Excerpted from Website Aimed at ‘Tweens’ Promotes Homosexuality, by Bob Unruh, published Dec 14, 2006, by WorldNet Daily:

A website that targets its messages to ‘tweens,’ which it identifies as those ages 9-14, is promoting homosexuality to those children because the idea of one-man-and-one-woman only is “so last century.”

The website [Kidzworld] also is lobbying children to oppose the policy by the Boy Scouts of America against allowing homosexuals to lead troops of young boys, and advocates for the “rights” of homosexuals to adopt children.

…The website’s agenda is unabashed throughout its messages to the children:

• “Isn’t the most important issue to have two parents who love you? Does it really matter if a child as two mommies or two daddies?” it tells readers.
• In reference to a Florida law banning homosexuals from adopting, it says, “Steve and Roger have done more than most straight people applying for adoption. They have proven their dedication, love and ability to provide a healthy and stable home for their kids. Florida should congratulate them not punish them with outdated laws and narrowminded ‘tudes!”
• To “molly_holly,” who says her boyfriend is “gay” but “he likes me too,” the website responds: “What do you mean, he’s your boyfriend? Do ya mean he is your friend and he’s a boy? Or do ya mean he’s crushin’ on ya… like he’s your hottie? Cuz if this boy’s gay, I think you’re gonna have to get use to being his good friend. Sort of a Will and Grace set up. I hope you’re cool enough to not have any issues about his sexuality, cuz homophobia (the fear of gay peeps) is so last century.”
• In a book review, it says: “The only difference is, this book is about Paul, a 16 year-old gay boy who has fallen in love with the new boy in town, Noah. It’s really cool to have a book that portrays something other than the cliché cheerleader/football player love story…”

Regarding the Boy Scouts, whose dispute went to the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled that as a private organization the scouts are allowed to set moral standards for their leaders, the site provided a link for children to complain to the scouts, and then noted “a lot of pressure” is being put on the scouts to change.

Then the site provided a link for other volunteering opportunities that connected with a promotion for World AIDS Day.

Kidzworld home page shows its games and entertainment attractions

The site’s privacy disclosure notes that when children age 12 and up sign up on the website, their parents are sent an e-mail notifying them, and for children younger than 12, their parents must respond to an e-mail before they can sign up. However, signing up is not required to view any of the information, only to participate in the chat rooms and other options.

And, none of the pro-homosexual comments was found on the first page, the location most parents who actually do inspect a site would be most likely to check out, either. They were found embedded in the site as a reader follows various links.

…I clicked on ‘make a baby’ – and got All About Gay Parents,” he wrote.

…”kizzy333,” age 13, also said, “I’m not gay but I really dislike homophobic peeps. If two peeps of the same sex are in love, what’s the harm in it? My mum’s friend is a lesbian and she hasn’t changed. She’s a really loving parent too. It’s da bomb!”

The site features advertising from HarperCollins Children’s Books, the Cheetah Girls and GameBoy products, among other children’s attractions.

The site, which says it has had 4.4 million unique visitors, explains it is “the ultimate in online entertainment for kids nine to 14 (a.k.a. Tweens.)” and allows that age group of children to “interact, communicate and explore the digital world” and where they can “play, discover, voice, gather and belong.”

Continue reading at WorldNet Daily…

Excerpted from New Jersey Lawmakers Pass Transgender Rights Bill, published Dec 14, 2006, by the pro-homosexuality PlanetOut:

The New Jersey state Assembly on Thursday passed a bill that would make the Garden State the ninth in the nation to outlaw discrimination based on gender identity or expression. The bill, passed by the state Senate on Monday, now goes to Gov. Jon Corzine, who is expected to sign it.

“The legislation in New Jersey represents a huge civil rights victory for transgender communities,” Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said in a statement.

“I applaud the amazing efforts of the Gender Rights Advocacy Association of New Jersey, Garden State Equality, and local advocates who showed that when we stand up for what’s right, we can win. While we celebrate that one-third of the US population is now covered, NCTE continues to fight for explicitly transgender-inclusive protections on the federal level.”

New Jersey’s new law prohibits discriminatory practices in employment, housing and public accommodations based on “gender identity or expression” — the legislative language that covers transgender people.

Continue reading at PlanetOut…

Excerpted from Too Much Information?, by Peggy Noonan, published May 5, 2005, by Wall Street Journal:

I was at a wedding, standing just off the dance floor, when a pleasant young man in his 20s approached, introduced himself and asked where I’d had my hair done. I shook his offered hand and began to answer, but before I could he said, “I’m gay, by the way.”

I nodded as if this were my business, but thought: I wonder why a total stranger thinks I want to know what he wishes to do with his genitals? What an odd way to say hello.

We live in a time in which people routinely violate their own privacy.

I don’t think the young man lacked a sense of privacy. I suspect if I’d said, “Tell me your annual salary,” he would have bridled. That’s personal.

Maybe he wanted me to approve (“That’s wonderful!”) or disapprove (“Unclean!”). Maybe he felt compelled to announce his orientation because homosexuals are so often told that not to declare is to be closeted, and to be closeted is shameful. Maybe he was doing what he thinks he must to do to show integrity.

Whatever his thinking, it has occurred to me that in the old, clucking, busybody America it was not unusual to meet people who needed to be told, “That’s none of your business.”

But in the new and infinitely stranger America there are a lot of people who need to be told, “Buddy, that’s none of my business.”

Or, as people began saying about five years ago, “Too much information!”

Continue reading in Wall Street Journal…

Excerpted from Preschoolers and Penquins: Propaganda Pawns, by Michael Medved, published Nov 28, 2006, by USA Today:

…A few families of students in Shiloh, a town of 11,000 people 20 miles east of St. Louis, object to the general availability of And Tango Makes Three, an illustrated storybook that loosely follows the real-life story of two male penguins at New York City’s Central Park Zoo who adopted a fertilized egg and raised the chick as their own. With its enthusiastic celebration of little Tango’s good fortune at possessing “two fathers,” and with the narrative’s fanciful suggestion that the zoo keeper “thought to himself … they must be in love,” the book clearly took a position in the ongoing arguments about same-sex coupling and homosexual families. In fact, the story concludes with the observation that Silo and Roy “discovered each other in 1996 and have been a couple ever since.”

International news stories reported, however, that their partnership proved short-lived: As soon as Scrappy, a sultry, seductive female from San Diego’s Sea World, arrived in their enclosure, Silo instantly took notice, straightened up and mated with the irresistible gal — leaving his guy pal behind (an outcome never described, of course, in the propagandistic story book for kids).

Despite parental requests that school librarians remove the controversial volume from the open shelves for young readers ( it’s designed for ages 4 to 8 ) and relocate it to a special section for “mature issues,” school superintendent Jennifer Filyaw declared that And Tango Makes Three would stay put as an “adorable” and “age appropriate” offering.

Grown-up arguments

Regardless of the aesthetic virtues (or shortcomings) of either Happy Feet or And Tango Makes Three, it’s easy to see why even non-partisan parents would object to their targeting of very young children. In school and elsewhere, it makes sense to introduce preteens to ongoing debates about global warming, environmental degradation or the redefinition of marriage and family, but most mothers and fathers would prefer to spare preschoolers from such grown-up arguments.

Some adults may choose to expose the youngsters in their lives to Al Gore’s powerful and skillfully crafted documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, but they will know before they go that they’re taking the kids to an occasionally frightening message movie. In Happy Feet, on the other hand, you’d have no reason to expect so much unhappy and worrisome content — nor would you expect a sweet, gorgeously drawn picture book about cuddling penguins to include potentially explosive hints about [“gay”] marriage and fatherhood. With the celebrated (and controversial) book Heather Has Two Mommies, parents — if not kids — know what to expect. With And Tango Makes Three, many readers (including Lilly Del Pinto, one of the concerned parents in the fight against the book) found themselves unhappily surprised.

As children grow and develop, their natural curiosity and ongoing media exposure will lead them inevitably into divisive issues, which all conscientious parents should prepare to help explain. In the earliest stages of life, however, it makes sense to keep them protected from such conflicts and to avoid using preschoolers — and penguins — as the pawns of propaganda.

Continue reading in USA Today…

This article is the second in a series by my good friend here in Illinois, John Biver, of the Family Taxpayers Network. (To read the first article, click HERE.) We often hear that it’s only the “fundamentalist Christians” on the “radical right” who oppose normalizing homosexuality and that we Christians are determined to impose our belief system on everyone. Well, it’s not only conservative evangelicals and Catholics who recognize the problem; John Biver’s excellent series of articles proves that there is also a strong secular argument against elevating homosexuality to normalcy. — Peter LaBarbera

The following article entitled Privacy v. Revolution, by John Biver, was published Jun 19, 2006, by Family Taxpayer Network:

A year ago writer Peggy Noonan opened her column with a story of having met a young man at a wedding who introduced himself, asked her a question, but before she could answer he went on to say, “I’m gay, by the way.” Noonan wrote:

“I nodded as if this were my business, but thought: I wonder why a total stranger thinks I want to know what he wishes to do with his genitals? What an odd way to say hello.

“We live in a time in which people routinely violate their own privacy.”

Noonan doubted whether the man would have been as open about his annual salary, as that would have been too personal. In the old America, she wrote, people knew certain things were better kept private,

“But in the new and infinitely stranger America there are a lot of people who need to be told, ‘Buddy, that’s none of my business.’”

One of the reasons I’m optimistic about the future of the discussion of morality in this country is that despite decades of work attempting to get every American to discuss their sex life in public, most people still prefer not to. I believe human nature suggests that won’t change any time soon.

A few simple concepts have been pushed to society’s back burner as the heat has been turned up in favor of an extremist social agenda. The honest proponents of this agenda admit that it’s “not a civil rights movement” or “sexual liberation movement” but rather is “a moral revolution.”

Dec 12, 2006, press release from ALLIANCE DEFENSE FUND:

Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Glen Lavy will address the media Wednesday [Dec 13, 2006] after filing a lawsuit against members of the Massachusetts Legislature. The suit alleges that the lawmakers have acted illegally by refusing to vote on a citizen initiative that would define marriage in the commonwealth’s constitution as the union between one man and one woman.

“Elected officials should be held accountable when they deliberately violate the law,” Lavy said. “The legislators have a constitutional duty to vote on citizen initiatives. Some members of the legislature have even admitted publicly that they are deliberately violating their constitutional duty. This flagrant violation of the constitutional right of the citizens to amend their constitution must be stopped.”

Also participating in the press conference is Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute.

“All we are asking is that the legislature fulfills its responsibility to the voters of Massachusetts,” Lavy said. “These legislators will face no liability if they vote on the amendment, but it appears that the Legislature is only going to stop their illegal behavior when they understand they’ll be held accountable for it.”

ADF is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.

Excerpted from Lesbian Couple Married in Massachusetts Seeks Divorce in Rhode Island, by Josh Montez, published Dec 11, 2006, by Family News in Focus:

Since RI doesn’t recognize gay marriages, gay divorce seems pointless. Could it be the couple wants another way to legitimize same-sex unions?

The divorce-seeking lesbian couple is working their way through the Rhode Island court system. A family court refused the case, referring it on to the State Supreme Court. Kris Mineau with the Massachusetts Family Institute believes this is a ploy to get the legal system to recognize gay marriage, through divorce.

“Isn’t that bizarre? They’ll seize at any opportunity, whereas in New Jersey and Maryland, they are seeking to marry, and suing through the courts. Here they’re seeking to divorce and suing through the courts.”

Attorneys for the gay couple say they aren’t asking Rhode Island to recognize same-sex marriage, just same-sex divorce. But Peter LaBarbera with Americans for Truth doesn’t buy that argument.

“I think if you recognize same-sex divorce, you’re recognizing same-sex marriage. It’s amazing how political the activists are. The problem here is we’re dealing with a very political movement and Americans on the side of decency and truth just aren’t as political as the gay activists.”

LaBarbera says this is more than a gay couple trying to make headlines; it’s an attempt to change the law.

“The modus operandi of the homosexual activists is to use anything possible, even divorce, to win approval of their lifestyle. That’s what the main agenda is. They are desperate for approval of their lifestyle and even if it means recognizing gay divorce as opposed to gay marriage, they’ll do that.”

The Rhode Island Supreme Court has yet to decide if it will take the case.

Excerpted from Pastor at Senate Invocation curses ‘Spirit’ of Gay Marriage, published Dec 12, 2006, by Star-Ledger (New Jersey):

A pastor delivering the invocation at the opening of yesterday’s Senate session included in his prayer a condemnation of gay marriage.

“We curse the spirit that would come to bring about same-sex marriage,” the Rev. Vincent Fields, pastor of Greater Works Ministries in Absecon, prayed as lawmakers listened, heads bowed. “We ask you to just look over this place today, cause them to be shaken in their very heart in uprightness, Lord, to do that is right before you.”

Earlier yesterday the [NJ state] Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation to allow gay couples to form civil unions with the same rights as married couples.

Continue reading in Star-Ledger…