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“The gay movement is trying to ban homosexuals from getting help so they can turn toward heterosexuality.”–Robert Oscar Lopez
Folks, Robert Oscar Lopez is a brilliant and original thinker who is unafraid to go where many other Christians and conservatives will not, taking on emerging “political correctness” on homosexuality within the Body of Christ. Here Lopez deals with Christian leaders who condemn ex-“gay” therapy (he uses “conversion therapy,” a term we avoid since it has been politicized by Big LGBTQ), and the bad effect this has on homosexual strugglers who truly want to “pursue intimacy with the opposite sex.” Which is to say: they do not want to retain any kind of same-sex identity, the maintenance of which, as supposed “gay Christians,” is all the rage these days in some Christian circles (see the “Revoice” controversy). Visit Lopez’s blog, English Manif, and keep coming back; you will not be disappointed. — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH.org; Twitter: @PeterLaBarbera
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Christians Who Oppose Conversion Therapy Need a Reality Check
To be loving does not mean to be gullible. Jesus Christ mentions that we will come across dishonest people, especially among those who have prestige (or are seeking it). We should love people, but that does not mean we should let them take advantage of us. Or fool us. Or trick us.
In that spirit, I want Rosaria Butterfield, Sam Allberry, and Jackie Hill Perry to answer a simple yes-or-no question. No long filibustering paragraphs. No detours into extensive complaints about what other Christians are supposedly doing. No lifeline block-quotes from Augustine. Just yes or no. Here:
Here’s why this question is urgent. Butterfield, Allberry, and Perry are currently superstars in the world of Protestant Christianity, constantly summoned to discuss issues of sexuality in the church. They all had experience with same-sex attraction. They all say they believe in Christ.
And they all attack conversion therapy. According to her profile on Alchetron, Rosaria Butterfield believes the following:
She does not identify herself as “ex-gay” and does not think any Christians should identify themselves as “gay Christians.” She notes that “[t]he job of the adjective is to change the noun.” Butterfield has criticized conversion therapy for contending that the “primary goal of Christianity is to resolve homosexuality through heterosexuality, thus failing to see that repentance and victory over sin are God’s gifts and failing to remember that sons and daughters of the King can be full members of Christ’s body and still struggle with sexual temptation.” Butterfield suggests this is a version of the prosperity gospel.
Folks, here is Rev. Grace Harley’s speech at AFTAH’s June 26 “Repeal Obergefell” press event in front of the Supreme Court, to mark the three-year anniversary of the judicial travesty of the Obergefell “gay marriage” decision. Every day I am confronted by LGBTQ activists who insist that “sexual orientation” cannot be changed. And yet my friend Grace testifies to the opposite–saying [go to 4:25] that she hasn’t had a lustful sexual thought about women since her Christian conversion 26 years ago. Grace, like all of us, cannot change her skin color but she praises the Lord that through His grace and power she radically changed her sexual thoughts and disordered “transgender” lifestyle. (Her reference to the “MCC” is for the Metropolitan Community Church, a “gay activist” church catering to unrepentant homosexuals.)
This video was shot by Cliff Kincaid of America’s Survival; note that I’m a contributor to the new AS book advertised in the video, “Permanent Revolution: The Secret Life and Legacy of Barack Hussein Obama”; my chapter is on the bizarre childhood and potential homosexual background of Obama, and his deceptive flip-flop to help usher in “gay marriage” in the United States. — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH; @PeterLaBarbera
Obsessed with Celebrating Homosexuality: HBO late night host John Oliver uses Vice President Mike Pence and his Christian faith as a punching bag. Oliver created a version of Pence’s daughter’s children’s book about their pet rabbit by making the rabbit “gay.”
Folks, yesterday I was a guest on the Milwaukee-based VCY America “Crosstalk” radio program with host Jim Schneider. You can listen to the program on MP3 HERE. We discussed the raging intolerance of the homosexual-transgender movement. Below is VCY’s synopsis of the program. Suffice it to say that just when you think “progressives” couldn’t sink any lower, they do–now simultaneously demonizing the VP (and by extension, biblical Christians everywhere) AND promoting sexual perversion to toddlers! I’d say shame on Oliver but I don’t think the Left has any shame. Oh well, their meanness will backfire and rally more Americans to oppose leftist political correctness. — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH
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LGBT Lobby’s Intolerance
Posted on March 20th, 2018
?Date: March 20, 2018
Host: Jim Schneider
Guest: Peter LaBarbera
?Listen: MP3 ?| Order
In an update to a recent story, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of NIFLA v. Becerra. This is one of 4 cases involving crisis pregnancy centers challenging a California law requiring them to post government prescribed, pro-abortion messages in their facilities and advertising or be fined (See Crosstalk-3/16/18).
Jim also provided brief details on the latest school shooting that took place at Great Mills High School in Maryland.
Peter LaBarbera is the president of Americans for Truth about Homosexuality. Below is a sample list of stories he commented on that show the intolerance of some within the LGBT community.
–Milwaukee, WI., is seeking to pass an ordinance that would criminalize what’s known as ‘conversion therapy’ within the city. In their testimony before the Committee of the Common Council, LGBT activists kept pointing to religion, Christianity and ministries as the problem. The hearing was held with apparently no notice to pastors or churches. The matter passed by committee and now the Common Council is set to meet next week but it’s uncertain if this issue will be on the agenda.
–Vice President Mike Pence has come under fire from John Oliver, Ellen DeGeneres and others because his daughter wrote a children’s book about giving a tour of the White House and the vice presidential living quarters.
–A religious studies major was barred from a Christianity class at Indiana University in Pennsylvania for communicating in class that there are only two genders.
–Mike Pompeo has been appointed by President Trump to replace the outgoing Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. LGBT groups are livid about this change.
–LGBTQ Nation mentions a study that allegedly finds a link between being brain damaged and being a religious fundamentalist. Peter believes promotion of such attacks against faith could backfire on the LGBTQ community and may actually put President Trump back in office for another term.
–The classic Louisa May Alcott book, ‘Little Women’ to be rewritten to develop a lesbian relationship within the storyline.
–There will be an Ohio 4-H LGBTQ+ Summit April 27th and 28th in Columbus.
–Fort Lauderdale, Florida, just elected a new mayor who is openly ‘gay’.
More Information
Americans for Truth about Homosexuality
www.americansfortruth.org
“Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”– Jesus Christ (Luke 15:7, ESV)
We rejoice with Emily over God’s mercy, grace and goodness, and His unbounded love for sinners. Full information about the Anchored North ministry can be found following the video (after the jump). — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH; Twitter: @PeterLaBarbera
John McCartney has been proclaiming the truth about homosexuality and abortion in the Chicago area for decades.
The following open letter was published late last month (in print only) by my friend and longtime pro-life and pro-family advocate, John McCartney. For decades, John has reached out locally in the Chicago area with the truth on two critically important cultural issues: the defense of unborn life and opposition to the homosexual (LGBTQ) agenda. With his steadfastness and reasonable, winsome approach he is a model for morality advocates everywhere. And he never quits–doing more as an octogenarian to defend truth in the public square in a single month than most people do in a lifetime.
For the uninitiated, “Reparative Therapy” is talk therapy designed to help people overcome and manage unwanted homosexual desires, aka “same-sex attractions” (SSA). Many people like David Pickup and Christopher Doyle, have been helped by such “ex-gay” therapy [see my LifeSiteNews piece on the late RT pioneer, Joe Nicolosi]. Nevertheless, LGBTQ ideologues are now heavily invested in demonizing and discrediting the practice, usually by “focusing on the failures,” i.e., people who claim to be harmed or abused by Reparative Therapy. (This in itself is strange, as John alludes to in his letter: in what other area of life–say, people overcoming drug addiction or obesity–do we focus only on the failures as opposed to the heart-warming successes of struggling people who got professional or ministerial help?)
In a seismic assault on liberty, RT for minors has been banned in nine states and the District of Columbia, according to this pro-LGBTQ website. (Interestingly, three governors who signed anti-RT bills into law were Republicans–Chris Christie (New Jersey), Susana Martinez (New Mexico) and Bruce Rauner (Illinois).) Yet it is important to remember that many people who have overcome the strong pull of homosexual impulses in their life, like Stephen Black, did not rely solely on RT-like counseling, and credit God with all or at least a big part of their transformation.
No matter to the neo-totalitarian Left, which is hellbent on destroying the practice and the freedom of people–even childhood victims of homosexual predators–to pursue healthy change away from homosexuality. Note that one method LGBTQ activists and their media echo chamber use to smear Reparative Therapy is to mislabel it as “conversion therapy.” That sounds more menacing and plays to the Left’s anti-Christian prejudices, making RT sound like some sinister cult. It also befits the LGBTQ activist narrative of portraying homosexuality as innate (inherent), thereby unchangeable, and “gays” as perpetual victims. Kudos to John McCartney for rebutting the LGBTQ lies and biased media groupthink. — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH; Twitter: @PeterLaBarbera – americansfortruth@gmail.com
P.S. Special Book Offer: Regarding McCartney’s proper assessment that homosexuality is NOT a normal variant of human sexual behavior, I recommend the thoroughly-documented, 600-page Mass Resistance book, “Health Hazards of Homosexuality,” which we are making available through AFTAH for $20 postpaid. Order online here with your gift of at least $20 [note your book order in the comments box], or send your check to: AFTAH, PO Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522, noting the book order.]
Links and some explanatory notes have been added to this printed Open Letter:
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An Open Letter to the Deniers of Reparative Therapy
By John McCartney
For years, “gay” activists have waged a disinformation campaign against reparative therapy (RT), a service available to the those with unwanted same-sex attraction (SSA). It got national attention decades ago when, using it, [sexologists] Masters & Johnson relieved 60 percent of such persons from SSA. Such therapy consists of conversation between a therapist and a client seeking the source of this unwelcome felling. That there is a source is attested to by the fact that there is no replicated study supporting the born-that-way argument. Anti-RT activists advance assertions that warrant scrutiny, assertions in addition to born-that-way, such as:
SSA is not a disorder, i.e., a divergence from nature. In support, they cite the 1973 removal of homosexuality from the [American Psychiatric Association’s] Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders II at a meeting that made a travesty of psychiatric deliberation by politics and the ever-present threat of 1971-type disruptions [Editor’s note: see this “pro-LGBTQ psychiatric site, which notes: “There were a series of dramatic encounters between activists and psychiatrists at the annual meetings of the APA between 1970 and 1972.” Also see psychiatrist Dr Ronald Bayer’s book, Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis, which documents how “gay” militants bullied and harassed psychiatrists leading up to the APA vote depathologizing homosexuality.] In a subsequent referendum, psychiatrists without experience with homosexuality were polled; their votes outweighed the votes of psychiatrists who did have it. Psychiatrists with such clinical experience in counseling clients with SSA were marginalized in the proceedings.
The late Dr. Robert Spitzer, who equivocated on whether people could leave homosexuality (a supposed “orientation”) behind. See this compelling article on Spitzer, who once declared in a letter, based on his observations: “In homosexuality…something’s not working.”
Dr. Robert Spitzer, who quarterbacked the 1973 removal of homosexuality as a mental disorder (with a narrow exception), retracted his 2003 endorsement of RT, which he made after listening to the self-reports of 200 men and women for whom RT worked. Spitzer, after ten years, was convinced by “gay” activists that he really didn’t know what he once knew, that his endorsement was putting homosexuals in jeopardy, and that self-reporting of change was unreliable, even though he had expertise evaluating it. The [then] 80-year-old psychiatrist yielded to the same intense lobbying that his fellow psychiatrists did in the 1973 “scientific” [APA] meeting–to truth’s detriment.
The assertion that the showcased dozen or so victims of unqualified counselors constituted proof that RT doesn’t work and is often harmful is as unreasonable as asserting that Alcoholics Anonymous is a failure because it has only a 40 percent success rate.
Former “gay” Stephen Black addresses Americans For Truth “Teach-in” Oct. 20. Black said he grew up feeling “shame” after twice being molested as a boy by adult homosexual male predators. AFTAH presented Black with its 2017 American Truth Teller Award. Black runs First Stone Ministries in Oklahoma City and is Board Chairman of Restored Hope Ministries. Click on photo to enlarge.
The following videos cover the full Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) banquet and Teach-in, held October 20-21, 2017 at Grace For Life Bible Church in Naperville, Illinois. Our featured speaker was Stephen Black, who shares from his experience as an ex-“gay” man who was twice victimized as a boy by homosexual adult male sex predators–yet whose life was radically transformed by a relationship with Jesus Christ. Stephen, who has become a good friend, is the author of Freedom Realized: Freedom from Homosexuality & Living a Life Free From Labels.
[Special Double-Resource Offer to Help AFTAH: receive Stephen Black’s book “Freedom Realized” PLUS a 2-DVD set of the entire 2017 AFTAH conference for your gift to AFTAH of $40 or more (postpaid). Give online or send your check to: AFTAH, PO Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522. Or order the book alone for $20 postpaid or the 2-DVD video set alone for $25 postpaid.]
Black is executive director of First Stone Ministries in Oklahoma City and Board Chairman of Restored Hope Network–two wonderful Christian ministries that reach out to the “sexually broken” from a biblical perspective. His testimony and others at the conference are a reminder of the politically incorrect truth that homosexuality can be overcome as in person’s life, and that Jesus Christ is alive and still in the life-transforming business.
Like all AFTAH banquets and educational events, this was a tremendous time of learning as our speakers–each a truth warrior in his or her own right–confronted the myths and lies of the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer) lobby. Stephen’s love for Jesus and his call for obedience in the Church to the gospel of Christ alone was compelling, but please take the time to watch all five videos below. And please share them far and wide to educate your network of friends. And to help us, if you are able, please support Americans for Truth with your donations, perhaps with our Special Offer below. — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH; Twitter: @PeterLaBarbera
This story contains all videos from the conference. We will isolate out separate portions of the conference in forthcoming posts.
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Here are some introductory teaching remarks opening night by my pastor and our host, Grace for Life Bible Church pastor Steve Schroeder (Video 1 of 5):
The following are my (Peter LaBarbera’s) opening remarks Oct. 20, followed by Stephen Black’s banquet night “overview” presentation (Video 2 of 5):
Here is the opening of the Saturday Teach-in, including remarks by LaBarbera. Black, who received the 2017 AFTAH American Truth-Teller Award the previous night, comes to the stage at the 29:00 mark (Video 3 of 5):
In this segment, two men who came out of homosexuality, Darren and Jeff, share their testimonies. Note the cruelties growing up faced by Darren and the sexual abuse and family dysfunction (and the miracle!) in Jeff’s story. Stephen Black then gives his final presentation (Video 4 of 5):
[Special Offer to Help AFTAH: receive Stephen Black’s book “Freedom Realized” PLUS a 2-DVD set of the entire 2017 AFTAH conference for your gift to AFTAH of $40 or more (postpaid). Give online or send your check to: AFTAH, PO Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522. Or order the book alone for $20 postpaid or the video set alone for $25 postpaid.]
Folks, this is a short, edited and condensed interview I did Oct. 21, 2017, with my friend and AFTAH’s 2017 banquet speaker Stephen Black, about his new book “Freedom Realized: Freedom From Homosexuality and Living A Life Free From Labels.’ Stephen is executive director of First Stone Ministries and Board Chair of Restored Hope Network–two wonderful Christian ministries. The book is available for a donation of $20 or more to Americans For Truth; give safely online or send your gift noting the book offer to: AFTAH, P.O. Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522. — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH; americansfortruth@gmail.com; Twitter: @PeterLaBarbera
Garry Ingraham is executive director of the Love and Truth Network, based in Phoenix, Arizona.
Folks, we introduce a new writer for AFTAH, Garry Ingraham, who “came out”–of the homosexual lifestyle–and now leads the sexual wholeness ministry Love and Truth Network. Garry is also a Board Member of Restored Hope Network, an umbrella group of ex-“gay” ministries, member churches and Christian counselors across the nation. Here Garry comments on a LifeSiteNews article about American Psychological Association (APA) researcher (and LGBTQ activist) Dr. Lisa Diamond’s determination that “sexual orientation” is fluid — and that homosexual advocates should stop promoting the “born that way” myth. Please consider supporting Garry’s important work HERE. And sign up for the outstanding LifeSiteNews’ daily updates HERE. — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH
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By Garry Ingraham, first published on Facebook Oct. 7, 2016
As a former gay-identified man and bartender at a gay bar, who concluded that “there has to be more to life than this”, I know from personal experience that sexuality and attractions are fluid and can be changed over time. I’ve also known hundreds of others who are on the same journey toward Christ – out of homosexuality and a life dominated by sexual & relational brokenness.
Finally, in the attached article we have an intellectually and scientifically accurate statement from the APA about what many people have known all along…People can and do change their sexual attractions. These are not hard wired… Check out the article below-
Whether or not someone desires to change is up to them, but the right to change or seek help to overcome unwanted LGBT attractions and desires has come under legal attack — all for the sake of political correctness and an ideological crusade — based on the false narrative of the immutability of LGBT desires and sexual attraction.
