Take Action

Don’t let this egregious and discriminatory action by the University of Toledo be ignored. Please contact University of Toledo President Lloyd Jacobs and respectfully request that he immediately reinstate Crystal Dixon (pictured at left) and issue a public apology to her, the African-American community and to Christians worldwide. (e-mail: UTPresident@utoledo.edu or phone him at 419-530-2211 / Fax: 419-5304984)

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The University of Toledo (UT) has sent a message: African-American Christians need not apply.

The University of Toledo (UT) has sent a message – loud and clear – to potential employees and students: African-American Christians need not apply.

UT President Lloyd Jacobs has betrayed his own anti-Christian bigotry and intolerance in what amounts to a prima facie violation of the U.S. Constitution, Ohio’s state constitution and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Recently, Jacobs, who portrays himself as a bastion of “tolerance” and “diversity,” overtly and shamelessly discriminated against Crystal Dixon, a black, Christian employee, because of her constitutionally protected, factually based and popularly held viewpoint relative to — ironically — civil rights. Understandably, many in the Christian and African-American communities are outraged.

Dixon, who was Associate Vice President of Human Resources at UT, has been arbitrarily fired from her job because she publicly defended the integrity of African-American civil rights struggles and further expressed her sincerely held religious beliefs relative to those struggles.

In a letter to the editor, written as a private citizen and published in the Toledo Free Press, Dixon addressed the false comparisons often made between the genuine and very worthy civil rights movement and efforts by militant homosexual activists to gain special rights based upon aberrant sexual preferences. Many African-Americans take great exception to such specious and offensive comparisons, and Dixon was no exception.

The letter was in response to a column by Toledo Free Press Editor-in-Chief Michael S. Miller in which he took the homosexual lobby’s bait hook, line and sinker, deceptively comparing deviant and changeable homosexual behaviors to innate and immutable characteristics such as skin color and physical disability.

In her letter, Dixon wrote, in part (emphasis added):

“I respectfully submit a different perspective for Miller and Toledo Free Press readers to consider. … First, human beings, regardless of their choices in life, are of ultimate value to God and should be viewed the same by others. At the same time, one’s personal choices lead to outcomes either positive or negative.

“As a black woman who happens to be an alumnus of the University of Toledo’s Graduate School, an employee and business owner, I take great umbrage at the notion that those choosing the homosexual lifestyle are ‘civil rights victims.’ Here’s why. I cannot wake up tomorrow and not be a black woman. I am genetically and biologically a black woman and very pleased to be so as my Creator intended. Daily, thousands of homosexuals make a life decision to leave the gay lifestyle evidenced by the growing population of PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex Gays) and Exodus International just to name a few.

“Economic data is irrefutable: The normative statistics for a homosexual in the USA include a Bachelor’s degree. For gay men, the median household income is $83,000/yr. (Gay singles $62,000; gay couples living together $130,000), almost 80% above the median U.S. household income of $46,326, per census data. For lesbians, the median household income is $80,000/yr. (Lesbian singles $52,000; Lesbian couples living together $96,000); 36% of lesbians reported household incomes in excess of $100,000/yr. Compare that to the median income of the non-college educated Black male of $30,539. The data speaks for itself.”

Dixon goes on to address God’s intended natural and biological design for human sexuality, writing, “[T]here are consequences for each of our choices, including those [which] violate God’s divine order.

“It is base human nature to revolt and become indignant when the world, or even God Himself, disagrees with our choice that violates His divine order.”

Ironically, Dixon’s own consequence for choosing to violate the world’s not-so-divine order of political correctness was both swift and severe. Jacobs first suspended her and then fired her a few days later.

According to its own “diversity” program, UT seeks “to attract and retain diverse faculty, staff, and students” by promising “to respect and value personal uniqueness and differences.” Paradoxically, “respect and value” for “differences” at UT dictates that all “differences” be uniformly left-wing and pre-approved by the University. Different differences simply will not do, and “intolerance” will absolutely not be tolerated. You know …”diversity.”

In a statement which followed Dixon’s letter to the editor, Jacobs wrote, “Her [Dixon's] comments do not accord with the values of the University of Toledo. It is necessary, therefore, for me to repudiate much of her writing.

“Our Spectrum student group created the Safe Places Program to ‘invite faculty, staff and graduate assistants and resident advisers to open their space as a Safe Place for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Questioning [LGBATQ] individuals.’ I took this action [punishing Dixon] because I believe it to be entirely consistent with the values system of the university. Indeed, there is a Safe Places sticker on the door of the president’s office at the University of Toledo,” concluded Jacobs.

So, it would seem that the University of Toledo is a “safe place” for everyone except those, such as Christians and African-Americans, who hold traditional values relative to sexual morality and wish to both defend the integrity of the genuine civil rights movement and see that the sacrifices of its leaders are not dishonored.

It would seem that UT is a “safe place” so long as you march lockstep alongside radical homosexual pressure groups (and allies like Lloyd “safe place” Jacobs) who sully and trivialize those sacrifices by drawing transparently false, patently absurd and highly offensive parallels between “that which people are” (i.e., African-American) and “that which people do.” (i.e., choose to commit male-male anal sodomy.)

The genuine civil rights movement has been hijacked, and Crystal Dixon has paid dearly for trying to take it back for the African-American community where it rightfully belongs.

Take Action

Don’t let this egregious and discriminatory action by the University of Toledo be ignored. Please contact University of Toledo President Lloyd Jacobs and respectfully request that he immediately reinstate Crystal Dixon and issue a public apology to her, the African-American community and to Christians worldwide. (e-mail UTPresident@utoledo.edu or phone him at 419-530-2211 / Fax: 419-5304984)

(For more information, please read the outstanding open letter to President Lloyd Jacobs by Dr. Robert A.J. Gagnon, Associate Professor of New Testament at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.)

Matt Barber is one of the “like-minded men” with Concerned Women for America. He is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law and serves as CWA’s policy director for cultural issues.

College Official Fired for Column on Homosexuality
By Pete Winn
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
May 12, 2008

(CNSNews.com) – Cybercast News Service has learned that a University of Toledo administrator has lost her job because she wrote a newspaper commentary that questioned whether homosexuality is a civil rights issue.

Crystal Dixon, the associate vice president of human resources at the state university, had earlier been put on paid administrative leave for the Apr. 18 column published in the Toledo Free Press, as detailed in a previous CNSNews.com report.

“She has been fired,” said Brian Rooney, spokesman for the Thomas More Law Center, an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based legal-defense group which is representing Dixon.

Rooney told Cybercast News Service that the university had offered Dixon “another position, in a different part of the university, not in human resources” because she had argued in her editorial that sexual orientation is not an immutable characteristic like race or sex and should not be afforded the same protection under civil rights laws.

“She said no, that’s when she was fired,” Rooney said. “We are going to do everything we can within the law to try to show that the firing was improper and potentially illegal.”

Click HERE to read the entire CNSNews article

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

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News Release

Americans For Truth
www.americansfortruth.org

May 9, 2008

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TARGETED MEGA-CHURCHES AND THEIR CONTACT PAGES:

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

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

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

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

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

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

LANSING, Mich. (Catholic News Agency), May 8, 2008 — The Michigan General Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that the state’s constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages also blocks Michigan governments and state universities from offering “domestic partnership” benefits for homosexual couples. Click HERE to read the Michigan Supreme Court ruling.

The Marriage Protection Amendment was approved by nearly sixty percent of voters in 2004. Considered the broadest of the 11 state marriage amendments barring same-sex marriage, the language of the Michigan amendment says “…the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.”

The Michigan ACLU, representing the AFL-CIO homosexual activist group National Pride at Work, had challenged the application of the law as based in Attorney General Mike Cox’s interpretation of the amendment.

The Michigan court’s 5-2 decision did not rule on whether government employment benefits can be offered to homosexual partners on some broader basis also available to other employees. Some local governments and universities have attempted to maintain present benefits by amending the eligibility requirements.

“The people of Michigan have constitutionally protected marriage as exclusively the union of one man and one woman, period, and that includes prohibiting the recognition of homosexual relationships as equal or similar to marriage for any purpose, including offering spousal-type benefits to the homosexual partners of government employees,” said Gary Glenn, one of the co-authors of the Marriage Protection Amendment and head of the American Family Association of Michigan.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, praised the decision, saying, “The Michigan Supreme Court courageously upheld the will of the people.”

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=12591

Related news release from Thomas More Law Center: “TMLC Praises Michigan Atty General Cox for Defending Marriage Amendment; Blasts Gov and Universities”

I, as a parent of two Wheaton students, was concerned about the recent invitation by Wheaton College’s Center for Applied Christian Ethics (CACE) to Jim Wallis to speak. I was concerned in that it followed close on the heels of the appearance at CACE of Harry Knox, director of the Religion and Faith Program of the [homosexual activist organization] Human Rights Campaign (HRC), and the campus visit of Soulforce [another homosexual activist group] whose members were permitted to distribute literature on campus. Some of us who deeply love Wheaton College were, with reason, concerned that Wallis might have attempted, like Harry Knox, to efface the violation of God’s design and moral order that homosexual conduct represents. We were not only concerned about the ostensible pedagogical purposes for which Wallis was invited, but also concerned that he might deviate from those purposes to discuss homosexuality, as did Harry Knox who had been invited to discuss HIV, but moved considerably beyond the topic of HIV to discuss his own homosexuality.

This CACE event has raised some important questions regarding the distinction between education and indoctrination. Some contend that an educational environment necessitates exposure to all sides of issues. They argue that an educational institution that fails to expose students to diverse views fails its educational mission and becomes, instead, a place of indoctrination. Having experienced this very problem of intellectual censorship in a public educational institution, which is in some ways even more troubling, I am in complete agreement that intellectual diversity is essential. That said, however, the means by which diverse ideas are addressed matters.

Is a private college with a very specific mission, like Wheaton, ethically obligated to not only expose students to diverse ideas, but also to provide forums to those who hold unbiblical ideas as the means by which students are exposed to such ideas? How divergent from a Christian worldview must the views of scholars be before Wheaton determines they, in fact, undermine truth? In the service of dialogue and intellectual diversity, must they bring in John Shelby Spong or Peter Singer? If it is legitimate to expose Wheaton students to unbiblical ideas, like those of Harry Knox, by inviting those who hold them to campus, will Wheaton invite those who endorse polyamory or adult consensual incest to share their ideas—all in the service of advancing education and avoiding indoctrination?  Would it be appropriate, in the service of the worthy goal of sound pedagogy, to allow pro-poly or pro-incest groups to distribute their literature on campus as Wheaton permitted Soulforce?

The answer to the last two questions, I hope, is obvious. The reason I raise them is to suggest that many Christians, perhaps some at Wheaton, respond differently to homosexuality than they do to polyamory and incest. And, I would argue, they do so, not for biblical reasons, but because they have been desensitized and deceived by the effective stratagems of gay activist organizations and their supporters. The consuming cultural presence of sexual deviance that is now reaching into even early elementary school, and the vociferous intolerance of conservative voices in the public square reveals that the real threat to freedom and truth comes not from conservative indoctrination but, rather, from liberal indoctrination.

Wheaton College must expose students to diverse ideas (though perhaps not all ideas). Students should read the works of those with whom they disagree—under the tutelage of professors who can help them analyze and critique arguments. Panel discussions and debates are also effective means by which to present and expose flawed ideas. Wheaton, however, has no obligation to provide forums to speakers to espouse distinctly unbiblical views, like the heretical views of Harry Knox. Though Wheaton is not a church, its motto is “For Christ and His Kingdom.” Wheaton has no pedagogical obligation to allow, for example, abortionists, atheists, or homosexuals to teach untruths. It seems that although Jim Wallis has not wandered as far off the narrow way as have Harry Knox and Mel White’s Soulforce, he may be moving in the wrong direction.
 
I firmly believe that Christian institutions, including the academy, have been, and in large measure continue to be, woefully remiss in equipping believers with an understanding of both the scriptural and secular arguments used to normalize homosexual practice. Our churches and our Christian academies must do a better job of countering the deception about homosexuality that is being promulgated as truth. We ought not to retreat from intellectual engagement with the ideas of secular society and liberal theologians on sexual “orientation” and sexual “identity.” But allowing homosexualists to promote their views at Wheaton is neither the appropriate way to educate nor to correct error.

I want to make clear that I do not view homosexual conduct as a greater sin than those with which I struggle. My views on homosexuality do not diminish my recognition of the infinite worth of those who identify as homosexual. My views do not diminish the love I have for them or the pleasure I take in their company. And I do not seek to ostracize those for whom same-sex attraction is a painful struggle. I do hope, however, that Wheaton College and other institutions committed to teaching Christ and His Kingdom would provide no forum for those who espouse unscriptural views regarding homosexuality that are destroying the lives of countless individuals, threatening speech and religious rights, corrupting the foundational institutions of marriage and family, and dividing churches.

Laurie Higgins is a writing instructor in a public high school in the suburbs of Chicago.

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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.

By Peter LaBarbera 

With polls showing more evangelicals — especially younger evangelicals — warming to the idea of voting Democratic (despite the party’s rigid pro-abortion-on-demand and pro-homosexuality agendas), we found this item of interest: this coming Tuesday, Wheaton College will be hostng liberal evangelical advocate Jim Wallis as a featured speaker at the college’s Center for Applied Christian Ethics (CACE). See the CACE announcement here: www.wheaton.edu/news/events/events_07_08/02.19.08_CaceWallis.html

This follows on CACE last September inviting homosexual “gay christian” activist Harry Knox to speak at a panel discussion on “HIV and Morality,” as a representative of the (traditional-Christian-bashing) homosexual activist group Human Rights Campaign. You may recall that it was Knox who, in a TV debate with CWA’s Matt Barber (watch it HERE), called his homosexuality an “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.” (We insensitive Bible-thumpers at AFTAH called that “Satan’s Talking Points.”)

If I’m not mistaken, Harry talked about his relationship with his male partner at the Wheaton panel discussion, which was titled, “Thy Kingdom Come: Christian Moral Engagement in the World.” I don’t believe there was much if any critical “engagement” of Knox when he brought up his homosexual relationship. What a pity. (You can listen to the discussion by going HERE and clicking on the “HIV and Morality Panel” links; there is Part One and Part Two.)

I’m reading Wallis’ new book, “The Great Awakening” (introduction by pro-abortion-rights, pro-homosexuality Jimmy Carter), and I’m not quite sure how Wallis can square his own ”applied Christian ethics” with the inspired and authoritative Word of God, which is hardly nuanced on the sin of homosexual behavior. Of course, Wallis, as a leading light of the Religious Left, has plenty of his own criticisms of us on the “Religious Right.”

It would seem appropriate that Wheaton College — as one of the most respected and Biblically faithful Christian colleges in the United States– would at the very least allow equal time for an orthodox evangelical spokesman who is more in line with Christian conservatives on moral issues– perhaps even a stellar representative like Rev. Al Mohler, who surely will not be voting for the Democrats this November.
 
If my memory serves, Wallis (as a liberal) and his Sojourners Magazine once stood against the Left on homosexuality, but it appears that he has since buckled to worldly agendas and flipped – always a sad spectacle for a Christian leader. The liberals who routinely excoriate the likes of AFTAH would say that Mr. Wallis has “grown,” but is this the sort of maturation that honors a holy Creator? Our God does not quake in fear of the successes of the “gay” movement, nor does He tremble before the well-heeled pro-abortion lobby. Wallis would have more credibility on the need to see fighting poverty as a moral issue if he did not sell out God on the issue of sexual morality.

Men are weak and sinful, and we constantly stray from God’s righteous path. Our sources — mostly parents with kids at Wheaton — tell us that at the alma mater of Billy Graham, as we presume at all Christian colleges, there is a battle over adherence to Scripture, with some professors less committed to the inerrancy and divine authority of the Bible than others.

The quotation below from Wallis’ book has little basis in Scripture: how could enabling homosexual relationships — based on behavior God calls an “abomination” (see www.robgagnon.net) – be a “justice issue” for Bible-believing Christians? What’s next? Affirming multiple-partner relationships as a justice issue (you know, the ones based on “consensual love”)? It also appears that Wallis is going along with today’s open-ended, newfangled definition of “family.”  

The following excerpt (emphasis added) is taken from page 229 of “The Great Awakening” — after Wallis argues for more church-inspired action against no-fault divorce laws (we heartily agree with you on that, Jim!):

“I support civil rights laws for same-sex couples. That, for me, is a justice issue. Many Christians, and I include myself, prefer the solution of ‘civil unions’ from the state, and even spiritual ‘blessings’ for gay couples (from congregations prepared to offer them), rather than altering the church’s sacrament of marriage as between a man and a woman, but those differences should not be fundamentally divisive. Gay marriage should not be the primary battleground in the fight for the health and stability of marriage and family in our society. In a pluralistic democracy, we should support civil and human rights for all our citizens, regardless of our different theological and biblical interpretations of the complicated and thorny issues surrounding homosexuality. New evidence and understanding around those issues could cause any of us to alter our views. But we should find common ground by supporting concrete practices and practical policies that strengthen families and nurture all our children.”

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Here is the Wheaton College announcement:

http://www.wheaton.edu/news/events/events_07_08/02.19.08_CaceWallis.html

February 19, 2008

Political Lecture: Jim Wallis
Wheaton College’s Center for Applied Christian Ethics (CACE) and the Department of Politics and International Relations and Urban Studies welcomes Jim Wallis to campus Tuesday, February 19. Wallis is on tour for his new book The Great Awakening.

Wallis is a bestselling author, public theologian, preacher, speaker, activist, and international commentator on ethics and public life. His last book, God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It (HarperCollins, 2005), was on The New York Times bestseller list for four months. He is president and executive director of Sojourners/Call to Renewal, where he is editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine. Jim Wallis speaks at more than 200 events each year and his columns have appeared in major newspapers such The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and The Boston Globe, among others.

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). For more information, call the CACE office at 630.752.5886, e-mail cace@wheaton.edu or visit: http://www.wheaton.edu/news/events/events_07_08/02.19.08_CaceWallis.html 

By Laurie Higgins

Angels in America is filled with obscenity, primarily forms of f**k. And although it addresses forgiveness (albeit not in a Christian sense, but rather, interpersonal forgiveness), compassion, community, and AIDS, it is primarily a pro-”gay” treatise with heavy-handed leftist politicking (e.g., explicit criticism of the Reagan administration) and sacrilege.
 
The plot revolves around two couples: married Mormon couple Harper and Joe whose marriage is disintegrating in large measure due to Joe’s repressed homosexuality, which he eventually acts upon: and a homosexual couple, Louis and Prior, who has AIDS. Louis leaves Prior due to his AIDS and has a month-long affair with Harper’s husband Joe. Roy Cohn — the infamous, unscrupulous, foul-mouthed, closeted, Republican lawyer — is also a central character who dies of AIDS.

Then there is the black, homosexual, drag queen nurse with the heart of gold, Belize, and the Angel with eight vaginae whose visits prompt sexual arousal and orgasm. Heaven is a dreary place that looks like San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and people sit around on crates playing cards. The Angels say that God has abandoned man.
 
At the end, Harper has left Joe. Prior who now uses a cane and has lost some vision, Louis, Belize and Hannah (who is the Mormon mother of Joe) are sitting by Bethesda fountain talking about the hope embodied by the the statue of the Angel of Bethesda. Please note the diversity represented: Prior is very WASPish, homosexual; Louis is Jewish homosexual, Belize is a black, homosexual transvestite, and Hannah is white, perhaps heterosexual, and sort of Mormon. 
 
Angels in America concludes with an emotional speech to the audience about all those homosexuals who have been lost to AIDS who “will be commemorated.” And further that homosexuals “are not going away. . . . We will be citizens. The time has come. . . . You are fabulous creatures. . . . And I bless you. . . . The Great Work Begins.”

END OF PLAY

Now isn’t that edifying for students? 

Laurie Higgins works full-time in a suburban public high school writing center in the Chicago area.

I am witnessing my friend’s unique path to holiness: a remarkable instance of grace working through a broken earthly vessel, making all things new, and leading to fullness of life. I think how blessed I am that I’ve been fortunate enough to witness it and find inspiration for my life in his struggles.

This piece is heart-rending yet beautifully hopeful. Please take the time to read it in full (it’s only posted in part here) — and then to pray for all the young men who are struggling to overcome and to please their Maker.

But don’t stop there: If you are a Christian man, please look around at church for the boys with no dads, for the boys with troubled homes, for the ones who just don’t fit in that well. Put your arm around the shoulder of a vulnerable young man and encourage him. Invite him over for Sunday lunch or to watch a ballgame; ask him to help you with a chore. You may be saving both his life and his soul. — Sonja Dalton

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Excerpted from Struggling Alone, by Ryan T. Anderson, published Feb 2007 by First Things:

He came out to me in an email. I’ve known him for years, long enough that I can’t remember when we first met, and we were recently emailing back and forth about our lives, our futures-the kind of stuff separated friends discuss. Along the way he mentioned, in an aside, that he had some – lingering troubles he had to work his way through. My reply asked for an explanation-and that’s when he told me.

Over the past three years, “Chris” (let’s call him) has experienced a pronounced attraction to other males-for one old friend from high school in particular. A crush, maybe, or an infatuation. Whatever it was, he knew it wasn’t healthy. And though he had never acted on the attraction, he explained, it led to fantasies and lusts he didn’t want. So he made a resolution never to embrace them as essential to his identity or accept them as permanent or untreatable-a resolution he has kept practically alone, without the support of community, family, or friends. Over the course of many phone calls and emails, he shared with me his reflections on what he thought had created his problem of same-sex attractions. He described an “exceedingly close, best-friendly relationship” to his mother, often serving the role of her sole confidant, and a subsequent alienation from his father. Relationships with his friends, he thought, also contributed, as he suffered through “deeply hurtful rejection” by male peers, along with “oscillations between reverence for and fear of typically masculine” classmates. Once puberty hit, this took on sexual connotations, as Chris began experiencing “eroticized desire” for traits he found in other males that he himself lacked…

What he described seemed an accurate summary of the person I have known for years. So when he pointed to the likely causes and said he was seeking help in addressing them, I was supportive. “I would be untrue to myself if I simply accepted this condition right now,” he wrote. “I would be denying what I’ve come to believe — what I believe I know — to be the causes and potential cures of this condition in my case.” Some people say that change isn’t possible, but he thinks that with God all things are, and he at least wants to try to do his part.

Chris’ situation is sad, but it seems to be moving somewhere. He told me how he had cried daily for the first two years of his same-sex attractions, knowing that he was becoming someone he didn’t want to be. But during the third year he found a good therapist and began making progress. He set out to find “healthy male affirmation through deep, non-erotic same-sex friendships”-along with a “purification of memory regarding the hurts of the past” and a more masculine view of himself. Without any reason to exaggerate his progress, he assured me he is “100 times happier and healthier than before-though not yet whole.” Even friends and relatives who do not know about his struggles have remarked on his increased serenity and joy.

…All he wants is to live chastely and try to make progress in addressing the causes of his same-sex attractions. But at the modern American university, this is anathema. For all their celebrations of diversity and pledges of tolerance, this choice is not to be – celebrated or even tolerated.

Like many schools, Chris’ university has an LGBTQA center (an official office supporting “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer, and allied” students). Had he been seeking advice on how to embrace his same-sex attractions, perform sexually as a gay man, or develop a romantic homosexual relationship, he would have been welcomed. Wanting instead help to live chastely, he found nothing. Worse than nothing, he found rejection. Such centers routinely sponsor public lectures attacking Christian responses to same-sex attractions, calls to chastity, and attempts to seek therapy.

…Fortunately, the Catholic chaplaincy on campus is vibrant and orthodox. The chaplain gave Chris solid if general spiritual advice-regular prayer, reception of the sacraments, and a life of charity-but he wasn’t sure how to tailor it to a young Christian experiencing same-sex attractions. So he suggested Chris work with a therapist to address the psychological causes of his attractions. And Chris tried. He went to his school’s health center to see a psychologist, but she was hostile. When he asked for a referral to see a Catholic therapist, she all but called him crazy for refusing to give in to his nature as homosexual. In the end, his university health insurance wouldn’t cover all the cost of an outside therapist, and he obviously couldn’t turn to his parents.

Sexual confusion can be found anywhere, but it is particularly pronounced on college campuses, where to the general human confusion is added approved promiscuity and an institutional rejection of anything traditionally Christian or conservative…yet there are very few, if any, campus groups devoted to supporting these students.

While listening to Chris, I grew angrier and angrier about our troubled culture, the sexual chaos our parents’ generation bequeathed us, the lack of support the Church provides, and the hostile environment the university maintains. Gradually, however, my anger gave way to sadness. A sadness that Chris struggles almost alone. A sadness that others like him have no one to turn to. A sadness that universities deliberately reject chaste students with same-sex attractions. In the end, though, I found myself feeling grateful. Grateful for knowing Chris. Grateful for the chance to see him carry a cross he did not choose. Offering up his daily struggles, he strives for holiness, refuses surrender, and resists temptations. He labors to remedy the unwanted causes and side effects of attractions he never desired, aware all the while that a cure isn’t certain, that in this fallen world some disorders may always be with us.

I am witnessing my friend’s unique path to holiness: a remarkable instance of grace working through a broken earthly vessel, making all things new, and leading to fullness of life. I think how blessed I am that I’ve been fortunate enough to witness it and find inspiration for my life in his struggles. How sad, though, that the rest of the world will never know.

Continue reading at First Things…

The nation’s largest homosexual lobby group is sponsoring a conference this weekend for “female-to-male” “transgenders” that will include sessions on “chest surgery” for young women who want to have their breasts removed in their quest to become “transmen.”

The Human Rights Campaign has signed on as an official sponsor of the “True Spirit Conference,” which is scheduled to be held at a hotel in the nation’s capital Feb. 15-18. In a TV talk show debate Wednesday, HRC spokesman Wayne Besen said he was “proud” of his group sponsoring the event and defended the “chest surgery” sessions for women seeking to remove their breasts.

Besen made his comments on the Fox News Channel’s debate show “Hannity & Colmes” after being challenged about HRC’s role in the transsexual event by Peter LaBarbera, senior policy analyst for the Culture & Family Institute of Concerned Women for America, who was also a guest on the show.

On the Fox program, LaBarbera asked Besen, “There’s actually a doctor coming from New York who is talking about ‘breast reconstruction’ – chopping off the breasts of these girls because they want to become men. We think that’s dangerous. How can you justify teaching that as normal in the schools?”

Besen replied, “First of all, we’re very proud of supporting this type of conference. As Peter said, there are doctors and medical professionals there to deal with this particular issue. He ought to get educated on it.”

Sadistic sex, polygamy workshops

The True Spirit conference also includes a panel on “How to Do SM [sadomasochism]“ and one devoted to “Polyamory,” an activist term for multiple-partner sexual unions (”Polyamory can work, if you do it right, we promise!” says the True Spirit website.) In addition, the program contains sessions devoted to sexual tips for “transgenders.”

HRC – which has always cultivated a “mainstream” image – has been under heavy pressure from “transgender” groups to endorse their full agenda. It has responded by stepping up its “transgender” activism, even as it rejects pro-”transgender” provisions in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, its top Capitol Hill priority. HRC and allies like homosexual Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., fear including “transgenders” in the bill would jeopardize its passage.

ENDA would add “sexual orientation” (but not “gender identity,” as “trans” activists seek) to federal employment non-discrimination law. Interestingly, HRC supports pro-”transgender” language in state versions of the ENDA bill and even supported a successful effort in San Francisco last year to win taxpayer funding for “sex-change” operations for city workers.

At last year’s True Spirit conference, at least one speaker railed against HRC for not signing on as a conference sponsor, according to pro-family writer Guyla Mills, who attended the event.

Mills said most of the girls attending last year’s “chest surgery” workshops at True Spirit were in their 20’s, but some attending the conference were teenagers. At one point, Mills said she heard a discussion on how teens could bypass their parents’ authority to obtain masculinizing hormones.

At this year’s conference, organizers will be checking IDs for underage youth, who will be forbidden from attending the more sexualized workshops. However, the True Spirit website states, “The following topics will not have age restrictions: Surgical, safer sex, dating/intimacy, health, personal safety.” In other words, minors could still attend sessions devoted to sexual issues and self-mutilation.

The website describes True Spirit as “an annual conference for all gender variant people on the masculine spectrum or the transgender experience and significant others, friends, families & allies (SOFFAs) of all gender variations and sexual orientations.”

Doctors on hand

Organizers boast that at least two doctors will be on hand at True Spirit to discuss “top” (breast removal) and “bottom” (creation of a makeshift “penis” from a vagina) surgery. The website states:

In conjunction with Whitman-Walker Health Center, medical exams will be available either on-site or within a short distance from the hotel. Many surgeons will also be attending [True Spirit] and will be conducting free consultations for chest and lower surgery, as well as be available throughout the Conference weekend to answer questions.

One of the doctors slated to speak at True Spirit is Manhattan-based plastic surgeon Dr. James Reardon, whose website contains a section for “female-to-male” transsexuals desiring “chest reconstruction.” [Note: Internet sites dealing with transsexual "surgeries" are not for the squeamish; some pages contain before-and-after photos and detailed descriptions of altered genitalia, etc.] In a section of Reardon’s site under the heading, “Are you ready for the Chest Reconstruction stage of your transition from female to male?” it states:

Together with a therapist, Dr. Reardon is seeing younger patients who are making these gender decisions earlier in life, preferably before entering college or their careers. The adolescent patient requires in-depth psychological evaluation, frequently with a second opinion, and will certainly benefit from parental support and interaction in the decision making process.

Catering to those who purportedly suffer from “Gender Dysphoria,” — the medical term for persons who have confusion or discomfort about their birth sex — can be quite profitable. Dr. Reardon’s site says the cost for a “chest reconstruction” is “$5,000-$10,000 depending on the complexity of the case.”

Another speaker at True Spirit is Dr. Michael Brownstein, a San Francisco-based plastic surgeon who does both “top” and “bottom” operations for “female-to-male” transsexuals, as well as those for “male to female” transsexuals. Brownstein’s website contains testimonials of “FTM” transsexuals, and photos pre- and post- “top surgery.” One such writer, “Frank,” praises Brownstein for performing the “miracle” of removing the breasts that she despised, saying, “I have the male chest I should have been born with and I know that, given time, any casual observer would never suspect I *wasn’t* born with it” [emphasis "Frank's"].

Besides HRC, other sponsors of the True Spirit conference include the New England Leather Alliance, a sadistic sex group, GenderPAC, the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition, and the National Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Centers.

The following are verbatim session titles and descriptions, some of which are excerpted, for some of the workshops offered at this year’s True Spirit conference. They are taken from the True Spirit website’s list of workshops. Several panels were too racy to print on a family-oriented newssite:

Beyond Bathrooms: Trans Issues in Gender-Segregated Communities

Beyond Binaries: Youth and Gender Identity
How do youth come to define and understand themselves within a dichotomous world? What happens when there are choices beyond male/female? What societal factors permit the emergence of genderqueer youth? In this workshop, two queer youth will provoke a discussion on binary gender. What are the experiences of transgendered youth today? Why do some enforce binary gender upon themselves? We will discuss the relationship between gender, labels and youth identity.

Bluring The Lines: Creating Our Own Identities
This caucus provides a space for anyone who feels the “male” or “female” labels do not quite work for their own identity to express themselves, be heard and see they are not alone.

Breaking the Sweat: The Fine Art of Cruising and Flirting with Women
Tips, techniques and general inspirations for meeting and mating with the ladies. Bring questions, scenarios and fears to this fun, friendly and interactive forum.

Chest Reconstruction – Dr. Michael Brownstein
Two Techniques, One Result: Discussion of the techniques involved in the double incision and keyhole; or subcutaneous mastectomy. Includes indications, limitations and anticipated results of each. Presentation will include newer photos of both procedures.

Chest Surgery – Dr. James Reardon
Dr. Reardon, a New York City-based surgeon who specializes in chest reconstruction surgery for FTMs, will present a slide show and discuss different kinds of chest reconstruction surgery options.

Chest Surgery Show and Tell
Come strip to the waist and strut your stuff. This perennially popular session will invite guys [female-to male "transmen"] to come to the front of the room and briefly share highlights of their surgery experience and/or reflect on their relationship to their new chest.

Femme Boy Caucus

Femmephobia and Misogyny in FtM Communities
… In denying the existence of our female bodies, how do we contribute to our own oppression and reinvent misogyny in a queer context? …

FTM Ejaculation
It seems that FTMs on hormones have a really different relationship to their genitalia. …

Getting the Balance Right: Embracing the Male and Female Psyches

Getting to the Point: Injections
Afraid of those big, sharp needles? Not sure of the best place to inject [hormones] or how to do it safely? Join a health care professional and others who have experience with injections. Learn tricks of handling these sticky situations and overcoming fears.

How to Do SM [sadomasochism]
If you think [SM] looks hot, it is! Learn how to start out and be safe.

How to Make Your Own Packy, Packer/Harness and Binders
Are you tired of sweaty bulky binders? Does your packy [padding for females to create the look of a penis] fall out of your shorts all the time? Are you also too broke to buy fancy products that would make you more comfortable? Or maybe you just need to save for surgery. Either way, this workshop is to share sewing and design skills so you can make your own binders and packers from inexpensive materials that can be picked up anywhere. Small donation requested for materials. (All can attend and watch even without donation.)

MultiGenderPlicity
Do you have lots of people living in your body? Are you literally a man trapped in a woman’s body – or something else entirely? Are you a tranny whose alter-ego seems to have a mind of its own? Come talk with other trannies who’re multiple and multiples who’re trans.

Polyamory Panel
For those of us who are committed to loving more than one person in an honest, aboveboard, and open-hearted way. We’ll talk about insecurity, jealousy, boundaries, negotiation, and Shiny New Lover Syndrome. Polyamory can work, if you do it right, we promise!

Sacred Body, Sacred Sex
This workshop focuses on the way we are learning to re-see ourselves. How our society has limited our image of ourselves to only two genders and how we can meld our mental/emotional image of ourselves with our body image. We need as a community of consenting adults to celebrate our sexual pleasures and fight any form of sexual repression. …

Testosterone Diaries
Join two transguys in a thoughtful discussion of issues connected to taking T [testosterone]: including finding and working with medical providers, adjusting dosages, the range of administration methods (injection, gel, pellets and the patch), realistic expectations, overall health concerns and dealing with the many changes T brings.

TG Parents and Kids
Parents and children discuss issues including: living in trans/queer families, social issues for children regarding fathers giving birth to their children, adoption and insemination challenges and concerns, similarities and differences to queer parenting and families, educating and working with daycare providers, teachers, pediatricians or other professionals about our unique family structure(s), and many more topics.

[Breasts] to Pecs: The Emotional Journey (Smaller Group Discussion)
A follow-up to the Chest Surgery Show and Tell, this workshop will have a panel address specific surgery issues, such as choosing a surgeon, the logistics and emotions of preparing for surgery, the support person’s role and experience, and other issues related to this monumental step in gender transition. …

Transfag Datebait
We’re here, we’re queer … now what? Meeting men and dating as a gay/bi/queer transman can be a significant challenge. …

Trans-Trans Intimacy & Sex

Trans-Youth Access to Care: Barriers to Trans-Medical and Mental Health Care
A discussion of the barriers to care that trans-youth and their partners encounter. Age barriers to providing services to trans-youth are perceived to be numerous. Being young, not having one’s own insurance plan, adequate employment and/or other financial resources, or even a car or transportation to medical appointments can make medical care nearly impossible for some youth. … Issues of parental consent, barriers and access will be primary issues.

From John to Julie
Spring Arbor University prof John Nemecek decides
to be true to his inner woman.

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From Good and Noble Intolerance, by Gary Glenn of AFA Michigan, submitted Mar 7, 2007, to Jackson City Patriot:

In Sunday’s editorial regarding Spring Arbor’s praiseworthy refusal to legitimize and enable the obvious mental and emotional illness of a male college professor who thinks he’s a woman, the Citizen-Patriot commented,

“Individual reactions may incline toward the good and noble, or the critical and intolerant.”

If your first concern is protecting the welfare of teenage college students, the only good and noble reaction is to be firmly critical of the bizarre political agenda embodied by Mr. Nemecek’s demands and immovably intolerant of the threat that harmful agenda poses to young people.

Mr. Nemecek’s DNA is that of a male. Hormone treatment or even surgical self-mutilation will not change that immutable biological fact.

One obviously disturbed individual’s delusions to the contrary, and their effects on him and his family, may warrant our sympathy and prayers, but certainly not our complicity in socially or legally enabling and legitimizing such delusions. If homosexual and transgender political activists have their way, it certainly will not end with Mr. Nemecek’s demand to wear a dress and makeup on campus.

Openly homosexual Congressman Barney Frank, D-Mass., explained why he initially refused, until being attacked by transgender activists himself, to include in his federal “gay rights” legislation the creation of a new federally protected class based on so-called “gender identity”:

“There are workplace situations — communal showers, for example — when the demands of the transgender community fly in the face of conventional norms and therefore would not pass in any Congress,” Frank said. “I’ve talked with transgender activists, and what they want, and what we will be forced to defend, is for people with penises who identify as women to be able to shower with other women.” (Paragraph 102, page 25)

That’s just one evidence of the bizarre political agenda that a beloved 130-year-old Christian university is being pressured to embrace and legitimize; if they dare refuse, the thugs of the homosexual and transgender activist movement will demonize the school’s Christian administrators as heartless bigots, the modern day equivalents of Nazis and Ku Klux Klansmen, and if a man ever wears a dress to a biker bar somewhere in southeast Michigan and is physically assaulted, they’ll say Spring Arbor President Gayle D. Beebe — by refusing to tolerate their bizarre agenda — is personally responsible for inciting “hate” and violence.

If this grievous assault on Spring Arbor and its age-old moral standards doesn’t leave you incensed, consider the most important reason to be very grateful that university officials have steadfastly refused to capitulate to the demands of a movement intent on indoctrinating America’s youth to believe, among other bizarre and dangerous notions, that it’s “normal” for emotionally-challenged young girls to have their breasts surgically removed so they can pretend to be males.

The so-called Human Rights Campaign, which calls itself the nation’s largest homosexual and transgender activist group, sponsored what it called the “True Spirit Conference,” during which a plastic surgeon — who obviously would benefit financially from new and younger clientele — presented a seminar explaining breast removal surgery and encouraged a room full of young women to have their breasts removed while still in their teens. Emotionally disturbed girls who had already paid thousands of dollars to have themselves so mutilated were asked to go to the front of the room and remove their shirts to demonstrate the results, and they did.

This same plastic surgeon’s website says today: “If you are in transition from female to male or from male to female and are considering transgender surgery of the chest, face or neck, you need to consult a caring and certified plastic surgeon who understands your concerns. (The doctor)…is seeing younger patients who are making these gender decisions earlier in life, preferably before entering college or their careers.”

The bleeding heart “tolerance” crowd insists that Spring Arbor must surrender its allegedly antiquated Christian values and instead concede to, thus giving formal recognition and legitimacy to, the demands of one emotionally disturbed employee’s obvious mental illness.

Thank God instead that Spring Arbor refuses to be complicit in further enabling or legitimizing the mentally and emotionally disturbed psyches that drive homosexual and transgender activists’ latest cause celebre: a self-mutilation “rights” agenda they aim squarely at the generation that sits in the classrooms at Spring Arbor and on other campuses — or “preferably,” in the words of the so sympathetically enabling profiteer who cuts off breasts for a living, “before entering college.”

Spring Arbor University offers parents and students a radically different perspective, a “total commitment to Jesus Christ as the perspective for learning.” Spring Arbor administrators deserve or deepest thanks and encouragement for faithfully and firmly saying, “not on our watch” will we tell the young people whose families entrusted us with their physical and spiritual care that they should give credence or legitimacy to any construct of sexuality other than, as Jesus said, that “from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female.”

On Feb 12, 2007, at the historic College of William and Mary in Virginia, here’s what one sex worker “artist” presented to an audience of over 400:

…Jo Weldon shared her story of how a stripper job helped pay her way through college and graduate school.

Why would any institution of higher learning encourage students to imagine sex work — ie, prostitution — as a possibility for their lives?  This is not “controversial” — it’s corrupting.

TAKE ACTION – For a complete listing of other universities which have or plan to host this travesty, click HERE. If you are a current student or tuition-paying parent, an alumnus or a donor, please make your objections known to the university president.  Complain to your elected officials about the misuse of your hard-earned tax dollars to pay for this presentation at public universities.

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Excerpted from College of William and Mary Hosts Sex Worker Show on Campus, published Feb 23, 2007, by FOX News:

The same college that recently removed a traditional cross from the campus chapel allowed a controversial sex workers’ show to come give students an event complete with stripteases, feather boas and sex toys.

The College of William and Mary in Virginia last week hosted a Sex Workers’ Art Show for a crowd of more than 400 in an auditorium in the University Center, reported The Virginia Gazette. Another 300 people were turned away.

…Money to host the event came out of student activity fees…

“I think it’s a totally inappropriate use of student funds,” Ken Petzinger, a physics professor, told the Gazette. “It’s in conflict with other values the college has.”

President Gene Nichol issued a statement saying: “I don’t like this kind of show and I don’t like having it here … But it’s not the practice and province of universities to censor or cancel performances because they are controversial.”

Continue reading at FOX News…

Lesbian blogger Pam Spaulding published a post on Mar 3, 2007, entitled Intimidation Tactics In the Name of Religion Will Not Stop Change. In it, she accuses Christians of inciting violence against homosexuals — for example,

• Bil Browning, head of Indiana Action Network and Bilerico blogger, claims that, following his coverage of a protest in Indiana over SJR-7, he received threatening phone calls and that the window of his car was smashed.
• 72-year-old Andrew Anthos of Detroit was taunted and viciously beated with a metal pipe, leaving him paralyzed and in a coma for ten days until he finally died. A sketch of the suspect has been released, but no arrests have been made at this point.
• A 19-year-old Hoboken High School student, Andy Rivera, has been charged (and a second person is sought) in the brutal beating of a 21-year-old man, allegedly for wearing pink pants.

Ms. Spaulding, a Duke employee whose blog has been lauded by the university (which has historic ties to the United Methodist church), says:

“This behavior occurs because many fundies actually justify explain violence against gays and lesbians as God’s wrath being visited upon them. It’s about controlling the behavior of people who are different, who may or may not share their worldview, or else, dag nab it, ‘God’ is going to work in his mysterious ways by inspiring someone to take a pipe to beat a 72-year-old gay man to death or beat up a gay man for wearing pink pants, for instance.”

Though none of the perpetrators have claimed to be Christians nor to have acted on God’s behalf (some are not yet identified), Ms. Spaulding blames these heinous crimes on “fundie” (fundamentalist) Christians — and she is not the only activist to make such claims.

On Feb 24, 2007, Matt Foreman, Executive Director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force (which takes in over $30 million/year), issued the following statement blaming Christians:

“The hatred and loathing that led to the vicious murder of Andrew Anthos only because he was gay is not innate. Instead it is being taught every day by leaders of the so-called Christian right and their political allies. They disguise their bigotry as ‘deeply-held religious beliefs.’ They cloak themselves in ‘family values.’

“For years, Michigan has been subjected to the homophobic rants of Gary Glenn of the American Family Association of Michigan, while so many otherwise good and decent people have been silent. Just two years ago, the state endured an ugly campaign, led by Cardinal Adam Maida, to ‘protect marriage’ by writing anti-gay discrimination into its constitution. Based on that amendment, a three-judge panel of Michigan’s court of appeals voted last month to terminate medical insurance coverage for families of LGBT government workers throughout the state.

“It is appalling hypocrisy for these forces to pretend that their venomous words and organizing have no connection to the plague of hate violence against gay people, including the murder of Mr. Anthos…”

That’s right: Matt Foreman publicly (and falsely) accused Gary Glenn and Cardinal Maida as accessories to the murder of a 72-year-old man, simply because these men exercise their constitutional freedom of speech to vocally uphold the Christian principles upon which our nation was founded — including God’s design for one man to wed one woman for life and His consistent condemnation of homosexual behavior.

Perhaps Matt Foreman took his cue from Sean Kosofsky of Triangle Foundation, a Detroit-based homosexual activist group, who once made this claim against Glenn’s group:

“We personally believe that the AFA may support the murder of gay, lesbian and bisexual people… We are also fairly certain the AFA wants all homosexuals locked up on sodomy charges and put in jail.”

Ms. Spaulding says in her post that “the Christians I know don’t think this way…” We’re not sure if Ms. Spaulding actually knows any genuine Christians — consider that she thinks the pro-homosexual Faith in America are Christians. But as Bible-believing Christians, we at AFTAH have repeatedly condemned violence against homosexuals — for example: HERE, HERE, and HERE.

This just in: Christians are not the only people who oppose homosexuality. Orthodox Jews oppose homosexuality, as do Muslims and Hindus. Secular citizens with traditional American values oppose normalization of homosexuality. And some people who lack compassion and self-control instinctively recognize homosexuality as unnatural, and, most regretably, they respond to their repulsion to homosexuality with verbal abuse and even brutal physical violence that Jesus Christ would (and will eternally) condemn…and which we also condemn.

People who make obscene, threatening phone calls or stalk homosexual men to harangue them and beat them with metal pipes are not reading the Americans For Truth website — nor are they reading their Bibles — nor are they Christian in any sense of the word. They are wicked and must be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

But if Pam Spaulding is so concerned about “hate speech,” she should contemplate her own behavior, for she is deliberately inciting hatred toward Christians:

• Spaulding consistently uses the term “Jeebus” (which apparently originated from “The Simpsons”) or “Jeebus H. Christ” to mock Jesus Christ and His followers. (A search of her site generated 11 pages of results, including this one about Kirk Cameron and Way of the Master.)
• On her site the Christian fish symbol is shown with the words “N Chips” inscribed inside. Another fish symbol has a vulgar phrase inside. These graphics link to an anti-Christian business that sells other perversions of the Christian fish symbol, including one with “Satan” incribed inside and horns.
• She and her fellow bloggers very often refer to their opponents using terms like fascist, Christo-fascist, American Taliban, homophobe, homo-bigot, racist, etc. She makes no distinction between the un-Biblical “God Hates Fags” campaign of Fred Phelps versus those who speak Truth with love. (God does not hate homosexuals — He sent His only Son to die for them so that they, too, might become co-heirs of eternal life. Jesus Christ has demonstrated the greatest love for people caught up in homosexual behavior, as well as for all kinds of sinners.)
• On a personal note, Pam Spaulding still commonly refers to Peter LaBarbera as “Porno Pete” (a search generated 6 pages of results). This slanderous charge is based the strange notion that because LaBarbera exposes homosexual excesses, including public “gay” perversions, he must have some prurient interest in homosexuality himself.

We encourage our readers to look at Pam Spaulding’s blog occasionally and develop an understanding of the lesbian activist’s confused worldview — and then ask yourself which of us incites hatred? Pray for Pam Spaulding and her readers.

“We believe it’s their decision to make
as a private Christian institution,”
said Gary Glenn of the American Family Association of Michigan.

Excerpted from Transgender Professor Fights Dismissal at Christian School, published Feb 2007, by Associated Press:

Julie Nemecek has long, manicured fingernails and wears a blond wig, makeup and dangling earrings.

She’s also legally a man.

Julie, formerly John, says she gained a lot emotionally after starting to live openly as a woman in recent years — cross-dressing, getting hormone therapy and, a week ago, legally changing her name. But she lost something as well: her job.

Spring Arbor University, a small, evangelical Christian school…, fired the 55-year-old associate professor earlier this week…

In a recent statement, the school said: “Our curriculum integrates faith in all aspects of our liberal arts education, and we expect our faculty to model Christian character as an example for our students.”

…After the Nemeceks’ three grown sons moved out, John started researching gender issues in 2003. He was diagnosed with gender identity disorder, decided he could no longer live a lie and told his shocked wife.

Joanne, 55, didn’t know if she could stay in the marriage, especially when John wanted to transition further into living as a woman. She thought John’s lifestyle was sinful but eventually changed her mind after learning more about his condition…

Being Julie, however, hasn’t been easy.

The Nemeceks had to leave their Baptist church… When Spring Arbor learned of Nemecek’s transgender issue in 2005, it let her keep working this school year but with less pay and responsibility.

She taught classes over the Internet instead of on campus and wasn’t allowed to wear makeup or female clothes on campus or speak with co-workers or students about being transgender.

The job reassignment, according to the school, was an accommodation and chance for Nemecek’s “restoration” because of her 16 years of work at the school “and our desire to act in a Christ-like way.

“The agreement didn’t last long. Spring Arbor sent Nemecek a letter in October saying she’d broken the contract by visiting campus in makeup and wearing a university T-shirt to a local grocery store.

“If we allow you to continue these appearances that manifest your current transgender circumstance, we open ourselves to questions of inconsistency in upholding our Christian beliefs,” Randy Rossman, the school’s director of human resources, wrote Oct. 26.

Nemecek filed the discrimination complaint five days later…

“We believe it’s their decision to make as a private Christian institution,” said Gary Glenn of the American Family Association of Michigan. “This is an adult role model for teenagers whose parents thought by sending them to a Christian school they were not likely to be exposed to such lifestyle choices and emotional problems.”

Continue reading at The Christian Post…

From the Out & Equal website:

Out & Equal Workplace Advocates is proud to display our ever-increasing list of corporations who support LGBT workplace equality by encouraging and fostering their own employee resource groups (ERGs). With such valuable workplace groups in place, employees in one ERG can turn to leaders in other groups to share resources and establish good workplace practices for LGBT employees. LGBT employees trust their employers are keeping their interests in mind when making key business decisions that affect all employees…

True Out & Equal Workplace Leaders

A gay couple who hope to marry one day has donated more than $1 million to the University of California, Los Angeles, to fund research on legal topics involving same-sex relationships.

The gift announced Friday from John McDonald and Rob Wright will support what is described as the nation’s first endowed academic chair in sexual orientation law.

The two say they want to promote objective [?] research, but they also hope to aid the campaign for gay marriage and other gay rights issues…

Continue reading at Associated Press…

Note just how “objective” they are:

• This is not McDonald and Wright’s first gift to UCLA designed to promote homosexuality in American culture.

• McDonald and Wright are also benefactors of the public television newsmagazine In the Life which publicizes various aspects of the homosexual lifestyle.

Having spent three days with 11,000 professors of religion and Bible at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) in Washington DC., I’m glad to be back in the peace of my Californian study. Every year, in the academy, orthodox biblical Christianity decreases in representation, while radical liberalism increases. The liberal SBL, founded in 1880, welcomed the fledgling AAR in 1963, but it is now being thrown out of AAR, apparently because privileging one religion in a meeting of “religion teachers” is too politically incorrect. So the cuckoo takes over the nest and the SBL must fend for itself.

While the joint arrangement persists (until 2008), I am able to observe religious history as it happens. Since 1991 I have witnessed the radical agenda stretch the liberal envelop to unimaginable extremes. I have deliberately attended the “cutting edge” seminars, since what the “cutting edge” conceives soon becomes acceptable to the liberal majority. Here is a sampling of this year’s offerings:

• In her plenary address, Diana Eck, president of AAR and professor at Harvard, introduced herself as a Montanan, a Methodist and a Massachusetts-recently-married gay — to enthusiastic applause. Her great contribution is the promotion of religious pluralism in America, but religious pluralism is often accompanied by sexual pluralism;

• In The Contemporary Pagan Studies Consultation, academic witches and warlocks conferred on the spiritual power of “fire circle drumming,” in which fire represents “hardly contained desire.” The audience heard about “Paganistan,” the thriving Wiccan community in Minnesota, and a lecture entitled “The Pagan Explosion,” documented that paganism has grown 38 fold in the USA in the last eleven years and 250-fold in Australia in the last five years;

• In The Theology and Religion Section: Jim Wallis’ God’s Politics, Wallis reduced the Christian message to a modern version of a social gospel for the Democratic party. An “evangelical feminist” railed against the genocidal foundation of America and called for the deconstruction of “normative heteropatriarchy.” One small but bright light came from a Canadian scholar who accused Wallis of nationalistic idolatry for making America, rather than the church, the source of Gospel action;

• In a review session of Christ and the Single Savior [subtitle: Gender and Sexuality in the Bible], Yale professor Dale B. Martin’s homoerotic interpretation of the New Testament teaching on sexuality began with a professor from Harvard Divinity School introducing herself by saying: “I do not know where I am in relation to Christianity.” Such confusion was hardly lifted when a Yale professor of theology asked Martin where Jesus had gay sex. Martin replied: “In the park, which is what the gospel writers meant by ‘garden.’” This trivialization and eroticization of Jesus Gethsemane suffering elicited not a single objection from the numerous theology professors in attendance;

• In The Queer Theory and LGBT Studies in Religion Consultation a paper “showed” the deep theological meaning of homosexual bathroom graffiti. With the verbal verve of a rap artist, gross sexual perversion was transformed into a noble response to “the dominant hegemonic power-structures of white, heterosexual, capitalistic society.” Another gay theologian argued that there was no genetic “binary template” (male/female) so we are all sexually becoming whatever we wish to be;

These professors constitute an armada of brain-power deployed on our campuses to form the thinking of the rising generation. They are succeeding.

Radio host Dennis Prager interviewed a university senior who went to college a confirmed heterosexual but leaves, like many, convinced that there are numerous valid forms of sexuality. On the related issue of abortion, a poll shows that while only 37% of high school graduates are pro-choice, 73% of women leaving college are.

Exposed to the extremist ideology I saw last week, our college students are crumbling. The students I met this year haunt my thinking and stir up my gospel passion. I pray fervently that God will use me to strengthen their hearts, encourage their minds and feed their souls. I’d like to provide them with a national conference, written materials, courses, lectures, CD’s-whatever I can to help them. I need an energetic, articulate assistant to help me plan conferences; some savvy researchers to understand and interact with the materials these students are reading; an army of parents, grandparents, pastors and Sunday School teachers who will pray for CWiPP and for these students.

Will you help counter the influence of radical apostasy? Will you share this NewsCWiPP with a few friends: Pray with and for me? Consider giving CWiPP a year-end donation to help us accomplish this enormous task? Pray that a courageous, convincing Christian witness might be heard in the halls of academia, in the corridors of our culture, in the intimacy of our families, and in the sanctity of our churches.

CHRISTOS KURIOS: CHRIST IS LORD.

Peter Jones
Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet

Two of eleven men arrested for public masturbation at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport:
UNC Professor & CDC Advisor Dr. Hugh Tilson (left) and Spellman Art Professor Lev Mills (right)

Excerpted from Shaking Hands with the Unemployed, by Dr. Mike Adams, published Jan 22, 2007, by Townhall:

It should come as no surprise that a men’s restroom at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport has become a playground for those who want to masturbate in public and have sex with men they don’t even know. After all, Atlanta is a hotbed of homosexual activity and public restrooms are favorite gathering places of many homosexuals.

But some may be surprised that, since December, police officers have arrested and charged 11 men with public indecency in the Atlanta airport. That is because there has been little talk about the arrests. And that, in turn, may have something to do with the fact that “Dirty Nearly Dozen” includes University of North Carolina Professor (and advisor for the Center for Disease Control) Dr. Hugh Tilson and Spelman College Professor Lev T. Mills.

Continue reading on Townhall…

In tongue-in-cheek deference to the American Civil Liberties Union, students at the University of Texas displayed an “ACLU Solstice Barn” on campus, featuring politically correct figures.

“We’ve got Gary and Joseph instead of Mary and Joseph in order to symbolize ACLU support for ‘homosexual marriage,’ and of course there isn’t a Jesus in the manger,” said Tony McDonald, chairman of the Young Conservatives of Texas branch on the Austin campus.

Continue reading at WorldNet Daily…

…Middlebury College [is] implementing a policy through which students who identify themselves as gay will receive the same benefits in the admissions process as ethnic minorities, athletes and legacies.

Continue reading at The Daily Princetonian…