Selective prosecution illustrates danger of ‘hate crimes’ laws

Brett VanAsdlen

TAKE ACTION: 1) Urge Champaign County, Illinois State’s Attorney Julia Rietz (phone: 217-384-3733) to drop the government’s one-sided felony “hate crimes” prosecution against 18-year-old student-athlete Brett VanAsdlen — based on the inconsistent and likely exaggerated claims of Steven Velasquez, a homosexual University of Illinois (U of I) student who may have initiated physical contact with VanAsdlen. Already, Brett is being smeared as violent “gay-basher” by Velasquez and pro-homosexual activists in the media. Pray for Brett and his family.

2) Call or write WCIA-3 TV, the local CBS affiliate, and urge them to be fair in their coverage of this unfortunate story. Call (217) 373-3650 and ask for Producer Nancy Foreman. WCIA reporter Amanda Evans has led the TV coverage of the story, but her reporting appears to heavily favor Velasquez. It is wrong to smear the reputation of young man by airing all the accusations against him without presenting the other side of the story.

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By Peter LaBarbera

CHAMPAIGN-URBANA, Illinois — Two young men — one homosexual, one heterosexual — tell very different stories about an argument that occurred late on a Friday night (April 11) in this college town, but only one — the straight student-athlete — faces a felony “hate crime” conviction with a maximum penalty of up to three years in prison.

Brett VanAsdlen faces a Class 4 felony hate crime after originally being charged with aggravated battery following an incident in which he pushed 20-year-old homosexual University of Illinois student Steven Velasquez to the ground. The critical question is: why did he push Velasquez and who was aggressor? VanAsdlen’s family says it was Velasquez who — after Brett made a comment about Velasquez and his homosexual partner — first “got in Brett’s face,” to which Brett responded by pushing Velasquez away. Velasquez claims that Brett attacked him unprovoked because of his homosexuality.

You can read and watch WCIA-TV’s initial, one-sided account of the incident featuring an interview with Velasquez HERE — which set the tone for those seeking to portray VanAsdlen as a violent hate criminal.

By Stephen Black and Chris Morrison

Chris Morrison of First Stone Ministries credits Sally Kern with lovingly and graciously helping him in his walk out of homosexuality.

Folks, one of the temptations for Christians looking for new approaches to the homosexual issue is to assert or imply that they possess more Christian love for people involved in homosexual behavior — or that they are being more Christ-like — than other Christians who take a strong, principled stand against the “gay” activist agenda. We deal with such condescension all the time here at Americans For Truth, even though I would be the first to admit that I do not love sinners nearly as I ought, according to Christ’s dictates.

In our view, some Christians unfairly piled on following the “gay”-led assault on Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern, echoing homosexual activist criticisms of her without taking the time to get to know this fine woman and her motivations. I put Grove City College’s Warren Throckmorton — who snidely lectured Kern on the Golden Rule on his blog (“Maybe gays are having a hard time with the love thing when they are considered a worse threat than terrorists. Go figure.”) — in this camp. (We’ll have our own questions for Warren and his unorthodox ideas in future posts.)

What I discovered in defending Sally was that she is nothing like the evil, bigoted caricature that homosexual activists, led by the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, sought to create in their web-driven campaign to destroy her. Sally actually has a wonderful Christian heart — but those who know her best, such as Stephen Black and Chris Morrison of First Stone Ministries, both former homosexuals, understood that all along, as this beautiful essay testifies. — Peter LaBarbera

The Untold Story about Rep. Sally Kern

by Stephen Black and Chris Morrison from First Stone Ministries

The Untold Story of Irony
Washington’s political gay elitists with the Victory Fund edited Oklahoma State Representative Sally Kern’s comments from a closed door meeting given in a January speech of this year. They edited down the comments to what they considered the most inflammatory sound bites. Their cunning plan was to upload the edited comments to YouTube in hopes of enraging gay people and their supporters. This plan, they thought, would further the “Victory Fund” gay political cause and bring in funds for their political machine. Over and over they emphasize that Rep. Kern’s speech demonstrated hatred towards gays. What they failed to mention – or include in the sound bites – is the truth, that Rep. Sally Kern said we must love the homosexual. Her message was not about bashing gays. The mainstream liberal media outlets seem to be unconcerned about what was been left out, and unmotivated to seek the whole story, responded predictably. They thrive on bad news and smear tactics of conservatives, so they picked up the story immediately and replayed the inflammatory comments. The story was worldwide overnight! Sally Kern was labeled hateful, bigoted, anti-gay, an evil homophobe and so many other names that are so vile, I cannot repeat.

There is a yawning chasm between the values and priorities we piously claim as our national heritage and those we have chosen to live by.

Our survival as a democracy is in our hands. We too must come out of the closet of cloistered Christianity and come to the rescue of our constitutional rights.

By Lee Taylor

Gay pride was not born in a vacuum. Timing and social upheaval formed the vortex in which it was born and bred. Hanging from the shirttails of the Civil Rights, women’s liberation, and anti-war movements, it exploited the vulnerability of a nation in turmoil. Fueling its fraudulent claims and outrageous demands from our national guilt complex and introspective conflict of values, the Gay Liberation Front exploded onto the American scene. The soul-searching ‘60’s exposed a nation fraught with self-doubt, self-recrimination, anxiety, addiction and ideological conflict, a nation at odds with itself. The sexual revolution accelerated the erosion of both marriage and the family as we struggled with the values and priorities of our national identity.

We were still recovering from the Viet Nam War and had only begun to realize the implications of racial integration when homosexual opportunists executed a strategically timed and targeted blitzkrieg on American society. We were caught napping, and the initial homosexual coup was a resounding success. Adopting the Civil Rights, anti-war and women’s liberation movements as its own, forming its political platform by drawing heavily from each, the Gay Liberation Front took aim at our Christian values and democratic institutions.

“Evil” 18th Century “Neanderthal”?

CBS’s Lesley Stahl: “I’m surprised at how many people really, really hate you. These are some things we’ve been told: ‘He’s evil;’ ‘He’s a Neanderthal;’ ‘He’s going to drag us back to 1789.’ They’re threatened by what you represent and what you believe in.”

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia: “These are people that don’t understand what my interpretive philosophy is. I’m not saying no progress. I’m saying we should progress democratically.”…

Stahl: “But his critics argue that originalism is a cover for what they see as Justice Scalia’s real intention: to turn back some pivotal court decisions of the ’60s and ’70s. He’s been labeled a ‘counterrevolutionary.'”

— CBS’s 60 Minutes, April 27, 2008, as reported by Media Research Center’s “Notables Quotables,” May 5, 2008.

By Peter LaBarbera

Beware lesbians with frying pans (if you care about free speech). Lesbian activists at Smith College stormed the “Born Gay Hoax” talk by Ryan Sorba, shutting it down. Photo: MassResistance.org.

Lesbian activists at Smith College just couldn’t stand by and let a young critic explain his views about the supposed innateness of homosexuality — so they stormed Ryan Sorba’s speech on the “Born Gay Hoax” and forced him to end it prematurely. Thus they decided for everyone in the room — supporters, foes, the curious and the undecided — whether Sorba’s arguments would be heard. Stalin would be proud.

Brian Camenker, Amy Contrada and the dedicated folks at MassResistance.org have captured the totalitarian episode on film for the world to see. Kudos to MassResistance for once again chronicling the anti-democratic antics of the “gay” Left for the record. It is absolutely shameful that Smith College and Massachusetts authorities would allow Sorba’s First Amendment rights to be neutralized in — of all places — the academy, which is supposed to be a place where opposing ideas can be debated freely.

Homosexual activists are afraid of critical ideas — e.g., ex-“gays” and facts about the immense health risks linked to same-sex practices — a sure sign that they are on shallow intellectual footing. Meanwhile, we have learned that the American Psychiatric Association has canceled a symposium, slated for Monday, on “Homosexuality and Therapy: the Religious Dimension,” featuring Grove City College’s Warren Throckmorton — after homosexual activist Episcopal Bishop (Vicky) Gene Robinson pulled out of the discussion. The homosexual newspaper Washington Blade reports that Robinson “canceled his plans to attend because he came to believe that making an appearance would validate the concept that sexual orientation can be changed.”

What will happen if California’s highest court imposes “gay marriage”?

The quotation below was sent to us by Gary Glenn of American Family Association of Michigan. Homosexual activist Wayne Besen, author of Anything But Straight, describes the chaos that would result if California’s highest court were to mandate homosexual “marriages.” Rather than create public sympathy to rectify alleged anti-homosexual “discrimination,” as Besen hopes, we think the ensuing confusion would only heighten citizens’ awareness of the crisis caused by the homosexual lobby and arrogant, social-engineering courts.

Only a Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) would establish a national standard preserving the historic institution of marriage as one-man, one-woman — perhaps in name only if current trends continue. California becoming a “gay marriage” state would certainly breathe new life into the FMA. However, another cultural/legal/political battle would follow over “civil unions,” which — far from being an acceptable compromise — are merely another tactic advancing the “gay” activists’ goal of putting government power and authority behind homosexual couples and the creation of unnatural “families.” And as the people of Massachusetts and Vermont know well, lots of bad things (e.g., more pro-homosexual indoctrination in schools, curtailment of moral freedoms) flow from state-sanctioned homosexuality.

News Release

Americans For Truth
www.americansfortruth.org
April 25, 2008

Contact: Peter LaBarbera: 630-717-7631; americansfortruth@comcast.net

NAPERVILLE, Illinois –– Americans For Truth (AFTAH) President Peter LaBarbera today called on schools, the media and opinion-makers to “break the silence” regarding the serious health risks of homosexual behavior, and said Americans deserve an official government investigation into the matter.

“Today, thousands of schools across the country are encouraging the homosexual activist ‘Day of Silence,’ and doing it in the name of protecting students’ safety,” LaBarbera said. “While schools can and must protect every child from harassment and abuse, it is contradictory to promote homosexuality in the name of ‘safety’ because the evidence is so overwhelming that same-sex behavior is a serious health risk –– especially for males.”

AFTAH has joined a coalition of pro-family organizations encouraging parents to pull their children out of schools that endorse the “Day of Silence” or allow students not to participate in classroom activities. [For a list of DOS-participating schools, see www.missionamerica.com.]

“How many government-funded studies have there been on the dangers of smoking?” LaBarbera said. “Yet homosexual men similarly are dying prematurely due to risky, unnatural same-sex practices –– but taxpayer-funded public schools are promoting this lifestyle to students through propagandistic exercises like the ‘Day of Silence.’”

Naperville, Illinois’ Neuqua Valley High School’s ban on students wearing “Be Happy, Not Gay” t-shirts — in opposition to the pro-homosexuality “Day of Silence” — has been overturned. Photo: Alliance Defense Fund.

An important victory for free speech here. Who knew that the social leftists’ “Question Authority” mantra of yesteryear would be turned against them today as adults? Congratulations to ADF and Alex Nuxoll for not backing down to the PC Thought Police. — Peter LaBarbera

Illinois School Must Allow “Be Happy, Not Gay” T-shirt

Illinois Family Institute website, 4/24/2008 10:13:00 AM –Alliance Defense Fund

7th Circuit rules unanimously in favor of student represented by ADF attorneys in vital student free speech case.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit reversed a lower court’s ruling against an Illinois student Wednesday, saying the district court must order a Naperville high school to suspend its ban on a T-shirt that reads “Be Happy, Not Gay” while the student’s lawsuit proceeds. School officials prohibited student Alex Nuxoll, who is represented by Alliance Defense Fund attorneys, from wearing the clothing.