…and 61% still oppose homosexual “marriage.”

From The Culture and Media Institute:

The National Cultural Values Survey
America: A Nation in Moral and Spiritual Confusion
March 7, 2007

The Culture and Media Institute (CMI) unveiled its first Special Report,
“The National Cultural Values Survey: America: A Nation in Moral and Spiritual Confusion,” at a press conference today at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
The survey reveals that 74 percent of Americans believe the nation is in moral decline, and that a culture war is indeed occurring in America.

From page 24 of the 32 page pdf:

From our good friends at MassResistance on Mar 9, 2007:

On March 5, Governor Deval Patrick appointed John Auerbach (pictured right), former Executive Director of the Boston Public Health Commission (BPH), to be commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH).

Auerbach is “married” to Boston Magazine restaurant critic Corby Kummer. While Auerbach was at the BPH, he created a “Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgendered Health Office.” The BPH also helped produce “The Little Black Book,” along with his new group, the DPH.

Note from AFTAH: Adults only, have a good look at the graphic and disgusting The Little Black Book, posted on the MassResistance website linked above, which was distributed with taxpayer money to public school children.

TAKE ACTION — Send an e-mail Principal Kathy Fundukian and let her know that you object to public high school leadership allowing teenagers to mock the institution of marriage and that a public school is irresponsible to promote a lifestyle that is physically, emotionally, and spiritually destructive.

Excerpted from Gay Student ‘Weddings’ Anger California Parents, published Feb 27, 2007, by CitizenLink:

Some self-identified gay students at Glendale High School in California recently gathered in the cafeteria for fake wedding ceremonies — a school-sponsored event…

The “Freedom to Marry” event provided the couples with mock marriage certificates and included a petition drive calling on the government to allow same-sex marriage.

George Taylorson, a Glendale resident, said he’s appalled the school would allow the event.

“To encourage this type of lifestyle with kids that are 13, 14, on up, it just totally angers me and just disturbs me,” he told Family News in Focus. “The schools have a big-enough problem as it is just educating the kids without getting involved in such a highly sensitive area.”

…The goal of the ceremonies, backed by an openly gay teacher and the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance student club, was to “mock marriage.”

Continue reading at Citizenlink…

Posted on Log Cabin Republicans website as of Mar 6, 2007:

Republican Wyoming State Rep. Takes Courageous Stand for Basic Fairness

Republican Wyoming State Rep. Dan Zwonitzer (R-Cheyenne) urged his colleagues to vote against a discriminatory bill that would have banned recognition of marriages for same-sex couples performed in other states, saying

“I believe this is the civil rights struggle of my generation…If standing up for equal rights costs me my seat, so be it. I will let history be my judge—the overall theme is fairness, and you know it. I hope you will all let history be your judge with this vote.”

Read the full text of Rep. Zwonitzer’s remarks.

From Broken Promise in the Promised Land, published Feb 1, 2007, by CWA:

Israel records homosexual “marriage” for first time

For the first time in history, Jerusalem has recorded the “marriage” of a homosexual couple. Two men who wish to be identified as “Binyamin and Avi Rose” were “married” in Canada over the summer of 2006 and moved back to Israel where their marital status is now being recorded through the Interior Ministry’s Population Registry. Israel’s highest Court ruled in November that same-sex “marriages” that have been legally performed in foreign countries will now be included in Israel’s records. Concerned Women for America (CWA) prays that the nation of Israel will embrace and defend the Biblical definition of one man, one woman marriage and not go down the slippery slope that seeks to destroy traditional marriage.

CWA’s Policy Director for Cultural Issues Matt Barber said,

“Christians, Jews and all people of faith from around the world will no doubt be saddened and shocked by this alarming development in Israel – as should anybody who recognizes the tremendous benefits conferred upon humanity by the institutions of legitimate marriage and family. It defies logic that the state of Israel would grant any official recognition to counterfeit ‘same-sex marriage.’

“God ‘made them male and female.’ The Biblical model irrefutably defines marriage as between one man and one woman. It provides that all sexual relations are to occur within the bounds of marriage.

“But this is not just a spiritual issue. Even within secular society, marriage has, by definition, joined male to female since time immemorial. Unless the Israeli government reverses course here, it has now inexplicably capitulated to the radical and destructive redefinition of marriage.”

A news release from American Family Association of Pennsylvania dated Mar 6, 2007:

With Stephen Glassman’s involvement with a homosexual rights Get Busy, Get Equal Conference on Saturday, the American Family Association of Pennsylvania (AFA of PA) once again questions his authority to speak in his official capacity as the Chairman of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (PHRC). The AFA of PA asks Governor Rendell to review Mr. Glassman’s involvement in not only this conference, but his meeting with those who opposed last year’s Marriage Protection Amendment and his efforts to get municipalities to add ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ to their human relations ordinances.

The PHRC has the responsibility of administering and enforcing the PA Human Relations Act (PHRA) and the PA Fair Educational Opportunities Act (PFEOA). These acts prohibit discrimination because of race, color, religion, ancestry, age (40 and above), sex, national origin, non-job related disability, known association with a disabled individual, possession of a diploma based on passing a general education development test and familial status.

“Stephen Glassman has a personal agenda and he has become more aggressive in recent years. He is continually pushing for the addition of ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ to human relations ordinances on the local level and beyond. Those terms are not part of the mission of the PHRC,” noted Diane Gramley, president of the AFA of PA, a statewide traditional values group.

Our good friend Dr. Rob Gagnon has posted a new article on his website entitled:

How Bad Is Homosexual Practice According to Scripture and Does Scripture’s View Apply to Committed Homosexual Unions?

A response to R. Milton Winter’s Perspectives article: “Presbyterians and Separatist Evangelicals”

It’s a response to a paper that appeared in a PCUSA publication so to that extent it is more relevant to Presbyterians.

However, the 11-page appendices at the end (pp. 12-23) deal, in a free-standing way, with the questions asked in the title and are relevant to anyone interested in these issues, whatever the denominational affiliation. It’s a good summary of

1. How seriously Scripture views the offense of homosexual practice and
2. Whether Scripture’s indictment of homosexual practice applies to committed homosexual unions.

Earlier parts of the article also address the question whether a denomination’s support of homosexual practice justifies departure from the denomination.

From HIV-Positive Rep Seeks Homosexual ‘Marriage’ in IL, by Jim Brown and Jody Brown, published Feb 28, 2007, by One News Now:

An Illinois pro-family group is voicing opposition to what it calls a “counterfeit” marriage bill in the state legislature that seeks to make Illinois “the Massachusetts of the Midwest.”

Illinois’ only openly homosexual representative, Democrat Greg Harris, has introduced HB 1615, which would repeal Illinois’ ban on same-sex “marriages.” Pete LaBarbera of the Chicago-based group Americans for Truth says Harris and other homosexual activists are hoping to wear down Illinois voters, and over time pass what he describes as “radical” legislation.

“Greg Harris is the new homosexual rep representing ‘Boystown,’ which is the homosexual neighborhood in Chicago. He replaces another homosexual,” says LaBarbera. “He is HIV positive and even put … on his resume, publicly, that he has AIDS.” The Americans for Truth spokesman says he finds that both sad and ironic. “He’s bearing a disease that is caused by this lifestyle,” he notes, “and now he wants to take this lifestyle and say that it merits being called ‘marriage.'”

According to LaBarbera, the bill introduced by Harris is “sneakily” called the “Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act.” And homosexual activists like Harris, he notes, play long-term politics, whereas many in the pro-family movement play short-term politics.

“The long-term goal of the homosexual activists is to make Illinois ‘the Massachusetts of the Midwest,'” says the pro-family leader. “[T]hey would desperately love to get a state in the Midwest to go for so-called ‘homosexual marriage.'”

For that reason, LaBarbera is encouraging conservatives and people of faith likewise to think long-term. “We must retain the goal of repealing all ‘sexual orientation’ laws — in Illinois and across the nation — since they are incompatible with the basic American freedoms of religion, conscience, and association,” he says on his group’s website. “And we must act to protect marriage as between a man and a woman at the state and federal constitutional levels.”

Toward that end, LaBarbera says Americans for Truth will be working with other Illinois pro-family groups to push for another referendum calling on the state legislature to pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting homosexual “marriage.” One pro-traditional marriage referendum, HJRCA 1, he explains, has “languished” in the General Assembly for years. LaBarbera blames what he calls “Democrats’ subservience to the state’s powerful ‘gay’ lobby.”