Excerpted from Liberals Aim to Push Ideas Through Congress, published Nov 16, 2006, by Associated Press:

…The president of the largest national gay-rights group, Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign, said he has high hopes for two long-pending proposals that failed to get through the GOP-controlled Congress. One would outlaw employment discrimination [ENDA] against gays, lesbians and transgender people; another would include them among the groups protected in federal hate-crimes legislation.

Gay activists also would like to see Congress repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that prohibits gay members of the military from being open about their sexual orientation – but a push for this may come somewhere down the road.

“Everyone remembers the fight President Clinton had when he made this his first major political issue in 1993,” said Aaron Belkin, director of a University of California, Santa Barbara think tank that studies gays and the military.

“While opinion on letting gays serve has moved leaps and bounds since then, the new Democratic Congress is not likely to come out strongly on this one from the get-go,” Belkin said.

Solmonese indicated that leading gay-rights groups will be patient with the new Democratic leadership, not pushing to have their issues be at the very top of the 2007 agenda.

“What we’ve got is a new and respectful Congress that’s open to our community, to learning the specifics of our issues,” he said. “To stress right now – ‘This is what we want and this is when we want it’ – would be premature.”

Continue reading at MSN…

Radical homosexual activists hate biblical marriage, because to achieve its benefits and blessings they must first conform to God’s plan for sexuality…

Excerpted from Why Homosexuals Despise Marriage, by Kevin McCullough, published Oct, 2006, by WorldNet Daily:

…With utter contempt for God and for the voters of their state, the New Jersey seven unanimously said that all who live in the confines of its borders must fundamentally agree to the moral premise that what the Bible terms perversion the voters should call healthy.

But why? What’s the real goal of the activists, the judges and the radicals who seek to subvert a moral worldview?

The answer is simple: No longer satisfied with practicing the unspeakable perverse sexual pleasures that their hearts seek in private bedrooms, they wish to be able to do so in public. They are also suffering from such immense guilt over their sexual behaviors, because they know inherently that the actions they perform are in fact unhealthy, that they will go to any means necessary to try and shut down the voices in their heads that tell them it is wrong.

They wrongfully believe that the guilty voice within them is an echo of a prudish state that seeks to limit their freedoms. They wrongfully believe that the judgment they feel is emanating from “Bible thumpers.” And what they fail to admit is that the voice that condemns them the loudest is never a human voice – but in fact the voice of their own conscience informed by the truth of the God who created them.

There are attributes of marriage that same-sex couples will never achieve.

TAKE ACTION

Excerpted from Scandalous San Francisco ‘Gay Pride’ Pastor and Chancellor Back in Saddle after “Leave”, by Hilary White, published Nov 17, 2006, by LifeSiteNews:

The pastor of Most Holy Redeemer Catholic parish in the heart of San Francisco’s heavily homosexual Castro neighbourhood, is back in his position after spending some time “on leave from his duties,” following a scandal involving a homosexual activist group.

Father Stephen Meriwether, who also serves as Chancellor of the San Francisco Archdiocese, was placed “on leave” after his permission to allow a virulently anti-Catholic homosexual activist group to hold “revival bingo” games was revealed by faithful Catholic bloggers.

…The “Sisters,” whose motto is “go and sin some more” and describes itself as a “leading-edge order of queer nuns,” planned to hold regular bingo games including one that featured, as master of ceremonies, “Peaches Christ” (pictured left) on the Feast of All Souls, the day on which Catholics traditionally pray for their dead. The money raised by the games was to go to a number of AIDS and homosexual organizations including the parish’s own AIDS outreach group.

After a local Catholic posted information about the event to the popular ‘blog of Catholic apologist and writer, Mark Shea, the Archdiocese issued a statement on Oct. 30 saying that permission should not have been given and the group’s activities at the parish were to cease “immediately.”

Archdiocesan spokesman Maurice Healy said, “For years the group has directed contempt and ridicule at Catholic faith and practices… Fr. Meriwether is on leave from his duties.”

Another Catholic blogger and former editor of the magazine Catholic World Report, was sceptical of the veracity of the Archdiocese’ action.

“This is public relations damage control,” Domenico Bettinelli wrote. “A true attempt to stop the scandal to the faithful and assert Church teaching would take stronger and more public steps. This sounds like they’re doing just enough to take the heat off without having to do anything substantive that would annoy certain people.”

…Bettinelli’s scepticism seems to have been justified. Most Holy Redeemer parish website now carries a notice for a celebratory pancake breakfast, set for November 19, in honour of Fr. Meriwether’s return from “leave.”

The parish website carries a message from Fr. Meriwether saying,

“You will find the good people of our parish old, young, married, gay, lesbian, transgender, affluent, homeless, blue-collar, converts, cradle Catholics, radical, traditional, questioning, fervent.”

The website also includes links to various homosexual activist groups including Dignity San Francisco, the Gay Catholic Forum, the Conference of Catholic Lesbians, and the dissident anti-Catholic organization, Voice of the Faithful.

Father Meriwether was appointed to his post as archdiocesan chancellor by the former archbishop of San Francisco, William Levada. Levada is now a cardinal and serves in Rome as the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. As such, he is considered the second most powerful man in the Catholic Church.

…The website of the parish features photos of Fr. Meriwether blessing the regular parish contingent of marchers preparing to participate in the San Francisco “Gay Pride” parade. Included is a shot of Fr. Meriwether sprinkling the marchers with holy water while wearing full Mass vestments. Marchers from Most Holy Redeemer carried a banner sign and marched in the parade as a group. The photos show participants carrying the homosexual emblem of the rainbow flag and wearing t-shirts with the slogan, “Most Holy Redeemer, Pride 2006”.

Continue reading at LifeSite News…

(For the background on this update, click HERE.)

Excerpted from Wal-Mart Drops Gay Sex How-To Manual for Teens after LifeSiteNews.com Expose, by John-Henry Westen, published Nov 15, 2006 by LifeSiteNews:

…A Wal-Mart advertisement for the book was listed on the Wal-Mart website, but the web page which listed the information now says: “Product Not Found!”

LifeSiteNews.com contacted Wal-Mart spokesman Kory Lundberg for comment on the book’s removal, but no comment has yet been received.

Continue reading at LifeSite News…

From Christianity is Counting the Cost and Not Sweating the Small Stuff, by Jan LaRue, published Nov 16, 2006, by Concerned Women for America:

“Episcopal leaders vote to leave,” reads the caption today announcing that “two of Virginia’s most historic Episcopal parishes have voted to split from the Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia.” It’s a move that will likely lead to litigation and could cost the congregants of Truro Church in Fairfax (est. 1732) and The Falls Church (est. 1752) millions of dollars in prime real estate. George Washington was a member of the vestry of both churches. [Julia Duin, Washington Times, Nov. 16, 2006, p. 1].

When the Episcopal Church consecrated Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire, an exclamation point was added at the end of the handwriting that had been on the Church wall for many years. Robinson is an open homosexual who left his wife and children for a man.

By the way, if they had consecrated as bishop an unrepentant heterosexual adulterer or unmarried fornicator, the sin would be just as grievous. Sin brings equal opportunity condemnation.

Christianity is all about choices, costs and consequences. The congregants of Truro and The Falls Church reportedly told their leaders that “the theological disconnect between Biblical Christianity and the road the [Episcopal] Church had chosen to walk was so profound, the time had come to separate from the denomination.”

One of the countless characteristics that makes Jesus unique as the greatest leader of all time is that although He came to save all mankind from the condemnation of sin, He never stayed where He wasn’t wanted, and He never kept anyone from leaving. His words had a thinning effect on crowds. “For many are called but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:14)

In fact, He said that when someone leaves Him, it’s proof that the person isn’t one of His. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.” (I John 2:19)

Shaking off the dust of an unfriendly town and dodging stones came with Christ’s calling. But He never compromised. Everything He did was consistent with everything He said. He leaves no space between following Him and obeying Him.

“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20) Christ suffered the agony of the Cross because of His intolerance of sin and love of sinners. We can’t bless and make holy that which God has condemned as sinful.

A press release from TFP Student Action (the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property), published Nov 16, 2006:

Hollywood movie Brokeback Mountain is scheduled to stage at Seton Hall University, a Catholic institution founded in 1865. The film is currently listed on the university’s web site under “Multicultural Program Film & Lecture Series.”¹ TFP Student Action is calling for a peaceful protest because the film:

• Approves same-sex relations, adultery, nudity, profanity and drug use. It is a blow to Catholic education, America’s Christian roots, the institution of the family and very foundations of morality and society.
• Brokeback Mountain is the antithesis of authentic Catholic education. It scrambles human emotions and encourages students to tolerate sin. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops classified this pro-homosexual film as “morally offensive” – the lowest possible rating.

Click here to protest now. Your signature will make an impact.

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If you are banned by the state from acting on your faith and moral beliefs, then you are no longer free.–Peter LaBarbera

The Human Rights Commission said that Brockie’s “rights as a Christian were subordinate to those of homosexuals not to be discriminated against,” and that he “must restrict the practice of Christianity to his home and church, and not take it with him into the public marketplace.”

By Peter LaBarbera

Aging pop star and homosexual Elton John (pictured right with his longtime homosexual partner David Furnish) wants to “ban religion completely” because he says it promotes “hatred and spite against gays” (see Lifesite story below). People of faith are outraged, but do they understand that the homosexual lobby seeks to accomplish part of Elton’s dream–i.e., “banning” the outworking of traditional religion that results in speech and actions opposed to homosexuality?

There is an inherent incompatibility between rights based on homosexuality (“sexual orientation”) and traditional First Amendment and religious freedoms, especially for those who believe homosexual behavior is wrong. For a good book on this, I recommend my friend Janet Folger‘s Criminalizing Christianity, available on her Faith2Action’s website.

Here’s a primer on how “gay” activists and the liberal political allies (including activist judges) are moving to ban the application of religion with regard to homosexuality:

I. Step One in banning religion (critical of homosexuality):
Push Christian and religious speech defending Biblical sexual morality to the fringes; punish it, harass it or outlaw it altogether.

In John’s England, a Christian pro-family advocate, Stephen Green of the group Christian Voice, was recently arrested by the South Wales Police “Minorities Support Unit” simply for passing out a Biblical flier opposed to homosexuality outside a “gay” Mardi Gras event. The charges were dropped, but free speech and religious liberty are in jeopardy in this once-Christian land, with UK police hot on the trail of “homophobic” speech.

Consider the case of 67-year-old Christian street preacher Harry Hammond, a sufferer of Asperger’s Syndrome who in 2001 was holding a sign in the town square of Bournemouth with this horribly subversive message: “Stop Immorality, Stop Homosexuality, Stop Lesbianism.” After Hammond was physically harassed by youths, with water poured on him and mud thrown at him, police arrested him (not the thugs) after receiving complaints from homosexuals about his placard.

Local magistrates found the preacher guilty under a 1986 law of using abusive, threatening or insulting speech that could cause harassment or distress to nearby homosexuals–even though it was Hammond who was harmed! Hammond’s sign was ordered destroyed as if it were a dangerous weapon (which seems to be how radical “queer” activists regard Biblical truth). The case was appealed to a High Court after Hammond died, but according to the Christian Voice, “the Court held that the magistrates were entitled to find the sign to be insulting because it appeared to relate homosexuality and lesbianism to immorality.” Click HERE for another good article about Hammond’s case.

Direct, Biblical speech condemning homosexuality as wrong or–God forbid–leading to hell appears to be the most likely target of “hate crimes” prosecution (or speech likely NOT to be protected by the courts) in these early days of government action protecting homosexuality as a “civil right” or “human right.”

Ralph Ovadal is a man who uses very direct speech to rally the public against the homosexual agenda. In 1996, in Madison, Wisconsin, Ovadal, then with Wisconsin Christians United (WCU), was assaulted while protesting a pro-homosexual event at a local elementary school. Despite the hateful motivation of the assailant (he despised one of the WCU signs, “Homosexuality Is Wrong“), and the existence of a strong “hate crimes” law in Madison, the attacker was never charged with a “hate crime.” Indeed, the battery charge against him was dropped and he received just a slap on the wrist despite the severe injuries caused to Ovadal.

How differently would the case have been handled had it been Ovadal who viciously attacked a homosexual protester?

II. Step Two in banning religion (critical of homosexuality):
Create a definition of the family that is unacceptable to Bible believers and traditional religions, then mandate that all social agencies, corporations and ministries adhere to that state definition.

Earlier this year in Boston, Catholic Charities of Boston announced that it was closing down its adoption agency after 100 years of operation, because the Church could not countenance placing adoptive children in homosexual households, which the Vatican regards as “gravely immoral.” Placing children in homosexual-led homes is required under the state’s pro-“gay” nondiscrimination law.

“Gay” rights trumps common sense, religious freedom and the best interest of children, again.

In California, a state “domestic partnership” (DP) law requires that large companies doing business with the government provide DP coverage for their employees. The state law followed a 1997 law in San Francisco (copied by New York and other major cities) that forced local businesses doing business with the city to carry DP benefits for homosexual couples if they offer benefits for married couples.

If moral-minded businessmen, landlords–and even Christian schools and popular ministries–are forced to recognize and reward sinful homosexual couples, then the practice of their religion has been banned in this key area of their life.

III. Step Three in banning religion (critical of homosexuality):
Add homosexuality (“sexual orientation”) and gender confusion (“gender identity”) to the list of criteria for “civil rights” laws–and “diversity” policies in corporations. Then enforce these laws and policies against Christians, chipping away at the concept of religious exemptions.

Universities like Ohio State and Arizona State, citing their school’s “sexual orientation” nondiscrimination codes, have asserted that homosexual students have the right hold to leadership positions in campus Christian groups despite the “gay” students’ refusal to sign a Christian Statement of Faith (part of which proscribes homosexual practice). It is interesting to note that the campus ministries are willing to let homosexual students attend their meetings but not to assume leadership roles if they reject the group’s core beliefs.

Seems reasonable to me: do I have a “right” to be on the Board of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force?