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

Dear Readers,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No hateful homosexuals?

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute

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

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

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

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

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

Same sex parents harm children

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Homosexual men and shortened life spans

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nazism

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

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

Sin in the closet

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

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

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

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

Ex-gays

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

"Queer" sex columnist Dan Savage believes straight married couples should have outside sex (like many homosexual male couples) as a way to help reduce the divorce rate. Few in the LGBT movement have a record as extreme and hateful as Savage when it comes to vulgar demonizations of pro-family leaders like former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.

[CORRECTION: Note HERE our technical correction to this article: Dan Savage correctly points out that his and his male partner's "three way" trysts were with acquaintances -- NOT "strangers" as we originally reported in this piece.]

TAKE ACTION: Call taxpayer-funded WTTW at 773-583-5000 (9-5:00 Central Time M-F; hit “0″ and ask for Phil Ponce). Or contact WTTW CEO and President Dan Schmidt. Let WTTW know that it is hypocritical and shameful that they were so  respectful toward a hate-filled, vulgar anti-religious homosexual extremist like Dan Savage. Eight percent of WTTW’s budget comes from the taxpayers: urge the station to balance their in-depth interview with the anti-Christian Savage with an extended interview with a pro-family leader opposed to mainstreaming homosexuality.  You can e-mail the program at chicagotonight@wttw.com. Or leave an online message on Chicago Tonight’s contact form HERE. You can also contact your Congressman at 202-224-3121 (www.Congress.org) regarding cutting off all federal funds the far-left-biased Public Broadcasting System [contact PBS' Ombudsman HERE].

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Folks, I sent a version of the letter below to WTTW, Chicago’s main public TV station, and its daily evening  program, “Chicago Tonight.” Apparently, like most of the rest of Chicago’s Left-dominated media, WTTW has decided that there is no legitimate “other side” on the homosexuality issue. Hence Wednesday they felt free to do an embarrassingly uncritical interview with renegade ex-Catholic Dan (“Saliva Terrorist”) Savage – who is as radical and perverted a Christian-basher as there is in the LGBT movement. [To view Ponce's fawning interview with Savage, go HERE.]

I forgot to mention in my letter Savage’s admitted “three way” gay sexual romps — he, his “husband” Terry and a male acquaintance [NOTE: see AFTAH clarification: we originally reported that the three-ways were with "strangers"] — while Terry and he were co-adoptive “daddies” of “The Kid” (the title of Savage’s book). AFTAH wondered: who babysat “The Kid” during their orgy? Savage is a leading booster of “gay parenting” and homosexual adoption — once even landing as a guest on the conservative Michael Medved Show (Medved said he was unaware of Savage’s advocacy of “nonmonogamy” and his history of viciously maligning Christians.)

Savage is living proof that nobody hates like hard-core homosexual activists — yet because he is a “gay” activist and Christians are the target of his bile, Savage not only gets a pass from the media but is treated with deference and respect. (While in Chicago, Savage was also the featured speaker at the Chicago Humanities Festival.)

More Savage Hate

Wikipedia reminds me of one of Savage’s most cruel and vile stunts.  In 2003, the “Savage Love” columnist – upset at remarks by then-Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) linking homosexuality to other sexual sins — asked his readers to create a malicious definition for “Santorum” [see the "Political Advocacy" Wikipedia section HERE; watch a YouTube where Savage explains it HERE.]. We won’t reprint the winning entry [see this link; WARNING: graphic and disgusting], but suffice it to say that to achieve the desired grossness in his attempt to smear the good senator, Savage ironically but appropriately had to resort to using the by-product of anal sex for his sick “definition.” (That’s why homosexual sodomy was once described as the “Infamous Crime Against Nature,” Dan; the only thing more disgusting than describing its after-effects is actually doing it in the first place.)

Would WTTW air an ingratiating interview with a “conservative” activist who mocked, say, Sen. Harry Reid, by forever linking his last name online to the revolting byproduct of  perversion? Of course not.

Only “progressives” and hopelessly biased media would honor a toxic perv like Dan Savage with his seemingly boundless capacity for demonizing pro-family leaders, creatively reaching into the depths of his very, very dirty — and reprobate – mind.

According to FY 2009 figures [see p. 27 HERE], two percent of WTTW’s comes from the State of Illinois and six percent comes from the federal government. YOU, the taxpayers, just helped fund the promotion of this smutty, anti-Christian zealot; now take action to either de-fund PBS or get some balance and decency on this government-subsized network. See the Action Steps at top.  – Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

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Peter LaBarbera’s letter to WTTW:

Dear Sirs,

WTTW's Phil Ponce

I am stunned and appalled at Phil Ponce’s sycophantic interview with Dan Savage (11/17/10), who is a radical homosexual activist with starkly bigoted and hateful views against Christianity and traditionalists. Phil seemed to adore Savage as if he were some respected icon rather than a man so possessed with hatred for religious conservatives that he actually LICKED THE DOORKNOBS of the Iowa campaign office of evangelical presidential contender Gary Bauer in a twisted attempt to give Bauer a cold. Yep, a real role model for LGBT youth….

But it gets… worse….

Savage opines that straight married couples should tolerate outside sex (like many gay male couples) and that this would help lower the divorce rate (!). Why didn’t Phil raise any of these extreme opinions in questioning Savage — much less Savage’s routine use of the pejorative term “homophobe” (amidst other polemical cliches) to belittle traditional people of faith?

Savage obviously harbors a serious hatred against Christians — but somehow Ponce didn’t pick up on that or even make a pretense of querying Savage on his malice toward religious opponents of homosexuality. And by the way, Savage’s ridiculous slams against biblical orthodoxy on the issue of sinful homosexual behavior are easily answered — not that Phil thought to challenge him on that (see www.robgagnon.net for sound defenses of biblical teachings on homosexuality).

Would Ponce similarly “roll over” in an extended interview with a religious conservative? I doubt it. Would WTTW even consider doing an uncritical interview with a conservative columnist who has a long record — like Savage — of making extremist, vulgar, and hate-filled attacks against moral critics? Not a chance.

The only way for WTTW to right this example of journalistic malpractice and restore some sense of balance and impartiality on this issue is to invite a Christian, conservative opponent of the homosexual activist agenda on the program — and give him or her the same time and deferential treatment accorded Savage. Your very credibility as a “news” program and organization is on the line. I will be happy to provide you with a list of names of people who could fill that role.

Sincerely,

Peter LaBarbera

President,
Americans For Truth About Homosexuality
Carol Stream, IL
www.aftah.org
americansfortruth@gmail.com

The liberal media just eat it up when a sin movement (in this case, organized homosexuality) officially goes “bipartisan.” Check out this excerpt from (the giddy) The Atlantic. I suspect that The Atlantic’s (and CBS News’) Marc Ambinder — while sympathetic to the Stupid Republican Party’s current pro-homosexuality tack — wouldn’t agree with our description of homosexuality as sinful. Just a hunch, though. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

P.S. I just learned that a group of carefully-selected, right-leaning theologians are working on a version of the Bible (RSV – Republican Standard Version) that reinterprets all passages dealing with homosexuality so that only Democratic same-sex erotic behavior is proscribed. Whew. For a moment there, I thought these Republicans had decided that they were smarter than God.

Ambinder writes (emphasis added):

Top GOP Party Strategists Attending Log Cabin Event

Suddenly, it’s becoming less of a stigma for bigwigs to associate with gays in the Republican Party. Not only has former RNC chairman Ken Mehlman’s 9/22 fundraiser for gay marriage rights attracted numerous high-octane Republican donors and activists, but Sen. John Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and Rep. Pete Sessions, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee will help the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay GOP group, raise money for its political action committee. (Part of this story was first reported last month.)

A glossy pamphlet advertising the Log Cabin Republicans’ national dinner at the Capitol Hill Club highlights an hour-long cocktail gathering with the two party committee chairs, both strong opponents of gay rights. But their attendance will add to the coffers of the LCR’s political action committee, which endorses Republicans who support gay rights.

The LCR national dinner, which follows the private fundraiser, will include Sessions, Rep. Judy Biggert, Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform. The Daily Caller’s Tucker Carlson will serve as Master of Ceremonies.

The Log Cabin Republicans’ Mission Statement proclaims fidelity to conservative principles like a “strong national defense” and “limited government” before it discusses marriage rights and an “inclusive definition of the family.” But in practice, the group does not endorse candidates who oppose gay rights…. [continued HERE]

Read the rest of The Atlantic article HERE.

Pastor Stephen Boissoin

By Tim Bloedow; reprinted from ECP Centre website, Dec. 4, 2009

The ECP Centre (Equipping Christians for the Public-square Centre) is very encouraged to see that sanity prevailed in Alberta’s court system with the decision Thursday to overturn the abusive Human Rights Commission ruling against Stephen Boissoin. We are also grateful to have played an important part in the case, raising awareness of the case over the past several years and organizing three successful fundraising dinners in the spring of this year which helped to bring in over $25,000 from generous Canadians towards Mr. Boissoin’s substantial legal costs. We continue to receive donations designated to Mr. Boissoin’s legal defense and we are grateful for the Christians who take their faith seriously enough to be aware of these disturbing cases and who are able to donate to support fellow-Christians in today’s battles.

Those familiar with the case will know that seven years ago, a “human rights” complaint was filed against Stephen Boissoin due to his sharp criticism of homosexuality in a letter to the editor printed in the Red Deer Advocate. In December 2007, the Alberta Human Rights Commission issued a ruthless decision against Mr. Boissoin which itself was an expression of hatred against Christianity. The provincial HRC essentially became a tool for a homosexualist inquisition whereby Mr. Boissoin was ordered to give a false apology for the substance of his letter. He was banned from ever criticizing homosexuality again in public or private communications, and even from the pulpit. The implications of the decision were stunning in terms of the imposition of the state over the church and the restrictions on religious liberty. Mr. Boissoin was also fined $5,000.

Needless to say, Mr. Boissoin filed an appeal of the decision. His legal counsel Gerry Chipeur was very confident that they would win the appeal because the historic principles of fundamental justice were on Mr. Boissoin’s side so, in a real court where such rules applied, the absurd HRC decision wasn’t expected to stand. The plaintiff Darren Lund, however, is reported in the Calgary Herald as not having made up his mind whether to appeal the decision.

Stephen Boissoin vindicated

In his decision, Justice Earl Wilson said that whatever one thinks about Mr. Boissoin’s comments, they didn’t violate Alberta’s human rights legislation which is to say, as the Edmonton Sun reported, that “there was nothing in the letter to suggest it was exhorting Albertans to discriminate against homosexuals in areas of employment, tenancy or goods and services which fall under provincial jurisdiction.” Justice Wilson said, “”Inferring some sort of call for discriminatory practices prohibited by provincial law is an unreasonable interpretation of the letter’s message.”

Of course, that wasn’t really the issue. Mr. Lund, who does not acknowledge being homosexual himself, but who thinks he has enough sensitivity to represent homosexuals, wanted Mr. Boissoin’s comments to be judged a hate crime and outside of free speech protections. Justice Wilson’s decision also rejected this spin on Mr. Boissoin’s comments.

But the references to discrimination aren’t unimportant. As Colby Cosh noted in an analysis posted on Macleans.ca today, “a province, Wilson observed, isn’t allowed to duplicate the Criminal Code provisions against hate speech. It’s only allowed to suppress hateful speech that can also be shown to encourage discrimination in the specific areas that lie within provincial powers and are enumerated in the statute – i.e., housing, employment, access to goods and services.”

Following the announcement of the decision, Stephen Boissoin expressed great joy over this victory for “freedom of speech and religious expression in Canada,” adding: “I am overjoyed that this malicious and frivolous process is over. It’s been seven and a half years of my life being run through the mud. I’ve been called a bigot and a hate-monger. What a waste of time.”

The Canadian Constitution Foundation, Canada’s freedom fighting legal defense organization, was also pleased that Justice Wilson threw out the Commission’s decision, but they remain concerned that the anti-freedom provision which was exploited in the complaint against Mr. Boissoin remains on the books. “Unfortunately, the law that was used against Reverend Boissoin to subject him to a expensive and stressful legal proceedings for more than seven years is still on the books,” said executive director John Carpay. That law forbids anyone from publishing a statement that is likely to expose a person or a class of persons to hatred or contempt on the basis of several criteria including “sexual orientation.” “In spite of today’s court ruling, Albertans need to continue to exercise extreme caution when speaking about public policy issues, lest they offend someone who then files a human rights complaint,” said Mr. Carpay. “No citizen is safe from being subjected to a taxpayer-funded prosecution for having spoken or written something that a fellow citizen finds offensive.”

Canada’s hard-left media not interested

A stunning development from Thursday’s decision is the lack of development, which is to say, the total lack of interest in the ruling by Canada’s media. Alright, I admit it, I’m not stunned at all by this totally predictable result from Canada’s anti-Christian, pro-homosexual media.

Canada’s national media fawns over homosexuals, so any victories they receive in law, politics or the culture are widely reported. In a sharp shift from their traditional role, Canada’s news media almost universally despise the “little guy,” who today is often the Christian, especially when homosexualists are the aggressors.

Certainly when Alberta Christian Stephen Boissoin got strung up by the provincial HRC, acting on behalf of pro-homosexual Darren Lund, Canada’s passionately pro-homosexual media was on top of this story, providing lots of sympathetic coverage to the homosexualist agenda and the HRC.

But, today (Friday), following the announcement of the decision throwing out the anti-democratic HRC ruling, how much media coverage did the story receive across Canada? Who wants to guess?? Based on the results of two media search engines we used, we discovered that the Canadian Press dutifully wrote up the decision. And four Alberta papers reported on it: the Calgary Herald, the Lethbridge Herald, the Calgary Sun and the Edmonton Sun, but we could not find one single newspaper outside of Alberta which covered the story. Perhaps they were so amazed with the profundity of the decision that they wanted at least 24 hours to analyze it, so maybe on Saturday we’ll see the 35 or more cross-Canada media hits on the story that we would have seen today if the decision went against Mr. Boissoin. Even late this evening, a Google News search for “stephen boissoin” only produces 8 hits: One is Canoe which is the Sun Media article printed by the Edmonton and Calgary Sun papers, one is Xtra [a homosexual publication], another is the social conservative LifeSiteNews, one is CTV, another is Macleans.ca, another the Vancouver Sun and the last two are both from the Montreal Gazette.

Even if our media searches missed one or two articles, the point is still vivid in terms of how the media reflects a strong pro-homosexual advocacy agenda, working hard to self-censor any stories that undermine the march towards a homosexualist hegemony. They would deny it, but the evidence is before us for all to see. If it’s an unconscious bias, then that means that this anti-Christian bias is even more ingrained than many of us thought.

Ezra Levant has done a great deal of valuable work publicizing all the diverse people who have spoken out in defense of freedom and against the HRC agenda in the past few years. This includes many media outlets, journalists and editorial boards from across Canada. It’s great to emphasize and publicize these comments in the hope that it will pressure these media personnel to be consistent with their subsequent comments on liberty, but you don’t want to take these defenses of liberty too seriously or place too much hope in them. Most Canadian journalists are die-hard leftists and most of the rest are left-leaning, and leftists will only defend freedom on a case-by-case basis if they see it as in their own best interests to do so. And secularists never seem to see it as in their best interests to defend liberty when the case involves a Christian defendant and a homosexualist complainant.

Despite the fact that Canada’s liberty tradition is rooted in the Judeo-Christian worldview, Christians have very few friends in today’s Canada, especially in positions of influence. Most people, including all special interest groups, are fighting for power and control, not for liberty. If Mr. Lund appeals this recent decision, we may have to rally the troops again on behalf of Mr. Boissoin and the fundamental constitutional principles of liberty which are at stake with this case.

Justice Wilson slams the Alberta government

By implication, Justice Wilson’s decision is a damning indictment of Alberta’s anti-liberty Conservative government. Many patriotic Canadians were shocked when the Stelmach government chose to intervene in the Boissoin HRC case – AGAINST Stephen Boissoin. Even the national homosexual activist group EGALE (Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere) spoke out against this case, arguing that Darren Lund’s complaint went over the top with its censorship agenda. Despite the number of responsible people and organizations which condemned this complaint, the Stelmach Conservative government, with no obligation to do so, chose to intervene against freedom of speech, against religious liberty, against freedom of conscience, against Christianity.

Justice Wilson was more direct in his repudiation of phony experts. Mr. Cosh reported in his Macleans article: “Wilson thus ended up throwing several witnesses who testified against Boissoin overboard: the ex-cop who thought Boissoin’s anti-gay babblings might make teens ‘act out’, for example, and the shrink who warned that the Reverend’s letter might provoke a second Columbine. … Wilson has thus made expert evidence in future tribunal proceedings a lot harder to come by: the logic of his decision suggests that complainants will no longer be able to round up every bleeding-heart social scientist or self-styled hate expert they can find, but will have to provide evidence of potential economic impacts from hate speech.”

Even the homosexual publication Xtra in an online article about the decision today declared: “Gays also stand to benefit from yesterday’s court decision. As we continue to face censorship — whether it be at the Canadian border or on major TV networks — it’s in our interest to promote free speech and expression. Censoring homophobes is an easy way to shut them up, but it does little to address the outrageousness of their arguments. Speech should be fought with speech.”

Justice Wilson’s decision to throw out the HRC decision against Mr. Boissoin by extension is also a decision against the Alberta government and its shockingly imprudent decision to intervene on the wrong side of that case. If the Stelmach government is not intelligent enough to realize this, the Wildrose Alliance is likely to benefit from such Conservative arrogance.

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We would be most grateful for any donations you would consider giving to the work of the ECP Centre in defending Christians facing persecution in Canada and as we confront hostile forces in our culture through NoApologies. Please send your donation to: ECP Centre, PO Box 7, Russell, ON K4R 1C7 or visit our website to make a donation online. Thank you very much for your support.

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You can reach NoApologies/ECP Centre at ecpcentre@gmail.com or at 613-496-0091.

Sen. Kennedy: Hero of Homosexual Agenda: after his death, a homosexual activist reveals that Ted Kennedy used his massive influence in Massachusetts to pressure legislators to deny the state’s citizens a chance to vote on “same-sex marriage.” After the 2007 vote that blocked a traditional marriage amendment in his state, Kennedy congratulated a leading “gay” activist with these words: “What you accomplished for the people of Massachusetts is tremendous.” What about “the people’s” right to decide whether marriage should be radically redefined? At left is a cartoon published in the Boston homosexual newspaper Bay Windows.

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Dear AFTAH Readers,

Now that the eulogies are over, it’s time to tell the truth about the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s unprecedented anti-pro-life and anti-family legacy. Last week I heard FOX’s Bill O’Reilly describe the late Kennedy as a “committed Catholic.” (His guest, talk show host Laura Ingraham, a conservative Catholic, was taken aback.) Certainly, Kennedy was committed, but not to the social positions of his own church. He was a leading crusader for abortion-on-demand — after flip-flopping from being pro-life (so much for compassion and helping the “little guy”). And he used his considerable power to advance the full, radical homosexualist agenda; click HERE to read the praise he received from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, an extremist homosexual organization if there ever was one. Kennedy was one of just 14 Democrats to vote against the “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA), which President Obama is now trying to undo.

Tragically, Ted Kennedy was a central figure in helping set American liberalism and the Democratic Party on their current trajectory of celebrating a culture of death and deviance in the form of state-sanctioned abortion and homosexuality.  In fact, so egregious were Kennedy’s departures from Church teachings that many Catholics, to quote Fr. Thomas Euteneuer of Human Life International, were upset that he was being extolled “with the full honors of a public Catholic funeral and all the adulation that attends such an event.” Also read the Catholic Action League press release: “Kennedy Funeral Mass a ‘Scandal,’ Says Catholic Action League of Massachusetts.”

Oddly, after his passing, we are learning that Kennedy was even more extreme than most conservatives knew. In 1983, he even secretly approached Soviet Communist dictator Yuri Andropov with a traitorous quid pro quo offer to help Andropov confront U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy; the media dutifully ignored Kennedy’s treachery when it was exposed by a British researcher in 1992. And now self-described “queer” activists are revealing the full extent of Kennedy’s efforts to advance their God-defying agenda. How strange that a Catholic would be so committed to denying the people of his own state a chance to vote on whether marriage should be redefined to accommodate homosexual relationships, which his own Catholic Church describes as sinful and disordered. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

MassResistance reports:

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August 28, 2009

Major homosexual activist reveals Ted Kennedy’s crucial role in defeating Marriage Amendment in Massachusetts Legislature

By Brian Camenker

Sen. Ted Kennedy was the secret critical force in the background that caused the Massachusetts Legislature to deny the people the right to vote on the Marriage Amendment, it was revealed this week.

Less than 48 hours after Kennedy’s passing, the homosexual newspaper Bay Windows published an article by Marc Solomon, who at that time ran MassEquality, the main homosexual lobby group trying to stop the amendment.

Ted Kennedy personally pressured enough conservative Democrats (and even “libertarian-leaning” Republicans) who the homosexual lobby was targeting, to change their votes on that the measure to allow a public vote would be defeated. Kennedy also worked on the overall strategy to defeat it. Without Kennedy’s involvement, it would likely not have been defeated the Legislature — and the people would have been able to vote.

Here’s what Solomon told Bay Windows:

Our cause was lining up the votes to defeat an anti-gay constitutional amendment that would strip same-sex couples of the right to marry. A final vote was scheduled for July 14, 2007. Our opponents needed the votes of only 25 percent of the legislature to advance a citizen-led amendment to the ballot. We had lined up two-thirds of the legislature through fieldwork, lobbying, media, literally everything we could think of. But getting those last 15 legislators-those conservative Democrats from working class Massachusetts communities and a few libertarian-leaning Republicans-was very tough. We needed all hands on deck to keep a Massachusetts version of Proposition 8 off the ballot. We needed Ted Kennedy.”Could you get me a list of your targets?” one of Kennedy’s key staffers finally asked me. “Don’t tell anyone I’m asking you for this,” he said. He meant it, and I didn’t.

A few days later, as I was doing my rounds in the State House, a bewildered conservative legislator stopped me. “You’ll never guess who left me a message about gay marriage,” he said. “Ted Kennedy.” And then I started to hear similar refrains again and again. We’d get word that he’d spoken to the Governor, the Speaker of the House, the Senate President, the chair of the Democratic Party, asking for updates, strategizing, figuring out exactly what he could do and how he could be most helpful.

In the end, on that July 14, we won. We won what many thought was an impossible victory, by a vote of 151 – 45, keeping our opponents just below the 25 percent threshold. We shocked our opponents. They were sure they had the votes. Just the kind of come-from-behind, unexpected victory for the little guy that Kennedy relished so much.

Later that day, after rallies, celebrations, and parties, I sat down at my desk and listened to voice messages of congratulations, one after the next. One moved me to my core.

“Marc, Ted Kennedy calling from Washington, DC. Congratulations on what you did today. What you accomplished for the people of Massachusetts is tremendous. Good work, my friend.”

Click HERE to read the entire Bay Windows article

Kept secret until now

It’s interesting — and pretty shameful — that Kennedy obviously wanted to keep this a secret. If he was so proud of his “principled” stands, why not make them public? The truth is that Ted Kennedy was much more radical than most people realized (on this and other issues). A lot of insiders knew that. But if the public found out it’s pretty clear that there would be a backlash that would be very unnerving, even for Kennedy.

Flood of praise in Boston media

In the Boston media it was a week of nonstop Kennedy adulation. Interestingly, the Boston Herald, which Kennedy once tried to shut down by passing a special federal law, out-did the Globe in gushing coverage.

TAKE ACTION: Call or write Nettelhorst Elementary’s principal, Cindy Wulbert, at Cw1411@gmail.com or (773) 534-5810.

I send the following note to Rex Huppke of the Chicago Tribune, reporter who wrote the article: “Chicago School to March in Pride Parade” (reprinted below):
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Mr. Huppke, have you ever been to a Gay Pride parade?…

… If you had, you might have covered the issue of rampant and inappropriate sexual misbehavior that goes on at such events.  In the past few years observing Chicago Gay Pride parades as a critic of the organized homosexual movement, I have witnessed:

• in 2004, a disgusting gay (oral-anal) sex act that was allowed to go on in the middle of the street (children were seen nearby) — right in front of a row of Chicago cops — involving two guys who were trying to get under the skin of a group of Christian protesters whom the cops were protecting; see http://www.illinoisfamily.org/informed/contentview.asp?c=26650;
• in 2007, a male transvestite (?) going topless with “his” breasts exposed for block after block as cops and parade organizers did nothing; see: http://americansfortruth.com/news/angry-mob-assaults-peaceful-christians-at-chicago-gay-pride-parade.html
• lewd acts (e.g., simulated sodomy) and gyrating sexual dances on floats — including one by an apparent lesbian cop who appeared to be drunk or high, riding atop a Chicago PD float;
• a contingent of sadomasochists marching in the parades as they do every year;
• blatant anti-religious and anti-conservative bigotry on display — usually equating Christianity or the Catholic Church with “hate”;
• after the 2007 parade, homosexual “pride” celebrants assaulted two peaceful men giving a Christian street witness in opposition to homosexuality; see http://americansfortruth.com/news/angry-mob-assaults-peaceful-christians-at-chicago-gay-pride-parade.html;
• a homosexual bathhouse called “Steamworks,” which fields a float every year at the parade.  Steamworks is a 24/7 sex club on Halsted Street in Boystown where men go for anonymous sexual liaisons with other men; see http://www.illinoisfamily.org/informed/contentview.asp?c=33904.

You get the picture. How does a parent answer the question: “Daddy, what’s Steamworks?” or, regarding gender-bending “transgenders”: “Mommy, is that a man or a woman?”  Or how about: “Why does that man have hardly any clothes on?” Do you think this is an appropriate, nurturing environment for young children?

Couldn’t you have at least gathered an opposing comment from a critic (rather than paraphrasing opponents in one paragraph without actually quoting them)?  “Gay” cheerleading is just that.  A modicum of balance on your part might have turned your piece into journalism, or at least something like it.  Such propaganda masquerading as reporting is one of the reasons why print journalism — with its arrogant disregard for common-sense and traditional viewpoints (not to mention historic Judeo-Christian mores) — is dying, in Illinois and across the country.

I can assure you that a large majority of Chicagoland residents would be appalled at the idea of placing young children in an atmosphere filled with the sexualized celebration of homosexual and transsexual behaviors. But what do they know? They’re just a bunch of homophobic “transphobes” out of step with elite, “progressive” Chicago values.

Perhaps you and the Tribune could balance your one-sided “gay pride” article with a thoughtful piece shedding light on how a massive outpouring of grassroots opposition across Illinois thwarted “gay” activists’ and the ACLU’s dream of turning Illinois into a “civil unions” state (see http://americansfortruth.com/news/civil-unions-decisively-defeated-in-illinois-a-pro-family-victory-with-national-significance.html).

Sincerely,

Peter LaBarbera
President
Americans For Truth About Homosexuality
www.aftah.org
Cell: 630-546-4439

Cc: Fran Eaton, IL Review; David Smith, Kathy Valente and Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Inst. (IFI); Mary Anne Hackett, Catholic Citizens of IL; Arlene Sawicki, longtime pro-family advocate; John Biver and Jack Roeser, Champion News; Joe Morris, Lincoln Legal Foundation; Bruce Tincknell, Dr. John Koehler and Jim Finnegan, Board Members, IFI; Jill Stanek, pro-life advocate; Tom Brejcha, Thomas More Law Society; Brent Bozell III and Tim Graham, Media Research Center; Cal Skinner, former IL State Rep., Protect Marriage IL Bd. Member and McHenry Co. blogger; Robert Unruh, WorldNetDaily.com; Jim Brown, OneNewsNow.com; Dan Zanoza, Republicans For Fair Media; Cliff Kincaid, Accuracy in Media; Robert Knight, Coral Ridge Ministries; Matt Barber, Liberty Counsel; Wendy Wright, Concerned Women for America (CWA); Janice Crouse, Beverly LaHaye Inst and CWA; Robert Peters, Morality in Media; Karen Hayes, CWA-Illinois; Peter Sprigg, Family Research Council.
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Chicago Tribune article:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-gay-pride-parade-25-jun25,0,3925455.story

Chicago school to march in Pride Parade

Nettelhorst Elementary School to show solidarity with surrounding gay community
By Rex W. Huppke | Tribune reporter
June 25, 2009

Nettelhorst Elementary School parent Amy Goodman prepares a wagon for the 40th annual Pride Parade with daughter Sadie Blade, 3, while son Ben Blade, 6, plays in their home. (Tribune photo by Phil Velasquez / June 24, 2009)

The black metal fence in front of Nettelhorst Elementary School is obscured by thousands of strips of dyed fabric — yellows giving way to greens, then blues, purples and reds — each one tied on by the small hands of a student.

The ruffled, waist-high rainbow is a symbol of the school’s solidarity with its east Lakeview community, and a sign hanging by the gate trumpets that Nettelhorst this year “will be the first Chicago public school to march in the city’s gay pride parade.”

“We believe family means everybody,” the sign reads.

Amy Goodman agrees with that. She’ll be in the parade at noon Sunday with her husband, towing their 6-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter in a wagon bedecked in rainbows.

Brad Rossi agrees as well. He’ll be there with his partner and their 7-year-old daughter, along with more than 50 other families from Nettelhorst whose presence marks the latest expansion of a parade that began in the 1970s with drag queens and gay activists and has grown to reveal the full spectrum of the city’s diverse gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

In this, the 40th annual Pride Parade, there will be gay Democrats and gay Republicans, gay business people and gay artists, seniors and teens and Christians and veterans — and, as always, drag queens and activists.

“We’ve never had a grammar school, or a school for that matter,” said Richard Pfeiffer, who has coordinated the parade since 1974. “The remarkable thing about the gay pride parade is that it’s the one day that you get that full cross-section of the GLBT community. We’re young, we’re old and a growing portion of our community now has children. And I think that has often gone unnoticed.”

That’s why the Nettelhorst contingent will be near the front.

“I love that my kids will understand that there are all different kinds of families,” Goodman said. “When it comes to any kind of differences, I think the only way to really realize how much we have in common is to celebrate and acknowledge our differences.”

Chicago Public Schools spokeswoman Monique Bond stressed that Nettelhorst was not “officially involved” with the decision to enter the parade. Parents, both gay and straight, organized the school’s entry, viewing it as an important statement to make in a community with a large GLBT population.

“One of the fundamental tenets of being a community school is that you bring the community in,” said Jacqueline Edelberg, author of a book about Nettelhorst — “How to Walk to School: Blueprint for a Neighborhood School Renaissance” — and a straight mother of two Nettelhorst students.

More than 500 students attend the elementary school. While there’s no official number, Rossi and other parents say they know of at least eight same-sex couples with children enrolled at the school, which suggests that most of the Nettelhorst people marching will be straight.

“For the vast majority of parents who have come up to me, people have been really excited about it,” said Marcia Festen, a lesbian whose eldest daughter attends Nettelhorst. “I had one parent come up and say, ‘Oh my God, I don’t think the school should be doing this and it’s not a proper venue for kids.’ But it’s actually been a little shocking that the conversation has been so positive.”

One conservative blogger from Rogers Park denounced the school’s parade plans, and a group of Baptist protesters set up one day outside the school. But many parents, both straight and gay, say the reaction has been surprisingly muted.

Modesto Tico Valle, executive director of the Center on Halsted, a GLBT community center, said each year more and more of the gay and lesbian community has felt comfortable showing its face. Now seeing families from a public school join together as a single parade entry doesn’t surprise him.

“It’s like a domino effect,” Valle said. “Once this parade had picked up some clout and became very large, the politicians decided, ‘Oh, maybe I need to pay attention to this constituency.’ Then we started having news stations involved. The more we advance in our movement, the more people wake up and say, ‘These are human beings just like you and I. Let’s give them some respect and attention.’ ”

Rossi finds the support of other families from his child’s school heartening. Taking a break from painting parade banners this week, sitting not far from the fabric-covered fence at Nettelhorst, the 44-year-old thought back on his youth and how differently gays and lesbians were viewed.

As much as things have changed, he still worries that his daughter, Maria, could get picked on because her family is different:

“We can sit around and wait, and if something happens, we jump up and down and say, ‘This is an outrage.’ Or we can let people know we’re out here, so it eventually isn’t even a thing.

“So Maria has two dads? Big deal.”

rhuppke@tribune.com

November 5, 2008
Contact: Peter LaBarbera: 630-717-7631; americansfortruth@comcast.net

NAPERVILLE, Ill. – Peter LaBarbera, President of Americans For Truth about Homosexuality, issued the following statement on the election of Barack Obama:

We at Americans For Truth join millions of pro-life and pro-family advocates in expressing our profound sadness that America has just elected the most pro-homosexual and pro-abortion presidential candidate in our nation’s history: Barack Obama. However, President-elect Obama has no clear mandate on those issues because they were largely ignored by John McCain and the media in this race.

While we celebrate the transcendence of race as a dominant issue in U.S. politics – and the expiation of America’s past racial sins represented by Obama’s triumph — the truth is that Obama is a far-left ideologue on abortion and homosexuality. Incredibly, McCain largely avoided the life issue and failed to raise Obama’s hypocritical, confused stance on same-sex “marriage.” Had he run aggressively on these and other conservative issues, McCain could have won – as demonstrated by the victories of pro-natural-marriage amendments in California, Florida and Arizona yesterday.

Liberal Republicanism loses elections. The GOP must return to its pro-family roots if it wants to start winning again.

Most Americans have no idea how extreme Obama is on abortion and homosexuality, due to Obama’s clever obfuscations and McCain’s refusal to educate Americans on the Democratic candidate’s social record, which includes:

• Obama’s support of federal “civil unions” legislation that mimics “gay marriage” – and his promise to repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which prevents states from being forced to recognize out-of-state same-sex “marriages”;
• Obama’s vow, in a time of war, to open up the U.S. military to open homosexuality;
• Obama’s promise to Planned Parenthood to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would override pro-life reform laws across the nation;
• Obama pledge to homosexual activists to use the White House “bully pulpit” to advocate for homosexual adoption – placing children in homes that are motherless or fatherless by design;
• Obama’s support of the most extreme, pro-transsexual version of ENDA, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act – which has severe implications for Americans’ religious and First Amendment freedoms. ENDA would dramatically expand federal power by forcing businessmen to factor in employees’ sexual habits and gender confusion in hiring and firing decisions;
• Obama’s distortion of the Bible and historic Christianity to justify his support for abortion-on-demand and homosexuality as a “civil right.”

September 26, 2008; Contact: Andre Traversa: 847-318-6413

SAN FRANCISCO, Cal. – In remarks prepared for a press conference this morning at San Francisco’s City Hall, Americans For Truth President Peter LaBarbera said that – like homosexual “marriage” — the public perversions and nudity allowed to go on at the annual “Folsom Street Fair” in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s district represent America’s deepening moral crisis.

The 25th annual “Folsom Street Fair” will be held this Sunday, Sept. 28, in San Francisco.  Details of today’s and Monday’s press conference follow:

WHAT:  Two press events exposing Folsom and the politicians who enable it;
WHERE:  San Francisco City Hall
WHEN:  Friday, Sept. 26, 11:00 AM – pre-Folsom; and Monday, Sept. 29, 10:00 AM – post-Folsom;
WHO:  Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH; Linda Harvey, Mission America; Diane Gramley, American Family Association of Pennsylvania; Anthony Gonzalez, St. Joseph’s Men’s Society

Pelosi has refused to condemn the debauched Folsom Fair in her district, which features:

• Rampant public nudity including men walking the streets in nothing but their socks and sneakers; police refuse to enforce decency laws and even recruit at the fair;
• Public street orgies in which men engage in homosexual sex acts – as depicted on enlarged photos at the press events — as thousands of fairgoers walk by;
• Blatant anti-Christian bigotry – e.g., the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” — transvestite mock “nuns” who work closely with Folsom; and religious-themed “sex toys” sold by vendors;

In prepared remarks, LaBarbera states: “As our nation deals with a severe economic crisis … America faces an equally grave moral crisis that flies under the politically correct media’s radar. In the name of ‘tolerance and diversity,’ we are casting aside all boundaries, some dating back to the beginning of recorded time. In that sense, redefining marriage outside its natural male-female state — and Folsom’s shocking, police-protected public perversions — are mere markers of a nation in steep decline, a nation that is leaving God behind.

“It is no coincidence that the man who took it upon himself four years ago to illegally and radically redefine marriage – Mayor Gavin Newsom – now enthusiastically welcomes the Folsom Street Fair with its public depravities – an event that makes San Francisco a subject of ridicule and opprobrium the world over,” LaBarbera said.

Concerned Women for America’s Martha Kleder writes:

The California legislature is considering a bill that would create a state holiday honoring Harvey Milk, the first openly “gay” city supervisor for San Francisco who was gunned down in 1978. Peter LaBarbera, President of Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, introduces us to Gerard Dols, a man who both knew Harvey Milk and who now knows the Lord. Dols was befriended by Milk when he was a youth, struggled with rejection by the greater homosexual community following Milk’s murder, and later accepted Christ and left the homosexual lifestyle. Dols shares his testimony and his thoughts on “the mayor of Castro Street.” Listen HERE ; Download HERE.

There is no precedent in history for such myth-driven “democratization” of a disease, nor for the abominable unfairness in allocating funds away from so many curable illnesses. — Michael Fumento

The full New York Post column by Michael Fumento appears HERE. Emphasis added below:

A Myth that Kills

By Michael Fumento

New York Post, July 3, 2008 –THE Senate is near to passing a massive $50 billion Emergency Plan for HIV/ AIDS Relief — a bill whose priorities are based on myth, just like virtually all anti-AIDS efforts worldwide.

The world’s top AIDS bureaucrat recently admitted the truth: “It is very unlikely that there will be a heterosexual epidemic” outside Africa, Kevin de Cock, director of the World Health Organization, told London’s Independent newspaper. His bosses at the United Nations issued an official denial — but couldn’t truly challenge his science.

The effort to “democratize” AIDS dates back to the mid-1980s, when the media and health officials began a desperate and concerted effort to divert attention and make it seem everyone was at risk. The 1985 Life magazine cover, blaring “NOW NO ONE IS SAFE FROM AIDS” in huge red letters, represents this effort. Surgeon General Everett Koop coined the term “heterosexual AIDS explosion” in 1987, while in 1993 HHS Secretary Donna Shalala told Congress that AIDS may leave “nobody left.”

Even today, the Centers for Disease Control’s HIV/AIDS Web site refuses to acknowledge any difference in the risks of AIDS between anal, vaginal or oral sex.

Peter Piot, now executive director of UNAIDS, warned as late as 1997 that “HIV will cut through Asian populations like a hot knife through cold butter.” UNAIDS’s 2001 estimate had 30 million infected adults in sub-Saharan Africa.

Last year, the UN had to cut that Africa figure by almost half — and drop its Asia number by 38 percent from just the year before. Dr. James Chin, a former top AIDS epidemiologist at the World Health Organization, has long declared the UN figures to be to too high and insists they still are.

In fact, there was never any indication AIDS had or would “break out” from the well-defined risk-behavior groups, as I was writing as far back as 1987 and in my 1990 book “The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS.”

I’m no Nostradamus. I merely analyzed public data and studies showing how terribly difficult the disease is to transmit vaginally or orally. But the myths are still the basis for AIDS policy.

The group Fair Allocations in Research compiles statistics on federal spending to fight various diseases, compared to how many Americans each disease kills. Measured that way, we spend 21 times as much on AIDS as cancer — and 78 times what we spend on coronary artery disease, 97 times anti-stroke spending.

Plus, the Ryan White Act mandates taxpayer handouts to HIV/AIDS victims of about $1.2 billion a year. We have no remotely similar program for victims of any other disease.

The same official grotesque distortion holds internationally. Chin charges that the United Nations puts HIV/AIDS victims on a pedestal while other disease victims stay submerged in deadly muck.

Robert England (who heads the charity Health Systems Workshop) recently made the same point in the British Medical Journal: “Although HIV causes 3.7 percent of [worldwide] mortality, it receives 25 percent of international health-care aid.” …

Consider: A 2008 WHO/UNAIDS/UNICEF report demands AIDS drugs for every victim worldwide, requiring spending hikes from $8.1 billion now to $35 billion by 2010. Yet AIDS remains incurable. Conversely, an African with non-resistant tuberculosis is curable with merely $25 of drugs.

“Easily preventable diseases are still killing millions of children each year, while billions of dollars are being squandered annually by AIDS programs . . . who are not at risk,” says Chin. (Yes, the Senate bill funds anti-TB and -malaria programs – but not anything like its anti-AIDS spending.)….

There is no precedent in history for such myth-driven “democratization” of a disease, nor for the abominable unfairness in allocating funds away from so many curable illnesses. Says England: “We have created a monster with too many vested interests and reputations at stake.”

CLICK HERE to read Fumento’s entire New York Post column.

Michael Fumento is director of Education and Research for the American Security Council Foundation in Washington, DC.

By Brian Fitzpatrick

Culture & Media Institute, June 10, 2008

Thank God for the alternative media.

Unlike the big newspapers and TV networks, small conservative online news sites are reporting the growing threat posed to religious liberty by the burgeoning homosexual rights movement.

Two indispensable Web sites, Canada’s LifeSite News and [American Family Association’s] One News Now, have carried a stunning series of articles in the past few days about critics of homosexuality being attacked by the governments of Great Britain, Northern Ireland, Belgium and Canada.

• Britain’s Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor Will Defy Law Forcing Homosexual Adoption
• Northern Ireland MP Investigated for “Homophobic” Remarks
• Belgian Bishop Cleared of Charges for Church Teaching on Homosexuality

No country is harder on religious believers than Canada, where a modern-day star chamber called the Canadian Human Rights Commission is cracking down on Christian preachers who dare to repeat what the Bible says about homosexuality.

• Alberta Pastor Fined $7,000 and Ordered to Publicly Apologize and Remain Silent on Homosexuality
• Canadian Catholic Priest Accused of Hate Crime

The homosexual rights movement is not really an effort to win civil rights for a supposedly oppressed minority. It’s a war against Western civilization’s Judeo-Christian moral order, joined now by many non-homosexuals who support rewriting society’s moral code. The goals are to win social acceptance of alternative sexual “lifestyles,” especially homosexuality, and to make room for a revolutionary new sexual code that glorifies self-indulgence and embraces promiscuity.

Hedonism and homosexuality cannot be legitimized without displacing the Bible’s restrictions on sex and God’s design for the family. The revolutionaries are going about it the obvious way, in our litigious society—through the courts. By redefining traditional sexual morality as bigotry, the sexual revolutionaries are using the law to assail the rights of speech, association and religion of anyone who disagrees with them. Using “sexual orientation” statutes and hate crimes laws, they are attempting to silence anybody who believes that homosexuality is a sin, not an acceptable alternative “lifestyle.”

A Canadian Catholic magazine editor, Father Alphonse de Valk, warns in his editorial, “Fascism Has Come to Canada”:

So we move from [former Canadian Prime Minister] Trudeau’s 1967 slogan “there is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation” –– falsely used to destroy traditional morality – to the new slogan that the state will determine people’s moral thinking.

Why aren’t the liberal newspapers and broadcasters reporting these stories? As politically savvy secular institutions that back homosexual rights, they may be reluctant to publicize religious victims of the movement. They appear to be following in the footsteps of Walter Duranty, the New York Times foreign correspondent who won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of Stalin’s Soviet Union.

In the 1930s, Duranty downplayed the realities of the Soviet gulag, where 10 million or more people died. He lied about Stalin’s deliberate starvation of millions of people in the Ukraine. Even though his deliberate misreporting has been thoroughly documented, the Times has never removed Duranty from its list of staff who have won Pulitzers. Nor has the Pulitzer committee withdrawn the award.

For Duranty, loyalty to political ideals trumped journalistic ethics. Rather than expose Stalin, Duranty defended him: “You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.”

The current journalistic cover-up of the homosexual activist movement’s assaults on freedom is not the same in degree as covering up the Gulag, but it’s the same in kind. It is an abdication of responsibility and a professional disgrace. And it is one more reason that alternative media that report honestly are rapidly growing.

Brian Fitzpatrick is Senior Editor at the Culture and Media Institute, a division of the Media Research Center.

JUDICIAL ACTIVISM AT ITS WORST: This will always be immoral. California’s highest court has created a “fundamental” marriage right out of behavior — homosexuality — that is fundamentally wrong and destructive. At left is a homosexual male kissing scene as it appeared on the CBS soap “As the World Turns.” Everywhere Americans turn — TV, media, schools, in corporations and the courts — this unhealthy and immoral behavior is being promoted.

California’s highest court has just invalidated California’s Proposition 22, creating a legal “fundamental” right to homosexual so-called “marriage” out of thin air, under the guise of equal protection. We’re reading the 172-page decision — available at http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S147999.PDF — now, but as we suspected, the court’s majority made use of the fact that in California, homosexual couples already have been given most of the same rights as normal couples — including the right to adopt children.

Footnote 72 on page 117 of the California decision is key:

Contrary to the contention of the Proposition 22 Legal Defense Fund and the
Campaign, the distinction in nomenclature between marriage and domestic partnership cannot be defended on the basis of an asserted difference in the effect on children of being raised by an opposite-sex couple instead of by a same-sex couple. Because the governing California statutes permit same-sex couples to adopt and raise children and additionally draw no distinction between married couples and domestic partners with regard to the legal rights and responsibilities relating to children raised within each of these family relationships, the asserted difference in the effect on children does not provide a justification for the differentiation in nomenclature set forth in the challenged statutes.”

In other words, by creating an expanding array of rights based on immoral and unnatural behavior, California’s politicians paved the way for this arrogant ruling. We must return to principled public policy opposing the creation of ALL newfangled rights based on changeable, immoral and deviant sexual behavior. Homosexual so-called “marriage” is wrong because homosexual behavior is wrong. To illustrate how far afield our culture has drifted — from God, decency and common sense — consider this question:

How will homosexual California couples — say, two men — consummate their “marriages”?

Click here to read a previous AFTAH article: “Homosexual Activist Wayne Besen Makes a Strong Case for a Federal Marriage Amendment,” pointing to the chaos that could ensue from this ruling and why America needs a strong Federal Marriage Amendment that protects more than just the word “marriage.”– Peter LaBarbera

Here are links to Concerned Women for America’s and National Organization for Marriage’s press releases on the California Marriage ruling:

NOM: California Supreme Court Overturns Prop 22

CWA: California Supreme Court Betrays “We the People” on Marriage

http://www.afaofpa.org

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 14, 2008

CONTACT: Diane Gramley 1.814.437.5355 or 1.814.271.9078

Too Many PA Legislators Bow to Pressure from 2.9% of the Population

(Harrisburg) On April 30th the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a Washington, D. C. homosexual lobby group, released a study entitled, “Findings from the Hunter College Poll of Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals,” which was commissioned by the HRC Foundation. The findings of 2.9% of the adult population identifying as gay, lesbian or bisexual once again expose the lie that homosexuals make up 10% of the U.S. population. The American Family Association of Pennsylvania (AFA of PA), a statewide pro-family organization, is providing this information as well as additional information to each Pennsylvania legislator.

The additional information includes the bogus claim that a ban on same-sex “marriage” is the same as the laws against interracial marriage, the need to retain the ‘functional equivalent’ language in S.B. 1250 to prevent the legalization of civil unions, clarification of Oklahoma State Representative Sally Kern’s remarks and the negative impact of homosexual “marriage.”

“As the stalemate on the Marriage Protection Amendment continues in the PA Senate, all the legislators who oppose this amendment need to realize that they are representing a very small percentage of people who want to redefine marriage and family. The majority of Pennsylvanians believe marriage should be between one man and one woman and expect their legislators to take steps to protect traditional marriage,” noted Diane Gramley, president of the AFA of PA.

The Hunter College poll found that 2.9% of the adult population in the United States identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual (LGB). It also found that these individuals were more highly educated than the average American and were more likely to consider themselves Democrats and liberal than the general population. These recent findings were from a poll in which seven hundred sixty-eight responded, but in a 2002 Centers for Disease Control National Survey of Family Growth 12,571 interviews with men and women ages 15-44 years of age took place. That study revealed that only 2.3% of the population considered themselves homosexual.

“Interesting that even though the 10 percent myth has been debunked years ago, the myth continues to be perpetuated by many. Homosexual activist groups have long known this figure was not accurate and even included that information filed in a legal brief in the Lawrence v Texas sodomy case,” further noted Gramley.

The March 26, 2003 Friend of the Court brief filed before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of 31 homosexual and pro-homosexual groups stated in footnote 42 on page 16 of this legal brief the following: “The most widely accepted study of sexual practices in the United States is the National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS). The NHSLS found that 2.8% of the male, and 1.4% of the female, population identify themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. See Laumann, et al, The Social Organization of Sex: Sexual Practices in the United States (1994). This amounts to nearly 4 million openly gay men and 2 million women who identify as lesbian.”

“Legislators need to decide whether they are representing the small ‘squeaky wheel’ segment of their constituents or the majority which support traditional marriage. Will it be the desires of a small special interest group which wants to redefine marriage and family or will it be those who know marriage is between one man and one woman? Who will Pennsylvania legislators represent? What will they do with the truth?” further questioned Gramley.

Will “gay” militants sacrifice Brett VanAsdlen to advance their agenda?

TAKE ACTION: 1) E-mail or call Champaign Co., Illinois State’s Attorney Julia Rietz and ask her to drop the government’s one-sided felony “hate crimes” prosecution against 18-year-old student-athlete Brett VanAsdlen. Email: jrietz1@gmail.com or statesatty@co.champaign.il.us

2) Listen to CWA’s online audio interview on the trumped-up VanAsdlen “hate crime” case with AFTAH’s Peter LaBarbera, Bob Knight of the Culture and Media Institute and CWA’s Matt Barber. Click HERE for the AFTAH link or HERE to listen online:

__________________________

By Peter LaBarbera

I sent homosexual activist blogger Tim Kincaid this note after reading his latest fulmination on the pages of Box Turtle Bulletin (the first paragraph of which we’ve reprinted below):

“[T]hanks for your nasty little piece on [Box Turtle Bulletin], Tim. Par for the course. The issue isn’t David Duke (whose website I only saw for the first time Friday) or Ted Pike (no, I wouldn’t use the phrase “Jewish media” [as Pike does]) but whether this kid, [Brett VanAsdlen], is being railroaded. If you called me a “breeder” and then we got in an argument ending in you pushing me down (perhaps after I aggressively got in your face after you hurled your insult), NO, I definitely would not want you to face a felony “hate crimes” charge. It’s ridiculous — especially if accounts are true that the prosecution has already dropped the aggravated battery charge [against VanAsdlen].”

I cited Ted Pike in my original article on this case because, as one who has crusaded against “hate crimes” laws, Pike was the first to bring the VanAsdlen story to national attention (in a mass email) — not because I agree with the thrust of his website (or Duke’s). Like most evangelicals, I abhor anti-Semitism and in fact am quite the hawk on defending Israel. I also decry racism and, of course, white nationalism, “white pride,” etc.

In their continuing effort to steal the legacy of the real civil rights movement, homosexual activists and their allies posit an analogy between racism and “homophobia” — their smear term of choice to denigrate traditionalists. It is a deeply flawed comparison: what does unchangeable skin color and ethnicity have to do with aberrant, immoral and changeable sexual behavior?

Nothing, unless you can produce an ex-African American.

Moreover, the homosexualists are in the uncomfortable position of making actual descendants of slaves — like Pastor Ken Hutcherson of Antioch Bible Church and ex-lesbian Janet Boynes (pictured at right) — the target of their opprobrium. Men and women of color (like Crystal Dixon, a Black woman who recently was suspended from the University of Toledo after publicly making points similar to these) are mere “religious anti-gay bigots,” according to the homo-fundamentalists’ warped formulations.

And even as the Box Turtle Boys rail against “hate,” they evince their own special brand of prejudice and animus against religious people — blacks, whites, Christians, Jews and Muslims who agree with God on sexual sin — giving the lie to the “gays’” self-righteous mantra of “tolerance.”

The Left knows hate

Being lectured on intolerance by anti-Christian bigots like Tim Kincaid and Barney Frank — or run-of-the-mill leftist hate sites like Daily Kos — is like the USA being scolded for human rights violations by North Korea. If you think I jest, check out the hate-filled comments and vile anti-Christian insults that flow liberally on lesbian Pam Spaulding’s blog (try doing a search on “Jeebus” — a substitute for “Jesus” that secular snobs use to mock Christians).

Pam’s and Tim’s sites are further proof that nobody hates like the Left. And few on the Left hate like the homosexual activists (with radical pro-abortion-on-demand feminists a close second).

Here’s the first paragraph of Kincaid’s piece on the homosexual website Box Turtle Bulletin (emphasis added):

World Net Daily has now joined the alliance of racist David Duke, anti-Semite Ted Pike, and homophobe Peter LaBarbera in defending a “strapping, clean-cut, All-American looking young man” who first verbally insulted and then reportedly physically assaulted a young gay man.

Note the lack of context above. The key word is “reportedly,” and Kincaid knows it. He ends his piece as follows:

I’m amazed at the blatant sense of entitlement that directs this story. There’s such indignation that VanAsdlen, a white Christian heterosexual baseball star, should be called to answer for an assault on an insignificant godless homosexual with brown skin.

And all of VanAsdlen’s supporters agree that hate crimes laws unfairly stop people like him from doing what a “typical [white Christian heterosexual] 18 or 19-year-old kid” just does naturally. You know, assault those unlike himself.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised at how anti-gays aligned so quickly with racists and anti-Semites on this common cause. Hate is hate. Scratch a homophobe, find a bigot.

Yes, Tim, hate is hate. And yours is as obvious and repugnant as the worst of the true bigotry you oppose (discounting your equation of Biblical morality with prejudice). From your writings it is clear that you hate Christians because they disagree with your homosexual lifestyle choice.

Scratch a homosexual activist, find an anti-religious bigot.

Brutal attack?

I return to the comments made by Rod Lovett, Brett VanAsdlen’s athletic director at Parkland College, who told me: “[Brett] didn’t set out to have conflict” that evening … “Regardless of what it was, it was never a brutal attack.” Lovett knows far more about this case than either Tim or I do.

We’ll see how this story plays out as Tim, ExGayWatch, BTB, Pam and the rest of the “queer” spin machine so eagerly paint a false picture of young Brett as a violent “gay basher” to further their misguided crusade.

After all, the cause of tolerance must be advanced.

Click HERE to listen online to the CWA broadcast, and HERE to download it. Click here for AFTAH’s original story on the case: “Illinois Teen Faces Three Years Jail Sentence for Potentially Fraudulent ‘Hate Crime.’”

In the interview, Knight calls Champaign TV station WCIA-3′s initial story on the incident — in which reporter Amanda Evans interviewed only one side of the dispute — a “classic case” of media bias. More from Knight:

The message here is that there’s a special class of victim. If a homosexual is involved in this equation at all, the media and the legal system are supposed to presumably come to the aid of the homosexual every time. And it’s that selective victimization that you’re talking about, Matt, that’s so frightening.

Folks, the irony of this latest Soulforce gimmick is that most of these mega-church pastors (Harry Jackson being the key exception) are not known for confronting the homosexual agenda. For example, Bill Hybels’ Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, IL, did not even participate in the Protect Marriage Illinois (www.protectmarriageillinois.org) referendum campaign in 2006. But Soulforce’s activism may force them to take a more public stand on this seeming ‘special sin’ that has its own well-funded and extremely powerful lobby. Targeted churches with contact pages are listed below the press release. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

_____________________________

News Release

Americans For Truth
www.americansfortruth.org

May 9, 2008

Contact: Peter LaBarbera: 630-717-7631; americansfortruth@comcast.net

Americans For Truth Condemns Soulforce’s Politicized ‘Dialogue’ with Mega-Churches

NAPERVILLE, Illinois — Americans For Truth President Peter LaBarbera today accused the homosexual activist group Soulforce of “politicizing Sunday worship” to further its anti-biblical agenda — by calling for (quasi-forced) “dialogue’ with mega-churches like Joel Osteen’s and Rick Warren’s “at the point of a potential protest.”

Soulforce is leading an activist event called the “American Family Outing” in which they seek “peaceful dialogue” (on their terms) with Lakewood and five other mega-churches across the country each Sunday between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. This Sunday they are targeting Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston.

LaBarbera issued the following statement on Soulforce’s American Family Outing gimmick:

“In a letter to Lakewood Church, Soulforce claims that its proposed ‘dialogue’ is designed to ‘lift up the conversation about faith, family and homosexuality to a national level and bring a new tenor of respect to the issue.’ The truth is that Soulforce is trying to convince Bible-believing churches that their Scriptural teachings against this particular sexual sin are wrong.

“You don’t achieve good-faith dialogue by announcing that you will be arriving at a church on a specified Sunday with ‘several dozen’ homosexual-led families. In the same way, Soulforce sent homosexual activists demanding ‘dialogue’ to Christian colleges: those that refused were hit with media-hyped protests.

“It is no more appropriate to ‘dialogue’ over homosexuality than it is to dialogue over any other sin. What if a traveling band of incest advocates – or perhaps a Gossipers’ Task Force — announced that it would be arriving at Lakewood Church on Mother’s Day demanding ‘dialogue’ about their special interest? This is pro-‘gay’ political theater, nothing more.

“Soulforce and its allies (including Peggy Campolo, wife of Tony Campolo) claim they are ‘deeply committed to respect for the authority of Biblical teachings.’ That is not true, as evidenced by Soulforce’s twisting of Scripture to advance the notion that homosexual behavior is acceptable. Soulforce founder Mel White has recklessly accused Christian pro-family leaders who defend Biblical orthodoxy of ‘spiritual violence’ –– playing to the vicious caricature of traditionalists as violent ‘homophobes.’

“Christians don’t negotiate with God over homosexuality or any sin. Rather, we reach out with truth in love to people with the hopeful Gospel message that God can help them overcome any sin, including homosexuality, through faith in Jesus Christ.”

TARGETED MEGA-CHURCHES AND THEIR CONTACT PAGES:

Lakewood Church, Houston, TX (Rev. Joel Osteen)

The Potter’s House, Dallas, TX (Bishop T.D. Jakes)

Hope Christian Church, Beltsville, MD (Bishop Harry Jackson)

New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, Lithonia, GA (Bishop Eddie Long):

Willow Creek Community Church, South Barrington, IL (Rev. Bill Hybels): (write to info@willowcreek.org)

Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, CA (Dr. Rick Warren): (write to info@saddleback.net)

Brett VanAsdlen

TAKE ACTION: 1) Urge Champaign County, Illinois State’s Attorney Julia Rietz (phone: 217-384-3733) to drop the government’s one-sided felony “hate crimes” prosecution against 18-year-old student-athlete Brett VanAsdlen — based on the inconsistent and likely exaggerated claims of Steven Velasquez, a homosexual University of Illinois (U of I) student who may have initiated physical contact with VanAsdlen. Already, Brett is being smeared as violent “gay-basher” by Velasquez and pro-homosexual activists in the media. Pray for Brett and his family.

2) Call or write WCIA-3 TV, the local CBS affiliate, and urge them to be fair in their coverage of this unfortunate story. Call (217) 373-3650 and ask for Producer Nancy Foreman. WCIA reporter Amanda Evans has led the TV coverage of the story, but her reporting appears to heavily favor Velasquez. It is wrong to smear the reputation of young man by airing all the accusations against him without presenting the other side of the story.

_____________________________

By Peter LaBarbera

CHAMPAIGN-URBANA, Illinois — Two young men — one homosexual, one heterosexual — tell very different stories about an argument that occurred late on a Friday night (April 11) in this college town, but only one — the straight student-athlete — faces a felony “hate crime” conviction with a maximum penalty of up to three years in prison.

Brett VanAsdlen faces a Class 4 felony hate crime after originally being charged with aggravated battery following an incident in which he pushed 20-year-old homosexual University of Illinois student Steven Velasquez to the ground. The critical question is: why did he push Velasquez and who was aggressor? VanAsdlen’s family says it was Velasquez who — after Brett made a comment about Velasquez and his homosexual partner — first “got in Brett’s face,” to which Brett responded by pushing Velasquez away. Velasquez claims that Brett attacked him unprovoked because of his homosexuality.

You can read and watch WCIA-TV’s initial, one-sided account of the incident featuring an interview with Velasquez HERE — which set the tone for those seeking to portray VanAsdlen as a violent hate criminal.

Obviously, it is difficult ascertain the facts about this case because we lack direct access to the principals. AFTAH has not been able to acquire a police report of the incident, but we have learned the aggravated battery charge has been dropped. Velasquez is getting his version of events out in the sympathetic media, and it is being trumpeted as a vicious “hate crime” by various homosexual and leftist websites including Daily Kos, but Brett’s side of the story is not getting out. We did speak with Brett’s mother, as did pro-family advocate Ted Pike, who first alerted the nation to the story. Here is an excerpt from Pike’s original account, based on his phone conversation with Rona Lee VanAsdlen (emphasis added):

The police department of Champaign, Illinois is reported to be under pressure from higher authorities to increase its quota of hate crimes convictions. Brett VanAsdlen, an 18 year-old Christian college student on a baseball scholarship, didn’t know this. On April 12 he and a friend saw two homosexuals leaning on each other and holding hands, walking toward them on the sidewalk. “Look at those two guys holding hands,” Brett said to his friend and walked past them. According to Brett’s mother, the next thing he knew, one of the homosexuals (whom he perceived to be drunk) had grabbed him by the shoulder, putting his face up to Brett’s and repeatedly shouting, “What did you say?” Brett told him to go away several times and then pushed him. The homosexual fell over backwards. On his back, the homosexual told his partner to call the police. In eight minutes, four officers arrived. Two interviewed Brett and his friend and assured them there would be no problem. Brett had been physically accosted and detained, clearly an assault. The other two officers interviewed the homosexual, who was taken to the hospital.

Note that we cannot vouch for the accuracy of this account, which of course is coming from a source (Brett’s mother) very sympathetic to the young man now charged with a “hate crime.” It is conceivable to this writer that young VanAsdlen might have made an untoward or derogatory comment about the homosexual couple, sparking the confrontation. But there is no law against speech critical of homosexuality (yet) and if it is true that Velasquez grabbed Brett, then perhaps he was the real (i.e., physical) aggressor.

Brett’s mother, Rona Lee, confirmed the account above to Americans For Truth, although she did not say what exactly Brett said to the homosexual couple. She did say that Brett did not initiate physical contact with Velasquez but that the homosexual “grabbed” Brett first — and then badgered him about the comment he had made. She said Velasquez was yelling at Brett and “in his face” and that Brett told him twice to get away from him before pushing him away. She and others familiar with the encounter said that Velasquez never lost consciousness.

Rona Lee described her son as a “happy, good natured” kid who “never dreamed that something like this could happen to him.” She said he did not take the arrest as seriously as he should have — especially after police told him it would be no big deal — and that Brett may even have neglected to state in the official police report that Velasquez was the first to make contact — a critical point in the story.

The VanAsdlen family is Christian and attends the nondenominational Minooka Bible Church, in Minooka, Illinois. Rona Lee says her son Brett, her oldest child (he has two brothers and a sister), is a “people person” — a conservative Christian but “not straight-laced” — who is “so naive it’s scary. … he had no idea what was in store for him.”

Rona Lee said she was very thankful that one of Brett’s teammates, Kevin Crane, was with him when the incident occurred, and can serve as a witness to what truly happened that night. She said neither she nor her husband have seen a police report of the incident.

Athletic Director says Brett is no hater

Brett transferred from Purdue University to Parkland College, a junior college in Champaign, after receiving a baseball scholarship and assurances that he would get more playing time than if he had remained at Purdue. After the alleged “hate crime” April 12, Brett was suspended from the baseball team pending the outcome of his court case.

Parkland College Athletic Director Rod Lovett told AFTAH that VanAsdlen’s removal from the team was handled as an “internal matter” for violating the college’s athletic code of conduct. He said Brett will have a right to appeal to be returned to the team following the resolution of the court case, and hoped it will be resolved by this summer so that Brett can train with the team in August. Lovett was skeptical of the trumped-up “hate crime” aspect of the case and said he hopes for a speedy resolution of the matter.

Lovett said he is aware of “both sides of the story” and sympathetic to Brett’s plight. “He didn’t set out to have conflict” that evening, he said. Asked if while on the Parkland baseball team, Brett ever exhibited irrational hatred of the type associated with “hate crimes,” he said no, and that he saw no “ongoing issue” in Brett’s life of “brewing” animosity toward any particular group.

“He’s a typical 18- or 19-year-old kid,” Lovett said, granting that young men that age can an do act immaturely. Lovett said he “wasn’t particularly thrilled” by WCIA’s coverage of the incident, including one story in which an activist accused VanAsdlen of a “brutal attack” against Valasquez.

“Regardless of what it was, it was never a brutal attack,” he said, adding that WCIA is the only TV station in Champaign giving major attention to the story.

I attended yesterday’s brief preliminary hearing, where Brett VanAsdlen — a strapping, clean-cut, All-American looking young man — and his family members learned that his next court appearance (another preliminary hearing) will be July 1, when Brett turns 19. Afterward, Amanda Evans, the WCIA reporter, interviewed Brett VanAsdlen’s attorney, Steve Beckett, who said that this case is about “two kids who ran into each other on the streets,” and that the facts are disputed.

He said, he said

So this is a case of “he said, he said” — but the special treatment of it thus far illustrates why conservatives and traditionalists oppose “hate crimes” laws as fundamentally unfair and open to abuse:

• Brett VanAsdlen’s name and reputation are being sullied by the media and “gay” and leftist blogs without regard to any objective record of the incident;
• With all the late-night altercations that happen in a college town, why does a young man face a felony conviction because of this one? (If convicted, Brett would be banned from voting for life and his record would be stained permanently; his mother noted that it would hinder his ability to be hired as a teacher or coach, one of his goals);
• If it is true that the aggravated battery charge against VanAsdlen was dropped, why are prosecutors continuing to pursue the felony hate-crimes charge against the young man?
• Are Champaign police are under pressure to make “hate crimes” arrests?
• If it is true that the alleged homosexual victim, Stephen Velasquez, is distorting what happened the night of April 12 to further an agenda — there have been many examples of fake “hate crimes” reported across the country — it is fascinating how much mileage he has gotten from it, all at the expense of Brett VanAsdlen. When you are at the top of a politically correct hierarchy of victims, much injustice can occur whether there is a trial or not to sort it all out.

Selective prosecution

The true danger of hate-crimes laws is selective prosecution and unequal protection under the law. If a homosexual were to push an obnoxious Christian onto the ground, or things got out of control after a verbal spat, would he be facing a felony hate-crime conviction and possible jail time in Champaign, Illinois right now? I think most readers know that answer to that question, and it speaks volumes.

In 1996, pro-family activist and Pilgrims Covenant Church pastor Ralph Ovadal, then with Wisconsin Christians United, was punched in the left ear from behind by a pro-homosexual activist while protesting a pro-homosexual event in Madison, Wisconsin. Ovadal was knocked unconscious and taken to the hospital with serious injuries from the blind-side assault. Although police first charged the attacker with “substantial batter,” Dane Country prosecutors did not even secure a misdemeanor conviction against Ovadal’s assailant.

According to Ovadal’s website, “The day before the trial of Pastor Ovadal’s assailant, the D.A. calls to inform Ovadal that there will be no trial because his attacker’s charges are being dropped from substantial battery to an ordinance violation because he ‘does not want to have a criminal record.’ Pastor Ovadal continues to suffer neck and leg pain from the brutal attack which is fully documented with police reports.”

Clearly, Ralph Ovadal’s case was not treated as a “hate crime” because he was the wrong type of victim. If it were the other way around and Ovadal had beaten a homosexual activist, Ralph would probably still be in jail today.

Now, here in Illinois, we see a case in which a boy has words with a homosexual, who then apparently became so agitated that he got in Brett’s face until the boy pushed him away. (We do not know; they may have shared guilt in causing the conflict.) Now this young man, Brett VanAsdlen, faces a felony conviction and jail time — not to mention that his good name is being destroyed by “gay” activists and the sympathetic media and that he will miss the baseball season after transferring to the team to make the most of his talents.

And Mrs. VanAsdlen worries that legal costs to defend her son may rise to $20,000 or $30,000. AFTAH will be following this case closely. Meanwhile, please pray and take action:

TAKE ACTION: 1) Urge Champaign County, Illinois State’s Attorney Julia Rietz (phone: (217) 384-3733) to drop the government’s one-sided felony “hate crimes” prosecution against 18-year-old student-athlete Brett VanAsdlen — based on the inconsistent and likely exaggerated claims of Stephen Velasquez, a homosexual University of Illinois (U of I) student who may have initiated physical contact with VanAsdlen. Already, Brett is being smeared as violent “gay-basher” by Valasquez and pro-homosexual activists in the media. Pray for Brett and his family.

2) Call or write WCIA-3 TV, the local CBS affiliate, and urge them to be fair in their coverage of this unfortunate story. Call (217) 373-3650 and ask for Producer Nancy Foreman. WCIA reporter Amanda Evans has led the TV coverage of the story, but her reporting appears to heavily favor Velasquez. It is wrong to smear the reputation of young man by airing all the accusations against him without presenting the other side of the story.

Our survival as a democracy is in our hands. We too must come out of the closet of cloistered Christianity and come to the rescue of our constitutional rights.

By Lee Taylor

Gay pride was not born in a vacuum. Timing and social upheaval formed the vortex in which it was born and bred. Hanging from the shirttails of the Civil Rights, women’s liberation, and anti-war movements, it exploited the vulnerability of a nation in turmoil. Fueling its fraudulent claims and outrageous demands from our national guilt complex and introspective conflict of values, the Gay Liberation Front exploded onto the American scene. The soul-searching ‘60’s exposed a nation fraught with self-doubt, self-recrimination, anxiety, addiction and ideological conflict, a nation at odds with itself. The sexual revolution accelerated the erosion of both marriage and the family as we struggled with the values and priorities of our national identity.

We were still recovering from the Viet Nam War and had only begun to realize the implications of racial integration when homosexual opportunists executed a strategically timed and targeted blitzkrieg on American society. We were caught napping, and the initial homosexual coup was a resounding success. Adopting the Civil Rights, anti-war and women’s liberation movements as its own, forming its political platform by drawing heavily from each, the Gay Liberation Front took aim at our Christian values and democratic institutions.

Beginning with the 1970 Annual Convention of the American Psychiatric Association, held in San Francisco, exploiting the guerrilla theater tactics of disruption, threats and verbal abuse, the storm troopers of the Gay Liberation Front established a political beachhead within the medical arena, which, in 1973, eventuated in the “normalizing” of homosexuality. Through meticulous design and systematic orchestration, the Gay Liberation Front quickly expanded its political base by enlisting the services of the public media in establishing a new, politically ingenious, homosexual vocabulary. Designed to eliminate all negative connotations and supply its arsenal with symbolism more seductive in the promotion of its agenda, gay semantics discovered respectability for a terminal life style. Capitalizing on the potent political clout of the public media and entertainment industry, the homosexual campaign expanded to include federal, state and regional politics, legislative, judicial and executive branches of government, government health agencies, institutions, research centers and foundations, the military, mainstream religion, and the politicizing/dogmatizing of science and education, subsidized by federal and state tax revenue in the war against American institutions. Within less than a quarter of a century, one per cent of the population had taken the rest hostage, a politico-moral coup unprecedented in the history of this country.

Gay pride history, methodology, alliances, agenda, political conquests and ultimate goals are no secret. This information has been made available in abundance from both sides of the battlefield, easily accessed, extensively researched and documented. The baffle cry of gay pride is blatantly clear: “We’re here! We’re queer! And we’re going to win!” We can read it in the gay, secular and religious press. Homosexuals are out of the closet and parading their perversion in the streets. They are highly motivated, well financed, politically astute, effectively organized, and dedicated. To underestimate the capacity or goal of this enemy is to guarantee defeat. They have thrown down the gauntlet, hurling their deadly agenda directly in the face of this nation’s democratic institutions, constitution and family values. We are under attack and will not survive unless we fight! We have been ambushed on all major fronts and our ability to prevail has already been severely sabotaged. How did this happen? In what way have we nurtured the enemy we now must defeat? We are a young, adolescent nation, and the chapter we are now writing has been written before by much older nations, nations which no longer exist. They too danced to their demons and were buried by them. Is it too late for us to learn from history, or will we follow this diabolical trail to our own demise?

There are laws which govern everything in our universe, absolute laws, waiting to be discovered and respected, designed by the Creator for the unfolding of creation. These laws are immutable, in noncompliance with the reckless egoic ultimatums of any political, religious or moral invention. These laws work with or without our approval. They are completely reliable. To the extent that we understand and follow them, we live and are fulfilled. We have been far more successful discovering and obeying the laws of physics than the laws of our souls. We have become far more familiar with outer space than inner space. The values and priorities taught and lived by the Son of God have all but died on the back burner of American culture, quite predictably leaving us all but dead. Our blind, pretentious egos may come dressed in religious rhetoric from either the right or the left, but the laws of God don’t bow to politically correct values and priorities. The mandate of Jesus Christ was not to appear successful or sound dedicated. It was to follow Him. If we had been following the values and priorities which we’re so fond of claiming in our Judeo-Christian patriotism, over half our marriages would not have ended in the divorce court, and our families would not be suffering the tragic fragmentation, dysfunction and alienation they now suffer. These two institutions were in major trouble long before we first heard the word “gay.”

It wasn’t the integrity and social responsibility of followers of Jesus Christ who created the need for a Civil Rights movement in America. It was the hypocrisy of those who claimed freedom and justice for all but their Black brothers and sisters. For that rejection of our democratic and Christian values we paid and continue to pay a very painful price. We were forced to confront our pious, patriotic pretense, to choose between our “omnipotent” egos and God’s laws for our survival.

There is a yawning chasm between the values and priorities we piously claim as our national heritage and those we have chosen to live by. We have a time-honored tradition of moral schizophrenia, a hero-worshipping, egoic, success cult, which we have traditionally concealed within the garment of Judeo-Christian patriotism. We raise our hymns of God and country to the sky, but the laws of God, which govern our existence and chance of survival, remain constant in spite of our ‘holy” gestures. Possibly we are just beginning to discover that our hi-tech goddess is not worthy of worship, that we are being forced to choose between success and survival, between the profit margin and the preservation of our race. We live in an image culture where nothing fails like success. It was into this moral schizophrenia that the gay pride movement most effectively opened fire, establishing an appealing rationale for its momentum.

It is much too late for the hermeneutics of pious patriotism. This has failed to convince Native Americans, Blacks, Mexican Americans, or any minority group experiencing the violence inherent in our pretense. Gay activists have made political hay out of such empty semantics. The sacred institutions of marriage and family have been under attack for decades, and born-again Christians and those at the opposite end of the politico-religious spectrum have not been exempt from the consequences. Our banner may be a different color, our politics a different stripe, our semantics a different sound, but we have played the success cult game to the edge of a national abyss, and it has been our self-serving egos, not the Spirit of God, who have been in the driver’s seat. To blame gay activists for destroying marriage and family values is tantamount to blaming a sinking ship on the rats which desert it. We, by default, share in this blame game.

Borrowing from over four centuries of politico-religious suffering in Northern Ireland, the 1993 Seattle Gay Pride Parade declared a Holy War on all who opposed their agenda. Quite consistent with the all too familiar political strategy of piggybacking much older, historically significant struggles for justice, implying legitimacy and power through association, the gay pride movement now demands a complete restructuring of American institutions and ideology in compliance with its agenda. The tactics of tyranny are in place. The values and institutions essential for the survival of American democracy are the target. As Christian people with a mandate to follow Jesus Christ, we are challenged to move quickly beyond our religious rhetoric and walk our talk. We have no other choice. Our options are being systematically eliminated. We must become strategically and aggressively involved at the local, state, and national level in every political organization, every government institution, agency, bureau and lobby. We must consistently impact our local school board meetings, city council, precinct caucuses and health services. We must recognize religious organizations which have become advocates for the gay agenda and cut off all forms of support. We must counterattack the public media and entertainment industry, demanding an end to their pro-gay agenda, boycotting their sponsors. We must act out of educated awareness, integrity and compassion in this war. The most socially responsible and compassionate way to defeat this enemy is to destroy its agenda and treat its disease. Our survival as a democracy is in our hands. We too must come out of the closet of cloistered Christianity and come to the rescue of our constitutional rights, our democratic form of government, our family values and our diminishing freedom. We must follow the mandate of God’s laws and ACT.

Lee Taylor is a Bellingham, Washington-based writer who was once a United Church of Christ minister who was forced to resign for refusing to perform “same-sex marriages.” He can be reached at leetaylor411@comcast.net.