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Drug Crime or “Hate Crime”? Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), shown at far left, is being pilloried by homosexual activists because she challenged the homosexual activist myth that Wyoming college student Matt Shepard was murdered “just because he was gay.” In 2004, ABC News’ 20/20 reported that former Laramie Police Detective Ben Fritzen, one of the lead investigators in the Shepard murder case, believed robbery was the primary motive. “Matthew Shepard’s sexual preference or sexual orientation certainly wasn’t the motive in the homicide,” Fritzen told 20/20. D. Foxx was savaged by left-wing MSNBC bloviator Keith Olbermann, who evidently never saw the ABC report, which revealed that Shepard’s murderer was on a “meth [methamphetamine] binge.”
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Folks, I don’t know about calling it a “hoax,” but Rep. Foxx is correct to challenge the ongoing myth that says Matthew Shepard was killed just for being “gay.” Read this 2004 ABC 20/20 report and decide for yourself. Regardless, the fact that Shepard’s is now one of the most famous murder cases in history belies the notion that homosexuals are somehow underserved by our justice system. In fact, thousands of victims of similar horrific violence never received any of the national media attention that this crime received. TAKE ACTION: Call your U.S. Senators and urge them to oppose “hate crimes” legislation, H.R. 1913, which would federalize homosexuality (“sexual orientation”) law and create a politically correct hierarchy of victims. Call 202-224-3121 or go to www.congress.org.
NC Congresswoman Claims Shepard Murder ‘Not a Hate Crime’
By Jim Brown – OneNewsNow – 5/5/2009 7:00:00
Matthew ShepardA Republican lawmaker has enraged supporters of “hate crimes” legislation for suggesting that the horrible murder of Matthew Shepard was not motivated by anti-homosexual bigotry.
Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina) drew the ire of homosexual activists and other supporters of hate crimes legislation last week when she suggested that the tragic 1998 murder of college student Matthew Shepard was not a hate crime.
“We know that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn’t because he was gay,” Foxx said on the House floor. “The bill was named for him — the hate crimes bill was named for him, but it’s really a hoax that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills.”
If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin [or, a sin offering] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (the Apostle Paul’s 2nd Letter to the Corinthians; 2 Corinthians 5:13-21)
My good friend and Christian “culture war” hero Mike Heath (right) — AFTAH Board Chairman, executive director of the Maine Family Policy Council, and long-suffering whipping boy of fundamentally intolerant social leftists throughout his state — is way too kind in writing the following entry on his blog today. … — Peter LaBarbera:
…In the early 1990s Bob Knight talked sense to me. His polite confrontation over the phone inspired me to sink my teeth into the culture war. He was working for the Family Research Council (FRC). Peter LaBarbera was his assistant. Bob had a small team of guys that were beginning to provide effective coordination and motivation to grassroots pro family activists.
After Gary Bauer left to run for President Bob’s department was disbanded. That was a very sad day for me. I still regret that decision by FRC. Bob and Pete have stayed in the fight. They are America’s two most valuable national pro-family assets. If the pro family movement brought those two guys together again and funded them things would change fairly rapidly in the good ole USA.
I’m going to bring my very good friend Peter LaBarbera to Maine later this month, on May 28 and 29. He now heads up the most effective online advocacy website for common sense in the “gay” fight, www.americansfortruth.com. Make sure you check it out, and tell all your friends.
The title of Pete’s talk is “The Zero-Sum Game: How Gay Rights and ‘Same-Sex Marriage’ Undermine Religious Freedom.” I’m hosting a working lunch in Portland, supper in Houlton on Thursday, May 27th and breakfast in Bangor on Friday, the 28th of May.
Sought to exempt pedophiles from inclusion under “Sexual Orientation”
What a travesty that House Democratic leaders did not even allow a full-fledged floor debate on H.R. 1913. the “Thought Crimes” bill, which could become the first law to federalize both “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” Below Congressman Steve King discusses the “Hate Crimes” legislation during the limited House floor debate on April 29, 2009:
Mike Heath, head of the Christian Civic League of Maine (now renamed the Maine Family Policy Council), has led two successful statewide drives to turn back “sexual orientation” (homosexuality) laws in Maine, in 1998 and 2001. Now Heath (Board Chairman of AFTAH) will lead the effort to preserve the real definition of marriage in his state. We predict that he will win. Thanks to the efforts of Heath, Paul Volle, Paul Madore, and others, the homosexual agenda has encountered more serious resistance in Maine than in any other New England state. Sure, Mainers are worn out by the “queer” debate — something that GLBT activists count on to achieve their misguided goals — but they still know a fraud when they see one. Please help Mike — who needs to raise $100,000 immediately for the marriage-defense campaign — and the good people at Maine Family Policy Councill any way you can. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.com
In the early 1990s Mike Heath said that the push for gay rights wouldn’t end until homosexual marriage was enacted. Twice he persuaded a majority of Mainers to affirm common sense in statewide voting. The 47 year old father of three is prepared to do it again. Today he announced that he would lead his third peoples veto of sex outside of marriage.
The people of Maine know what marriage is,” said Heath. “Politicians pretend this debate is complicated and emotional. It isn’t. Maine people know the difference between right and wrong. What has been going on in Augusta for the past twenty years is a horrific farse.”
In 1998 Heath campaigned for equal rights [against a pro-homosexual “sexual orientation” law]. He said he will do that again this time.
He continued, “The other side has that part right. This is about equal rights. It is about making sure everyone has equal legal rights that are rooted in something substantial. Common sense tells all of us that you can’t give rights to people for doing wrong!”
“It is also a matter of freedom of conscience. No government has the right to silence the people in a matter pertaining to a grave moral evil, nor will any government ever have the right to equate a grave moral evil with a sacred institution,” he said.
Heath has been married for 27 years. He reminded everyone that all Mainers can already get married. They can marry someone of the opposite gender. Real equal rights preserve, honor and uphold that reality.
The Peoples Veto will begin as soon as the Secretary of State provides petitions to Heath. He said he looks forward to working with everyone in Maine who wants to preserve marriage and urged people to call 207-592-4137 or e-mail him at mike@mainefpc.com.
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.
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.
Drug Crime or “Hate Crime”? Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), shown at far left, is being pilloried by homosexual activists because she challenged the homosexual activist myth that Wyoming college student Matt Shepard was murdered “just because he was gay.” In 2004, ABC News’ 20/20 reported that former Laramie Police Detective Ben Fritzen, one of the lead investigators in the Shepard murder case, believed robbery was the primary motive. “Matthew Shepard’s sexual preference or sexual orientation certainly wasn’t the motive in the homicide,” Fritzen told 20/20. D. Foxx was savaged by left-wing MSNBC bloviator Keith Olbermann, who evidently never saw the ABC report, which revealed that Shepard’s murderer was on a “meth [methamphetamine] binge.” 
