“But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

Our sin-sick and sin-celebrating world needs Jesus Christ more than ever. The following is adapted from a tract, “The Romans Road,” published by The Tract League. I have adapted the Scriptural citations to the New International Version of the Bible. When you click on the verse, it will take you to that verse in its context, courtesy of Bible Gateway. If you have strayed from God, why not use Easter as a starting point to renew your relationship with Him? God bless you, and have a Blessed Easter! — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH

_____________________________

I had a pretty good opinion of myself until a friend invited me to take a walk down the Roman Road. He used just a single book in the Bible to open my eyes to my relationship with God, and I haven’t been the same since.

He warned me that the trip might hurt, and he was right because he started by revealing my real status before God:

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…. (Romans 3:23)

Then I learned of sin’s penalty:

For the wages of sin is death… (Romans 6:23a)

He went on to tell me that God loves me so much He offers an alternative called ‘eternal life’:

…but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23b)

Then he showed me how God provided His son Jesus as an atoning sacrifice for my sin. Jesus took my penalty!

But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

I wondered if God would accept me. He assured me with even more good news:

For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13)

My friend showed me what I should do to receive eternal life:

That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)

We prayed together, and I gladly accepted God’s gift of eternal life through Jesus. I asked him if there was anything in the book of Romans that could help me with my new life. He pointed to the beginning of Romans 12:

I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer you bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — His good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12)

He explained that if I gave God first place in my life, other things would work out according to God’s plan for me. I have read a lot of the Bible since that day, and my friend was right! My life has been transformed. I joined a church and was baptized.

Many verses are underlined in my Bible, but I’ll never forget the Romans Road because a close friend used it to show me the way to eternal life.

That’s why I gave this tract to you today — so you too can know the way to eternal life. If you already have walked that road, please pass this on. News this good is meant to be shared.

More Gospel tracts with varying themes are available for bulk purchase at The Tract League website.

Republicans will never “out-gay” the Democrats in pandering to a Sin Movement…

Sen. Rob Portman’s emotional conversion to the homosexual “marriage” cause — which he justified as supporting his homosexual son — plays into the liberal media and “gay” activist narrative that same-sex “marriage” is inevitable.

By Peter LaBarbera for Americans For Truth

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush – it seems everyone is embracing oxymoronic homosexual “marriage” these days, or so the liberal media would have us believe. Promoting sexual perversion in the name of “civil rights” is the trendy and “cool” thing to do. If you’ve heard it once you’ve heard it a hundred times: today’s youth (and we all know how wise and experienced they are) are overwhelming pro-“gay marriage” — so it is “inevitable.”

Even CPAC, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, is getting in the game: last week it allowed the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) to sponsor an entire panel (“Rainbow on the Right”) devoted to homosexuals’ “inclusion” in the conservative movement. Sounding more like a Washington Post “conservative” than a real one, panelist and Post columnist Jennifer Rubin reportedly exclaimed at the panel how anti-homosexual-“marriage” Republicans “cannot be at war with America on the issues of fairness and equality.“ (Prominent opponents of the Homosexual Lobby were excluded from the CPAC-CEI panel.)

In the midst of the CPAC gathering, news broke that Sen. Portman had flip-flopped on homosexual “marriage” because his 21-year-old son Will is a homosexual. Thus Portman succumbed to the emotionalism and illogic that dominate post-Christian America. Employing some awful theology, he kicked God to the curb — as is becoming habit in a land that increasingly mocks its own national motto, “In God We Trust.”

Here is a dose of Politically Incorrect truth: homosexual behavior is sinful (read: always wrong in the eyes of God), unnatural, destructive and yet – thankfully – changeable. To become homosexual-affirming because someone you love announces he or she is homosexual is the antithesis of “tough love.” It’s like telling a loved one who is has a drug problem: “I love you so much that I’m going to send you a five ounces of cocaine every month, because that’s how much I care.”

An imperfect analogy, perhaps, but Portman’s tragic defection and moral weakness play right into the Left’s ubiquitous narrative that same-sex “marriage” is unstoppable. Don’t buy it. In politics and life, only death and taxes are inevitable. Remember that radical feminists used to say that the abortion debate was “settled”; now they’re losing that cultural battle for hearts and minds.

Bill Whatcott says he will go on distributing his pro-family and pro-life flyers despite the Canadian high court’s outrageous “hate speech” ruling against him.

Folks, as bad as things are in the United States with regard to Political Correctness, it seems they are always worse in Canada. Below, Christian pro-family activist Bill Whatcott comments on an outrageous Supreme Court of Canada ruling declaring his anti-homosexual-agenda fliers as “hate speech.” AFTAH is cited in one of the flyers, which can be viewed at the end of the court decision HERE.

Shocking as it may seem, Whatcott — a fearless pro-family advocate — might end up in jail simply for passing out flyers warning fellow Canadians about the aggressive agenda to normalize homosexual behavior.

This Orwellian ruling should be studied as a lesson in the incompatibility of “group rights” — especially those based on homosexuality — with true liberty. Whatcott cites this incredible bit of judicial doublespeak from the ruling:

“Truthful statements can be presented in a manner that would meet the definition of hate speech, and not all truthful statements must be be free from restriction.”

Stunning as that is, I find the most amazing claim in the ruling that supposed “hate speech” like Whatcott’s deserves to be banned because it could “silence” its target. Really? The homosexual activists are a lot of things, but “silent” sure isn’t one of them.

In an excellent piece analyzing the Whatcott decision, Canadian columnist Rory Leishman summarizes:

In short, with this Whatcott ruling, the Supreme Court of Canada has held that nothwithstanding the ostensible guarantees of freedom of expression and freedom of religion in the Charter, a Canadian can be found guilty of violating the prohibition on hate speech in a human rights code by making a statement even if (a) the statement is true; (b) the speaker did not intend to express hatred; (c) the speaker was expressing his or her honestly held religious conviction; and (d), there is no proof that the statement has caused any harm.

The United States, unlike Canada, has a First Amendment. But it is important to remember that Americans’ freedom to oppose homosexuality has already been greatly abridged — through our own Supreme Court decisions like the 1996 Romer v. Evans ruling striking down Colorado’s Amendment Two (through which citizens were attempting to block the very sort of “sexual orientation” rights that lead to discrimination against Christians).

Protecting homosexuality as a right and a “minority” erodes true liberty and historic Judeo-Christian morality. Please support Bill Whatcott in any way you can. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

Here is Bill’s response to the ruling:

Homosexual protest boomerangs as targeted Texas pastor slams Political Correctness and winsomely proclaims the Gospel

New York Jets QB and public Christian Tim Tebow backed out of a scheduled speaking engagement at a Texas mega-church following “gay” protests that falsely and maliciously labeled that church and its pastor as motivated by “hate.” Tebow missed an opportunity to defend biblical truth.

By Peter LaBarbera, Special American For Truth Report

Many Christians and pro-family advocates were disappointed to learn that New York Jets QB Tim Tebow had backed out of a scheduled speaking engagement at the First Baptist Church in Dallas – following an online lobbying blitz by homosexual activists urging him to cancel because the church’s pastor is “anti-gay.”

Last Thursday, Tebow tweeted that he was pulling out of the April 28 appearance with First Baptist Pastor Robert Jeffress “due to new information that has been brought to my attention.” A conflicted Tebow reportedly told the Texas pastor that he would like to speak at the Dallas mega-church at some point in the future, but “he needed to avoid controversy right now for personal and professional reasons,” the liberal Daily Beast reported.

The Daily Beast article is gratuitously headlined: “Tim Tebow’s ‘Hate’ Pastor Responds to Quarterback’s Withdrawal.”

Turns out that Jeffress not only preaches that homosexual behavior is a sin — he also opposes Mormonism and some Catholic teachings. And, because he asserts that Jews (like everyone else) also need to have faith in Christ to go to heaven, Jeffress was also slandered as “anti-Semitic.” Translation: he is squarely within the long tradition of the Southern Baptist preaching, which holds that regenerative faith in Christ alone is required for salvation.

[Watch Pastor Jeffress’ powerful response to the Tebow controversy HERE, addressing his First Baptist Church of Dallas congregation last Sunday.]

Of course, Evangelicals, Catholics and Mormons have serious theological differences (although each teaches that homosexual behavior is wrong). But let’s be clear: the instigators of the controversy that culminated in Tebow’s unfortunate cave-in were the ‘Gay Thought Police’ – my name for the powerful and well-funded homosexual activist lobby that demonizes people who speak out against homosexuality as bigots, haters and “homophobes.”

Curiously, Tebow himself attends a Southern Baptist church in Jacksonville, Florida, First Baptist Church Jacksonville, which holds the same biblical beliefs as Jeffress’ church. With the Texas pastor ably refuting the absurd “gay” polemic that his is a “hate church,” even some secular liberals opined that Tebow had blown it with his First Baptist cancellation. In a remarkable interview with Jeffress, celebrity reporter (and Jewish homosexual) Harvey Levin, founder of the Hollywood-oriented TV show TMZ – hardly a right-wing sympathizer – concluded, “It sounds like Tebow wussed out on this one to me.”

Thus Tebow joins the list of other celebrities, conservatives, and Christians leaders who have succumbed to homosexual pressure campaigns. (Recently, Atlanta pastor Louie Giglio pulled out of the President Obama’s Inaugural ceremony, for which he had been invited to give the benediction, after pro-“gay” activists uncovered one of his sermons from the mid-90s critical of homosexual activism. Under attack from homosexual activists, Giglio opted not to defend Christian teaching on homosexuality — and took pains to assert that he hasn’t made the homosexual issue a priority in his ministry work and did not wish to be part of the national debate on the topic.)

This article was not easy for me to write. As a Tebow fan, I sincerely hope he reverses course and returns to speak at First Baptist. He is young and has a lot to learn — all the while being under the liberal media’s microscope. Nevertheless, I think Tebow also owes a public apology to Pastor Jeffress, who was put in a bad situation but handled it masterfully.

Folks, our response to Tim Tebow caving in to the “Gay Thought Police” is coming soon. Here is First Baptist Church of Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress’ wonderful response to the controversy Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013 at the church. It has been very encouraging to watch Jeffress (with God’s help) so effortlessly turn “lemons into lemonade” on this story. When even “TMZ Live” sides with Pastor Jeffress over Tebow on the story (a TMZ host said Tebow “wussed out on this one”), you know something interesting is afoot in the culture. My sense is that even as “gay power” grows in America — with all its accompanying intolerance and anti-Christian bigotry — there is also rising a societal disgust with speech-stifling political correctness. Maybe truly hate-filled homosexual militants like Wayne Besen (who smears Jeffress as a “hate pastor” HERE) are actually helping the pro-family movement. Let’s hope so. — Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth

Pastor James Taylor

This is the first of a two-part interview [click HERE to listen] with James Taylor, pastor of University Christian Church in Norman, Oklahoma. It was recorded Jan. 17, 2013. Taylor attended, with AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera, a federally- and state-sponsored conference on substance abuse and homosexuals, held December 12, 2012 in his hometown of Norman. Here is Americans For Truth’s original story on the one-day “LGBTQ2I Summit” conference, which Taylor describes as “nothing more than … a pep rally for the GLBT [Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender] community.” Taylor bristles at the analogy of conference speaker and (male-to-female) transsexual Celeste Flemming comparing “transgenders” being denied the use of opposite sex restrooms (e.g., due to women not wanting to share a restroom with biological males who want to live as “women”) — to Blacks being denied the use of “whites-only” restrooms. He describes how he came to the defense of conservative Oklahoma State Senator Sally Kern (R), who was mischaracterized by the keynote speaker at the conference as being on a “which hunt” against homosexuals. There is also a discussion about a heretical, pro-homosexual “What does the bible say about homosexuality?” flier passed out at one of the sessions attended by Taylor.

LaBarbera also comments on Wayne Besen’s interview opposite Family Research Council’s Peter Sprigg on CNN — about the Inaugural prayer controversy involving Georgia Pastor Louie Giglio.

HOW TO LISTEN: This is an mp3 file, supported in most operating systems by Windows Media Player, Quick Time and/or I-Tunes.  Real Player is not supported and there may be difficulty when attempting to listen with it.  Left click once on the link below to play.  (Please be patient, depending upon the speed of your internet connection it may take a moment to load.)  OR right click the link then “save target as” to download the whole show.

1-17-13, Pastor James Taylor, Part One

Tony Perkins debating Barney Frank on MSNBC. The Homosexual Lobby is pushing hard to discredit Perkins, even twisting his words to make him appear hateful and irrational. They are lobbying media NOT to have him on as a guest. (They do the same to AFTAH and other groups opposing the “gay” activist agenda.) There remain two sides to the homosexuality debate. Journalistic balance and fairness require that media not cave in to homosexual activist pressure, nor rely on biased LGBT misinformation specifically crafted to marginalize Christian conservative leaders.

By Peter LaBarbera

In our recent post of “20 Resolutions” for pro-family advocates battling the “gay” activist agenda in 2013, Number 6 is: “Recognize, dismiss and counter homosexual activists’ lies and propaganda.” One common homosexual activist deception is to transform any criticism of homosexual behavior or “gay” activism into a general attack on “gay people.”

You will note from the video below how the leading homosexual activist media-lobbying group, GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), twists Family Research Council President Tony Perkins’ words. Speaking at a May 3, 2001 conference, Perkins said:

“Those that understand the homosexual community — the activists — they are very aggressive … everything they accuse us of they are in triplicate. They’re [intolerant], they’re hateful, they’re vile, they’re spiteful…Our response to them should be one of love and of compassion….We’ve got to be very careful to guard our hearts — that we in the midst of this battle don’t become so [callous], that we realize they’re not the enemy. The enemy is simply using them as pawns. They are held captive by the enemy….”

Now look at how GLAAD mischaracterizes the above quotation on its website page attempting to discredit Perkins as a media commentator:

Here is the short Perkins video courtesy of People For the American Way’s  (PFAW) “Right Wing Watch” (which, unlike GLAAD, actually correctly describes Perkins as talking about homosexual “activists”) [YouTube URL: http://youtu.be/hfNVgJ4rwMo]:

MIDNIGHT DEADLINE for Tax-Exempt, Year-End Gifts to AFTAH:  All gifts to Americans For Truth are fully tax-deductible according to the IRS.  To count your gift as deductible for your 2012 taxes, give online at www.americansfortruth.com/donate/ by midnight Central Time today (Dec. 31st).  Or postmark your regular-mail donation by today (Dec. 31st) and mail to: AFTAH, PO Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522.  Please consider becoming a monthly “Truth Team” donor to AFTAH.

** AFTAH is looking forward to aggressively and non-defensively confronting the Homosexual, Bisexual and Transgender Lobbies in 2013.  Thank you for making our work possible with your donations and prayers! **

__________________________

Scott Lively

Folks, being called a “pro-family hero” by Scott Lively is humbling, and a great honor.  See below where Scott lists AFTAH as among his “Top 10 Pro-Family Heroes” for 2012.”

In recent years nobody has been on the receiving end of more lies, slanders and all-around wickedness at the hands of homosexual activists than Scott Lively.  I don’t think the average Joe American could even comprehend what Scott has gone through — merely because he stands against the lies and myths of the Homosexual Movement.  And yet he fights on undeterred because he knows that as a follower of Christ devoted to the Truth of God’s Word, he will be persecuted.  I know Scott and he is nothing at all like the evil, hateful caricature that “gay” activists have made him out to be.

AFTAH presented Scott with its “American Truth Teller” award for 2011 because he exemplifies the sacrificial spirit of truthful, Christ-like resistance to the LGBT Sin Movement — which is based on one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated against mankind: that homosexuality is natural (for some people), innocuous, “who you are,” and the basis for “civil rights.”  Scott Lively is a true cultural hero, and a decent, great Christian man who loves homosexuals enough to tell them the Truth.