Excerpted from Ex-Congressman Foley Needs Sexual Reorientation, Not Alcohol Rehab, published Oct 23, 2006, by PFOX:

Like Mr. Foley, many were taken advantage of sexually by adults when they were young teenagers. They never had a chance to fulfill their heterosexual potential and often feel guilty or at fault. But there is an alternative to unwanted same-sex attractions. No one is born gay. Thousands of ex-gay men and women have overcome their same-sex attraction. Sexual reorientation therapies and ex-gay ministries provide a safe place to talk about the painful past and receive help in overcoming unwanted same-sex attractions.

Continue reading this PFOX press release… 

The following are highlights from the article entitled Democratic House a gay boon? published Oct 20, 2006, in the homosexual newspaper Washington Blade:

• “Gay political activists and Democratic leaders are already planning post-election strategies and priorities for an expectedly bluer and more progressive House of Representatives…The preliminary plans … put a [transsexual]-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act [ENDA] atop the wish list of gay rights supporters,” the Blade reports.
• “I think that everyone believes that [a transsexual-] inclusive ENDA is our top priority,” said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force.
• Other top priorities for homosexual activists: passing a “hate crimes” bill that is homosexual- and “transgender”-inclusive, and repealing the ban on open homosexuality in the military.
• “We’re accused of having a gay agenda … but this is the time when we really need one,” says radical homosexual activist Wayne Besen.
• A Democratic House is key to advancing gay priorities, John Marble, spokesperson for the [homosexual group] National Stonewall Democrats, told the Blade. “If the Republicans are in control, it’s going to take much more work.”
• Homosexual U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) says that a Democratic House “would snub ‘anti-gay initiatives’ like the Marriage Protection Amendment, and give lawmakers new ability to concentrate on passing ENDA and overturning “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the Blade reports.
• “Those are probably the two [ENDA and ‘Hate Crimes’] that we would be thinking about,” Frank told the Blade. “There would be a very good chance of movement there.”
• “If the Democrats retake the House, Frank could emerge as chair of the powerful and prestigious Financial Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over leading financial institutions, including banks,” the Blade reports.
• Besen warns about potential disillusionment among homosexuals if they are “played and used” by the newly dominant Democrats.
• Homosexual political analyst Hastings Wyman said the Democrats cannot afford to alienate their homosexual base: “The political heft of the gay community has been of great value to the Democrats,” he said, “in terms of money and in votes and in muscle.”

Excerpted from Bauer: No Way Around It A Vote Endorses a Partys Values, by Bill Fancher, Jeff Johnson, and Jody Brown, published Oct 19, 2006, by Agape Press:

Democrats’ Plan for Defeating Amendments
In response to the success of those state ballot measures, the Democratic National Committee announced this summer it had adopted a five-point plan for fighting measures defining marriage as between one man and one woman. Parts of that plan include labeling those ballot issues as “divisive” ploys by the Republicans and others to deflect voter attention from other important issues, and working with the National Stonewall Democrats — a pro-homosexual element within the party — to develop “strategy and talking points” to combat the proposed amendments.

On Election Day 2006, voters in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin will consider constitutional amendments declaring marriage to be only the union of one man and one woman. The president of the group Americans for Truth believes the amendments should pass with little difficulty in five of those eight states.

“Arizona and Wisconsin are more of a battleground,” Peter LaBarbera asserts, “and then there’s a special situation in Colorado where there’s a pro-domestic partner initiative that was very smartly, by the way, put up by homosexual activists. So those are the three states to watch. I think the rest of the states will pass handily.”

That has been the case in all of the 20 states where a marriage amendment has been adopted by voters. The average approval rating has been 68 percent (see chart). But LaBarbera warns that if the so-called “civil union” amendment passes in Colorado, voters can expect homosexual activists to employ the same strategy in the future when other states are considering constitutional amendments defending traditional marriage.

Continue reading at Agape Press…

Excerpted from Amid Debate Over Rights, Number of Gay Judges Rising, by Joan Biskupic, published Oct 17, 2006, in USA Today:

When a case testing whether Oregon should allow same-sex marriages came before the state’s Supreme Court in 2004, one of the court’s seven justices quietly wrestled with a vexing question:

Should he, a gay man, take part in the case? Or did part of Rives Kistler‘s identity — his sexual orientation — mean that he should sit it out, to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest?

Kistler, a former Oregon assistant attorney general and the first openly gay member of the state’s highest court, consulted an ethics book to decide “whether it was permissible for me to sit on the case.” Then he checked with a judicial ethics panel, which told him it would not be a conflict.

When Oregon’s high court heard the dispute, Kistler was on the bench. Four months later, he joined a unanimous decision as the court ruled that same-sex marriages were not allowed under Oregon law. He says his sexual orientation wasn’t a factor in his decision, and he agreed with the other justices that any changes in Oregon’s marriage laws had to come from legislators, not judges…

In 1999, the American Psychological Association published a study on the impact of child sexual abuse which concluded that:

…Lasting psychological harm was uncommon…Two thirds of SA men and more than one fourth of SA women reported neutral or positive reactions…

Classifying a behavior as abuse simply because it is generally viewed as immoral or defined as illegal is problematic…

…CSA [child sexual abuse] does not cause intense harm on a pervasive basis…

One possible approach to a scientific definition…is to focus on the young person’s perception of his or her willingness to participate and his or her reactions to the experience. A willing encounter with positive reactions would be labeled simply adult-child sex, a value-neutral term. If a young person felt that he or she did not freely participate in the encounter and if he or she experienced negative reactions to it, then child sexual abuse, a term that implies harm to the individual, would be valid. Moreover, the term child should be restricted to nonadolescent children ( Ames & Houston, 1990 ). Adolescents are different from children in that they are more likely to have sexual interests, to know whether they want a particular sexual encounter, and to resist an encounter that they do not want. Furthermore, unlike adult-child sex, adult-adolescent sex has been commonplace cross-culturally and historically, often in socially sanctioned forms, and may fall within the “normal” range of human sexual behaviors ( Bullough, 1990 ; Greenberg, 1988 ; Okami, 1994 ). A willing encounter between an adolescent and an adult with positive reactions on the part of the adolescent would then be labeled scientifically as adult-adolescent sex, while an unwanted encounter with negative reactions would be labeled adolescent sexual abuse…

HR 107 was introduced in Congress to condemn these findings.

Rep. Ted Strickland (D-OH) was one of thirteen congressmen who voted “present” (rather than “yea” or “nay”) on HR 107 (which passed with 355 yeas). The other twelve were:

• Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI)
• Rep. Thomas Allen (D-ME)
• Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA)
• Rep. John Conyers (D-MI)
• Rep. William Delahunt (-MA)
• Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA)
• Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)
• Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL)
• Rep. E.B Johnson (D-TX)
• Rep. Patsy Mink (D-HI)
• Rep. James Moran (D-VA)
• Rep. Fortney Stark (D-CA)

(SOURCE: Thomas Legislative Information)

The following was excerpted from ‘Foley problem’ Surfaces for Ohio Democrats, published Oct 11, 2006, by WorldNet Daily:

Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Ohio

In the wake of the Mark Foley scandal, questions are circulating below the radar screen in Ohio about the past record of Democratic Rep. Ted Strickland on pedophilia.

Strickland is the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Ohio running against Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.

The issue surfaced Dec. 15, 2005, when the left-leaning Athens News reported on an anonymous letter-writing campaign to Democratic voters citing Strickland’s vote as “present” and not in support of the 1999 House Concurrent Resolution 107 that condemned an American Psychological Association study supporting “nonnegative sexual interactions between adults and adolescents.”…

In the Democratic primary, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Brian Flannery openly challenged Strickland on his HCR 107 vote. Flannery still has posted on his gubernatorial website Strickland’s July 27, 1999, speech on the House floor explaining his refusal to condemn the APA pedophilia study.

Mr. STRICKLAND: Mr. Speaker, it troubles me that sometimes in this Chamber we stand and say things that we ought not to say. We criticize people that we have no right to criticize.
We recently voted to condemn a scientific study and an organization, an organization that has done as much as any organization in this country to fight child abuse.

…The HRC 107 controversy resurfacing in the last month of the Ohio gubernatorial campaign also has brought back another controversy over sexual misconduct that first was launched by Flannery, Strickland’s Democratic challenger.

On March 17, during the primary campaign, Lynn Hulsey reported in the Dayton Daily News that Flannery had accused Strickland of hiring from 1997 to 1999 a male congressional and campaign staffer who had been convicted of exposing himself to children. As Hulsey wrote:

According to Athens police, the man’s case stems from 1994, when he was arrested for public indecency after several children reported he’d exposed himself. Police records show he was found guilty, although the exact charge is unclear.

Flannery also accused Strickland of taking the man with him to Italy after his 1998 congressional campaign. Again, Hulsey wrote:

Strickland said campaign workers planned to treat themselves to the trip if Strickland won, but as it turned out only Strickland and the man were able to go.

Hulsey reported Strickland had learned of the sexual misconduct charge against his employee late in the 1998 campaign through an anonymous letter, but he discounted the letter since it was sent anonymously. Hulsey quoted Strickland as saying “perhaps” he should have pursued the matter more aggressively, but at the time he took no action. The man left Strickland’s office of his own accord in 1999, after the reported trip to Italy with Strickland.

Americans for Truth comment:

Interestingly, Ted Strickland offered a different standard for House leaders…

Another Ohio lawmaker, Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Lisbon, faulted House leaders for an inadequate response last fall to a complaint they received about Foley…

“I think we need to find out what he knew and when he knew it before we can make that decision,” he said.

…Among Strickland’s endorsers is the choice of Ohio’s openly pro-homosexuality PAC, the Equality Ohio Campaign Fund, or EOCF. In endorsing Strickland, EOCF emphasized his service as a minister, a psychologist and a professor, commenting:

Representative Strickland has long been an ally of and advocate for LGBT (Lesbian-Gay-Bi-sexual-Transvestite) people. He maintained a 100% rating with the Human Rights Campaign’s Congressional Scorecard while in Congress. He voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA).

Continue reading at WorldNet Daily…

Excerpted from Despite Furor, Schools Back Gay History Month, by Susan Snyder, published Oct 12, 2006, in The Philadelphia Inquirer:

…Critics panned the move as political, “confusing” for children, and one that has no place in the schools.

“What were you thinking? What were you thinking?” Ann Martin, the grandmother of three students, said, admonishing the commission with her hand and calling for new calendars to be issued.

Others asked what the district would recognize next.

“Fornication pride month? Pedophile pride month?” quipped Rashad Faheem Shabazz.

Continue reading in The Philadelphia Inquirer…

Excerpted from Aurora Teacher Charged with Sex Abuse, by Kate Hawley, published Oct 16, 2006, in Chicago Tribune:

A first-year science teacher and coach at Cowherd Middle School in Aurora was arrested Friday on charges of sexually abusing a student.

Robert Steck, 37, of the 900 block of Shady Lane in Aurora, was indicted by a Kane County grand jury on 10 counts of criminal sexual abuse, one count of indecent solicitation of a child and four counts of sexual exploitation of a child.

The abuse is alleged to have happened in the school and in Steck’s home between Aug. 1, 2005, and July 30, 2006, when the accuser was in the 7th grade, said Assistant State’s Atty. Justin Fitzsimmons. The boy is now 14…

Kane County State’s Atty. John Barsanti said the boy’s guardian reported the abuse after hearing troubling stories including an allegation that the boy had spent time in a locked classroom with Steck.

“This seemed odd. Red lights went off for her,” Barsanti said.

Steck had taught at Cowherd just one year, said district spokesman Clayton Muhammad. Before joining the district, Steck worked in a non-teaching position at Mooseheart, a residential facility and school for children in need in Batavia, Muhammad said.

Continue reading in Chicago Tribune…

Excerpted from Aurora Coach Charged With Abusing 14-Year-Old, by Mike Puccinelli, published Oct 16, 2006, by CBS Chicago Channel 2:

…The teacher and assistant wrestling coach is accused of sexually abusing a 14-year-old student.

…Parents at Cowherd [Middle School] say they never had any indication that a teacher was under suspicion of fondling and exploiting a naked teenage boy.

…If he’s convicted, Steck faces up to 35 years in prison.

Steck encouraged the boy to join the wrestling team. He would then have the student disrobe for weigh-ins and that’s allegedly when much of the abuse occurred.

Continue reading at CBS 2…

Excerpted from Bishop Tobin Says Same-Sex Marriage Is ‘Spiritually Harmful’, published Oct 18, 2006, by Catholic News Agency:

Same-sex marriage is not an issue of civil rights, said Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence in a recent letter to the editor.

“There’s never a right to do something wrong,” he said. “Human freedom is not unbridled license; it must be grounded in truth.”

The bishop’s letter was published Oct. 14 in the Providence Journal, Rhode Island’s largest daily newspaper, after a Rhode Island lesbian couple — Wendy Becker and Mary Norton — was legally married in Massachusetts on Oct. 8, reported NBC 10.

In the letter, the bishop said same-sex marriage is “spiritually harmful to individuals and families and erodes the foundation of society”.

“Homosexual acts are contrary to the law of nature and gravely immoral,” the bishop wrote. “The state has no business encouraging immoral behavior or ratifying illicit unions.”