Pictured above is the 'hateful' and 'violence-prone' Matt Barber, Board Member of Americans For Truth, in his days as a professional boxer.

By J. Matt Barber

Though always left of center, the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) once had a reputation as a fairly objective civil rights group. Founded by direct-marketing millionaire Morris Dees and partner Joseph Levin Jr. in 1971, the SPLC made important and honorable contributions to many of the historic civil rights gains of the 20th Century. According to its own materials, the SPLC was “internationally known for tracking and exposing the activities of hate groups.”

Alas, “power corrupts,” as it goes, and the SPLC, having amassed tremendous power and wealth over the years, has regrettably become corrupt to its core. By way of an ever-escalating wave of “us-versus-them” money-grubbing schemes, Today’s SPLC has morphed into a far-left political activist outfit, famous for promoting a panoply of extreme liberal causes.

Ken Silverstein, writing for Harper’s Magazine, addressed this untoward metamorphosis in 2000:

“Today’s SPLC spends most of its time – and money – on a relentless fund-raising campaign, peddling memberships in the church of tolerance with all the zeal of a circuit rider passing the collection plate. ‘He’s the Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker of the civil rights movement,’ renowned anti-death-penalty lawyer Millard Farmer says of Dees, his former associate, ‘though I don’t mean to malign Jim and Tammy Faye.’

“The American Institute of Philanthropy gives the Center one of the worst ratings of any group it monitors,” continued Silverstein. “Morris Dees doesn’t need your financial support. The SPLC is already the wealthiest civil rights group in America, though [its fundraising literature] quite naturally omits that fact. … ‘Morris and I…shared the overriding purpose of making a pile of money,’ recalls Dees’ business partner, a lawyer named Millard Fuller (not to be confused with Millard Farmer). ‘We were not particular about how we did it; we just wanted to be independently rich.’” (You say Fuller. I say Farmer. The two Millards say “call the whole thing off.”)

So, what happens when a dragon slayer – paid per dragon head – runs out of real dragons to slay? Well, he invents new ones, of course. Gotta keep those sprinklers-a-sprinklin.’ (According to Harper’s, “Dees bought a 200-acre estate appointed with tennis courts, a pool, and stables.” SPLC’s 2008 Form-990 shows net assets of over 219 million at the beginning of that year. Yup, there’s a spate to be made in the hate trade.)

Dear AFTAH Readers,

Homosexual activist Wayne Besen screams with a bullhorn into the window of Boston's Park Street Church, which was hosting an "ex-gay" seminar last April. Will the SPLC investigate virulent anti-Christian activists like Besen in its ostensible campaign against "hate"? How would the SPLC react if right-wing conservatives were to terrorize a homosexual church in the same way?

Well, now I think I’ve seen it all. A Chicago-based Marxist “direct action” group, the Gay Liberation Network (GLN) — which smears Chicago’s historic Moody Church as a “House of Hate,” attacks Catholic Cardinal Francis George as a “homophobe,” and compares the Boy Scouts to racist fringe groups  — has successfully lobbied the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to label AFTAH’s website a “hate site.” The GLN and its co-leader, Bob Schwartz, know a thing or two about hate: in 2005, Schwartz told me, as I was standing in opposition to a “gay youth” event in downtown Chicago, that he would have pushed me into the busy city street were it not for the presence nearby of my “friends,” the police. (Read my 2005 account as Executive Director for Illinois Family Institute HERE; imagine if I had made such a veiled, physical threat against Schwartz: I probably would have been arrested on “Hate Crime” charges right then and there.)

There are few things as sinister, and as cynical, as the Left’s manipulation of “hate” as a political weapon to malign Christians and patriotic, conservative Americans. Thankfully, it seems the only people taking the SPLC seriously anymore are the liberal media and hardened, ‘Move On’-types on the Left. The SPLC is a spent force when it comes to moral authority — and even some honest liberals are seeing through its disingenuous campaign to redefine morality as “hate” and “bigotry.” (Don’t look to the SPLC to investigate homosexual haters like Wayne Besen’s notoriously nasty “Truth Wins Out” anytime soon; Besen is shown at right screaming with a bullhorn into the window of Park Street Church in Boston; click here to read the MassResistance story on the shocking 2009 demonstration.)

GLN's Bob Schwartz knows about "hate" ....

The Left is so steeped in its own ideology and self-righteousness that it is oblivious to how out of step it is with everyday Americans. Sure, there are haters on the right like Fred (“God Hates Fags”) Phelps (who despicably pickets U.S. soldiers’ funerals, and whom AFTAH has repeatedly condemned). But there are far more haters on the Left, and they are much better organized and dangerous to American liberty than those on the opposite end of the political spectrum.

On behalf of Americans For Truth, I am gratified at the outpouring of support we have received from pro-family advocates across the country in response to the SPLC’s shenanigans. We’ll say it again: to defend historic Judeo-Christian moral norms is not “bigotry,” and to disagree with homosexual activists is not “hate.” You can contact the Southern Poverty Law Center HERE. God bless you. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org; e-mail us: americansfortruth@comcast.net>

Matt Barber’s statement on the SPLC follows the jump:

Cites ‘gay’-affirming professor’s “about face”; Throckmorton reneges on answering questions posed by pro-family news service

Ironically, Grove City Prof. Warren Throckmorton -- creator of the 2004 video "I Do Exist," about ex-"gays" -- now questions whether many former homosexuals who have experienced "durable change" in their basic attractions actually "do exist." Writes Throckmorton: "It is not appropriate to see the film as a testament to change of sexual orientation."

The following is reprinted with permission from LifeSiteNews, a leading pro-life and pro-family news service: [To subscribe to their daily news feed, go HERE]

By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman, March 22, 2010, LifeSiteNews.com

GROVE CITY, PENNSYLVANIA, March 19, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) — A psychologist teaching at the conservative-Evangelical Grove City College has been making waves by endorsing same-sex civil union legislation, and claiming that homosexuals can live “normal, natural and healthy” lives.

In a recent interview with the Evangelical news service OneNewsNow (ONN), Dr. Warren Throckmorton reportedly said that “he opposes same-sex marriage but believes the Equal Protection Clause permits homosexual civil unions,” according to the news agency.

“Throckmorton says he personally holds a ‘traditional view of homosexuality and sexual ethics.’ However, when asked whether he believes homosexuality is ‘normal, natural and healthy,’ he said he could not answer that with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response,” ONN reported.

“He said ‘in a professional therapy situation’ it is accurate to say that ‘homosexuals can live normal, natural, and healthy lives that are free of mental illness,'” added ONN.

Although Throckmorton has been known in the past as a defender of the ex-gay movement and reorientation therapy, he has been distancing himself increasingly from those positions in recent years, and has even rejected the “Day of Truth,” in which high school students seek to inform their peers about the immorality of homosexual behavior, calling it “mischief,” and saying that it “builds more walls than bridges.”

Throckmorton’s defection from the ex-gay movement has been met with condemnation by Evangelicals. “Though he works for an evangelical institution, Pennsylvania-based Grove City College, which advertises itself on faith-based websites as ‘authentically Christian,’ Warren promotes a new, morally neutral paradigm on homosexuality that affirms people’s ‘Sexual Identity’ according to their feelings (and comfort level with same),” laments Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH).

“Hold on…. This is wholly against Scripture: there is nothing in the Bible or the long history of Judeo-Christian tradition that even hints at ascribing a morally-neutral or worse — a ‘valued identity’ — to sexual sin,” he adds.

Helping patients to form a gay “identity”

LaBarbera is referring to Throckmorton’s “Sexual Identity Therapy,” a framework for therapists treating patients who are conflicted about their sexual desires.

“Anti-bullying” bill now moves on to Mass. House – text is still troubling

Congratulations to the vigilant pro-family activists over at MassResistance for stopping this proposed “hate speech” provision in an “anti-bullying” bill (see the proposed text in box at right). It is victories like this that made it easy for me to praise this gutsy organization and its founder, Brian Camenker (and MR blogger Amy Contrada) as a speaker at their recent fund-raising banquet.

For years — no, decades — homosexual activists have been telling us that their agenda (oops, I forgot…there is no “gay agenda”) does not pose a threat to freedom. Then we watched in Canada as religious critics of homosexuality were forced to defend themselves against “discrimination” suits brought through Orwellian government “human rights” tribunals — simply for expressing their beliefs against homosexuality. To label these state-sanctioned spectacles  “nuisance suits” would be to trivialize the great harm they have done to their innocent victims. Meanwhile, in Britain and Sweden, Christians also faced government oppression for opposing homosexuality. Other countries stand poised to criminalize “homophobia.”

The silence among American homosexual activists against this escalating PRO-“gay” oppression has been deafening. After all, justifying state censorship of your critics isn’t easy when you’re playing the victim card.

And now we see the first, rudimentary attempts at legislating a “hate speech” regime here in the United States. Consider the removed paragraph above in light of the common homosexualist accusation that groups like Mass Resistance and Americans For Truth “hate gays.” Self-described “queer” militants routinely equate traditional religious tenets or moral beliefs with hatred (all the while demonstrating consistent “malice” of their own with abundant lies and nasty smears against pro-family opponents).

Did Grove City prof contradict his own blog comment in One News Now interview?

“I help people know themselves better, provide advice about mental health and illness, teach classes and let God be God.” — Grove City College professor Warren Throckmorton, writing on his own blog, July 18, 2007

Warren Throckmorton

Controversial “gay”-affirming Grove City College professor Warren Throckmorton is not answering my e-mail queries anymore, but if he is reading this, I would like to know if he still holds to his comparison (below) of a doctor or an insurance agent to a professing Christian therapist confronted with the possibility of confirming a client in a homosexual “identity.”  Talk about trivializing serious moral and spiritual issues!

Maybe I’m missing something, but somehow deep philosophical matters never came up when I went to the doc or bought insurance. On the other hand, in the area of Christians upholding their faith on the job, surely Throckmorton is a aware that there are many doctors, nurses and pharmacists who refuse to compromise their pro-life beliefs by supporting abortion in any way — even if it costs them professionally. How is supporting affirmative homosexuality any different? You will see Throckmorton’s dubious analogy in this response by an Americans For Truth reader to his One News Now interview yesterday. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

P.S. From a biblical perspective, if through therapy a client comes to “integrate” homosexuality, bisexuality or transsexuality as a part of his “valued” self-identity, has the therapist truly helped the client to know himself better? Is homosexuality (“being gay”) in reality, as homosexuals and their allies are wont to say, (part of) “who they are” — or is it what they struggle with? And how can any Christian “integrate” valued (proud) homosexuality with what the Bible teaches about this sinful behavior?

A reader writes:

___________________________________

Three points in response to the ONN interview with Warren Throckmorton:

Let us remember that the Bible not only condemns homosexual sex, but also plainly says that “the effeminate” will not inherit the kingdom of God (I Cor 6:9 KJV).  Sin extends beyond explicit, overt activity/behavior; the attitude and demeanor of homosexuality must be cast off as well as the practice itself.

How can a serious follower of Christ “envision” a homosexual identity?

Correction: in initially posting this piece, we mistakenly cited the American Psychological Association, instead of the American Psychiatric Association, regarding the changed DSM on homosexuality as a mental disorders. We apologize for the error. — AFTAH, www.aftah.org

________________________________________

“Nuance” — yet another manifestation of rhetoric serving the cause of sin. Where oh where is C.S. Lewis when we need him to poke holes in the fancy façade of sophistication that we sinners don to conceal our acquiescence to a fallen world?

Grove City College Professor Warren Throckmorton’s feet have been put to the fire recently regarding the Sexual Identity Therapy guidelines that he and Mark Yarhouse of Regent University have developed. Their guidelines state the following:

The emergence of a gay identity for persons struggling with religious conflicts is a possibility envisioned by the recommendations….some religious individuals will determine that their religious beliefs may become modified to allow integration of same-sex eroticism within their valued identity. We seek to provide therapy recommendations that respect these options.

How can a serious follower of Christ “envision” a homosexual identity, that is to say, an identity defined by disordered desire and objectively immoral behavior? Substitute another sin for homosexuality and imagine such a statement:

“The emergence of a polyamorous or promiscuous identity with religious conflicts is a possibility envisioned by the recommendations. Some religious individuals will determine that their religious beliefs may become modified to allow integration of polyamorous eroticism or promiscuity within their valued identity. We seek to provide therapy recommendations that respect these options.”

Parses words, veers off biblical approach toward homosexuality; supported “gay monogamy” in 2006

Warren Throckmorton

Prof. Warren Throckmorton said in an interview with AFA’s One News Now published today that he supports homosexual “civil unions” and equivocated on the question of whether homosexuality is “normal, natural and healthy.” (In 2007, Throckmorton answered affirmatively to the same question when asked by radical homosexual activist Mike Signorile.) Is this what Throckmorton’s employer, Grove City College, means when it advertises itself as “authentically Christian”?

Note Throckmorton’s parsing of words in the ONN interview (below). Looking through the lens of Judeo-Christian history, to NOT discourage someone from adopting a ‘gay’ identity and practicing  homosexuality (even in a “monogamous” same-sex relationship), is effectively to promote the acceptance of homosexuality — i.e., sexual sin.

Moreover, Prof. Throckmorton seems to adhere to the notion that his Christian life and his professional “therapist” role are mutually exclusive — as if secular requirements in the current psychological paradigm supersede adherence to God’s holy and inspired Word. As AFTAH previously reported, Throckmorton’s and Regent University professor Mark Yarhouse’s “Sexual Identity Therapy” (SIT) stipulates that therapists must respect their client’s chosen “sexual identity” — whether that means rejecting a homosexual identity out of religious convictions or embracing one that “allow[s] integration of same-sex eroticism within their valued identity.” (p. 7)

The overriding question remains: can a faithful, Bible-believing Christian who believes it is sinful to condone immoral sexual behavior practice the SIT approach professionally — if that means NOT attempting to dissuade clients who decide they are happiest living homosexually from embracing that identity?

The following letter sent to Grove City College President Richard Jewell was shared with Americans For Truth:

From: Margaret Hemenway [mailto: ——]
Sent: Wednesday, January 20, 2010 6:17 PM
To: ‘rgjewell@gcc.edu‘ [Grove City College President Richard Jewell]
Subject: RE: Professor Throckmorton

Sir, as we begin to review materials mailed to us from colleges soliciting applications for admission from my bright and accomplished 16-year-old daughter, we regret that we are now leery of considering your campus, Grove City, after hearing about Professor Throckmorton’s open advocacy of homosexuality.  All three of our children are enrolled and flourishing academically in Catholic schools, and part of the reason we chose religious schooling is that we wanted them to avoid the inappropriate and misleading homosexual propaganda that our youngest experienced in first grade–in D.C. public school–when subjected to a “gay marriage” lesson plan without parental notification or approval and in contravention of our religious beliefs (and contrary to much lip service to the concept of “parental rights”).

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