AFTAH Exclusive: Glatze responds with grace to homosexual attacks on his marriage

Michael and Rebekah Glatze at their recent wedding.

We are happy to pass along this statement by my friend Michael Glatze, a former “gay” activist who left the lifestyle and recently married his bride, Rebekah. Their marriage has attracted the scorn of hateful homosexual activist Wayne Besen (who cruelly called Rebekah Michael’s “prop”) and the skeptical interest of other LGBT advocates. More is coming on this story. — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH

[To congratulate or contact Michael, write him at michaeleglatze@gmail.com]:

Note from Michael Glatze:

Dear friends and prayer warriors: I am so grateful for all the prayers that have gone up to God for myself, and for Rebekah, as we have been so blessed to have gotten married in the past month. It has certainly been a journey! Going from being involved in the gay community, to traveling through various spiritual searches, to finding myself (personally) in many tumultuous situations, to meeting the woman that God provided for me, to being able to have a healthy relationship, to building relationships with parents and friends, and to finally have our families and friends converge in a beautiful wedding… all has been a difficult, powerful, and awesome journey!

I am SO grateful for the fact that God has allowed me the privilege of being married. I am 38 years old. I live, every day, with a sense of profound gratitude for His provision, and His protection on my life. I am grateful that, though I have failed time and time again, He continues to pick me back up, dust me off, and show me HOW MUCH He truly loves me. And, now, praise God, I am able to share that divine love with Rebekah. This is the greatest present Our Father has given me… it is unspeakably awesome.

There are so many who have wanted to “pick apart” my life. Heck… there are people who pick apart every subtle appearance in every photograph of me ever taken! It is strange to say the least. But, I guess when you become an individual that seems to “stand for” something larger, you can expect that kind of treatment. For instance, it was never my intention to be labeled a “racist” or a “homophobe,” let alone “deranged,” and “crazy.” But, all of these things continue to travel through the airwaves of our strange world – without any of those accusers ever seeing fit to contact me, directly, whether it could be possible for them to express their concerns to me or not. Has anyone asked me what I *really* said about President Obama back in 2009? No. It is easier for them to paint me as a radical racist, which I am not. [Editor’s Note: Michael recommends listening to his 2011 podcast interview with the Theopologetics blog for his take on what he really said regarding the “racist” accusation and other attacks by LGBT activists.] Has anybody ever contacted Rebekah, or myself, to ask us how we *really* feel about each other? No. And, in some cases, even if they did contact us directly, they would doubt that we were telling “the whole truth.” They would assume that in our “Christian blindness,” we were only saying what we were supposed to say, or “wanted to believe.” In a world where people REFUSE to listen to other people, there is not a lot of room for legitimate harmony.

The San Francisco-based Center for Sex & Culture bills itself as striving “to promote creativity, information and healthy sexual knowledge.”

AFTAH’s reoccurring “Queer Indeed” feature will be dedicated to “gay” and sexually radical LGBT events that are so bizarre that — dare I say — normal people couldn’t make them up if they tried. Keep in mind that in the strange world of sex radicals like Carol Queen (who sent out the e-mail below looking for volunteers at a San Francisco “Masturbate-a-Thon”), adherents to traditional (biblical) morality are the “extremists.”

One more thing: if you are tempted merely to laugh at the antics of the Libertine Left, consider that self-styled “progressives” dominate the “sex education” business and are pushing misguided ideas like the encouragement of masturbation to very young children in our public schools. Here is what SIECUS (Sexual Information and Education Council of the United States) advocates for teaching about “masturbation” to early grade school students ages 5-8  (see pages 50-52 on SIECUS’ online “Guidelines for Comprehensive Sexuality Education”):

Topic 2: Masturbation

Subconcept: Masturbation is one way human beings express their sexuality.

Developmental Messages:

Level 1 [ages 5-8]
• Touching and rubbing one’s own genitals to feel good is called masturbation.

• Some boys and girls masturbate and others do not.

• Masturbation should be done in a private place.

— Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH

______________________________

The following is taken from an e-mail sent out by the Center for Sex & Culture (CSC), based in San Francisco, on November 15:

——– Original message ——–
From: Carol Queen <[email address————->
Date: 11/15/2013 1:57 AM (GMT-06:00)
To: [recipient]
Subject: Volunteer needs this weekend & next week @CSC

….

‘Gay’ activists use Thanksgiving to be “thankful for” homosexual advances

“[I]t is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.” — George Washington, in his Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, Oct. 3, 1789

The ACLU and secular leftists would seem to be at war with the Thanksgiving Day Proclamation of our nation’s first President, George Washington, who declared that “it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.”

By Peter LaBarbera

As we enjoy Thanksgiving Day tomorrow with our families, we should remember that the original purpose of Thanksgiving was to thank God for our blessings as Americans. This is clearly demonstrated by two of the “founding documents” of Thanksgiving (reprinted below) – George Washington’s and Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Day Proclamations. Both pay homage to God (so much for ACLU’s vision of separating God from State).

As secularism and – dare I say – godlessness deepen in these United States, many are leaving God out of Thanksgiving Day. Language always follows the heart: have you noticed the habit that has crept in of people being thankful for this and that – without being thankful to God?

Now homosexuality advocates (and others) have taken this regrettable phenomenon a step further: using Thanksgiving as an opportunity to be “thankful for” developments that are decidedly ungodly – e.g., the advance of out-and-proud homosexualism, including “same-sex marriage,” in the United States.

I came upon this homosexual website article timed for Thanksgiving about homosexuals being thankful for various “gay rights” achievements, including more lesbians on TV! We know as Christians and Bible-respecting Jews that Our Heavenly Father is not smiling on that: here is some eternal, unchanging biblical truth on the sin of lesbianism and homosexuality:

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. (Romans 1: 24-27)

And here is some eternal, unchanging Good News for lesbians and all sinners [emphasis added]:

Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men[a] 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11) 

Thanking God for sin?

And so, we have come full circle: citizens of a nation founded “under God” use our annual day of gratitude — conceived to humbly give thanks to God — to celebrate sin. How insidious is the “Progressive” Left’s radical redefinition of everything noble – patriotism, liberty, equality, and now even God Himself – to advance their destructive agendas?

The following is Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn’s (D) elaborate signing ceremony for the legalization of homosexual “marriage” in Illinois. This occurred at the UIC Forum at the University of Illinois-Chicago, on November 20, 2013. Quinn’s main speech, in which he invokes the Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 13) begins around the 56 minute mark. (This is not the place to address the folly of Quinn’s actions, nor his shameless appropriation of God and Christianity to celebrate immorality; for a great website on the Bible and homosexuality, see our friend Prof. Robert Gagnon’s site at www.RobGagnon.net):

Americans For Truth Press Release

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) took pro-homosexual pandering to new lows when he publicly disavowed the respected World Congress of Families, based in Rockford, IL, after “gay” activists protested him for securing a meeting room for the group on Capitol Hill.

AFTAH distributed the following release at former Congressman Joe Walsh’s town meeting for term limits November 23, 2013, in Elmhurst, Illinois:

Demand a Public Apology from Sen. Mark Kirk for Discriminating Against Rockford-Based World Congress of Families

Contact Sen. Kirk: (Wash, DC): 202-224-2854; Chicago: 312-886-3506

Thank Speaker John Boehner: 202-225-0600

______________________

Dear Republican or Conservative Advocate:

Call out Sen. Mark Kirk for cravenly bowing to left-wing, “gay” activists by using his good office to blatantly discriminate against one of the most respected pro-family organizations in the world – the World Congress of Families, based in Rockford, IL.

After a pressure campaign by LGBT activists (who are notoriously pro-Democrat), Sen. Kirk rescinded his senatorial “sponsorship” of a pro-family symposium by World Congress in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, set up through his office. (As a common courtesy in Washington, D.C., Senators and Congressmen secure meeting rooms for constituent groups.)

Kirk then added insult to injury by publicly disavowing World Congress and stating that he “doesn’t affiliate with groups that discriminate.” Apparently it was lost on Sen. Kirk that his petty act of anti-Christian bigotry constitutes anti-conservative “discrimination.” (Thankfully, House Speaker John Boehner stepped up to the plate and secured a meeting room for the World Congress symposium; thank Speaker Boehner HERE or call him at 202-225-0600.}

ALL Republicans – whether social conservatives or libertarians or those in between – should decry Mr. Kirk’s pandering to intolerant, “progressive” special interest lobbies, effectively acting like a liberal Democrat by suffocating civil debate in the service of Political Correctness. If Sen. Kirk were a Democrat, his mistreatment of World Congress and capitulation to leftist groupthink would be unconscionable. It is all the more so given that he is the purported leader of the Illinois Republican Party – which espouses principles of liberty and the defense of marriage and family. — Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH)

AFTAH urges Illinois citizens and especially Republicans to:

Demand that Sen. Kirk Publicly Apologize to World Congress for His Public ‘Discrimination’ Against Illinois Conservatives!

Americans For Truth About Homosexuality

News Release

November 20, 2013

Contact: Peter LaBarbera: 312-324-3787; americansfortruth@gmail.com

CHICAGO—Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) will be protesting Gov. Pat Quinn’s elaborate signing ceremony for Illinois’ “gay marriage” law at the UIC Forum in Chicago today – and condemns his shameful exploitation of Abraham Lincoln to advance this immoral legislation.

Michael Sneed of the Chicago Sun-Times reported yesterday that Gov. Quinn has shipped the desk that President Lincoln used to craft his First Inaugural Address to UIC for the homosexual “marriage” bill-signing. Quinn and other Democrats have evoked the noble Black civil rights movement and even emancipation from slavery as parallels for passage of SB 10, which legalizes same-sex “marriage.”

AFTAH will be outside the UIC Forum (725 W. Roosevelt Rd, in Chicago) under a banner evoking the American Declaration of Independence: “Homosexual ‘Marriage’: Against Nature & Nature’s God.” To contact AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera, call 312-324-3787, or e-mail americansfortruth@gmail.com.

Said AFTAH’s LaBarbera: “It’s bad enough that homosexual extremists for years have been promoting the preposterous lie that Lincoln was ‘gay.’ Now we see his noble legacy on behalf of Black Americans appropriated by the Left to justify homosexual ‘marriage’ – which has nothing to do with civil rights and everything to do with normalizing a changeable sexual sin.

“Abe Lincoln had a great respect for the Bible as the Word of God, and he encouraged others to read it to better their lives. It is inconceivable that Lincoln would set himself against clear Scriptural truth – such as Romans 1, which condemns homosexual practice – or align himself with the bizarre notion that two people of the same sex can get ‘married.’

“(In fact, it would be more faithful to history to picture Lincoln coming up with a good joke – even a saucy one — illustrating the folly of homosexuality-based ‘marriage.’)

“Homosexual practice today is as immoral as it was in days of Lincoln; as it was in the days of Washington and Jefferson before him; as it was in the days of Jesus Christ; and as sinful as it was in the days of Moses,” LaBarbera said. “Today’s ‘progressives’ have as much contempt for the history they twist to rationalize public-policy madness like ‘gay marriage’ as they do for their own religious professions, which they regularly defy. (Quinn, like House Speaker Mike Madigan, is a self-described Catholic; Roman Catholic teaching strongly condemns homosexual practice and Church leaders like Cardinal Francis George actively opposed the Illinois “gay marriage” bill.)

By Peter LaBarbera

“I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. [big audience applause] For me as a Christian it’s also a sacred union, you know, God’s in the mix….I am not somebody who promotes same-sex marriage.” — Barack Obama, Saddleback Church debate moderated by Rick Warren, August 20, 2008 [see video below]

According to new polls, more Americans than ever believe that their President lied to them about Obama-care. That is, he engaged in a calculated deception, repeatedly and emphatically asserting that Americans could keep their health insurance plans, period. Rush Limbaugh and others state the obvious in explaining why Obama lied: to get his controversial health-care bill passed in Congress. (Then later we could start reading it to find out what’s in it….)

Now it is time to think back to other Obama deceptions and crafty manipulations. Check out President Obama’s recent tweet below celebrating Illinois’ House vote in favor of legalizing homosexual “marriage”:

Obama went from being a pensive, faith-minded advocate of traditional marriage as “sacred” in 2008 — (after previously backing “gay marriage” as a 1995 state senate candidate) — to the full-out champion of homosexuality-based “marriage” he is today. Was Obama’s “Christian” opposition to this key homosexual agenda item just a charade? If it was an act, it was a good one; with the help of the media, it fooled a lot of Americans. [See 2008 video below.]

To put Obama’s radical metamorphosis on marriage in perspective, let’s go back to his famous, pious-sounding answer to mega-church pastor Rick Warren’s question, “What is marriage?” during his 2008 run for the presidency. It occurred at the August 16, 2008 debate with GOP candidate John McCain hosted by Warren’s Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California — the ideal setting to burnish his “religious” credentials. (I should emphasize here that Obama is hardly unique among politicians in playing to religious people — and fibbing and deceiving — to get votes.) Below is a YouTube video of Obama in the Saddleback debate (his anser is excerpted at the top of this article);

A little context: Obama’s marriage contradiction

[Note: ever since this debate, this writer has faulted Warren for not following up on his question to Obama — who though professing loyalty to natural marriage was already actively undermining efforts to protect it in California. By letting Obama’s smooth, faith-oriented response rest (after Obama voiced his opposition to a federal Marriage Amendment) and moving on to the next question, Warren left the impression — widely repeated thereafter by the media — that Obama and McCain essentially agreed on same-sex “marriage” (both were “against” it). Sure, it was occasionally noted by the press that Obama backed “civil unions” and opposed a federal marriage amendment, the opposite of Sen. McCain — but the typical, simplistic media soundbite in the election was that both Obama and McCain “opposed gay marriage.”

Vicious GLN exemplifies left-wing hatred; refused to condemn 2011 brick attack against AFTAH

The radical “Gay Liberation Network is again targeting AFTAH’s banquet this Saturday for one of its protests. GLN’s leaders are so hateful that they refused to condemn the 2011 “gay” activist brick attack against AFTAH.  The above notice is filled with misinformation. To view it on GLN’s site, go HERE. To view GLN’s Facebook entry about its protest, go HERE.

Special Note from AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera:

Folks, as you can see from the graphic above, copied off the website of the Chicago group Gay Liberation Network (GLN), we just received word that radical homosexual activists are again planning to protest our annual banquet (this Saturday, Nov. 16^th; see AFTAH banquet information page; get a printable PDF banquet flier HERE).  The GLN banquet protests have become sort of an annual tradition for AFTAH. But it appears that this year in their rush to publicize their protest, this motley crew of left-wing fanatics got their facts wrong. (Imagine that: the Left caught fibbing.) So I’ve taken the liberty to correct GLN’s mistakes below:

1) YES, Americans For Truth is holding its fund-raising dinner banquet this coming Saturday evening at Christian Liberty Academy (CLA), 502 W. Euclid Ave., Arlington Heights, IL. Doors open at 5:30; dinner is served at 6:30 PM. Tickets are $25 at the door or just $20 if you buy them online by midnight Thursday (tomorrow). And you can still sponsor a Table of 10 for $200.  AFTAH banquets are wonderful, informative celebrations of truth, so please come and support us, and bring your friends and family!

(Interesting fact: AFTAH holds our annual event at CLA because several years ago, when we used to hold banquets in hotels, the petty homo-fascists at GLN would harangue the hotel about hosting a “hate group.” Twice we were booted out of hotels based on these malicious misinformation campaigns. Now we hold our banquet at CLA – and even there we were targeted with a glass-shattering brick attack by homosexual militants in the early morning of our banquet in October 2011 [more on this below]. Nobody is more “intolerant” than homosexual activists.)

This poor fellow stood outside Christian Liberty Academy during one of GLN’s protests against Americans For Truth. The Chicago media pretty much give the GLN a free pass by not exposing its extremism.

2) NO, this is NOT a joint fund-raiser between AFTAH and Illinois Family Institute. As much as we love our good friends at IFI and applaud them for all the great work they do throughout the state, they just had a fund-raiser last month! But we understand: all “homophobes” look alike to “progressives” like the GLN. (Of course, I jest: “homophobe” is the smear-term of choice for “gay” activists and their elitist fellow travelers on the Left – meant to deride and demonize their (mostly Christian) opponents as irrational, fearful bigots. The jaundiced term homophobe itself is so discredited that even the liberal-leaning Associated Press has largely given up using it in AP news stories.)

3) YES, our keynote speaker, Sandy Rios, claimed that the (media-hyped) Matthew Shepard “story was a fraud,” but she did so only after interviewing this writer on her AFR Talk program, “Sandy Rios in the Morning.” We discussed the findings of an amazing book by openly homosexual author Stephen Jimenez, The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths about the Murder of Matthew Shepard. In the book Jimenez reveals that, YES, pretty much the entire, convenient “Matthew-Shepard-was-murdered-just-because-he-was-gay” story was fraudulent. And what a coincidence: this “hate crime” tale was cynically exploited to demonize religious conservatives and link defenders of traditional sexual morality with “hate” and even violence toward homosexuals.

The bogus Matt-Shepard-hate-crime story was also repackaged as a tendentious play (The Laramie Project) that has been used to propagandize hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren and young adults in the same false “gay”-activist narrative. In fact, exploiting the false Matthew Shepard story has become big business on the Left.

4) So, indeed, YES, Sandy and I have publicized Jimenez’s well-researched findings that Shepard’s tragic 1998 death was very much “drug-related” – and hence was not a “hate crime.” Jimenez reveals the following about Shepard and his killers, fellow Laramie, Wyoming residents Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, and the circumstances of the case:

• McKinney and Shepard knew each other (as opposed to McKinney meeting Matthew for the first time on the night of the murder);
• McKinney and Shepard were both involved in using and dealing drugs, especially methamphetamines (meth);
• The two had partied with each other and possibly even had sex with each other as part of the same Laramie drug and social scene; and
• Neither McKinney nor his accomplice and friend, Henderson (both are in jail for life for murdering Shepard), were known for hating homosexuals. (In fact, Henderson’s girlfriend’s mother was in a lesbian relationship and Russell lived with her for months and “there was no evidence whatsoever of Aaron or Russell expressing anti-gay feelings,” Aaron’s father, Bill McKinney, told Jimenez [p. 48].) Compare that to the liberal media/LGBT-promoted story line that McKinney and Henderson – somehow fueled by Religious Right homophobia, which fostered a “climate of anti-gay hate” – murdered Shepard “just because he was gay,” after the latter made a sexual pass at McKinney. [To order Jimenez’s fascinating book on Amazon, go HERE.]

5) Lastly, NO, Sandy Rios never asserted that there was some kind of “pro-gay” conspiracy – a “plan by liberals to kill Matt to use him as ‘propaganda’ for LGBT acceptance.” This is sheer GLN nuttiness. Nobody in his right mind (pardon the pun) would suggest that liberal activists are so diabolical that they would plot to kill the young homosexual Shepard to create a “gay” martyr and thus advance the LGBT agenda!  But within hours of the bloody assault, as the Wyoming college student was fighting for his life in a hospital bed, the crime was quickly seized upon – first by close friends of Shepard, then by homosexual advocates, then by the media – as an alleged crime of “anti-gay hate.” Thus it became a pivotal “moment” in America for the Left to advance the LGBT agenda while stigmatizing moral-minded Americans as dangerous bigots.  (Jimenez also reveals that even some Laramie police officials joined in promoting the “anti-gay hate crime” theme, perhaps as opportunists caught up in the gay-liberal media spin, or maybe to draw attention away from Laramie’s criminal drug culture.)