Americans for Truth

By Peter LaBarbera

My friend and Americans For Truth Board Chairman Mike Heath, who also serves as Executive Director of the Christian Civic League of Maine, sent out the message below about Good Friday and “Hate.” Mike can relate to Oklahoma’s beleaguered State Rep. Sally Kern, as like her, he and his wife Paulie have been vilified and demonized by Maine’s pro-homosexual lobby for years as outspoken Christian, pro-family advocates.

I love Easter. The Christ whose sacrificial death we commemorate and whose resurrection we celebrate on Easter Sunday is real and alive, but His redemptive work in everyday people’s lives only rarely makes Fox News. Just today I received a call from a Christian man who had left the “gay” life behind and has been married for 16 years; he and his wife are raising their children, much like countless other married couples raising families. Another wonderful ex-”gay” story that belies the homosexual propaganda myth that homosexuals can’t change, but which probably will never appear in the media.

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Click HERE to listen online to Concerned Women for America’s interview probing Wheaton College’s invitation to “Religious Left” icon Jim Wallis, who questions God’s description of homosexual behavior as an “abomination” and sympathetically describes homosexual activist Mel White as a “gay Christian.”  Liberal Evangelical leader Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners Magazine, spoke at Wheaton College this week. Wallis is controversial within evangelical circles because much of what he advocates runs counter to Biblical principles. Although not invited to speak on the issue, Wallis advocates civil unions and “blessing” ceremonies for homosexual couples. Matt Barber, CWA’s Policy Director for Cultural Issues, says Wallis’ biblical revisionism must be challenged. He speaks with Peter LaBarbera, President of Americans for Truth who attended the Wallis speech, and Dr. Mike Brown, Director of The Coalition of Conscience in Charlotte, North Carolina, who has debated Jim Wallis previously.

The broadcast also deals with a 2007 Wheaton panel on “HIV and Morality” that featured Harry Knox, a homosexual activist with the Human Rights Campaign who believes that his homosexuality is a “gift from God, one for which I am very grateful. And it would fly in the face of my respect for God to give that gift back.”

You can also download the broadcast by visiting CWA’s website and scrolling down to the title, “Wheaton College Hosts Controversial Speakers.”

 Homosexual activists spend tens of millions of dollars annually promoting their lifestyle and political goals, yet many Christians get upset when pro-family groups like Americans For Truth stand against their aggressive agenda.

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

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Dr. Michael Brown says that Jesus Christ did not simply accept outcasts, He changed them, and that evangelical leftist Jim Wallis has “lost sight of the fact that homosexual practice is always wrong.” (Wallis today, in parrying off a question about the Biblical view of homosexuality as sinful, said, “Abomination is a pretty strong word.”) Wheaton College has invited Wallis to speak tonight to its Center for Applied Christian Ethics. TAKE ACTION: to contact Wheaton College President Duane Litfin regarding Wallis’ speech, e-mail duane.litfin@wheaton.edu. Or call and ask for President Litfin’s office during office hours at 630-752-5000.

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TAKE ACTION: we urge all those who love and appreciate Wheaton College’s great contributions to the advancement of Gospel of Jesus Christ to contact Wheaton College President Duane Litfin (duane.litfin@wheaton.edu) regarding the college’s invitation of evangelical leftist Jim Wallis as a speaker. Wallis favors homosexuals “rights” legislation including “civil unions,” and takes issue with the Biblical text of homosexual behavior as a sinful “abomination.” At the very least, you can suggest that Wheaton now invite an orthodox Christian speaker like Dr. Brown who is faithful to the Bible, to counter Wallis’ more socialist, revisionist, pro-homosexual-activist worldview. E-mail Wheaton President Duane Litfin at duane.litfin@wheaton.edu. Or call and ask for President Litfin’s office during office hours at 630-752-5000.

DETAILS ON WALLIS SPEECH: tonight (Tuesday) at Wheaton College (Billy Graham’s alma mater in Wheaton, IL): Free and open to the public, the lecture will take place at 7:30 p.m. in the Kresge Room, located in the east wing of the Edman Memorial Chapel at Washington and Franklin streets in Wheaton (campus map). http://www.wheaton.edu/news/events/events_07_08/02.19.08_CaceWallis.html

The following statement (emphasis added) was issued by Dr. Michael Brown, at the request of Americans For Truth, in response to evangelical leftist Jim Wallis’ writings in favor of homosexual “civil unions” laws:

As Christians, it is only natural for us to side with the outcast, to be moved with compassion for those whom society rejects, to reach out to the marginalized and disenfranchised, just as Jesus, our Master did, setting an example for us to follow. In fact, in the words of Prof. Jeffrey Siker, many gay-affirming theologians argue that “Jesus’ merciful attitude of inclusion should be a guide to the contemporary church,” specifically with regard to the gay and lesbian community, the outcasts and marginalized of today. (See Homosexuality and Religion: An Encyclopedia.)

Left-leaning, Christian author Jim Wallis espouses a similar position, arguing in his newest book, The Great Awakening, that “justice” requires us to support (and even bless) same-sex unions. After all, many of these couples have been devoted to each other for years, yet they remain stigmatized by both the world and the church, bereft of the most basic benefits extended to married couples (from hospital visitation rights if their partner is on his or her death bed, to the ability to collect their partner’s social security payments after death). And, to add insult to injury, many of them are committed, churchgoing people. How can we harden our hearts to their plight? Surely, justice – let alone the example of Jesus – would require us to recognize their unions and fight for their “rights.” Or would it?

Having heard the stories of many such couples, it’s easy to sympathize with their pain, and certainly, they deserve our compassionate understanding, forcing us to explore issues such as hospital visitation rights and the like. But the questions remain: What would Jesus do and what would justice require?

To help jar us back to reality, consider this quote from the late John Hopkins professor, John Money:

“Pedophilia and ephebophilia [referring to sexual attraction felt by an adult toward an adolescent] are no more a matter of voluntary choice than are left-handedness or color blindness. There is no known method of treatment by which they may be effectively and permanently altered, suppressed, or replaced. Punishment is useless. . . . One must simply accept the fact that they do exist, and then, with optimum enlightenment, formulate a policy of what to do about it.”

To be sure, I am not comparing homosexuals with pedophiles, but it is striking that almost identical arguments are used by advocates of homosexual practice – just substitute the word “homosexuality” for “pedophilia” and “ephebophilia” in Dr. Money’s quote – yet we categorically reject pedophilia and ephebophilia as wrong, regardless of the claims that they are innate and immutable. On what basis, then, should we sanction same-sex unions, even monogamous, non-abusive, long-term unions? Are they not also wrong in God’s sight? Where does Scripture even hint that “abusive” same-sex relationships (such as pedophilia) are wrong but “non-abusive” ones are right?

Former American Psychological Association president and gay rights advocate Dr. Nicholas Cummings recently critiqued the APA’s endorsement of same-sex marriages, asking, “Does any serious scientist regard as evidence the following: loving relationships are mentally healthy, gay marriage is a type of loving relationship, therefore gay marriage is mentally healthy. Good grief! This statement is so elastic it could be stretched to justify polygamy, marriage to your own mother, or even your lovable pet dog.” Yet parallel arguments are now being advanced in the name of biblical justice. How can this be?

Wallis and others seem to have lost sight of the fact that homosexual practice is always wrong, representing a fundamental violation of God’s order, and they appear to have forgotten that God’s ways (which, from creation, have included male-female unions only) are always best. Yes, true justice requires us to recognize that He knows what is best for the family and for society and that His standards are ultimately in everyone’s best interest – be they heterosexual, homosexual, or other. In fact, agreeing with His standards is the path to liberation, even for those involved in same-sex relationships.

What about the fact that Jesus reached out to the disenfranchised and marginalized? To be sure, in doing so, He rebukes a lot of our stiff religiosity, a religiosity that is afraid to get its hands dirty. But let’s read the Gospels rightly: Jesus did not simply accept the outcasts, He changed them. Yes, He touched the leper, but that touch healed him. Yes, He ate with the prostitutes and tax-collectors (who were notoriously dishonest), but He didn’t encourage them to be better prostitutes and more proficient tax-collectors, He transformed their lives and brought them to repentance.

The inclusion Jesus practiced and that we must practice today is a transformational inclusion. Otherwise, we are hurting people more than we are healing them, and that is certainly not the path of justice.

Michael L. Brown holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University. He is the director of the Charlotte-based Coalition of Conscience and president of FIRE School of Ministry in Concord, North Carolina. He can be reached by phone at: 704-782-3760; and by email at: ministry@icnministries.org

Brown is involved in reaching out to the gay and lesbian community of Charlotte while at the same time working to resist the gay activist agenda, and he is a speaker for the Focus on the Family “Love Won Out” conferences, focusing on mobilizing communities for godly activism. He has produced two extensive DVD series, “Homosexuality, the Church, and Society,” and “Can You Be Gay and Christian?” and he recently debated Harry Knox, director of Religion and Faith for the (homosexual activist group) Human Rights Campaign. His book, A Queer Thing Happened to America, is scheduled for release in 2009.

Brown has preached around the world and appeared on numerous TV and radio programs, and is a published Old Testament scholar, a leading Jewish Christian apologist, and the author of twenty books. His website is: www.revolutionnow.org.

Somebody call the Thought Police. Americans For Truth has been accused of “transphobia’! Following in the footsteps of the homosexual lobby, but perhaps wearing high heels, transsexual activists have coined the term “transphobia” to wield against their critics. See this article: “More transphobia from AFTAH,” which criticizes our post on the “Transgender Etiquette” being encouraged at the radical “Creating Change” conference being held in Detroit beginning today.

Yes, the destruction of the English language continues apace. Transphobia and biphobia are just two more logic-defying derivatives of the infamous “homophobia” — which was ingeniously concocted and marketed by pro-homosexual activists to advance radical sexual and gender agendas.

Are we afraid of transsexuals, bisexual, homosexuals? No. Do we disagree with their lifestyle choices and the ideologies and agendas they would foist on the nation — even on impressionable children through the public schools? You bet. (Never forget that homosexual/trans activists promote the notion of ‘transgender’ youth — the ‘T’ in the destructive “GLBT youth” equation.) The deliberate conflation of disagreement with fear is one of the more sinister ways in which sexual revolutionaries have “normalized” homosexual ideology and behavior in America.

Below, a British advocate of sadomasochistic behavior sums it up well, as he thinks of ways to inject somethin akin to “SM-phobia” into the popular culture to build support for that particular perversion (emphasis added):

If I may pose a couple of questions for you to answer in your head …

Do you have any moral objections to homosexuals?
Do you have any moral objections to incest?

The majority of people will say no to the first and yes to the second. A brother and sister have the potential for inbreeding, which has serious consequences, fair enough. How about 2 brothers having sex if they are both over 18 and both consent to it? You probably still have a moral objection to it. But why? There’s no hard logical reason why it should be illegal or morally wrong if people choose to do it.

Our moral choices are very rarely actually chosen by us through logical thought processes; they are dictated to us by other people. We are programmed to think that beastiality is sick, paedophiles are evil, incest is disgusting, and until 1967, that homosexuality was just as bad. Maybe some of those things are true, maybe some aren’t.

People used to go to prison for being homosexual. So what’s changed? Homosexuals existed then and they exist now. Something is different now, though… public perception and a fear of being labelled homophobic prevent the general public from dismissing them. And so, gradually, it has become more widely accepted, and is now generally perceived as just a way of life, rather than the evil and disgusting taboo it once was.

As upstanding people, humans are programmed to fear being called anything-phobic. We fear being called racist, sexist, or homophobic, even though the more intelligent among us will admit that we harbour some of these feelings naturally. There are groups of people that fear these words more than any other. Celebrities and Politicians for example, whose careers are perched on maintaining public favour.

Do you get it? Incest, homosexuality, bestiality — they are only wrong because people SAY they are wrong — not because they are objectively wrong. This is a cynical view that rejects transcendent truth and revelation from God.

So next time you get called a homophobe, a biphobe, a transphobe, or an incest-phobe for that matter — sin-wise, that’s right up there in the Bible with homosexuality, according to Prof. Rob Gagnon, author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice and one of the world’s leading authorities on the subject — don’t fret. Just remember that an ideology that relies on name-calling, propagandistic distortions, and psychological intimidation is as bankrupt as the twisted semantics on which it relies to prop up its own myths.

I think Matt Barber missed a prime opportunity here to apologize for his rampant homophobic bigotry, his shameful verbal gay-bashing, and his unbridled heterosexism. For goodness sake, the guy was once an undefeated heavyweight boxer — send him to the Lavender Gulag at once! Joking, of course. Matt hits the nail on the head below. — Peter LaBarbera

MRSA Outbreak Among ‘Gays’ – Let the Whitewash Begin  

By J. Matt Barber

Reprinted with permission of CWA, which posted this article January 25, 2008

By even reporting on this study the media has ticked off that 500-pound homosexual activist gorilla.

You can’t help but feel a little sorry for Amanda Beck. She’s a reporter from Reuters who was among the first to cover a new study conducted by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, which warns about an outbreak of a virulent, drug-resistant, and potentially deadly strain of Staph infection afflicting certain segments of the homosexual community.

Although outbreaks of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, have primarily been confined to hospitals in the past, the study determined that, due to “high risk behaviors” beyond hospital walls – such as “anal sex” – men who have sex with men are now 13 times more likely to contract the infection.

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 Dr. John Diggs says male homosexual behavior should be discouraged for public health reasons. In 2002, Diggs authored a white paper on the “Health Risks of Gay Sex.”

The following is excerpted from an article in CNSNews.com:  

Homosexuals Squelch Facts About MRSA Outbreak, Conservatives Say
By Pete Winn
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
January 28, 2008

(CNSNews.com) – Conservative groups say the truth about a new “multi-drug resistant microbe” prevalent among homosexual men is not being presented to the public because of political correctness.

Almost two weeks ago, researchers announced they have isolated a new form of MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, an infection that is spreading through San Francisco’s homosexual community and could spread to the general community.

“These multi-drug resistant infections often affect gay men at body sites in which skin-to-skin contact occurs during sexual activities,” said Binh Diep, the University of California-San Francisco scientist who led the team that made the finding.

In fact, the researchers determined that this variant of MRSA infection is 13 to 14 times more prevalent in homosexual men than for the general population.

But the media are now obscuring that fact, according to Matt Barber, director of cultural policy for Concerned Women for America (CWA).

“The real story here is the way that the media have whitewashed this outbreak,” Barber told Cybercast News Service. “It is amazing to see what they’ve done with this.”…

Internationally known infectious disease specialist Dr. John Diggs is siding with the conservatives. The Massachusetts-based physician said treating any infection in a politically correct manner could be dangerous. Treating MRSA that way could prove fatal.

“This outbreak is especially troubling because it is a community-based form of MRSA,” said Diggs, who is an executive committee member of the Physicians Consortium. “Until recently, MRSA has typically been confined to hospitals. The implications are very serious, because we don’t know exactly where this is going to go.”

Medically speaking, any break in the skin that is exposed to the organism can then set off an infection, which can destroy “a lot of tissue” before it’s brought under control, Diggs said.

“You can take something that was relatively isolated in a small place, and suddenly, when it spreads to the general population, things such as school wrestling matches, or football games or basketball games or other sporting events, can take on a specter – they can become deadly,” he added.

The fact is, the epicenter for this outbreak is among men who are having sex with men, Diggs told Cybercast News Service. Researchers identified the rates of drug resistance on the basis of ZIP codes, not ideology.

“The particular ZIP codes they looked at were ones that were associated primarily with men who were having sex with other men,” he said, “the Castro district in San Francisco and also a healthcare center called the Fenway, here in Massachusetts, in Boston.”

Diggs noted that the study itself pointed out that the infection manifests as “an abscess in the buttocks, genitals or perineum” and concluded that it “probably started out in San Francisco, and has been disseminated by the frequent cross-coastal travel” of homosexual men traveling from San Francisco to Boston.

“Men who practice anal sex, men who have promiscuous sex, men who have multiple partners in short periods of time are much more likely to spread this disease,” he said. “It’s not because of who they are. It’s because of that they do.”

“Now I know that a lot of people have attacked those who have brought this to people’s attention as being homophobic, but the real issue – and you have to face the facts – is that men who have sex with men have very high rates of sexually transmitted disease,” Diggs said.

“When you face that reality, then you have to start taking a serious look and deciding that the best public health intervention is to discourage behavior that causes the infection to spread.”

The biggest problem with this new strain – as with any variant of MRSA, Diggs said, is that it is increasingly difficult to find drugs that will effectively combat the problem.

Click HERE to read the whole CNSNews.com article

 Homosexual “conservative” pundit Andrew Sullivan wrote sympathetically aboug ”gay” male couples’ ‘understanding of the need for extramarital [sexual] outlets” and suggested such “honesty” and “flexibility” could “undoubtedly help strengthen and inform many heterosexual bonds.”

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Emphasis in bold is added to all quotations below: 

‘Extramarital Outlets’ and Homosexual ‘Monogamy’

“The mutual nurturing and sexual expressiveness of many lesbian relationships, the solidity and space of many adult gay male relationships, are qualities sometimes lacking in more rote, heterosexual couplings.”
–Andrew Sullivan, Virtually Normal: An Argument about Homosexuality, p. 202, (1995)

“Some of this is unavailable to the male-female union: there is more likely to be greater understanding of the need for extramarital outlets between two men than between a man and a woman; and again, the lack of children gives gay couples greater freedom. Their failures entail fewer consequences for others. But something of the gay’s relationship’s necessary honesty, its flexibility, and its equality could undoubtedly help strengthen and inform many heterosexual bonds.”
–Andrew Sullivan, Virtually Normal, pp. 202-03.

Radically Alter an ‘Archaic Institution’

“A middle ground might be to fight for same-sex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely, to demand the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society’s moral codes but rather to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution.”
–Michelangelo Signorile, “Bridal Wave,” OUT magazine, December/January 1994, p. 161.

Ending Marriage’s ‘Sexist Trappings’

“[E]nlarging the [marital] concept to embrace same-sex couples would necessarily transform it into something new….Extending the right to marry to gay people — that is, abolishing the traditional gender requirements of marriage — can be one of the means, perhaps the principal one, through which the institution divests itself of the sexist trappings of the past.”
–the late homosexual activist Tom Stoddard, quoted in Roberta Achtenberg, et al, “Approaching 2000: Meeting the Challenges to San Francisco’s Families,” The Final Report of the Mayor’s Task Force on Family Policy, City and County of San Francisco, June 13, 1990, p.1.

Transform the Definition of Family 

“[Legalizing "same-sex marriage"] is also a chance to wholly transform the definition of family in American culture. It is the final tool with which to dismantle all sodomy statutes, get education about homosexuality and AIDS into public schools, and, in short, usher in a sea change in how society views and treats us.”
–Michelangelo Signorile, “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do,” OUT magazine, May 1996, p. 30.

‘Being Queer Means Transforming the Very Fabric of Society’ 

“Being queer is more than setting up house, sleeping with a person of the same gender, and seeking state approval for doing so. … Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality, and family, and in the process, transforming the very fabric of society. … As a lesbian, I am fundamentally different from non-lesbian women. …In arguing for the right to legal marriage, lesbians and gay men would be forced to claim that we are just like heterosexual couples, have the same goals and purposes, and vow to structure our lives similarly. … We must keep our eyes on the goals of providing true alternatives to marriage and of radically reordering society’s view of reality.”
–Paula Ettelbrick, “Since When Is Marriage a Path to Liberation?” in William Rubenstein, ed., Lesbians, Gay Men and the Law (New York: The New Press, 1993), pp. 401-405.

New Gay Model: Monogamy Not Essential for Marriage

“Gay life, like black culture, might even provide models and materials for rethinking family life and improving family law. I will now chart some ways in which this might be so — in particular drawing on the distinctive experience and ideals of gay male couples.

“Take sex. Traditionally, a commitment to monogamy — to the extent that it was not simply an adjunct of property law, a vehicle for guaranteeing property rights and succession — was the chief mode of sacrifice imposed upon or adopted by married couples as a means of showing their sacred valuing of their relation. But gay men have realized that while couples may choose to restrict sexual activity in order to show their love for each other, it is not necessary for this purpose; there are many other ways to manifest and ritualize commitment. And so monogamy (it appears) is not an essential component of love and marriage. The authors of “The Male Couple” found that:

[T]he majority of [gay male] couples, and all of the couples together for longer than five years, were not continuously sexually exclusive with each other. Although many had long periods of sexual exclusivity, it was not the ongoing expectation for most. We found that gay men expect mutual emotional dependability with their partners [but also believe] that relationship fidelity transcends concerns about sexuality and exclusivity.

Both because marital sacrifices must be voluntary to be meaningful and because sexual exclusivity is not essential to marital commitment, the law should not impose monogamy on married couples. And indeed, half the states have decriminalized adultery.
–Homosexual academic Richard D. Mohr, The Case for Gay Marriage, 9 NOTRE DAME J.L. ETHICS & PUB. POLICY 215, 233 (1995)

Churches: Homophobic, Antiquated Backwaters

“We can undermine the moral authority of homophobic churches by portraying them as antiquated backwaters, badly out of step with the times and with the latest findings in psychology. Against the mighty pull of institutional religion, one must set up the mightier draw of science and public opinion…. Such an unholy alliance has worked well against churches before, on such topics as divorce and abortion.”
–Marshall K. Kirk and Erastes Pill, “The Overhauling of Straight America,” homosexual magazine The Guide, November 1987.

Make Anti-Gays Look Nasty

“We intend to make the anti-gays look so nasty that average Americans will want to disassociate themselves from such types.”
–Marshall K. Kirk and Erastes Pill, “The Overhauling of Straight America,” The Guide (homosexual) magazine, November 1987.