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

By Peter LaBarbera

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brooks Backs Buggery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Homosexualizing Holy Scripture?

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

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

Sacred Sodomy?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One last turn of the knife

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pastor Paul Blair of Reclaim Oklahoma for Christ will be among those preaching against the new federal "hate crimes" law and also against organized homosexuality in a "pray-in" in front of the Human Rights Campaign's DC headquarters. HRC is a homosexual lobby group that seeks to persuade Americans that the Bible does not condemn homosexual practice -- which clearly it does.

Folks, it’s about time that the aberrant-sex activists at Human Rights Campaign (the world’s leading homosexual lobby organization) be on the receiving end of some good, old-fashioned biblical preaching — rather than “preaching” to the rest of us with their false, distorted, pro-homosexuality “gospel.” (HRC President Joe Solmonese cynically describes church sermons against homosexuality as “preaching hatred.”) Click HERE for a taste of HRC’s revisionist propaganda that turns the Bible on its head: e.g., did you know that most of the the Bible verses that condemn homosexual acts, such as Genesis 19 & 19,  actually affirm GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) people?! (Strange how the Bible’s hidden pro-homosexual-relationships message escaped every orthodox expositor for centuries but was finally discovered by those with a vested interest in … legitimizing their unnatural sex- and gender-based “identities.”) — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

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Pastors Will Engage in Civil Disobedience to Protest Inclusion of ‘Sexual Orientation’ in Hate Crimes Law

WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 /Christian Newswire/ — On Monday, November 16 at 1:30 PM, the Coalition for Faith and Freedom, an ad hoc group of concerned clergy, will rally in front of the Justice Department in Washington, D.C. to test the limits of the expanded federal hate crimes law.

On October 28, President Barack Obama signed into law a measure extending the federal hate crimes statute to include so-called sexual orientation. The ministers believe this will criminalize all criticism of homosexual behavior, including that contained in the Bible.

To test this belief and protest a clear violation of First Amendment freedom of speech and religion, various clergy will preach short sermons and read passages from the Bible regarding homosexual behavior. Like Dr. Martin Luther King and the Sixties Civil Rights movement, they will engage in civil disobedience to protest injustice.

Those participating in the pray-in will include Vision America Action President Dr. Rick Scarborough, Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, Bishop E.W. Jackson of STAND America, Brian Camenker of Mass Resistance (a group which has fought gay marriage in the Bay State), Paul Blair and Steve Kern of Reclaim Oklahoma, Pat Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, Brad Cranston of Iowa Baptists for Biblical Values, and Jim Garlow, a leader of the Prop 8 battle in California, which overturned the judicial imposition of gay marriage.

Legal challenges to the unconstitutional law may also be announced at that time. Mat Staver, Esq., founder and president of Liberty Counsel and dean of Liberty Law School, has been retained as their counsel and will be present at a press conference preceding the event.

Pastor Paul Blair, founder of Reclaiming Oklahoma for Christ, summed up the sentiments of participants, when he observed: “Pastors have preached the Bible in America for more than 400 years, pointing the people to Jesus Christ and standing against sin. If preaching the Bible is now against the law, then let us be arrested. If not, may every pastor in America know that he can stand strong and proclaim Biblical Truth without fear of persecution or prosecution.”

For more information or to schedule background interviews, contact Misty Allmond at 866-522-5582 or visionamerica1@yahoo.com or Dr. Gary Cass at 866-508-2232 or drgarycass@christianadc.org.

Sutherland Statement on Salt Lake City Nondiscrimination Ordinances and LDS  [Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] Support

In response to the November 10, 2009 decision of the Salt Lake City Council to adopt changes in Salt Lake City’s nondiscrimination ordinances, and to comments presented that evening by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), the Sutherland Institute issued the following statement:

The LDS Church, like all religions in Utah, has a vital role to play in making Utah a better place to live, work, and raise a family.  Sutherland’s important role is to help elected officials craft sound, principle-based public policy toward that same end.  We recognize the growing differences between religious and secular cultures within Salt Lake City and commend the LDS Church for its earnest desire to keep cultural and political tensions to a minimum.

As a public relations opportunity, the LDS Church’s statement before the Salt Lake City Council may assuage the minds and soften the hearts of advocates of “gay rights” in Utah.  As a policy statement, it is problematic.  The approved ordinances before the Salt Lake City Council are unsound in principle, clarity, and effect.

We have learned from California and other states that the meaning of marriage will die by a thousand cuts.  Each new inclusion in the law of such vague terms as “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” represents a mounting threat to the meaning of marriage.  Of course, each one, singly and in isolation, does no violence to the meaning of marriage.  However, the legal debate is far ahead of such parochial analysis.  Unfortunately, homosexual activists seeking to redefine the meaning of marriage — as well as activist courts seeking to do the same — do not view these types of ordinances singly or in isolation but as a pattern of public opinion to justify radical changes to law as we saw in California.

As we have stated previously, we hold that the approved ordinances are vague, dangerously broad, and unjust to the parties they seek to regulate.

We, once again, call on the Utah State Legislature to overturn these local ordinances on the basis of sound public policy.

On October 12, 2009, Sutherland Institute published a statement addressing the then-proposed changes in Salt Lake City’s nondiscrimination ordinance.  Read it by clicking here.

Dear Readers,

We may be witnessing the “official” split of the American pro-family movement against homosexuality into two camps: the principled groups and churches that oppose all efforts to recognize and approve homosexuality as normal (AFTAH is in this camp); and “soft” family organizations and churches that oppose homosexual “marriage” (and sometimes “civil unions”) but which support other parts of the homosexualist agenda. Below is a version of an e-mail I sent yesterday to pro-family leaders across the United States upon learning of this misguided decision by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) to support special legal “rights” based on homosexuality and gender confusion.

The pro-”gay” decision by the LDS Church to back a local “sexual orientation” law — widely reported by the media — is very bad news for our side.  The proliferation of newfangled laws granting special protections based on objectively disordered sexual/gender behaviors created the basis for punishing dissenters and people of faith long before the “gay marriage” debate became the dominant issue that it is in the “culture wars.”  I think I speak for us all in saying that we are very grateful to the Mormon Church for all it has done to defend against same-sex “marriage” (I personally am astonished by the LDS’ huge contribution to the cause). But “protecting marriage” while legitimizing government-backed preferred status based on changeable, wrong, and very unhealthy (even deadly) behaviors is a Pyrrhic victory if there ever was one.

Moreover, allowing homosexual special rights will only be used by liberal judges to rationalize their imposition of “gay marriage,” anyway (as has already happened), so what’s to be gained by such concessions? [See Gary Glenn's article on this point HERE]

Surely, much is to be lost.  Once we give up the principled argument, we torpedo our moral authority — which is our greatest and most precious asset.  If homosexuality (sodomy) is truly a crime against nature (and implicitly nature’s God), as Noah Webster defined it in 1828, and liberties truly come from God as I trust we all believe, then how can we possibly acquiesce to “rights” based on sin and perversion and keep our credibility as truth-tellers?  Are special homosexuality-based legal protections “civil rights” or a mockery of same?  If churches back “gay rights” (and the LDS is hardly the first), is there some truth to the idea that those of us who remain opposed to ALL aspects of the “GLBT agenda” are “bigots” or somehow extreme in our worldview?  And let’s be honest: our movement has already begun to ostracize its most principled warriors: I notice that everyone [in the pro-family movement] loves to use Brian Camenker’s and Amy Contrada’s indispensable, firsthand research but strangely some fail to credit MassResistance for their work. (They’re too “homophobic,” I guess.)

And where does the gay “special rights” train stop?  Is there some legal “right” to be homosexual parents?  Are school “sexual orientation” nondiscrimination codes legit (and even noble)?  Once you begin to cave, it’s hard to stop — while our cultural foes heap praise on us for every defection to their bogus “civil rights” approach.  Naturally, at the same time, the GLBT groups and their liberal allies will escalate their attacks against uncompromising pro-family groups as representing “extreme hate,” the fringe, etc.  Their goal is to marginalize us, and this certainly makes it easier. As we damage our pro-family/truth “brand,” we boost their spurious “equality” brand.

I fear some in the “pro-family” movement are dumbing and defining “victory” down so that we can proclaim it even as we lose the much harder and real culture war against normalizing homosexuality and gender confusion. This is a conversation our movement needs to have — because it appears there are two “missions” emerging from our once-unified coalition: one dedicated solely to preserving marriage (hopefully without allowing “civil unions” but sometimes even making that huge concession); the other dedicated as always to fighting every attempt to normalize homosexuality and using the government (and corporations) to sanction and celebrate homosexuality-based relationships. I say that our long-term survival — not to mention our integrity — rests on sticking with the latter mission.  Best – Peter LaBarbera, www.AmericansForTruth.org

A Shocker from Salt Lake City:

The LDS (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Church now officially endorses so-called “gay rights” laws, specifically a Salt Lake City law prohibiting “discrimination” on the basis of “sexual orientation” (homosexual behavior) and “gender identity” (cross-dressing).

From the official LDS Church website: http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/church-supports-nondiscrimination-ordinances

ASSOCIATED PRESS: “Mormons throw support behind gay-rights cause”

DESERET NEWS: “Mormon church supports Salt Lake City’s protections for gay rights”

Astoundingly, both the Massachusetts and California supreme courts expressly and specifically cited their states’ identical “sexual orientation” laws regarding employment and housing as a legal justification for their rulings legalizing so-called homosexual “marriage.”  That indisputable fact alone renders the Church spokesman’s claim that its endorsement of the “sexual orientation” ordinance poses no threat to marriage to be utter nonsense, especially since the Church’s new position will certainly boost homosexual activists’ ongoing efforts in the Utah Legislature to enact an identical state law.

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Goodridge v. Mass. Dept. of Health: “Several amici suggest that prohibiting marriage by same-sex couples reflects community consensus that homosexual conduct is immoral. Yet Massachusetts has a strong affirmative policy of preventing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. See G.L. c. 151B (employment, housing, credit, services); G.L. c. 265, § 39 (hate crimes); G.L. c. 272, § 98 (public accommodation).” Page14 at: http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/conlaw/goodridge111803opn.pdf

California Supreme Court, In Re: Marriage Cases: “See, for example, Civil Code section 51 (barring sexual orientation discrimination in the provision of services by any business establishment); Government Code sections 12920 (barring sexual orientation discrimination in employment), 12955 (barring sexual orientation discrimination in housing)… In light of this recognition, sections 1 and 7 of article I of the California Constitution cannot properly be interpreted to withhold from gay individuals the same basic civil right of personal autonomy and liberty — including the right to establish, with the person of one’s choice, an officially recognized and sanctioned family — that the California Constitution affords to heterosexual individuals.” pp 68-69 at: http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/archive/S147999.PDF

U.S. House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, reaffirmed the threat such “sexual orientation” laws pose to marriage in commenting on the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), legislation which would add “sexual orientation” to federal civil rights laws regarding employment.  If enacted, Boehner said, ENDA would “put activist judges in the position of imposing same-sex marriage and civil union laws on states. Simply by using ENDA as the basis of their decisions – just as state Supreme Courts have done with state-level ENDA laws in the past – liberal judges will be empowered under this legislation to single-handedly undermine state and federal marriage laws across the country. I’m disappointed that the Majority turned back a straightforward proposal offered by House Republicans to protect state and federal marriage laws from being overturned, modified, or restricted by activist judges as a result of this deeply flawed legislation.” http://republicanleader.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=78178

Such laws have also been used to discriminate against and punish individuals and businesses who refuse to approve of homosexual behavior and cross-dressing.

It is difficult to believe that LDS officials could be so grossly ignorant of the demonstrably proven threat such laws pose to marriage and to the religious freedoms of the individual, special exemptions for “religious organizations” and the government notwithstanding.  It’s further astounding that church officials would endorse a law banning “discrimination” based on “gender identity,” rendering it illegal for an employer to refuse to hire a man because he (1) dresses as and claims to believe he’s a woman; and (2) demands on that basis to use the women’s restroom at work.

It’s notable in contrast that the Catholic Church refuses to endorse forcing such “sexual orientation” laws on the rest of society just because homosexual activists are politically calculating enough to (at least temporarily) exempt churches. [Editor's Note: in certain areas such as Maine, Catholic bishops or leaders have endorsed homosexual activist laws against the teachings of their Church; such backing in heavily Catholic states usually makes the difference in passage of pro-homosexual legislation.]

From a Vatican directive instructing Catholic bishops to oppose so-called “sexual orientation” laws: “Where a matter of the common good is concerned, it is inappropriate for church authorities to endorse or remain neutral toward adverse legislation even if it grants exceptions to church organizations and institutions. The church has the responsibility to promote family life and the public morality of the entire civil society on the basis of fundamental moral values, not simply to protect herself from the application of harmful laws.”  http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CDFHOMOL.htm

We deeply sympathize with the shock that will no doubt be felt by many members of the LDS Church who do understand the implications of so-called “sexual orientation” laws and have expended great effort to oppose them and to educate others.

For example…

Meridian Magazine / The Place Where Latter-day Saints Gather: “Of course, the problem here is that the term ’sexual orientation’ has no innate meaning (in contrast with ‘race’, which does) and no historic or community value (such as ‘religion’) and would require the Utah State Legislature to fabricate its definition.  In other words, adding the term ’sexual orientation’ to Utah law, as demanded (by homosexual activists), would give lawyers standing to attack employers and property owners.” http://www.ldsmag.com/ideas/090204six.html

United Famlies International: “We adamantly oppose the UNHRC sexual orientation provisions for three reasons: 1. Attempts to legalize same sex marriage around the world would be substantially strengthened if homosexual behavior becomes an internationally recognized ‘human right.’” http://meridianmagazine.com/familywatch/040319newsletter.html

UFI brochure on “Sexual Orientation,” perhaps the best and most comprehensive single source on the subject we’ve ever seen… http://unitedfamilies.org/products/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=17

Then there are the targets of more crass homosexual extremism such as Maggie Gallagher, Greg Quinlan, AFTAH, Mike Heath, and pretty much every pro-family leader who still resists the “queer” activist agenda — and even churches that stick to the Word of God on sexual morality or that dare advance the redemptive truth that men and women can overcome homosexuality through Christ.

A relatively new person on the victim list is Julea Ward,  a graduate student at Eastern Michigan University’s (EMU) School of Counseling who was expelled from the program because she said that as a counselor she could not affirm a client’s homosexual relationship due to her belief in Jesus Christ and biblical morality. Ward is being helped by Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a Christian legal defense group. – Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org. This is an ADF video:

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When PR flacks take over moral messaging

Posted: November 06, 2009, WorldNetDaily.com; 1:00 am Eastern

By Linda Harvey
© 2009

Pro-family forces prevailed on Nov. 3 in the state of Maine to preserve traditional marriage –– for now –– and praise God for that. Yet the Stand for Marriage Maine campaign ceded some precious ground in the process and threw long-time family activists under the bus instead of working with them as they could have.

Christian policy professionals all across the country were aghast after watching the last-minute TV ad by SMM, which said this:

Abandoning traditional marriage entails real consequences, yet we want to be tolerant of gays. Maine’s Domestic Partnership laws provide substantial legal protection for gay couples. Any problems remaining can be addressed without dismantling traditional marriage. It’s possible to support the civil rights of all citizens and protect traditional marriage at the same time.

This is a huge concession to the hopes and aspirations of “gay” activists. Are there indeed “rights” that need to be accorded to the behavior of homosexuality? No self-respecting Christian would take this position. This paves the way for the pseudo-marriage of “domestic partnerships.” The big question is: Why did “conservatives” do this?

Pardon my cynicism, but my background includes two decades in the wonderful world of advertising and public relations, where truth is a sometimes-disposable commodity and almost any position or product can be sold if you have enough media and research dollars.

So immediately I am thinking, “OK, what current or future client are the architects of Stand for Marriage Maine making sure they don’t alienate?” Because the compromised last-minute change in message made no sense.

The ads throughout most of the Maine campaign emphasized the effect on what will be taught to schoolchildren if marriage is legalized for homosexuals. This was a smart, winning strategy that also happens to be true, and school incidents in Massachusetts and California validate that claim. The group Mass Resistance in Massachusetts, headed by long-time pro-family activist Brian Camenker, has been invaluable in researching, tracking and revealing exactly how school-based homosexual advocates shove the lifestyle down the throats of families in that state, a tactic that went on steroids following the homosexual marriage court ruling in 2003. The incidents with the Parker and Withlin families were revealed to the nation primarily through the efforts of Mass Resistance.

In California, a lesbian teacher invited her grade-school class to her “wedding,” providing Exhibit A about the poor judgment empowered when same-sex marriage becomes law –– and this incident was featured in the winning Prop 8 campaign.

But the student endangerment message made no sense paired with the last-minute, “We’re really tolerant” positioning of the campaign as cited above. Opponents would easily be able to see through the apparent hypocrisy: Why should parents worry about their children being indoctrinated into homosexual acceptance, if “gays” ought to be tolerated? If we ought to respect their “rights”? This sudden shift had a desperation tinge to it and leaves pro-family forces vulnerable in the future to accusations of lying through our teeth. Christians do not do well with hypocrisy. We need to tell the truth.

The Catholic Church in Maine made similar foolish accommodations. In reacting to the victory, Bishop Richard Malone said that the church upholds marriage yet “respects and accepts gays.” Really? The Catholic Church accepts homosexual behavior? Two men having sex with one another? Women excluding men from their lives and shacking up as lesbians? This is respectable and acceptable in Catholic teachings? This seems to say there might be truth to the claim of “gay” identity, something homosexualists would love for Christians to embrace.

When that happens, they have won the war.

Wait until the next marriage campaign in Maine and the left pulls that quote out of the historical record. Poor judgment –– and false Christian doctrine, by the way.

Two weeks ago, Brian Camenker joined long-time pro-family warrior Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth and Maine’s Paul Madore at a press conference in Maine. These veteran pro-family professionals revealed what no one had yet talked about: the rotten core of homosexual activism behind the No on 1 effort. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, for example, has a not-so-long-term strategy to legalize every sexual behavior imaginable.

Sexual freedom –– some would say anarchy –– is where this is all headed. Marriage is not the issue: Gaining official permission for “sexual minority” lifestyles is, along with getting the muscle needed to silence the opponents. Marriage law is that muscle.

This information about the real objective needs to be taught to most of the public. After years of silence from the mainstream media about the realities of “gay” life and the true agenda, Americans need to be re-educated on this issue. Despite being flaunted as “pride” in annual homosexual parades all over this country and in Maine as well, most citizens don’t attend those, don’t frequent “gay” bathhouses or porn sites and remain unenlightened about how bold and extreme this movement has become.

But despite the teaching moment that LaBarbera, Madore and Camenker took advantage of, and despite the excellent media coverage their statements received, the Stand for Marriage campaign did not embrace them. In fact, they did everything possible to discourage their efforts, both in public and behind the scenes. Scott Fish of Stand for Marriage told the Maine media he “disavowed” any association with these brave pro-family warriors.

This happened despite the fact that, in its campaign, Stand for Marriage Maine utilized research on school impact provided by some of these very people. No good deed goes unpunished, apparently.

If one looks at the website for Frank Schubert, head public affairs consultant behind the Maine pro-marriage campaign, we read, “One of Mr. Schubert’s strengths is the ability to synthesize complicated public policy issues into understandable messages, helping his clients define the debate on their terms.”

Well, those “terms” ended up as compromised and confused, which doesn’t bode well for the future. Nor, by the way, is the message in line with Scripture. God has no tolerance for damaging, destructive homosexual behavior. This kind of short-term thinking may win a few battles, but will guarantee we lose the war.

________________________________________

Linda Harvey is a radio talk-show host and president of Mission America, a Christian pro-family organization.

Posted by MassResistance October 30, 2009:

MassResistance reports: A Massachusetts man was fired from a national retail corporation because of his traditional beliefs on same-sex marriage.  Peter Vadala was formally dismissed from his job as second deputy manager of the Brookstone store at Boston’s Logan Airport on August 12, 2009, after a supervisor reported him to Human Resources regarding an incident two days earlier. Story continues under video, which was shot by our friends at MassResistance:

As Peter described the incident (see video above), he came to work on August 10 and began his day normally. A female manager from another store was in the store and began talking to Peter about her upcoming marriage.  When Peter asked “where is he taking you for the honeymoon,” she corrected him and said she was not getting married to “he” but to another woman.

Peter did not immediately react, but when the manager sensed Peter’s discomfort with the subject of same-sex “marriage”, the woman apparently continued bringing it up to Peter throughout the day, reiterating that she was getting married to another woman. Finally, after the fourth or fifth time she brought it up, Peter remarked that his Christian beliefs did not accept same-sex “marriage.” At that point the woman became very angry and bluntly told Peter that he needed to “get over it” and said that she would be immediately contacting the Human Resources department.

A few hours later Peter was notified by a Human Resources representative that he was suspended from work without pay, effective immediately. Two days later, on August 12, after some further interaction with the Human Resources department, he was formally notified that he was terminated from the company.

Brookstone’s termination letter to Peter states that “in the State of Massachusetts, same-sex marriage is legal.” It goes on to describe Peter’s actions as constituting “harassment” and that his comments were “inappropriate and unprofessional.” It further accuses him of “imposing” his beliefs upon others. … [continue at MassResistance site]

READ THE REST OF THE STORY on MassResistance’s website

______________________

Heath, who is also Board Chairman of AFTAH, writes on his blog:

Righteousness prevails

There’s lots of disappointed people today.  Not just in Maine, but all across America.  Maine was supposed to become the first state to endorse homosexual marriage on a statewide ballot.  It didn’t happen, thank God.

It was close, but they’ve always been close.  Ever since I helped start the debate about using referendums to stop the queer political movement in 1991 its been close.  We realized then that the politicians would be incapable of halting the slide toward the full legal endorsement of sex outside of marriage.  We believed that the people would do the right thing.

In referendum after referendum over nearly twenty years I fought side-by-side with thousands of fellow Mainers and slowed the propagandists and politicians.  Working behind the scenes gay activists still managed to enact all of their agenda except for marriage.  It was gratifying this year to finally see substantial statewide and national groups step up to face this goliath.  I was, however, horrified by the concession proclaimed by Stand for Marriage this past weekend.  They repeated their endorsement of domestic partnerships and gay rights, going so far as to suggest that more rights to protect homosexuality may be in order.

I pray this election result signals that we have turned the corner, and that we are going to listen to our hearts.  Sexual love is made for a man and a woman to enjoy in the context of a life long commitment.  Surely we don’t want to build a society where our children and grandchildren are encouraged to invent new perversions to avoid boredom?

The path to sanity is well defined.  We don’t need experts to help us define marriage.  We already know it when we see it.  We simply need to see more of a commitment to it in ourselves, and those we love.

Homosexuality has absolutely nothing to do with marriage.  Homosexuality is a sickness.  It’s a sin.

We need to stop putting up with it.  There is nothing civil about hiding the truth from those we love.  And the truth about sex outside of marriage is that it hurts, it’s bad for us.  We need to avoid it.

We need to choose life over sex.  Sex is for life … it creates life.  Sex and life must be connected in our thinking.  We come together sexually in the context of marriage to celebrate creation, the creation of a unique individual human life.  It is perilous to disconnect sex from creation.  It is even more perilous to pretend that pleasurable sex should be associated with acts unspeakable.

In the interest of protecting and affirming all of Maine’s people, especially our children and grandchildren, we must repeal domestic partnership laws that provide benefits on the basis of homosexuality, we must de-fund the so-called “civil rights teams” [pro-homosexual student groups] and remove “sexual orientation and gender identity” from the Maine Human Rights Act and the Maine Civil Rights Act.  It would also be prudent to reinstate Maine’s anti-sodomy law that was quietly removed from our criminal code in the late 1970s.

We must not stop fighting until Maine’s laws are once again just, and equal rights are guaranteed to all Maine citizens on the basis of good conduct, not sinful behavior.  For the sake of our children and grandchildren we must fight this evil.  And we will fight.

We will never surrender.  There is too much at stake.

I agree with my good friend Matt Barber, who is also a Board Member of Americans For Truth in addition to his important work at Liberty Counsel. It is not ethical nor good strategy for the “pro-family” movement to promote one evil and public-policy disaster (changeable and sinful behavior as a government-backed “civil right”) to fight another (homosexual “marriage”). Yet that is precisely what the Yes on 1 campaign’s pro-domestic partnership ad called “It’s Possible” did. [Click HERE for AFTAH's election story.] Here again is the text of that misguided Yes on 1 ad used in Maine:

‘Abandoning traditional marriage entails real consequences, yet we want to be tolerant of gays. Maine’s Domestic Partnership laws provide substantial legal protection for gay couples. Any problems remaining can be addressed without dismantling traditional marriage. It’s possible to support the civil rights of all citizens and protect traditional marriage at the same time.’

We who claim to follow God are lacking in integrity if we promote the normalization of homosexuality as part of some (perhaps well-intentioned) utilitarian plan to ostensibly “save” traditional marriage. Indeed, the irony of the ad text above is that progressive concessions on “domestic partnership” and “civil unions” legislation will, in fact, dismantle traditional marriage. Yes on 1 PR consultant Frank Schubert’s compromising spin will pave the way for disaster in the pro-family movement, as it undermines our greatest strength: our commitment to the truth. It’s time to reject Political Correctness and get back to basics in the pro-family movement. — Peter LaBarbera, www.americansfortruth.org

P.S. Young people won’t buy this political spin anyway: looking for hypocrisy, they will merely say that if “gay domestic partners” truly are worthy of state recognition in the name of civil rights, then why NOT allow them to marry (and why NOT teach children “gay”-affirming lessons in school)?  The debate will only turn around when we succeed in re-explaining to Americans — both young and old — why homosexual behavior is wrong and is NOT anything like a “civil right,” and about how newfangled homosexual “rights” negate our precious First Amendment freedoms.

Read Matt’s statement below and then his additional remarks that follow it:

____________________________________

STATEMENT BY MATT BARBER
Contact:  jmattbarber@comcast.net

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Nov. 4, 2009

Counterfeit Marriage Rejected in Maine

Lynchburg, VA – Matt Barber, Director of Cultural Affairs with both Liberty Counsel and Liberty Alliance Action, issued the following statement on news that the voters of Maine have rejected counterfeit “same-sex marriage” by 53% – 47%:

“There’s good news and bad news here,” said Barber. “The good news is that even in one of the most liberal States in the Union, Maine, the people have once again rejected the ridiculous and oxymoronic notion of ‘same sex marriage.’ The momentum has again shifted –– hopefully for good this time –– in favor of protecting legitimate marriage. A counterfeit is a counterfeit. An orange is an orange no matter how much you want it to be a turnip. This isn’t about ‘marriage.’ It’s about hurting and broken people desperately seeking affirmation of an objectively deviant lifestyle. One that, even in their heart of hearts, they know to be a dead end. As for the militant ‘No on 1’ homosexual activists?  I’m reminded of spoiled children dressing up and playing house, refusing to come in when mom calls for dinner.

“Here’s the bad news. The margin of victory could have been greater. Many behind the ‘Yes on 1’ campaign, rather than simply telling the truth, chose the Neville Chamberlain approach. They merely circled the wagons around the word ‘marriage,’ even suggesting that ‘domestic partnerships’ (‘gay marriages’ by another name) are acceptable. This makes no sense. If that’s a viable compromise, then why not simply allow ‘gay’ duos the word ‘marriage’? It’s an incongruity that demands an explanation. This is an historic battle for the minds and souls of our children –– for our very culture. The mealy-mouthed approach must end. This  is not just about ‘marriage.’  It has everything to do with forced affirmation of homosexuality – under penalty of law. Indeed everyone who fought hard to defend marriage in Maine is to be congratulated, but if it weren’t for a brave group of truth tellers – Paul Madore, Peter LaBarbera  and Brian Camenker ––  who came to Maine in the final hour to hold a press conference and address the pink elephant in the room –– homosexual deviancy and the radical ‘gay’ agenda –– counterfeit marriage might have prevailed.”

###

Added comments by Barber for Americans For Truth:

“Here’s is a mere sampling of what God – the sovereign creator of the universe – has to say about deviant homosexual conduct which He calls ‘abominable’:

‘Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.’ Leviticus 18:22

‘Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.’ - Romans 1:26-27

“By contrast, here’s what the organized “Yes on 1” campaign had to say about the same topic in an ad [view the ad HERE] they ran up to yesterdays vote:

‘Abandoning traditional marriage entails real consequences, yet we want to be tolerant of gays. Maine’s Domestic Partnership laws provide substantial legal protection for gay couples. Any problems remaining can be addressed without dismantling traditional marriage. It’s possible to support the civil rights of all citizens and protect traditional marriage at the same time.’‘

“It’s simply impossible to reconcile the two. If the Pro-Family movement wishes to survive, we must stop listening to political focus groups and PR , and start listening to the inerrant word of God.”

Add Maine to the List: Homosexual "marriage" activists lost in Maine, while pro-family advocates debate the best tactics to oppose counterfeit "marriage" and all aspects of the homosexual agenda.

By Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

Tuesday was a mixed bag for pro-family citizens concerned about the homosexual agenda. Here are the main election stories surrounding homosexuality that we are following:

• “Gay marriage” goes down to defeat in Maine — Congratulations to all who supported the effort to preserve traditional marriage in Maine! Despite a massive effort by outside homosexual activist groups to influence the vote, a homosexual “marriage” bill went down to defeat in Maine through a “People’s Veto” — whereby voters can reject a law by plebiscite. The YES on 1 lead was inching up in the late hours Tuesday and early morning. At 2:00 AM EST, with 87% of the precincts tallied, the Bangor Daily News reported that the “YES” vote to repeal Maine’s new “gay marriage” law was ahead by about 52.75 to 47.25%. In the final days of the campaign, Americans For Truth and MassResistance worked with Maine pro-family stalwart Paul Madore of the Maine Grassroots Coalition to educate citizens on the role of outside radical homosexual groups in the “NO” campaign. Madore ran a print ad featuring Brian Camenker’s popular article, “What Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ has Done to Massachusetts”; it reached 500,000 Mainers. And Madore’s press conference last Wednesday — though curiously disavowed by the pro-traditional-marriage “Yes on 1″ group, Stand For Marriage Maine (SFFM) — received wide media coverage. That, combined with some hard-hitting ads by SFMM targeting the promotion of “homosexual marriage” in Maine schools, may have tipped the balance against the “gay marriage” law.
• “Gay” lobby wins in liberal Kalamazoo, Mich. — A pro-homosexual, pro-”transgender” non-discrimination ballot measure in Kalamazoo, Michigan, has prevailed easily by a 62-38 margin, according to the Kalamazoo News. Homosexual activists celebrated the vote, which was a defeat for a multi-racial, multi-religious coalition opposed to the “special rights” initiative. See this OneNewsNow story featuring American Family Association of Michigan’s Gary Glenn. Kalamazoo is a liberal college town and Glenn tells AFTAH that he estimates that the pro-family forces were outspent by the homosexual side by 10-1.
• GOP sweep in VA; last-minute liberal “bigotry” smear against Ken Cuccinelli for opposing homosexual behavior flops. — Virginia returned to its Republican-dominant ways on Election Day with a GOP sweep of statewide races,

  Ken Cuccinelli, slammed by the Washington Post for speaking truth.

  led by the state’s new Governor-elect, Bob McDonnell. That included a landslide victory for Republican  Ken Cuccinelli for attorney general. Just days before the vote, the Washington Post ran an editorial against the GOP conservative titled “Mr. Cuccinelli’s Bigotry.” The Post and fellow pro-”gay” liberals were astounded at Cuccinelli’s forthright stance against granting “rights” based on homosexuality, as the Post indignantly reported:   “Homosexual acts, said Mr. Cuccinelli, currently a state senator, are ‘intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural law-based country it’s appropriate to have policies that reflect that. . . . They don’t comport with natural law. I happen to think that it represents … behavior that is not healthy to an individual and in aggregate is not healthy to society.” The Post stated that “as attorney general, [Cuccinelli] would be an embarrassment to Virginia.” But the state’s voters paid little heed to the newspaper’s pro-”gay” political correctness, and elected Cuccinelli in a landslide.

• Homosexual activists squeak by with win in Washington State: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports regarding Referendum 71, which grants marriage-like benefits to the state’s homosexual couples: “Voters Tuesday were approving Washington’s new ‘everything but marriage’ law that greatly expands the rights of gay couples. In early election returns Referendum 71 was passing 51 percent to 49 percent.”

Debate over tactics

In post-election analysis, we will be contrasting and analyzing the messaging strategies of the NO campaign in Washington State versus the YES campaign in Maine — since both were fought in liberal states. The Washington State campaign focused on educating voters about disordered homosexual relationships, while the Maine effort — led by California Prop 8 strategist Frank Schubert — eschewed talking about homosexuality (except regarding the forced teaching of pro-”gay” lessons in schools) out of fear that such discussions would potentially alienate moderate voters. The Schubert tactic of decoupling homosexual behavior from anti-gay-”marriage” campaigns is also championed by Maggie Gallagher, the country’s most prominent traditional-marriage defender.

To the consternation of conservative pro-family observers who fought against legislation granting rights based on aberrant sexual behavior, Schubert’s Maine PR strategy actually affirmed the  “rights” of the state’s homosexual couples — with a TV ad entitled “It’s Possible” that approvingly cited the “legal protection” that homosexuals couples possess under Maine’s “Domestic Partners” law. Here is the controversial portion of the “It’s Possible” SFFM ad:

“Abandoning traditional marriage entails real consequences, yet we want to be tolerant of gays. Maine’s Domestic Partnership laws provide substantial legal protection for gay couples. Any problems remaining can be addressed without dismantling traditional marriage. It’s possible to support the civil rights of all citizens and protect traditional marriage at the same time.”

This ad and Stand For Marriage Maine’s “marriage-only” strategy touched off criticism among pro-family advocates who adhere to a principled approach of opposing any endorsement of homosexual behavior/relationships — tacit or otherwise — and who take care not to condone (proud) “gay” identity.

Despite the pro-family victory in Maine, electoral and cultural momentum remains with the homosexual activists.  Yesterday’s election results on homosexual ballot measures from Washington to Maine evince a continuation deterioration in support for the pro-family position AGAINST homosexual activist goals, including “same-sex marriage.” Maine is an instructive example of the downward trajectory of the pro-family position (a trend that compels Schubert’s “moderate” strategy, although his critics say his methods exacerbate the downward spiral): the northeastern state went from twice rejecting pro-homosexual “sexual orientation” laws in similar “People’s Veto” elections — in 1998 and 2001 — to passing both “gay rights” and “domestic partners” laws in the last few years, to finally rejecting homosexual “marriage” by a relatively narrow margin yesterday. Surely Maine’s homosexual activists will be returning with another attempt to enact homosexual “marriage” in the not-too-distant future.

Highlighting Outside ‘Gay’ Extremism in Maine:

The NGLTF boasts HERE how they helped mobilize grassroots activists to pass homosexual “marriage” in the Maine legislature, and then how they stepped up their grassroots and monetary assistance in an attempt to defeat Question 1, a ballot measure to be decided today. If Question 1 passes — i.e., a YES vote — it would repudiate the “gay marriage” legislation signed into law by Gov. John Baldacci (D).

Here’s the link for the audio on lesbian activist Pam Spaulding’s AFTAH-bashing website. (There are audio files and video links.) If you are a glutton for punishment, you can read the hateful ad hominem attacks and irrational putdowns by “Louise” (from Maine) and others on Pam’s left-wing-nut blog. (Looking for a straw man to knock down, Louise calls our event a “rally” though it was an informational press conference.)

You want to see some more raw homosexual hatred? Go to this snippet from the press conference posted on YouTube, and read the comments under the video. Nobody — and I mean nobody — hates like the nasties on homosexual side. [Clarification: by this I mean not all homosexuals, of course, but the activists among them who traffic in vilification and mean-spirited verbal assaults against their opponents, and even blatantly anti-religious attacks.] This movement more than any other hates people of faith, or I should say those who act on their heartfelt belief that homosexuality is wrong. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

AUDIO LINKS to Maine press conference found on this page: http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/13803/peter-labarberas-antigay-rally-at-maine-statehouse-draws-feeble-numbers

Pro-homosexual activist Jesse Connolly (right) — campaign manager for the Maine pro-”same-sex-’marriage’” effort “No on 1″– issued two complete fabrications about me, after I represented AFTAH at a pro-traditional-marriage press conference held Wednesday at the Maine capitol in Augusta:

These malicious comments by Connolly were reported on the homosexual blog “Pam’s House Blend”:

“And they [referring to leaders of the pro-traditional-marriage group  'Stand For Marriage'] can’t stand behind Peter LaBarbera, who has attacked Ben & Jerry’s, supported rescinding women’s right to vote and believes we should return to the Old Testament where gay people were stoned…..”

Connolly’s assertions are false and absurd. As to the “stoning” accusation, AFTAH embraces orthodox Christian teachings on this matter: we have always condemned violence and true hatred against homosexuals. For example, in this 2006 AFTAH article, “Stoning homosexuals: which is the real voice of hatred?, I noted the stark contrast between Christians — who hope for practicing homosexuals to repent of their sin, accept Christ’s forgiveness, and leave the lifestyle — and radical Muslims, who favor draconian, violent punishments against homosexuals (yes, even including stoning, which would commence only after the violator is pushed off a “high building”).

As to wanting to deny women the vote, I don’t know where Connolly got that one. Again, it is completely false. As a legislative aide and prominent Maine political operative, Connolly — who is reportedly on leave from his job as chief of staff to Maine House Speaker Hannah Pingree (D) — should exercise greater care before leveling serious accusations.

However, I will say this: I hope as many Maine women as possible vote “Yes” on Ballot Initiative 1 this Tuesday — to reject counterfeit “same-sex marriage” in the Pine Tree State.

Because of our principled position against homosexual behavior, Americans For Truth is a frequent target of the Left’s smears, lies and plain old mean-spiritedness. But pro-homosexual activists might consider that much of the misinformation and attack pieces posted against conservative groups like AFTAH does not qualify as authoritative source material.

Jesse Connolly’s reckless and baseless accusations against me — which reinforce the crudest and most uninformed secular biases against Bible-believing Christians — definitely qualify as an act of hate.

We call on Connolly to publicly retract and apologize for this malicious smear.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” (Daniel 3: 16-18)

By Peter LaBarbera

Folks, in the few years I have known Matt Barber — I met him in 2005 after he was fired by Allstate Insurance Company after writing an article on his own time critical of homosexuality — I have come to see him is an antidote of sorts for the ills besetting the “anti-homosexual-agenda” movement. (Calling it “anti-gay” makes it sound like we’re against people when we really oppose destructive, unnatural and changeable behaviors that for centuries have been prohibited according to Judeo-Christian moral teachings; “gay” self-identity is a very new concept, historically speaking.)

Barber’s contribution to our noble cause should not be underestimated: he is just as unapologetic and aggressive for biblical truth as hell-bent activists like Kevin Jennings and HRC’s Joe Solmonese are for their evil agendas. That’s why coming to see him at AFTAH’s banquet on Saturday, October 24 will be so good for your soul. Each of us needs to have our batteries recharged to fight the anti-Christian Left — and there is no force, short of Muslim extremists perhaps, that poses a greater threat to our God-given American liberties than the homosexual/transsexual activist juggernaut.

Matt will pump you up to fight on for God, family and country and help put things in perspective about why we must resist the nefarious “GLBT” (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) lobby — or lose our nation and its precious freedoms as we know them.

STUDENT/PASTOR DISCOUNT:  I am so convinced that Matt will spur you on to do good deeds for the Kingdom that I have cut the price in half for pastors and teenage students to attend: from $50 to $25 per person. Would you please prayerfully consider sponsoring your pastor or teenage students (and their friends) for $25 to hear Matt’s talk? If you cannot muster up the $25, then e-mail AFTAH and we’ll find a way to get that person there — because I do not want anyone to miss this uplifting presentation for lack of money. You can call 910-308-7619 or write us at americansfortruth@comcast.net.

In a world of insane political correctness and perversion- and gender-confusion-based “rights,” our young people and spiritual leaders NEED to hear Barber’s bold defense of truth.

If it is true that religious America is filled with “evangellyfish” and “Catholic cop-outs” who are marked by their timidity in the public square and disdain for the “culture wars,” then Matt is just the shark we need to tear down their bogus excuses and restore a vision of courageous Christian citizenship in this blessed nation. He doesn’t try to be “nicer than Jesus,” as many Christians do today who cannot bear to apply God’s “tough love” standard to this Sin Movement euphemistically known as “gay civil rights.” Instead, Matt just stands fearlessly on the truth that flows from the Bible — backed by reason — and fights as hard for it today as he did in the ring as a professional heavyweight boxer who went undefeated before bowing out due to an injury. (Click HERE to watch Matt’s knock-out fights on YouTube.)

If you fall into one of these categories, then hearing Matt’s tough but true message on Oct. 24 is just what you need:

• Are you overly defensive about fighting in the “culture war” or think that it gets in the way of Christians “ministering to the gay community”?
• Do you shy away from cultural confrontation and think it’s more “Christ-like” for believers to stay out of the messy Culture Wars?
• Do you have doubts about the rightness of our cause or whether God’s word remains valid in today’s “gay”-affirming culture? Are you sometimes embarrassed or resentful about the Bible’s strong prohibition against homosexual sin, or find yourself questioning God’s word even as you accept the flawed presumptions of homosexual apologists?
• Are you nervous about being called “intolerant” or hateful if you stand up for real marriage and against the many demands of the GLBT movement?
• Do you feel homosexuals largely have no choice about their “orientation” so why shouldn’t they have (homosexuality-based) “civil rights” like other minorities?
• Do you feel we’ve already lost this battle so what’s the point of fighting on? That “same-sex marriage” is inevitable? Or that the Culture War is futile because the “end times” are upon us and Bible predicts immorality will continue to grow anyway?
• Are you beaten down by the persistence and power of ungodly forces in our culture? Are you so sick of this issue you just don’t want to deal with it anymore?
• Do you think protecting the word “marriage” is the best we can hope for when it comes to stopping the GLBT movement?
• Do you feel like “gays and lesbians” are largely victims in our culture — including at the hands of “rigid,” pharisaical Christians — and that the Church should move away from its “obsession” with this issue and on to more pressing matters like Global Warming?
• Are you largely ignorant of the size, financial resources and clout of the GLBT movement? Would your attitude toward the Culture War change if you saw how outgunned pro-family forces are in this battle?
• Do you have trouble answering this question from the other side: “How does my gay marriage affect your marriage?”

Now be honest: most of us struggle with at least one of those questions, and many justify inaction using similar lines of thinking.

Matt Barber’s inspiring story is the answer to such Christian confusion and defeatism. He is the personification of that very non-obscure verse in the Book of Romans (8:28): “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” He could never have predicted what his Heavenly Father had in store for him when he was fired by Allstate in a heavy-handed act of anti-religious bigotry. (If you doubt that, apply the “gay-Christian” substitution test: can you imagine a Fortune 500 corporation abruptly firing a homosexual employee who was privately championing “gay pride” on the web? Exactly.)

Matt and his wife faced financial ruin and a sudden dead-end to his solid career path thanks to Allstate’s liberal intolerance. However, through God’s amazing grace and provision, he now rhetorically battles the very same Homosexual Activist Lobby that cost him his job. (The homosexual group Human Rights Campaign, which played a key role in Matt’s demise at Allstate, is welcoming President Obama as keynote speaker at its fund-raising dinner Saturday night.) And frankly, Matt is amazed that so many fellow Christians are now bowing out of the “culture war” on the “gay” issue despite the clear and present danger that organized homosexuality poses to our children and to our First Amendment liberties — at at time when our political enemies are boasting that they are on the precipice of total victory!

God wouldn’t have us quit the battle for Truth in a free society and concede to a powerful special interest lobby that despises and twists His Inerrant Word to rationalize their particular besetting sin (one He calls “detestable”). We must defend the Truth no matter what comes — as Matt has — because God wins in the end, and His truth will set men free.

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Read these Matt Barber columns:

Matt Barber Answers Charge that Christians Focus Too Much on Homosexuality

Matt Barber: Commies, Fascists and Perverts, Oh My!

Also relevant:

Dr. Michael Brown Corrects Andrew Marin and Emergent Evangelicals on their ‘Celebration of Ambiguity’ on Homosexuality

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

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

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

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

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

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HRC’s press release follows:

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

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

10/5/2009

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

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

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

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

SPECIAL STUDENT/PASTOR RATE:  Sponsor a student or a pastor to go to the AFTAH banquet for half the usual ticket price: just $25/person. Young people swimming in the pop culture’s pro-”gay” swamp and our spiritual leaders need to hear Matt’s inspiring message!  Please designate their school or church affiliation.  Call 910-308-7619 for more info. Sign up at www.americansfortruth.com/donate/.

Please save the evening of Saturday, October 24 to attend Americans For Truth’s banquet. Our featured speaker is Matt Barber, culture warrior for Liberty Counsel. Matt is quite a guy, to say the least. He’s gone from being a professional heavyweight boxer, to being fired by Allstate Insurance Company in 2005 because he wrote an online article — on his own time — critical of organized homosexuality, to his current position as one of America’s leading defenders of natural marriage and family. AFTAH got rave reviews for its last banquet; you won’t want to miss this one! The event will be held outside Chicago, at the Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights, IL. Tickets are $50 per person. You can prepay online by clicking the “Online Banquet Signup” link at www.americansfortruth.com/donate/, or mail your check (designate: “banquet”) to: Americans For Truth, PO Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522.  Write us at americansfortruth@comcast.net, or call 910-308-7619 for additional information. Please spread the word and we hope to see you there on Oct. 24th!

Note: you can read some of Matt’s columns by plugging “Matt Barber” in the AFTAH “Search” button on the upper right corner of this website. We suggest you start with this important piece: “Matt Barber Answers Charge that Christians Focus Too Much on Homosexuality.” Matt’s will be signing copies of his new book, “The Right Hook: From the Ring to the Culture War,” at the banquet. Here’s what some top conservative leaders are saying about the book:

 “Our country is at a crossroads. Now, more than ever, we need strong voices to stem the tide of liberalism that is washing away America’s Judeo-Christian heritage. Matt Barber is one of those voices…” – Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee

“… Matt Barber is fighting back. The Right Hook is a must read for anyone who seeks to preserve America’s Godly heritage.” – Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich

“We are thankful that God picked Matt Barber out of the boxing ring and placed him in the national ring to go head to head with the adversaries of our country.” – Tim and Beverly LaHaye

“Matt Barber needs to be heard by every American … the kind of leader people should follow.” – Congressman Tom Delay

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Help AFTAH Stand for Truth against the “Gay” Lies!

Help us fight the well-funded, powerful Homosexual Lobby with your tax-deductible donation at http://americansfortruth.com/donate/.  You can mail your gift to: Americans For Truth, P.O. Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522.  Thank you! — www.aftah.org

P.S.  We understand that the Christian-bashing, Marxist radicals over at Gay Liberation Network will be protesting IFI’s banquet. Now we know IFI must be doing something right.