YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi1DNB_SeaQ

By Peter LaBarbera

It’s rare when I agree with (pro-homosexual-”marriage”) Chris Matthews, the fast-talking host of the MSNBC program “Hardball” — but here he hits the nail on the head. At a March 24 book signing in Framingham, Mass., Matthews was “ambushed” by video-camera-wielding activists with the pro-homosexual, leftist group Faithful America. They badgered him about having Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, on as a repeat guest on “Hardball.” Here’s Matthews’ response [more commentary after the video]:

Silencing “hate”?
Needless to say, Faithful America justifies its blacklisting campaign against Perkins on the basis of Family Research Council being (mis)labeled a “hate group” — by fellow left-wingers at GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) and the Southern Poverty Law Center.  [See Faithful America's Youtube comments HERE.] Perkins is a good man who ably and articulately defends the historic Judeo-Christian sexual and marriage ethic, for which he is rewarded with the usual vitriol by embittered homosexual activists and bloggers. Anyone who has seen Perkins debate on TV can see he is not “hateful” in the least — nor is the respected family organization FRC (where I once worked as a cultural analyst).

Do you see what is happening? The intellectual cowards on the Left — puffed up by a compliant media and suffused with enough “gay pride” and arrogance to presume that their aberrant sexual/gender ideology has NO LEGITIMATE OPPOSITION — are busier than ever trying to bully the media into joining their “Pro-Gay-Only” crusade. It is despicable, but worse: it is a grave threat to American liberty. Because when the media en masse kowtow to censorious activists — a road on which they are quite far along with the Homosexual Lobby — accountability, reason and fairness are jettisoned, paving the way for ever more reckless and extreme pressure campaigns against the dreaded “haters.” (That would be you, me and just about anyone who takes a public stand against homosexual behavior or “gay” agenda goals like same-sex “marriage.”)

Excerpts from the video:

Chris Matthews: I watched them deal with Buchanan [referring to MSNBC's recent firing of conservative commentator Pat Buchanan]….I don’t believe in fatwas. I don’t believe in silencing people. I don’t believe in it, OK? I want Rush Limbaugh on the air. I want him on every day. I want people to hear it. I want everybody to hear all the arguments; it’s a free country.–

“Faithful America” activist: We want a progressive–

Matthews: You want to silence people! You want to silence people [stronger emphasis].–

“Faithful America” activist: We want a progressive Christian …[unclear]–

Matthews: …What channel do you want Tony Perkins on? What channel would you like him on?

“Faithful America” activist: Well, I’d prefer that he’s not–

Matthews: See, you want to silence him!

“Faithful America” activist: It would be great if he is going to be on, to have a progressive Christian [on opposite Perkins]…

Matthews: [Perkins] doesn’t hold out that homophobic stuff on my show, he never does it…

“Faithful America”: But when he’s on your show, you lend legitimacy to the things that he says off your show.–

Ratcheting it up
Thus we behold the ratcheting up of the “Anti-Hate” rhetorical lynch mob. They rail fanatically against “misinformation” and “homophobia,” even as they cynically misinform the public about decent, pro-family advocates like Perkins – blaming them for causing youth suicides and smearing them with preposterous analogies to the KKK. The smarter members of the Gay Thought Police insist that they are not really anti-Christian(ity) — i.e., against people’s right to believe the Bible’s teaching that homosexual practice is sinful. Rather, it is merely the way people like Perkins make their “anti-gay” arguments that disqualifies them from the Public Square, they say. Don’t buy it.

Meanwhile, the true haters on the Left, like Dan Savage, creator of the toxic attack-site “Santorum[dot]com,” are rewarded for their cruelty because, of course, their hatred is directed at the proper target: social conservatives, especially Christians. (The pro-”gay” Left still seems largely uninterested in radical Islamic teachings and practices that apply a harsher standard against homosexuals than most Christians could even envision.)

Liberal ends justify nasty means: just ask the Santorum family. (By the way, Dan Savage just got his own show on MTV. Apparently, launching a vile web campaign aimed at destroying a conservative’s name by attaching it to the gross byproduct of perversion is no impediment to a liberal’s career.)

Homophobia?
With regard to the above video, my hunch is that when Matthews avers that Perkins “doesn’t pull that homophobic stuff on my show,” he is thinking of real hatred toward homosexuals — read: uncivil, caustic verbal bashing of homosexuals, not “hatred” re-defined to suit left-wing ideological purposes.

Or maybe not: who can know when we’re dealing with ambiguous, ”progressive” Newspeak like the catchall construct homophobia? A media study going back a decade or two would document the steady expansion of what constitutes “homophobia” in the minds of pro-homosexual activists. It began with some connection to unreasonable fear, but these days has grown to include mere opposition to homosexual “marriage.”

Libertarians, secular-minded conservatives, and honest liberals, take note: if the Left succeeds in “silencing” all media voices critical of homosexuality and LGBT activism, it will move on to its next target, with gullible media sycophants in tow. Which perhaps explains why savvy Muslim activists and their allies have latched on to making frequent accusations of “Islamophobia” as a means to demonize their opponents (again, mostly Christians).

These opportunistic Muslims should reconsider their tactics. They forget that they, too — as opponents of the sin of homosexuality – could become a target of the pro-”queer” silencing campaign that brooks no dissent in its push for public approval and the power to enforce Political Correctness, beginning with the indoctrination of young children in schools.

By Peter LaBarbera

It says all you need to know about the mischieviously-named homosexual activist group “Truth Wins Out” — headed by “gay” gadfly Wayne Besen – that it would feature anti-Christian photos like these prominently on its website. The photos are part of a story about a TWO protest outside the recent Exodus International “Love Won Out” conference in Atlanta, for people who have left or seek to leave homosexuality behind in their life. TWO attempts to discredit the idea that hcaltlhy change away from homosexuality is possible (by championing failed “ex-gays” and ignoring success stories).

In the TWO promotional photo at right proclaiming a “failed” Exodus conference (click to enlarge), the man’s sign reads, “The Bible is not a tool of hatred and injustice” — implying that efforts to help men and women overcome unwanted homosexual desires are hateful. This is now the standard propaganda line for almost all homosexual activist organizations. Of course, the truth is that most loving thing that a holy God and caring Christians can do for a person struggling with homosexuality (or any besetting sin) is to help him or her overcome that sin in their life. [More photos after jump.]

Below is a larger shot of the same TWO photo as it appears on the group’s website. Click to enlarge it to full size. Note the men dressed in drag as “nuns” in the background — from the homosexual activist group “Sister of Perpetual Indulgence,” which blends Catholic-mocking attire with homosexual radicalism and perversion. One “sister” carries a sign quoting the Bible verse Matthew 5:11, which is about suffering for the cause of righteousness (following Jesus). That verse could be used appropriately by former homosexuals enduring the cruel brand of ridicule and hatred wielded by TWO and fellow homosexual activists. But here it is flipped upside-down to scold Bible-believing Christians who testify to Christ’s power to help people overcome sinful temptations.

This is a photo of the "Truth Wins Out" protest as it appears on the TWO website. Click to enlarge to view the homosexual activist, nun-mocking "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence" men in drag in the background, one holding a sign quoting Matthew 5:11 -- a blatant misuse of Scripture.

Jesus was not homosexual

Below is another photo from the “Truth Wins Out” protest, advancing the discredited “gay theology” claim that Jesus was “gay” and had an erotic, homosexual relationship with a beloved disciple (the Apostle John). There is no more crass cliche in the homosexual activist playbook than the preposterous notion that affection between people of the same sex — i.e., great friends – constitutes evidence of homosexuality. Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Prof. Robert Gagnon debunks the ridiculous claim about Jesus’ beloved disciple HERE:

In addition to mocking Christians, distorting the Word of God, and calling Biblical faith “hate,” Truth Wins Out routinely seeks to discredit faithful Christians such as those at the Exodus conference, simply by repeating ad nauseam that their belief in transformation is outmoded. Here TWO’s Besen highlights portions of Exodus material highlighting Christian “change” — in an attempt to discredit Exodus (see Editor’s Note at bottom):

Besen and fellow homosexual activists despise the truth that many men and women have overcome homosexuality in their own lives, through faith in God. TWO and other “gay” groups like GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) do all they can to discredit this reality to the media. Having no interest in contented, successful former homosexuals like (family man) Stephen Black of First Stone Ministries, Besen & Co. instead “Focus on the Failures,” i.e., people who for whatever reason could not make the transition away from homosexuality. The Lord asks us to pray for our enemies, so I’m asking you to pray for Wayne Besen and his sidekick, Evan Hurst. They are very deluded and angry men, but ultimately, their beef is with the Creator.

Editor’s Note: By highlighting Truth Wins Out’s run-of-the-mill homosexualist hatred of Exodus, we do not mean to endorse all of Exodus’ teachings. In fact, this writer — though appreciative of Exodus’ and its president Alan Chambers’ great contributions to Christian overcomers and the pro-family movement – has become alarmed at Exodus’ straying from Scriptural Truth. Regrettably – partly out of a desire to “dialogue” with misguided “gay Christian” advocates – Chambers has become mired in semantic contortions surrounding homosexual “orientation” (an ambiguous modern-day concept not found in the Bible). And as you plainly can see from these photos and the TWO post, these equivocations and compromises have only emboldened the likes of Besen to step up their attacks against Exodus and the idea of healthy change.

I recommend this critical analysis by former homosexual DL Foster, creator of the Gay Christian Movement Watch blog, analyzing Chamber’s recent statements before a group of purported “gay Christians.” Chambers’ comments were seized upon by TWO and other homosexual activists as evidence that homosexuals really cannot change.

Online flier by homosexual activist group GLAAD smears Kirk Cameron as "anti-gay extremist."

The following is Christian actor/director Kirk Cameron’s response (posted on his Facebook page) to the controversy and pro-homosexual vitriol over his comments on homosexuality, in a recent interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan. (A transcript of the interview can be found HERE; watch the three-minute interview segment HERE; and go HERE for the homosexual activist group GLAAD’s online attack on Cameron.)

______________________________

I recently was asked to join Piers Morgan on CNN for an interview about my new film “Monumental.” During that discussion, I was asked to express my views about homosexuality, gay marriage, and abortion. While that was not the agreed-upon purpose of the interview, I was pleased to answer Piers’ questions as honestly as I could.

In some people’s eyes, my responses were not sufficiently “loving” toward those in the gay community. I can only say that it is my life’s mission to love all people, and that I expressed the same views that are expressed clearly and emphatically throughout the Judeo-Christian scriptures. As a Bible believing Christian, I could not have answered any other way.

I’ve been encouraged by the support of many friends (including gay friends, incidentally) in the wake of condemnation by some political advocacy groups. In the case of one of my gay friends, we regularly talk and have healthy and respectful debate. We learn from each other, and serve others alongside one another. I thank God for all of my friends…even when they hold very different views on issues of faith and morality. I do not, however, believe that the right way to advance our views is to resort to name-calling and personal attacks, as some have done to me.

I also believe that freedom of speech and freedom of religion go hand-in-hand in America. I should be able to express moral views on social issues–especially those that have been the underpinning of Western civilization for 2,000 years–without being slandered, accused of hate speech, and told from those who preach “tolerance” that I need to either bend my beliefs to their moral standards or be silent when I’m in the public square.

I hope more than a few people could see the large volume of secularist morality being imposed on me. In any society that is governed by the rule of law, some form of morality is always imposed. It’s inescapable. But it is also a complicated subject, and that is why I believe we need to learn how to debate these things with greater love and respect.

To the thousands of you who have written me letters of encouragement… thank you! And to those who would like know how to further your support, please gather your friends and family, and join me as I seek to show you our true “National Treasure,” at the live, nationwide viewing of “Monumental” on Tuesday, March 27th (www.MonumentalMovie.com).

Sincerely,
Kirk [Cameron]

Kirk Cameron has bravely stood for Christian and biblical values in Hollywood.

Below is a graphic put out by the homosexual media pressure group GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) — smearing Kirk Cameron as an “anti-gay extremist” for his recent heartfelt comments about homosexual behavior and “same-sex marriage,” on CNN’s Piers Morgan show. Watch the CNN interview HERE. As you can see, this is not the tone of an “extremist” but a thoughtful Christian man who is smart enough to know that Hollywood liberals and LGBT militants will pounce on any statement  he makes critical of homosexual behavor, which God through the Bible condemns. (By the way, I think Kirk would have been better off just saying “yes” to Morgan’s question about whether he believes homosexuality is a sin.)

On his Facebook page, Cameron writes, in part:

[In the CNN interview] I expressed the same views that are expressed clearly and emphatically throughout the Judeo-Christian scriptures. As a Bible believing Christian, I could not have answered any other way….

I also believe that freedom of speech and freedom of religion go hand-in-hand in America. I should be able to express moral views on social issues–especially those that have been the underpinning of Western civilization for 2,000 years–without being slandered, accused of hate speech, and told from those who preach “tolerance” that I need to either bend my beliefs to their moral standards or be silent when I’m in the public square.

I hope more than a few people could see the large volume of secularist morality being imposed on me….

GLAAD is awarded unprecedented access and sway in Hollywood (and the media) to advocate for, essentially, one side of a controversial moral issue. Here it stokes anti-Christian bigotry against Cameron, as it does against anyone who voices politically incorrect beliefs about homosexuality through the media. Ultimately, GLAAD (while curiously extolling “diversity”) hopes to keep interviews like Morgan’s with Cameron out of the media altogether. (Otherwise, why would they previously have lobbied so hard against CNN for including Christian former homosexual Richard Cohen in a debate segment?) GLAAD is afraid of a fair debate, hence their demonizing name-calling against Cameron. Please help encourage him. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

TAKE ACTION: Support, encourage, and pray for Kirk Cameron [reach him through his Facebook page HERE]. In a time when so many cultural and political leaders have capitulated on the issue of homosexuality, Cameron defended Christian teaching, knowing he’d get pummelled for it by the Gay Thought Police. He can be reached through his web page or through:

Mark Craig Productions
383 Callens
Ventura, CA 93003
Phone: 805.644.1821
Email: markscraig@aol.com 

Click on this GLAAD graphic to enlarge. See their anti-Cameron page HERE.

Wayne Besen, homosexual propagandist.

I posted this comment today on the homosexual website “Truth Wins Out,” in response to an article they posted about a nasty video targeting yours truly as “Porno Pete”:

Wayne, you are a hater and hypocrite of the highest order, though you do a good con-job on TV playing a respectable, decent gay activist. (I still remember the days debating you back in DC before you left HRC — how you would obnoxiously talk over your opponents whenever they brought up inconvenient truths like the disproportionate rates of sexual disease for Men Who Have Sex with Men.)

It’s too bad now, as one who should be a mature man, that you have to resort to such crude demonizations, sophomoric slanders and character assassination to advance your dubious cause. What a waste of writing talent, but Saul Alinsky would be proud.

The jig is up: despite the Gay Left’s campaign to smear Christian, pro-family opponents as “haters,” more and more everyday people are recognizing that the nastiest, cruelest and most intolerant activists in America are homosexual militants like you, Dan Savage, Evan Hurst and the comically-named “Truth” Wins Out. All of you would be exposed as phonies if the “mainstream” media were anything close to impartial.

As for me, I wear Truth Wins Out’s hatred and very “queer” putdowns like this as a Badge of Honor.

Peter LaBarbera

Founder and President
Americans For Truth About Homosexuality
www.aftah.org

One of the three panelists, Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain, went out of his way in a concurring opinion to dispute that either the U.S. Constitution or the Supreme Court’s interpretation of it provided “a member of the armed forces (with) a constitutionally protected right to engage in homosexual acts or to state that he or she is a homosexual while continuing to serve in the military.”

O’Scannlain also criticized the lower court judge who invalidated “don’t ask, don’t tell” last year, U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips. He accused Phillips of willfully failing “to apply established law” so she could issue a ruling “that invalidated a considered congressional policy and imposed a wholly novel view of constitutional liberty on the entire United States.”

Per the usual, the Log Cabin Republicans put their pro-homosexuality activism way ahead of loyalty to the conservative Republican Party platform. (After all, for homosexual activists, it’s all about “me.”) The question now is: will the same conservative Republicans and GOP candidates who rightly pledge to repeal Obama-care also work to reinstate the homosexual military exclusion policy – or will they capitulate to the Left’s (and libertarians’) radical social agenda for the Armed Forces? If they surrender, pro-homosexual “diversity” policies will turn the Pentagon into massive “gay rights” bureaucracy that undermines religious freedom and the very conservative values that make our military strong. We shall see. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

Excerpted from the Sept. 29, 2011 Associated Press article by Lisa Leff (emphasis added):

Appeals court tosses gays in military lawsuit

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal appeals court refused Thursday to decide the constitutionality of the military’s now-repealed “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy banning openly gay troops, saying the issue has been resolved since Americans can enlist and serve in the armed forces without regard to sexual orientation.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco tossed out a lawsuit that had challenged the military policy as a violation of gay service members’ civil rights. In doing so, the appeals court also dismissed a Southern California trial judge’s year-old ruling that the policy was unconstitutional.

The gay rights group Log Cabin Republicans filed the lawsuit in 2004 challenging the policy. The group’s lawyer, Dan Woods, said he would ask the full 9th Circuit to review the panel’s decision.

The group recently argued the lower court ruling, which also barred enforcement of “don’t ask, don’t tell” should remain in effect despite this month’s repeal because future administrations and lawmakers could reintroduce a ban on gay service.

The three judges strongly disagreed in their Thursday opinion, saying the case is moot because there is nothing left to challenge regarding the policy enacted as section 654….

The panel specifically rejected Log Cabins’ assertion that the appeals court should decide the underlying constitutional issues to prevent future limitations or outright bans on military service by gay and lesbian Americans….

Log Cabin Republicans Executive Director R. Clarke Cooper said he was disappointed, noting that the favorable ruling his group obtained in the lower court played a major role in persuading policy makers to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Log Cabin Republicans v. United States said more than `don’t ask, don’t tell’ should be repealed – it stood for the fundamental constitutional rights of service members not to be discriminated against by the nation they serve,” Cooper said. “This decision by the 9th Circuit denies more than 14,000 discharged gay and lesbian service members an important means of obtaining justice for the wrong perpetuated against them under the ban, and leaves open the possibility of future violations of service members’ rights.”

One of the three panelists, Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain, went out of his way in a concurring opinion to dispute that either the U.S. Constitution or the Supreme Court’s interpretation of it provided “a member of the armed forces (with) a constitutionally protected right to engage in homosexual acts or to state that he or she is a homosexual while continuing to serve in the military.”

O’Scannlain also criticized the lower court judge who invalidated “don’t ask, don’t tell” last year, U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips. He accused Phillips of willfully failing “to apply established law” so she could issue a ruling “that invalidated a considered congressional policy and imposed a wholly novel view of constitutional liberty on the entire United States.”

"The Stoning of Sally Kern: The Liberal Attack on Christian Conservatism -- and Why We Must Take a Stand"

This is the first of a Two-Part interview with Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern (R) [click HERE to listen]. It was pre-recorded August 31 and aired September 3, 2011. Sally Kern is Christian conservative Republican lawmaker in Oklahoma who was deluged with hate-mail and hate-calls after the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund (GLVF) published excerpts from a secretly-recorded 2008 speech she gave in which she said, among other things, that “the homosexual agenda is destroying this nation,” and that it’s a bigger threat to America than terrorism. [Listen to GLVF's SELECTIVELY EDITED video excerpting Kern's speech HERE.]

Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern

Sally talks about her new book, “The Stoning of Sally Kern,” [available from AFTAH at the discounted price of $20 including postage; send check specifying "Kern book" to: Americans For Truth, PO Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522.] She describes the day, March 7, 2008, that changed her life forever — when thousands of hostile homosexual e-mails flooded her inbox. (Angry phone calls jammed her office phone system, and then started coming to her home.) Ironically, homosexual militants who denounced Sally’s alleged “hate” subjected her and her family to the sort of vicious attacks that most Americans could hardly conceive of — including publishing false reports that her son Jesse was a homosexual — and smearing Sally’s husband, Pastor Steve Kern, as a past member of the KKK. Sally discusses the role of her and her family’s Christian faith in sustaining them in the face of the hate-campaign, and AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera praises Kern for not backing down in the face of such evil attacks.

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

9-3-11, Sally Kern, Part One

The following is reprinted from PFOX’s (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays) website. Greg Quinlan was a presenter at both AFTAH Truth Academies:

I Am a Man

By Greg Quinlan

Why have gay activists instigated media attention over ex-gays and the husband of Presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann?

Apparently, Mr. Bachmann, who has a PhD in clinical psychology, operates several counseling centers which also offer services to homosexual clients seeking to overcome unwanted same-sex attractions.  But because even one ex-gay proves that homosexual behavior is not innate or immutable, the gay lobby’s fear of their former members results in false claims and attacks aimed at preventing homosexuals from exercising their right to self-determination. They cannot bear to have even one homosexual leave homosexuality, hence their outrage at Dr. Bachmann.

I know because I am ex-gay myself.  I suffer more harassment as a former homosexual than I ever did as an out and proud homosexual.

The ex-gay community includes thousands of former homosexuals like myself who benefited from counseling.  We did not choose our homosexual feelings, but we did exercise our right to seek help to change those feelings.  As a registered nurse, I saw hundreds of gay men die of AIDS before I finally left the gay lifestyle.

Contrary to the myths being generated by outraged homosexuals, counseling for unwanted same-sex attractions is not prohibited by any medical association.  Unhappy homosexuals are not children in need of parental permission and can freely choose their own therapeutic treatment just like anyone else.

The Bachmann incident demonstrates that as homosexuals gain more civil rights, heterosexuals are losing theirs.  Because gays are a wealthy and politically powerful minority, they claim access to media attention, political power and corporate influence that middle America does not have.

Dependent on the wealth of the gay community for his election and reelection campaigns, President Obama vigorously implements gay, bisexual and transgender policies at every level of the federal government, yet omits the only unpopular status of sexual orientation — that of ex-gay.  But to his credit, Obama refused to cave in to homosexuals when they demanded he remove ex-gay singer Donnie McClurkin from a campaign fundraiser.

President Obama needs to demonstrate that kind of courage once more, and support those who change their sexual orientation as much as he supports those who change their gender. But who will ask him? A jittery media fearful of gay reprisals remain silent, a further testament to homosexual influence and power.

While the media look the other way, the ex-gay community is being harassed and publicly denounced by unforgiving gay activists because of our unpopular sexual orientation.

Wayne Besen of the hate group Truth Wins Out, and other modern day Sauls, stalk and expose ‘out’ ex-gays in a negative light to ensure that they retreat back into the closet.  Lambda Legal supports the establishment of GLBT Centers at public universities but blocks any attempt at ex-gay equal access.  Corporate shareholder resolutions to include ex-gays in anti-discrimination policies are repeatedly defeated by the gay community.

The Human Rights Campaign demands same-sex marriage for gays while fighting ex-gay equality. One of their latest victories is to successfully bully the World Bank into denying funds to ex-gay charities while allowing gay organizations to participate.

Yet ex-gays are not dangerous or deluded as homosexual extremists charge.  We are the National Education Association’s Ex-Gay Educators Caucus.  We are Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays, which successfully sued the District of Columbia government for refusing to recognize former homosexuals in its sexual orientation protections.  We are your doctors, teachers, ministers, family, and neighbors.

The American Psychological Association adheres to a code of ethics which calls on their members to respect a person’s right to self-determination.  Therefore the only question about the Dr. Bachmann news is this:  Should homosexuals have the right to determine heterosexuality?  That is, if a gay man decides he wants to live as a healthy heterosexual, as I decided, should homosexuals have the right to veto that decision?

The answer will determine if America is to be ruled by a politically powerful minority like the gay community, or if equality and justice for all will prevail.  As for me, I long to live in an America where my friends and I are not hounded by gay activists because I chose to change from gay to straight.

###

Greg Quinlan is President of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays and Executive Director of Equality and Justice For All.

http://pfox-exgays.blogspot.com/2011/07/michelle-bachman-and-ex-gays.html

Ex-lesbian Janet Boynes was shown in the ABC piece by investigative reporter Brian Ross, but he did not "investigate" her story of leaving lesbianism with God's help.

Folks, it sure didn’t take long for the liberal media to go into Christian-bashing mode against GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). Watch this almost comically biased hit-piece by ABC’s Brian Ross — featuring the militantly anti-Christian homosexual organization Truth Wins Out. (TWO denies the reality that people can leave homosexuality behind; I call them “Focus on the Failures” because their nonsensical argument seems to be that since many practicing “gays” fail in their quest to change, transformation away from homosexuality is a myth.)

Incredibly, ABC even went so far as to title its piece “Pray Away the Gay at Bachmann Clinic?” — recycling TWO founder Wayne Besen’s mocking and bigoted attack-slogan for the idea that people can overcome homosexual desires through faith in God. Shouldn’t it have occurred to Ross to sit down with and interview a SUCCESSFUL former homosexual like Janet Boynes, who:

1. lives near Minneapolis, where the Bachmanns’ counseling clinic is located;
2. was mentioned in the story — the undercover TWO “investigative reporter” ominously cites a copy of Janet’s book, “Called Out,” endorsed by Dr. Bachmann;
3. is a happy FORMER lesbian who endeavors to help others out of homosexuality, and who credits God for the power to change?  

We confirmed that no ABC reporter contacted Boynes for their story on the Backmann clinic. I don’t have much hope of changing ABC [but you can contact them HERE]; they and most of the secular “mainstream” media are for all practical purposes a part of Gay Inc. at this point. But let’s use this unfair hit-piece to highlight the truth: that people like Janet Boynes and Linda Jernigan — who once thought they were “gay” — can and do leave homosexuality behind, often through the “Amazing Grace” of Jesus Christ. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

See my comments in bold below in Cliff Kincaid’s excellent Accuracy in Media story (all emphasis added):

________________________________________

Media Guns Fire Blanks at Bachmann

By: Cliff Kincaid, [reprinted from Accuracy in Media] |  July 12, 2011  

Once a greatly feared investigative reporter, Brian Ross has been reduced to recycling left-wing material from the homosexual lobby. But the pathetic hit job he narrated on Monday’s ABC Nightline show on GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has backfired in a big way. The charge was that the Bachmann family counseling service engages in terrible things by teaching homosexuals how to leave their disease-ridden lifestyle.

Ross called this method of counseling, which emphasizes religious conversion, “highly controversial” and said it “could become a campaign issue.” Ironically, however, he presented evidence that ex-homosexuals do in fact exist

It is a sign of the dominance of the homosexual lobby in the media business that such a program would even be aired. The upcoming National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association convention features “Today” show co-anchor Ann Curry and CNN’s Don Lemon as keynote speakers.

The ABC piece, “Michele Bachmann Clinic: Where You Can Pray Away the Gay?,” was constructed in such a way as to suggest that ex-homosexuals are non-existent, even though the Brian Ross report itself noted the presence of books by a “self-proclaimed ex-lesbian” in the counseling center. A video from the ex-lesbian, Janet Boynes, was even shown briefly on the air. This was supposed to be shocking.

Of course, the notion of the Bible condemning homosexual behavior, reflected in several passages, was viewed as bizarre and intolerant.

Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth says the phrase, “pray away the gay,” is intended to ridicule Christians and comes directly from homosexual activist Wayne Besen’s group, Truth Wins Out. LaBarbera asks, “Why are the major media repeating these hateful attack slogans by radical gay activists?”

He explains, “We don’t mock the idea of leaving drug addiction or alcoholism with God’s help. Why is it acceptable to mock faith in God to overcome unwanted behaviors like homosexuality in their lives?”

“Wayne Besen’s thesis is that ex-gays don’t exist,” noted LaBarbera. But Janet Boynes is a real person and absolute proof that one can leave the homosexual lifestyle.

Perhaps without realizing it, Ross has presented evidence of the homosexual “change” that he was trying to discredit.

“The homosexual lobby simply can’t deal with the reality that ‘gays’ can change (usually with God’s help),” LaBarbera adds. His group recently hosted an event with another ex-lesbian, Linda Jernigan.

To make matters worse, the ABC hit piece was largely recycled leftist material. Ross borrowed heavily from Truth Wins Out (TWO) and an article in The Nation magazine, in order to concoct the shaky story.

Since the segment was light on anything truly horrifying, he used film footage from a Truth Wins Out operative who had secretly taped a counselor for the Bachmann service. This had the effect of making everything look sinister. The apparently shocking advice to the undercover homosexual operative was that heterosexuality is natural and homosexuality is not. This is what passes for “investigative journalism” these days.

“ABC’s Brian Ross did a terrific job with this Nightline segment…” declared TWO executive director Wayne Besen.

As such, Ross can expect to be nominated for an award from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), which honors pro-homosexual coverage.

The Brian Ross hit piece follows an attack on the popular Congresswoman by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone magazine,”Michele Bachmann’s Holy War,” where he smeared Bachmann as “a religious zealot whose brain is a raging electrical storm of divine visions and paranoid delusions.”

Blogger Trevor Loudon disclosed that Taibbi was the recipient of an award from the Democratic Socialists of America in Boston for his hard-left reporting.

Loudon commented, “Maybe Matt Taibbi should tell us about his own true beliefs. I’m betting he is not as open about his own convictions as Michele Bachmann is about hers.”

Joe Jervis is in the business of "Defamation" -- he especially hates Christian conservatives who criticize homosexuality -- and yet he got an "Outstanding Blog" award from GLAAD, a "gay" "anti-defamation" group.

Culture warrior Matt Barber — one of the many people who have personally suffered at the hands of pro-homosexual activists — had this to say about GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) giving its 2011 “Outstanding Blog” award to radical, hateful homosexual activist Joe Jervis and his “Joe.My.God.” blog:

“So GLAAD, a self-described anti-defamation group, gives an award to one of the most vicious, vile and vulgar anti-Christian bigots on the planet and expects to be taken seriously? Hey, while we’re at it why not give Muammar Gaddafi the ‘Humanitarian of the Year’ award. Or how about a Nobel Peace Prize for Barack Oba… Oh, wait….”

Barber is Vice President of Liberty Counsel Action, an Associate Dean at Liberty University School of Law, and Board Member of Americans For Truth. By the way, we’re delighted to report that the devious Jervis is wasting his money on the purchase of the web domain ”americanfortruth.com” (no “s” after “american”) to steer unsuspecting visitors who intend to reach AFTAH (www.americansfortruth.com) to his mean-spirited blog. We’re pretty sure pro-family people won’t be persuaded by his particular brand of anti-Christian “defamation” — although Jervis does help us keep up with homosexuality-related news. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

April 21, 2011 [WARNING: Offensive content in video] 

This man in drag and member of the "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence" is wearing a shirt that says "Bottom For Jesus" at the sadistic-sex-celebrating Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco in 2007. "Bottom" refers to the receiving position in anal sodomy. Every year on Easter Sunday, the "Sisters" hosts the blasphemous "Hunky Jesus" contest. See video below, and click on photo above to enlarge.

Contact: Peter LaBarbera: americansfortruth@gmail.com  

CHICAGO – This Easter Sunday in San Francisco’s Delores Park, Christianity-spoofing homosexual drag queen “nuns” calling themselves the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” will stage their annual “Hunky Jesus” contest — mocking the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ — as shirtless men in “crucifixion” costumes parade on stage in an atmosphere of haughty, homoerotic humor. 

The profane and shockingly insensitive spectacle illustrates the secular, pro-“gay” Left’s hypocrisy in demanding “respect” for homosexuals and transsexuals — even as they cynically mock Christ and true religion on the holiest day of the year for Christians, says Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH). 

“There’s nothing that delights arrogant, pro-homosexual liberals more than making fun of Bible-believing Christians – as evidenced by this blasphemous Easter ‘contest,’” LaBarbera said. “Of course, it goes without saying that these defiant champions of ‘tolerance and diversity’ wouldn’t dare hold a ‘Hunky Muhammad’ contest during Ramadan — so it seems even envelope-pushing, in-your-face, pro-perversion libertines know their limits. (Muslims: beware: LGBT activists will end up hating you as much as they hate Christians.)” [Watch YouTube below; press release continues after the page jump and video:] 

LaBarbera said the “Hunky Jesus” contest symbolizes the contempt that many homosexual militants have for God and religion. Politically this translates into their growing advocacy of pro-homosexuality laws that use State power to crush Americans’ historic religious and First Amendment liberties – i.e., to reject homosexuality and other immoral, destructive behaviors. 

“Gay activists are out of the closet in their plans to criminalize Christianity insofar as it relates to their particular politically-correct sin,” he said, “One way they do that is by reviling and ridiculing committed Christians and others who oppose homosexuality — portraying them as sociopaths and the heartless equivalent of deranged racists. But the fact that African-Americans now poll strongest against ‘same-sex marriage’ throws a wrench into this evil ‘frame.’” 

LaBarbera said the “Hunky Jesus” contest – despicable as it is — actually is less threatening to Christendom than the escalating campaign by “LGBT” activists to re-define Christianity and other religions as “gay-friendly.” 

“Homosexual political groups are strategizing on how best to persuade evangelicals that supporting pro-homosexuality-laws including ‘same-sex marriage’ is part of the Christian’s duty to ‘love thy neighbor,’” he said. “Who knew that creating a system of superior legal ‘rights’ based on a sin that God’s own Word, the Bible, says is ‘detestable’ was part of the divine plan?! 

“Truth is, the most compassionate thing a Christian can do for people practicing homosexuality is to reach out to them with the Gospel – with an uncompromising ‘tough love’ that says proud homosexuality is never part of God’s plan for anyone’s life. The same Jesus Christ whom the San Francisco liberals mock not only will judge them one day – but He has helped innumerable men and women — like Trace McNutt and Denise Jones — leave homosexuality behind.”

WARNING: Offensive descriptions

WORDS MATTER ... Says the logo for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. So why does GLAAD honor a hateful homosexual bloger, Joe Jervis, who routinely mocks Christians (he uses the atheist term "Jeebus") and vilifies pro-family conservatives with crude putdowns?

News Release

Americans For Truth About Homosexuality

April 20, 2011

Contact: Peter LaBarbera: americansfortruth@gmail.com

CHICAGO, Illinois — Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), today assailed the blatant hypocrisy of GLAAD, a homosexual “anti-defamation” organization, for giving an award to Joe Jervis – who runs a viciously anti-Christian blog.

GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) gave its 2011 Media Award for “Outstanding Blog” to Jervis, a New York-based homosexual atheist and creator of the blog “Joe.My.God.” – a daily compilation of homosexuality-related news. JMG is filled with name-calling and nasty barbs directed especially at religious conservatives who oppose homosexuality.

GLAAD holds itself up as the arbiter of tolerance and recently announced its partnership with the Los Angeles Lakers to create “positive,” pro-homosexual messaging in the wake of Kobe Bryant’s use of an anti-homosexual slur during a game.

Jervis calls former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum "Frothy Mix" -- repeating the smear of another homosexual cyber-hater, Dan Savage. The latter was upset at then-Sen. Santorum's comments critical of a Supreme Court decision against sodomy laws -- so he "re-defined" Santorum's last name as the vile by-product of sodomy. The above screen-shot from the Savage's "Santorm.com" website was taken April 19, 2011.

But if GLAAD, like AFTAH, is against hateful name-calling (AFTAH has condemned Fred Phelps of “God Hates Fags” notoriety), then it is curious that it chose to honor Jervis – who routinely mocks Christians using cruel, de-humanizing rhetoric. For example, Jervis routinely uses the atheist term “Jeebus” in the place of Jesus to mock Christians, as he did recently with African-American ex-lesbian Linda Jernigan.

Jervis delights in referring to former Senator and potential GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum as “Frothy Mix” – repeating a malevolent smear concocted by another Christian-bashing homosexual activist, Dan Savage, who meanly “redefined” Santorum’s last name as the filthy byproduct of anal sex.

Said LaBarbera: “GLAAD’s slogan is ‘words and images matter.’ We at AFTAH agree. Jervis’ published words reveal him to be an inflammatory, anti-Christian bigot who resorts to ‘defamatory’ smears, lies and despicable, crude putdowns to belittle people of faith. (Jervis smears LaBarbera as “Porno Pete,” falsely implying he is homosexual.)

“Apparently GLAAD’s leaders despise critics of homosexuality so much that they fail to see the irony of an ‘anti-defamation’ group rewarding an abject hater like Joe Jervis who — rather than engage in civil discourse about ideas — uses gutter code words like ‘Jeebus’ to malign opponents.” LaBarbera said. “GLAAD’s hypocrisy is right up there with homosexual activists lobbying against the hiring of African American Crystal Dixon — in the name of LGBT ‘civil rights, diversity and nondiscrimination.’

“Through its Media Award, GLAAD joins itself at the hip with Jervis’ brand of malicious, demeaning, anti-religious bigotry,” LaBarbera said. “This is the flip side of GLAAD’s ongoing campaign to shut down the voices of pro-family Christians – e.g., ex-“gay” Americans like Richard Cohen – from being heard in the media.

Joe Jervis

“Americans must learn the truth about GLAAD’s absurdly two-faced ‘anti-defamation’ charade,” he said. “This same media-coddled organization that tenaciously pursues anyone who ‘defames’ homosexuals — or dares to challenge homosexual activist assumptions – honors hate-filled extremists like Jervis who cruelly vilify pro-family conservatives, to the point of ridiculing Jesus Christ Himself and ‘re-naming’ a Catholic ex-Senator as the vile by-product of homosexual sodomy.”

Sign for 'Gender Neutral Restroom" at the recent "Creating Change" conference in Minneapolis for homosexual-bisexual-transsexual grassroots activists, put on by the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. The signs covered "Male" and "Female" restrooms on the main floor of the conference. Photo: Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth

News Release

www.aftah.org

March 21, 2011; contact: Peter LaBarbera: 630-717-7631; americansfortruth@gmail.com

Truth Academy in Columbus Examines New Liberal Trend Labeling Christians as ‘Haters’ for Opposing Homosexual Agenda

CHICAGO— Americans For Truth about Homosexuality (AFTAH) is joining with Mission America to co-sponsor an educational “Truth Academy” April 1-2 in Columbus, Ohio, on how to respond to the aggressive homosexual-bisexual-transsexual agenda.

The theme is: “The Hate Labeling of Christians: Why It’s Happening and What We Can Do.” Key details follow:

When:  Friday, April 1 (1:00 – 9:00 PM) and Saturday, April 2 (9:30 AM-3:30 PM); Truth Academy doors open Friday at noon; Friday evening dinner-lecture by award-winning journalist David Kupelian, WorldNetDaily editor and author, “The Marketing of Evil,” and “How Evil Works,” (Dinner is included in registration; see full hourly schedule HERE]

Other Featured Speakers: Matt Barber and Prof. Rena Lindevaldsen, Liberty University Law School; Greg Quinlan, PFOX; Prof. Rob Gagnon, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

Where:  Columbus, OH. Discover Christian Church, 2900 Martin Rd., Dublin, OH 43017; near intersection of Sawmill Rd. and Rt. 161.

Cost: $75 if payment received by midnight Monday, March 28; $99 at the door; make payment online at www.americansfortruth.com/donate/ (using Paypal or your Visa or MasterCard); or send your check for $75/attendee made out to “Americans For Truth” to: AFTAH, PO Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522.

Special Pastors/Student Discount: $25 for all pastors and youth (college and below); sponsor a pastor or young person to attend with your donation to: www.americansfortruth.com/donate/

RSVP: americansfortruth@gmail.com or info@missionamerica.com; or call: 630-717-7631 or 614-442-7998

Said Americans For Truth president Peter LaBarbera: “This is the second of dozens of Truth Academies that we hope to hold across the country. I recently went undercover at a huge homosexual grassroots conference attended by over 2,000 ‘LGBT’ activists – promoting the most radical sexual/gender agenda imaginable (including sadomasochism and multiple-partner relationships). ‘Gay’ militants are not slowing down in the Culture War, so neither should Christians and conservatives. If the homosexual activists win, religious freedom to defend normalcy will be destroyed.”

Mission America president Linda Harvey said: “Every Christian should be concerned about the trend toward defamation and discrimination at the hands of intolerant LGBT activists. From the defense of traditional marriage being labeled ‘hate,’ to the homosexual agenda infiltrating our schools, their goal is to transform our culture. If they are not stopped, the results will be devastating for daily life and religious liberty.”

Truth Academy schedule HERE.

To Whom It May Concern:

I will no longer be dining at any one of your company’s restaurants.  I have learned that Chili’s is a [National Corporate Partner] of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.  They are shown on the Task Force website as a sponsor: http://www.thetaskforce.org/

I will not have my money go to sponsor such an organization, so I will no longer be dining at Chili’s or at any of your restaurants until you cease that sponsorship.  I hope you’ll reconsider your sponsorship of this outrageous, reprehensible organization so that I can return to Chili’s in the near future.
 
Thank you,
Karen Grube
San Diego, California

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From today’s AFTAH e-newsletter; go HERE for contact info for Chili’s and parent company Brinker International — which is a “National Corporate Partner” of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force:

Dear Readers,

This is not just another e-mail about boycotting yet another irresponsible corporation.  It’s about educating the nation on the incredibly extreme and unhealthy agenda of the pro-Homosexuality-Bisexuality-Transsexuality Lobby — and holding company executives accountable for financing that agenda.  Last week in Minneapolis, I and a few other pro-family advocates went undercover at the annual “Creating Change” grassroots homosexual conference put on by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.  There were more than 2,000 LGBT activists in attendance!  Some of the “change” we heard advocated in the various workshops, and which we will document in the days and weeks ahead, was shocking.  Yet this agenda is one that the left-leaning media refuse to examine, much less expose. So AFTAH will do the media’s job for them by laying out the Gay Task Force’s extremist vision, which includes:

• Taxpayer-financed “sex change” operations for transsexuals (not to do so is “discrimination” against “transgenders”);
• Using polling, focus groups and emotional arguments to persuade evangelical Christians to ignore Scripture and accept homosexuality-based “rights”;
• Using the tragedy of homosexual youth suicides to shame Christians into stop calling homosexuality sinful;
• Celebrating sadomasochism (consensual sexual violence and degradation) and “kinky”/fetish sexual behaviors
• Pro-homosexuality lessons for grade school kids (because waiting until middle school is too late to reach them); 
• “Non-judgmental condom advocacy for young men in the name of HIV prevention — and even being non-judgmental in “safe sex” training when it comes to bizarre/disgusting “fetish” behaviors
• Predicting not just a future “gay” president of the United States but also a “bi” and a “transgender” president! (I’ll withhold the jokes…);
• “[F--k--g] with gender,” and celebrating bisexuality and “genderqueer” lifestyles (see this definition for latter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genderqueer);
• Using “gender identity” laws to pressure businesses to bend to the transgender agenda of “Gender-Neutral Restrooms” — to replace the old-fashioned variety with an “M” or an “F” on the door.

There is much, much more — the homosexual Task Force puts the “D” back in “Deviance,” that’s for sure.  Stay tuned as we lay out the “change” that this high-powered organization and “Friend of Barack Obama” is promoting for America — with help from Chilis restaurants, Wells Fargo, Southwest Airlines, and other major corporations.  God bless you and thanks for standing with us! – Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth, www.aftah.org; americansfortruth@gmail.com. 

Chili's, owned by Brinker International, is a "National Corporate Parter" of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, which celebrates gender confusion and sadomasochism.

TAKE ACTION: Contact Chili’s Restaurants M-F 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM Central Time at: 800-983-4637; or use the Chili’s contact page or that of their parent company, Brinker International. You can call Dallas-based Brinker 8:00-5:00 Central at 972-980-9917, or through their Guest Relations line at 800-983-4637. (Brinker also owns Maggiano’s Little Italy and Romano’s Macaroni Grill restaurants.)

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Reprinted from One News Now, the news website of the American Family Association; to listen to this report, click the “play” arrow next to the audio icon at the upper right of the story on the ONN site:

By Charlie Butts – OneNewsNow – 2/4/2011 4:45:00 AM

Christian activist Peter LaBarbera is calling attention to a popular restaurant chain’s association with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Homosexual activists called for a boycott of Chick-fil-A restaurants after a Pennsylvania franchise provided box-lunches for a recent seminar encouraging traditional marriage (see earlier ONN article). The national chain and many of its franchise owners across the U.S. have pledged to contribute to everything from marriage seminars to retreats and counseling for its employees.
 
LaBarbera, founder of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, argues that Chick-fil-A is a fine Christian company and suggests that a boycott of the company is absurd. But he points out that another popular restaurant — Chili’s — supports the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which he says promotes polyamory, the practice of having more than one open romantic relationship at a time.
 
“[That group] holds an annual ‘Creating Change’ seminar with some of the most deviant workshops you’ve ever seen,” says LaBarbera. “They promote so-called ‘sexual freedom,’ which basically wants to do away with all sex-oriented laws in the United States such as limiting adult industries near neighborhoods.”
 
According to the family advocate, NGLTF is a left-wing organization — and Chili’s supports it.
 
“And so we’re calling on people to stop going to Chili’s because it supports this radical, leftist, deviant agenda promoted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force,” he remarks.
 
LaBarbera concludes with this admonition: “…If you want to take a small step to stand up for family and marriage, take your family out to Chick-fil-A — and drive right by when you see a Chili’s.”

Every year, the powerful homosexual activist group Human Rights Campaign puts out a "Buyer's Guide" to advance its goal of gaining corporate support for the homosexual-bisexual-transsexual activist agenda.

Link for homosexual activist group HRC’s 2011 “Buying for Equality” Guide: http://www.hrc.org/buyersguide2011/

Periodically, we’ll post Americans For Truth President Peter LaBarbera’s ”Tweets” or Facebook entries on the AFTAH main page. We’ll clean up the Twitter abbreviations, and occasionally also post responses. Note as well that the most recent Twitter posts will be continuously published and updated on the “Pete’s Tweets” bar at left.  To follow Americans For Truth  LaBarbera on Twitter for frequent updates and quick comments on the pro-homosexuality agenda, go HERE; to see LaBarbera’s Facebook page, go HERE. The following Tweet was posted Feb. 8, 2011 in the morning:

Use this pro-lgbt [lesbian, gay, bi, trans] Human Rights Campaign (HRC) “Buyer’s Guide” to see which corporations are the most sold out to the homosexual agenda: http://bit.ly/heFPjk

AFTAH's Peter LaBarbera asks why there are so many boy victims of pedophlia when homosexual men comprise such a tiny percentage of society. Above is the cover of a magazine published by NAMBLA, the notorious North American Man/Boy Love Association. NAMBLA once marched in "Gay Pride" parades before homosexual activist leaders wised up and kicked the adult-child sex advocates out of their annual celebrations. Many adult "gay" men and lesbians testify to being victims of predatory sexual abuse in their youth.

In this interview with Concerned Women for America’s online radio program [Click HERE to listen], CWA’s Martha Kleder and I discuss the Southern Poverty Law Center’s spurious “hate” monitoring. In addition to discussing the SPLC’s lopsided “vigilance” against Christian groups while professing ignorance about obvious homosexual hate incidents, I challenge the SPLC’s “hate” criterion chastising any group that says homosexuals are disproportionately involved in child molestation. (I ask why there are so many boy victims of pedophilia if homosexual men comprise such a tiny percentage of society; I assume few boys are molested by women.) I also note how the SPLC’s Mark Potok reserved special praise on the group’s recent webcast for ex-pro-family advocate Warren Throckmorton. The Grove City College professor, who claims to be biblically orthodox on homosexuality even as he ramps up his pro-”gay” advocacy, cravenly commended the SPLC’s tendentious report — the same report that former Attorney General Ed Meese called “despicable” for its “ridiculous” campaign to demonize mainstream pro-family groups as “haters.”   – Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org  

CWA writes:

Southern Poverty Law Center Lists Pro-Family Groups with the KKK 

A recent report by the Southern Poverty Law Center demonizes mainstream pro-family groups as “hate groups,” simply because of their stand against the pro-LGBT agenda and same-sex “marriage.” Included on the SPLC”s list of “hate groups” are the Family Research Council, The American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, and Americans for Truth about Homosexuality. Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth, dissects the report and the SPLC’s recent press conference on this issue. He notes the complete lack of evidence in the report linking pro-family groups with “hate,” as well as the glaring omission of radical homosexual activists groups like ACT-UP and Bash Back!. Listen | Download

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SPLC Articles on Americans For Truth website:

• SPLC Plays Politics with Hate, Smears Americans For Truth as ‘Hate Site’
• Is AFTAH a ‘Hate Group’? — Higgins on the ‘Morality Police’ at the Southern Poverty Law Center
• AFTAH’s LaBarbera Challenges SPLC’s Potok to a ‘Debate on Hate,’ Asks to Reverse ‘Hate’ Designation
• Oops! Southern Poverty Law Center Mistakes Peter LaBarbera for Paul Cameron
• Barber: Southern Poverty Law Center Officially Declared ‘Left-Wing Hate Group’
    

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No hateful homosexuals?

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute

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

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

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

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

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

Same sex parents harm children

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Homosexual men and shortened life spans

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nazism

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

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

Sin in the closet

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

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

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

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

Ex-gays

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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