The following is excerpted from the “A rapper plea: ‘Where homophobia ends, true freedoms begin,’” appearing May 23 in the Lansing, Michigan weekly newspaper City Pulse: 

Homosexual activists rallied at the state Capitol Tuesday to protest a Michigan Court of Appeals ruling in February that public employers may not recognize homosexual relationships for the purpose of providing taxpayer-financed spousal benefits…
 
“Sean Kosofsky, director of policy for the (homosexual) Triangle Foundation, exhorted the crowd: ‘Are you tired of a polluted political atmosphere caused by the toxic diatribes of Gary Glenn and the American Family Association?’  The crowd replied with a resounding ‘yes.’
 
…Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan and co-author of the 2004 (Marriage Protection Amendment), feels that the outcome lives up to its original intent. ‘The issue is about government recognition,’ he said in an interview last week. ‘And government recognition includes taxpayer-provided benefits.’  …Glenn cited an October 2004 Detroit Free Press poll taken before the proposal’s passage.  At the time, 53 percent of those polled approved of the proposal, and 54 percent opposed allowing government and university employers to provide benefits to same-sex couples.  According to Glenn, this proves that voter intent was parallel with the authors’ intent and that voters saw the proposal as a way to prohibit such benefits.”

Americans For Truth Exclusive 

Editor’s note: the following firsthand report tells of an invasion of women’s privacy by a male “transgender” activist using the ladies restroom in Maryland — as the state’s pro-family movement was fighting legislation granting rights based on homosexuality. Neither Galladora nor Fortlage can recall the year of the incident, but it was between 1999 and 2001, when Maryland’s legislature passed a “sexual orientation” nondiscrimination bill, later signed into law by the state’s Democratic governor, Parris Glendening.

When a society raises gender confusion (men in dresses) and its cousin, homosexuality, to the level of “civil rights,” it’s time to recognize that this nation is in a state of moral decline unheard of in our history. –– Peter LaBarbera

TAKE ACTION:  If enacted into law, The Employment NonDiscrimination Act (ENDA, H.R. 2015) and the federal “hate crimes” bill, H.R. 1592 (recently passed by the House), would be the first time that “gender identity rights” are recognized in federal law. This would usher in a new wave of persecution for people opposed to homosexuality and gender confusion of the sort described below. Call your senators (202-224-3121; www.congress.org/) – and the White House (202-456-1111) –– to oppose H.R. 1592, and call all of your federal elected officials to oppose the ENDA bill.
 
_________________________ 

By Bunny Galladora

The hearing room of the Judicial Committee in Annapolis, Maryland, was overflowing with all sorts of unusual looking people hours before the hearing on a bill to add “sexual orientation” to the list of protected categories was to begin. It would be a very long day. After many people had testified giving their various positions on the issue, the Judicial Committee took a break.

Conrae Fortlage and I left the hearing room to “freshen up” in the ladies’ restroom.  When it came time to wash our hands, I finished quickly and waited for Conrae inside the bathroom by the door, a few steps away. Conrae lingered slowly, applying lipstick and fiddling with her hair. She seemed to be staring in the mirror for an unusual amount of time. I paid little attention to the person dressed in a purple ladies pants suit with a white blouse standing next to Conrae — or to Conrae’s behavior which was out of character for her, but instead my thoughts were on the testimony I would be giving soon.

As we left the ladies’ room, the door shutting behind us, Conrae began to tell me that the person standing beside her in the bathroom was actually a man. Conrae said she first noticed that the person was unusually tall for a woman, then, while looking in the mirror, she had focused on his unusually large Adam’s apple — and other features normally found in a male. She noticed that the person was wearing a woman’s wig.

Americans For Truth contacted homosexual activist icon Frank Kameny and he e-mailed us the following response to our report about that he spoke at a NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) meeting in 1981. Our report was based on an account in NAMBLA’s 1997 publication, “A Way Forward”; see excerpt in our story; we have no further information about what he said because NAMBLA did not include any information about Kameny’s talk to them.

We certainly don’t share Kameny’s assessment that this is a “tempest in a teapot and much ado about nothing” — as NAMBLA is about as sick as it gets in this world. But I will reserve comment on his note until later. — Peter LaBarbera 

P.S. There was a typo in our original story and we neglected to include the name “Mel Boozer” (a Democratic “gay” activist who also spoke at a NAMBLA meeting) in the NAMBLA excerpt. You can read the corrected story HERE.

Kameny, who turned 82 on Monday (May 21), writes:

Peter:

In your website I have found no actual quotations supposedly made by me at this 1981 Baltimore meeting which I supposedly attended.

1.  The mere addressing of a group says absolutely nothing about the content of that address, and does not in the least necessarily imply support.

2.  Starting about 1966 and continuing until very roughly 1985 or a bit earlier, (and to a lesser degree through to the present), I was making some 100-150 public appearances per year — radio, television, panel discussions, private groups, political contexts, formal testimony, schools at various levels, etc.,etc, etc.  So few of them stand out individually.

I have no memory of actually appearing before NAMBLA, but that does not constitute a flat denial.  I just don’t remember an actual appearance.

The following piece was published Saturday by Illinois Review editor Fran Eaton: 

Falsani Takes a Break to Suck her Thumb 

Cathleen Falsani (cfalsani@suntimes.com) apparently is taking the weekend off from blogging to suck her thumb.    She deserves a rest.  She actually should take more than a weekend off.  Her employers at the Sun-Times should mercifully give her a l-o-n-g time off. 

This morning on her blog, she lists all the nasty things Christians called her while defending Rev. Jerry Falwell after they read her vicious column this week.  Falsani’s wallowing in a self-pity pool this weekend, sucking her thumb and contemplating how mean “Jesus followers” are to her.

Okay, Cathleen didn’t call Jerry Falwell a “nappy-headed ho” like Imus.  She didn’t joke about sexually assaulting public officials as others did.  Cathleen merely celebrated the Rev’s passing with a chorus of “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead,” and mocked the life ministry of an evangelical leader.  She still should be fired.

Maybe Cathleen doesn’t understand that her comments are akin to the Westboro Baptist Church clan picketing a military funeral.  Maybe she doesn’t see that her hatred has blinded her own ability to value those who don’t view the world through her eyes.  Maybe she absolutely doesn’t tolerate those who believe in absolutes. 

I would fight for her right to say and write what she wants.  But she broke all forms of civil decorum with her rude and disgusting disrespect of the fallen Falwell.  And it wouldn’t be so appalling if it hadn’t come from the keyboard of someone who claims to have a special interest in writing about religion. 

Do us all a favor, and move on to entertainment or cooking or interior decorating if you must write, Cathleen.  We turn our backs on the Westboro Baptist Clan’s tactics and we turn our backs on yours.

Drag Queens as Role Models? This is a man, but he goes by “Raquel Blake” and served as the Master of Ceremonies at the Boston homosexual “youth pride” event–subsidized by the taxpayers through the Massachusetts “Commission on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth.” One leader celebrated how, for the first time, the (Democratic) Massachusetts governor’s proclamation in support of “youth pride” mentioned “transgender and bisexual” youth.

Porno PFLAG: Another wholesome role model for children….The shirt worn by this man reads, “I [Heart sign] Penis; PFLAG: We Are Family”; PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) is a national parents group that erroneously believes that the way to properly love a “GLBT” child is by affirming his or her choice to live in a homosexual, bisexual or transgendered lifestyle. Why are PFLAG and other homosexual groups so reckless in exposing children to promiscuous and perverted sexual messages?

Faces of Lesbian Youth Pride: Remember when kids “hamming it up” meant making funny faces? Here’s the modern, Massachusetts homosexual “youth pride” version: three girls act out lesbian lust for the camera. Yes, children are corrupted when educators and the state promote the acceptance of homosexual behavior and gender confusion.

Is it really “loving” to confirm teenagers (or even pre-teens) as “gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered” — without, of course, informing them about the ramifications of those lifestyles? Should the government promote transsexualism (cross-dressing) and bisexuality to young people as normative behavior? On THIS LINK, MassResistance exposes the annual homosexual/bisexual/transgender “youth pride” event in Boston.

You need to see this, even if it takes you FAR from your “comfort zone”! This is where self-styled “queer” activists and their liberal allies want to take the nation: full governmental support for the promotion of radical and dangerous sexual/gender behaviors to impressionable children, organizing through the public schools. Please take the time to view the video and photos on my friend Brian Camenker’s MassResistance website (scroll down a tad for the video), then pass this on to a friend. Get informed, then get involved to stop the corruption of our young people.– Peter LaBarbera

MassResistance writes:

=== 1.  View the photos (and video): Homosexual “Youth Pride” event in downtown Boston was worse than you could imagine.  Your state government at work. (No wonder the Governor wouldn’t be there!)  ===

“Love, simply love. Love, simply love.”  That’s the message that was pumped over the loudspeakers at the homosexual lobby’s annual “Youth Pride” Day, May 12. And that was just the beginning.

The annual “Youth Pride” event is a kind of “meet and greet” for the homosexual “Gay Straight Alliance” clubs in high schools (and middle schools) across Massachusetts. It’s where the adult activists bring all the kids to one place for an entire day each year. They mingle with all kinds of very weird adults, many apparently quite disturbed.  As in past years, it started with speeches and a carnival of sorts at noon. Then a parade of the kids and adults through the streets of Boston. Later, they all went to the “transgender prom” in the main interior of Boston City Hall, compliments of Mayor Menino.

It’s pretty ghastly to look at. To say this was a sex offender’s candy store is not an exaggeration. This year there were more weird adults mingling everywhere — lots of them official guests of the organizers.  The “transgender” element was everywhere — cross-dressing men and women trying to become men. And you could tell that many of the kids were very confused and vulnerable. Kids were encouraged to act out their “gayness” and feel “safe” doing it.

Gov. Deval Patrick, a public supporter of the homosexual movement in Massachusetts, declined to attend this event because of its reputation for depraved activity with children. That turned out to be a good choice for him (tho not for the kids).

But official state support was everywhere. The Governor released an official state proclamation, which was read over the loudspeakers. The new head of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (a man “married” to another man) gave a speech. The police were there for “security” and cleared the streets for the parade. And it was organized by the new super-charged “Massachusetts Commission on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth” created by the Legislature last year.

Take a look for yourself at our report [this link takes you to several others about “youth pride”]: http://www.massresistance.org/docs/events07/youthpride07/index.html

   At left is a photo on the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History website announcing that the (taxpayer-funded) museum had acquired “civil rights pioneer” Frank Kameny’s papers. At right is a newsletter of the NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Love Association, the notorious pro-man-boy-sex group, whose conference Kameny addressed in 1981.

By Peter LaBarbera

I was going through some of my old files on the “gay” movement and came upon a nugget of “gay” history that I’d forgotten: longtime homosexual activist Frank Kameny — billed as a “gay civil rights pioneer” by the U.S. Government’s National Museum of American History — addressed a meeting of the notorious “man-boy-love” group NAMBLA in 1981. According to the NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) publication “A Way Forward,” Kameny spoke at a NAMBLA membership conference in Baltimore in 1981. 

Now isn’t it interesting that our government — speaking for us as a nation — wants to officially recognize this pro-homosexuality icon as a “civil rights pioneer” when, apparently, Kameny once supported the “civil right” of boys to have sex with men — why else would he attend such a meeting? (NOTE: If you’re opposed to the notion of our Government likening the cause of organized homosexuality to the noble Black civil rights movement, click on AFTAH initial story on Kameny HERE.) The media viciously attack Christian conservative leaders like Jerry Falwell but they give the “gays” a pass. This is why the homosexual “rights” movement has prospered.

Mr. Kameny is an avid letter-writer — and we will be publishing the long interview that Ken Ervin and I did with him several years ago — but maybe he can tell us why he appeared at NAMBLA’s meeting and what he said; Frank, please write me at americansfortruth@comcast.net.

Last year, Americans For Truth alerted you to the U.S. Government’s treatment of Kameny as a civil rights hero by collecting his papers for preservation in the National Museum of American History. Kameny is a brilliant but very confused fellow who, although an atheist, coined the phrase “Gay Is Godly,” and who calls people like me “Christianofascists.”

He also calls us “nutty fundamentalists,” but is there anything more nutty than giving credence to the idea that boys should be able to have sex with men?

Excerpted from AnnCoulter.com; read the whole column HERE. Note the part about Tinky Winky: yes, Virginia, there is a conspiracy — a conspiracy in the liberal, pro-“gay” media to make good people committed to Biblical values look stupid — and Falwell was a victim: 

JERRY FALWELL — SAY HELLO TO RONALD REAGAN!
May 16, 2007

No man in the last century better illustrated Jesus’ warning that “All men will hate you because of me” than the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who left this world on Tuesday. Separately, no man better illustrates my warning that it doesn’t pay to be nice to liberals.

Falwell was a perfected Christian. He exuded Christian love for all men, hating sin while loving sinners. This is as opposed to liberals, who just love sinners. Like Christ ministering to prostitutes, Falwell regularly left the safe confines of his church to show up in such benighted venues as CNN.

He was such a good Christian that back when we used to be on TV together during Clinton’s impeachment, I sometimes wanted to say to him, “Step aside, reverend — let the mean girl handle this one.” (Why, that guy probably prayed for Clinton!)

For putting Christ above everything — even the opportunity to make a humiliating joke about Clinton — Falwell is known as “controversial.” Nothing is ever as “controversial” as yammering about Scripture as if, you know, it’s the word of God or something.

From the news coverage of Falwell’s death, I began to suspect his first name was “Whether You Agree With Him or Not.”

Even Falwell’s fans, such as evangelist Billy Graham and former President Bush, kept throwing in the “We didn’t always agree” disclaimer. Did Betty Friedan or Molly Ivins get this many “I didn’t always agree with” qualifiers on their deaths? And when I die, if you didn’t always agree with me, would you mind keeping it to yourself?

Let me be the first to say: I ALWAYS agreed with the Rev. Falwell. ….

… I note that in Falwell’s list of Americans he blamed for ejecting God from public life, only the gays got a qualifier. Falwell referred to gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle. ….

… Also the ones who promote the gay lifestyle in a children’s cartoon.

Beginning in early 1998, the news was bristling with stories about a children’s cartoon PBS was importing from Britain that featured a gay cartoon character, Tinky Winky, the purple Teletubbie with a male voice and a red handbag.

People magazine gleefully reported that Teletubbies was “aimed at Telebabies as young as 1 year. But teenage club kids love the products’ kitsch value, and gay men have made the purse-toting Tinky Winky a camp icon.”

In the Nexis archives for 1998 alone, there are dozens and dozens of mentions of Tinky Winky being gay — in periodicals such as Newsweek, The Toronto Star, The Washington Post (twice!), The New York Times and Time magazine (also twice).

In its Jan. 8, 1999, issue, USA Today accused The Washington Post of “outing” Tinky Winky, with a “recent Washington Post In/Out list putting T.W. opposite Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche, essentially ‘outing’ the kids’ show character.”

Michael Musto of The Village Voice boasted that Tinky Winky was “out and proud,” noting that it was “a great message to kids — not only that it’s OK to be gay, but the importance of being well accessorized.”

All this appeared before Falwell made his first mention of Tinky Winky.

After one year of the mainstream media laughing at having put one over on stupid bourgeois Americans by promoting a gay cartoon character in a TV show for children, when Falwell criticized the cartoon in February 1999, that same mainstream media howled with derision that Falwell thought a cartoon character could be gay….

Click HERE to read Coulter’s entire column

Robert Knight is a hero in the culture wars and is director of the Culture and Media Institute, a division of the Media Research Center. Here he briefly lays out the truth behind the infamous “Tinky Winky” smear against Rev. Jerry Falwell. The “Tinky Winky” story is a textbook study in how the media discredits and ridicules religious conservatives: 

Getting a Kick out of Falwell’s Death 

By Robert Knight
Culture and Media Institute
May 18, 2007

In many of his talks to Liberty University students, the Rev. Jerry Falwell emphasized the importance of “finishing well.”

Last Tuesday, he was at the top of his game when he unexpectedly died in the college office where he was planning more expansions of the fast-growing university that he founded in 1971.

The Rev. Falwell did a lot of things well, ticking off liberals right up to the end. How else would he have garnered the kind of tribute from a major newspaper’s religion writer that was headlined, “Sigh of relief over Falwell death.”

To make sure no one mistook her, Chicago Sun-Times Religion Writer Cathleen Falsani’s May 18 column explains her reaction to the news about Dr. Falwell on May 15:

“…My very first thought upon hearing of the Rev.  Falwell’s passing was: Good.  And I didn’t mean ‘good’ in a oh-good-he’s-gone-to-be-home-with-the-Lord kind of way. I mean ‘good’ as in ‘Ding-dong, the witch is dead.’”

Falsani, who claims to be a Christian, learned of this apparent good news in the airport departure lounge in Key West, a place where Jerry is not held in great esteem.

She went on to compare the good reverend to the foul-mouthed TV mobster Tony Soprano, and accused Falwell of saying “insensitive, mean-spirited, sometimes downright hateful things …in the name of Christ.”  She did do a bit of backing up, saying that maybe, in his own way, God used Jerry so that “lives were changed for the better by his ministry, his college, and the flip side of the endeavors he made in Jesus’ name.”

Meanwhile, she informed readers of her own apparent spiritual superiority, noting that “not all of us are that self-righteous, judgmental and holier than thou.”

I guess that openly enjoying the death of a fellow Christian and utterly distorting his Christian message into a caricature of hate is the mark of the nonjudgmental. I think it’s somewhere in the Sermon on the Mount.

Of course, Falsani is not the only journalist to use Rev. Falwell’s death as one more opportunity to cast fiery darts at him.

Virtually every major news outlet made sure that Falwell’s controversial comment following 9/11 and his notorious “outing” of the “gay Teletubby” Tinky Winky got ink and airtime.

The New York Times noted that it was an article in the National Liberty Journal, which Falwell published, that touched off the Teletubbies ruckus.  But the article failed to mention that the Liberty Journal piece quoted The Washington Post’s outing of Tinky Winky, and that the gay press and several other mainstream outlets had cheered openly for a year that the boy in the purple suit, carrying a purse and bearing the homosexual symbol, an upside down triangle, on his head, was clearly the first openly “gay” character in a children’s program.

I recall faxing The Washington Post article to the National Liberty Journal back in February 1999.  I had also faxed an article from a gay newspaper in which one of Teletubbies’ creators boasted openly that Tinky Winky’s character, which combines a deep daddy’s voice and mommy’s handbag, was a deliberate attempt to make children think differently about gender.  The Liberty Journal editors decided to stick with the Washington Post as the main source, which seems like a wise thing to do.  But in the end, it didn’t matter.

In the 10 years since, the press magnified and sustained the myth that Jerry Falwell “outed” Tinky Winky with no apparent evidence. He just did it for the heck of it, to be mean to gays.  As smears go, it made him easy to ridicule. Try as they might, that was the best they could do, since they unearthed no hint of scandal involving his integrity. In March 1999, Liberty Journal Senior Editor J. M. Smith pointed out the media’s distortions, but the myth continued to gain strength. Dr. Falwell himself took it in stride, even placing a stuffed Tinky Winky on top of his computer as a joke. Given his own generous spirit and lack of vitriol, he didn’t seem to understand the damage that was done to his reputation.

Click HERE to read the rest of Bob Knight’s column on the Culture & Media Institute website