Excerpted from Montreal Homosexual OutGames Bankrupt, by Hilary White, published Dec 11, 2006, by LifeSite News:

The First World Outgames, not to be confused with the Gay Games, is likely to be the last. The homosexual sporting event, held in Montreal this past summer and paid for with generous donations of funds from taxpayers, is bankrupt.

…Altogether, the games lost over $5 million.

Continue reading at LifeSite News…

This surprising news just in: God the Creator knows best.

Excerpted from Abstinence Alone Protects Fully Against HIV, Ugandan First Lady Tells Youth, by Gudrun Schultz, published Dec 6, 2006 by LifeSite News:

Janet Museveni, First Lady of Uganda, has continued her strong support for the country’s successful abstinence campaign against HIV/AIDS with a statement encouraging youth to live lives of “love, faith and purity,” New Vision reported December 2.

“I would not be caught advising you to take any shortcuts or compromise your lives by using any device invented by man, such as condoms, in order to facilitate any desire to go against God’s clear plan for your life,” Mrs. Museveni told students at the Uganda Christian University, Mukono, for World AIDS Day.

“God’s plan for your life is that you should honour your body because it is His temple.”

Warning the young people that they should not be complacent as HIV infection rates rise, Mrs. Museveni asked them to encourage other students to abstain from premarital sex.

Ugandan President Museveni and his wife introduced a program encouraging sexual abstinence before marriage and fidelity afterwards, in an attempt to combat the scourge of HIV/AIDS.

The program has been harshly condemned by international organizations promoting condom use, but in fact Ugandan HIV transmission rates dropped by as much as 75% in some regions after the program was introduced, down to 5-7% from a high of 18%.

Continue reading at LifeSite News…

From How About a Federal “Nice Crimes” Law?, by Linda Harvey, published Nov 29, 2006, by WorldNet Daily:

Now that the left has ascended to power in Washington, San Fran Nan and her munchkins have declared that adding “sexual orientation” to existing federal “hate crimes” law will rise to the top of the congressional priority list.

But wait. Why not first pass a “nice crimes” law, at the federal level and also in some states?

After all, selecting some crimes for special designation as markers of “hate” is helpful, but only if we first recognize other “non-hate” crimes as the nice ones.

For instance, I would nominate all nice murders, where the offender expresses tender sentiments toward the victim before bludgeoning him/her to death. There’s also the nice, reasonable spouse abuse crimes, where a husband was set off because he had a bad day, or because his woman looked twice at another man. His self-esteem was low and he had a good reason. Outside the orange jumpsuits, these are really great guys.

Of course, the ACLU will help us here, because they are the perpetual defenders of “nice” people who perform nice crimes, like sodomy (back when it was a crime) or pedophilia. Remember the 1997 case in Massachusetts of 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley, who was the victim of a grotesque sexual molestation and murder by two men. The ACLU defended the pedophile group NAMBLA in a subsequent suit. Sex, after all, is a nice thing, and people have their needs. Perhaps it shouldn’t go as far as murder, especially of 10-year-olds, but I’m sure the ACLU can help us understand how to think about this.

“We curse the spirit that would come
to bring about same-sex marriage …

We ask you to just look over this place today,
cause them to be shaken in their very heart
in uprightness, Lord, to do [what] is right before you.”

–– Rev. Vincent Fields’ prayer in the New Jersey senate chamber

By Peter LaBarbera

In case you hadn’t noticed, there is a war between good and evil going on in this country, between those who agree with God and those who fight for worldly and immoral agendas — homosexuality, abortion, pornography — that He opposes.

On Monday, the Rev. Vincent Fields (pictured above), having been invited to give the honorary invocation for the New Jersey State Senate, acted on a prompting from the God he serves. For that reason, this preacher will not be invited back to pray in an official capacity for New Jersey lawmakers.

Rev. Fields, (pictured above), pastor of Greater Works Ministries in Pleasantville, N.J., said that when he arrived Monday, he didn’t plan on praying against “gay marriage,” but “the Holy Spirit took over, and I had to pray what He said.”

Here is Rev. Fields’ prayer: “We curse the spirit that would come to bring about same-sex marriage … We ask you to just look over this place today, cause them to be shaken in their very heart in uprightness, Lord, to do [what] is right before you.”

After offense was taken at Rev. Fields’ too-truthful prayer, New Jersey’s Senate President Richard Codey (D) told the Newark Star-Ledger that Rev. Fields will “not be back” to pray in the Senate. The reverend needn’t fret; he is in good company: I doubt that the real, holy God of the Bible has been welcome in that chamber for quite some time. Yesterday was a case in point, as the New Jersey legislature passed a bill legalizing “civil unions” — counterfeit “same-sex marriage” in everything but the name — with an ease that makes one wonder if the Church in the Garden State is in hibernation.

Blue state New Jersey has become a bastion of officially-sanctioned secular immorality: you may recall that the state’s highest court voted 4-3 to mandate that the legislature pass either “gay marriage” or “gay marriage lite” (civil unions) — and the three dissenters were upset only that the court didn’t go all the way and require FULL “gay marriage.” In other words, not a single justice on the New Jersey Supreme Court — including several appointed by Republican governor Christine Todd Whitman — had a problem with giving marital-type rights and privileges to homosexuals.

Getting back our passion

Too often in the cultural debate over homosexuality, the debate is reduced to secular studies and research (e.g., how studies show that it’s better for children to have a mom and a dad). These are worthy pursuits because secular research validates divine truth, and many Americans have closed their minds to the Bible.

That said, appeals to God, the Bible and morality are the most powerful motivators in this struggle because they cut to the heart — at least for Christians. The less often Scripture is spoken in public debates, the less relevant it becomes to society. Surely the vast majority of serious Christians and religious people in the United States would agree with Rev. Fields’ prayer: there IS an ungodly spirit that surrounds the promotion of homosexuality. It is manifested in all aspects of the movement — from the hyper-promiscuity in the “gay” male world to the latest in “queer” theology, which twists the holy Scriptures to claim that homosexuality is a “gift from God.”

And, yes, this ungodly spirit is also found in the quest for domesticated, monogamous homosexuality that merely “regularizes sin,” to quote Rob Gagnon, while still mocking and radically redefining God’s perfect design for marriage and family.

Many of us are intimidated against speaking out on God’s behalf, but the “gay” lobby is quite willing to fill the void — “preaching” at us with its slick but morally bankrupt message that “being gay” is naturally “who they are,” and demonizing Christians as “haters.” They can redefine words all they want, but homosexual behavior will always be wrong, and “gay pride” is direct rebellion against God.

Truth is, homosexual sin is so egregious that the Bible calls it an “abomination” — crying out for judgment by all those who agree with God. If it is not wrong for men to commit sodomitic perversions with other men, and women with women — what Noah Webster termed a “crime against nature” in a wiser age — then nothing is wrong. Sterile public policy debates often fail to convey the moral outrage of legitimizing this destructive lifestyle, as do religious compromisers like Peggy Campolo who seek to make an accommodation with homosexuality, often out of pity for friends or relatives trapped in this lifestyle.

An America where you can’t judge anything as wrong — except Bible-believing Christians and “intolerant” religious people — is a banal and spiritually lifeless America, its moral energy sapped out of it. This is liberalism today. Behold how quickly social liberals like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) moved from considering homosexual “domestic partnership” (and eschewing “gay marriage”) to now embracing homosexual “marriage” as a civil right. And why not? They have no moral absolutes, or at least they don’t share God’s: if you can rationalize the legalized slaughter of innocent unborn life and call it a “choice,” why not let two guys or two ladies “playing house,” to quote ex-homosexual Stephen Bennett, call their arrangement a “marriage”?

Most Americans still call themselves Christian in this country, but when Christianity tolerates everything, it means nothing. There IS such a thing as “God’s side” of some core issues, and those who embrace homosexuality, abortion and pornography ain’t on it.

This is the season to remind ourselves that Jesus Christ came to save men from their sins. The Bible says that those who reject Christ stand condemned (John 3:16-18), but that He offers forgiveness and spiritual rebirth to all, including repentant homosexuals (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). (Yes, there were “ex-gays,” so to speak, in Bible times.) If there is no sin, then there is no need for Christ. Pro-family advocates are often accused of arrogance for “judging” homosexuality as wrong, but the real arrogance comes from those who would effectively pronounce God (and His Word) a liar, because they — frail, created humans on this earth but a moment in the vast scope of time — know better than He does about what’s right and wrong.

In New Jersey, it’s easy to despair as homosexual activists claim yet another court-assisted victory, and all we have for inspiration is Rev. Fields’ Holy Spirit-led prayer. But the faithful pastor actually points the way back for our nation. Secular studies and catchy sound-bites will not bring a return of God’s blessing, but spiritual revival and repentance will — by bringing about godly humility and a desire to obey His moral laws, and creating a newfound wonder at His marvelous creation, including marriage and the family.

To bring about that repentance we need many more like Vincent Fields, men and women who are willing to cast off the shackles of Political Correctness and speak God’s truth to a dying culture. Some will say that Rev. Fields is only the latest casualty in America’s Culture Wars. To me, he is a loyal soldier who refused to squelch the voice of God to please men.

Peter LaBarbera is the president of Americans For Truth.

US Federal Law does not recognize homosexual “marriage” — so why did a US customs agent allow two male U.S. citizens to enter the country using one customs form, as though they were a legally married couple?

Excerpted from Conklin: Gay legislator’s marriage is about being a couple, by Melanie Conklin, published Dec 13, 2006, by Wisconsin State Journal:

Rep. Mark Pocan [78th Assembly District, WI – Democrat] just got back from Indonesia – but this two-week trip was more than just a vacation for the Madison legislator. It was his honeymoon.

On Nov. 24 in Toronto, Pocan and his partner of four-plus years, Philip Frank, got [“married”].

Of course, the couple couldn’t legally tie the knot in Wisconsin…

Frank and Pocan flew to Toronto on Thanksgiving and were married the next day at the wedding chamber in Toronto’s City Hall. Kyle Rae, an openly gay member of the Toronto City Council who got to know Pocan when Pocan was on the Dane County Board, helped with the arrangements.

Rae told Pocan they are glad to have ceremonies for gay couples at City Hall – no shotguns involved. “Often couples who get married at City Hall have to be there, so he said when gay couples come in they’re all happy they are getting married and it’s a nice change,” Pocan says…

It hit home for Pocan that he is a married man when he returned to the U.S. and the custom’s agent in Los Angeles asked if they needed one form or two. “We told her we only needed one, we came together as family, and that we’d gotten married in Toronto,” Pocan says. “She told us she thought it was nice that they allowed that in Canada.”

…Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk …[said] “It’s all about commitment and why it matters and the underlying truth that we all long for relationships and commitment.”

She was thrilled to hear his news. “It’s just such a joy.”

Continue reading on Wisconsin State Journal…

Excerpted from New Jersey Lawmakers Pass Transgender Rights Bill, published Dec 14, 2006, by the pro-homosexuality PlanetOut:

The New Jersey state Assembly on Thursday passed a bill that would make the Garden State the ninth in the nation to outlaw discrimination based on gender identity or expression. The bill, passed by the state Senate on Monday, now goes to Gov. Jon Corzine, who is expected to sign it.

“The legislation in New Jersey represents a huge civil rights victory for transgender communities,” Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said in a statement.

“I applaud the amazing efforts of the Gender Rights Advocacy Association of New Jersey, Garden State Equality, and local advocates who showed that when we stand up for what’s right, we can win. While we celebrate that one-third of the US population is now covered, NCTE continues to fight for explicitly transgender-inclusive protections on the federal level.”

New Jersey’s new law prohibits discriminatory practices in employment, housing and public accommodations based on “gender identity or expression” — the legislative language that covers transgender people.

Continue reading at PlanetOut…

This article is the second in a series by my good friend here in Illinois, John Biver, of the Family Taxpayers Network. (To read the first article, click HERE.) We often hear that it’s only the “fundamentalist Christians” on the “radical right” who oppose normalizing homosexuality and that we Christians are determined to impose our belief system on everyone. Well, it’s not only conservative evangelicals and Catholics who recognize the problem; John Biver’s excellent series of articles proves that there is also a strong secular argument against elevating homosexuality to normalcy. — Peter LaBarbera

The following article entitled Privacy v. Revolution, by John Biver, was published Jun 19, 2006, by Family Taxpayer Network:

A year ago writer Peggy Noonan opened her column with a story of having met a young man at a wedding who introduced himself, asked her a question, but before she could answer he went on to say, “I’m gay, by the way.” Noonan wrote:

“I nodded as if this were my business, but thought: I wonder why a total stranger thinks I want to know what he wishes to do with his genitals? What an odd way to say hello.

“We live in a time in which people routinely violate their own privacy.”

Noonan doubted whether the man would have been as open about his annual salary, as that would have been too personal. In the old America, she wrote, people knew certain things were better kept private,

“But in the new and infinitely stranger America there are a lot of people who need to be told, ‘Buddy, that’s none of my business.’”

One of the reasons I’m optimistic about the future of the discussion of morality in this country is that despite decades of work attempting to get every American to discuss their sex life in public, most people still prefer not to. I believe human nature suggests that won’t change any time soon.

A few simple concepts have been pushed to society’s back burner as the heat has been turned up in favor of an extremist social agenda. The honest proponents of this agenda admit that it’s “not a civil rights movement” or “sexual liberation movement” but rather is “a moral revolution.”

Dec 12, 2006, press release from ALLIANCE DEFENSE FUND:

Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Glen Lavy will address the media Wednesday [Dec 13, 2006] after filing a lawsuit against members of the Massachusetts Legislature. The suit alleges that the lawmakers have acted illegally by refusing to vote on a citizen initiative that would define marriage in the commonwealth’s constitution as the union between one man and one woman.

“Elected officials should be held accountable when they deliberately violate the law,” Lavy said. “The legislators have a constitutional duty to vote on citizen initiatives. Some members of the legislature have even admitted publicly that they are deliberately violating their constitutional duty. This flagrant violation of the constitutional right of the citizens to amend their constitution must be stopped.”

Also participating in the press conference is Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute.

“All we are asking is that the legislature fulfills its responsibility to the voters of Massachusetts,” Lavy said. “These legislators will face no liability if they vote on the amendment, but it appears that the Legislature is only going to stop their illegal behavior when they understand they’ll be held accountable for it.”

ADF is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.