Liberty Counsel sent out the following regarding the House’s passage of “Hate Crimes” legislation and a link to a Family Research Council report on the first 100 days of the Obama Administration; see Shawn Akers analysis of the “hate crimes” bill HERE:

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Liberty Counsel

April 30, 2009

Hate Crimes Passes House and Heads to Senate

Yesterday the U.S. House passed H.R. 1913 and elevated “actual or perceived” “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the same federal legal status as race. The vote was 249 to 175, with 10 not voting. You can see how your representative voted by checking the roll online.

Officially Preferred Victims: Liberty University law professor Shawn Akers writes that if H.R. 1913, the federal “Hate Crimes” bill, becomes law, “local and state law enforcement would have the incentive of federal funds to prosecute cases involving … preferred victims to the exclusion and neglect of less valuable victims.” Membership in the “preferred” category is “based not on immutable characteristics but on the class member’s choice of sexual conduct … and subjective gender self-identity.”  

TAKE ACTION: Call or write your U.S. Representative and Senators in opposition to H.R. 1913, the “Hate Crimes” bill that will likely be voted on by the House tomorrow, Wednesday, April 28. Call 202-225-3121 or 202-224-3121 or contact your representatives through www.congress.org.

Editor’s Note: we delayed in making a change in copy desired by the author, in paragraph I.A. (“Characteristics”), giving the proper credit for a description of the Hate Crimes bill, HR 1913. That paragraph was corrected on May 1, 2009.

Following is an outstanding analysis of the federal “Hate Crimes” bill, HR 1913, which could be voted on by the House of Representatives tomorrow (Wednesday, April 29). Shawn Akers is a relative newcomer to the pro-family movement but is shaping up to be a future all-star. He serves as a Policy Analyst with Liberty Counsel, and as Adjunct Professor of Law and Director of Academic Support with Liberty University School of Law.  Akers is a close friend, colleague and former Regent Law classmate of Matt Barber, AFTAH Board Member and current Culture War heavyweight also with Liberty Counsel. (Barber will keynote AFTAH’s fundraising banquet on Saturday, Oct. 10 — save the date.) Keep an eye on Shawn. The Lord will be using him mightily as the heated culture war reaches a boil. — Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, www.aftah.com.

Meet Iowa’s New ‘Super-Legislature’: forget those civics lessons, kiddos: the real, ultimate power to create laws lies with the nature-defying liberals in charge of the Iowa Supreme Court (left). Needless to say, Iowa’s Democratic governor, Chet Culver (who once taught high school government), did not take Matt Barber’s bold advice today — that is, he did not interfere with the new immoral, counterfeit “marriages” imposed by the seven smiling “judiciocrats” at left.

Contact: Matt Barber: jmattbarber@comcast.net

DATE: April 27, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Iowa Governor Should Tell Court ‘Thanks but No Thanks’

Lynchburg, VA – Matt Barber, Director of Cultural Affairs with both Liberty Alliance Action and Liberty Counsel* released the following statement today encouraging Iowa Governor Chet Culver to honor his obligation to uphold the Iowa Constitution and refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex pairs.

“In Baker v. Nelson, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to imagine there exists a ‘constitutional right’ to ‘same-sex marriage.’ It held that if the Court were to create such a right, it would amount to an unconstitutional act of ‘judicial legislation.’ With its recent opinion charging that such a right exists and ordering that, starting today, marriage licenses be given to homosexual duos, the Iowa Supreme Court has done just that. It has co-opted the role of both the legislative and executive branches of government and has presumed to unconstitutionally create and administer law from the bench.

This is a very useful piece from my good friend, John Biver, who is doing outstanding work along with Jack Roeser and the guys at Champion News in holding Illinois’ consistently dysfunctional Illinois Republican Party leaders accountable. Of course, a similar principle might apply to pro-life and pro-family Democrats who are fed up with their party’s lock-step support of the homosexualist and abortion-on-demand agendas, with one key difference: the Democrat Party platform promotes government support for abortion and homosexuality, whereas the GOP’s, as John writes, does not. — Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality

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Does a Republican Precinct Committeeman have to support all GOP candidates?

By John Biver, Editor of Champion News; posted4-27-09

Last week a good friend who is newly involved in his township GOP organization asked me if I thought he was obligated to work for Republican candidates he felt he couldn’t support. As an example, he said he can’t support Republican Congresswoman Judy Biggert because of her co-sponsoring of Republican Mark Kirk’s dangerous and wrong-headed H.R. 1913 [the “Thought Crimes” bill].

It’s a good question, since there seems to be some misunderstanding about the role of precinct committeemen, the party itself, and the people it elects.

I sent a version of the following letter to a “Christian” writer who appears to have accepted the Big Lie put forth by pro-homosexual ideologues and liberal religionists — that some people (in this case, his son) are intrinsically “gay”; that God “created” them that way (i.e., as a loving creation); and hence, by implication, that God approves of their homosexual behavior:

Dear Sir,

…. Are you saying that a holy God made your son to desire and have sex with other men — even though that same God in the Bible clearly and unequivocally condemns homosexual practice (Old and New Testaments)? Do you believe God designed nature so that “men who have sex with men” (MSM), to use sterile CDC terminology, even though MSM suffer disproportionately from all sorts of sexually transmitted diseases? With all due respect, I think that is an untenable position. (See Professor Rob Gagnon’s website, www.robgagnon.net, for more information on the Bible and homosexuality.)

Read the rest of this article »

HATE AND INTOLERANCE IN ACTION: Potty-mouthed homosexual activist bigot Perez Hilton’s hate-filled attacks on Miss California, Carrie Prejean, gave Americans a “sneak peek into the soul of homosexual activism,” writes Matt Barber. AFTAH has reposted Perez’ pathetically juvenile doctored photo of Miss Prejean at the end of this article. In defending Hilton, another homosexual activist, Wayne Besen, echoed his intolerance by labeling opposition to same-sex “marriage” as “bigotry.”

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By J. Matt Barber

Warning: this article contains graphic but accurate material that may be offensive to some readers.

You may have heard. During Sunday’s Miss USA pageant openly “gay” activist and pageant judge Perez Hilton – the self-styled “Queen of Media” – ambushed Carrie Prejean – the openly Christian Miss California – with a politically loaded question on so-called “same-sex marriage.” Prejean’s candid answer – as both Hilton and Miss USA organizer Donald Trump later admitted – likely cost her the crown.

From the moment she opened her mouth, Prejean has given liberals a clinic in class.  Hilton, on the other hand (a.k.a. Mario Armando Lavandeira), has provided the world a sneak peek into the soul of homosexual activism.

For “motivated clients” … “reorientation therapies do not produce emotional harm”

NARTH, the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, reports in its April 23, 2009 “NARTH News” e-newsletter:

“The 2009 Edition of Essential Psychotherapy and Its Treatment, a classic text used in most medical schools and psychology programs, has the following important addition to its section on homosexuality (W.W. Norton & Company, p. 488):

‘While many mental health care providers and professional associations have expressed considerable skepticism that sexual orientation could be changed with psychotherapy and also assumed that therapeutic attempts at reorientation would produce harm, recent empirical evidence demonstrates that homosexual orientation can indeed be therapeutically changed in motivated clients, and that reorientation therapies do not produce emotional harm when attempted (e.g., Byrd & Nicolosi, 2002; Byrd et al., 2008; Shaeffer et al., 1999; Spitzer, 2003).’

“This is a very important academic text and the inclusion of this statement and the research it cites is a victory for NARTH and all those who support client self-determination in the treatment of unwanted homosexuality!”

TAKE ACTION: Call your U.S. Representative and Senators at 202-224-3121 and urge them to OPPOSE H.R. 1913, the federal “Thought Crimes” (“Hate Crimes”) bill, which is likely to be passed out of the House Judiciary Committee today. You can also find your representatives at www.congress.org.

“Passage of ‘hate crimes’ legislation would place the behaviorally driven and fluid concepts of ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ on an equal footing with legitimate, neutral and immutable ‘suspect class’ characteristics such as skin color or a person’s true gender. This creates both a sociopolitical and legal environment wherein traditional sexual morality officially becomes the new racism.” — Matt Barber

By Matt Barber, Liberty Counsel

Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) and Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Illinois) have quietly re-introduced the federal thought crimes bill, H.R. 1913, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. As has proved to be true in both Europe and Canada, this Orwellian piece of legislation is the direct precursor to freedom killing and speech chilling “hate speech” laws. It represents a thinly veiled effort to ultimately silence – under penalty of law – morally, medically and biblically based opposition to the homosexual lifestyle. The bill is expected to be marked up Wednesday before the full House Judiciary Committee.

Under the 14th Amendment, victims of violent crime are currently afforded equal protection under the law regardless of sexual preference or proclivity. If passed, H.R. 1913 will change all that.  It overtly and, most likely, unconstitutionally discriminates against millions of Americans by granting federally preferred status, time and resources to individuals who define their identity based upon aberrant sexual behaviors (i.e., “gay” and lesbian “sexual orientation” or cross-dressing “gender identity”).