you? Have you ever met a former homosexual or read one of their testimonies?  If not, here’s a website for you to visit: www.exodus.to.  (Keep in mind that homosexual activists like Wayne Besen (www.truthwinsout.org) relentlessly demean, ridicule and even harass former homosexuals and the whole idea of “ex-gays” — strange conduct from a group that demands tolerance and respect from others.)

We disagree on the morality of homosexual practice, it’s that simple. I don’t ask you to “respect” all my decisions and behaviors — or my arguments — but I do ask you to respect my freedom to live according to my conscience, in a nation founded on religious freedom. And though as a Christian I respect the dignity of all human beings (who are made in the image of God), I will never respect the choice to embrace homosexual/bi/trans behavior — any more so than I would respect people self-identifying by any other sexual sin. (Of course, there are no Adultery Pride Parades.)

That said, speaking as a sinner myself, I have no use for people who hate homosexuals — who need the hope and grace of the Gospel like everyone else.  Rather, I would ask people practicing homosexuality to consider the possibility that they are wrong about this behavior (and their “gay” self-identity), and to be open to the possibility of leaving it through a relationship with Jesus Christ. (Of course, people can leave homosexuality and other sinful patterns without God, but I have found that the most satisfied ex-gays are those who have embraced Christ; see http://www.redeemedlives.org/index.asp, a ministry led by another ex-gay, Mario Bergner.)

So the gist of this debate is: do I and others like me have the right not to approve or subsidize behavior we consider immoral and changeable — or will that right be stripped from us in the name of “LGBT rights”?  Should a small businessman, say an Orthodox Jew with 25 employees, be required by the state to subsidize the homosexual relationships of his employees against his will?  You see, this is far different from traditional civil rights — based on unchangeable skin color — which perhaps explains why African Americans are the strongest sub-group in opposition to “same-sex marriage.”

Besides, the science isn’t in on the supposed “gay gene” so why do you assume it’s fact? (Check out the American Psychological Association’s recent retreat on the alleged innateness of homosexuality: http://www.washblade.com/2009/7-10/news/national/14849.cfm.)

Since you “care about freedom,” will you stand up strongly for the liberty of all Americans to live by their moral and religious beliefs, even if you don’t agree with or understand them?  I hope so.

Thanks for taking the time to write, and sorry for the late reply. We get thousands of emails a month and many are not as respectful as yours.

Sincerely,

Peter LaBarbera
President
Americans For Truth About Homosexuality
www.aftah.org

July 17, 2009

——————————————————————————–

Jeff’s Letter to AFTAH:

From: Jeff H. [mailto:--------]
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2009 12:59 PM
To: americansfortruth@comcast.net
Subject: introduction

Hi,

I am a straight man, married for 30 years. As an entrepreneur and capitalist I have created thousands of jobs. I am no “left wing” radical.

About 5% of the people of the world are gay or lesbian, one out of twenty people. Just as you and I didn’t pick our sexuality, they didn’t pick theirs. Their “agenda” is the agenda of civil rights. It is also my agenda and the agenda of everyone who cares about freedom.

It would be great if you were to respect all humans regardless of what their genes are, and fight for human rights for everyone.

Thank you for your time.

- Jeff

Opinion piece by J. Matt Barber [Note: Barber will be keynoting Americans For Truth's fund-raising banquet on Sat., Oct. 24 in suburban Chicago]

The highly contentious “nature vs. nurture” debate over whether “gay” penguins choose the homosexual lifestyle or are hatched that way has reached a hard boil.

San Francisco’s Fox affiliate KTUV reports: “The San Francisco Zoo’s popular same-sex penguin couple has broken up.

“Male Magellan penguins Harry and Pepper have been together since 2003. The pair nested together and even incubated an egg laid by another penguin in 2008, but their relationship hit the rocks earlier this year when a female penguin, Linda, befriended Harry after her long-time companion died.

“Zookeepers say Harry and Linda are happy and were able to successfully nest this year,” reported KTUV.

But not everyone is celebrating Harry and Linda’s newfound love. Some believe there can be no such a thing as an “ex-gay” penguin. Upon news of Harry’s decision to fly the same-sex-coop, outspoken pro-homosexual activist and anti-ex-gay crusader Wayne Besen cried fowl:

“Attempts to change sexual orientation are patently offensive, discriminatory by definition, theologically shaky, uniformly unsuccessful and medically unsound!” exclaimed a visibly angry Besen. “There is no ‘ex-gay’ sexual orientation. Harry is simply in denial. He’s living what I call the ‘big lie.’”

When asked if heterosexual penguins can become gay, Besen replied, “Well, um, sure. It happens all the time. But in that case it’s just the penguin embracing who he really is. Penguin pride is quite a courageous thing to witness, what with all the mean-spiritedness and homophobia among Penguo-Americans and everything. Once gay, always gay! You know; birds of a feather and all that.

“See,” continued Besen, “medical science has conclusively determined that, while still eggs, many of the more effeminate penguins sometimes get a bit scrambled, so to speak, due to what’s called ‘Homospheniscus Magellanicus Inheritus’ or, as it’s commonly referred: ‘The Gay Penguin Gene’ (GPG).

“No, seriously. It’s science,” insisted Besen. “Harry’s as gay today as he’s ever been. Mark my words. It’s just a matter of time until he ends up slinking around some back alley gay bar in the Castro District, strung out on meth.”

As is customary, Besen – along with a lathered-up handful of equally irate anti-ex-gay blowhards – intends to raucously picket Harry’s Zoo holding area – megaphones in hand – to protest what Besen called, “the tremendous political setback an ever-increasing number of ex-gays pose to our furiously ambitious political agenda. I really, really wish they’d just go away.”

Meanwhile, Pepper has also had difficulty accepting Harry’s decision to embrace natural sexuality. According to KTUV, Harry’s relationship with Linda “did not go over well with Pepper, who became violent.” Zookeeper Jennifer Katz lamented that “Pepper is by himself now.”

Still, it appears that Pepper has yet to hit rock bottom. In recent days he has reportedly been spotted waddling around the zoo’s public men’s room, skulking in stalls and inexplicably tapping his flipper. There’s even speculation that, as things continue to spiral, he may consider a run for political office.

___________________________

Matt Barber is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. He serves as Director of Cultural Affairs with both Liberty Counsel and Liberty Alliance Action. Send comments to Matt at jmattbarber@comcast.net. (This information is provided for identification purposes only.)  Barber will be the keynote speaker at AFTAH’s fund-raising banquet on Saturday, October 24 at the Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights, Illinois, northwest of Chicago (see below).

Matt Barber to Keynote AFTAH Fund-raising Banquet on October 24th

NOTE: The date of our banquet has been changed to Saturday, Oct. 24th:

SAVE THE DATE, Saturday Oct 24: Please save the evening of Saturday, October 24 to attend Americans For Truth’s banquet. Our featured speaker is Matt Barber, culture warrior for Liberty Counsel and author of the column below. Matt is quite a guy, to say the least. He’s gone from being a professional heavyweight boxer, to being fired by Allstate Insurance Company in 2005 because he wrote an online article – on his own time — critical of organized homosexuality, to his current position as one of America’s leading defenders of natural marriage and family. AFTAH got rave reviews for its last banquet; you won’t want to miss this one! The event will be held outside Chicago, in Arlington Heights, IL. Write us for more information at aftahangela@gmail.com or americansfortruth@comcast.net. We hope to see you there!

– Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, www.aftah.com

Below we reprint the first of an excellent three-part series on the “Hate Crimes” bill (S. 909) by Pittsburgh Theological Seminary professor Robert Gagnon (left), probably the world’s foremost expert on the Bible and homosexuality from an orthodox (Bible-believing) perspective. S. 909 could be voted on as early as Thursday in the U.S. Senate. (So says the extremist National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.) For those who can’t wait on AFTAH for Parts II and III, go to this page on Gagnon’s website and scroll down for the full series.

TAKE ACTION: call or write your U.S. Senators (202-224-3121 or 202-225-1321; www.congress.org) today and urge them to oppose the “hate crimes” bill, which is likely to be tacked on as an amendment to the defense appropriations bill for a vote as early as Thursday. Federal “hate crimes” legislation including homosexuality and gender confusion will lay the groundwork for the persecution of religious Americans or anyone who acts on the belief that homosexuality is wrong — as well as pro-life activists working to save unborn babies and those who fight jihadist Islamo-fascism. Every red state with no “sexual orientation” laws will instantly be affected by this federal power-grab that guarantees unequal treatment in the law by awarding homosexuals, bisexuals and the gender confused specially protected “civil rights” status.

_____________________________

Gagnon writes:

Why a Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity “Hate Crimes” Law Is Bad for You

Part 1: Promoting hatred of people opposed to homosexual practice and transgenderism

by Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D.

May 28, 2009

To print a clean copy with proper formatting and pagination go to the pdf version HERE.

The so-called “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act” (H.R. 1913), passed by the U.S. House of Representatives along party lines on Apr. 29 and introduced into the U.S. Senate shortly thereafter by Ted Kennedy (S. 909), is improperly named. The bill is really a hate-promotion bill as regards the inclusion of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” among the groupings slated to receive special protection.

Supporters of this bill who rightly believe homosexual practice to be unnatural and sinful have been duped into thinking that this bill is primarily about protecting homosexual and transgendered persons from violence. They hear the rubric “hate crimes” and think: Who can be for violence toward homosexual and transgendered persons?

The real objectives of the “hate crimes” bill (hint: it’s not about crime)

Supporters of this bill who believe homosexual practice to be immoral rarely stop to consider that all necessary laws are already in place protecting everyone from violent physical attacks or verbal threats to do bodily harm, including persons who engage in homosexual and transgendered behavior. Even homosexual columnist Andrew Sullivan has recently commented: “The real reason for hate crime laws is not the defense of human beings from crime. There are already laws against that—and Matthew Shepard’s murderers were successfully prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law in a state with no hate crimes law at the time.” There is absolutely no evidence that state prosecutors are systematically ignoring genuine crimes against homosexual and transgendered persons, once reported to law enforcement officials.

So why pass “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” so-called “hate crime” legislation? The reason has more to do with foisting an expansive homosexualist agenda on the nation than with concerns about crime. The bill serves the following vital aims of that agenda:

• It gets the federal government to enshrine in federal law “sexual orientation” (i.e. homosexuality and bisexuality) and “gender identity” (i.e. transsexualism and cross-dressing) as identity markers worthy of special protection and promotion alongside racial and gender diversity.
• This in turn gives federal backing to hatred of all persons who express opposition to homosexual practice and transgenderism as the moral equivalent of racists and misogynists (sexists), no matter how loving that expression of opposition may be.
• It also lays the foundation for a litany of future “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” bills that will markedly abridge the civil liberties of all who express moral disapproval of homosexual practice and transgenderism.

The foot in the door

This “hate crimes” bill is the proverbial foot in the door or camel nose in the tent that makes possible —— indeed inevitable —— all future laws involving “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” By simply placing “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” alongside of “race,” “color,” “national origin,” “gender,” and “disability,” this “hate crimes” bill does most of its damage. It ensconces in federal law the principle that homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality are as benign as race, gender, and disability —— an aspect of human diversity that must be affirmed and celebrated. Those who refuse to go along with this principle then become encoded in law as hateful, discriminatory bigots.

Note that while “religion” (an identity marker involving choice) is one of the protected categories of this “hate crime” bill, the bill mainly makes a connection between “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” on the one hand and a host of benign innate conditions on the other (i.e., the five other protected categories of the bill). I’ve never heard an advocate for homosexual practice and transgenderism make the connection between these behaviors and religious belief. The analogy is always made with race and gender.

The thought crime of “prejudice” against homosexual and transgender behavior

Make no mistake about the fact that this is an Orwellian thought-crimes bill. Suppose a young man and a 70-year-old grandmother push each at roughly the same time. The man does so after shouting out “You bigoted homophobe!” while the grandmother does so after responding “Well then, you are a sexual pervert!”

This “hate crime” bill would apply only to the grandmother and would do so solely on the basis that she believed that homosexual practice was a perversion of the natural sexual order. For the bill establishes this conviction to be a “prejudice,” stating that the federal government can intervene when “a crime of violence … is motivated by prejudice based on the actual or perceived … sexual orientation [or] gender identity … of the victim” (emphasis added). The bill effectively (but wrongly, go HERE) declares this conviction to be a hate that society must prosecute vigorously by enhancing penalties and calling for massive federal intervention.

However, the bill shows no concern for classifying as hateful prejudice the alternative conviction; namely, that advocates of a male-female requirement for sexual relations are hateful, ignorant bigots. Rather, the bill promotes this alternative conviction to society at large. It essentially declares to all sectors of society that it is “open season” on hating and ostracizing persons who find homosexual behavior and transsexualism to be morally repugnant, much as society hates and ostracizes members of the Klu Klux Klan or skinhead Nazi groups.

Recent cases in point are the widespread intimidation tactics employed by homosexualist opponents of California’s Proposition 8 against its supporters (for example, go HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE) and the smear campaign against Miss California, Carrie Prejean, for daring to disagree with a homosexual pageant judge’s affirmation of “gay marriage” (note that the point holds whatever Prejean’s deficiencies may be as a role model for Christian sexual modesty). Why shouldn’t those opposed to homosexual practice or transsexualism get special protection from the federal government? The reason is simple: They’re bigots.

The analogy of other sexual orientations

This bill thus goes beyond protection of homosexual, bisexual, and transgendered persons (who are already protected) to promotion of hatred —— hatred toward those opposed to homosexual and transgendered behavior. If you have any doubt about that, consider whether adding pedophilia (‘pedosexuality’) to the list would imply promotion of pedophilic behavior by the state and antagonism by the state toward perceived opponents of pedophiles. Surely it would.

Sadly, this may not be the best example since Rep. Steven King unsuccessfully introduced an amendment to the “hate crimes” bill in the House that would have excluded pedophilia from the definition of “sexual orientation.” If you can believe it, the Democrats in the House Judiciary Committee defeated the amendment along party lines, 13-10. To be sure, the Democrats are right that both “pedosexuality,” sexual desire for children, and “polysexuality,” sexual desire for more than one person concurrently, are “sexual orientations.” Where the Democrats err is in failing to recognize that this is a good reason for not having a “sexual orientation” provision.

Conclusion

So don’t fall for the line that, if you really love “gay,” lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons, you will support this “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” “hate crime” bill. No, support for this bill does not mean that you oppose hateful, violent acts against persons who self-identify as homosexuals, transsexuals, and cross-dressers. Existing laws already make that point. Rather, it means that you support stigmatizing, marginalizing, and penalizing people who, lovingly or not, oppose homosexual practice and transgenderism. This is a hate-promotion bill.

Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D. is associate professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Abingdon Press) and co-author of Homosexuality and the Bible: Two Views (Fortress Press). See www.robgagnon.net for more information.

WARNING: Crude language, inappropriate for children

TAKE ACTION: 1) e-mail this video to your elected Republican officials at the national (202-224-3121; www.congress.org), state and local level and urge them to reject the Log Cabin’s radical homosexual agenda (which includes joining with other “gay” groups in trying to use the courts to overturn California’s pro-traditional-marriage Prop 8 vote). 2) call or write Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele at chairman@gop.com or 202-863-8700; 2) Call or write Nettelhorst Elementary’s principal, Cindy Wulbert, at Cw1411@gmail.com or (773) 534-5810.

The Log Cabin Republicans, a homosexual activist group, fielded a float in Chicago’s annual “gay pride” parade on June 28. 2009 — with a couple of crude signs: “BIG DICKS, small government” and “A Strong Military Shoots Big Loads.” If that’s not bad enough, the “gay” parade — like others across the country — saw the participation of many young children, brought by their same-sex parents or gay-sympathetic adults. A Chicago school, Nettelhorst Elementary, participated semi-officially after parents rallied to have their children be part of the first-ever grade school contingent to march in the parade.

As you can see from the video, beyond the crude signage, the “pride” parade featured sexual images and even public nudity (a woman atop a float is shown flashing her bare breasts — covered up in this video). Homosexual activists claim that same-sex parenting and “gay” adoption are good for children. Then they take their impressionable kids to annual “gay pride” celebrations that feature erotic and perverted behavior and language that are clearly inappropriate for children. They can’t have it both ways.

This video was produced by Americans For Truth about Homosexuality.  At previous Chicago “gay pride” parades, AFTAH has witnessed public nudity and even a vile gay sex act between two men, which was allowed to take place on the street directly in front of a row of Chicago cops, who stood by and did nothing.

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Watch AFTAH’s other Chicago “gay pride” 2009 video:  VIDEO: Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, Chicago ‘Gay Pride,’ and the Homosexual Cop-Haters

Related Log Cabin and “gay pride” stories:

• Homosexual Group ‘Log Cabin Republicans’ Has Measly 20,000 Members Nationwide
• Should Children Attend Lewd ‘Gay Pride’ Parades? LaBarbera Asks Biased Chicago Tribune Reporter
• [Illinois Family Institute - 2004:] Will Mayor Daley Again Allow Homosexuals to Commit Illegal Sex Acts on Chicago Streets at Upcoming ‘Gay Pride’ Parade?
• AFTAH Gives RNC Chief Michael Steele 20,000 Reasons NOT to Embrace Divisive Homosexual ‘Log Cabin Republican’ Agenda
• Tony Peraica, Christine Radogno Cozy Up to the Homosexual ‘Log Cabin Republicans’
• Log Cabin Republican Jamie Ensley Comes Out of his Bigot Closet
• Log Cabin Republicans Erase Photo of Boy-Seducing Predator Mark Foley from their Website
• Judy Baar Topinka Featured at Pro-Homosexual Log Cabin Republicans Fundraiser
• Public Nudity Tolerated as Angry Mob Assaults Peaceful Christians at Chicago ‘Gay Pride’ Parade
• San Diego School Superintendent: “Parents Don’t Have a Problem with Their Kids Being in Gay Pride Parade!”
• Coach Daubenmire Is Right: Christian Man, You Need to Observe a ‘Gay Pride’ Parade!
• San Diego City Councilman Blocks Public Display of Photos from “Gay Pride” Parade
• Ex-Log Cabin Republican Leader Takes over Pro-Homosexual-’Marriage’ Effort – Cal. Teachers Ass’n Pledges $1 Million to ‘No on [Prop] 8′

The column by Matt Barber, Director of Cultural Affairs at the Liberty Counsel and a Board Member of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, first appeared in WorldNetDaily. Barber will be the keynote speaker at AFTAH’s fund-raising banquet on Saturday, October 24:

________________________________

WorldNetDaily, Friday, June 26, 2009

By Matt Barber

Most are unaware that during the Revolutionary War George Washington was a staunch advocate for allowing “gays” in the military. In fact, he boldly commissioned the little-known “Fabulous Pink Brigade,” which once infiltrated a British camp and –– while the redcoats slept –– covertly redecorated in eye-popping pastels.

No, although Washington was a revolutionary, he wasn’t a radical. The idea of open homosexuality within our armed services has long been considered preposterous.

Washington wisely understood that to allow men among the ranks who sodomized other men would necessarily distract from the mission at hand, disrupt unit cohesion and damage the morale of non-sodomy-disposed soldiers forced to sleep and bathe alongside those so inclined. It’s understandably disquieting to wonder whether your foxhole buddy “has your back” or wants to rub it.

In general court-martial orders dated March 14, 1778, Washington, through his designs, addressed the disposition of a homosexual soldier “tried for attempting to commit sodomy”: “[We] do sentence him to be dismiss’d [from] the service with infamy. His Excellency the Commander in Chief approves the sentence and with abhorrence and detestation of such infamous crimes orders Lieutt. Enslin to be drummed out of camp tomorrow morning by all the drummers and fifers in the Army never to return.”

Barack Obama is no George Washington. He and a like-minded gaggle of congressional liberals have pledged to repeal the federal law, Section 654, Title 10, which stipulates that homosexual practice is incompatible with military service. Furthermore, they intend to do away with Bill Clinton’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” administrative compromise.

The president has asked Congress to pass and send to his desk H.R. 1283, which, for the first time in American history, would homosexualize the military. To wit, he seeks to supplant military vitality with San Francisco vice. Whereas George Washington put a premium on combat readiness and national security, these indispensable safeguards play last fiddle to liberals’ obtuse fixation with political correctness.

In the deadly game of war it’s dangerously irresponsible to place extreme social ideology above national security. In combat, even the slightest disruption or distraction can spell the difference between victory and defeat –– life and death. The left fails to understand this grave reality.

The boots on the ground do not. In a March 31, 2009, letter addressed to President Obama and members of Congress, over 1,l00 of the military’s highest ranking and most distinguished commanders warned that they were “greatly concerned” by movement toward military homosexualization. They expressed fear that a DADT repeal would “eventually break the All-Volunteer Force.”

It seems their fears are justified. A 2009 Military Times poll determined that nearly one in 10 of those currently serving would not re-enlist if the policy were repealed. In today’s highly perilous global political climate, such a plummet in service could be devastating to national security.

I’m speaking from personal experience. I served 12 years in the Army National Guard. During basic training a young man who later turned out to be homosexual was discharged after making unwanted advances toward other soldiers and for inappropriately touching several while they slept in the barracks.

A lengthy investigation ensued. Troops were pulled away from their regular training to answer questions. It was a tremendous distraction for our entire platoon. This incident most definitely disrupted unit cohesion and harmed troop morale.

But none of this matters to liberals. Obama is the un-Washington. The left –– of which Obama sits on the fringe –– loathe the armed services. Rather than viewing the military as a noble and necessary institution designed as our last line of defense, they consider it a giant petri dish ripe for radical social experimentation. Move over Army National Guard; make way for the smarmy avant-garde.

But it’s not just the military that Obama seeks to “remake”; it’s the entire social construct. On June 1, 2009, he unilaterally and arbitrarily issued an official Presidential Proclamation smugly declaring that all Americans should celebrate sexual deviancy. He dubbed June “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.”

Rather than regarding homosexual practice with “abhorrence” and “detestation” –– as did George Washington and most everyone until recent years –– Obama has euphemistically vowed to “outlaw discrimination” (read: criminalize traditional morality). Included within his proclamation –– and among a host of equally radical social pledges –– was yet another promise to “[end] the existing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy. …”

Well, in recent weeks the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the notion that DADT constitutes “discrimination.” It affirmed a lower court ruling which held that the policy is “rationally related to the government’s legitimate interest in military discipline and cohesion.”

In an age of rampant judicial activism, it’s refreshing to witness some common-sense judicial restraint. This decision by the Supreme Court should once again remind everyone that, contrary to the propaganda fomented by the organized homosexual lobby, Barack Obama and liberals in Congress, homosexual temptation and the destructive but changeable homosexual lifestyle must not be confused with neutral and immutable characteristics such as race or gender for purposes of assigning special government minority status.

That is to say, it’s properly illegal, for instance, to ban African-Americans from serving in the armed forces. It is neither illegal nor discriminatory, however, to disallow an African-American who “loudly and proudly” opts to practice what George Washington would have called “the sin that dare not speak its name.”

Hands off the military, Mr. Obama; we can’t afford the “progress.”

Matt Barber (jmattbarber@comcast.net) is Director of Cultural Affairs with both Liberty Counsel and Liberty Alliance Action. (This information is provided for identification purposes only.)

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.