‘Civil Unions’ is hardly an acceptable compromise 

By Peter LaBarbera 

The item at bottom was sent out Nov. 18 as a part of Family Research Council President Tony Perkins’ “Washington Update.” We agree with the sentiments, with a caveat regarding this line: “…force the state back into a bitter debate that many believed was solved by the legislature earlier this year.” This apparently refers to  the New Jersey legislature’s 2006 vote for homosexual “civil unions,” which was signed into law by Gov. John Corzine (D) last December and went into effect in February.

We are sure that by using the word “solved” Mr. Perkins does not mean to condone “civil unions” — which is merely “same-sex marriage” by another name. However, it is unfortunately the case that a significant minority of “conservatives,” including pro-life and pro-family advocates, now see “civil unions” as a way out of the homosexual “marriage” mess.

The gap between traditional marriage (i.e., normalcy) and “civil unions” is far wider than that between “civil unions” and “same-sex marriage” — a strategic reality of which the more savvy homosexual activists are well aware (even as the Gay Whining Machine complains about a lack of marital “equality”).

In fact, New Jersey’s “civil unions” law recognizes out-of-state “gay marriages.” It “seeks to give gay couples the same rights in the state as married couples,” reports the USA Today. How much clearer can you get than that on the effect of this “compromise”?

Below is an American Family Association E-Alert responding to the latest example of callous liberalism — the City of “Brotherly Love’s” outrageous act of charging the Boy Scouts $200,000 to use their city-owned headquarters:

AFA: Philadelphia punishes Boy Scouts because of their beliefs

Dear Reader,

The city of Philadelphia has decided to punish the Boy Scouts of America because it will not allow homosexuals to serve as Scout Leaders. City officials said they will charge the Cradle of Liberty Scouts Council $200,000 a year to use the city-owned headquarters. The Council was paying $1 per year (since 1928). The city owns the land on which the Council’s 1928 Beaux Arts building sits.

The city says it is charging the scouts $200,000 a year because the scouts discriminate against homosexuals. But the city finds nothing wrong with their discrimination against the scouts because of the scouts’ belief.

The action by city officials means that 30 new Cub Scout packs won’t be organized, and that 800 needy kids will not be going to the Council’s summer camp if the city charges them $200,000.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the scouts, as a private group, have a First Amendment right to bar homosexuals from membership. Philadelphia officials, in an effort to appease the homosexual activists, began searching for a way to punish the scouts. The rent increase was the vehicle to do that.

The Cradle of Liberty Council serves about 64,000 scouts in Philadelphia and its suburbs.

Take Action

Send an e-mail to Philadelphia officials protesting their discrimination against the Boy Scouts. Forward this to friends and family and ask them to send the e-mail.
   
Thanks for caring enough to get involved. If you feel our efforts are worth supporting, would you please make a tax-deductible donation to help us continue? Click here to make a donation [to AFA].

Sincerely,

Don Wildmon

P.S. Please help us get this information into the hands of as many people as possible by forwarding it to your family and friends.

By Peter LaBarbera 

Gov. Schwarzenegger’s signing of two radical pro-homosexuality school bills — SB 777 and AB 14 — is very bad news for the Republican Party, California, and the nation.

I suppose it’s good news for Democrats and pro-homosexuality-education-for-tots Republicans, all 7 of them, but we’ll let the faux conservatives over at Log Cabin Republicans make that case.

If the GOP joins the Democrats as a party embracing homosexuality, many Christians and pro-family voters will start looking to third parties, or check out of the political process entirely. They certainly won’t be motivated to go out and work for the Republican Party.

It’s a pretty simple equation: “Maria Shriver Republicanism” does not sit well with the party’s conservative and religious grassroots — who increasingly feel like the water they carry for the GOP every election is commensurate with the shaft they get from Republican politicians in the ensuing years. (Schwarzenegger did veto a pro-“same-sex marriage” bill but ironically, the bills he signed into law will create precisely the sort of classroom propaganda that conservatives have warned would result from legalized “gay marriage.”)

Under the guise of “equality,” SB 777 and AB 14 will be used to indoctrinate students in the Left’s false analogies between the noble civil rights movement and their pro-homosexuality and -transsexuality activism. (You know, the same Social Leftists that regularly equate people of faith who oppose homosexual behavior with fringe racists.)

The new laws will greatly expand one-sided, pro-homosexuality and pro-“transgender” curricula and programs such as “Gay and Lesbian History Month” that elevate Christian bashing “gay” icons like Frank Kameny — who can’t seem to recall if he spoke at a meeting for the despicable NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Love Association — to U.S. historical heroes. (Kameny is old, but don’t you think a NAMBLA meeting, as reported by NAMBLA itself, would stick in your mind?)

In other words, more indoctrination for public school kids, who will be trained in dubious concepts like “homophobia” and the notion that the only people left who oppose rights based on “gayness” are bigots and irrational religious people out of step with the times.

Gee. California schools are doing such a fine job teaching reading, writing, math and science: isn’t it wonderful that they can now focus on grounding the state’s children in Gay Advocacy 101?

At AFTAH, we operate on the premise that God does not smile on Republican homosexual advocacy any more than He does on the Democratic brand. GOP leaders who fail to see the growing dissatisfaction with their party among the pro-family rank-and-file may be in for a big shock on Election Day. But even if they prevail in 2008, signs of long-term corrosion in the party’s social conservative base are everywhere.

One major political party committed to homosexuality- and transsexuality-based “rights” including “gay marriage” (aka civil unions) is one too many for America. Do the Republicans really want to compete for that title?

TAKE ACTION:  go to the website of the California group Campaign for Children and Families (www.savecalifornia.com), run by my friend Randy Thomasson, who works harder for true family values than anyone I know. CCF has tons of information on the anti-family school bills and ways to get involved.

 

If you are a Republican, communicate with your local and state GOP officials that the party must not embrace homosexuality, and that it is reckless to give children one-sided, pro-“gay” lessons that undermine marriage and historic Judeo-Christian morality. (If you are a Democrat, do the same for your local Democratic officials.) You can write or call Gov. Schwarzenegger through this website: http://gov.ca.gov/interact#contact.

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The following is CNSNews.com’s article on Schwarzenegger’s “gay” school capitulation:

California Group to Fight ‘Sexual Indoctrination’ Laws in Court 

By Randy Hall
CNSNews.com Staff Writer/Editor
October 17, 2007

(CNSNews.com) – The head of a pro-family organization in California said on Tuesday that his group is mounting a legal effort to overturn pro-homosexual measures signed into law last weekend by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger before they can have a negative impact on the state’s educational system and religious community.

“Apparently, the governor now feels the freedom to favor the pro-homosexual message and to disregard conservative voters and traditional values,” Ron Prentice, chief executive officer of the California Family Council, told Cybercast News Service.

Prentice called Schwarzenegger’s decision to approve the measures “puzzling,” because he vetoed similar legislation last year. (The governor did not explain his decision, nor did his office return calls from Cybercast News Service seeking comment.)

As a result, “we have no security that any bill that comes to him next year promoting homosexuality” will be prevented from becoming law, said Prentice.

Therefore, the organization will challenge SB 777, the California Student Civil Rights Act, which was passed by the legislature to “update specific anti-discrimination provisions that are scattered throughout the state’s education code.”

To accomplish this, for instance, the legislation replaces “sex” as defined as “the biological condition or quality of being a male or female human being” with “gender,” which is “a person’s gender identity and gender-related appearance and behavior whether or not stereotypically associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth.”

The new law also adds the category of “sexual orientation,” which is explained as “heterosexuality, homosexuality or bisexuality.”

Finally, the measure states: “No teacher shall give instruction nor shall a school district sponsor any activity that promotes a discriminatory bias because of a characteristic” identified in the law.

The homosexual advocacy group Equality California (ECQA) described the legislation as protecting students “from harassment and bullying in public schools by making sure teachers and school administrators fully understand their responsibilities to protect youth.”

But as Cybercast News Service previously reported, the Campaign for Children and Families (CCF) responded that the measure is nothing more than “sexual indoctrination.”

“SB 777 will result in reverse discrimination against students with religious and traditional family values,” said Meredith Turney, legislative liaison for the conservative Capitol Resource Institute. “The terms ‘mom and dad’ or ‘husband and wife’ could promote discrimination against homosexuals if a same-sex couple is not also featured.”

Click HERE for the full Cybercast News Service article

Americans For Truth Speaker (Friday, Oct. 5) David Parker of Lexington, Massachusetts, in hand-cuffs after being arrested in 2005 at his son’s elementary school — after refusing to budge in his demand for parental rights. At right is the last page of “King & King,” a “children’s” picture book that was read to first-graders at the school. Those are the two princes kissing, the culmination of a story line in which the prince rejects princesses in favor of another man as his true love. The two princes get “married” and the caption for the “same-sex marriage” page reads: “The wedding was very special. The queen even shed a tear or two.” The principal at Esterbrook Elementary School in Lexington defended the “King & King” lesson and denied parents the right to be informed about it and to opt their kids out.

Dear Americans For Truth Reader,

There is a battle to preserve right and wrong in this country — and a campaign to teach children that “human wrongs” are actually “human rights.” David Parker, who comes to the Chicago area in a week (Friday, October 5) for Americans For Truth’s first annual banquet, is on the front lines of that battle.

David and his wife Tonia are concerned Massachusetts parents who simply didn’t want their son to be brainwashed by a politically correct education establishment that has lost its way.

We are honored and delighted to have David as one of two dynamic speakers at our Americans For Truth banquet next week — Friday, October 5 in Lombard (registration is extended until Monday; click HERE for information). If you live in the Midwest, and can drive (or even fly) in, I’d strongly encourage you to come see this man who is a hero for truth and represents all that is great about this nation.

Here’s my guarantee: your “freedom fighting” batteries will be charged for years to come by this exciting evening.

Our other featured speaker, Charlene Cothran, a former lesbian-activist-turned-Christian and founder of VENUS Magazine, is equally compelling. You won’t want to miss her God-honoring testimony of being delivered from homosexuality; click HERE to sign up by Monday using your VISA or MasterCard.

Get off the sidelines

Let’s face it: most people sit on the sidelines in this ongoing societal “war” over which values will be ascendant in our culture. David and Tonia Parker got off the sidelines. When faced with a school bureaucracy in Lexington, Mass., that asserted it had the right and duty in the nation’s only homosexual-“marriage” state to teach the acceptance of homosexuality to young elementary school children without even informing parents, they fought back. In 2005, the Parker’s five-year-old son Jacob came home with a “Diversity Book Bag,” which contained the book Who’s in a Family promoting the acceptance of “same-sex” families.

The rest is history, as David Parker was famously arrested at Jacob’s school, Esterbrook Elementary, for demanding his parental right to be informed before teachings that violate his and Tonia’s religious beliefs were foisted on their impressionable son.

The controversy grew in 2006 when the Joseph and Robin Wirthlin learned that their seven-year-old son Joey’s first-grade teacher at Esterbrook Elementary had read King & King, a homosexual romance kids book (who would think we’d ever be using those words together?), shown above, aloud to her young students without even notifying their parents.

 In case you were wondering why Americans For Truth had to change our banquet date from Oct. 6 to Friday, October 5, here’s the explanation: Holiday Inn Select Hotel in Naperville, Illinois, dropped our reservation due to the possibility of a “gay” protest against us. Here’s the story from American Family Association’s “OneNewsNow.” You can also listen to their story on the OneNewsNow website. 

_______________________________

Holiday Inn Dumps Christian banquet; Group Says Anti-Christian Discrimination at Play

By Jim Brown, OneNewsNow.com
August 29, 2007      

CLICK TO HEAR THIS STORY AT ‘ONE NEWS NOW’

Holiday Inn is being accused of anti-Christian discrimination for refusing to allow a Christian non-profit group to hold its annual banquet at one of its suburban Chicago locations.

Americans for Truth (AFTAH) had reached a verbal agreement with the Holiday Inn Select in Naperville, Illinois, to hold its October 6 banquet at the hotel. AFT had the reservation for several weeks, and both parties had even discussed the menu for the event.      

But when AFT executive director Peter LaBarbera told the banquet coordinator the event might draw a protest from homosexual activists, general manager Dennis Igoe dropped the reservation due to what he called “potential negative publicity to the hotel.” Florida-based Liberty Counsel then sent a letter to Igoe, informing him that his “cancellation of Americans for Truth’s reservation raises serious concerns of unlawful discrimination under the Illinois Human Rights Act which prohibits discrimination in places of public accommodation on the basis of religion.”

According to LaBarbera, Igoe’s decision to reject AFT was then ratified by Holiday Inn’s corporate offices. LaBarbera says he cannot imagine the hotel treating homosexual activists in the same manner. He calls this another example of Christians being treated as second-class citizens in U.S. society.

“It seems that there is now a sort of politically correct homosexual ‘heckler’s veto’ that’s forcing or persuading businesses to do things to decent people that they wouldn’t normally do,” he says.

LaBarbera states that it seems like America is becoming a “nation of cowards” due to political correctness.

“When a hotel chain is willing to cancel a Christian group’s event, due to a potential protest by a homosexual activist group, it’s a sad day in America,” says LaBarbera.

He says that although he believes his organization has grounds for a lawsuit, they probably will not because they have “plenty of other things to do,” he states. The AFT banquet will now have to find a new venue for the event, which has been rescheduled for October 5. The banquet will feature speaking appearances by former homosexual Charlotte Cothran and parents’ rights advocate David Parker of Massachusetts.

Mr. Igoe did not return OneNewsNow’s requests for an interview. A Holiday Inn hotel in the Chicago suburb of Crystal Lake recently succeeded in getting a judge to bar the Illinois Minuteman Project from holding a scheduled seminar at the hotel. The hotel cited concerns the anti-illegal immigration group might attract protests that would jeopardize the safety of its employees and customers.
Editor’s Note: The American Family Association is the parent organization of the American Family News Network, which operates OneNewsNow.com.

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