AFTAH Targeted in Biased FOX-Chicago TV Report on SPLC’s Fraudulent ‘Hate Group’ Classification

DePaul law student and AFTAH critic Maria Pahl offered a grossly distorted description of AFTAH's three-day Truth Academy held last August. FOX-Chicago relied on Pahl's inaccurate account to buttress its story on AFTAH's alleged "hate."

TAKE ACTION: Watch video [click HERE] and contact FOX Chicago News; e-mail news@foxchicago.com, or use their online form HERE.

Dear Readers, once again we see the Left and the pro-homosexual media (which too often are one and the same) conflating disagreement with homosexual behavior with “hate.”  Chicago-FOX News went to elaborate lengths to “expose” AFTAH is a “hate group” — per the classification by the left-wing ideologues over at the Southern Poverty Law Center.  But it seems the best they could come up with is that we joked about Congressman Barney Frank and made some common-sense observations about pat-downs by “gay” TSA agents! (If normal male TSA agents don’t frisk women, why should homosexual male TSA agents frisk men, or lesbians frisk women?)

How interesting that FOX Chicago’s “spies” at the recent Americans For Truth banquet came up empty-handed on examples of “hate.”  That’s because our keynote speaker, Ken Hutcherson — who received AFTAH’s “American Truth Teller” award for 2010 — spoke the truth about homosexuality in the love of Christ.  And at the three-day AFTAH Truth Academy, when we discovered that a young man (“Eric”) — a “spy” for homosexual activist Wayne Besen — was recording it against our wishes, we didn’t mistreat him or expel him from the conference.  Instead, a few of our attendees ended up having long conversations with Eric about homosexuality — respectfully hearing his views and sharing our Christian perspective on this lifestyle.  Eric even ended up joining everyone for dinner, and later admitted that he saw no “hatred” for homosexuals at the Academy.
 
Pastors and Christians — can you see it?  The Homosexual Lobby and their liberal allies seek ultimately to label your biblical beliefs as the hateful equivalent of the KKK.  Don’t let them get away with it!  God bless you. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org 

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Fox-Chicago News Does Hit-Piece on AFTAH as Alleged ‘Hate Group’

Americans For Truth About Homosexuality was the target of a biased FOX-Chicago TV report last night, pegging off the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) controversial classification of AFTAH, the Family Research Council, American Family Association, Illinois Family Institute, and other mainstream pro-family organizations as “hate groups.” The report — which was really more of a dishonest hit piece — [watch it online HERE] relied on twisted characterizations of AFTAH’s Truth Academy, held at the Christian Liberty academy in August. I don’t know which Truth Academy DePaul law student and FOX source Maria Pahl attended but in her zeal to defame AFTAH she grossly skews what the Academy was all about.

The Truth Academy was three full days of lectures on many aspects of the homosexual activist agenda and its implications for larger society. I think Pahl attended a large part of it, yet here’s how she describes it to FOX, as reported by a website of an atheist high school teacher with whom she was aligned [listen about the two-minute mark HERE]:

“They think that gay people want to force HIV blood into the blood supply, they think that gay people want to recruit straight people, they think that homosexuals have training camps where they’re all taught the same sob story so straight people are sympathetic to them,” Pahl said.

Training camps? AFTAH’s audiotapes of the Academy — including of Cliff Kincaid’s talk, which discusses the continuing FDA ban on “men who have sex with men” donating blood are available to the public, and to FOX [see Truth Academy info HERE]. But rather than examine the veracity of Pahl’s take on the conference (or put her claims in context), FOX ran with her jaundiced and ridiculous description. Sadly, this is what passes for “news” and investigative reporting in Chicago.

Mark Saxenmeyer, the FOX reporter who interviewed me and Christian Liberty pastor Calvin Lindstrom for the story, is himself an open homosexual — which he told me and Pastor Lindstrom during the interview with us for the story. Saxenmeyer said he is not a “gay” activist, but based on our conversation he clearly is a strong advocate of homosexuality. (Saxenmeyer does not reveal his homosexuality on air, which is typical of homosexual reporters working on homosexuality-related stories; the news consumer rarely is informed of the reporter’s “special interest” in stories like these.)

Saxenmeyer mentions the Barney Frank spoof on our website in the FOX story (which AFTAH reprinted from a conservative website) as evidence of “hate.” But if every American who ever told or laughed at a Barney Frank joke — or chuckled at his lisp and mannerisms — was officially labeled a “hater,” then America would be filled with about, I don’t know … 86.5 percent “haters.” (Meanwhile, look at the sheer vitriol heaped on conservatives like Sarah Palin — which is never classified as “hate” by the liberal Left.) Note: the FOX story available for viewing on their website does not include the post-story banter between FOX reporter Saxenmeyer and anchor Robin Robinson, which is perhaps the worst part of the entire presentation. Robinson hones in on the “hate crimes” angle, even asking if groups like AFTAH could be charged in connection with a separate “hate crime” committed against a homosexual. Saxenmeyer’s response implies that there could be a prosecution if the perpetrator had ties to an alleged “hate group.” The entire discussion — especially Robinson’s comments and body language evincing her uncritical acceptance of the leftist SPLC classification of AFTAH as a “hate group,” — was unprofessional and completely one-sided.

I’m sure Mark Saxenmeyer felt he was fair to AFTAH by including me in the piece, but what is missing was context. The FOX story features the Gay Liberation Network, which we regard as a truly hateful and extremist organization based on the objectively hateful actions of their leaders — e.g., GLN’s acclaiming of U of Illinois’ firing of a Catholic professor; and GLN leader Bob Schwartz telling me at a Chicago protest that if it weren’t for the policemen standing nearby, he would push me into oncoming traffic (Schwartz has never denied making this statement after we reported it; had I said the same to Schwartz, he might have reported my words to those same cops as a potential “hate crime.”)

Says David Smith, executive director of the Illinois Family Institute (also labeled a “hate group” by the SPLC):

“What is really shocking and telling to me is that in doing this story they interviewed the wildly radical homosexual, anti-police, anti-war Marxist activist Andy Thayer, of the Gay Liberation Network to speak against AFTAH.  The fact that they went to him for a sound-bite really says a lot about their journalistic credibility.”

So Marxists who make veiled physical threats against Christians — and who engage in vicious smears like calling Chicago’s Moody Church a “House of Hate” — are cited as credible news sources, while groups that criticize homosexuality as a “civil right” are “investigated” as “hate groups?”  This sort of heavy-handed media bias helps explain why people of faith so distrust secular reporters, and why so many Americans are turning toward conservative or alternative media outlets to get their news.

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Help AFTAH Fight Homosexual Extremism with your Year-end Gift!

YEAR-END APPEAL:  Would you help Americans For Truth fulfill its mission of exposing and opposing the aggressive and well-funded Homosexual Lobby with your year-end “Matching Grant” gift to AFTAH?  We have received another generous $10,000 matching gift and are hoping to completely match it in this vital, year-end giving period. Your gifts are tax-deductible.  AFTAH is on the receiving end of a ton of Homosexual Hate because “LGBT” activists are desperate to label sincere, moral-minded Americans who publicly oppose homosexuality as “haters, bigots and homophobes” — the Big Three in their ongoing smear campaign that might otherwise be labeled: Operation Demonize Christians.  We must NEVER give in to their evil crusade to redefine Christianity and negate the time-honored witness of Scripture and tradition against same-sex sexual conduct!

HOW TO GIVE: Please make your year-end “Match” donation of $1,000, $500, $100, $50 or whatever you can give to: www.americansfortruth.com/donate/ or mail to: AFTAH, PO Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522.  Thank you for your support and for standing for truth — no matter what lies the Politically Thought Police tell!  Merry Christmas!

JOIN THE AFTAH ‘TRUTH TEAM’: Please also consider becoming a monthly AFTAH “Truth Team” Partner with your regular pledge of $250, $100, $50 or $25/month to Americans For Truth; sign up at http://americansfortruth.com/membership.php.  Thank you for standing with us!

— Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org; write us at americansfortruth@gmail.com