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?

By Peter LaBarbera

Well, folks, if you ever doubted that homosexual activism (and AIDS “prevention”) is big business, those doubts will be erased when you read this story in the homosexual newspaper Washington Blade. This newspaper of record for homosexuals in the nation’s capital has published the salaries of the CEO or ED for the 30 largest “gay” and AIDS organizations (although the ACLU’s Gay and Lesbian Project is not listed). Also listed in the article are:

• the organization’s annual revenue (FY 2008);
• the staff size (full-time/part-time); and
• the total pay package of the CEO and the percentage it makes up of the group’s total revenue

I was stunned — as someone who gets chided by “queer” activists all the time for working professionally in the pro-family movement — at some of the huge homosexual CEO salaries.  Here are just a few of the top “gay” salaries:

• Joe Solmonese, Human Rights Campaign: $338,400;
• Lorri Jean, Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center: $327,000
• Neil Giuliano, GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation): $271,034;
• Eliza Byrd, Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network: $283,644;
• Chuck Wolfe, Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund: $220,000;
• Kevin Cathcart, Lambda Legal: $290,916;
• Matt Foreman [former E.D.], National Gay and Lesbian Task Force: $192,540

To check out the Blade’s article’s chart, go HERE and then click on it to make it readable.

Send To Phone

“What makes Earl different from others?” Earl Rynerson asks on his campaign website. Well, for one, he’s sure to be the only candidate for mayor of Ft. Lauderdale whose credit card records show a connection to the International Masters Association, an organization created because “there was no one place where a Master or a slave could go and learn from the other members of his community.” Rynerson needs God to change him before he tries to change Ft. Lauderdale. Photo from YouTube.

OK, can we all agree that its fair to call a man with ties to a sadomasochistic “master-slave” group a “pervert,” or has that word been banished by the Gay Thought Police (GTP)? Good, then at the risk of offending the accomplished whiners at GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), here are some excerpts from a FOX News story about Earl Rynerson, one of two homosexual men running to succeed pro-family hero Jim Naugle as mayor of Ft. Lauderdale.

Now that homosexuality is “out of the closet” in such a big way, think about how much of their related perversions are also out in the open. Deviance begets deviance, and it’s all about the behavior (as opposed to that strategic euphemism: “orientation”). Note Rynerson’s lack of shame below. — Peter LaBarbera
__________________________________

From the FOXNews.com report:

Gay Candidate for Fort Lauderdale Mayor Has Curious Legal History

Earl Rynerson is an openly gay businessman with a history of curious legal problems and an apparent penchant for bondage pornography. And he thinks he’s just the man to be your mayor. …

Drawing more eyes is his apparent predilection for porn and his membership in an anonymous sex site. While not illegal, they are possible dark spots on the resume of man who is running a campaign to “polish up the city” of Fort Lauderdale.

Rynerson’s credit card bill included at least 3 monthly payments to “Access 4M4M site,” the billing name of a “men for men” sex site based in New York. “The m4m4sex website is for men looking to meet other men for sex,” the Web site declares in plain English.

Another charge on his card provides a phone number for the International Masters Association, which “unites the Leather community online and [brings] Masters and slaves together,” providing services for people “interested in Leather, Gear, Bondage, Rubber, Watersports [a fetish involving urination] and other fetishes.”

Rynerson said the stories of his credit card purchases were greatly exaggerated, and compared the Web sites to YouTube and MySpace. “These are online services that a lot of people use,” he told the Sun-Sentinel. “There’s nothing pornographic … nothing to that.”

He neither confirmed nor denied that he used the sites, saying it was an issue of privacy. “Whether or not I subscribe or don’t subscribe to racy Web sites I think it’s a personal issue,” he told the newspaper. “An individual’s private life and personal life should be kept private and personal.” …

It’s a big move in a city with a relatively weak mayor, but Rynerson originally entered the race because of comments made by incumbent mayor Jim Naugle, who angered gay Floridians with his opposition to gay marriage and controversial 2007 call to “reduce homosexual sex in bathrooms.”

A city with a large gay population — and one that benefits greatly from gay tourism — Fort Lauderdale might have voted the 6-term mayor out of office even if term limits had not been imposed on him.

Rynerson isn’t the only candidate who was stirred by Naugle’s comments to run for office. Dean Trantalis, a former city commissioner and local gay activist, has also thrown his hat in the ring.

Click here for the full FOXNews.com story: “Gay Candidate for Fort Lauderdale Mayor Has Curious Legal History”

By Peter LaBarbera

OK, now it’s official. In three presidential debates to help us decide which man – John McCain or Barack Obama – will lead this nation, the critical issue of homosexual “marriage” didn’t even come up.

Add to that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the federal “hate crimes” bill and Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA), homosexuality in the military, how “gay rights” laws threaten religious and other freedoms, and homosexual adoption of children.

On each of these issues, Obama and McCain strongly disagree, but we never (or barely) got to hear them explain their positions on the same stage – in contrast to Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church debate where at least “gay marriage” was discussed. The only time that homosexuality was raised in the four official debates, including the vice-presidential debate, was when moderator Gwen Ifill asked a poorly constructed question about same-sex benefits and then “gay marriage” to Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Joe Biden.

The issue of judicial appointments did come up but certainly has received far less attention than it deserves since judges are setting now policy in this country.

Do you feel as gypped as I do by the combination of media bias, campaign jingoism and political correctness that resulted in one of the most important issues facing our nation — whether marriage should be radically redefined to accommodate “rights” based on homosexual behavior – not even being mentioned in the official debates?

There are millions of voters representing both sides of this issue who would have loved to hear Sens. Obama and McCain go head-to-head on “same-sex marriage,” DOMA, etc. — just as we were relieved last night to finally hear the candidates debate a clear question about abortion and Roe vs. Wade from moderator Bob Schieffer (of CBS’ Face the Nation).

Too often reporters cynically treat abortion and homosexuality as mere “wedge issues” manipulated by politicians, thus echoing a central canard of the Libertine Left (and liberal Republicans). There may be some of that going on, but the social issues – like all issues – only have the potential to become game-breakers because so many Americans care about them.

But to many jaded members of the Fourth Estate, the Culture Wars are like a sport, disconnected from truth (what’s that?) and the driving idealism of pro-life, pro-family advocates. Many reporters can barely hide their contempt for the “religious right” (as they disparagingly call us) and don’t view homosexuality as much of an issue anymore. The media increasingly regard even “same-sex marriage” as a matter of declining importance except for its lingering political potential — per the talking heads’ insistence ad nauseam that homosexual “marriage” will not be a decisive issue in this election. (We’ll see if they are right on November 5th.)

Journalists are notoriously secular and ignorant about religion, so many don’t even try to understand the deep motivations of those who oppose homosexual practice as immoral or who fight for pro-life laws to help save innocent unborn babies. Instead, we are told that such  “wedge issues” are raised in a campaign mainly as a vehicle to help the Republican Party – ignoring the growing dissatisfaction of many pro-family advocates with the GOP’s weak advocacy on these issues.

I’ve talked to many reporters over the years who repeat the shibboleth that Culture War issues like abortion and homosexuality are trivial when compared to those that “really matter” – you know, the economy, the environment, health care, etc. But such value judgments are beyond the media’s “pay grade,” to quote Obama. In a fairer journalistic world we would not be subjected to reporters’ condescension and elitism merely because we defend traditional morality and the dictates of our faith in the public square — especially in the crucible of an election.

All we in the pro-family movement ask of reporters, editors and producers is impartiality and equal time with the Social Left to explain our cause. But apparently that is asking too much of the media, who look to dubious professional groups like the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for guidance on how to cover homosexual issues.

Then there is the radical activist group GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination) – which has even greater media clout – and which regularly equates Judeo-Christian, pro-family opposition to homosexual practice with “hate” and “prejudice.” GLAAD pressures news outfits not to cover homosexuality’s many downsides (e.g., gay bathhouses and homosexual health risks), and tries to silence and discredit the voices of ex-“gay” men and women who left homosexuality behind.

GLAAD’s intimidation strategy works: Have you noticed how even most conservative opinion-makers like FOX’s Sean Hannity have avoided or downplayed the “same-sex marriage” issue and other aspects of the homosexual agenda this year, even though marriage amendments are on the ballots in three states — California, Florida and Arizona — and homosexual organizations are ramping up their lobbying on Capitol Hill to end the military’s homosexuality ban?

Why are conservatives cooperating with the Left and the media in taking homosexual-agenda issues off the table?

Lemming candidates?
But what about the candidates’ role in neglecting moral issues?  Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain issued statements on the recent Connecticut Supreme Court decision imposing same-sex “marriage” on that state – even though the candidates have very different positions on DOMA and whether government should sanction homosexual relationships. Why the silence? Each has his own reason, which we at AFTAH cannot discuss until the day after the election.

Ronald Reagan was different. He talked above the media and excelled at getting out his conservative, pro-family message directly to the American public even though he was derided by smug reporters as a “B actor” with a penchant for dangerous rhetoric (that Evil Empire stuff). A media-approved candidate never could have defeated Communism; Reagan did – but not by sucking up to the boys on the bus! And he succeeded back in the ‘80s when the Big Three news networks still ruled the airwaves. Now, 20 years post-Gipper, a candidate who takes bold, principled stands can still get his message out by clearly and passionately articulating his beliefs — and using the power of the burgeoning New Media to get around the biased press.

But being namby-pamby or disingenuous on issues of profound moral truth will get you nowhere fast.

The sad reality is that in our dumbed-down, secularized society, homosexuality has become the “third rail” of American politics. Being against homosexuality today is much more political incorrect than being pro-life. Just look at America’s young people, who are more pro-life and yet more pro-“gay” at the same time. The remedy is for each of us to “man up” by committing to defend moral absolutes in the culture — to heck with charges of “intolerance”! (At this point I must point out that many pro-family women like Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness have put men to shame in their willingness to stand up for morality in the culture – shame on us men.)

Perhaps some of the blame we routinely assign to the liberal media for ignoring social issues like life and marriage is more appropriately directed at gutless politicians who lack the conviction and fortitude to defend moral truth given by our Creator — in a culture that increasingly dismisses both.

Peter LaBarbera is founder and president of Americans for Truth about Homosexuality (www.aftah.org). He can be reached at americansfortruth@comcast.net.

Below is an excellent column by Joel Belz, founder of WORLD magazine, answering some of the current Christian gibberish critical of believers who fight for Truth in the public square. (Click HERE for the full column in WORLD.) While we’re at it, here are 20 more good reasons why Christians (or anyone) should never feel guilty about a single-minded focus in countering the homosexual/transsexual activist and pro-abortion lobbies:

1. Human Rights Campaign (largest pro-homosexual PAC);
2. National Gay and Lesbian Task Force;
3. Lambda Legal;
4. NARAL Pro-Choice American (formerly National Abortion Rights Action League, which cruelly defends even later-term abortions).
5. GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation;
6. GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network);
7. NOW (they manage to promote both lesbianism and abortion-on-demand);
8. MTV (obnoxious in its one-sided promotion of homosexuality, bisexuality, etc.);
9. Soulforce and other Bible-twisting, “queer theology”-promoting groups;
10. Radical, reason-challenged, pro-homosexual websites like young Jeremy Hooper’s Good As You blog, Wayne (”Anything But Straight”) Besen’s ‘ex-gay’-hating Truth Wins Out, and lesbian Pam (”Jeebus”) Spaulding’s Pam’s House Blend;
11. National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association;
12. EMILY’s List (a pro-abortion PAC)
13. Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (working to open up the military to homosexuals);
14. ACLU’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project;
15. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.)
16. Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)
17. Tim Gill (homosexual money-man)
18. Pro-homosexual activist groups like Equality Illinois fighting in all 50 states for radical legislation that undermines marriage;
19. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
20. PFLAG (Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians & Gays), a radical pro-homosexual group.

_______________________________

Belz writes for WORLD:

Stop Apologizing!
It’s not always wrong to be a “single-issue” advocate

It’s become an increasingly frequent reminder to us evangelical Christians not to let our cultural identity be framed by “single issues.”

It was a reminder implicitly included in the “Evangelical Manifesto,” a document whose basic content we at WORLD have applauded but whose political direction I questioned in our last issue. Why are the Manifesto’s backers so ready to join the cultural left in suggesting a guilt trip for those evangelicals who have been preoccupied with the evils of abortion and same-sex marriage?

And if some argue that the rising generation of younger evangelicals is a bit embarrassed by what they think is an out-of-balance focus by their elders, and thinks it’s time to get equally exercised over issues like racism, economic justice, and the environment—well, if that’s the case with our twentysomethings and our teenagers, then maybe we need to go to work and do a better job of explaining to them why we’ve put the emphasis where we have for the last generation and why we believe that it’s time not to lower our voices.

Evangelicals shouldn’t be embarrassed to say boldly and clearly: Abortion and same-sex marriage are uniquely heinous sins. They rattle the foundations of a civilized society. They take a culture in a dreadful direction. We haven’t been wrong to say so. We aren’t fanatics.

Click HERE to read Belz’ entire column in WORLD

So Chelsea Clinton partied with 2,000 boys (can we call them men?) in dresses at Portland’s annual “Red Dress Party” on April 12? Can’t say I’m surprised given the polling data on how “gay-friendly” youth are these days. But instead of the usual shock and outrage, let’s dwell for some moments on what these photos say about the social movement that so accurately calls itself “queer.” (See Willamette Week excerpts from the Portland event at bottom.)

Homosexual Men in Dresses

According to this article in the Willamette Week, the Red Dress Party “started years ago as a way for gay guys to wear girlie gowns and get stinkin’ drunk.” Like they needed an excuse. Why is it so easy to get homosexual guys in a dress anyway? Could it be because they are confused about their God-given masculinity to begin with? Sorry, my digression has taken me into overlapping phobias: I don’ t know which I’m more guilty of: homo- or trans-phobia? (Both, you Bible Bigot! I’m reporting you to the Thought Police.)

Sometimes you just have to laugh at a homosexual world that is so utterly lacking in seriousness. We’re dealing with a movement that is filled with overgrown adolescents who still have the gall to compare themselves to the Black civil rights movement. (Shhhh! — don’t tell anyone about the annual Aspen “Gay Ski Week” or how homosexuals travel abroad more (”especially for leisure purposes”) than straights — they’re VICTIMS — VICTIMS OF DISCRIMINATION, I tell you!)

Perhaps even a few non-activist homosexuals might agree with me that it’s silly — from a grown-up standpoint — for:

• men to party until all hours of the night — many high on stimulant drugs to keep them awake and …. enabling them to … well, uh … perform multiple and untold sexual perversions — at massive parties that double as “fund-raisers” for AIDS research and prevention! … Apparently, the Red Dress Party that Chelsea attended serves as a fund-raiser for AIDS prevention and “queer youth” support groups; isn’t that special?
• men to engage in sodomitic sex in public bathrooms and parks … facilitated by porn-financed homosexual websites that get millions and millions of hits per month …
• homosexual activists like Human Rights Campaign’s Joe Solmonese to demand that the ban on homosexual male blood donations be lifted (he’s crying discrimination) when the FDA has said: “Several scientific models show there would be a small but definite increased risk to people who receive blood transfusions if FDA’s MSM [men who have sex with men] policy were changed and that preventable transfusion transmission of HIV could occur as a result”; turns out a little discrimination is a good thing….
• transvestite men with their burly arms and legs (and Adam’s apple — can’t cut that off) trying to “pass” as women ….
• lesbian “drag kings” doing their own pathetic imitation of the real deal (men) at shows across the country — yes, the gender-confused lesbians, too, try to “pass” as men, “packing” fake penises, etc. … Add to that the specter of lesbians using sex toys to simulate male anal sex (who could make this stuff up?) …
• one of the most intolerant and bigoted (anti-religiously speaking) movements in the world lecturing everyone else about … tolerance and bigotry …
• homosexual activists to scold Pope Benedict about his “sins”: the following is from the website “PinkNews” (now that’s serious): “The Rainbow Sash Movement [RSM] said it is calling on ‘Catholics of good will’ to take the Papal visit as an opportunity to shower the Pope-mobile with ashes instead of confetti. Ashes are an ancient and appropriate greeting for a sinner who has caused the Church so much division and pain,’ RSM said in a statement.”
• transgenders of all persuasions using opposite-sex restrooms and demanding same as their “civil right” (talk about dragging down MLK’s movement …);
• self-described “queer” theologians to pretend that they are Christian or have something to teach the Church when their real goal is to undermine Biblical truth on the subject to justify their lifestyle choices …
• activists to promote homosexuality and gender “nonconformity” in schools — even for young children — in the name of safety, of course …
• for one member of a homosexual household to play the “husband” and the other the “wife” in the relationship — at least they admit there is a standard of normalcy;
• pro-homosexual advocates to pretend that HIV/AIDS is not a predominantly “gay” disease in America — and teaching kids in school that AIDS “does not discriminate” when it clearly does (the homosexual Task Force’s Matt Foreman went off the “gay” taking points here when he declared that “HIV is a gay disease”) …
• smug homosexual academicians and activists to claim that same-sex parents are actually better for kids than traditional mom-and-dad households … Hitler would be proud: always go after the Big Lie….
• for GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination) and other same-sex whiners to complain that the movies and TV are not sufficiently pro-”gay” when everyone knows Hollywood is largely run by homosexuals (and straights who are strongly pro-”gay”) …
• leftist and “queer” bloggers like Pam Spaulding to feign outrage over Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern for saying the homosexual agenda is a greater threat than terrorism when they compare groups like AFTAH and pro-family leaders DIRECTLY to terrorists all the time. (I write this as a one-time designated member of the “American Taliban”; the subtle, judicious Spaulding now says she’s tired of the term — preferring a new putdown: “The Peter” — a phallic slang reference I used to hear as a kid; now that’s doing your Duke University employers proud, Pam!);
• men to say that they are really a lesbian trapped in a male’s body, and vice versa, and all the perverse permutations associated with the “T” in the “GLBT” movement: transsexualism, transvestism, etc.
• women to stay married to their husbands for decades and raise children to adulthood — and then leave their husband for a woman, only to claim that they were “always lesbian” and are just living out “who they really are” …
• the city of San Francisco to allow the sadistic Folsom Street Fair to go on every year with its rampant full nudity and even orgies in the streets — while the cops stand idly by doing nothing;
• homosexual activists to scold the Roman Catholic Church for harboring pedophiles when it was homosexual men who entered the Church after seminary standards were lowered — and then who engaged in so many of the predations on boys that brought dishonor to the Church in the first place. Have homosexual activists no shame?

The list could go on and on. Answer to the last question: no. So why are we losing to a movement this “queer,” again? Perhaps because most people don’t take it seriously. But mostly because the activists on their side care about their agenda (and, ultimately, their perversions) — more than most Americans care to stop them. Apathy and politically correct silence rule the day — at least for most straights and, to our shame, for most religious people.

Unfortunately for all of us, the dangers that the homosexual activist movement poses to America — to our religious and First Amendment freedoms, the corruption of youth, the sanctity of marriage, etc. — are very real indeed, and not funny at all.

___________________________

Below is an excerpt from the Willamette Weekly article:

Party Girl: Chelsea Clinton Cuts Loose With 2,000 Gay Men in Red Dresses

…

Yes, Chelsea Clinton made it to the infamous “Red Dress” Party.

Not to be confused with that other annual “Red Dress” fundraiser, this is the “Red Dress Party,” a mondo-alcohol-fueled dance party where nearly 2,000 gay men in various states of red dress undress (and several nearly naked straight men as well as one very colorfully decorated naked woman) invade a warehouse in Northeast Portland and dance their collective asses off to pounding disco music and the incredible Storm Large and her Balls (they were beyond fabulous).

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL Willamette Weekly STORY

Dear Readers: check out this recent Good Morning America story (you can watch the ABC video online) about an alleged “pregnant man” — who is actually a very gender-confused Oregon woman who is pregnant but has taken drastic measures to appear like the “man” she wants to be. What continues to irritate us in the reporting on the radical “trans-genda” is the media’s obsequiousness in using biologically false pronouns to describe the stories’ subjects. Of course, this is the exact goal of radical groups like GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) and GenderPAC.

Breaking news to the PC media: Laurie Higgins is right: men still cannot get pregnant.– Peter LaBarbera

____________________________

By Laurie Higgins

I’ve said this before, but in light of a recent “news” story that describes the strange tale of a “pregnant man,” I think it bears repeating.

Prior to my mother succumbing to cancer, she had had an oophorectomy, hysterectomy, and mastectomy. Following those surgeries, she was no less a woman than am I. The presence in the pregnant woman of a desire to be a man, a clear symptom of a profound psychological disorder, and even the foolish legal accommodation of this symptom, renders this woman a man only in an illusory post-modern fantasy–not in reality where most of us live and breathe and have our being. That is to say, there exists no pregnant “man.”

Oh, and by the way, I still believe I’m a hobbit trapped in a human body.

Laurie Higgins is a writing instructor at Deerfield High School, in Deerfield, Illinois, north of Chicago. She can be reached through AFTAH at americansfortruth@comcast.net.

The following is an article by Nathan Neighbor of the ChristianResearchNetwork.info website, followed by my response (which is adapted from a comment I posted on their site; see this link). I believe Nathan’s is a good representation of the (naive) attitudes of so many Christians regarding the “culture war” over homosexuality. Many Christians, appropriately desirous of winning souls to Christ, are non-confrontational in public policy (or simply avoid or even abhor it altogether) – while our “gay” activist opponents are aggressive, highly skilled, and often ruthless in the political and cultural campaigns that they wage.

Nathan Neighbor writes (emphasis added):

In this article by Ingrid, she links to this website: Americans for Truth about Homosexuality.

I am interested in hearing your thoughts on the website. I am trying really hard to figure out why Christians are so obsessed with letting the world know the truth behind homosexuality. If I felt like they were doing it because they cared deeply about the people who live the lifestyle, and want desperately for them to experience the life that God designed for them, I would not have a problem with all of it. However, that is certainly not the vibe I am getting from these sites. They are more concerned about winning their debate than facilitating life transformation in the hearts of homosexuals. It’s basically saying “we don’t care about you, but we want you to know that we completely disagree with your lifestyle.”

And why is it just homosexuality. They act as if that is the BIG sin in the scriptures, dismissing all other destructive behaviors and choices. So, I will faithfully be waiting for the following websites to emerge, if these people are really trying to get biblical truth out there:

Americans for Truth about Lying

Americans for Truth about Gossip

Americans for Truth about Bitterness

Americans for Truth about Slander

Americans for Truth about Poverty

Americans for Truth about Widows

Or maybe these groups are not at all concerned about people who are far from God connecting to, and living out the life that God dreams for them, but simply condemning those they disagree with. Unfortunately we are now warring over truth, and not warring for the hearts of people. I don’t think that’s what God was hoping we would become.

_________________________

AFTAH’s Response:

By Peter LaBarbera 

Dear Nathan, to turn your words around, I wonder if you are concerned at all about us (Americans For Truth and those who share our viewpoint). Perhaps you might have asked us directly why we do what we do — or accurately reported the many articles evincing our Christian care for the homosexual struggler — rather than merely offer your own (distorted) speculations as to our motives.

Yes, we are deeply concerned about people practicing homosexuality, which is why we offer people the loving Gospel of Jesus Christ, Who, we sincerely believe, has helped thousands of people overcome entrenched homosexual sin, just as He has helped people overcome — and be forgiven for — those other besetting sins you mention.

(Incidentally, I believe Christian “born again” conversions, despite being ridiculed by many gay activist and media cynics, are responsible for many more people leaving the homosexual lifestyle than ex-gay “reparative therapy”; however, the latter also has helped many change: see www.narth.com)

As to merely castigating gays, I have no basis for pride or a sense of superiority in that I — as one who struggles with my owns sins — am in need of the same grace of Christ as they are. Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17)

As to why we focus on homosexuality, the simplest answer is that we are trying to counter (albeit with considerably less resources) the huge pro-”gay” movement, which seeks to normalize and build acceptance for homosexuality in the culture. Here are a few of the homosexual activist groups, each of which focuses solely on promoting GLBT (gay, lesbian, bi, trans) issues:

Human Rights Campaign
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Lambda Legal
Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network
GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation)
Servicemembers Legal Defense Network
PFLAG (Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays)

The list goes on and on. Now I doubt you would deny that in a democracy, if these groups have a right to promote the acceptance of homosexuality — which we as Christians and adherents of other religious groups, and even many nonreligious people, believe is immoral — then we also have a right to organize and stand up for our point of view. It’s called the battle of ideas.

Moreover, the proliferation of groups rallying around the celebration of homosexuality is in marked contrast to the lack of groups devoted to the other sins you mentioned above. As far as I know, there is no Pro-Gossip Task Force, or even an Americans For Divorce Committee, so the homosexual agenda does stand out in that sense. (It seems the closest analogy would be the pro-abortion-on-demand and pro-pornography lobbies.)

Yes, we put out lots of articles defending historic Judeo-Christian norms on homosexuality, etc., but it pales in comparison to the information — we would call it misinformation — expounded by the overall GLBT movement.

We are simply trying to RESPOND to the other side’s crusade on this issue, just as pro-life groups are responding to Planned Parenthood, NOW [National Organization of Women], etc.. In other words, if we are “obsessed,” then our “gay” and “trans” opponents are all the more so, in that they spend far more time and money — specifically on the homosexual/transgender issue — promoting their ideology than the collective pro-family movement does opposing them. There are many, many more “pro-gay” activists than “anti-gay” activists — although I use that term advisedly in that we are ‘anti-gay’ only with regard to behavior. (We do not believe in “gay” personhood, i.e., as an inborn, natural or intrinsic identity.)

I personally believe that every homosexual “coming out” is a tragedy because it embraces the lie that “being gay” is “who I am.” Conversely, every “ex-gay” testimony is a wonderful sign of God’s goodness, His forgiveness, and His power. The growing “gay christian” movement denies the power of Jesus Christ to change lives, which is tragic in that we all know of people who have overcome terrible sins and addictions through Christ.

Funny how the same “gay” movement that gained such power and cultural acceptance through people communicating personal stories to others of their “gayness,” now spends so much time and effort questioning the existence of ex-gays.

To paraphrase Queer Nation (a very aggressive “gay” group in the 90’s), former homosexuals are “here, they’re no longer ‘queer,’ get used to it.”

As to your comment about “warring over truth, and not warring for the hearts of people. I don’t think that’s what God was hoping we would become” — what does this mean? We battle for truth in America and across the world. Christians seek to convert Muslims to the Truth of Christ’s Gospel, while Muslims seek to convert others to “their” truth. Both religions cannot be true; I believe Christianity and the Bible are true but, sadly, it seems many Muslims are more offended than Christians by sexual immorality. Our witness is tarnished.

In the same way, both the “gay” side and our side are in a struggle over truth, and how to define it. With the media mostly on the pro-homosexual side these days, groups like ours are in an uphill struggle, to be sure, but we are as convinced of our position as the “gay” activists are of theirs. And we shouldn’t be condemned for defending truth — God’s truth — in the public square.

The battle for Truth and the battle for men’s and women’s hearts is one and the same. We can do it in a spirit of the love of Christ — and that is what we try to do at Americans For Truth. Are we perfect? Far from it. But we’re trying to get some information out there in a culture where the media glamorizes sexual behaviors (homosexuality, sex outside marriage) that our Lord opposes as sinful. Perhaps we will step aside when the Human Rights Campaign, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and the other “gay” organizations fold up shop.  Best — pl

Peter LaBarbera
President, Americans For Truth about Homosexuality
www.americansfortruth.org 

Well, folks, I’m not exactly expecting Human Rights Campaign and the rest of the “gay” lobby to hop on this request for cooperation from my good friend Matt Barber of CWA, but it sure would be progress if they did. It is unbelievable that 25 years after the outbreak of AIDS, homosexual bathhouses and other venues for anonymous sodomitic encounters are flourishing.

Over the years, we’ve heard from a few homosexual men and lesbian women who agree with us that the sex clubs should be closed down. They are the politically incorrect voices within their community. There are some things on which we can find common cause, and making it as hard as possible for men to hook up anonymously with other men to engage in dangerous sexual practices should be one of them. This is not rocket science, so why isn’t the CDC leading such a campaign? – Peter LaBarbera  

Concerned Women for America

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

JANUARY 22, 2008 

Concact: Natalie Bell: (202) 488-7000 ext. 126

Homosexual Groups Invited to Work to Curb Spread of MRSA

Washington, D.C. — Because Concerned Women for America (CWA) cares deeply for the health and well being of all Americans, CWA is sending letters inviting the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, GLAAD and Lambda Legal to put aside profound ideological differences with CWA — for the sake of the lives and health of their members — and to call for commonsense steps to help curb the spread of a potentially deadly strain of Staph infection. 

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA bacteria, is infecting men who have sex with men in major cities at an alarming rate.  A study conducted by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, found that “gay” men are 13 times more likely to contract the infection. 

The study determined that the spread of MRSA, “among men who have sex with men is associated with high-risk behaviors, including use of methamphetamine and other illicit drugs, sex with multiple partners, participation in a group sex party, use of the internet for sexual contacts, skin-abrading sex, and history of sexually transmitted infections.”  But ultimately, the study warned that, “Having male-male sex seems to be a risk factor for [MRSA].”        

Dr. Binh Diep, the researcher who led the study, told Reuters, “Once this reaches the general population, it will be truly unstoppable.”  The study found that the “[MRSA] epidemic probably started in San Francisco and has been disseminated by the frequent cross-coastal travel of men who have sex with men.”

Matt Barber, CWA’s Policy Director for Cultural Issues, said, “We now have a wonderful opportunity for ideological opponents to come together for the common good.  Steps must be taken to keep this MRSA outbreak, which is occurring within certain segments of the homosexual community, from becoming a more widespread epidemic.

“HRC and other homosexual groups have a profound leadership role in their communities and a responsibility to protect their members from behaviorally related threats to their health and well-being.   Therefore, these groups should publicly condemn those specific ‘high-risk behaviors’ which this study has concluded are responsible for spreading MRSA among homosexuals. 

“We’re asking HRC and other groups to denounce, through word and deed, ‘sex with multiple partners,’ ‘group sex [parties]’ and to actively promote the notion that it is never okay to ‘use methamphetamine and other illicit drugs.’”

“In light of this behaviorally related MRSA outbreak,” said Barber, “we additionally ask HRC and other groups to call on local health agencies to shut down the many bathhouses and sex clubs around the country where men meet for anonymous sex with other men, often multiple partners, on a daily basis.  These places create the ‘perfect storm’ for infectious disease, including MRSA.

“Now’s the time for us all to come together,” concluded Barber.  “Let’s do what needs to be done to help curtail this regrettable MRSA outbreak.” 

By Peter LaBarbera 

“How do you balance the need to create an open and equal workplace for LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] employees with the religious beliefs of those who oppose same-sex relationships?” 
– proposed discussion question for DiversityInc “Religion in the Workplace” roundtable that includes an atheist and a homosexual activist but dropped Americans For Truth after being lobbied by pro-”gay” panelists

Today I was scheduled to fly to Newark, N.J., to participate in a “Religion in the Workplace Roundtable” discussion sponsored by DiversityInc Magazine. But I won’t be going to Newark – because three of the panelists decided that true diversity was something they simply could not tolerate.

On Friday, I received an awkward call from Barbara Frankel, DiversityInc’s Executive Editor, who had originally invited me to take part in the roundtable — along with Daryl Herrschaft, Director of the Workplace Project at Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual activist group, and several other panelists including the president of American Atheists.

An embarrassed Ms. Frankel said she was forced to disinvite me, less than a week before the event, because Herrschaft and two other panelists (she wouldn’t say whom) had threatened not to come if I were allowed to participate. (I had already bought my airline ticket and received planning materials for the discussion.) Ironically, one of the proposed questions for the roundtable was: “How do you balance the need to create an open and equal workplace for LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] employees with the religious beliefs of those who oppose same-sex relationships?”

Frankel apologized and said that she was very upset about this development, but that her hands were tied. Of course, she could have stuck with the original plan and told Herrschaft and his two allies to take a hike, or at least a refresher course on genuine diversity.

Frankel’s decision to cave in to HRC’s demands represents a triumph of the new, Intolerant “Tolerance” over real tolerance. In originally inviting me and Americans For Truth to participate, Frankel – representing the very pro-“gay” DiversityInc — was, to her credit, practicing old-fashioned tolerance: people with divergent worldviews listening and talking respectfully to one another about each other’s viewpoint, in a spirit of civility.

The New Tolerance – epitomized by Herrschaft’s arrogant threat – is “tolerant” in name only. It is driven by ideology and power. Here’s the formula: certain viewpoints that the Left finds intolerable – e.g., that homosexuality is wrong and changeable behavior – must be denied public expression, or at least be marginalized. All to build a “hate-free” society, you see. (Conservative college students know well this counterfeit brand of “tolerance and diversity.”)

Truth is, the Human Rights Campaign, like many powerful homosexual groups, would rather demonize pro-family Christians and social conservatives than debate them. Earlier this year, I debated “gay parenting” on a cable talk show in D.C., opposite another HRC staffer. Afterward, I spotted her lobbying the program’s producer, saying that one-on-one interviews with homosexuals are more useful than contentious debates. Producers, editors and reporters too often allow homosexual activists to dictate the terms of talk show debates and even news coverage because they have bought into the corrupt, new definition of tolerance.

One-way sensitivity and morality-phobia
I’ve never worked for a major corporation, but now I better understand the plight of fellow Christians and pro-family Americans employed in politically correct, “diversity”-conscious companies. How is that corporations, which try so hard to be sensitive to homosexuals (and now transsexuals), can be so insensitive to their many employees motivated by faith?

What role have silent and timid Christians played in the rise of “gay” power and liberal intolerance in the corporate world?

I wonder: was Herrschaft’s peevish threat to boycott the DiversityInc panel motivated by some deep-seated morality-phobia? What insecurities and irrational fears drove the HRC staffer to play the censorious, take-my-ball-and-go-home card? Was Herrschaft, a highly-trained corporate activist, merely afraid of a good debate? Or does he just hate me and my Christianity-informed worldview so much that he cannot stand to be in my presence? (Yes, hate is a two-way street.)

One thing is certain: “gay” activists are so coddled these days that Herrschaft knew his stunt had a good chance of succeeding. And it did.

Memo to corporate Human Resources Directors: about half the country thinks homosexuality is wrong (Gallup) – and an even higher percentage believe that marriage can only be between a man and a woman. How about showing some respect for your religious and moral-minded employees – be they black, white, Latino, Christian, Muslim, Jewish or Hindu – who resent having their convictions undermined on the job?

Americans don’t like being told what to think – whether Big Brother comes in the form of oppressive government laws and mandates, or politically correct corporate “diversity” seminars (that the boss strongly suggests you attend).

Christians must speak up
It is time for Christian employees to stop “taking it” from corporate executives who spend company dollars and time promoting agendas that are hostile to faith and family.

TAKE ACTION:

• Insist that your worldview is fairly represented at all “diversity” sessions;
• Point out to the higher-ups that one-sided, propagandistic “awareness” workshops create a hostile workplace environment for you and others like you, and undermine employee morale;
• Find out if your corporation is funding pro-homosexual groups and events and request that it either stop doing so or make corresponding matching grants to pro-family organizations. Settle for nothing less than strict neutrality on the homosexuality issue; 
• Speak up for God in the workplace and challenge the “gay”-activist mindset that cynically equates time-honored Judeo-Christian teachings on marriage and sexuality with “homophobia, hate and bigotry.” 

Morality is not prejudice, and Christianity is not “hate.” Labeling people “anti-gay” has become the new code-word for liberals seeking to justify their own anti-Christian prejudices and intolerance. True “diversity” is the big loser today in DiversityInc’s stripped-down “roundtable.”

Do not despair: like other bankrupt and hypocritical ideologies throughout history – think communist “People’s Republics” – the modern shams of Monolithic Diversity and Intolerant Tolerance will die of their own weight and contradictions, as more and more Americans perceive the clear threat that they pose to freedom of expression and our precious religious liberties.

But you must speak out, and not let ideological thugs like HRC’s Daryl Herrschaft steal away your voice or your freedoms. After all, you didn’t come to work today to be brainwashed and have your moral values trashed, did you?

As at past NLGJA conferences, conservative-leaning Fox News Network was among the sponsors and recruiters.

Titled “Breaking Stories, Breaking Waves,” the convention, held in downtown San Diego’s Westin Horton Plaza hotel, featured a one-day LGBT media summit, six receptions, and more than 50 sessions and workshops ranging from “Covering LGBT Conservatives” (oddly, the Christian-conservative-bashing Wayne Besen was a panelist), to “Will Gays Matter in ’08?” to “Sex Writing for Fun and Profit.”

Attendees included print and broadcast professionals from top U.S. mainstream news agencies such as CNN, Associated Press, ABC/Primetime, NBC, CBS, Fox News Network, Hearst Newspapers, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Bloomberg News, Newsday, the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, CNBC, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Time Warner/Turner Broadcasting, Washington Post, Hartford Courant, People Magazine, NPR, Clear Channel Communications, Wired Magazine, Cox Enterprises, and USA Today.

Among major homosexual media outlets represented were the Washington Blade, Dallas Voice, San Diego’s Gay and Lesbian Times, GO Magazine, Gay News Watch, Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), Bay Area Reporter, IN Los Angeles Magazine, Sirius OutQ Radio, CBS News on LOGO, and here! Networks.

Other organizations who sent employees to the convention, according to an attendee directory distributed with the registration package, included Cirque de Soleil; MGM Mirage; USC Annenberg School of Communications; Human Rights Campaign (HRC); Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund; Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN); Arizona State University Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication; JetBlue Airways; Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard; several Canadian tourism agencies; Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN); Lambda Legal; Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation; Out and Equal Workplace Advocates; Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Bureau; and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The convention included plenary sessions on the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and immigration issues affecting homosexuals, as well as a general session featuring a conversation with Larry Kramer, founder of the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP), a radical, “in your face” demonstration group that made headlines in December, 1989, for disrupting a Catholic Mass and destroying a consecrated Communion host at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.

The Canadian Tourism Board was the presenting sponsor for the convention. Other sponsors included JetBlue Airways, CBS News, CNN, ESPN, General Motors, Toyota automobiles, Orbitz, Bloomberg, Coca-Cola,  the Gill Foundation, Sony Pictures and Television, visitBritain, ABC News, Fox News Network, the San Diego Union-Tribune, and the Washington Post.

Among “Career & Community Expo” participants were the Associated Press, Dow Jones, Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation, MGM Mirage, Reuters, Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau, the New York Times, Fox News Network, and NBC Universal.

Other events occurring during the convention included a student projects, a documentary film screening, a “not so silent” auction, 12-step meetings, and a “San Diego Night Out.”

Americans For Truth sent reporter Allyson Smith to the convention for three days, where she attended more than a dozen sessions and raised issues of concern to pro-family advocates — including the biased manner in which “mainstream media” covers homosexuality-related issues. A full report about the sessions that Smith attended will follow in coming days.

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

TAKE ACTION: 

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

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

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

Letters to the Editor
letters@nypost.com
 

By Peter LaBarbera

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

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

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

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

The ‘crime’ of being ‘anti-gay’ 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

Sincerely,

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

The following article is reprinted with permission from Lifesitenews (http://www.lifesite.net/), which has become one of the world’s leading pro-family sources for news. (To sign up for Lifesite e-updates, click HERE.)

Call it homo-fascism, homo-totalitarianism, homo-supremacy or whatever you will, but the “gay” activist movement’s drive to silence opponents is intensifying worldwide. Yet American liberals and homosexual activists alike –with rare exceptions such as lesbian Georgetown University professor Chai Feldblum – play dumb, as if they cannot comprehend how homosexuality-based “rights” (in the guise of sexual orientation “equality”) will erode the freedoms of those who regard homosexual behavior as wrong.

We welcome homosexual (and liberal) activists who are not afraid of freedom and the battle of ideas to denounce the growing pro-”gay” trend of silencing opposing speech — whether it’s GLAAD threatening to sue a news producer to squelch a report on lesbian bullying; Britain trotting out the “anti-homophobia” police to crush that grave threat to democracy of a Christian passing out tracts at a “gay” event; or pro-homosexual militants claiming that decent religious people who agree with God about sexual sin are causing the murders of homosexuals like Matthew Shepard.

Where else but in the Orwellian world of pro-GLBT “multiculturalism” would you see politically correct bureaucrats squelching faith-based dissent in the name of “diversity” and “tolerance”? The time to speak out against the coming tyranny is now. We would do well to read Feldblum’s paper (delivered last year at a Becket Fund for Religious Liberty symposium): at least she acknowledges that the struggle between “gay rights” and religious freedom of conscience is a “zero-sum game.”

P.S. Take a guess which side Feldblum says deserves to win.– Peter LaBarbera 

___________________________ 

Here is the LifeSiteNews report on Brazil; for Part One, “Brazilian Homosexual Activist Luiz Mott Confesses to Pederastic Love for Boys,” click HERE:

Brazil Attacks Against Family Defenders Backed by Pro-Homosexual Regime of Nation’s President
Part 2 of Lifesite’s report on Brazil’s aggressive homosexual movement

See Part 1 – Leader of Brazil Homosexual Movement Under Investigation for Pedophilia
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jul/07073011.html

By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

BRAZIL, July 30, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In recent months other Brazilians have been subject to the wrath of Brazil’s pro-homosexual regime. 

In June of this year a coalition of protestant church groups, the National Vision for a Christian Conscience (VINACC), was ordered to halt their campaign “In Defense of the Family”, which displayed billboards that said “Homosexuality: God made them man and woman, and saw that it was good!”  A court order decreed the removal of the billboards and the cancellation of a public event scheduled by VINACC to further the defense of family values, claiming that it was “homophobic”.

On May 29th of this year, a Lutheran pastor in the Brazilian town of Rancho Queimado; the Rev. Ademir Kreutzfeld, was subject to a criminal investigation when he was accused of calling local businesses in an effort to inform them that a newspaper they were sponsoring was promoting the homosexual agenda. The homosexual activist who owns the paper filed charges against the pastor for “defamation.” 

Although no further steps have been taken against the minister as yet, homosexuals are agitating for his prosecution. “What have I done?” asks Kreutzfeld. “I just made some phone calls to shops, alerting that they were, without perceiving, sponsoring a newspaper of homosexual ideology. As a Christian committed to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, I could not fail to inform them. Of course, I am not ‘homophobic.’ As a Christian, I love sinners. I am also one of them. But I cannot remain silent before sinful practices”.

Julio Severo (see his English-language blog HERE), who is seen as the principal opponent of Brazil’s militant homosexuals, and who has written a book called “The Homosexual Movement” warning against the political goals of the movement in Brazil and worldwide, states that, since he began his efforts against the homosexual movement in Brazil, he has suffered persecution and has been forced to flee his hometown.  According to Severo, a homosexual government official used his refusal to involve his children with vaccines against him and had a court order to remove his children from their home (Severo and his family believe that vaccines are dangerous and often ineffective). 

Severo states that others in the town also do not vaccinate their children, but he believes they were ignored in favor of him because of his stance against homosexual behavior. He now lives in hiding in another part of Brazil.

The attacks on Julio Severo, Jael Savelli, and others by the homosexual movement in Brazil are taking place within the political context of the strongly pro-homosexual regime of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has led Brazil’s executive branch since 2003.

During its second year in office, the Lula regime initiated a program, “Brazil Without Homophobia” which teaches that homosexual orientation is unchangeable, and seeks to construct “a culture of peace and values for promoting human diversity.” According to the program’s charter document, this would include “the production of cultural goods and support for events with massive visibility for affirming sexual orientation and the culture of peace”, “artistic productions that promote a culture of non-discrimination for sexual orientation”, and preserving “the cultural, social, and economic values congruent with the participation of the Brazilian homosexual population in the process of development, based on its history and culture”. 

Since the initiation of Brazil Without Homophobia, the government has spent millions of dollars funding “Gay Pride” parades and TV programming, and is promoting pro-homosexual “education” programs in the public schools. Homosexual leader Luiz Mott is one of those who participated in the creation of the document, according to the credits listed at the beginning. 

In addition, the Lula administration is promoting a new “anti-homophobia” law that would prohibit any expression contrary to the homosexual agenda, forbidding Brazilians “To practice, induce or incite discrimination or prejudice of race, skin color, ethnicity, religion, national origin, gender, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity…What is determined in this article involves the practice of any kind of violent, constraining, threatening or humiliating action, of moral, ethical, philosophical or psychological order.” 

Although the legislation has stalled in the Brazilian Senate, the issue will be taken up again this fall. The Brazilian legal system has also begun to allow homosexual adoptions (see http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/jul/05071202.html).

“Brazil Without Homophobia” also promises to promote the homosexual agenda at the international level, a commitment that the Lula regime has fulfilled with a rare enthusiasm.  In 2003, 2004, and 2005 it introduced resolutions in the United Nations to declare homosexual orientation as a protected “right,” but failed in every case.  In 2006, the Lula administration began pushing the resolution within the Organization of American States (OAS), although to date it has not passed in that venue either.

Those who wish to contact Julio Severo may do so through his email address which is found at http://www.blogger.com/profile/03079977728841299575. He speaks English. His English blog can be found at http://lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com/, and his Portuguese blog’s address is http://juliosevero.blogspot.com/.

For more information about what is being referred to as the rise of homosexual “fascism” in Brazil, readers may contact the Brazilian philosopher Dr. Olavo de Carvahlo at olavo@olavodecarvalho.com.

Source: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jul/07073108.html

The homosexual cultural bullies at GLAAD did not succeed in stopping the airing of the above Memphis TV report on vicious high school lesbian gangs, but they sure tried. WorldNetDaily.com features AFTAH in a story on the media’s non-interest in the ‘raping girl gangs’ story.

TAKE ACTION:  Read WorldNetDaily’s story (featuring Americans For Truth) about media bias and the lesbian gang story, and help counter the “gay” pressure groups that are turning America’s newsrooms into homosexuality-promotion centers:

1. Thank Memphis ABC-TV newsman Jack Peck (901) 321-7623; e-mail: jpeck@abc24.com) for not succumbing to GLAAD’s (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) blatant attempts to block the airing of a news segment on lesbian school gangs that rape girls; urge him to follow up on this important story;
2. Thank Bill O’Reilly (oreilly@foxnews.com) for finally giving this story national attention; urge FOX News(yourcomments@foxnews.com) to follow up on it; yesterday, O’Reilly had a GLAAD spokesman on his program who critiqued FOX’s reporting on the lesbian gang story; ask Bill to consider having a guest on to critique GLAAD’s bigoted intimidation tactics (including smearing pro-family groups like Americans For Truth as “hate groups”);  
3. Politely urge FOX News (and other media and corporations) to stop subsidizing the activist homosexual journalists group NLGJA: National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association. The NLGJA’s president, Eric Hegedus, compares including pro-family group representatives in news stories about homosexuality to quoting “white supremacists and other hate groups” in stories about race.

Today’s WorldNetDaily — “Payback for Expose on ‘Dyke’ Gang Rapes” – features Americans For Truth commenting on the homosexual lobby’s often successful attempts to bully the ‘mainstream’ media into reporting just one side of the debate on homosexuality in our culture.

It didn’t work in Memphis, but not because the powerful homosexual media group GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) did not try. GLAAD “Call to Action” on the Memphis story, reprinted below, could serve as a ”Gay Media Bullying 101″ lesson on homosexual media pressure tactics.

If all else fails, threaten to sue 

AFTAH has learned from Jack Peck (phone: 901-321-7623; e-mail: jpeck@abc24.com), General Manager of Memphis Eyewitness News ABC24, that a senior GLAAD staffer repeatedly threatened to sue the station if it aired the lesbian gangs report. Peck said the station made minor changes to the story but refused to bow to GLAAD’s threats because “we still thought we had a good story here.”

What is so stunning about this Orwellian GLAAD alert is its utter callousness — there is no concern shown for the victims of the lesbian gangs, only a desire to protect the image of homosexuals in America. As I told WorldNetDaily, “Here you have girls being raped by other girls, and somehow GLAAD manages to turn the homosexual lobby into the victims.” As usual with “gay” activists, it’s all about them.

Imagine the nationwide coverage and media-driven outrage — appropriate as that would be —  if this story were about roving bands of heterosexual boys raping lesbians in school washrooms in an attempt to force them to be “straight.”

Get the picture? Political correctness and hypocritical media silence actually encourage bad behavior because there is little accountability for organized lawbreakers. Now take some action to confront the media about its gaping double-standard on homosexuality.– Peter LaBarbera

Bolded emphasis below is ours:

GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) “Call to Action”

 

Memphis, Tenn., ABC and CW Affiliates Perpetuate Dangerous, Inaccurate Stereotypes In Report On “Lesbian Gangs”

 

March 02, 2007

 

Contact: Rashad Robinson, Senior Director of Media Programs
Email: robinson@glaad.org

 

New York, Friday, March 02, 2007 – On February 28, local ABC24 and CW30 affiliates in Memphis, Tenn., perpetuated dangerous, inaccurate stereotypes in their evening news report on “lesbian gangs.”

 

GLAAD was first alerted to the story when Initiative Fairness of the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center, The Tennessee Equality Project and Memphis community members called to complain about a problematic promotional ad.

 

The teaser, aired during February “sweeps” month, foreshadowed the familiar defamatory script in which a local news reporter relies on tabloid-style journalism and anecdotal claims. This type of reporting creates a climate of homophobia and fear, perpetuating dangerous, inaccurate stereotypes of gay people and feeding a climate of anti-gay discrimination and violence.

 

GLAAD immediately contacted ABC24 and CW30 station management. After we voiced serious concerns about the teaser and offered resources to the general manager and assistant news director, they agreed to show GLAAD the segment before it aired.

 

The report we saw was shockingly defamatory. The story dramatized “Gays Taking Over,” a group of African American women preying on other women. The principal interview subject, a so-called “gang expert” employed by the local sheriff’s office, suggested that the sexual harassment and violence the gang allegedly perpetuated would make its victims gay. The report offered no evidence to support these assertions, and the station’s general manager admitted to GLAAD that the station had not independently verified its interview subjects’ claims.

 

GLAAD raised serious objections, calling for the station to pull the report from that evening’s news program. The general manager, assistant news director and reporter stood behind their story and removed only some of its offensive elements. The station cut repeated references to Gays Taking Over as a “lesbian gang” and removed the depiction of the report’s only white woman as a potential target by the gang. In addition, the anchor and reporter told viewers the story was not intended to disparage lesbians and acknowledged that gay community members had expressed concerns about the piece. The two also disclosed that the station did not have documentary evidence (such as arrest records) to substantiate the story’s claims.

 

Despite these changes, however, the February 28 report retained its sensationalistic, fear-mongering tone and the homophobic commentary of its primary interview subject.

 

Please contact the reporter, assistant news director and general manager at ABC24 and CW30 to acknowledge the station’s decision to remove some of the story’s offensive elements and to condemn its insistence on promoting and airing a report that, without factual substantiation, perpetuates dangerous, inaccurate stereotypes about the lesbian community. Also urge them to improve their coverage through fair, accurate and inclusive representation of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

 

Contact:Eyewitness News ABC24 and CW30
Rebecca Medina, Reporter
(901) 321-7606

 

Bridget Lovelle, Assistant News Director
(901) 321-7535
blovelle@abc24.com or blovelle@myeyewitnessnews.com

 

Jack Peck, General Manager
(901) 321-7623 [Peck's email is jpeck@abc24.com]

 

About GLAAD: The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is dedicated to promoting and ensuring fair, accurate and inclusive representation of people and events in the media as a means of eliminating homophobia and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. For more information, please visit http://www.glaad.org/.

 

###

Payback for exposé on ‘dyke’ gang rapes
Homosexual activists attack revelations of lesbian assaults

By Bob Unruh
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com, posted July 9, 2007

Two news stories about hundreds of lesbian gangs across the nation attacking and raping young girls in schools and other public locations have prompted a backlash against the reporters by members of the homosexual community.

The broadcasts by Memphis television station WPTY and Fox News host Bill O’Reilly quoted law enforcement authorities, victims, and even some gang members to document the growing number of attacks on young girls by lesbian gang members.

“The Eyewitness News Everywhere” report in Memphis documented incidents of gangs known as GTOs, or “Gays” Taking Over, attacking schoolgirls. Two prison inmates affiliated with the gang told the station they had begun meeting to offer each other support, but a younger generation of members had taken their group over for violence and rape.

Rod Wheeler, who has experience as a police detective, told O’Reilly of a “national underground network” of lesbians and some men “recruiting kids as young as 10 years old in a lot of the schools in the communities all across the country.”

Some of the children, Wheeler said, “have actually reported that they were actually forced into, you know, performing sex acts and doing sex acts with some of these people.”

On the Memphis report, Deputy Beverly Cobb of the Shelby County Gang Unit said lesbian gang members “will sodomize [with sex toys] and will force [young schoolgirls] to do all sexual acts. They are forcing themselves on our young girls in all our schools.”

The report included a long list of Memphis-area schools where such incidents were documented….

“There is a serious professional ethic at stake: Are we going to be bullied by powerful special interest groups into distorting the news and covering up key information,” [LaBarbera] asked.

“Here’s a lesbian gang story obviously affecting inner city schools. If there were any justice in the media this would be huge. There would be investigations kicking in,” he said.

“This is really Orwellian. We’ve got gayspeak words,” LaBarbera said.

“Here you have girls being raped by other girls, and somehow GLAAD manages to turn the homosexual lobby into the victims,” he said.

Click HERE to read the entire WorldNetDaily.com story

By Peter LaBarbera

Lesbian gangs are raping and bullying girls and engaging in criminal activity, but you probably haven’t heard about this story, right? Now a Memphis TV station and FOX News’ Bill O’Reilly have broken the silence:

Click below to watch two video links that homosexual activists with the group GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) desperately tried to prevent the public from seeing:

1. The original Memphis TV news report on lesbian gang violence, including school washroom rapes of female students;
2. O’Reilly’s follow-up report on the lesbian assaults

Lifesite.net news — an excellent, Canada-based pro-family website that we highly recommend – has picked up on the Bill O’Reilly segment with the story below. 

I heard about this lesbian bullying phenomenon from former lesbian turned Christian evangelist Linda Jernigan, who a few years back was contacted by a teacher about speaking at Rich East High School in Park Forest, Illinois (a south suburb of Chicago), where this sick behavior was occurring. 

Jernigan said she was told that lesbian girl gangs would drag a targeted female into the school restroom, hold her down, and perform oral sex on her to “turn her out” – i.e., forcibly “seduce” the poor girl through lesbian rape.

‘Vagina Monologues’ condoned lesbian predatory rape

Maybe the young lesbian thugs got some inspiration from “Vagina Monologues,” the vulgar feminist-lesbian play celebrated by liberal elites and performed by many female Hollywood stars. Did you know that the original Vagina Monologues book by Eve Ensler contains a chapter about a 24-year-old lesbian woman who plies a 13-year-old girl with alcohol to seduce her? Ensler turns this pedophile rape into a sort of feminist-lesbian “moral good” by having the girl victim end up as a happy lesbian who says, “I’ll never need to rely on a man” – don’t you just love liberal morality?

Please take a few minutes to watch both the Memphis TV video and the O’Reilly video and ask yourself: where is the rest of the media on this story? We hear from the pro-homosexual Left about “bullying” in schools – as if it’s mainly an “antigay” phenomenon. Now we learn that lesbians are doing the bullying — is the educational establishment taking action to prevent this? Have politically correct, pro-”gay” pandering and the ubiquitous glamorization of homosexuality — in the schools, media, and in pop culture — contributed to this crisis?

How many liberals have joined lesbian “conservative” Tammy Bruce in condemning “Vagina Monologues’” pedophile lesbian rape-seduction chapter? Evidently not enough to stop this lewd play from being celebrated by the cocktail set and from now moving from colleges to high schools. I suppose rape and pedophilia are vile crimes except when performed by lesbians on girls…. 

GLAAD Tried to Block Story from Airing

In a shocking display of homosexual activists putting politics and P.R. above the welfare of children and crime victims, the powerful homosexual media-pressure group GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) tried to stop the Memphis TV news story on lesbian gangs from airing. GLAAD did succeed in getting a preview of the news segment, but failed to block it.

TAKE ACTION: Go on the GLAAD web page link and do the oppositie of what they say: commend the Memphis news producers for not succumbing to GLAAD’s pressure tactics. (You can write Bill O’Reilly at oreilly@foxnews.com.) Here is the LifeSiteNews story:

Lesbian Gangs Raping Young Girls, Some Attacked in School Washrooms
By John-Henry Westen, LifesiteNews.com

MEMPHIS, July 3, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Last week, the Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor exposed the increasing trend of lesbian gang violence terrorizing neighbourhoods and schools, especially in large cities across the United States.  According to FOX News crime analyst Rod Wheeler there are some 150 such gangs in the DC area alone, including Washington, Maryland, and Virginia.

The gangs, known as Dykes Taking Over (DTOs) or Gays Taking Over [GTOs], are forcing children into homosexuality. Wheeler told host Bill O’Reilly: “there is this national underground network, if you will, Bill, of women that’s lesbians and also some men groups that’s actually recruiting kids as young as 10 years old in a lot of the schools in the communities all across the country.”

In addition to carrying weapons and violently attacking people the lesbian gangs rape girl victims they recruit. “As a matter of fact,” said Wheeler, “some of the kids have actually reported that they were actually forced into, you know, performing sex acts and doing sex acts with some of these people.”  (see the O’Reilly Factor segment: http://youtube.com/watch?v=CFgXVyeGh2A )

An Eyewitness News Everywhere report from earlier this year brought in a police officer from the Memphis police department to discuss the growing problem of GTO gang violence in schools. Deputy Beverly Cobb from the Shelby County (Memphis) Gang Unit told Eyewitness News that GTO gang members “will sodomize [with sex toys] and will force (victims) to do all sexual acts, they are forcing themselves on our young girls in all our schools.” 

Deputy Cobb noted that the assaults are becoming more frequent and more violent.   The GTO’s she says, “carry weapons . . .  they will use them quicker than any male that I’ve ever come upon . . .  to try and fight them you’ll get hurt.” 

Two jailed GTO members who were imprisoned for robbery claim that the group which formed over a decade ago was originally set up as a support group for lesbians.  They admit however that the current generation of GTO members are raping girls and the [Memphis] Eyewitness News report notes that some GTO members are attacking other inmates in prison.  (See the Eyewitness News report here: http://blip.tv/file/165392/ )

Homosexual activist bloggers are denouncing the O’Reilly Factor expose as falsehood.  The Eyewitness News report, however, also noted that homosexual activists had complained of the news special report.  It was presented, said the news station, out of concern for children and parents.  GTO incidents were reported in at least ten high schools in the Memphis area.

The story on the GTO gangs is an old one but the story has not received wide media coverage. 

An NBC10 report from Philadelphia in 2004 titled “Students fear ‘lesbian gang’ at school” noted DTO members were harassing other students.  Young female students were interviewed for the report and told of being bullied to becoming lesbians, of being groped and harassed in gym and girls bathrooms. (see the NBC10 report: http://www.nbc10.com/news/2857417/detail.html )

Violence by gays and lesbians is largely underreported in the mainstream media.  In 2004, a report by REAL Women of Canada pointed out that homosexual parenting would be harmful to children.  One of the points made in the report speaks of “a higher rate of violence in lesbian and homosexual relationships than in married, heterosexual relationships.”

“A study in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence examined conflict and violence in lesbian relationships,” says the report.  “The researchers found that 90% of the lesbians surveyed had been recipients of one or more acts of verbal aggression from their intimate partners during the year prior to this study, with 31% reporting one or more incidents of physical abuse.”  The findings, says REAL Women are verified by other studies.  (see the full report: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/apr/040428c.html )

See related LifeSite coverage:

4-Year-Old Killed for Refusing to Call Mom’s Lesbian Lover “Daddy”
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/mar/06032407.html

Since the Times interview, Mr. Chambers has clarified his position on change in homosexuality to AFTAH saying:

“There are a variety of levels at which individuals experience change when it comes to the issue of homosexuality. For some it may be a rapid, total transformation, but for many, it is often a gradual process of dealing with difficult life issues, habits and behaviors. Regardless of the timing, any change is still change and as Christians, we know that the process of dealing with sin and becoming more like Christ will continue throughout the course of our lives.”

______________________________

Original Americans For Truth article, June 22, 2007:

Ex-Lesbian Yvette Schneider Testifies to ‘Complete’ and Permanent Change

The following is offered by former lesbian Yvette Schneider in response to Exodus International President (and former homosexual) Alan Chambers’ comment in the Los Angeles Times, “By no means would we ever say change can be sudden or complete.” Schneider, now a mom in St. Louis, was once a featured speaker on Focus on the Family’s “Love Won Out” tour highlighting the possiblity of change for homosexuals. Yvette can be reached at livinginvictory@hotmail.com. Emphasis is hers:

I came out of homosexuality after a powerful encounter with Jesus Christ and a desire to serve and obey Him. I can say with complete honesty that I NEVER have homosexual desires of any sort – physical or emotional.

Editor’s Note: Although we criticized Alan for his remark to the Times — and who would doubt the pressure he faces from a liberal media seeking to discredit the idea of healthy change for homosexuals — we know that he and Exodus International, like all Christians, celebrate God’s healing work in her life.

___________________________

The following Christian tract gives a short summary of Yvette’s path out of homosexuality:

Yvette: a Journey from Darkness into Light
By Annetta Small

“I saw myself on my hands and
knees eating stale crumbs off
a dirty floor because I could not stand
up and see the feast that God had for
me. God, please help me to stand up
and leave these crumbs alone and enter
into what you have for me,” I prayed
one day after a six-year involvement
in the lesbian lifestyle.”
—Yvette Cantu Schneider

“Are you and your girlfriend having a
homosexual relationship?” Yvette’s mother
asked her one day, suspicious of the relationship
she saw between Yvette and her closest
friend. Angered and devastated, Yvette, then
17, locked herself in the bathroom and cried.
Although the thought of such a relationship
repulsed her, deep in her heart she wished that
it were true. “Everything I need is in this
relationship,” she thought miserably.

In college, professors who ridiculed the
Christian faith influenced Yvette, and she
became hostile towards Christians, without
really listening to them. However, in spite of
being popular and getting top grades, her life
seemed empty and meaningless. Struggling
with physical and emotional symptoms, she
visited therapists, healers, and clairvoyants,
but nothing could alleviate the gnawing
emptiness in her life.

While working at a hotel in Laguna Beach,
California, Yvette came into contact with the
homosexual community for the first time.
Among many close male homosexual friends,
a special bond developed with Ed from Argentina.
“You’ve got an implicit homosexual
relationship,” Ed would always say about
Yvette’s new best girlfriend. And she would
say, “Look, just because you’re gay doesn’t
mean that everyone’s gay and that you can’t
have a good friendship.” But she realized that
she did not connect with the guys she dated
like she did with this friend.

Increasingly dissatisfied with her life, Yvette
soon decided she needed a change. Accepted
at the University of Delhi in India, she went
into the Himalayas to learn Hindi. And in the
process, she became close friends with her
teacher who was four years older. Several
months later, at the teacher’s initiation, the
relationship became physical.

Consumed with inner turmoil and stunned at
what she had done, Yvette walked the paths of
the Himalayas trying to reconcile the conflict
between her feelings and her actions. “This
can’t possibly be who I am,” she thought, but
she finally decided that the reason for her guilt
was that society had taught her that lesbian
behavior was wrong.

Upon her return to the States, Yvette told Ed
she was a lesbian. His response shocked her.
“There’s no hope for me,” he said. “I’m lost
already, but, believe me, you do not want to
get involved in that lifestyle.” Ignoring what
she felt was hypocritical advice, Yvette began
visiting lesbian bars. Angry at society and its
morality, she became involved in homosexual
activism and joined the “Gay & Lesbian
Alliance Against Defamation” [a pro-homosexual
media organization]. She finally felt
good because she had an outlet for her pent-up
rage.

One night at a lesbian bar in southern California,
Yvette encountered Christians passing out
fliers. “Don’t you have anything better to do
on a Saturday night than to come here and
harass us?” she protested. One man replied
that God loved her and asked her not to be
offended. That small act of kindness did not
keep her from going into the bar, but it did
begin to change her perception of Christians
and her stereotypes of them.

After another relationship with a woman
ended, Yvette moved out to care for Ed and a
friend who now had AIDS. When they felt
well, they attended an endless stream of
parties. But afterwards, she thought, “My life
is so empty and meaningless…there has to be
more than this.”

At the law firm where she worked, Yvette met
Jeff, an outspoken Christian who impressed
her with his knowledge of Scripture. Jeff could
back up everything he believed about how to
live daily life with the Bible. Yvette realized
that after studying Eastern and Native American
mysticism, she still could not give one
practical answer to life’s great questions, nor
had she found fulfillment. Finally, she told
God, “I’ve tried to find You for years. For my
whole life I’ve been reading this book and that
book, and I feel like I’m further away from
You than ever.”

Reluctantly, she began asking Jeff questions
about the Bible, even while figuring there was
no way she could ever be a Christian. “I’m a
lesbian,” she thought. Finally, Yvette got up
the courage to attend a church. She had never
been in a Christian church before. Commenting
on her first visit, she states, “I could feel
the presence of the Lord there, but I didn’t
really know why Jesus died for mankind.

I wanted to go up to the front and ask the
pastor to pray for me, but I didn’t know what
an altar call was.”

Afterwards, when a woman explained the
Gospel and repentance to her, Yvette said,
“Look, I believe homosexuality is okay; I
believe abortion is okay. I’m so different from
what Christians believe. There’s no possible
way that I could do that.” But the woman
replied, “It doesn’t matter if you believe those
things are okay. If you read God’s Word with
an open heart, the Holy Spirit will change you.
You don’t have to change yourself.”

So Yvette told God, “My life has been terrible.
I’ve done terrible things with it, and now You
can have it. You’re in control.” And a tremendous
relief swept through her, like she had
come home from a long journey. She felt like
God had opened His arms and said, “Come to
Me and be My daughter.” And she replied,
“Thank you so much for letting me in.”

Her friend Ed also gave his life to the Lord and
a year later died of complications from AIDS.
About six months before he died, he shared
with her these poignant words, “I appreciate
God’s mercy so much, and I appreciate His
grace, and soon I’m going to get to see Jesus
face to face.”

Epilogue: Yvette Cantu Schneider has been
out of the lesbian lifestyle since 1992. She
married Paul Schneider in December 1999.
They have two daughters, Jessica and Erica.
They minister in the St. Louis, Missouri, area
to those desiring to overcome homosexuality.

________________________

You, too, can turn from the darkness to the Light
of Jesus Christ. If you desire to have your sins
forgiven and a home in heaven, you must realize
that:

You have a need

For all have sinned, and come
short of the glory of God
—Romans 3:23

There is a penalty for sin

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift
of God is eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord.
—Romans 6:23

God has the answer

But God commendeth his love toward us,
in that, while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us.
—Romans 5:8

You must turn from your sin

Repent ye therefore, and be converted,
that your sins may be blotted out.
—Acts 3:19

You must trust Christ alone to save you

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved.
Acts 16:31

Why not do it today?

If thou shalt confess with thy mouth
the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine
heart that God hath raised him from
the dead, thou shalt be saved.
—Romans 10:9

For more information:

To reach Yvette Cantu Schneider, write:

livinginvictory@hotmail.com

To reach the author, Annetta Small:

asmall2@verizon.net
(360)398-1227

“The man was a hateful pig.”

–Homosexual activists blogger John Aravosis. For more of same, click on Aravosis’ “Americablog” page on Falwell HERE.

“It is with great regret that Rev. Jerry Falwell never moderated his position on homosexuality,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “While our hearts go out to his family, we can’t help but to reflect on his life and think about all of the families he’s torn apart and teenagers that committed suicide because he made them feel inferior. He never missed an opportunity to kick our better angels to the curb and capitalize on our lesser demons to advance his career…Unfortunately, the anti-gay infrastructure built by Falwell survives him. With the founding of Liberty University and his legal arm, the Liberty Counsel, his legacy of intolerance will continue for quite some time.”"
– Wayne Besen, of Truth Wins Out

“The death of a family member or friend is always a sad occasion and we express our condolences to all those who were close to the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Unfortunately, we will always remember him as a founder and leader of America’s anti-gay industry, someone who exacerbated the nation’s appalling response to the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic, someone who demonized and vilified us for political gain and someone who used religion to divide rather than unite our nation.”
– Matt Forman, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

“It breaks my heart to think that Jerry died without ever discovering the truth about God’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender children. I sincerely hope that one day his school and his church will have a change of heart.”
– Rev. Dr. Mel White of Soulforce, who used to write for Falwell 

“Reverend Falwel’s death today causes my thoughts to turn toward the members of our community who have at great personal sacrifice contended with the Reverendâ??s work and teachings.  As I remember Reverend Falwell’s life, I also remember all of the families of people who have died of AIDS.  Reverend Falwell’s legacy is not about the tenants of Jesus’s ministry such as healing the sick and standing with the disenfranchised but about shunning and ridiculing those who have suffered and died of AIDS and their families.  Many faith leaders today are moving away from his divisive approach and toward the compassion and inclusiveness that Jesus modeled every day of his ministry.”
– Joe Solmonese, Human Rights Campaign (leading homosexual group in America)

“We extend our condolences to Rev. Jerry Falwell’s family and friends.  He was an effective advocate for his vision of America, a vision with which we strongly disagreed.”
– People For the American Way President Ralph G. Neas, with these links to its past coverage of Jerry Falwell

 ”While Soulforce has a long history of nonviolent direct action at Jerry Falwell Ministries, our adversary was never Jerry Falwell, but rather the misinformation about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people espoused by Falwell and so many others.”
– Soulforce Executive Director Jeff Lutes

“The passing of as public a figure as Jerry Falwell naturally garners intense media attention. Our condolences are with the Rev. Falwell’s family and loved ones during this emotional time.  And as the nation’s media examine Falwell’s life and legacy, it is important that they focus attention on the damaging impact of his rhetoric and advocacy on millions of gay and lesbian people and families.”
– Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) President Neil Giuliano

“We extend to Reverend Falwell the simple dignity and deference that our own families seek as part of the American family. Reverend Falwell may have attempted to make himself our adversary with his own personal attacks and political campaigns, but we remember that he remained our neighbor. As we understand that each American should be treated equally under the law, we recognize that each neighbor should receive our respect. Our thoughts and our prayers are with his widow Macel, the Falwell family and the membership of Thomas Road Baptist Church.”
– Jo Wyrick, Executive Director, National Stonewall Democrats

“It has to be a difficult time for Rev. Jerry Falwell’s family right now. They are going to have to deal with an intense storm of media coverage, with bloviating from the left and the right, and much of it will not be pretty or complimentary. To have to grieve so publicly is not something to wish on anyone, particularly when the departed is a political lightning rod.

“He was a towering icon of the religious right movement, and he has left quite a legacy — one I cannot agree with in any form or fashion, nevertheless one cannot ignore his success at mobilizing a large portion of the electorate in ways that many organizations on the left have yet to do.

“It’s sad to hear, as of last week (in an interview with CNN), he stood by his 2001 comments  that gays, lesbians, pro-choice advocates and feminists were to blame for 9/11.

“I wish that Reverend Falwell, who at one time was against integration and interracial marriage, could have lived long enough to see full LGBT equality finally come to pass. We all know that it will prove him terribly wrong once again –  that treating one group of citizens the same as everyone else isn’t a threat to marriage, the American family or this country.”

– Lesbian blogger Pam Spaulding. Spaulding was considerably more respectful than some of her fans posting comments on her “Pam’s House Blend” website.

Americans For Truth about Homosexuality
www.americansfortruth.org

Contact: Peter LaBarbera: 630-717-7631

Gay activists have adopted a ‘CSI’ tactic of ‘Censoring, Smearing and Intimidating’ moral critics like Gen. Peter Pace and Dr. James Dobson. By trying to silence critics and equating moral beliefs with hate, bigotry and “homophobia,” the homosexual movement is fueling a dangerous cultural clash between religious freedom and “gay rights.”

TAKE ACTION — Please call the White House comment line at (202) 456-1111 and express your support for General Pace, and call your Congressman and Senators at (202)224-3121 to oppose: 1) ending the military’s homosexuality ban; 2) pro-homosexual, pro-transgender “Hate Crimes” legislation; and 3) the “ENDA Our Freedom” bill: the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would make businesses more susceptible to harassing lawsuits by “gay” and “transgender” activists.  

Naperville, IL –– Americans For Truth president Peter LaBarbera called on the media to be neutral in the culture war over homosexuality and to cover the “gay” movement’s disturbing “CSI” strategy of Censoring, Smearing, and Intimidating critics who publicly disagree with homosexual behavior.

“Gen. Peter Pace, USMC, gave voice to historic Judeo-Christian truth when he said homosexual acts and adultery are immoral, yet instantly he was accused of ‘blind prejudice’ and called a ‘homophobe,’” LaBarbera said.

“The same gay activists who denounce name-calling against homosexuals were quick to demonize Pace –– equating his sincere religious beliefs with hate, prejudice and fear,” he said. “Worse, the homosexual lobby is honing its strategy of trying to silence conservatives like Ann Coulter and Dr. Dobson by lobbying the media to drop them as contributors.”

The media — who despise censorship — should hold gay leaders accountable for trying to silence critics, and more seriously cover the growing clash between religious freedom and gay rights, LaBarbera said.

The following are recent conservative victims of homosexual intolerance:

Gen. Pace: Diversity magazine blasted Pace as a “homophobe.” The homosexual group Human Rights Campaign (HRC) assailed his “blind prejudice.” Does criticizing historically sinful behavior mean that you “fear” homosexuals or make you a bigot?

Ann Coulter: After poking fun at political correctness (AFTAH criticized Coulter for her F-word comment about a Democratic presidential candidate), GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) and HRC sought to deny Coulter’s commentator role on CNBC. GLAAD intoned: “[N]o credible news organization should be associating itself with Coulter.” Should GLAAD, which regularly smears Christian groups like Americans For Truth as “hate” organizations, be denied media time?

Dr. James Dobson: After Dobson criticized homosexual parenting in a Time magazine guest column (“Two Mommies Is One Too Many”), GLAAD and HRC urged homosexuals to write and ask Time to deny Dobson a future platform to spread “misinformation.” Usually groups criticize their foes’ arguments; GLAAD seeks to silence them altogether.

Matt Barber: Now with CWA, in 2005 Barber was fired from his management position at Allstate Corporation after writing an online article against “gay marriage” –– on his own time.

“…they invent ways of doing evil…”

–Romans 1:30

In a future post, we’ll revisit the flack that Greg Freeman got from the Thought Police over at GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) for writing this piece.

The following is excerpted from Bug Chasers, by Gregory A. Freeman, published Jan 23, 2003, by Rolling Stone:

Carlos nonchalantly asks whether his drink was made with whole or skim milk. He takes a moment to slurp on his grande Caffe Mocha in a crowded Starbucks, and then he gets back to explaining how much he wants HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. His eyes light up as he says that the actual moment of transmission, the instant he gets HIV, will be “the most erotic thing I can imagine.” He seems like a typical thirty-two-year-old man, but, in fact, he has a secret life. Carlos is chasing the bug…

Carlos spends the afternoon continually calling a man named Richard, someone he met on the Internet. They met on barebackcity.com about a year ago, while Carlos was still with his boyfriend. That boyfriend left because Carlos was having sex with other men and because he was interested in barebacking — the practice of having sex without a condom. Carlos and Richard are arranging a “date” for later that day.

Carlos is part of an intricate underground world that has sprouted, driven almost completely by the Internet, in which men who want to be infected with HIV get together with those who are willing to infect them. The men who want the virus are called “bug chasers,” and the men who freely give the virus to them are called “gift givers.” While the rest of the world fights the AIDS epidemic and most people fear HIV infection, this subculture celebrates the virus and eroticizes it. HIV-infected semen is treated like liquid gold. Carlos has been chasing the bug for more than a year in a topsy-turvy world in which every convention about HIV is turned upside down. The virus isn’t horrible and fearsome, it’s beautiful and sexy — and delivered in the way that is most likely to result in infection. In this world, the men with HIV are the most desired, and the bug chasers will do anything to get the virus — to “get knocked up,” to be “bred” or “initiated into the brotherhood.”

Like a lot of sexual fetishes and extreme behaviors, bug chasing could not exist without the Internet, or at least it couldn’t thrive… Carlos surfs online about twenty hours a week looking for men to have sex with… Most of the Web sites use the pretense that they actually are about barebacking, which is in itself risky and controversial but still a long way from bug chasing. For the Web sites, that distinction is at best razor-thin and more often just an outright lie. “We got Poz4Poz, Neg4Neg and bug chasers looking to join the club,” the welcome page to barebackcity.com, which claims 48,000 registered users, up from 28,000 about a year ago, recently said. “Be the first to seed a newbie and give him a pozitive attitude!”

Within this online community, bug chasers revel in their desires, using their own lingo about “poz” and “neg” men, “bug juice” and “conversion” from negative to positive. User profiles include names such as BugChaser21, Knockmeup, BugMeSoon, ConvertMeSir, PozCum4NegHole and GiftGiver. The posters are upfront about seeking HIV, even extremely enthusiastic, possibly because the Web sites are about the only place a bug seeker can really express his desires openly. Under turn-ons, a poster called PozMeChgo craves a “hot poz load deep in me. I really want to be converted!! Breed me/seed me!” Carlos’ profile on one Web site lists his screen name as ConvertMe, and he says he wants a man “to fill me up with that poison seed.” His AOL Instant Messenger name is Bug Juice Wanted.

It’s not uncommon to see people post replies to the profiles encouraging the men to seek HIV. One such comment reads, “This guy knows what he wants!! I would love to plant my seeds ) Come and join the club. The more we are, the stronger we are.”…

Condoms and safe sex are openly ridiculed on bug-chasing Web sites, with many bug chasers rebelling against what they see as the dogma of safe-sex education; constantly thinking about a deadly disease takes all the fun out of sex, they say, and condoms suck. Carlos agrees and says getting HIV will make safe sex a moot point. “It’s about freedom,” he says. “What else can happen to us after this? You can f*** whoever you want, f*** as much as you want, and nothing worse can happen to you. Nothing bad can happen after you get HIV.”…

Carlos should meet Doug Hitzel, but he probably never will. A year ago they might have been online buddies, both sharing a passion for HIV that few others understood. Now Hitzel understands all too clearly what bug chasing can do to a young man’s life, but it’s too late for him. After six months of bug chasing, Hitzel succeeded in getting the virus. He’s now a twenty-one-year-old freshman at a Midwestern university, so wholesome-looking you’d think he just walked out of a cornfield.

Hitzel’s experience started when he moved from his home in Nebraska to San Francisco with his boyfriend. When that relationship broke up, Hitzel was at the lowest point in his life, and alone. He sought relief in drugs and sex, as much of each as he could get. At first, he started out just not caring whether he got HIV or not, then he found the bug-chasing underground and embraced it. He was sure he’d get HIV soon anyway. He thought he would always feel exactly like he did then; he was certain that ten, twenty, thirty years later he’d still be partying every night. It lasted only six months — then Hitzel got sick with awful flulike symptoms and lost a lot of weight. A doctor’s visit cleared him of hepatitis and other possible problems, but the clinic sent him home with an HIV test he could do himself. Hitzel waited before doing the test and decided to go home to Nebraska, to give up the bug chasing and the rest of the life that was killing him. Once he got home, he did the test and found out he was positive. He now wakes up each day with a terrible frustration that’s just below the surface of his once sunny demeanor. He hates the medication he has to take every day, and he realizes that HIV affects nearly every part of his life…

Looking back on it, Hitzel says he was committing suicide by chasing HIV, killing himself slowly because he didn’t have the nerve to do it quickly. Hitzel is ashamed and embarrassed that he actually sought HIV, but he’s willing to tell his story because he hopes to dissuade others who are on the same path. He gets angry when he hears bug chasers talking in the same ways he talked a year earlier. The mention of “bug chasing” and “gift giving” sets him off.

” ‘Bug chasing’ sounds like a group of kindergartners running around chasing grasshoppers and butterflies,” Hitzel says, “a beautiful thing. And gift giving? What the hell is that? I just wish the terms would actually put some real context into what’s going on. Why did I not want to say that I was deliberately infecting myself? Because saying the word infect sounds bad and gross and germy. I wanted it to be sexualized.” He’s particularly angered by the idea of HIV being erotic: “How about you follow me after I start new medications and you watch me throw up for a few weeks? Tell me how erotic that is.”

Though he’s older, Carlos lives a life that has a lot in common with Hitzel’s in San Francisco. Carlos estimates that he has had several hundred sex partners throughout his life, and he routinely hooks up with three or four guys a week, all of them HIV-positive or at least uncertain about their status.

That’s a common trait among bug chasers, says Dr. Bob Cabaj…

When I asked about bug chasing, leaders of groups such as Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, the Stop AIDS Project, and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation weren’t interested in providing much education or increasing public awareness. To the contrary, most were dismissive of the issue and some actively dissuaded me from writing the article at all…

The assistant director of community education at GMHC, Daniel Castellanos, acknowledges that bug chasing exists but claims there’s not much need to discuss it because it involves such a small population. But would he try to talk a bug chaser out of trying to get HIV? “If someone comes to me and says he wants to get HIV, I might work with him around why he wants to do it,” he says. “But if in the end that’s a decision he wants to make, there’s a point where we have to respect people’s decisions.”…

“It may be a small number of actual people, but they may be disproportionately involved in continuing the spread of HIV,” [Cabaj] says. “That’s a major issue when you’re talking about how to control the spread of a virus. A small percentage could be responsible for continuing the infection. The clinical impact is profound, no matter how small the numbers.”…

What frustrates health-care professionals the most, [Dr. Robert Janssen, director of the division of HIV/AIDS Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta,] says, is that “gay men who are doing this haven’t a clue what they’re doing,” he says.

“They’re incredibly selfish and self-absorbed. They don’t have any idea what’s going on with the epidemic in terms of the world or society or what impact their actions might have. The sense of being my brother’s keeper is never discussed in the gay community because we’ve gone to the extreme of saying gay men with HIV can do no wrong. They’re poor victims, and we can’t ever criticize them.”

Furthering the epidemic doesn’t bother Carlos. Bug chasing requires a great deal of self-delusion, and he easily acknowledges the contradictions in what he’s doing. He notes that while he seeks HIV, he doesn’t eat junk food or smoke, and that he drinks only socially. “I take care of myself,” he says proudly. He also notes the hypocrisy in his doing volunteer work at GMHC, in which he tells other men to use condoms and practice safe sex, while he’s hunting for partners for his secret hobby. The conflict doesn’t bother him in the least…

After several phone calls to work out a time, Carlos is ready to go see Richard. He’s had sex with Richard about thirty times in the past year. “Knowing he’s positive just makes it more fun for me,” he says. “It’s erotic that someone is breeding me.” Richard is in the entertainment business, in his mid- to late forties.

“Lots of guys want to know who breeds them,” Carlos continues. “When I have sex, I like to always make it special, a really good time, something nice and memorable in case that is the one that gives it to me.”

Carlos offers, not for the first time, to have me come along and watch him and Richard have sex, but I decline. In the taxi to Richard’s place, the conversation falls silent. He hasn’t been tested in a couple of years, and he’s reluctant to get a test now. He might very well be positive already. But as long as he doesn’t know for sure, he can always hope that tonight is the night he gets the virus. Every date is potentially The One. Stepping out of the cab into the rain, I ask what he will do if he finds out one day that he has succeeded in being infected — ending the fun of being a bug chaser. He stops, then says he might move on to being a gift giver:

“If I know that he’s negative and I’m f***ing him, it sort of gets me off. I’m murdering him in a sense, killing him slowly, and that’s sort of, as sick as it sounds, exciting to me.”

Continue reading in Rolling Stone…