Americans For Truth’s Sonja Dalton offers a few thoughts on the San Francisco Chronicle story below about four “transgender” girls:

• “Real women” have two X chromosomes, and they do not have a male sex organ;
• Adult homosexual and “transgender” activists, like lesbian writer Chris Beam, often affirm confused “GLBT” youth in dangerous and wrong behaviors;
• Nothing is sadder to see than a confused young person who has been deceived into renouncing his God-given identity and sexuality;
• Churches need to prepare to intervene with vulnerable boys and girls (kids from dysfunctional, broken, or abusive homes; kids that don’t “fit in”; kids that have been molested). Godly men and women need to come alongside vulnerable kids, put their arms around them, reinforce their God-given identity, and motivate them with a vision of the fulfilling life they can enjoy.

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The following is excerpted from Shaking Up Transgender Assumptions, a book review by Julie Foster, published Jan 7, 2007, by the San Francisco Chronicle:

Transparent: Love, Family, and Living the T with Transgender Teenagers
by Cris Beam

Real women can have penises. And “the brain and the heart are the only organs with a gender, and … all genital modification or lack thereof is simply a personal aesthetic choice.” These are some of the titillating ideas explored in “Transparent,” Cris Beam’s first book.

…In 1998, [Cris Beam] was a freelance magazine writer with spare time. She began volunteering at a high school in Los Angeles for gay and transgender teens.

After 2 1/2 years Beam burned out and quit. But she loved her students, even with “their attitudes, and the occasional danger and regular tragedies,” and she maintained contact with several of the kids.

“Transparent” is the result of those meetings, which occurred from 1998 through the summer of 2005. Beam found her way into this nuanced world through the lives of four transgender girls, Christina, Domineque, Foxxjazell and Ariel, genetic males living as females…

It hasn’t always been so. Beam reveals the “rich history of transsexuality — or cross-gender behavior — documented back to the pre-Christian era.” She cites examples from early American Indian cultures, including the Mohave, Navajo and Lakota, which seem to have not been so hung up on the male-female dichotomies. “For these tribes, there weren’t just two genders posted at opposite ends of a field, with a rule against hanging out in the middle.”

She chronicles the tragic homelessness, common to many transgender teens, which exacerbates their already complicated lives. She weaves in the story of Foxxjazell, “a really great drag mother,” and one of the many “transsexuals who have already been living in their rightful gender and are in the position to teach their younger counterparts.”…

Five years after Beam began her interviews, things changed. Beam and her partner, Robin, moved back to New York. Domineque committed a serious crime and was sentenced to time at an all-male prison. And 19-year-old Christina, who by then had become a part of Beam’s family, reached her goal of getting a social outreach job with a Latino AIDS organization…

Continue reading in San Francisco Chronicle…

There are hundreds of homosexual bathhouses across the United States. Men who frequent bathhouses contract deadly diseases which tragically cut short their own lives, the lives of their male sex partners, and the lives of girlfriends and wives. We hope this victory in San Diego will inspire many more citizens to complain and prompt prosecutors to enforce our laws.

TAKE ACTION — Write a note of thanks to James Hartline and to Deputy City Attorney Brian Ziegler (address below) to thank them for their courage in ending this public health threat.

Office of the City Attorney
1200 Third Ave., Suite 1200
San Diego, CA 92101

Reported by James Hartline on Jan 4, 2007:

The James Hartline Report is pleased to announce that a four year war to shut down a San Diego gay bathhouse has been won by San Diego Christians.

According to the Gay & Lesbian Times the bathhouse has agreed to cease operations on April 30, 2007.

2200 Club in San Diego, formerly the Mustang Spa

Christian activist James Hartline and many other Christians have prayed, fasted and fought in the name of their God for over four years to shut down this demonic enterprise.

In January on an international broadcast of the 700 Club, James Hartline took reporters on a tour right up to the front doors of this evil place, in the hopes that more citizens would be involved in shutting its front doors. You can watch that episode by clicking HERE.

James Hartline refused to give up and God has reward him and his fellow Christian warriors.

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Excerpted from Local Bathhouse Agrees to Close in April, by Anthony Baldman, published Jan 4, 2007, by Gay & Lesbian Times:

The 2200 Club has negotiated with the city of San Diego and agreed to voluntarily cease operation on April 30, according to the bathhouse’s general manager, Charlie Sharples.

The sauna and steam club for men has been operating at its location at 2200 University Ave. in North Park for more than two years. Bob Smith and John Tennis Smith purchased the business in 2004.

Sharples, 2200 Club’s general manager for the last year and a half, said the decision to close in April was “strictly a business decision” and that the city has been targeting their business for quite some time.

“They were going to continue to harass us in different ways,” he said. “They were going to send undercover agents in and so forth and then bring criminal charges if they found anyone having sex.”

According to Sharples, about a third of all 2200 Club patrons “lead heterosexual lives.”

“They’re married and have wives and children,” he said. “Those people get scared when they read in the paper something involving the police.”

We trust that you have enjoyed a blessed Christmas this year. We know that your year-end giving opportunities are plentiful, but please consider a tax-deductible gift to Americans For Truth (AFTAH) to assist us in our mission of helping Americans confront the homosexual and transsexual lobbies — which are serious about converting the next generation to their harmful agenda.

Click HERE to give safely online or mail your check to: Americans For Truth, P.O. Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567. Or click HERE to become a regular monthly “Truth Team” giver.

To appreciate why AFTAH’s work is so important, consider how one radical gender activist responded to our heart-warming article last week about an EX-transgender young man.

Recall the wonderful story we shared about an Illinois high school student “John” who overcame adolescent “transgender” confusion after becoming a born-again Christian. In response, two websites – one “gay” and one “lesbian” — published a reply from a terribly confused man who goes by the name Autumn Sandeen (pictured below).

Transvestite Autumn Sandeen, as interviewed by the pro-homosexuality
newspaper, San Francisco Bay Times (July 6, 2006):

“My penis doesn’t bother me as a body part…[but] as a sexual organ I’m very uncomfortable with it.
I’m going to be an op, I’m a pre-op I guess, but at the same time
I’m not really sweating how long it takes me to get there.
But at the same time love is out of the question for me.
Well, not out of the question but I feel uncomfortable with relationship stuff.
I’ve literally only had one partner in my entire life and I’m just not interested in sex.
If I could have a relationship with someone that was just as intimate
as a sexual relationship—but without sex—I would love that.”

In his response to AFTAH, Mr. Sandeen rejects wrote of his own frequent “conversions”:

Yet he concludes by denying that change (overcoming homosexuality or gender confusion) is possible.

You don’t need an academic degree to see the irony of this man — and he is still a man — being troubled at our report of a young man overcoming the pull of “transgender” deviance in his life. We live in a world in which “the experts,” often with impressive sounding credentials, dismiss healthy change yet put their stamp of approval on homosexual and gender-confused identities like that above. Science has been politicized and is being used to guide young people into harmful and unnatural behaviors.

To most Americans, religious or not, leaving homosexuality or gender confusion behind is a good thing. To homosexual and gender-bending activists, any ex-“gay” testimony threatens their central propaganda myth that some people are intrinsically (born) “gay,” bisexual or “transgender.” Some homosexual activists like Wayne Besen and the fellows at “Ex-Gay Watch” have dedicated themselves to discrediting ex-“gay” change by hyping the cases of people who have returned back to homosexual behavior. (Yes, change is difficult, but why focus exclusively on failed attempts? Imagine if someone tried to “prove” that overcoming drug addiction was impossible by popularizing only those cases of addicts who tried to go clean but fell back into their drug-abusing lifestyle.)

As you read on, give thanks that high school student “John” was transformed by Jesus Christ (rather than by modern secular psychiatrists) and will not have to suffer the severe emotional confusion and deep loneliness inherent to “transgender” delusion. “John” is truly free now — to experience gratitude for his body, to fall in love with a woman, to enjoy sex in marriage, to accept the natural blessing of children and grandchildren, to worship and serve his God, to know joy.

Please support groups like Americans For Truth that cut through the fog of the homosexual lobby’s lies and tell young people, especially, that nobody has to be “gay.” Homosexuality and gender confusion are not permanent, predestined “identities” — as evinced by the thousands of men and women who have overcome homosexuality and related deviancies in their lives.

Also offer up a prayer for Mr. Sandeen’s genuine ‘trans’-formation as well, for, as the Christmas story teaches, nothing is impossible with God. (Click HERE for a great ex-“gay” resource.) It’s certainly not too late for Mr. Sandeen to experience the only “conversion” that counts. God bless. — Peter LaBarbera

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The following commentary was carried on two homosexual activist blogs, Ex-Gay Watch and Pam’s House Blend, in response to our story on a high school student who overcame gender confusion through Jesus Christ:

Statements of Conversion: Student ‘Trans’-formed by Christ

By Autumn Sandeen
Posted Dec 22, 2006

Here on the Ex-Gay Watch I know I frequently point out logical fallacies in logical (or perhaps better said illogical) arguments, and my peers here do the same thing. My peers and I have noted ex-gay and ex-gay affirming organizations — such as NARTH and Exodus International — often use Statements Of Conversion to make their points, vice referencing statistically sound research or widely recognized subject matter experts.

Why is it that people believe what the Bible teaches, right up until the time that it applies to themselves or their children?

Patti and Jeff Ellis are like thousands of other parents. They were conservative, Bible-believing parents and they understood that the Bible clearly teaches that homosexuality is sin. They believed it until their teenage son announced he was homosexual.

Now the Ellises have abandoned the Word of God in order to condone their confused boy’s destructive sexual choices and they have embarked on a quest to “reinterpret” Scripture. They cite the story of the adulterous woman as evidence of Jesus’ forgiveness toward sexual sin and Jeff Ellis asks:

“If the story were to be exchanged with a gay man, would Jesus have responded differently? Would he have said, ‘You have my blessing in stoning this man to death?’ I don’t think so.”

Now, of course, Jeff Ellis knows that no serious Christian advocates stoning homosexuals to death. And he mysteriously elects to ignore Jesus’ closing admonition to the adulterous woman:

So our response to Mr. Ellis is: Would Jesus have responded differently to your son? We don’t think so. A father who understood the earthly and eternal consequences of homosexuality would, with tears of love in his eyes, tell his precious son the Truth. —Sonja Dalton

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Apparently, Dr. Albert Mohler was contemplating the same principle, as it relates to the Cheneys, when he composed his Dec 12, 2006, blog entry:

…In order to keep family peace, show love to a loved one, or avoid awkward conversations, major moral issues are simply overlooked. Some even change their position on questions of grave moral significance, only because a relative is involved.

This happens with reference to divorce, cohabitation, homosexuality, adultery, and any number of other issues. It is a habit we must break.

Moral integrity demands clear and convictional moral thinking, based in the infallible wisdom of God’s perfect Word. Love demands that we love persons, no matter what their sin may be. Honesty demands that we admit the difficulty of knowing how to combine moral integrity and love with perfect pitch. The Gospel demands that we tell the truth with love.

No one ever said this was going to be easy. But becoming a moral relativist when a relative is involved is a path the faithful Christian cannot take. We must resist moral relativism — even with relatives.

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The following is excerpted from Evangelicals and Same-Sex Marriage, by Lis Wiehl, published by FOX News:

…Patti and Jeff Ellis, a conservative Christian couple from Atlanta, GA, experienced a similar shock when their 16-year-old son Adam announced he was gay.”Patti and I were devastated,” writes Jeff on his family’s website, Familyacceptance.com. “Our response was typical. We prayed for a miracle. We pleaded, ‘God, please remove this burden from our son and our whole family. If Adam is truly gay, then please change him.'”

Patti and Jeff now say their prayers have been answered, but not in the way you might think; in fact, not only have they come to accept Adam’s homosexuality, they both now favor laws which permit gays to marry.

“This is the same as civil rights,” says Patti. “More parents need to stand up for their children.” …

The key to the Ellis’ “conversion,” they say, was being able to put a face on the otherwise abstract issue of homosexuality. “It’s not about the gays,” says Patti, “It’s about the Ellises.” Or as Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, puts it, people like the Ellises “go from an abstract idea to a real person with a real name and a real story,” and come to understand “there’s no negative impact on their own lives to have gays and lesbians living out in the open.” …

For Jeff Ellis, the Bible was clear that being gay, much less being gay and married, was a sin in the highest order. Rev. Bob Hudak, of the Church of Nativity in Fayetteville, Georgia, puts it even more bluntly. “If I were to take the Bible literally,” says Hudak, “every homosexual should be put to death because of what Leviticus says.”

Nevertheless, with some interpretation, the Ellises have found other passages in the Bible that have given them hope, such as John 8:7, in which Jesus says to a crowd criticizing an adulterous woman, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Jeff asks: “If the story were to be exchanged with a gay man, would Jesus have responded differently? Would he have said, ‘You have my blessing in stoning this man to death?’ I don’t think so.”

Ultimately, say the Ellises, coming to terms with their son’s homosexuality deepened their beliefs. “Faithful to his word, God answered our prayer,” says Jeff. “However, the changes that took place were not in Adam but in us. God…opened our eyes to the fact that he had created Adam gay for his own reasons and we, in our arrogance, viewed God’s creation as flawed.”

The Ellises now view their son’s homosexuality as a kind of blessing. “I believe God’s purpose for making Adam gay was to show Patti and I, and the rest of the world, the true meaning of unconditional love,” says Jeff.

Excerpted from Gay Activists Ask Canada to Lower Age of Consent for Anal Sex, National Post Agrees, by John-Henry Westen, published Feb 14, 2006, by LifeSite News:

…Canada’s most prominent homosexual activist group has now demanded the lowering the age of consent for anal sex to 16 from 18. Surprisingly, Canada’s National Post, regarded by some as a ‘conservative’ paper has come out in favour of the proposal.

Reacting to the Conservative Government’s plan to raise the age of consent for normal sex from 14 to 16, EGALE (Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere) has commenced a campaign to have the age of consent for anal sex lowered to 16 from 18. Laurie Arron, the director of advocacy for EGALE remarked to the Ottawa Citizen, “There’s no reason to treat anal sex differently than other sexual acts except to stigmatize gay and bisexual men.”

However, that statement is categorically false, speaking strictly from a medical standpoint. Even those who support homosexual sex acts warn nonetheless that anal sex is a dangerous activity, regardless of genders involved. The sex info site of the University of California at Santa Barbara, which can in no way be described as opposed to homosexual activity, nonetheless points out that anal sex is a dangerous practice.

• …Anal sex is the most dangerous behaviour for transmission of HIV/AIDS and all other STDs since the anus is not designed for sexual activity…
• …The practice also leads to fecal incontinence – loss of normal control of the sphincter muscles which leads to stool leaking from the rectum at unexpected times… See the website http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/sexinfo/?article=faq&refid=125. WARNING: graphic sketches used to illustrate.

Nevertheless, the National Post backed the EGALE request in an unsigned editorial Saturday February 11. The editorial titled, “Equalize the age of consent” said

“Section 159 of the Criminal Code specifically bans anal intercourse between unmarried people under 18. This is plainly discriminatory, a prohibition intended to stigmatize homosexual or bisexual teenagers, suggesting that the nature of their sexual relationship requires special added protection. This is nonsense.” (Click HERE to read the editorial; paid subscription required.)

Continue reading at LifeSite News…

Excerpted from “HPV and Men – CDC Fact Sheet”:

• Genital human papillomavirus (HPV) is a sexually transmitted virus. There are more than 30 types of genital HPV that can infect the genital area of men, including the skin on and around the penis or anus.

• Most men who get genital HPV do not have any symptoms. However, some types of HPV can cause genital warts. Genital warts are single or multiple growths that appear in the genital area. They may be raised, flat, or cauliflower shaped.In men, genital warts may appear around the anus or on the penis, scrotum (testicles), groin or thighs. Even men who have never had anal sex can get warts around the anus. Warts may appear within weeks or months after sexual contact with an infected person, or not at all. A person can have the type of HPV that causes genital warts, but never develop any warts.

• Genital HPV is passed on through genital contact – such as vaginal and anal sex.

• Certain types of HPV have been linked to cancer of the anus and penis in men. These cancers are rare – especially in men with healthy immune systems. The types of HPV that can cause genital warts are not the same as the types that can cause penile or anal cancer.

• The American Cancer Society (ACS) estimates that about 1,530 men will be diagnosed with penile cancer in the U.S. in 2006. In this country, penile cancer accounts for about 0.2% of all cancers in men. It is especially rare in circumcised men.

• ACS estimates that about 1,910 men will be diagnosed with anal cancer in 2006. The risk for anal cancer is 17 times higher among gay and bisexual men than among heterosexual men. The risk is also higher among men with compromised immune systems, including those with HIV.

• HIV-positive men are more likely to get severe and prolonged cases of genital warts, which may be more resistant to treatment. They are also more likely to develop anal cancer.

• Because HPV is so common but usually invisible, the only sure ways to prevent it are not to have sex, or to have sex with only one uninfected person, who is only having sex with you. You can lower your risk by limiting your number of sex partners and choosing partners who have had few or no sex partners.

• Condoms may provide some but not complete protection against HPV, since HPV can infect skin that is not covered by a condom.

From the Dec 8, 2006, issue of “Washington Update by Tony Perkins, Family Research Council:

For the last three days, media outlets from across the country have flooded FRC with calls on our reaction to the news that Vice President Cheney’s daughter, who has a lesbian partner, is expecting a child. We have purposefully declined to comment on the story, in order to maintain FRC’s focus on policy discussions. However, when an event such as this is used by some as a catalyst for advancing a political agenda or promoting public policy that attacks traditional marriage or parenting, I have no reservations about stepping forward and defending morality and the family — regardless of who is involved. Today’s Washington Post features such an attempt by editorial columnist Ruth Marcus. With an air of noble tutelage, Marcus writes, “Whether she intends it or not, [Mary Cheney’s] pregnancy will, I think, turn out to be a watershed in public understanding and acceptance of this phenomenon.”

Unlike Marcus, authorities on child and family health do not use anecdotes as the basis for public policy. Their analysis is fact-driven, not emotion-driven. And those facts have seldom changed. Marcus writes that “To be a badly wanted child… in a home with two loving parents is no tragedy. If they’re worried about ’emotional devastation,’ they would do better to reserve their lamentations for children in poverty, those who are abused or neglected, or for children in families splintered by divorce.” Children’s needs, however, are more than the sum of the wants in the lives of the adults who reside with them. Study after study demonstrates that no amount of care or financial privilege can compensate for the missing physical and emotional benefits experienced by children who enjoy the lifelong love and presence of a married mother and father.

Comprehensive studies published in the peer-reviewed journals Archives of General Psychiatry, Interpersonal Violence, Social Service Research, Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Nursing Research, Developmental Psychology, Adolescence, and others too numerous to list here, all cite the devastating effects of domestic violence, increased substance abuse, mental health problems, sexual identity confusion, depression, and suicide associated with the homosexual lifestyle. A child fortunate enough to escape those realities still faces a distinct disadvantage throughout childhood — the irreplaceable influence of the missing biological parent. In rearing children, the complementary contributions of a mother and father are rooted in the innate differences of the two sexes, and can no more be arbitrarily replaced than can the very nature of male and female.

But besides dismissing science, Marcus misrepresents the reality of Virginia law. In her eagerness to exploit the circumstances, she asserts that the state’s new marriage protection amendment “casts doubt on the ability of Cheney and Poe to write binding medical directives and wills.” The law casts no doubt on the matter. It implicitly allows individuals to engage in private contracts. Here Marcus succeeds in personalizing her argument but not substantiating it. She concludes, “[This] high-profile pregnancy will help the Republican party come to grips with [the] facts of life. If not, [Mary Cheney] will have to explain to her child what mommy was doing trying to help a party that doesn’t believe in fairness for families like theirs.” What is at stake in these debates, however, is ultimately not the fate of political parties or the lateral “fairness” adults seek, but what is fair and favorable for children, all of whom have a stake in whether our nation stands by the ideal of homes embraced by, and embracing, a mother and father, a husband and a wife.