Today’s Philadelphia Inquirer published an op-ed by Becket Fund Legal Counsel Roger Severino entitled, “Gay rights vs. religious beliefs.” After discussing the City of Philadelphia’s recent decision to penalize the Boy Scouts financially for their moral opposition to same-sex conduct, Roger explains that this is just on example of a broader problem:

Like the Boy Scouts, religious institutions that oppose same-sex marriage will find themselves no longer welcome as partners in a variety of government social-service programs – from family counseling, to addiction programs, to job-placement services – and may even lose their access to public land for religious retreats, just as the Boy Scouts have lost their access to public land for their Jamborees.

In the employment context, religious institutions would be prohibited – on pain of “marital status discrimination” lawsuits – from firing an employee who publicly rejects the institution’s opposition to same-sex marriage by obtaining one. Religious employers might even be forced, against their principles, to extend health and retirement benefits to their employees’ same-sex spouses.

Religious universities that provide married-student housing would be required to provide rooms to everyone legally married, including same-sex couples, even if the university objects on moral grounds. And this problem is hardly speculative or alarmist – it’s already happening on a small scale, even before the legal redefinition of marriage makes it much more common. For example, fair-housing laws have already been applied in New York City to require Yeshiva University to open up its married-student housing to same-sex domestic partners.

Continue reading here and here…

From Chicago CBS Channel 2:

Naperville Will Be Base For “Americans for Truth”

(STNG) NAPERVILLE, Ill. The executive director of a well-known anti-gay group is leaving the organization to start up a new group that will be based in Naperville.

Illinois Family Institute said its executive director, Peter LaBarbera, was resigning to pursue his goal of creating a national organization dedicated to confronting the “homosexual activist agenda.”

LaBarbera, 44, who joined the institute in September 2003, is recognized as a leading opponent of the gay movement. Under his tenure, the group’s visibility and grassroots network grew tremendously, the institute said in a statement. In the weeks leading up to the November election, he will stay on at IFI as an advisor to help with the transition. LaBarbera‘s new group, Americans for Truth, will be based in Naperville.

By Tim Waldorf, published in Naperville Sun:

Naperville resident and conservative activist Peter LaBarbera is leaving his post as the Illinois Family Institute’s executive director to pursue his goal of creating a national organization dedicated to “confronting the homosexual activist agenda.”

In a few months, LaBarbera, 44, will re-launch in Naperville an organization he founded in 1996: Americans for Truth. But now AFT‘s work will be dedicated solely to issues of homosexuality.

“Homosexual, bisexual and transsexual groups spend tens of millions of dollars every year to market and normalize their aberrant lifestyles,” LaBarbera said in a statement announcing his decision. “Yet, after all these years, there is not a single, serious national group dedicated specifically to exposing and countering their agenda.”

LaBarbera said that agenda “is anything that seeks to or has the goal of normalizing homosexuality as a societal good.”

“It’s basically anything on the side that says homosexuality is really just a mere alternative lifestyle and should be divorced from moral concerns, or it’s actually a good thing,” said LaBarbera, noting he believes “gays can change.”

“We’re saying that it is a sin in the context of biblical Christianity.”

AN AMERICANS FOR TRUTH PRESS RELEASE

Is Wal-Mart passing the wrong kind of ‘values’ on to its customers? It’s no secret that Walmart Stores, Inc. has been under vicious attack in recent months by leftists and union activists due to its unwavering support of right-to-work policies and its refusal to allow unions to organize in its stores. But now it seems Wal-Mart is additionally hell-bent on alienating its heretofore greatest and most vocal supporters: Conservatives, Christians, and Traditionalists.

Matt Barber, Corporate Outreach Director for Americans for Truth, expressed his disappointment with Wal-Mart today for further capitulating to the powerful homosexual lobby by recently partnering with the “National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce,” an extremely influential homosexual organization steadfastly devoted to furthering the ‘gay’ agenda within corporate America.

Click here to read NGLCC’s announcement for yourself

Contact Wal-Mart by phone at 1-800-WALMART or by e-mail

Highlights from the American Family Association’s (AFA) informative webpage on the NEA (National Education Association):

• NEA passed a resolution supporting homosexual “marriage” and homosexual adoption.
• NEA recommended that GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender) issues training be required content for teacher credentialing. (Such training is usually biased strongly toward the homosexual activist side.)
• NEA upgraded their language from tolerance of homosexuality to acceptance and respect for homosexuality.
• NEA refused to pass this amendment: “To protect the rights of all students, the Association believes sexual contact between education professionals and minor students is unacceptable.”
• NEA signed a letter opposing the Federal Marriage Amendment.

Regina Griggs, founder of PFOX (Parents & Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays) writes:

Do the initials “PTA” bring to mind innocuous parent-teacher meetings and parent-student school projects? Think again. The national Parent Teacher Association, fondly known as PTA, is under the leadership of chief executive officer Warlene Gary. Ms. Gary previously served as the National Education Association’s human rights director and that school union’s liaison to gay interest groups.

Excerpted from Canadian Professor Fined for Stating Opposition to Homosexuality, published July 26, 2006, by Agape Press:

Canadian professor David Mullan has been fined two weeks pay ($2100) after a homosexual student took umbrage at two letters the professor had written to his former Anglican bishop two years ago.

Is this the future of freedom of speech and freedom of religion in America if the homosexual lobby achieves its goal of passing interlocking state, local and federal “Hate Crimes” laws treating “sexual orientation” violations on a par with racism?

Excerpted from Harvard Introduces Third Gender, published Aug 25, 2006, by WDC Media News:

Students looking to enter the Harvard Business School MBA program are asked to fill out an online profile that offers three choices of gender: female, male, or transgender.

Bob Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute (CFI) at Concerned Women for America, says “it’s not compassionate” for Harvard to encourage people to reject their “God-given natures”…

“The foundation of the transgender movement is the homosexual activist movement,” he explains, “because their interest lies in getting rid of the traditional morality of God-given division into two sexes, the uniting of those two sexes in marriage.” And the homosexual and transgender agendas “militate” against that completely…