Brothers and Sisters is the first network series to showcase a same-sex union between regular characters. The show continues the network’s taboo-busting – or standards-eroding – trend in entertainment and news programming.

By Kristen Fyfe
Culture and Media Institute
May 9, 2008

Kevin and Scotty will exchange vows on the season finale of ABC’s Brothers and Sisters Sunday night. And the actor who plays “Kevin,” Matthew Rhys, told USA Today, “It’s all very progressive, evolved and about time.”

In a story about the atypical TV wedding, USA Today’s reporter William Kleck mentioned that the show is “liberal leaning” but “does attempt to recognize those who oppose gay “marriage” by introducing Scotty’s parents, who skip the ceremony. That volatile relationship is expected to be explored in Season 3.”

Kleck also mentioned that another character’s children will witness the gay commitment ceremony and the actress who plays the mom hopes viewers won’t “have a problem with that.”

Click HERE to read the rest of the CMI story

Youth walk in Boston’s annual “Gay/Straight Youth Pride March” holding a banner for BAGLY, the Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Youth. The group is run by a cross-dressing, male-to-female transsexual activist adult. Kudos to MassResistance for exposing the corrupting influences on Massachusetts youth.

Brian Camenker of MassResistance.org writes:

We’ve just found out that the [Massachusetts] Senate Ways and Means Committee will be meeting tomorrow – Wednesday, May 14 – to decide on the 2009 budget appropriations. This includes the $750,000 now earmarked for homosexual activism targeting children in schools. Click HERE to contact the Ways and Means Committee to oppose the use of Massachusetts taxpayer dollars for this agenda.

Massachusetts citizens: want to know where your tax money is going? Read on:

1. Homosexual “Youth Pride Day” includes hardcore “gay” anti-religious propaganda. Speaker incites crowd to attack photographers.

This past Saturday was homosexual “Youth Pride Day” in Boston, run by the tax-funded Massachusetts Commission on Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender Youth. It included a “celebration” on the Boston Common followed by a parade past the State House and a “transgender prom” that evening at Boston City Hall.

Kids were bussed in from all over the state. Homosexual activists were everywhere.

Concerned Women for America writes: “An altercation on a college campus leads to federal hate crimes charges against student Brett VanAsdlen despite the fact that all other charges stemming from the event were dropped. Matt Barber, CWA’s Policy Director for Cultural Issues discusses this incident with Pete LaBarbera, President of Americans for Truth and Bob Knight, Director of the Culture and Media Institute, an arm of the Media Research Center.”

Click HERE to listen online to the CWA broadcast, and HERE to download it. Click here for AFTAH’s original story on the case: “Illinois Teen Faces Three Years Jail Sentence for Potentially Fraudulent ‘Hate Crime.’”

In the interview, Knight calls Champaign TV station WCIA-3’s initial story on the incident — in which reporter Amanda Evans interviewed only one side of the dispute — a “classic case” of media bias. More from Knight:

The message here is that there’s a special class of victim. If a homosexual is involved in this equation at all, the media and the legal system are supposed to presumably come to the aid of the homosexual every time. And it’s that selective victimization that you’re talking about, Matt, that’s so frightening.

Brett VanAsdlen

WorldNetDaily in its story, “Teen facing ‘hate crime’ count over spat,” picks up on our story yesterday on the “hate crimes” prosecution of Parkland College student-athlete Brett VanAsdlen. Click HERE to TAKE ACTION on this case. From the WND story:

Rona Lee VanAsdlen told WND in an interview today that she’s been asked by legal counsel not to talk about the specifics of the case.

But she said the case is a trial for the family.

“We’re just getting persecuted here, I guess, and we have to fight,” she said. “I just ask for prayers. My son will really have to fight and prove his innocence.”

She identified the state’s “hate crimes” as the problem.

“This would never have even been an event if this was another heterosexual male and he had a conflict with, and that’s just unfair,” she said. “I am a conservative Christian, and my son is. All we are doing is asking for prayers and support from people that may be opposed to this sort of thing happening.

“This has just uprooted our whole life, and I don’t know that it’ll ever be the same. I don’t know that, even if everything is dropped, that it’ll ever be the same,” she said.

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.

_____________________________

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.

“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.

New Book by Macel Falwell Dispels Media Myths of Preeminent Preacher

Contact: Kevin McVicker, 703-739-5920, 800-536-5920, kmcvicker@sbpublicaffairs.com

WEST MONROE, La., April 24 /Christian Newswire/ — One year after his passing, Jerry Falwell’s wife of forty-nine years, Macel Falwell, gives a candid and heartfelt look at the life of one of America’s most influential religious and political leaders.

In Jerry Falwell: His Life and Legacy (Howard Books, May 2008), Mrs. Falwell describes Rev. Falwell in a way that the mainstream media never would. She details his unfailing optimism, his deep generosity, his vision as the founder of Liberty University and the Moral Majority and as a loving husband and father.

The book paints a portrait of a passionate man determined to spread the Gospel. We see the Falwells establish their Thomas Road Baptist Church in an old soda bottling plant in 1956. Rev. Falwell prayed for new members and went out and knocked on every door in town to invite his neighbors to Sunday services. Continued HERE …

Click HERE to read the entire Christian Newswire release

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.’”