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I just returned from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania on my trip with my son for Air Force pick-up to McGuire AFB.
On the way home, I saw something that I shall not soon forget. It was on PA Highway 11-15 North with the Susquehanna River on my right heading for the PA Highway 322 West exit to [Pennsylvania] State College.
I was taking it easy after a long day and then, out of the blue, I saw a wonder of God’s creation, a magnificent Bald Eagle in all of its majesty slowly gliding with its wingspan fully evident toward the windshield of my car. I slowed down as there wasn’t much traffic and that magnificent bird came so close before he turned slowly passing over me that I could clearly see its eyes looking at me.
It was like a message from God saying, “Stay the course, America will be all right.”
What a great finish to a Sunday for me.
Morella is a retired research mathematician at Penn State University and a pro-life and pro-family advocate.
Christopher Doyle, founder of Voice of the Voiceless. Doyle overcome homosexuality in his own life and is now happily married and the father of three children. AFTAH urgers readers to support Doyle’s new organization defending ex-“gays,” Voice of the Voiceless.
Folks, Christopher Doyle–a former homosexual himself who is now living happily as a married heterosexual family man (somebody report him to Homosexual HatemongerWayne Besen!)–is doing outstanding work through his new organization, Voice of the Voiceless. Doyle is the lead pro-family advocate confronting the Orwellian campaign by Besen and other homosexual militants (and the Southern Poverty Law Center) to outlaw pro-heterosexual therapy for minors–apparently using big lies when necessary (see the “transgender tale” below).
If Besen and his ilk win, children and freedom lose. So please support Doyle and VOTF. This column originally appeared online in the Christian Post, March 13, 2014.–Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH
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Setting the Record Straight on ‘Gay Conversion’ Therapy for Minors
By Christopher Doyle
As a response to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals’ refusal to hear an appeal over the 2012 California law prohibiting Sexual Orientation Change Effort (SOCE) therapy for minors, it has been open season for anti-therapy activists. To compliment existing laws in New Jersey and the Golden State, legislation has also been introduced in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Washington, Ohio, Washington, D.C., Florida, Minnesota, New York, Maryland, Hawaii, Virginia, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Pundits across the political spectrum are anticipating more laws to come in 2014.
A February 16 article in The Washington Times predicted that such laws would likely follow the path of states legalizing gay marriage, and perhaps even pave the way to a national ban if anti-ex-gay advocates were to gain more power on the federal level, while a February 12 editorial in the New York Times suggested that a wiser path would be for “victims” to use legal measures to quell the “deceptive practices” of those who offer SOCE therapy. After all, it’s a well-known fact that such therapy for minors has been “proven” to be “ineffective” and “harmful.”
However, recent legislative efforts by activists in Virginia and Washington have failed, and a hearing in Maryland on similar legislation was cancelled, partly because the lies and half-truths of activists are catching up to them. In Washington, a witness testifying in a January committee hearing said that a licensed therapist forced a child to watch pornography while in an ice bath so that the client would associate sexual arousal with pain. However, when questioned after the hearing, the woman refused to provide the name of the therapist and when it happened; nor was she willing to do any research to help uncover whether, if it had in fact happened, it was a licensed therapist.
In a senate hearing in February, a representative of the Washington Department of Health, which has jurisdiction over professional licensing and fields approximately 10,000 complaints a year, said that the current staff has 11 years of institutional knowledge and no one was aware of a single complaint alleging that a licensed therapist had attempted to coerce someone into not being gay.
This story sounds eerily similar to the disaster witnessed in New Jersey last year, when transgender activist Brielle Goldani claimed to have been sent to a “conversion therapy torture camp” in Ohio in 1997. Goldani alleged to have been electroshocked at the month-long “True Directions” camp in an attempt to make him, now her, straight. Yet, an investigation published at WorldNetDaily.com revealed that the entire testimony was a fraud, taken directly out of a Hollywood production starring drag queen RuPaul.
Boston Mayor Martin Walsh now claims both sides are once again close to a deal that would allow the anti-Catholic homosexual group MassEquality to march in Boston’s Saint Patrick’s Day Parade.
Under political pressure from Mayor Walsh and Congressman Stephen Lynch, the Allied War Veterans Council—the sponsors of South Boston’s parade—unwisely made an initial concession, only to discover that they were deliberately lied to by the militants of MassEquality. Realizing the extremists which they were negotiating with were completely untrustworthy, the Veterans Council withdrew from the arrangementon Tuesday night. Now Walsh is turning up the pressure again, believing he can coerce the veterans to abandon their hard won 9 to 0 victory before the U. S. Supreme Court.
PLEASE CONTACT THE SOUTH BOSTON ALLIED WAR VETERANS COUNCIL AND URGE THEM TO HOLD FIRM AND REJECT ANY DEALS THAT WOULD ALLOW HOMOSEXUAL GROUPS, SYMBOLS OR MESSAGES TO DISHONOR SAINT PATRICK AND DEFORM HIS PARADE!
You may telephone the veterans at (781) 436-3377, fax them at (781) 341-1191, or e-mail them at info@southbostonparade.org
A collection of fanatics who have nothing but contempt for the Catholic Faith are trying to exploit a parade in honor of a Catholic saint to force public acceptance of their sexual behavior. Don’t let them succeed with this unscrupulous aggression!
The list of “Victims of Homosexualism” continues to grow; little media sympathy for lives damaged by politically incorrect (pro-gay) “discrimination”
Crystal Dixon was fired by University of Toledo in 2008 after writing a column critical of comparing “homosexual rights” to the noble Black civil rights movement.
Folks, conservative and Christian pro-family advocates should avoid the pitfall of viewing the “gay rights” cultural battle narrowly, as merely between those whose work relates to the wedding business (bakers, photographers, etc.)–and homosexual militants trying to force them to participate in their same-sex “marriages.” That’s part of it, of course, but as you can see from this in-depth report I wrote for WND’s October 2013 Whistleblower magazine, the crisis goes far deeper than that, and it predates cultural fights over homosexual “marriage.” Below I have added photos and a few updates to the original article, which itself was republished by WND.com in November.
Since this report came out, other Christians like Coach Dave Daubenmire have become victims and targets of pro-homosexual bigotry and discrimination. Like those below, Coach Dave was smeared as a “hater,” “homophobe” and “bigot.” (We’re all painfully familiar with such vicious name-calling by “gay” activists–which is tolerated and often echoed by the compliant media.) Shame on us if we allow special “rights” based on a changeable, destructive sexual sin to displace our inalienable rights and liberties as Americans. God bless you. — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH; e-mail: americansfortruth@gmail.com.
Please help circulate this report, and write Brad Wallace at AFTAH (connops@yahoo.com) if you would like a hard copy of it.
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First appeared in Whistleblower Magazine, Oct. 2013:
‘GAY’ POWER VS. RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
Exclusive: Peter LaBarbera on how homosexual ‘rights’ is destroying freedom of conscience
“The legal struggle for queer rights will one day be a struggle between freedom of religion versus sexual orientation.”– Canadian lesbian lawyer Barbara Finlay, quoted by columnist John Leo and Janet Folger (Porter), The Criminalization of Christianity
There is a war between homosexual “rights” and Americans’ religious and First Amendment freedoms – and the “gay” activists are winning.
The “zero-sum game” is how homosexual activist law professor and Obama EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) appointee Chai Feldblum describes the legal battles between modern “rights” based on homosexual “orientation” (read: behavior) and the traditional American principle of religious liberty.
“Gays win, Christians lose,” Feldblum said, predicting homosexuals would win most of the legal contests. She is proving to be correct, as the news for Americans with traditional values gets worse by the year, due to rapidly escalating homosexual and transgender activist power in the legal, cultural, political and corporate arenas.
Following is a summary of cases involving battles between religious and moral freedom and homosexual activism. Some involve legal cases, others involve people who suffered privately for speaking out against the “gay” agenda. Others involve children whose rights (such as girls’ right to privacy) are violated in the name of “LGBT equality.”
In a sense, this could be called a list of the “Victims of Homosexualism”–that is, organized homosexuality. Though not comprehensive, its sheer scope illustrates what pro-family veterans have long known – but which the “gay”-cheerleading media fail to report as a major story: that “rights” based on homosexuality and gender confusion (“transgenderism”) cannot coexist with religious liberty.
First, a few observations:
These victims of escalating “Gay Tyranny” in America are not all tied to the question of homosexual “marriage.” Indeed, well before “gay marriage” came on the scene as a “mainstream” issue, pro-homosexual “sexual orientation” laws and corporate pro-LGBT policies were victimizing and punishing Christians and other moral opponents of homosexuality. And those laws are invariably used to argue for homosexuality-based “marriage.” The homosexualist agenda moves ahead incrementally, but “sexual orientation” laws and policies – and their philosophical presupposition that homosexuality is about innate “identity” (“who you are”) rather than changeable, wrong and aberrant behaviors (“what you do”) – is the foundation for the entire far-reaching LGBT agenda.
The pro-homosexual (and pro-atheist) legal war against the Boy Scouts of America was made possible by a “sexual orientation” law in New Jersey.
The most prominent example of the inherently discriminatory nature of pro-”gay” nondiscrimination laws (predating the entire homosexual “marriage” debate) is the Boy Scouts of America, who were initially challenged in 1990 by homosexual James Dale under a then-new “sexual orientation nondiscrimination” law in New Jersey. Ultimately, in 2000, the Dale case found its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the Scouts narrowly won their right not to have homosexual scoutmasters and members – only to toss away the fruits of their victory 13 years later by changing their rules under corporate pressure to allow openly homosexual Boy Scouts. (The Scouts still ban adult, openly homosexual scoutmasters, but pro-family experts predict that this prohibition will crumble – under continued “gay” activist pressure – now that the Scouts have sacrificed the moral principle that they had fought years to defend.)
It should also be recognized that oppression comes in many forms and from many quarters. Once professional institutions like the American Bar Association, American Association of Pediatrics and American Counseling Association adopt pro-LGBT “sexual orientation” codes, these policies become the basis for discriminating against people of faith.
These cases involve mostly higher-profile “victims.” What does not make the following list are everyday small businesspeople who, under an array of pro-homosexual laws and policies, are forced to effectively subsidize sexual behavior they regard as immoral. Thus, in a “gay marriage” state or in a big city with “sexual orientation” laws, business owners – much like the wedding cake makers below – are forced by the heavy hand of government to treat homosexually “married” or partnered employees as they would their normally married workers.
Also, countless employees and students have been forced to endure “gay tolerance” and pro-LGBT “diversity” programs that promote ideas with which they strongly disagree – a form of “soft tyranny” that most moral-minded employees have come to accept as the price of working in a big corporation. As is shown below, those who rock the politically correct boat invite persecution.
Lastly, note the irony that several of the victims below are black. [The late] Pastor Ken Hutcherson of Antioch Bible Church in Redmond, Wash., (a former NFL player who appears occasionally on the “Rush Limbaugh Show”) says, “Don’t compare your sin to my skin.” (Hutcherson is black.) Yet that is precisely what the expanding web of “sexual orientation” laws, executive orders and rulings from liberal judges is doing. By mandating “gay” (and transgender) tolerance as a basic, modern American value, the law and politically-correct U.S. corporations are rapidly making opposition to homosexuality and gender confusion anathema – even banning it – thus relegating Christians and defenders of historic Judeo-Christian moral truths to second-class, pariah status.
An America in which faith-motivated citizens can believe (privately) that homosexuality and faux homosexual “marriage” are wrong but cannot act on their beliefs is no longer truly free.
UPDATE: Gov. Jan Brewer caved in to political correctness and the intense LGBT misinformation campaign against SB 1062 by vetoing the bill Wednesday. See this Arizona TV report to get a feel for what she was up against, and see this excellent RedState piece to understand the Left’s dishonest “Ends justifies the means” tactics. Lastly, here is an NRO article on Cathi Herrod of the pro-family Center for Arizona Policy, who describes how the media’s “ridiculous portrayals of the proposed law” became reality to many in the public. –PL
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By Peter LaBarbera
New Mexican Christian photographer Elaine Huguenin and her husband were fined $6,000 for politely declining to shoot photos at a lesbian “commitment ceremony.” Arizona Senate Bill 1062 seeks to prevent such lawsuits against people of faith in that state–but media report that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is leaning toward vetoing the bill. The Huguenins lost their case in the New Mexico Supreme Court and are appealing it to the U.S. Supreme Court.
[TAKE ACTION: Contact Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer at 602-542-1318 or go HERE to reach her online.]
The powerful, media-fed “Gay Hysteria” machine is exploding over Arizona Senate Bill 1062, which seeks to protect citizens’ First Amendment liberty NOT to violate their conscience with regard to homosexual “marriages.” But few Americans realize how decades of court-imposed favored legal status for homosexuality have already stolen away our “freedom to be moral.”
Tragically, America is far down the road of “Criminalizing Christianity”—or, more accurately, Judeo-Christian morality—thanks to Big Gay Inc. and its powerful allies in the courts, media and academia. But what is most amazing about this Culture War battle is how homosexual activists still manage to play the victim even as more and more Americans become Real Victims of the LGBT agenda—which, at its core, is about enforcing PRO-homosexual discrimination through the State and big corporations.
The Arizona bill is simply an attempt to preempt the sort of pro-homosexual ‘reverse discrimination’ that has spread across the country as (mostly Christian) photographers, wedding-cake makers and bed-and-breakfast owners have been sued by LGBT militants for refusing to allow their services to be used for homosexual “marriage” ceremonies. I have documented many of these cases—and others in which Christians have suffered at the hands of homosexual militants–in my WND article, “’Gay’ Power vs. Religious Liberty.”
Here is National Review’s take on the liberal media distortions surrounding Arizona’s pro-religious-liberty bill:
Defenders of S.B. 1062 reject the claim that the bill effectively legalizes discrimination. Proponents have repeatedly stated — including multiple times on CNN — that the bill does not allow businesses to deny service to someone at an establishment such as a restaurant or coffee shop. The law looks to protect those with religious objections from being compelled to participate in or use their creative expression in circumstances that violate their conscience. Since there is no current law on the issue in the state, lawmakers hope to preempt situations such as bakers and photographers facing legal action for not working a same-sex wedding, as has occurred in neighboring states.
Playing the race card
Julea Ward was drummed out of a graduate counseling program at Eastern Michigan University because as a Christian she could not in good faith affirm homosexual relationships. Ward settled out of court with EMU.
With insultingly inane comparisons to Jim Crow laws, CNN and others on the pro-LGBT Left are “going there” with their spurious racism analogies—conveniently ignoring that skin-color prejudice and biblical morality are completely different things. Do the media know or care that Blacks who believe Scripture that homosexuality is wrong repeatedly have been victimized by “gay” activism—which posits that approval of ‘gayness’ and same-sex relationships trump one’s personal religious and moral beliefs about sexual morality and marriage?
Take the case of Julia Ward, who is Black and was kicked out of Eastern Michigan University’s counseling program as a grad student because as a committed Christian she could not counsel same-sex couples in a manner that affirms homosexuality. Surely Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (who saw homosexuality as a “problem” that could be “solved”) did not wage his nonviolent struggle so that Americans of color would be forced by the State to either deny their faith or be barred from various professions that now worship at the altar of homosexualism. As the late, great pastor and Culture Warrior (and former NFL linebacker) Ken Hutcherson, who was Black, said, “Don’t compare your sin to my skin.”
Treating unequal things as equal
Aristotle wisely observed that it is unjust to treat unequal things equally—yet that is the essence of modern pro-homosexual/pro-transgender ideology, which treats sexual perversion and extreme gender confusion as the basis for civil rights. “Gay marriage” is a lot of things but it is certainly not “equal” to the real deal: two people of the same sex cannot produce a child on their own, and “Daddy No. 2” can never substitute for the love and care of a mother. Nor can two lesbian “moms” replace having a dad in the home. This is radical egalitarian social engineering and, sadly, innocent children are the guinea pigs.
Folks, three pro-homosexual protesters disrupted our press conference today in Washington, D.C.– called to announce a new pro-family umbrella group, the Coalition for Family Values (CFV), of which AFTAH is a member. The protesters–who accused CFV organizer Scott Lively of causing the death of homosexuals in Russia–were removed by National Press Club security officials after refusing to relent. Below is a YouTube video of the incident provided by a reporter with the Washington Blade:
At the event, Lively (of Defend the Family International) and other speakers graciously offered to let the protesters stay and ask their “question” after our speakers were finished making their initial presentations. (The protesters started with their rant before the last of three speakers was about to present–before the question-and-answer period.) After the lead woman protester, Ellen Sturtz, ignored pleas to stop and kept speaking loudly, Press Club security officials removed her and the two others.
For the record, although the Left and homosexual activists have a long history of disrupting conservative speakers, I can’t even think of an instance in which pro-family activists interrupted a “gay” press event. No wonder, then, that the term “homo-fascist” is catching on to describe LGBT militants’ intolerance of opposing views. Nevertheless, afterward the CFV event was over, Lively and the protesters talked outside the Press Club building, and Lively even posed for photos with Sturtz. — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH
Coach Dave Daubenmire discusses his Christian faith and homosexuality in this interview with the ABC and FOX affiliates in Columbus, Ohio. Coach Dave–who recently was denied a football coaching job at Lakewood High School, his alma mater, after being targeted by a homosexual cyber-smear campaign–ably refutes the Big Lie that opposing same-sex sin constitutes “hate.” Here is the link to the Columbus FOX28 site with the interview; and click HERE to watch this on YouTube.
Click HERE for AFTAH’s background article on the Daubenmire non-hiring story and to get contact information for the Lakewood School Board that voted against him for the coaching job that the school had originally recruited him to fill. The FOX28 write-up on the interview follows after the video (after the jump). To support Coach Dave, visit his Pass the Salt Ministries website.
Columbus, Ohio FOX28 reports [Editor’s note: It is interesting that this report fails to mention the outside lobbying campaign against Daubenmire that ignited this controversy]
Controversial Former Football Coach Talks to ABC 6/FOX 28
Updated: Friday, February 14 2014, 08:45 PM EST
HEBRON, Ohio — (Maria Durant/Ken Hines) — A football coach known for his controversial conservative Christian views spoke out Friday about his hometown school board’s decision to deny him a coaching position on their high school football team.
Kirk honored by radical homosexual group that smear C-f-A’s “hate-filled homophobic ‘Chiken'” and tried to deny Christian-owned chain’s ‘freedom’ to do business in Illinois
Republican U.S. Sen. Mark KIrk of Illinois accepts “Freedom” award from the state’s leading homosexual lobby group, Equality Illinois. The group ran a nasty albeit unsuccessful “Flick the Hate” pressure campaign to run Chick-fil-A restaurants out of the state–by petitioning their stakeholders to deny the popular fast-food chain’s leases. Chick-fil-A is expanding in Illinois, and now has 32 restaurants in the state.
By Peter LaBarbera
TAKE ACTION:
Call or write Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) [202-224-2854; Chicago 312-886-3506; online Comment Form HERE] and urge him to stop rewarding anti-Christian bigotry. Ask him to return this “Freedom Award” from the hateful anti-Christian homosexual group, Equality Illinois–which in 2012 launched a failed pressure campaign to kick Chick-fil-A restaurants out of Illinois.
Call or write the Republican National Committee [Contact Form HERE] and its Chairman, Reince Priebus [202-863-8500; choose ext. “1”], and urge them to stand firm against the aggressive Homosexual Lobby, which is targeting Christian leaders and businesses like Chick-fil-A for demonization. Tell Priebus that when Republicans like Sen. Mark Kirk embrace Democratic-type social liberalism, it only deflates the pro-family GOP grassroots. Lastly, urge Priebus to PUBLICLY oppose ENDA, the radical Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Thank Chairman Priebus for being publicly pro-life–but urge him also to make the case against “Big Gay Government” (e.g., ENDA)–and Obama’s push to nationalize “same-sex marriage”–as part of the RNC’s regular public Talking Points.
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Dear AFTAH Readers:
On Saturday evening (Feb. 8, 2014), U.S. Senator Mark Kirk (R-Illinois) was presented with the “Freedom” award by Equality Illinois, the state’s leading homosexual pressure group, at a swank fundraising banquet in Chicago. You can watch a video of the presentation below [or on YouTube HERE]. Sen. Kirk has become one of the most liberal Republicans on Capitol Hill on homosexual-related issues–with ever greater acts of pandering to the LGBT Lobby. (He came out for homosexual “marriage” and is pushing for passage of ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act [see homosexual activists release on Kirk and ENDA HERE], or–as we at AFTAH call it, alternatively the “Big Gay Government Act,” “Gay Lawyers’ Dream Act,” or “ENDA Our Freedom Act”) [See an excellent Heritage Foundation report on the ENDA bill HERE.]
You might recall how Kirk–in a capitulation whose cowardice was eclipsed only by its pettiness–recently blocked the respected pro-family organization World Congress of Familiesfrom securing a meeting room on Capitol Hill. This towering act in defense of “freedom” (sarcasm) came after the Senator heard complaints against WCF from some homosexual activists. World Congress, affiliated with The Howard Center, is based in Rockford, Illinois.
Thus it appears that Sen. Kirk’s conception of “freedom” matches that of his intolerant homosexual activist allies. In 2012, Equality Illinois launched a vicious and slanderous campaign to deny Chick-fil-A restaurants the “freedom” to operate in Illinois. As you can see below, EQ falsely accused C-f-A of “discriminatory policies” because the latter’s Chief Operating Officer, Dan Cathy, had spoken out publicly against homosexual “marriage” as tempting the judgment of God. The Chicago “gay” group launched this “Flick the Hate” petition campaign designed to boot the Christian-owned chicken fast food franchise out of several college towns:
The above is a web graphic from radical homosexual group Equality Illinois’ 2012 “Flick the Hate” campaign against Chick-fil-A. Many observers were shocked that any group would try to run a successful business OUT of Illinois, whose economy is suffering under long-running Democratic political dominance.
As you can see, Equality Illinois’ malicious campaign smeared Chick-fil-A and its COO, Dan Cathy, as representing “hate”–merely because Cathy disagreed publicly with “gay marriage.” EQ sought to petition stakeholders into cancelling their rental leases to the 19 Chick-fil-A restaurants then operating in Illinois. (Thankfully, they failed; there are now 32 C-f-A franchises in Illinois, according to the company’s website.) The EQ page reads, in part (emphasis theirs):
Chick-fil-A has 19 restaurants across Illinois, mostly on university campuses and in shopping malls. This petition will be give to key stakeholders in Illinois who lease, rent or allow Chick-fil-A to continue to sell their hate-filled homophobic “Chiken,” asking them to cut ties….
That kind of hate has no place in a business, especially in Illinois. It is a shame to be associated with such extreme intolerance and hate.
By Gary Morella
