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SCOTUS Lacks Moral Authority: AFTAH president Peter LaBarbera (at right) and AFTAH’s Washington, D.C. spokesman Brian Fitzpatrick (at left) hold truthful banner outside the Supreme Court April 28 during the Court’s hearing of oral arguments on homosexual “marriage” cases. To read the Court’s 5-4 decision nationalizing so-called “gay marriage” as a supposed fundamental right, go HERE. Click to enlarge.
Put down June 26, 2015 as a very tragic day in the history of the United States of America–the day our highest court defied the will of millions of voters in many states to impose counterfeit, homosexuality-based “marriage” on the entire country.
Obergefell v. Hodges: Illegitimate, Unlawful, and a Fraud on the American People
by Herbert W. Titus and William J. Olson; June 26, 2015
There is simply no other way to say it.
The Supreme Court’s decision today redefining marriage to include couples of the same sex is wholly illegitimate and unlawful. A nullity. Worthy only to be disobeyed.
Anyone who says otherwise — that the rule of law requires recognition of same-sex marriage — is committing a fraud. And any State official — like Governor Robert Bentley of Alabama — who says that his oath of office requires unconditional obedience to the Supreme Court’s mandate to issue same-sex couples licenses to “marry” is mistaking his oath to the Constitution as if it were an oath of absolute obedience to five justices who happen to be sitting on the nation’s highest court.
As Chief Justice Roberts in dissent has described the action taken today:
“Five lawyers have closed debate and enacted their own vision of marriage as a matter of constitutional law. Stealing this issue from the people ….”
And just who are these lawyers? Justice Scalia reminds us that they are all educated at either Harvard or Yale, from the east- and west- coasts, not from the vast middle of the country, and not a single one an evangelical Christian or a Protestant, and then observes:
“The strikingly unrepresentative character of the body voting on today’s upheaval would be irrelevant if they were functioning as judges, answering the legal question whether the American people had ever ratified a constitutional provision that was understood to proscribe the traditional definition of marriage.”
Indeed, from the outset of his bare majority decision, Justice Kennedy did not even act like a judge. Rather, he wrote as if he were an existentialist philosopher seeking the meaning of life, as if the “liberty” protected in the Constitution was a personal quest “to define and express [one’s personal] identity.”
But the Constitution is not some philosophical work written by Jean Paul Sartre. Rather, it is a political and legal document designed by America’s founders to secure the unchanging God-given rights to life, liberty, and property which are deeply rooted in the 18th century soil of the nation. Justice Kennedy showed no regard for these fixed principles, opting for an evolutionary approach to law — asserting that the existential definition of marriage changes with changing times.
The Deviant Roots of a Sin Movement: Dr. Alfred Kinsey’s Table 34 showing timed “orgasms” for babies and young children–apparently supplied to him by a child molester. This table appears in Kinsey’s celebrated 1948 book, “Sexual Behavior and the Human Male,” which also greatly exaggerated the number of people practicing homosexual behavior in American society. Homosexual activists seized on Kinsey’s book to argue that homosexuality was widespread and normal. See AFTAH Point 12 below. Click on graphic to enlarge.
There will be revisions and additions to this list, but here is AFTAH’s first draft of core principles and beliefs.–Peter LaBarbera, President, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality
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1) Homosexual behavior and trans-gender rebellion are morally wrong as they defy Nature and Nature’s God.
2) Homosexuality is not the basis for a healthy self-identity; embracing homosexual or transgender lifestyles/behaviors is a very bad and destructive choice.
3) Homosexuality is about What You Do, not Who You Are. Everyone is responsible before God for his or her sexual conduct. “Sexual Orientation” and “Gender Identity”–the notion of an innate or inherent nature centered around proclivity toward sex- and gender-confusion–are the misguided foundations of self-serving “gay” ideology. These concepts seek to justify immorality by essentially removing one’s moral responsibility for his or her actions.
4) Homosexualism and gender confusion are not the basis for civil rights. Equating the campaign for homosexual “rights”and same-sex “marriage” to the Black civil rights movement insults Black Americans and their noble struggle against slavery and institutional racism (e.g., Jim Crow). Christians in past days were wrong to misuse the Bible to ban interracial unions. Interracial marriages produce beautiful children and families; homosexuality cannot produce life. Creating “rights” based on moral wrongs and sexual/gender perversions naturally undermines other people’s rights, especially the freedoms of religion and conscience enshrined in the United States Constitution. As John Adams, the second president of the United States and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, wrote: “[W]e have not government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion…Our constitution was made only for a moral and spiritual people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
5) All people as human beings created in the image of God deserve respect; all behaviors and ideologies do not.
6) Unlike race and ethnicity, homosexuality is not immutable: people can pursue virtuous change and leave aberrant sex- and transgender lifestyles behind. Oddly, the same LGBTQ activists who champion men and women who abandon their marital spouse and children to live a homosexual life–or the DNA-defying notion that people can change sexes–often excoriate and dehumanize EX-“gays.” Nevertheless, thousands of people have successfully left homosexuality behind, and their wholesome transformation should be celebrated. Legal and legislative efforts to ban pro-heterosexual change therapy for minors are cruel, antithetical to liberty and parental rights, and demonstrate the totalitarian mindset of homosexual advocates and their allies. [AFTAH highly recommends Restored Hope Network, an umbrella group of Christian ex-“gay” ministries.]
Folks, I will say this about the latest Ryan Sorba video: you don’t need to go undercover to reveal the Democrats’ penchant for embracing any sexual lifestyle that is outside the bounds of one-man/one-woman marriage. More and more social liberals–who always follow the “progressives'” lead–are jumping on the “polyamory” (multiple-partner) bandwagon. Sorba’s description of the video follows the jump and the video. — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH; Twitter: @PeterLaBarbera
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Ryan Sorba writes:
Published on Jun 22, 2015
Recently, I went undercover posing as a same-sex marriage activist and asked prominent gay activists and Democrats the following question:
“If the purpose of marriage is to confer dignity upon individuals who love each other, then what about polygamous couples who love each other? They should be able to marry too, don’t you think?”
Shockingly, the gay activists and Democrats all answered, “Yes!”
Abusing Authority? Current U.S. Supreme Court: Standing in back (left to right): Justices: Sonia Sotomayor; Stephen Breyer; Samuel Alito; and Elena Kagan. Front row, sitting (left to right): Justices: Clarence Thomas; Antonin Scalia; Chief Justice John Roberts; Anthony Kennedy; and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Click to enlarge.
“The High Court often acts as if it has been entrusted with the raw power to decide for us the most important public policy issues facing the nation.” — William Olson & Herb Titus
The article below is the first in a series on the courts and homosexual “marriage”; the destructive effect of judicially-imposed counterfeit “marriage” on the nation; and how we as citizens can fight back against this immoral legal/cultural juggernaut. We have taken the liberty of putting quotation marks around the word same-sex “marriage” even when the authors do not–as part of our ongoing struggle to preserve the real meaning of words against “progressive” semantic distortions. Yes, it’s a pain in the rear but it’s the right thing to do.
Kudos to attorneys and pro-family advocates Bill Olson and Herb Titus for conceiving of this project and giving so much of their time and energy toward these in-depth articles together. Thanks also to the U.S. Justice Foundation for financing this project. Should you want to help support this important work, contributions may be made to the U.S. Justice Foundation. — Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth; Twitter: @PeterLaBarbera
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Reconsidering the U.S. Supreme Court’s Authority to Mandate Same-Sex ‘Marriage’
(Part one of a series)
By William J. Olson and Herbert W. Titus
On April 28, 2015, nine unelected lawyers drawn from three elite law schools (Harvard, Yale, and Columbia) listened to 90-minutes of oral argument about same-sex marriage and then retreated behind a wall of red velvet drapes to confer secretly about whether the U.S. Constitution requires that the U.S. Supreme Court impose same-sex “marriage” on the entire nation.
Consider for a moment the process by which that decision will be reached. When the Court decided to hear the Obergefell consolidated cases from the Sixth Circuit, that decision was reached in secret. The Justices consult only with their colleagues and their law clerks, also drawn from elite law schools. When a decision in the case is issued, presumably before the end of the current term toward the end of June, the Court will address only those issues argued by parties and the amici curiae that it cares to address. Its opinion will contain only those reasons for its decision that the Court chooses to reveal. The majority decision may be agreed to by as few as five of these nine justices unaccountable to no one but themselves. And then, the Court will expect the American people to set aside their individual and collective judgment and passively abide by whatever decision is reached — based on a doctrine no where found in the U.S. Constitution–“judicial supremacy.”
Although the Supreme Court’s only constitutional responsibility is to resolve “cases” and “controversies” brought before it, the High Court often acts as if it has been entrusted with the raw power to decide for us the most important public policy issues facing the nation. While the Court would have us believe that those decisions are mandated by faithful adherence to the constitutional text, the truth lies elsewhere. In his autobiography, Justice William O. Douglas provided a glimpse behind the curtain as to how the Supreme Court really works. In his autobiography, he explained that Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes had once explained to him: “[a]t the constitutional level where we work, ninety percent of any decision is emotional. The rational part of us supplies the reasons for supporting our predilections.”
Here is a moving segment from the “Talking Life with Peter Janetzky”radio show March 22, 2015, in which 21-year-old “Amy,” talks about her childhood being adopted by lesbians and raised in a lesbian household. The program originates from Brisbane, Australia. Also see the referenced website, AustralianMarriage.org:
Christopher Doyle, founder and president of Voice of the Voiceless, came out of the homosexual lifestyle and is now happily married with children. Doyle is a professional counselor who helps others find freedom from homosexuality. Read his testimony, and a Mercator interview with Doyle. To support the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, which is defending JONAH against the well-funded SPLC, go HERE.
This article first appeared in the Christian Post, June 17, 2015
This Monday marked the second full week of testimony in the “Trial of the Century”, pitting Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH), a small, New Jersey-based Jewish non-profit organization, against the $340 million dollar Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
At issue are SPLC’s claims that JONAH committed consumer fraud by supposedly guaranteeing four former clients that they could go from “gay” to “straight” in 2-4 years. SPLC recruited these clients to sue JONAH in what has become another installment in the nationwide effort to prevent individuals with unwanted same-sex attractions from accessing counseling.
But SPLC’s case is unraveling at the seams, and the lies that mark this trial should be a lesson for the nation.
First, last Wednesday, under cross-examination by attorney for the defense Charles LiMandri of the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, Dr. Carol Bernstein, an expert witness for the plaintiffs and a well-known psychiatrist and Vice Chair of the New York University (NYU) School of Medicine, conceded that sexual orientation is fluid and can change. She went on to state that she has not conducted any research on the effectiveness of sexual orientation change effort (SOCE) therapy or familiarized herself with any studies looking at harm from such efforts.
Additionally, when asked about the particular type of counseling, psychodrama, that JONAH uses in its practice, Dr. Bernstein replied that it was not a well-respected counseling modality, despite that fact that Columbia University, where she attended, offers a course for undergraduate students on the method, a fact of which she was unaware.
Feelings vs. Reality: ‘Trans-racialist’ Rachel Dolezal, a woman born white who wants to live as a black person. Click to enlarge.
Folks, I’m tempted to say that only by falsely labeling Michael Brown as a ‘Transracial-phobe’ could one reject his sound arguments below. — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH.org
I do not for a moment want to minimize the very real struggles of those who identify as transgender nor do I want to ignore those individuals who have genuine biological or genetic abnormalities.
I simply want to state once again—really, I want to shout it from the rooftops—that perception does not change reality, and so Bruce Jenner is no more a woman than Rachel Dolezal is black.
In the last week, a steady stream of articles has drawn comparisons, both positive and negative, between Jenner and Dolezal, with not a few stating that Dolezal’s actions are harmful to the transgender cause. (The opening lines of Ben Shapiro’s fairly comprehensive article, detailing many other claims made by Dolezal and dripping with sarcasm, are classic.)
Obviously, I have no idea whether Dolezal genuinely believes she is black or simply chooses to identify as black, but what’s clear, if all the reports are true, is that she is not black.
How can I be so dogmatic?
It’s because skin color is verifiable.
It is not based on perception.
It is not based on feelings.
It is based on provable data.
The same is true when it comes to gender (again, putting aside the question of how to best help those with biological or genetic abnormalities that are not so easily categorized as male or female).
Some people are genetically and biologically male while others are genetically and biologically female, and to alter their physical appearance through cosmetic surgery no more changes their real identity than wearing leopard skins transforms a human being into a big cat.
Living Out a Lie: Former Olympic star Bruce Jenner (posing for Vanity Fair as “Caitlyn” above) is a biological male who wants to live as a woman–and claims that fictitious identity despite his male DNA. Click to enlarge.
The same is true when it comes to hormonal treatments: You can pump up Bruce Jenner with all the female hormones in the world but that does not make him into a woman. (To date, we have not been presented with any evidence that he is a genetic female in any form.)
In the words of Dr. Paul McHugh, one of the nation’s most respected psychiatrists yet a man despised by many in the transgender community as out of date and out of touch:
“Transgendered men do not become women, nor do transgendered women become men. All (including Bruce Jenner) become feminized men or masculinized women, counterfeits or impersonators of the sex with which they ‘identify.'”
Not only so, but in many ways, the transgender movement is based on fundamental contradictions.
Sin Advocate: Young and winsome Matthew Vines is working hard to win Christians to the idea that committed homosexual relationships should be blessed before a holy God. Despite his apostasy, Vines was recently welcomed as a “brother in Christ” by Rev. Caleb Kaltenbach, lead pastor of Discovery Church in Simi Valley, CA. See Vines’ curiously named “Reformation Project.“
“We are to have no fellowship with darkness. We can’t ‘dialogue’ with any professing Christian who’s in open rebellion against the Word of God. We can’t ‘dialogue’ with anybody who is deceiving and misleading the Body of Christ on any sin while claiming to be a Christian!”–Janet Mefferd
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I welcome my friend Janet Mefferd to the pages of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality. Janet is a former longtime radio talk show host with the Salem Radio Network–and, I must say, as someone who cumulatively chatted a few hours in on-air interviews with Mefferd over the years–she was one of the best in the business (Christian and secular). We look forward to seeing what’s next in Janet’s career, but until then we are delighted to publish her work.
Regarding this issue of “dialogue” or “bridging” with homosexuality advocates, I recall an article by the late Alan Medinger–a man who walked away from homosexuality with the help of the Savior he loved, Jesus Christ. Medinger, who founded Regeneration Ministries in Baltimore, wisely cautioned against an internal Church debate over homosexuality because there is nothing compelling it except outside, anti-biblical agitation. The sinfulness of same-sex behavior is a settled matter in both the Bible and thousands of years of Church/Old Testament tradition, argued Medinger, and we need not debate it now within Christendom any more than we should debate, say, adultery.
Read this beautiful tribute to Medinger by Regeneration’s Josh Glaser–then decide if the same Spirit of Christ that impelled Alan lies with Matthew Vines, who–by trying to redefine Christianity to accommodate homosexual relationships and “gay marriage”–propels the very same debate that Medinger rejected on principle. Below Mefferd ably applies what I call the “Sexual Sin Substitution Test.”— Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH; Twitter: @PeterLaBarbera
“Evangelicals Open Door to Debate on Gay Rights.” Just the kind of headline I never enjoy, but it ran June 8 in The New York Times over a story about “influential evangelicals” meeting with homosexual activist Matthew Vines at Biola University last month, complete with a Times reporter and photographer on hand.
Vines, you may recall, is author of 2014’s controversial “God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships,” which manipulates biblical terminology in an unconvincing attempt to argue against the sinfulness of homosexuality.
Worse, the book was published by Crown Publishing Group’s Convergent imprint, which shared staff and operations with and was a sister imprint of evangelical Christian publisher WaterBrook Multnomah. Among other repercussions for printing such unbiblical garbage, WaterBrook Multnomah resigned its membership from the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB). (Crown later separated the two imprints.)
Vines also runs an apostate group called The Reformation Project, which claims to exist “to train Christians to support and affirm lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Through building a deep grassroots movement, we strive to create an environment in which Christian leaders will have the freedom to take the next steps toward affirming and including LGBT people in all aspects of church life.”
