Vicious GLN exemplifies left-wing hatred; refused to condemn 2011 brick attack against AFTAH

The radical “Gay Liberation Network is again targeting AFTAH’s banquet this Saturday for one of its protests. GLN’s leaders are so hateful that they refused to condemn the 2011 “gay” activist brick attack against AFTAH.  The above notice is filled with misinformation. To view it on GLN’s site, go HERE. To view GLN’s Facebook entry about its protest, go HERE.

Special Note from AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera:

Folks, as you can see from the graphic above, copied off the website of the Chicago group Gay Liberation Network (GLN), we just received word that radical homosexual activists are again planning to protest our annual banquet (this Saturday, Nov. 16^th; see AFTAH banquet information page; get a printable PDF banquet flier HERE).  The GLN banquet protests have become sort of an annual tradition for AFTAH. But it appears that this year in their rush to publicize their protest, this motley crew of left-wing fanatics got their facts wrong. (Imagine that: the Left caught fibbing.) So I’ve taken the liberty to correct GLN’s mistakes below:

1) YES, Americans For Truth is holding its fund-raising dinner banquet this coming Saturday evening at Christian Liberty Academy (CLA), 502 W. Euclid Ave., Arlington Heights, IL. Doors open at 5:30; dinner is served at 6:30 PM. Tickets are $25 at the door or just $20 if you buy them online by midnight Thursday (tomorrow). And you can still sponsor a Table of 10 for $200.  AFTAH banquets are wonderful, informative celebrations of truth, so please come and support us, and bring your friends and family!

(Interesting fact: AFTAH holds our annual event at CLA because several years ago, when we used to hold banquets in hotels, the petty homo-fascists at GLN would harangue the hotel about hosting a “hate group.” Twice we were booted out of hotels based on these malicious misinformation campaigns. Now we hold our banquet at CLA – and even there we were targeted with a glass-shattering brick attack by homosexual militants in the early morning of our banquet in October 2011 [more on this below]. Nobody is more “intolerant” than homosexual activists.)

This poor fellow stood outside Christian Liberty Academy during one of GLN’s protests against Americans For Truth. The Chicago media pretty much give the GLN a free pass by not exposing its extremism.

2) NO, this is NOT a joint fund-raiser between AFTAH and Illinois Family Institute. As much as we love our good friends at IFI and applaud them for all the great work they do throughout the state, they just had a fund-raiser last month! But we understand: all “homophobes” look alike to “progressives” like the GLN. (Of course, I jest: “homophobe” is the smear-term of choice for “gay” activists and their elitist fellow travelers on the Left – meant to deride and demonize their (mostly Christian) opponents as irrational, fearful bigots. The jaundiced term homophobe itself is so discredited that even the liberal-leaning Associated Press has largely given up using it in AP news stories.)

3) YES, our keynote speaker, Sandy Rios, claimed that the (media-hyped) Matthew Shepard “story was a fraud,” but she did so only after interviewing this writer on her AFR Talk program, “Sandy Rios in the Morning.” We discussed the findings of an amazing book by openly homosexual author Stephen Jimenez, The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths about the Murder of Matthew Shepard. In the book Jimenez reveals that, YES, pretty much the entire, convenient “Matthew-Shepard-was-murdered-just-because-he-was-gay” story was fraudulent. And what a coincidence: this “hate crime” tale was cynically exploited to demonize religious conservatives and link defenders of traditional sexual morality with “hate” and even violence toward homosexuals.

The bogus Matt-Shepard-hate-crime story was also repackaged as a tendentious play (The Laramie Project) that has been used to propagandize hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren and young adults in the same false “gay”-activist narrative. In fact, exploiting the false Matthew Shepard story has become big business on the Left.

4) So, indeed, YES, Sandy and I have publicized Jimenez’s well-researched findings that Shepard’s tragic 1998 death was very much “drug-related” – and hence was not a “hate crime.” Jimenez reveals the following about Shepard and his killers, fellow Laramie, Wyoming residents Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, and the circumstances of the case:

• McKinney and Shepard knew each other (as opposed to McKinney meeting Matthew for the first time on the night of the murder);
• McKinney and Shepard were both involved in using and dealing drugs, especially methamphetamines (meth);
• The two had partied with each other and possibly even had sex with each other as part of the same Laramie drug and social scene; and
• Neither McKinney nor his accomplice and friend, Henderson (both are in jail for life for murdering Shepard), were known for hating homosexuals. (In fact, Henderson’s girlfriend’s mother was in a lesbian relationship and Russell lived with her for months and “there was no evidence whatsoever of Aaron or Russell expressing anti-gay feelings,” Aaron’s father, Bill McKinney, told Jimenez [p. 48].) Compare that to the liberal media/LGBT-promoted story line that McKinney and Henderson – somehow fueled by Religious Right homophobia, which fostered a “climate of anti-gay hate” – murdered Shepard “just because he was gay,” after the latter made a sexual pass at McKinney. [To order Jimenez’s fascinating book on Amazon, go HERE.]

5) Lastly, NO, Sandy Rios never asserted that there was some kind of “pro-gay” conspiracy – a “plan by liberals to kill Matt to use him as ‘propaganda’ for LGBT acceptance.” This is sheer GLN nuttiness. Nobody in his right mind (pardon the pun) would suggest that liberal activists are so diabolical that they would plot to kill the young homosexual Shepard to create a “gay” martyr and thus advance the LGBT agenda!  But within hours of the bloody assault, as the Wyoming college student was fighting for his life in a hospital bed, the crime was quickly seized upon – first by close friends of Shepard, then by homosexual advocates, then by the media – as an alleged crime of “anti-gay hate.” Thus it became a pivotal “moment” in America for the Left to advance the LGBT agenda while stigmatizing moral-minded Americans as dangerous bigots.  (Jimenez also reveals that even some Laramie police officials joined in promoting the “anti-gay hate crime” theme, perhaps as opportunists caught up in the gay-liberal media spin, or maybe to draw attention away from Laramie’s criminal drug culture.)

As a reward for telling the truth about the (changeable, unhealthy) sin of homosexuality and those who celebrate it, Linda has been on the receiving end of some of the most vile and nasty e-mails and blog posts you can imagine. (She just forwarded me a few rancid e-mails from the Forces of Tolerance.) Yes, we all know who the real hateful bigots are — so isn’t it queer how the SPLC has never labeled a homosexual activist organization as a “hate group” (even one like the Chicago “Gay Liberation Network,” which explicitly REFUSED to condemn a pro-homosexual brick attack against Americans For Truth)? Press on, Linda, you’re in good company! — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

TAKE ACTION: The “gay” lobby is corrupting and endangering our young people by promoting deviant identities and harmful sexual/gender behaviors to them in the nice-sounding name of “equality.” Get connected with Mission America and make a donation to advance Linda’s fine work; send regular mail checks to: Mission America, P.O. Box 21836, Columbus, OH 43221-0836. (Currently there is no online giving option.) 

AFTAH ‘March Money-Bomb’: While you’re at it, make a small gift (or a large one) to Americans For Truth to help AFTAH reach our “March Money-bomb” goal of $10,000 by the end of the month: www.americansfortruth.com/donate/. Regular mail gifts: AFTAH, PO Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522.

Here is the transcript of a radio commentary by Linda Harvey for the Columbus, Ohio radio station WRFD from last June dealing with so-called “gay pride month”:

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Mission America Commentary, June 2011

What’s Wrong with “Gay” Pride?

June used to be a month for weddings, graduations, Father’s Day and the beginning of summer. Unfortunately in recent years, it is also a time when all over the nation, many cities sponsor homosexual “pride” events. But I think these events are a time for shame and sorrow, not pride.

Columbus will hold a gay pride parade on Saturday, June 18^th, Cleveland’s will be Saturday, June 25^th, and Cincinnati’s is on July 10. Dayton already held a parade on June 4^th.

For the third year in a row, our President issued an official White House Proclamation declaring June  “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender” Pride Month.

Biased, leftist SPLC has never reported hateful homosexual groups like ACT UP

The SPLC's Mark Potok oversees the organization's de facto "campaign of defamation" painting groups like AFTAH that oppose homosexuality as "hate groups." Potok admits that the SPLC has never identified a single "gay" group as hateful even though militant homosexual organizations like ACT UP and Bash Back! have targeted churches with vicious attacks.

TAKE ACTION: Contact the Senate Judiciary Committee (members listed HERE; Senate Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121) — and the House Committee on Homeland Security (202-226-2616; members listed HERE; House Switchboard: 202-225-3121) and urge them to investigate the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) working relationship with the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. The leftist SPLC is now slandering conservative, Christian and Tea Party groups by mislabeling them as “hate groups” on a par with genuine, fringe hate groups like the KKK.  American taxpayers should insist that the federal government have no role in legitimizing the SPLC, which has politicized “hate” and turned it into a fund-raising business to demonize conservatives — including mainstream pro-family groups that oppose homosexual activism. To read an in-depth report exposing the SPLC’s unethical practices, go HERE.

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Below is a useful article by Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute — on the leftist Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) preposterous smear-job against mainstream pro-family groups (including AFTAH, IFI, Family Research Council, and AFA) as “hate groups” because we oppose homosexuality and LGBT (“gay”) activism. Technically, the SPLC would argue that AFTAH and the other groups opposed homosexuality in the wrong way, but let’s be honest: ideologically speaking, the SPLC is so deeply committed to pro-“gay” advocacy that it considers suspect any organization that opposes pro-LGBT activism. Predictably, the left-wing, pro-homosexual echo chamber is using the SPLC’s “findings” to discredit pro-family groups.

Indicative of the SPLC”s tendentious and polemical “hate reporting” is its description of this writer as a “longtime gay-basher.” Using such semantics, that would make SPLC staffers like Mark Potok “longtime Christian bashers.” To read an excellent set of reports on the SPLC’s escalating “campaign of defamation” against conservatives and traditionalists, read this special Social Contract Journal edition.

As Barb Anderson of the (potential future “hate” group?) Minnesota Family Council and I discussed in Part One of our AFTAH Radio Hour interview [click HERE to listen], the SPLC’s cynical “hate” dragnet is growing so wide that we have almost reached the point where if a pro-family group is NOT INCLUDED on the SPLC’s “hate” list, it must be slacking off in resisting the destructive homosexual agenda. I write “almost” because some of our good friends such as Liberty Counsel and Campaign for California Families have not yet officially been designated “haters”; their time will come. Of course, the truth is, nobody “hates” like the American Left — especially militant homosexual activists.

I like Laurie’s reference to the “Morality Police”; how ironic that the Left has become the mirror of what it hates:  the societal “moral” scold. Remember that the dogmatists on the Left once screamed against the “Religious Right”: “Don’t impose your morality on the rest of us!” Now it’s the pro-“queer” Left that works diligently to “impose its immorality” on America using every dirty tactic ever conceived by Saul Alinsky (e.g., “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it”; see this piece). I half expect Potok or SPLC co-founder Morris Dees to show up in Wheeling, West Virginia, claiming to “have in my hand the names of 57 newly designated anti-gay hate groups….”

Leaving their mark: pro-homosexual activists in Maine spray-painted “666” in red on the sign of the Christian Civic League in 2005. Click on photos to enlage.

By Peter LaBarbera

Here’s a bit of history on “gay” activist intolerance — representative of what has gone on for decades across the country whenever citizens try to resist the homosexual activist agenda using the freedoms we possess as Americans. These are photos of a sign for the Christian Civic League of Maine in front of their headquarters that was defaced during the League’s successful 2005 drive to repeal a “gay rights” law using Maine’s “People’s Veto.” Under the Veto, citizens can repeal legislation passed by the Maine legislature through a statewide ballot vote. Multiply this harassment by a thousand and you will understand what proponents of Proposition 8 were up against in California.

This may seem like a minor act of vandalism (note the number “666,” symbolic of Satan, spray-painted in red), and it is, but applying our “Gay-Christian” Substitution Test puts it in proper perspective. Can you imagine the yelling and screaming (and government hate crimes charges?) that would have ensued had Christian activists defaced a sign on the private property of Equality Maine (the state’s leading homosexual group), or the Maine Civil Liberties Union? Exactly.