Tennessee St. Rep. Mark Pody

This is a terrific discussion with my friends and Christian activists Coach Dave Daubenmire and Mike Heath–which we recorded Monday (January 25, 2015). We discuss the defeat in committee of the Tennessee Natural Marriage Defense Act. This bill,  offered by State Rep. Mark Pody, would nullify the Supreme Court’s evil Obergefell decision “nationalizing” homosexuality-based “marriage.” As Coach writes about HERE and Matt Trewela writes about below, the TNMDA bill received only one vote in the Civil Justice subcommittee–thanks in part to the “cover” provided by Tennessee affiliate of Focus on the Family, FACT (Family Action of Tennessee), which came out against the bill.

I had not studied up on the politics surrounding the Natural Marriage Defense Act prior to this interview, but what I know from experience is that our pro-family movement has been plagued by a defeatist mindset for decades. In 2006, 81 percent of voters in the Volunteer State made their will clearly known–protecting marriage as it naturally is: between a man and a woman. Or so they thought–because nine years later, five unelected Supreme Court Justices–led by pro-homosexual advocate Anthony Kennedy–arrogantly disenfranchised them, creating another fictional, newfangled “constitutional right” (homosexuality-based “marriage”) fundamentally at odds with “Nature and Nature’s God.”

Desperate times call for bold measures–led by lawmakers like State Rep. Pody who are willing to buck political correctness and take back legislative authority for We the People. FACT prefers another lawsuit–despite the legal profession’s steadily increasing subservience to LGBT activist ideology. We will continue to follow closely the efforts of people in Tennessee and many other states to fight back against judicial supremacists, including those five SCOTUS justices who think they know better than God what marriage is. –Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH; @PeterLaBarbera [Watch this video on YouTube HERE.]

Matt Trewela writes:

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What happened in Tennessee? A bill to defend marriage killed by Christians and GOP

By Matt Trewela, reprinted from his blog, January 23, 2016

Watching a nation burn itself to the ground is a hard thing. Watching the cowardice of men while it is happening is even harder.

I always tell people that – “If you give politicians something less to do than what is needed and necessary – they’ll take it every time.” Such was the case in Tennessee.

The largest pro-family group in the state, Family Action Council of Tennessee (FACT), put all their time, energy, and money into defeating the bill of interposition introduced by Representative Mark Pody – a bill that would have interposed against the lawless Obergefell opinion by SCOTUS. The bill had 22 co-sponsors. [See the FACT response to Pody’s bill HERE and a flowchart explaining their lawsuit strategy HERE.]

FACT stated they planned to bring a lawsuit in court to oppose the Obergefell decision. They stated that if this bill of interposition passed it would ruin what they were planning to accomplish through the lawsuit. The Republican legislators, or more properly stated, the GOP leadership loved what FACT was saying in opposition to the bill and had the bill killed on Wednesday, January 20th, in the Republican-controlled committee before it could ever come before the full legislature.

New York values: Trump bragged that he came up with homosexual “civil rights” idea before Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley

Donald Trump’s interview with The Advocate magazine in 2000. Trump boasted that he was ahead of Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradly in crusading for adding homosexuality to the 1964 Civil Rights

Dear AFTAH Readers,

This is our first foray into the positions past and present of the leading presidential candidates in the 2016 race. AFTAH is non-partisan–we expose all politicians by the same principled standard without deference to party–so these articles will be factual. We begin with the current GOP front-runner, Donald Trump, who back in 2000 sat down with the editors of the nation’s leading homosexual magazine, The Advocate.

Interestingly, as you can read below, Trump bragged about being ahead of Democratic presidential candidate (former U.S. Senator)Bill Bradley on “gay rights”–by calling for the addition of “sexual orientation” to the landmark 1986 Civil Rights Act. That proposal is embodied today in the so-called LGBT “Equality Act” (HR 3185), which was backed exclusively by Democrats until it received its first two Republican co-sponsors this week: Sen. Mark Kirk and Rep. Bob Dold, both from Illinois. AFTAH has renamed the HR 3185 the “Criminalizing Christianity Act,” since it would negate religious freedom protections in the name of LGBT “equality.”

Of course, many candidates have changed their position on issues, but Trump among all the GOP contenders holds several past positions that are more in line with “progressive” Democrats than Republicans–on key issues like abortion, homosexuality, and national health insurance. In a much talked about 1999 interview with the late Tim Russert [partial YouTube video HERE], he chalked that up to living in liberal-dominated New York City.

Trump says he is now conservative but does not appear to be so on the homosexual issue–see the LGBTQ lobby group Human Rights Campaign’s analysis of his record HERE. Unlike several other Republican 2016 contenders, he has not committed to signing the “First Amendment Defense Act” in his first 100 days as President—-but did say he would support it. And the real estate magnate-turned politician–though a longtime opponent of homosexual “marriage”–now opines that due to the Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling, the issue is over; he told the Hollywood Reporter that “anybody that’s making that an issue is doing it for political reasons. The Supreme Court ruled on it.” We will have more on Trump and other presidential candidates in future posts.–Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH; @PeterLaBarbera

Archive of Evil: (left to right) AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera, Mike Heath and Albert Urias stand across the street from the bizarre Chicago sadomasochism “museum” (Leather Archives) in 2015–after calling attention to its vile contents, which included a book eroticizing violent, incestuous adult-child S&M. The perversion “museum” at 6418 N.  Greenview Ave., in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood–is located within blocks of three schools. See AFTAH story HERE and our flier alerting local residents HERE.

Folks, I bring you this piece by my friend Mike Heath–which testifies to the utter collapse of the pro-family movement dedicated to resisting homosexualism. Mike is the only man in America to have led not one but two successful statewide repeals of homosexualist legislation (“sexual orientation” laws), in Maine in 1998 and 2001. Mike (and other pro-family heroes like Paul Madore and Paul Volle) understood that that those very types of laws were being used across the United States–indeed, the world–to suppress the freedom to act upon one’s religious and moral beliefs. By the way, that was happening well before “same-sex marriage” became a major issue.

Despite their two David-vs.-Goliath victories, a few years ago Mike and his gutsy truth-telling team were cast aside by the powers that be of the Christian Civic League of Maine–which today adopts a more “nuanced” tone. (Translation: the League is a shell of its former self in terms of aggressively defending biblical sexual values.) Yes, CCL, like so many others in the pro-family and conservative movements, has “moved on” by  largely giving up the hard fight of directly taking on the Sin Movement that calls itself “Gay.”

At the same time, and not coincidentally, the League is more subservient to the Maine Republican Party. Perhaps a name-change is in order: the Republican Civic League of Maine?

I know, it’s depressing: sellouts and unilateral surrenders are always rationalized, even by Bible-professing Christians. But I will never accept that the side defending God’s Truth should be less bold, less determined and–most importantly–less principled than the side fighting a fanatical cultural “war” against God and godly morality; against Nature; and against the innocence and moral rectitude of children.

Regardless, Mike is now getting back into the game in Maine, and I for one believe the state will be better off for it. Whether or not his proposed referendum takes off, those who are decidedly on the side of Truth in this values “war” ought to support Mike Heath and help him in any way they can (including volunteering). Send gifts to: Equal Rights Not Special Rights, 5 Sylvan Way, Chelsea, ME 04330, you can reach Mike at 207-956-0819; email: mike@mikeheath.net; website: HERE.–Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH

Mike writes:

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Popular Uprising or Legislative Action?

In a few posts last year I chronicled my extremely slow progress on a referendum idea. You can read those posts by clicking on the Referendum category in this blog.

With the Legislature back in session for the next few months I’ve decided to consult with leaders regarding the referendum idea. I started that process in earnest this week. Here’s the situation in Maine:

• Transgendering and all forms of sexual activity outside of marriage (sexual orientation) are grounds for legal action against Maine citizens who choose to associate with groups and individuals who don’t make their sexual sin a public issue.
• Civil marriage hasn’t existed in Maine since 2012. It was replaced by a highly individualistic “institution” designed to destroy multi-generation families (homosexuality-based “marriage”). Marriage is simple: one man, one woman, one lifetime.
• Maine’s Attorney General propagandizes youth with taxpayer money through “Civil Rights Teams” that are forced by law to equate morality with immorality in the minds of our young people.
• No strategy for either resistance or victory exists in Maine. The only potential action I’ve heard about is the possibility of some limited political developments sometime this year.
• The political and cultural Left has effectively stopped strategizing/resistance at the state level in both the Republican and Democrat parties. Even the outspoken tea party Governor was forced to bow to their insanity.

What should be done?

Homosexual activist pressure campaign drove Spitzer to disavow his own study on “ex-gay” therapy, but Archives of Sexual Behavior editor refused to retract it

Target of Homosexual Pressure Campaign: The late Dr. Robert Spitzer, above, reported in a landmark 2003 academic study that “there is evidence that change in sexual orientation following some form of reparative therapy does occur in some gay men and lesbians.” “Gay” activists barraged him with criticism, so much so that he later disavowed his own study–which, however, was NOT retracted. See the study HERE and the abstract of it below.

Folks, below is an excerpt of a critically important Crisis Magazine piece by Linda Ames Nicolosi, formerly the publications director of NARTH (and wife of Joe Nicolosi). Her subject, Robert Spitzer, played a tragic yet pivotal role in the normalization of homosexuality and the advancement of the homosexual political and cultural agenda. But, as Linda describes, for a time he also advanced the truth that people can indeed overcome unwanted homosexual attractions–by authoring a landmark 2003 study of 200 homosexual men and lesbians who self-reported a “change from homosexual to heterosexual orientation.” This seemingly most politically incorrect of all realities is anathema to homosexualist (“gay”) ideologues, who mercilessly hammered Spitzer–then an old man–ultimately manipulating him into disavowing his own research. Note that, despite his requests, the editor of Archives of Sexual Behavior, Kenneth Zucker, refused to retract Spitzer’s study because the data had not been falsified.

Remember: reports of homosexual people who tried to change but couldn’t are counter-balanced by the many people who have successfully left homosexual lifestyles behind. Of course, in line with the LGBT propaganda tactic that I call “Focus on the Failures,” the latter get far less media attention than the former. You can read the full Crisis article HERE. — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH

Below is the abstract of the 2003 Spitzer study;

Position statements of the major mental health organizations in the United States state that there is no scientific evidence that a homosexual sexual orientation can be changed by psychotherapy, often referred to as “reparative therapy.” This study tested the hypothesis that some individuals whose sexual orientation is predominantly homosexual can, with some form of reparative therapy, become predominantly heterosexual. The participants were 200 self-selected individuals (143 males, 57 females) who reported at least some minimal change from homosexual to heterosexual orientation that lasted at least 5 years. They were interviewed by telephone, using a structured interview that assessed same sex attraction, fantasy, yearning, and overt homosexual behavior. On all measures, the year prior to the therapy was compared to the year before the interview. The majority of participants gave reports of change from a predominantly or exclusively homosexual orientation before therapy to a predominantly or exclusively heterosexual orientation in the past year. Reports of complete change were uncommon. Female participants reported significantly more change than did male participants. Either some gay men and lesbians, following reparative therapy, actually change their predominantly homosexual orientation to a predominantly heterosexual orientation or some gay men and women construct elaborate self-deceptive narratives (or even lie) in which they claim to have changed their sexual orientation, or both. For many reasons, it is concluded that the participants’ self-reports were, by-and-large, credible and that few elaborated self-deceptive narratives or lied. Thus, there is evidence that change in sexual orientation following some form of reparative therapy does occur in some gay men and lesbians.

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The Bob Spitzer I Knew

By Linda Ames Nicolosi, in Crisis Magazine, January 11, 2016

When I opened the newspaper a couple of days after Christmas, I was surprised by a familiar face in the obituaries section: psychiatrist Robert Spitzer. The name brought back a flood of bittersweet personal memories. I had learned something about human nature from Bob Spitzer, and also about politics as they play out behind the scenes in the mental-health establishment.

About 15 years before, Spitzer had asked me to help him with a new research project he was working on—a study of people who had come out of a gay lifestyle. He needed help on his wording and the expression of concepts, and I was, at the time, publications director for NARTH (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality).

Anti-Christian lobby group HRC tallies Obama’s long list of pro-homosexual and pro-transgender “accomplishments”

Two More Dubious Obama LGBT “Firsts”: Obviously, Barack Obama is the first U.S. President to turn the White House–the American people’s house–into a symbol of homosexual-bisexual-transgender activism. (The rainbow has been appropriated by LGBTQ activists as the symbol of their de facto sin movement.) Obama is also the first president to sit for a photo-shoot for a homosexualist magazine, OUT Magazine, in its December 2015 issue.

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Summary of President Obama’s Commitment to LGBT Equality [the homosexual-bisexual-transgender agenda]

Note to AFTAH readers: the following is a list of President Barack Obama’s homosexual-bisexual-transgender agenda “achievements,” produced by Human Rights Campaign, the world’s most powerful and well-funded LGBT lobby organization. [See the original HRC report on PDF HERE.] Even close followers of Obama’s socially left agenda will be surprised by the magnitude of his LGBT record. We have bolded some of the more important Obama actions–note especially #28 and #33 in which Obama undermined the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), thus accelerating the legal momentum for legalized same-sex “marriage.”

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JONAH attorney Chuck LiMandri of the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund is shown to the left of JONAH’s logo. JONAH changed its name from “Jews Offer New Approaches to Homosexuality” to “Jews Offering New Approaches to Healing.”

Dear AFTAH Friends and Supporters,

The following sorrowful email was sent December 31, 2015, by our good friends Arthur Goldberg and Elaine Silodor Berk of Jews Offering New Alternatives to Healing (JONAH) announcing that JONAH must permanently cease operations, including providing referrals and operating its website and listserv, due to “the unjust and unwarranted verdict in Ferguson vs JONAH from the New Jersey Courts this past June.” The case was brought with the help of the well-financed Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

What we have here is “Law-fare” in action: the abuse of the law to crush the opposition–including the forced reimbursement of impossibly expensive legal fees following a politicized case like this. I spoke with JONAH Co-Director Arthur Goldberg and he noted that a bunch of SPLC lawyers would be present at every legal proceeding in the JONAH case–to run up the cost of paying the legal fees against his small organization as part of the final settlement. (Is that “justice”? By the way, regarding our headline, Homo-fascism, and Gay-stapo, GayKK, Homo-Communist, etc., are what we use to lightheartedly describe the LGBT Left’s neo-totalitarian pursuits.)

Talk about chutzpah: the SPLC shopped for a fellow liberal judge who applied an “anti-consumer fraud” New Jersey law against this tiny Jewish organization that has helped many people overcome and manage unwanted same-sex desires–and which is now banned from even referring same-sex strugglers to places where they can get help with their unwanted homosexual desires. The judge in the case, State Superior Court Judge Peter F. Bariso Jr., limited testimony on JONAH’s side and reportedly was about as impartial as the notoriously far-left SPLC itself (see JONAH note below).

Fraud & the SPLC

The SPLC knows a little about *fraud*: it cunningly mislabels a myriad of pro-family groups (including AFTAH, AFA and FRC) opposed to Big Gay Inc as “hate groups” on a par with racist fringe kooks like the KKK. (This vilification tactic is called “bracketing.”) Then the LGBT and “progressive” cyber echo-chamber–joined by the subservient media–repeat the SPLC’s vicious smear ad nauseam to demonize and discredit the targeted family advocates, and ostracize them from the Public Square.

Needless to say, the self-styled “hate arbiters” over at the amateurish SPLC (who seem to think Blacks can’t think for themselves) have never labeled an LGBTQueer organization, website or activist–say, Dan (“Santorum.com”) Savage–as “hateful.” Quite a scam the SPLC’s got going–now they’ve taken it up a notch by legally bullying a small group into oblivion through another “gay” tactic, which I call “Focusing on the Failures.” All you do is highlight the failures among homosexuals who have tried pro-heterosexual therapy–while largely ignoring the EX-“gay” successes–former homosexuals like Greg Quinlan, Charlene Cothran, David Kyle Foster, Anne Paulk, Mario Bergner and Janet Boynes (many of whom have left homosexuality through other means, including Christian rebirth).

Can you imagine if we used the examples of relapsed drug addicts to condemn all programs aimed at overcoming drug addiction?

Easy Transgender Target: Sign from Philadelphia Mummers Parade pokes fun at Bruce Jenner’s “transition” from a star Olympic athlete in 1976 to a supposed “woman” today named “Caitlyn.” Click to enlarge.

Warning: Offensive Descriptions

Dear AFTAH Reader,

I had never heard of the Philadelphia Mummers Parade until I read about the “controversy” surrounding this year’s (2016) parade, which included some street theater poking fun at Bruce (“I Think I’m a Woman Named ‘Caitlyn'”) Jenner. It is natural, normal and good for everyday people to blow off a little steam like these frolicking folks below in response to modern sex/gender lunacy–epitomized by the very “queer” idea that men can become “women,” and women can become “men.” In general I think this PC-drenched society needs to lighten up. Anticipating criticism from humorless, politically correct left-wingers and humorless, politically correct Christians, after the jump I’ve listed some other groups of people whom it is OK to poke fun at. [Watch video on Anthony Stefos’ YouTube page HERE.] — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH; @PeterLaBarbera

P.S. I’m mulling over claiming a new identity as a sinewy, 20-something bodybuilder with a full head of hair; if I choose said identity, I would fully expect to be made fun of. Please be gentle.

‘Gay’ Before God: Homosexual activist “rainbow flag” flies beneath Old Glory at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel. Under Obama, the USA has greatly accelerated its promotion of homosexualism and transsexualism abroad, under the rubric of “human rights.”

The following sobering essay first appeared in the Catholic weekly newspaper, The Wanderer. We are republishing it with their permission:

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One Nation Under God No More

By James K. Fitzpatrick

I make an effort to keep up with what is being written by the journalists who focus on the difference in perspective between conservatives and liberals in the United States. For the most part, these columnists, even the best and the most interesting of them, bat around the same issues. There is nothing wrong with that. It is interesting and informative to get a wide array of angles on, for example the Keystone pipeline, President Obama’s handling of ISIS, and what Donald Trump’s candidacy means for the Republican Party.

Occasionally, however, I come across something that breaks new ground, a column that forces me to look at the world differently than before. Andrew J. Bacevich’s article In the August 14 issue of Commonweal did that for me. (Bacevich is a professor emeritus of history and international relations at Boston University.)

My problem is that I am not comfortable with Bacevich’s conclusions, but have found no way to find fault with them. Maybe some of our readers will have more luck.

Bacevich begins by pointing out that Americans have liked to think of ourselves as the “good guys.” We put “In God We Trust” on our coins, we recite the words “one nation under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, we swear oaths upon the Bible.

Bacevich speaks for many when he recalls how “when I was a boy” in the 1950s, “on matters related to sex and family, a rough congruity existed between the prevailing American cultural norms and the traditional teachings of the Catholic Church.” When “it came to marriage, divorce, abortion, and sex out of wedlock – not to mention a shared antipathy for Communism – Washington and Rome may not have been in lockstep, but they marched pretty much to the same tune. As for homosexuality, well, it ranked among those subjects consigned to the category of unmentionables.”

It was an era when no one thought twice about the Ten Commandments being mounted on the courthouse wall and a Christmas crèche on the town library’s lawn, when Americans thought it entirely proper for Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill to sing Onward Christian Soldiers while planning our strategy during World War II (which Gen. Eisenhower called our “Crusade in Europe” in his book of that name), when no one thought twice about the propriety of placing the American flag and the flag of the Vatican on either end of the altar in a Catholic church.