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“[David Hall] is absolutely correct: LGBT ‘diversity’ sessions and films are NOT truly ‘diverse’ because they disrespect or ignore faith-based and moral opposition to homosexualism and transsexualism.”–Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth
Folks, we can’t expect even a tiny minority of Christians to stand so resolutely for God’s Truth that they are even willing to lose their job over it. So when a man like Illinois government worker David Hall refuses to bow down to the modern idol of pro-perversion “diversity,” he deserves to be called the hero that he is. Pray for David and share this story far and wide! –Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH; @Peter LaBarbera
The following is a report by the stellar pro-family news site, LifeSiteNews. Americans For Truth President Peter LaBarbera is quoted in the article (see bolded portion); to donate to LifeSite, go here. The video above is a newscast by WCIA-TV in Springfield, Illinois:
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Christian Could Be Fired for Refusing to Watch LGBT ‘Inclusivity’ Video
By Fr. Mark Hodges
CHAMPAIGN, Illinois, September 15, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — A Christian’s 14-year career is being threatened because he refused to watch a training video on lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, transgender, and queer “diversity and inclusivity.”
In April, the Social Security Administration announced all employees must be trained in LGBTQ “diversity and inclusivity.” Longtime information technology employee David Hall, whose Christian convictions do not consider sodomy healthy or normal or good for people, believed that the “training” was against his sincerely held beliefs.
Specifically, Hall, 42, was told by his superiors to view a 17-minute video that includes “tips for increasing cultural awareness in a diverse and inclusive environment.”
Hall refused, explaining that the training endorses sinful behavior. “I’m not going to certify sin,” he explained to WCIA-TV.
Because he refused to participate in the LGBTQ agenda training, Hall was officially reprimanded and then suspended without pay.
“Man-made law must be consistent with God-given, natural rights,” asserts GOP’s guiding document
No Longer Free: New Mexico photographers Elaine and Jon Huguenin were fined more than $6,000 for politely refusing to shoot photos at a lesbian commitment ceremony, due to their Christian faith. The suit against them was filed under New Mexico’s “sexual orientation” law. The Huguenins appealed the decision but ultimately lost in the New Mexico Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to one day hear a case that will help decide whether “gay rights” supersedes Americans’ freedom of conscience on homosexual “marriage.” The next president could pick as many as four SCOTUS justices.
The following are extended excerpts of the newly minted 2016 Republican Party Platform, with a focus on the social issues and religious freedom (emphasis ours):
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We the People
We are the party of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The Declaration sets forth the fundamental precepts of American government: That God bestows certain inalienable rights on every individual, thus producing human equality; that government exists first and foremost to protect those inalienable rights; that man-made law must be consistent with God-given, natural rights; and that if God-given, natural, inalienable rights come in conflict with government, court, or human-granted rights, God-given, natural, inalienable rights always prevail; that there is a moral law recognized as “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”; and that American government is to operate with the consent of the governed. We are also the party of the Constitution, the greatest political document ever written. It is the solemn compact built upon principles of the Declaration that enshrines our God-given individual rights and law, defines the purposes and limits of government, and is the blueprint for ordered liberty that makes the United States the world’s freest and most prosperous nation. …
In a free society, the primary role of government is to protect the God-given, inalienable rights of its citizens. These constitutional rights are not negotiable for any American. We affirm that all legislation, regulation, and official actions must conform to the Constitution’s original meaning as understood at the time the language was adopted.
…
Defending Marriage Against an Activist Judiciary
Traditional marriage and family, based on marriage between one man and one woman, is the foundation for a free society and has for millennia been entrusted with rearing children and instilling cultural values. We condemn the Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Windsor, which wrongly removed the ability of Congress to define marriage policy in federal law. We also condemn the Supreme Court’s lawless ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which in the words of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, was a “judicial Putsch” — full of “silly extravagances” — that reduced “the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Storey to the mystical aphorisms of a fortune cookie.” In Obergefell, five unelected lawyers robbed 320 million Americans of their legitimate constitutional authority to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The Court twisted the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment beyond recognition. To echo Scalia, we dissent. We, therefore, support the appointment of justices and judges who respect the constitutional limits on their power and respect the authority of the states to decide such fundamental social questions.
In addition to allowing men in female restrooms, Target backs radical LGBT “Equality Act”; boasts 100% perfect score on HRC’s rigged “Corporate Equality Index”
Folks, today I sent the following letter to Target using their online Contact Form. — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH
TAKE ACTION: Contact Target at 800-440-0680 or using their Online Contact Form; and sign the AFA “Boycott Target” petition if you plan to join the boycott. If you do, make a point of going into your local Target store or calling the manager to explain why you and your family will no longer shop there.
TARGET: 100% Pro-Homosexual-Transgender Agenda: Target boasts online of its “perfect” ranking on HRC’s rigged “Corporate Equality Index.” The biased LGBT “Index” punishes corporations for giving to pro-family causes–and rewards them for funding “gay” and “transgender” groups and events. This graphic is taken directly from the Target website.
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Why My Family Won’t Be Shopping at Target Stores Anymore
May 2, 2016
By Peter LaBarbera
WARNING: offensive descriptions of horrifying transsexual “sex reassignment surgeries”
Dear Target,
My family and I are joining the Target boycott and will no longer shop at your stores. It is preposterous that all Target stores now allow men to use female restrooms—a sex predator’s dream. Girls have the basic right not to have their private spaces invaded by men, for ANY reason.
My family has done a LOT of shopping at Target over the years, but no more. One of my five children even worked at Target–but now I will not allow my two teenage kids to apply for a job there given Target’s leftist, politically correct corporate policies. Target has chosen to be contemptuous of common sense and Americans who are motivated by faith, decency and traditional morality. So we in turn choose to no longer support Target with our consumer dollars.
Christian evangelist Franklin Graham made the following Facebook post April 6, 2016:
By Franklin Graham
PayPal gets the hypocrite of the year award! This company says they’re not coming to North Carolina because the legislators and Gov. Pat McCrory have passed a law to protect women and children against sexual predators by not allowing men to use women’s restrooms and locker rooms.
Congressman Robert Pittenger made a great point yesterday: “PayPal does business in 25 countries where homosexual behavior is illegal, including 5 countries where the penalty is death, yet they object to the North Carolina legislature overturning a misguided ordinance about letting men in to the women’s bathroom? Perhaps PayPal would like to try and clarify this seemingly very hypocritical position.”
PayPal operates in countries including Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Yemen for Pete’s sake. Just last month PayPal announced they would be expanding in Cuba, a country in which homosexuals and transgender people have been imprisoned, tortured, and executed. PayPal only agreed to come to Charlotte in the first place after holding out for millions in corporate incentives. And under the current law that they are so strongly protesting, PayPal could have chosen their own corporate bathroom policies.
“If our action in keeping men out of women’s bathrooms and showers protected the life of just one child or one woman from being molested or assaulted, then it was worth it. North Carolina will never put a price tag on the value of our children. They are precious and priceless. If a corporation wanting to do business in North Carolina does not see the worth of our children in the same light, then I wish them well as they do business somewhere else.”
He couldn’t be more right! We need more politicians across the country with this kind of backbone. Pray for the NC governor, lieutenant governor, and legislators that they stand strong against the attacks of this wicked agenda.
TRUMP THEN AND NOW: In this 2000 interview with the homosexual magazine The Advocate, businessman Donald Trump supported adding homosexuality to the Civil Rights Act–a stance that allowed him to cast himself as more pro-“gay” than the leading Democratic presidential contender at the time, Sen. Bill Bradley. [Click HERE to read the entire Advocate interview.] The media have mostly ignored asking direct questions about the homosexual activist agenda in the GOP campaign.
By Peter LaBarbera
[Note: this article was update March 1, 2016]
Warning: Contains a brief description and graphic of (horrifying) transsexual surgeries that the LGBT Lobby is pushing to be funded by the taxpayers
Have you noticed that homosexual “marriage,” the nutty “transgender” issue–think big-boned men in gaudy dresses and pumps invading girls’ restrooms–and morality in general have been largely ignored in the Republican primary campaign?
This is no accident: a combination of the dominant media’s secular-Left bias; “establishment” Republicans working to keep those pesky social issues off the table; America’s disobedient drift away from God and biblical Truth; and creeping libertarianism and feminism have combined to push moral issues out of the debate in this crucial 2016.
The problem is, when issues are shunned by the media and in an extended electoral contests it becomes difficult to build and grow support for the Truth position on these issues. The LGBT Lobby knows this intuitively, which is why they labor to BAN opposition and shut down critical voices in the media (see GLAAD’s“Commentator Accountability Project” listing of this writer for showing “extreme animus towards the entire LGBT community”).
The minions of Big Gay Inc understand that if tens of millions of Americans were actually introduced through media to men and women who have successfully left homosexuality behind—people like DJ Foster, Greg Quinlanand Janet Boynes–it would dramatically undermine the LGBT media-narrative that people are inherently (born) “gay.”
Seeing homosexuality as a Changeable-Behavior issue would in turn help everyday people understand that unlike ethnic “minorities,” people practicing homosexuality can leave that category because it is not permanent (e.g., like skin color). Thus, accommodating people with “rights” based on their supposedly immutable “sexual orientation” is not “civil rights” and in fact directly leads to conflicts between “gay rights” and religious liberty. (See this excellent piece by Peter Spriggdissecting Justice Anthony Kennedy’s unfounded claim that homosexuality is “immutable,” in his Obergefell ruling “nationalizing” homosexual “marriage.”)
Here are some questions and moral themes I’d like to see pursued in debates or political discussions:
1) Trump and Adultery? Suppose in that now-infamous initial Fox News GOP presidential debate, instead of asking Donald Trump a question about his alleged meanness toward Rosie O’Donnell, Fox’s Megyn Kelly had asked Trump about his self-admitted adulteries with married women and having a very public affair while he was married? Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) rightly tweeted to Trump:
“You brag about many affairs w/ married women. Have you repented? To harmed children & spouses? Do you think it matters?”
Does Adultery Matter? Sen. Ben Sasse’s (R-NE) Jan. 24, tweet to Donald Trump.
(Note how conservative neo-feminist Kelly opted for the “anti-women” angle over the moral—call it “anti-God”–angle; to read this writer’s in-depth report on Fox News’ pro-homosexual bias, click HERE.)
2) Rubio on Abortion vs. Rubio on Homosexual Agenda? How about a question to Marco Rubio about reports that his campaign staff held regular meetings with Log Cabin Republicans—a homosexual activist group that is trying to rebrand the GOP as a “gay”-affirming party? Why is Rubio so principled in his opposition to abortion (he said it’s not even political for him) yet much more nuanced on homosexualism? [See pro-family warrior Bryan Fischer rebut Rubio’s assertion that homosexuals are born that way.]
3) Trump’s Radical Pro-“Gay” Past? While many questions have focused on Trump’s support for Planned Parenthood (the non-abortion aspects of the business), no attention—from the media or other Republicans—has been given to his support back in 2000 for adding homosexuality (“sexual orientation”) to the Civil Rights Act. In other words, Trump was for the current LGBT “Equality Act” (which we’re calling the “Criminalizing Christianity Act”) before there even was an Equality Act. Would Trump–who opposes homosexual “marriage” and backs the First Amendment Defense Act— support the Equality Act or veto it today? Does Trump still believe that homosexuality is a criterion for “civil rights” and how would that affect the rights of others to disagree with homosexual “marriage,” celebrations, pro-LGBT school lessons, etc.?
[Editor’s Note: after this article was published, LifeSiteNews reported that in 2012 the Donald Trump Foundation donated $20,000 to the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and $10,000 to the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. GLSEN pushes for the acceptance of homosexual, bisexual and gender-confused identities and behaviors to K-12 students–including “Gay-Straight Alliances,” de facto LGBT propaganda clubs, in schools. The LifeSite article relies on original AFTAH reportage exposing GLSEN’s agenda promoting homosexuality to young children. See our posts HERE, HERE (“Fistgate”), HERE and HERE (Kevin Jennings).]
JONAH attorney Chuck LiMandri of the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund is shown to the left of JONAH’s logo. JONAH changed its name from “Jews Offer New Approaches to Homosexuality” to “Jews Offering New Approaches to Healing.”
Dear AFTAH Friends and Supporters,
The following sorrowful email was sent December 31, 2015, by our good friends Arthur Goldberg and Elaine Silodor Berk of Jews Offering New Alternatives to Healing (JONAH) announcing that JONAH must permanently cease operations, including providing referrals and operating its website and listserv, due to “the unjust and unwarranted verdict in Ferguson vs JONAH from the New Jersey Courts this past June.” The case was brought with the help of the well-financed Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
What we have here is “Law-fare” in action: the abuse of the law to crush the opposition–including the forced reimbursement of impossibly expensive legal fees following a politicized case like this. I spoke with JONAH Co-Director Arthur Goldberg and he noted that a bunch of SPLC lawyers would be present at every legal proceeding in the JONAH case–to run up the cost of paying the legal fees against his small organization as part of the final settlement. (Is that “justice”? By the way, regarding our headline, Homo-fascism, and Gay-stapo, GayKK, Homo-Communist, etc., are what we use to lightheartedly describe the LGBT Left’s neo-totalitarian pursuits.)
Talk about chutzpah: the SPLC shopped for a fellow liberal judge who applied an “anti-consumer fraud” New Jersey law against this tiny Jewish organization that has helped many people overcome and manage unwanted same-sex desires–and which is now banned from even referring same-sex strugglers to places where they can get help with their unwanted homosexual desires. The judge in the case, State Superior Court Judge Peter F. Bariso Jr., limited testimony on JONAH’s side and reportedly was about as impartial as the notoriously far-left SPLC itself (see JONAH note below).
Fraud & the SPLC
The SPLC knows a little about *fraud*: it cunningly mislabels a myriad of pro-family groups (including AFTAH, AFA and FRC) opposed to Big Gay Inc as “hate groups” on a par with racist fringe kooks like the KKK. (This vilification tactic is called “bracketing.”) Then the LGBT and “progressive” cyber echo-chamber–joined by the subservient media–repeat the SPLC’s vicious smear ad nauseam to demonize and discredit the targeted family advocates, and ostracize them from the Public Square.
Needless to say, the self-styled “hate arbiters” over at the amateurish SPLC (who seem to think Blacks can’t think for themselves) have never labeled an LGBTQueer organization, website or activist–say, Dan (“Santorum.com”) Savage–as “hateful.” Quite a scam the SPLC’s got going–now they’ve taken it up a notch by legally bullying a small group into oblivion through another “gay” tactic, which I call “Focusing on the Failures.” All you do is highlight the failures among homosexuals who have tried pro-heterosexual therapy–while largely ignoring the EX-“gay” successes–former homosexuals like Greg Quinlan, Charlene Cothran, David Kyle Foster, Anne Paulk, Mario Bergner and Janet Boynes (many of whom have left homosexuality through other means, including Christian rebirth).
Can you imagine if we used the examples of relapsed drug addicts to condemn all programs aimed at overcoming drug addiction?
Catholic Action League condemns decision; girls school undermined its own religious liberty with “sexual orientation” nondiscrimination hiring policy
“[D]iscrimination against those in same-sex marriages is discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. While the religious nature of the employer does bear upon other issues…., it does not lessen the impact of such discrimination or the interest in eliminating it. The Commonwealth’s interest in eliminating sexual orientation discrimination in employment remains compelling.”–Associate Justice Douglas Wilkins, Matthew Barrett v. Fontbonne Academy, Dec. 16, 2015
Matthew Barrett (left) with his “husband,” Ed Suplee (who looks like he could be his father), as pictured on the website of the homosexual activist organization GLAD (Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders). GLAD defended Barrett, who was dismissed by a Catholic girls preparatory school after it was learned that he was homosexually “married.”
Folks, we will have more on this devastating decision by Massachusetts Superior Court Associate Justice Douglas Wilkins–the latest court defeat for religious liberty in the ongoing battle between freedom of conscience and so-called “gay rights.” A Catholic girls preparatory school, Fontbonne Academy, in Milton, Mass., is sponsored by teh Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Boston.
I have read the decision and it turns out that Fontbonne Academy hurt its own case by having a published policy of “sexual orientation” nondiscrimination regarding employment. That made it easier for the judge–who cites it twice–to diminish the school’s religious mission, i.e., its assertion that having a homosexually “married” staffer undermines its Catholic teaching. The judge probably would have ruled against Fontbonne anyway; regardless, no religious or moral institution should ever have a pro-homosexual hiring code, as it grants the premise that homosexuality (a moral issue) is akin neutral nondiscrimination criteria that are unchangeable, such as race and ethnicity.
Following the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts release below we have reprinted one by the homosexual activist group GLAD (Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders), which defended Barrett. — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH
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NEWS RELEASE, Catholic Action League December 17, 2015
CATHOLIC ACTION LEAGUE CONDEMNS DECISION
IN BARRETT V. FONTBONNE ACADEMY
The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today condemned the decision of Norfolk County Superior Court Justice Douglas H. Wilkins in Barrett v. Fontbonne Academy, which granted summary judgment to a homosexual man who sued the Catholic school — administered by the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Boston — after it reversed a decision to hire him upon learning that he had contracted a civilly recognized marriage with another man.
In June, 2013, Matthew Barrett of Dorchester applied for the position of Food Services Director at Fontbonne Academy in Milton. On July 9, 2013, following an interview during which Barrett responded affirmatively to a question about his support for the principle that all employees of the Catholic school should be “ministers of the mission,” Barrett was offered and accepted the position for which he had applied.
Later that same day, Barrett completed a new hire form in which he listed his civil husband as an emergency contact. On July 12, 2013, Barrett was informed that he could not be hired because his homosexual relationship was incompatible with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.
Barrett, represented by the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAAD), brought suit against Fontbonne Academy, alleging discrimination in employment.
In finding for Barrett, Judge Wilkins — a Governor Deval Patrick appointee who served as First Assistant Attorney General under Attorney General L. Scott Harshbarger — ruled that the Catholic school violated Massachusetts anti-discrimination law, was not exempt as a religious institution from that law, and enjoyed no constitutional protections in this matter.
The Catholic Action League called Judge Wilkins decision “a frontal assault on religious freedom, an appalling subordination of the First Amendment to the Massachusetts gay rights law, and a victory by homosexual activists in their campaign to coerce Christians into compliance with same sex marriage.”
Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment:
Retail giant stands proudly with anti-Christian homosexual-transgender lobby, Human Rights Campaign
Target Backs Anti-Christian LGBT “Equality Act,” HR 3185: The corporate giant is standing with anti-Christian activists at the Human Rights Campaign to support the most radical and far-reaching homosexual-transgender legislation ever introduced in Congress. AFTAH is calling HR 3185 the “Criminalizing Christianity Act” because it would empower the State to punish those who exercise their conscience and stand up for biblical morality on sex and true marriage (between a man and a woman). Call Target at 800-440-0680 [or 612-696-3400; hit #1]; or write them via their contact page. E-mail Target at guest.relations@target.com. or press@target.com.
TAKE ACTION: Contact Target Corporation: [(800)440-0680; or call 612-696-3400 and hit #1; email: guest.relations@target.com. or press@target.com]; urge them to reverse their support of the anti-Christian “Equality Act”; [HR 3185; S. 1858] aka the “Criminalizing Christianity Act” or “Homosexual Superiority Act.” Suggest to Target that they would be smarter to at least stay neutral in the Culture Wars over redefining marriage and “civil rights” rather than siding with intolerant homosexual and transgender activists. The latter now champion anti-Christian bigotry by equating the defense of biblical morality and marriage with “hate”–and make shameful comparisons between cross-dressing men using Female restrooms and racist Jim Crow laws from the past that persecuted Black Americans.
For more information about the “Criminalizing Christianity Act,”go HERE. Target’s pandering and capitulations to LGBT activists go way back: see this 2011 L.A. Times article reporting Target’s pledge to give at least half a million dollars per year to homosexual activist organizations.
The popular department store giant Target has recently signed on as a corporate endorser of the radical homosexual-transgender “Equality Act” (HR 3185; S. 1858). AFTAH has renamed this LGBT bill the “Homosexual Superiority Act” or the “Criminalizing Christianity Act” because it will accelerate pro-homosexual State tyranny against people of faith or morals who oppose sinful, unnatural homosexual behavior and same-sex “marriage.” See this piece on HR 3185.
Target recently put out a statement on HR 3185–which was ballyhooed by the powerful, anti-Christian homosexual lobby group Human Rights Campaign (a Target ally):
“Target proudly stands with the LGBT community through all that we do, from our partnerships with organizations like the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), to our volunteer efforts, and even the products we sell. We want to be a champion for an inclusive society by using our influence and resources to support equality in the communities where our team members and guests live and work…
“Target is helping to lead the fight against discrimination by putting its support behind the Equality Act. Discrimination has no place in the workplace, and Target is demonstrating to all that inclusion is a pillar of any successful business,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “The time has come for full federal equality, and HRC is proud to include Target as a partner in this fight. Everyone should have a fair chance to earn a living, provide for their families, and live free from fear of discrimination, including Americans who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.”
HRC continues in its statement:
Target has a history of scoring highly on HRC’s Corporate Equality Index, and was named as one of HRC’s 2015 “Best Places to Work”.
Target joins a number of leading American corporations, including Amazon, American Airlines, Apple, the Dow Chemical Company, Facebook, General Electric, General Mills, Google, HP, IBM, Intel, Levi Strauss & Co, Microsoft, Nike, Oracle, Orbitz, PayPal and Symantec Corporation in support of federal LGBT non-discrimination protections.
As AFTAH has documented, HRC’s rigged “Corporate Equality Index” is a woefully-biased”scorecard” that gives companies points toward a Perfect 100 rating for making grants to LGBT activist groups–but takes points away from corporations that give to, say, pro-traditional-marriage groups. The homosexual-transgender lobby group continues to ratchet up the scoring criteria so that pro-“gay” corporations that have attained the “100 percent” ranking are pressured to make ever greater capitulations to LGBT demands to keep their “perfect” rating. In recent years that includes massive grants to pro-LGBT events such as “gay pride parades” [see Walmart’s funding of “New York City pride” HERE] and health insurance coverage for transgender employees seeking body-disfiguring “sex reassignment surgeries” as they “transition” to the opposite sex.
For more information about the “Criminalizing Christianity Act,”go HERE. Target’s pandering and capitulations to LGBT activists go way back: see this 2011 L.A. Times article reporting Target’s pledge to give at least half a million dollars per year to homosexual activist organizations. HRC is relying on large corporations to build support in Congress for the radical “Equality Act”; see this HRC release.
Urge Speaker Paul Ryan and Congress to oppose the “Criminalizing Christianity Act” (HR 3185). Call 202-225-3121 for the House and 202-224-3121 for the Senate. More information from AFTAH HERE.
