Excerpted from Studds, 1st Openly Gay Congressman, Dies, by Jay Lindsay, published Oct 14, 2006, by Associated Press:

Former Rep. Gerry Studds, who became the first openly gay member of Congress when his homosexuality was exposed during a teenage page sex scandal, died early Saturday. He was 69.

Studds died at Boston Medical Center several days after he collapsed while walking his dog, his husband said. Doctors determined his loss of consciousness was due to a blood clot in his lung, [said] Dean Hara …who married Studds shortly after same-sex marriage was legalized in Massachusetts in 2004.

In 1983, Studds acknowledged his homosexuality after a 27-year-old man disclosed that he and Studds had had a sexual relationship a decade earlier when the man was a teenage congressional page…

At the time, Studds called the relationship with the teenage page, which included a trip to Europe, “a very serious error in judgment.” But he did not apologize and defended the relationship as a consensual relationship with a young adult. The former page later appeared publicly with Studds in support of him…

Hara said Studds was never ashamed of the relationship with the page.

“This young man knew what he was doing,” Hara said. “He was at (Studds’) side.”

…In 1996, Congress named the 842-square-mile Gerry E. Studds Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary after him in recognition of his work protecting the marine environment.

Continue reading at My Way News…

One gay activist reportedly declared that he is not concerned about winning the battle in the courts because he is confident that indoctrinating the present generation of children will result in societal acceptance of homosexuality in 10-15 years.

Excerpted from New Children’s Book: Does God Love Michael’s Two Daddies? by Brad Harrub and Dave Miller, published Sept 2006 by Apologetics Press:

…The books appearing in various school libraries around the country are legion, including:

• And Tango Makes Three
• Heather Has Two Mommies
• Daddy’s Roommate
• Jack and Jim: Picture Book
• One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dad, Blue Dads
• The Sissy Duckling
• Who’s in a Family?
• Molly’s Family
• It’s Perfectly Normal
• Best, Best Colors
• My Two Uncles

[NOTE: At several of the Amazon links above, you can read a portion of the respective books.]

Imagine what America is going to be like 10-15 years from now when the children nurtured by such books are adults.

The ongoing, historic commitment of Apologetics Press has been to offer competent Christian responses to the most critical moral issues confronting our culture. For 27 years, A.P. has sought to provide the church and the nation with effective tools for counteracting the anti-Christian forces threatening our way of life. In that tradition, we are delighted to announce the release of a timely, incredibly relevant children’s book:

Does God Love Michael’s Two Daddies?

This tremendous volume is a cogent contribution to the effort by parents and grandparents to insulate and prepare their children and grandchildren to cope with the sinister forces seeking to captivate their youthful spirits. Brilliantly and professionally illustrated, this landmark book beautifully balances the Bible’s forthright condemnation of same-sex marriage with the compassion and love of God. Indeed, this book is cutting-edge, unique, and unprecedented. It deserves to be distributed across the nation—and we predict that it will be. It is that good and that deserving. Look for a review of the book in the September issue of the American Family Association’s Journal.

Continue reading at Apologetics Press…

A woman who grew up with a same-sex-attracted father has launched an effort to help similar people deal with the pain they experience.

Excerpted from New Website Offers Support For Adult Children of Homosexuals, by Gail Besse, published Oct 8-14, 2006, in National Catholic Register:

She had every daughter’s natural need for affirmation,
but that was something her homosexual father just couldn’t give his little girl.

Now in her 40s, Dawn Stefanowicz knows there are others like her — others who as children ached with silent hunger for that missing connection. To help them, she has set up the first website that specifically addresses the impact of homosexual parenting from the adult child’s perspective.

“It pierces the inside of you when you know the truth. Men who struggle with their own masculinity cannot affirm femininity,” she said. “Six-year-olds cannot tell you how they’re being impacted. We can’t comprehend what we went through until we’re adults.

“People aren’t comfortable sharing this, but keeping it hidden hurts children,” she said. “The secular media is not carrying the message that this impacts children long-term.”

Now an accountant and home schooling mother of two, Stefanowicz and her husband of 22 years live in Ontario.

Her website, http://www.dawnstefanowicz.com, went online in early September. It outlines her childhood story, which includes being exposed to nude beaches, “gay cruising” sites and sexually transmitted diseases. The website lists scientific studies and news articles, secular and religious support groups, and confidential contact information.

Her Christian faith and counseling helped Stefanowicz come to terms with her past and with the biological father whom she loved but lost to AIDS.

In the past three years, she has testified in the United States and Canada on behalf of marriage protection laws, and she appeared Sept. 21 on EWTN’s “Life on the Rock.” Her autobiography, Out from Under: Getting Clear of the Wreckage of a Sexually Disordered Home, will be out in 2007.

She went public because children’s voices were one dimension missing from the same-sex “marriage” debate. Adults who as children had first-hand experience of the “gay” lifestyle could speak for them…

A host of parental problems can challenge children raised by those who act out same-sex attraction, according to Dale O’Leary, a writer and researcher for the Catholic Medical Association and author of ­ The Gender Agenda: Redefining Equality. For example, boys reared by two “mothers” face hostility toward their masculinity within the lesbian community.

“Same-sex attraction is the tip of the iceberg,” O’Leary said. “Many such people were victims of sexual child abuse themselves and have multiple problems. Many have suicidal impulses, anger management issues, drug and alcohol abuse, a high level of partner change, serious depression and mental illness. The scary thing is, when children are raised by dysfunctional parents, they often think the problems are their fault,” she said.

Even adult children hesitate to discuss their pain for fear of hurting their parents, Stefanowicz said. Some become promiscuous, when they are really seeking love. Others become perfectionists, seeking a sense of identity through their profession.

She hopes her website will be a vehicle for mutual support and healing, and a resource to uphold marriage as the union of a man and a woman for the sake of all children.

Continue reading in National Catholic Register…

By Sonja Dalton and Peter LaBarbera

The October 1, 2006, “Oprah” program was entitled “Wives Confess They Are Gay.” (Click on that link to read about or watch the show online.)

After years of suppressing her sexuality, Chris decided to come out to her husband, Joe…

“I said, ‘Joe, I think after lots of soul searching and lots of reading and lots of praying I do believe that I’m a lesbian,'” she says. “It was very painful to do.”

But Chris wasn’t alone…

Joe says he was supportive of Chris because he loved her…and because he was also gay! Four years after his divorce, Joe followed Chris’s footsteps…

Chris now has a lesbian partner, Libby, and Joe has a homosexual male partner, Paul, who was also formerly married and who has children. Oprah calls the foursome “One Big, Happy Family.” Her audience applauds, as though there is something to be happy about in this tangled mess.

According to Oprah, they “are now living [their] best life.” According to God, however, they are deluded, deceived – given over to sexual impurity and degrading of their bodies, given up to dishonorable passions, abandoned to a debased, depraved mind (see Romans 1 in the New Testament).

So much for the broken homes, broken hearts – and broken promises before God. Oprah, we ask: where is your compassion for the children whose families are shattered, and the husband who said he cried every day, with anguish over the destruction of his marriage and family that, he said, almost killed him?

Excerpted from “Same Sex Marriage Harms Children’s Rights” Marriage Symposium Hears, published Sept 21, 2006, by LifeSite News:

Louis DeSerres, co-founder of Preserve Marriage – Protect Children’s Rights, addressed the issue of harm to children’s rights resulting from same-sex marriage at symposium on marriage held at Brigham Young University Law School last week. The ‘What’s The Harm? How Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage Will Harm Society, Families, Adults, Children and Marriage’ symposium was jointly sponsored by The Marriage and Family Law Project at Brigham University Law School and The Marriage Law Project at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law. The symposium was held on September 15-16, 2006.

DeSerres asked if there is a more natural and self evident birth right for a child than to have a mother and a father. More specifically, while nature creates every child with two biological parents, same-sex marriage leads to the creation of fatherless and motherless children, taking away one of the child’s natural parents.

…Man-woman marriage provides the child with many benefits, said DeSerres enumerating fourteen such benefits which are all lost with same-sex marriage.

Some of the harms caused by same sex ‘marriage’ are irreversible, suggested DeSerres. “Unfortunately, the harm is permanent as no legal authority can bring back the missing biological parent of a child born from an anonymous sperm donor or a surrogate mother. Only prevention can protect children’s rights to a father and a mother.”

Continue reading at LifeSite News…

Excerpted from Gay Marriage – An Oxymoron, by Bryan Kemper, posted on Stand True (emphasis ours):

…Stand True is most definitely against homosexual marriage. In fact, I would go as far as saying there is no such thing as homosexual marriage. Marriage is an institution created and ordained by God for a man and woman.

Genesis 2: 24 – For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. 25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

Outside of the marriage covenant, IS shame in sexual activity. The sexual act inside of marriage is a bond that brings man and wife together as one flesh, and this bond cannot happen between two men or two women. They cannot become one flesh and therefore it cannot be called marriage.

The state may recognize their illicit union as a “state marriage,” but it cannot be recognized as a true marriage ordained by God. As Christians we know the truth and must abide by it whether or not the state does. Although society may want to allow something like this, we cannot support it or even validate it by calling it marriage.

…It is very clear in God’s Word that homosexuality is unnatural and an abomination to God.

Romans 1:24 – Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
25 – They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator–who is forever praised. Amen.
26 – Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
27 – In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
28 – Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
29 – They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,
30 – slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;
31 – they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
32 – Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

Our society and government want to legitimize sin, and they demonize anyone who stands for the truth as intolerant or hateful.

As Christians we have a duty and responsibility to stand for the truth no matter how unpopular it is in society. We must love our neighbor as ourselves, but we must not love or even accept our neighbor’s sin. In fact, I would say it is not love if we just close our eyes and tolerate our neighbor’s sin. How can we truly say we love them, if we allow them to continue on a path to eternal damnation without offering them the truth?

The gospel of Christ is offensive to those who do not believe.

I Corinthians 1:18 – For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

The Gospel can cut deep but also offers the only hope for forgiveness to sinners like us. The Gospel is full of grace and acceptance with God we don’t deserve. And if we reject this Grace where will we go? The Gospel is 100% truth with no room for margin or tolerance or variation. We must live by this truth and not society’s version of truth. We must Stand True to God’s law and Jesus Christ without exception…

Continue reading at Stand True…

The UK’s largest teachers’ union, the National Union of Teachers (aptly abbreviated NUT), has demanded that acceptance of homosexual relationships must be included in nursery school curriculum.

NUT is “well established as a major engine in Britain’s homosexual activist community” and is also “currently lobbying to overturn the legal right of religious schools not to hire homosexual teachers.”

A forerunner of things to come in the USA?

Excerpted from Uruguay Leftists to Pass Homosexual Civil Partnership Law, by Hilary White, published Sept 15, 2006, by LifeSite News:

The ruling leftist party of Uruguay has passed legislation that will allow homosexual partnerings to be recognized as the legal equivalent of natural marriage.

Under the new law, couples who have lived together for at least five years, can have their relationship recognized as a civil partnership with the equivalent legal protections of marriage. The new law will affect inheritance, taxation and child custody.

Senator Margarita Percovich, a sponsor of the bill, told Reuters news service that the bill will pass the lower house easily because of the majority held by the leftist coalition party. “If there is recognition (of the partnership), it’s as though it were a marriage,” she said.

Continue reading at LifeSite News…