Approximately 500 journalists, editors, producers, travel writers, bloggers and other communications workers from homosexual and mainstream media outlets gathered August 30 – September 2 for the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) annual conference.

As at past NLGJA conferences, conservative-leaning Fox News Network was among the sponsors and recruiters.

Titled “Breaking Stories, Breaking Waves,” the convention, held in downtown San Diego’s Westin Horton Plaza hotel, featured a one-day LGBT media summit, six receptions, and more than 50 sessions and workshops ranging from “Covering LGBT Conservatives” (oddly, the Christian-conservative-bashing Wayne Besen was a panelist), to “Will Gays Matter in ’08?” to “Sex Writing for Fun and Profit.”

Attendees included print and broadcast professionals from top U.S. mainstream news agencies such as CNN, Associated Press, ABC/Primetime, NBC, CBS, Fox News Network, Hearst Newspapers, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Bloomberg News, Newsday, the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, CNBC, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Time Warner/Turner Broadcasting, Washington Post, Hartford Courant, People Magazine, NPR, Clear Channel Communications, Wired Magazine, Cox Enterprises, and USA Today.

Among major homosexual media outlets represented were the Washington Blade, Dallas Voice, San Diego’s Gay and Lesbian Times, GO Magazine, Gay News Watch, Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), Bay Area Reporter, IN Los Angeles Magazine, Sirius OutQ Radio, CBS News on LOGO, and here! Networks.

Other organizations who sent employees to the convention, according to an attendee directory distributed with the registration package, included Cirque de Soleil; MGM Mirage; USC Annenberg School of Communications; Human Rights Campaign (HRC); Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund; Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN); Arizona State University Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication; JetBlue Airways; Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard; several Canadian tourism agencies; Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN); Lambda Legal; Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation; Out and Equal Workplace Advocates; Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Bureau; and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The convention included plenary sessions on the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and immigration issues affecting homosexuals, as well as a general session featuring a conversation with Larry Kramer, founder of the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP), a radical, “in your face” demonstration group that made headlines in December, 1989, for disrupting a Catholic Mass and destroying a consecrated Communion host at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.

The Canadian Tourism Board was the presenting sponsor for the convention. Other sponsors included JetBlue Airways, CBS News, CNN, ESPN, General Motors, Toyota automobiles, Orbitz, Bloomberg, Coca-Cola,  the Gill Foundation, Sony Pictures and Television, visitBritain, ABC News, Fox News Network, the San Diego Union-Tribune, and the Washington Post.

Among “Career & Community Expo” participants were the Associated Press, Dow Jones, Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation, MGM Mirage, Reuters, Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau, the New York Times, Fox News Network, and NBC Universal.

Other events occurring during the convention included a student projects, a documentary film screening, a “not so silent” auction, 12-step meetings, and a “San Diego Night Out.”

Americans For Truth sent reporter Allyson Smith to the convention for three days, where she attended more than a dozen sessions and raised issues of concern to pro-family advocates — including the biased manner in which “mainstream media” covers homosexuality-related issues. A full report about the sessions that Smith attended will follow in coming days.

From Townhall.com

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/RobertKnight/2007/08/30/the_story_stalls_here

The Story Stalls Here
By Robert Knight
Thursday, August 30, 2007

As Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was figuratively dragged out of the restroom and into the spotlight this week, the media have been ignoring another compelling story about sex in public toilets.

Fort Lauderdale’s Democratic mayor, Jim Naugle, has incurred the wrath of homosexual activists for publicly addressing the problem of men having sex in public places. 

It all came to a head, so to speak, in July, when the mayor backed an idea that would frustrate the thrill seekers: switching to automated stalls.  Automated stalls make it difficult for trolling swingers to hook up, and they protect small boys from walking in on lewd behavior. 

The reaction was brutal.  The local South Florida Sun-Sentinel ran a piece effectively accusing Naugle of gay-bashing.  Predictably, the “gay community” came out of the woodwork, attacking the mayor as “homophobic,” “bigoted” and full of “hate.”  Critics said Naugle was undermining Broward County’s carefully cultivated reputation as a “gay-friendly” vacation destination.

Responding to the media-fed flood of criticism, the mayor, like so many pols before him, announced that he would apologize at a press conference on July 24.  The local press gathered, notebooks ready and cameras rolling, to enjoy the latest example of self-immolation on the pyre of political correctness.

Naugle delivered an apology all right, but not the expected groveling before the rainbow flag.  Instead, he apologized to “the children and parents of our community” for not being informed about “how serious the problem was of sexual activity that’s taking place in bathrooms and public parks.” Then he made a shocking assertion: that Broward County leads the nation in new AIDS cases. 

Say what? Did he just do what we think he did? How many Americans do you suppose would have found this interesting: a newsy city’s mayor under siege who, instead of kowtowing, comes out fighting and even raises the stakes? 

National press coverage of the Naugle saga has been skimpy.  CNN finally covered the story on August 6.  In a news segment of 5 minutes, 10 seconds, CNN gave Naugle a total of 35 seconds to speak. Reporter Susan Candiotti noted Naugle’s explosive claim that Broward has “a record increase of new AIDS cases in the county, the highest in the nation,” but she didn’t explore the significance of the statistics.

Here’s what Candiotti ignored:  According to the Broward County Health Department, AIDS Surveillance data, in 2006, 70.2 percent of new HIV cases involved men having sex with men (MSM) and another 2.8 percent involved MSM who inject drugs intravenously, for a total of 73 percent.

On August 13, CNN gave the story another 5 minutes, 12 seconds. Anchor Rick Sanchez affected a skeptical, aggressive tone, but to his credit, Sanchez gave Naugle time to make his case.  Sanchez showed no interest in the public health concerns. ….

Click HERE to read the rest of Bob Knight’s column on Townhall.com

Tony Kushner’s anti-Reagan, pro-homosexuality propaganda play, “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes,” is simply not appropriate for schools.

Even people without children or grandchildren in schools will find Laurie Higgins’ excellent arguments below compelling. Also, click HERE to read her take on “Angels in America,” which was studied in Deerfield High School, north of Chicago.– Peter LaBarbera

By Laurie Higgins

As a new school year begins, here are some of the arguments that parents may encounter when they challenge books (e.g. The Chocolate War, Fat Kid Rules the World, The Laramie Project, or Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes) for their problematic ideological messages, the nature and extent of profanity and obscenity, or the nature and extent of depictions of sexuality, followed by brief responses.

Parents who challenge a book because of language need to bear in mind that many of the parents and teachers who approve of these objectionable texts use the same obscene and profane language commonly and casually in their personal lives, even with their children, though they will not likely admit it. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that they will concede that profanity and obscenity are objectionable, for conceding that would constitute a personal indictment:

1. Parents are taking words out of context, and it is the context that justifies the language.

Response: There is no context that renders frequent and excessively obscene language acceptable in texts selected by public school teachers for minor children. In other words, the extreme nature and pervasiveness of obscenity renders the entire text unsuitable for public schools whose mission is to cultivate the best behavior in students.

2. Profane and obscene language is justified because it represents authentic adolescent language.

Response: If the author is justified in using this language to portray authentically adolescent culture and the emotional experiences of adolescents, then surely students are justified in using this language in school in order to be authentic and to express adequately and accurately their emotional truths. Teachers too should be allowed to use this language because it also represents authentic adult language and experience. In fact, society often erroneously and euphemistically refers to profanity and obscenity as “adult language.”

3. Counting numbers of swear words constitutes an immature or silly evaluative mechanism.

Response: Taking into account the extent of foul language is neither silly nor juvenile. There is a substantive difference between one incident of “f**k” and one hundred. The incessant drumbeat of obscenities desensitizes readers to their offensiveness and normalizes their use. Moreover, although adults may distinguish between literary use and endorsement, many adolescents do not.

First, the prevalence of foul language should be taken into account. Second, the nature of the obscenity or profanity should be taken into account. Third, who is using the offensive language should be taken into account. Is it the hero or the antagonist? Fourth, parents and educators should realize that books with profuse obscenity and the willingness of educators’ to teach them convey the message that there are justifiable reasons and contexts for using extremely foul language.

4. Since students mature at different rates, some students are mature enough for these texts. Parents, therefore, should decide what is appropriate for their child.

Response: Whoever makes this argument should be asked to define maturity. If they are referring to intellectual development, then it is irrelevant to the discussion in that parents who challenge texts because of language, sexuality, or pro-homosexual messages, are not doing so because they find the material intellectually inaccessible.
If educators are referring to emotional maturity, meaning that students are emotionally stable enough to read and discuss emotionally difficult material without being traumatized, that too is likely irrelevant, for few parents who object to language, sexuality, or pro-homosexual messages are concerned that their children will be emotionally traumatized.

The concern conservative parents have is with moral development. They recognize that all adolescents, including even mature high school seniors, are not yet adults. They are still constructing a moral compass. They are impressionable, malleable, and much more vulnerable to external influences than are adults whose moral compass is likely fixed and stable. For a teacher to contend that there is any 12-18 year-old whose moral compass is fully developed, mature, and fixed represents an ignorant and hubristic assertion.

Every parent should be able to send their child to school confident that their beliefs regarding decency and morality will not be challenged by educators or curricula, especially since this confidence can be secured without compromising the academic enterprise. It is even more important today in a culture in which profanity, obscenity, and sexual imagery relentlessly bombard our youth that schools stand as one of the last bastions of integrity, civility, and temperance.

5. A small minority group is trying to impose their morality or religious beliefs on the whole community.

Response: Since schools are ostensibly committed to honoring the voices of all in the community, there is no justifiable reason to ignore the concerns of even minority voices. Schools should respect the values of people of faith, especially when doing so does not compromise student learning. In addition, objections to obscenity, sexuality, or pro-homosexual messages can be either religious or secular in nature. If objections to, for example, the use of obscenity represented the imposition of religious belief, then why do virtually all school districts have policies against its use by students in school?  It is the mark of a civilized society to honor the concerns and values of people of diverse faiths and to aspire to decency.

6. There are other options for those who object to particular texts.

Response: First, opting out of reading an assigned class text results in a diminished, isolated academic experience for students. But equally important is the issue of whether taxpayers, even those who have no children in school, should be required to fund the teaching of offensive material. A text like Angels in America contributes to the debasement of an already vulgar culture, and schools should never in any way contribute to the baser aspects of culture. This does not mean that texts must avoid looking at the flaws and evil that afflict man. Rather, it means that we should choose texts that look at the presence of ignobility and evil but do so in ways that inspire, edify, chasten, and point us in the direction of truth, beauty and righteousness. Texts like Angels in America do none of this.

 7. Refusing to offer this book will lead ineluctably to the world of book-burning à la Fahrenheit 451.

Response: This is an irrational, alarmist, specious canard. There is simply no evidence that including in selection criteria the nature and extent of obscene language or sexuality, or a consideration of highly controversial political messages will result in wholesale book banning. There is, however, ample evidence, that a steadfast refusal to ever take into account these elements will result in a slippery slide down the other slope to the use of corrosively vulgar and polemical texts.

8. This book has won prestigious literary awards or has been approved by the American Library Association (ALA).

Response:  This justification begs the question: Who serves on committees that award prizes or review texts? And this argument calls for a serious, open, and honest examination of the ideological monopoly that controls academia and the elite world of the arts that for decades has engaged in censorship of conservative scholarship. To offer as justification for teaching a text the garnering of literary prizes or ALA approval without acknowledging that those who award the prizes and belong to the ALA are generally of the same ideological bent is an exercise in sophistry.

What school committees, departments, administrations, school boards, the ALA, the National Education Association (NEA), and organizations that award literary prizes desperately need is the one form of diversity about which they are least concerned and to which they are least committed: ideological diversity.

9. Kids relate to this book and, therefore, it captures and holds their interest.

Response: If this criterion has assumed a dominant place in the selection process, then teachers have abandoned their proper role as educators. Appealing to the sensibilities and appetites of adolescents should not be the goal of educators. There’s another word for capitulating to the tastes of adolescents: it is called pandering. Schools should teach those texts that students will likely not read on their own. We should teach those texts that are intellectually challenging and offer insight, wisdom, beauty, and truth. We should avoid those that are highly polemical, blasphemous, and vulgar.

10. To remove this text constitutes censorship.

Response: Parents who object to the inclusion of texts on recommended or required reading lists due to obscene language, sexuality, or highly controversial messages are not engaging in some kind of inappropriate censorship. All educators evaluate curricular materials for objectionable content, including language, sexuality, and controversial themes. The irony is that when teachers decide not to select a text due to these elements, the choice constitutes an exercise in legitimate decision-making, but when parents engage in it, they are tarred with the label of “censor.”

Furthermore, virtually no parents advocate prior restraint and only rarely are they asking for the removal of a text from a school library. Rather, parents are suggesting that it is reasonable to include the nature and extent of profanity, obscenity, and sexuality when selecting texts to be recommended and/or taught to minors in public schools.

Are those teachers, administrators, and school board members who disagree with that suggestion saying that they will never take into account the nature and extent of profanity, obscenity, and sexuality? If they are claiming that they will never take into account these elements, then parents should reconsider their fitness for teaching.

In all four years of high school English, students read approximately 28-32 books. From the dozens and dozens of texts available, it seems unlikely that any student’s education would be compromised by teachers, in the service of respect for parental values, comity, and modesty, avoiding the most controversial texts.

Laurie Higgins is a writer and public school teacher in the Chicago area.

 Ft. Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle held yet another extraordinary press conference Tuesday, in which he called on the Florida tourism officials to stop promoting homosexual bathhouses — places where men go for anonymous sex with other men — as part of their marketing to homosexuals. 

You can watch portions of Mayor Naugle’s statement on the Sun-Sentinel website (click on the main video). On the same website — go to the third video on the right: “Mayor Naugle’s latest press conference turns heated” — you can watch another video in which homosexual activist Michael Rajner of the Campaign to End AIDS begins yelling to drown out the comments of pro-family activist Janet Folger. For more on Rajner’s ugly, intolerant antics, see our story HERE.

Of course, Rajner’s was rewarded for his anti-First Amendment bullying by being given his own one-on-one web interview by the Sun-Sentinel! (Click the second video, innocuously titled, “Reaction to Mayor Naugle’s press conference.”)

Not surprisingly, the Sun-Sentinel appears to be trying to belittle Naugle’s claim that public sex and reckless, homosexual sex-club activity is a serious public health problem. However, our story, “Homosexual Male ‘Cruising’ Site Lists 13 Pages of Anonymous Sex ‘Hook-up’ Locations in Ft. Lauderdale Area Alone” — which lists two 24/7 “gay” bathhouses operating in the city — makes clear that there is a real network of organized promiscuity (WARNING: HIGHLY OFFENSIVE MATERIAL). 

The following are excerpts of the Sun-Sentinel story — which does not mention bathhouses at all:

Mayor Naugle, other speakers attack gay sex

By Brittany Wallman | Sun-Sentinel.com
7:46 PM EDT, August 21, 2007

FORT LAUDERDALE – Mayor Jim Naugle and several religious leaders held a news conference Tuesday to draw attention to what they described as the moral and health risks of gay sex.

Naugle is at the center of a political war between gays and religious conservatives that started earlier this summer when he said public bathrooms in Fort Lauderdale are plagued by gay men cruising for sex and said he uses the term “homosexual” because “most of them aren’t gay. They’re unhappy.”

At a news conference in front of City Hall on Tuesday, Naugle and other speakers called on gays to end promiscuous sex in order to stem Broward County’s HIV/AIDS crisis. Though the health department has no statistics concerning how many cases of HIV are contracted via sex in public bathrooms or parks, Naugle has tied the two issues together.

For Michael Rajner, tolerance is a one-way street. 

By Peter LaBarbera 

If an honest historian ever writes an objective history of homosexual activism in America, he or she will have to document many incidents of the sort witnessed (and enabled) by reporters in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on Tuesday.

At the press conference in support of Mayor Jim Naugle’s opposition to male-on-male “public sex,” HIV-infected Michael Rajner of the “Campaign to End AIDS” (or was that the “Coalition to End Others’ Free Speech Rights”?) decided he didn’t like what pro-family advocate Janet Folger of Faith2Action was saying in support of Naugle.

So Rajner did what radical homosexual activists have done for years (think way back to Anita Bryant getting a pie in the face …): he began shouting over Folger, who was speaking at the microphone, drowning out her message and disrupting the Mayor’s press conference. (He even accused Folger of “demonizing AIDS!”) The media didn’t seem to protest.

You can watch it all on this Sun-Sentinel website — just click on the third video on the right, the one innocuously titled, “Mayor Naugle’s latest press conference turns heated.” (The video could have been titled, “Homosexual activists shouts down speaker at press conference.”)

Memo to Michael Rajner: next time just call your own press conference. 

If Rajner’s self-important outburst wasn’t bad enough, the Sun-Sentinel then proceeded to reward him for for it. The liberal newspaper gave its camera to Rajner for a one-on-one web-video “reaction” to the Naugle press conference. You can view Rajner’s cliche-ridden rant against Naugle and his supporters on the same Sun-Sentinel website (the second video down on the right), “Reaction to Mayor Naugle’s press conference.”

Nothing like creating an incentive for intolerance. Now try to imagine the Sun-Sentinel or any liberal media being similarly solicitous of a conservative activist who shouted down a “gay” speaker. Right. It’s time for the media to return to some semblance of objectivity, and to stop coddling spoiled “gay” activists who do not understand, or simply refuse to abide by, the rules of fair play and civil discourse.

By Dr. Peter Jones

Published by CWIPP, Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet

In 1974, when I left the States to teach in “godless” France, the cultural revolution was a Left coast/San Fran’ phenom’, and America was still “Christian.” When I returned in 1991, I was in for culture shock, but still never imagined what lay ahead.

One man warned us. In 1978, Pastor Charles Mcllhenny recorded his experiences after his church fired a homosexual organist (When the Wicked Seize a City). Church property was repeatedly vandalized and his family almost killed by a firebomb. “Law enforcement” never found the culprits. Mcllhenny used San Francisco as a striking example of what America might become. Are we “goin’ to San Francisco?” as the 60s hit song asked?

… It’s Not a Joke Anymore!

  Should transsexual and transvestite (cross-dressing) men get legal “rights” based on their gender-confused “identity” and behavior? Above, a man who has become a “she-male” using female hormones rides “topless” for blocks atop a float in this year’s Chicago’s “gay pride” parade. Police did nothing. Photo: Americans For Truth.

When [CNN’s Larry] King asked [male-to-female transgender activist Steve Stanton] if he stands up when he goes to the bathroom in a woman’s restroom, he replied: “No, I don’t. No, I sit down in the woman’s bathroom.” — Traditional Values Coalition report

By Peter LaBarbera

Remember that joke about a lesbian trapped in a man’s body? … It’s not a joke anymore! Folks, it just doesn’t get any stranger than the “transgender” movement. We pity the men and women who struggle with gender issues and rebel against their God-given sex, but the gender-bending warriors (activist groups like GenderPAC) are serious about radically changing our culture. They’re even promoting “gender nonconformity” among our youth. Do not underestimate them.

The “transgender” lobby has copied aggressive “gay” activist tactics and is on the verge of creating federal “civil rights” based on gender confusion. Their top goal? Passage of the “Thought Crimes” and “ENDA Our Freedom” bills. If these become law, we’re talking about federal “rights” — and that means federal lawsuits — for “she-males” — biological men who act as if they are women and even demand to use female restrooms (see our story, “The Transg-ENDA: Man in Purple Suit Invades Ladies’ Restroom in Md.”). 

When gender-twisting groups are publishing papers titled, “Peeing In Peace: A Resource Guide For Transgender Activists And Allies” (click HERE for TVC’s analysis of the paper), you know “civil rights” is being contorted beyond recognition.

TAKE ACTION:

1. Read the reports at bottom by this message by Traditional Values Coalition — a leading pro-family group on Capitol Hill opposing the homosexual- and transsexual activist movements. See the related the AFTAH links as well.
2. Contact your U.S. Senators and U.S. Representative (e-mail: www.congress.org; phone: 202-224-3121). Tell them to oppose the ENDA (Employment Nondiscrimination Act), which would subject businesses to lawsuits by homosexual and “she-male” (“transgender”) activists;
3. Also ask your senators to vote against the S. 1105, the so-called “Hate Crimes” bill, which passed the House and is expected for a vote in the Senate soon. This “thought crimes” bill will make it easier for homosexual- and transgender activists — working hand-in-hand with liberal prosecutors — to harass conservative businessmen and Christian/pro-family advocates by falsely claiming themselves as victims of “hate.”

______________________________  

TVC reports:

Larry King Shills For Transgender Movement

Traditional Values Coalition website

August 14, 2007 — Larry King’s August 10 show featured a panel of men and women who think they’re the opposite sex. Some have already undergone so-called “sex reassignment” surgery, while others have not.

King let them tell their stories about feeling like they were the opposite sex, and he interviewed two sons of a father who decided he was a woman. The teens expressed support for their father, even though he now looks like a Hollywood actress. Their father, who now calls himself Jessica, told King that he’s a lesbian and dates women. He told King, “I identify as lesbian, yes, absolutely.”

King also interviewed Steve Stanton, the former city manager of Largo, Florida. Steve decided he was a woman and currently dresses like one. He has not had a sex-change operation but is scheduled for one. When King asked him if he stands up when he goes to the bathroom in a woman’s restroom, he replied: “No, I don’t. No, I sit down in the woman’s bathroom.”

TVC’s reports, “A Gender Identity Disorder Goes Mainstream”  and “Will Transgender Activists Come To Your School?” explain how the transgender activist movement is seeking to destroy the idea of male and female.  In addition, transgender activists are seeking to have their “gender identity” given federally protected class status under three key bills being considered in Congress: ENDA, Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, and the Clarification of Federal Employment Protections Act.

Here’s how FOXNews.com lead with its story on the Dallas Cecil Sinclair story (emphasis added). The story ends up including a fair representation of the church’s viewpoint, but the headline and lead paragraphs unfairly make the church look cruel and petty. The true story is that the church could not abide a memorial service that would glamorize the homosexual lifestyle. Here’s the headline and beginning of the FOX story, which unfortunately is all many busy people wil read:

Texas Megachurch Cancels Memorial for Gay Navy Vet
Saturday, August 11, 2007

ARLINGTON, Texas —  A megachurch canceled a memorial service for a Navy veteran 24 hours before it was to start because the deceased was gay.

Officials at the nondenominational High Point Church knew that Cecil Howard Sinclair was gay when they offered to host his service, said his sister, Kathleen Wright. But after his obituary listed his life partner as one of his survivors, she said, it was called off.

“It’s a slap in the face. It’s like, ‘Oh, we’re sorry he died, but he’s gay so we can’t help you,'” she said Friday….

Click HERE for the rest of the FOXNews.com story on the Cecil Sinclair controversy