Sounds alarm over criminalization of ‘gay’ change counseling

This column was first published by WND.com two days ago

By Matt Barber

In recent months, “progressive” lawmakers, activist attorneys and militant homosexual pressure groups have launched a fierce campaign to ban therapeutic help for child victims of monsters like homosexual pedophile Jerry Sandusky. California has already passed such a law (SB 1172).

On Friday, Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver challenged this twisted ban in federal court, seeking a preliminary injunction to halt the law from taking effect on Jan. 1. Judge Kimberly Mueller will likely issue a decision within a week or so.

SB 1172 would make illegal any counseling to diminish or eliminate same-sex sexual attractions or high-risk behaviors, even when, as is often the case, those attractions and behaviors derive from sexual abuse.

Thousands of people, many of whom once identified as “gay,” have received positive, life-changing benefits from such counseling. Yet, among other things, the fact that people can, and do, leave homosexuality bulldozes the politically motivated, scientifically discredited “born that way” meme.

Here is the latest manifestation of America’s descent into decadence and godlessness. What right do West Point and all the military academies have to teach young men and women integrity and right from wrong when they now are celebrating sexual immorality on such a grand scale? And yet Rep. Paul Ryan (echoing his pro-“gay” Republican running mate, Mitt Romney) said it would be a big mistake for the GOP to revisit the homosexuals-in-the-military issue (i.e., reinstate a homosexual exclusion policy).

Are we heading toward a bipartisan push in favor of Big Homosexuality — for which the revolutionary redefinition of marriage is but one goal? And where does that leave Christians and all moral-minded citizens who put loyalty to their Creator and sexual sanity above party politics? We’ve heard a lot about the “Fiscal Cliff,” but America is also dangling off the Moral Cliff. Too bad few governing and cultural elites seem to care enough to try and rescue us from going over it. — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH

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FoxNews reports:

First same-sex marriage being celebrated Saturday at West Point’s Cadet Chapel

Published December 01, 2012, FoxNews.com

The first same-sex marriage at West Point’s Cadet Chapel will be celebrated Saturday – when a military veteran and her partner exchange vows roughly one year after President Obama ended the military policy banning openly gay people from serving in the military.

The ceremony will take place in the Military Academy’s Cadet Chapel between Brenda Sue Fulton and Penelope Dara Gnesin. Fulton is a military veteran and spokeswoman for Outserve – an advocacy group for actively serving gay, lesbian and bisexual military personnel, reported first by USA Today.

West Point hosted its first same-sex marriage last weekend, but it was a private ceremony at a smaller campus venue.

The following is excerpted from from an article in Christian News Network, in which AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera is quoted. The original article contains video footage of the controversial Rick Warren interview with Huffington Post [or click HERE]:

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Rick Warren Uncertain if Homosexual Behavior is Sinful, Says ‘Gays’ Go to Heaven

November 29, 2012 By Heather Clark, Christian News Network

Controversy is stirring over recent comments made by Rick Warren, author of the best-selling book The Purpose-Driven Life and megachurch leader of Saddleback Church in California, who stated that homosexual behavior “might be” sinful, and that he believes homosexuals go to Heaven.

During an interview this week with the Huffington Post, Warren was asked by Marc Lamont Hill if having romantic feelings for a member of the same sex is a sin. Leading up to the question, Warren was explaining that he does not hate homosexuals, and that people should disagree politely on the subject of homosexuality.

“I have many, many gay friends, and have worked around the world with them in gay organizations to try to stop AIDS,” he said. “We’re doing ‘World AIDS Day’ this weekend at Saddleback Church. My wife and I have given millions of dollars to help people with HIV/AIDS and have worked with gay organizations on that.”

“What about the love part, though? I hear about the AIDS part,” asked Hill. “It’s not illegal to love somebody,” Warren replied.

“But you think it’s a sin,” Hill asserted. “No, it’s not a sin to love somebody,” Warren said.

“It might be a sin to have sex with them,” he added. “It might be.”

Courtesy of our good friends at PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays):

My Testimony

by Debora Barr

Radical transformation is possible! I lived 18 years of my life as a lesbian with absolutely no desire to change. Now that I have been set free from my invisible shackles, I am experiencing the most wholesome and unconditional love of my Savior, Jesus Christ and will never turn back!

I was born in 1963, to a 19-year-old mother and a twenty-one year old father who lost their first child (my older brother) to complications during child birth less than a year earlier. My parents both came from homes where their same sex parent died when they were very young. I am the oldest of three biological children of my parents and one adopted sibling. I was brought up in the Catholic Church, and early in my life, I developed a love for God and even dreamed of becoming a nun.

I was extremely insecure as a child and did not make friends easily. I never really connected with kids my own age, and my best friends were always older than me. I matured quickly, and beginning at the age of nine, I took on the role of babysitter for my younger siblings as well as the 50 foster children (infants) that my family took in over a period of seven years. I felt like an adult, even as a child.

In high school I began dating a boy who was a couple of years older than me. He lived quite a distance away, so he would come and spend the weekends at my house whenever possible. During this time, my mother started to go with us to the movies or bowling alley nearly every time we went out. She never really dated as a teen because she was raising her two younger brothers. She married my father at the age of 16 to get away from her alcoholic father and her dysfunctional family situation.

When I was 15, my boyfriend and I were away at a church camp and there he tried to have sex with me. When I returned home, I experienced deep betrayal by someone very close to me which sent me spiraling into a deep depression. I rejected God and completely turned my back on him, denying that he even existed. I struggled for the next couple of years with deep depression and attempts at suicide. I graduated from high school, my parents divorced, and I went to college in another part of the state. There, I experienced sexual abuse from three different older men and further rejected any notion that God could exist. I thought what I knew as a child was just a lie and a fairytale – there was no God! I actively rejected the existence of God, telling people who believed that they were weak and deceived.

Responses to AFTAH questions cast doubt on UPS talking points denying cut-off of Scouts

By Peter LaBarbera

Dear Readers,

Following our initial report on United Parcel Service’s (UPS) shift in its pro-“gay” charitable giving approach to mandate that all UPS Foundation grantees — including the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) — ban “discrimination” based on “sexual orientation,” many of you called UPS to complain. Unfortunately, UPS’ responses to your calls tended to obfuscate the basic story: that the Boy Scouts, which received $150,000 from UPS Foundation in 2012, will no longer be eligible to receive future UPS gifts due to the BSA’s longstanding policy of not allowing (openly) homosexual members or scoutmasters.

This de facto UPS cut-off of future funding for the Scouts was precisely the lobbying goal of pro-homosexual activists like Zach Wahls, but a UPS staffer denied to AFTAH that the company was pressured into cutting off the Scouts’ funding.

Several AFTAH readers e-mailed to notify us of UPS’ dubious claim that the corporation is still funding the Boy Scouts, or at least had not cut them off — an obvious technicality, in our view, because under the new policy UPS funds can only flow to the BSA if the Scouts cave in by adopting a pro-homosexual “nondiscrimation” policy.

UPS spokesmen also asserted that there were other branches of the Scouts — or individual, more liberal local councils — that still could receive UPS funding by “checking off” the “sexual orientation nondiscrimination” box, as our friend Linda Harvey of Mission America was told. This evidently is not the case, per the Scouts’ responses to questions 2 and 3 below.

Here are the Boy Scouts of America’s responses to our e-mail questions:

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Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH):  1) Does the BSA perceive this as UPS dropping its annual funding of the Scouts [$150,000 in 2012, according to UPS]?

Boy Scouts of America (BSA):  It is our understanding that this policy will prevent future funding of Scouting.

AFTAH:  2) Does the BSA allow individual troops to put forward “sexual orientation” nondiscrimination policies, so as to be eligible to receive funding from companies like UPS and Intel?

Boy Scouts:  No.  The BSA has one policy.

Read the rest of this article »

Is UPS encouraging local Scout troops to undermine national policy against homosexuality?

We at AFTAH found this this report by Mission America’s Linda Harvey about her conversation with UPS (United Parcel Service) very eye-opening. After our initial report on UPS “dropping” the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) through its new, more stringent pro-homosexual charitable giving policy, several of our readers wrote to inform us that UPS is telling people that it is NOT dropping the Scouts. I called UPS today and a staffer reiterated some of the same points as Ruiz’s below. And we are seeking clarifications from the BSA on UPS’ claims, which we will pass on to you. You can call the UPS Foundation at 404-828-6374 and the Scouts at 972-580-2000. For additional contact info for UPS and the Scouts, go HERE. — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH

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Here is Harvey’s recollection of the conversation:

I called UPS today ( November 15, 2012) and was immediately told that they had not cut funding to the Boy Scouts, but they would connect me to someone who would explain further. I then talked with Joe Ruiz, a manager in the UPS Foundation.

Ruiz said no, they had not cut funding to the Boy Scouts, that the media reports were inaccurate. What they’ve done is changed their discrimination policy and if prospective grantees don’t “check the box” stating that they have a policy prohibiting discrimination on sexual orientation and gender identity, they would not be eligible.

So I responded that, essentially, UPS has indeed cut funding to the Boy Scouts. Not if they would “check the box,” he said. (It was like talking to a wall). Then, he told me his understanding is that some of the individual Boy Scout groups around the country had indicated they would “check the box,” and so would be eligible. I said, do you mean they are going against the national organization? Well, that would be up to each of them, he said.

Read the rest of this article »

Pro-homosexual activist and Eagle Scout Zach Wahls — shown her in his website photo being kissed by his two lesbian “moms” — led the successful web campaign to pressure UPS to drop its corporate donations to the Boy Scouts. UPS disingenuously claims that it has not “pulled funding” from the Scouts but is only affirming its own policies of gay “inclusion” and “nondiscrimination.”

TAKE ACTION: 1) Contact UPS (404-828-7123; pr@ups.com) about its new pro-homosexual giving policy that effectively DISCRIMINATES against the Boy Scouts and any faith- or moral-based group that opposes homosexuality. Under the new policy, UPS will no longer donate to the Boy Scouts because the Scouts’ “morally straight” code disallows homosexual Scoutmasters and members.  Call UPS: Public Relation Dep’t: 404-828-7123; or Customer Service: 800 -742-5877 (hit “0” for the operator). E-mail UPS’ PR Dep’t at pr@ups.com.

2) THANK THE BOY SCOUTS… for not caving into pressure campaigns by homosexual activists and their allies. You can reach the Boy Scouts online HERE, or call them at 972-580-2000 (8:00 AM to 4:30 PM Central Time).

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By Peter LaBarbera, Special AFTAH Report

In the Orwellian world of homosexual activists and their liberal fellow travelers, “diversity and inclusion” have become the buzzwords of politically correct intolerance and active discrimination against faith-based organizations.

One long-suffering “diversity” victim is the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), which will see its sizeable grants from United Parcel Service (UPS) cease under a new UPS giving policy that requires that all grantees ban anti-gay “discrimination.” UPS reportedly gave the BSA more than $150,000 in 2010.

I believe the silent majority of Scouting parents support the Boy Scouts’ policy of disallowing openly homosexual Scoutmasters and members -– first and foremost for the protection of their boys. Most parents simply do not want nor would they knowingly allow their son to go camping or spend time in seclusion with a homosexual Scoutmaster. We agree with the BSA that sexual issues – especially surrounding aberrant sex- and gender identities – do not belong in the Boy Scouts and are an unwanted distraction.

In the wake of a recent court case forcing the BSA to release a portion of its horrifying files of Scoutmasters who sexually molested boys in their care (from 1965-1985), AFTAH has called on the BSA to release its complete “perversion” files, especially all the cases involving predatory homosexual Scoutmasters, for the public to review.

UPS denies targeting Scouts

Even as homosexual activists were celebrating UPS’s pro-“gay” philanthropic announcement, the company was busy insisting that it is not “targeting” or pulling funds from the Boy Scouts — but merely laying out its new giving criteria. Under the criteria, UPS will continue to award six-figure grants to well-funded, powerful homosexual organizations like Human Rights Campaign Fund (which received a $100,000 UPS Foundation gift in February 2012) – but no longer to the beleaguered Scouts.

Andrew Marin “was either trying to conceal his orthodox positions from his friends who identify as homosexual or that he was trying to conceal his unorthodox theological views from those who hold orthodox biblical views,” writes Laurie Higgins.

The following article by our friend Laurie Higgins is reprinted from fhe Illinois Family Institute website. AFTAH commends the excellent yet often unheralded work of IFI in maintaining a truth standard for the state:

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By Laurie Higgins, Nov. 9, 2012

Andrew Marin, the controversial founder and president of the Marin Foundation, is speaking next week at Park Community Church in Chicago. This is surprising in that from its website Park Community appears to be a theologically orthodox church.

Marin promotes himself as a bridge-builder between the Christian community and the homosexual community and has written a book on the subject titled Love is an Orientation. It is not Marin’s desire to reach the unsaved that is troubling. We should all seek to bring the good news of Christ’s redemptive work to those who identify as homosexual. Rather, it is his approach and his theology that generate controversy and trouble many Christians.

One of the serious problems with Marin is that when asked directly about his biblical beliefs regarding homosexuality, he is troublingly evasive. In addition, his book has received a devastating critique from Dr. Robert A. Gagnon, Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics.