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“Sexual Orientation”/”Gender Identity” and the Law
“So, the policy that [Target] headquarters sent down was whatever you identify yourself as is the restroom that you are welcome in” — Gianna, Target staffer
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TAKE ACTION: Contact Target at 800-440-0680 or using their Online Contact Form; and sign the AFA “Boycott Target” petition if you plan to join the boycott. If you do, make a point of going into your local Target store or calling the manager to explain why you are no longer going to shop there.
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Folks, here is a short video produced by Coach Dave Daubenmire of Pass the Salt Ministries confirming Target Corporation’s official policy allowing males to enter women’s restrooms in all Target stores nationwide. Target is one of the leading corporations pandering to the LGBTQ Lobby–see this AFTAH article on their endorsement of the radical LGBTQ “Equality Act.” American Family Association now has more than 1.1 millions signatures on its petition to Boycott Target over it’s pro-transgender bathroom policy. Kudos to Coach, and more coming on the Target story. — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH
P.S. A corresponding “Buy-cott” at Walmart stores–giving consumers a pro-family alternative to Target–is problematic because Walmart (90% ranking on homosexual group Human Rights Campaign’s corporate scorecard) has shifted to becoming an aggressive supporter of the LGBTQ agenda. See our AFTAH article HERE on Walmart’s sponsorship of the child-non-friendly 2015 New York City homosexual “pride” parade.
Here is Coach Dave’s description of the video:
Published on Apr 25, 2016 Coach Dave’s Video Challenging Target’s Bathroom Policy! Remember to visit http://www.coachdavelive.com for additional Videos, Articles, and Baptizing in the word! If you enjoy these videos, make sure to SUBSCRIBE & Share with your friends!
Fox News stars — Megyn Kelly excluded — lavish attention on Trump and treat him with kid gloves, turning off many conservatives
TED SLIGHTED: Conservative Republican Sen. Ted Cruz has received far less media coverage than Donald Trump in the GOP race. Many conservatives are troubled by the adoring coverage that Trump has received from “conservative” journalists and the influential Fox News. Trump’s decidedly anti-conservative past pro-“gay” advocacy has barely been covered by either the “mainstream” or conservative media.
Folks, to say this is an odd election season might be the political understatement of the century. I saw this graphic on the left-wing Media Matters site, which is running articles about how weird it is that conservatives are complaining about “conservative media” (e.g, Fox News and Rush Limbaugh) going too easy on GOP front-runner Donald Trump. I have followed this election closely, and I too am appalled at the “conservative” media’s sycophantic treatment of Trump. (I have my favorite, but Americans For Truth does not endorse candidates–and in interviews I have criticized them all on some point or another.) I believe that Republican voters and the American public in general have been cheated by media coverage that has shown incredible deference to “The Donald” (with some key exceptions, like Wisconsin radio host Charles Sykes’ tough interview of Trump).
Seasoned pro-family observers will note that while Trump’s past support of abortion-on-demand (including “partial-birth abortions”) has been well-covered by the media, his radically pro-homosexual positions as a New York businessman have not. [See Randy Thomasson’s and SaveCalifornia.com’s “Presidential Scorecare on the Natural Family” comparing the remaining three GOP candidates’ records HERE.] In fact, in a 2000 interview with the homosexual Advocate magazine, Trump came out for adding homosexuality to the Civil Rights Act, but this has received barely any serious media coverage.
Note how many Fox News hosts and “contributors” (paid commentators like Laura Ingraham) are in the Trump camp. It has gotten to the point where I cut back watching Fox News because of biased “Trump cheerleaders” like Eric Bolling, Greta Van Susteren and Sean Hannity (whose wimpy Trump interviews are criticized on the (#NeverTrump) Red State site HERE). I don’t normally pass on Media Matters material, but this graphic is pretty accurate in identifying the Trumpsters versus the Anti-Trumps. — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH.org
Christian evangelist Franklin Graham made the following Facebook post April 6, 2016:
By Franklin Graham
PayPal gets the hypocrite of the year award! This company says they’re not coming to North Carolina because the legislators and Gov. Pat McCrory have passed a law to protect women and children against sexual predators by not allowing men to use women’s restrooms and locker rooms.
Congressman Robert Pittenger made a great point yesterday: “PayPal does business in 25 countries where homosexual behavior is illegal, including 5 countries where the penalty is death, yet they object to the North Carolina legislature overturning a misguided ordinance about letting men in to the women’s bathroom? Perhaps PayPal would like to try and clarify this seemingly very hypocritical position.”
PayPal operates in countries including Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Yemen for Pete’s sake. Just last month PayPal announced they would be expanding in Cuba, a country in which homosexuals and transgender people have been imprisoned, tortured, and executed. PayPal only agreed to come to Charlotte in the first place after holding out for millions in corporate incentives. And under the current law that they are so strongly protesting, PayPal could have chosen their own corporate bathroom policies.
“If our action in keeping men out of women’s bathrooms and showers protected the life of just one child or one woman from being molested or assaulted, then it was worth it. North Carolina will never put a price tag on the value of our children. They are precious and priceless. If a corporation wanting to do business in North Carolina does not see the worth of our children in the same light, then I wish them well as they do business somewhere else.”
He couldn’t be more right! We need more politicians across the country with this kind of backbone. Pray for the NC governor, lieutenant governor, and legislators that they stand strong against the attacks of this wicked agenda.
TRUMP THEN AND NOW: In this 2000 interview with the homosexual magazine The Advocate, businessman Donald Trump supported adding homosexuality to the Civil Rights Act–a stance that allowed him to cast himself as more pro-“gay” than the leading Democratic presidential contender at the time, Sen. Bill Bradley. [Click HERE to read the entire Advocate interview.] The media have mostly ignored asking direct questions about the homosexual activist agenda in the GOP campaign.
By Peter LaBarbera
[Note: this article was update March 1, 2016]
Warning: Contains a brief description and graphic of (horrifying) transsexual surgeries that the LGBT Lobby is pushing to be funded by the taxpayers
Have you noticed that homosexual “marriage,” the nutty “transgender” issue–think big-boned men in gaudy dresses and pumps invading girls’ restrooms–and morality in general have been largely ignored in the Republican primary campaign?
This is no accident: a combination of the dominant media’s secular-Left bias; “establishment” Republicans working to keep those pesky social issues off the table; America’s disobedient drift away from God and biblical Truth; and creeping libertarianism and feminism have combined to push moral issues out of the debate in this crucial 2016.
The problem is, when issues are shunned by the media and in an extended electoral contests it becomes difficult to build and grow support for the Truth position on these issues. The LGBT Lobby knows this intuitively, which is why they labor to BAN opposition and shut down critical voices in the media (see GLAAD’s“Commentator Accountability Project” listing of this writer for showing “extreme animus towards the entire LGBT community”).
The minions of Big Gay Inc understand that if tens of millions of Americans were actually introduced through media to men and women who have successfully left homosexuality behind—people like DJ Foster, Greg Quinlanand Janet Boynes–it would dramatically undermine the LGBT media-narrative that people are inherently (born) “gay.”
Seeing homosexuality as a Changeable-Behavior issue would in turn help everyday people understand that unlike ethnic “minorities,” people practicing homosexuality can leave that category because it is not permanent (e.g., like skin color). Thus, accommodating people with “rights” based on their supposedly immutable “sexual orientation” is not “civil rights” and in fact directly leads to conflicts between “gay rights” and religious liberty. (See this excellent piece by Peter Spriggdissecting Justice Anthony Kennedy’s unfounded claim that homosexuality is “immutable,” in his Obergefell ruling “nationalizing” homosexual “marriage.”)
Here are some questions and moral themes I’d like to see pursued in debates or political discussions:
1) Trump and Adultery? Suppose in that now-infamous initial Fox News GOP presidential debate, instead of asking Donald Trump a question about his alleged meanness toward Rosie O’Donnell, Fox’s Megyn Kelly had asked Trump about his self-admitted adulteries with married women and having a very public affair while he was married? Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) rightly tweeted to Trump:
“You brag about many affairs w/ married women. Have you repented? To harmed children & spouses? Do you think it matters?”
Does Adultery Matter? Sen. Ben Sasse’s (R-NE) Jan. 24, tweet to Donald Trump.
(Note how conservative neo-feminist Kelly opted for the “anti-women” angle over the moral—call it “anti-God”–angle; to read this writer’s in-depth report on Fox News’ pro-homosexual bias, click HERE.)
2) Rubio on Abortion vs. Rubio on Homosexual Agenda? How about a question to Marco Rubio about reports that his campaign staff held regular meetings with Log Cabin Republicans—a homosexual activist group that is trying to rebrand the GOP as a “gay”-affirming party? Why is Rubio so principled in his opposition to abortion (he said it’s not even political for him) yet much more nuanced on homosexualism? [See pro-family warrior Bryan Fischer rebut Rubio’s assertion that homosexuals are born that way.]
3) Trump’s Radical Pro-“Gay” Past? While many questions have focused on Trump’s support for Planned Parenthood (the non-abortion aspects of the business), no attention—from the media or other Republicans—has been given to his support back in 2000 for adding homosexuality (“sexual orientation”) to the Civil Rights Act. In other words, Trump was for the current LGBT “Equality Act” (which we’re calling the “Criminalizing Christianity Act”) before there even was an Equality Act. Would Trump–who opposes homosexual “marriage” and backs the First Amendment Defense Act— support the Equality Act or veto it today? Does Trump still believe that homosexuality is a criterion for “civil rights” and how would that affect the rights of others to disagree with homosexual “marriage,” celebrations, pro-LGBT school lessons, etc.?
[Editor’s Note: after this article was published, LifeSiteNews reported that in 2012 the Donald Trump Foundation donated $20,000 to the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and $10,000 to the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. GLSEN pushes for the acceptance of homosexual, bisexual and gender-confused identities and behaviors to K-12 students–including “Gay-Straight Alliances,” de facto LGBT propaganda clubs, in schools. The LifeSite article relies on original AFTAH reportage exposing GLSEN’s agenda promoting homosexuality to young children. See our posts HERE, HERE (“Fistgate”), HERE and HERE (Kevin Jennings).]
Rubio Aide Supports Radically Redefining Marriage: Rubio campaign aide Rich Beeson signed on to an amicus brief for the Supreme Court Obergefellcase supporting the legalization of “marriage” based on homosexuality. Graphic: AFTAH; photo by Fox News.
Folks, Sen. Marco Rubio is known as a social conservative, so this revelation of a top campaign staffer (Rich Beeson) signing on to a Republican PRO-homosexual-“marriage” friend-of-the-court brief–for the Obergefell SCOTUS case nationalizing “gay marriage”–is a big deal.
In the next few weeks AFTAH will be reporting facts about the remaining candidates in the Republican (and Democratic) primaries. [See our report on Trump’s past radical pro-homosexual advocacy HERE.] We are non-partisan and do not endorse any candidate–nor do we refrain from pointing out pro-homosexual advocacy wherever we find it. (AFTAH does not carry water for Republicans: this writer once caught a lot of GOP flak for co-authoring a report for Concerned Women for America about President George W. Bush’s “Homosexual Agenda.”) As I have said many times, God does not make a special provision for Republican homosexualism compared to the Democratic variety.
Moreover, GOP establishment big shots are pushing the Party to ditch social issues–and include the homosexual activist “Log Cabin Republicans” in the Party’s “big tent.” As you can read below, Rubio staffers have met regularly with Log Cabin Republican staffers, and the head of CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference; 202-347-9388) just allowed Log Cabin Republicans to serve as a sponsor for next year’s gathering. The following is an excerpt from our friends at LifeSiteNews (which relies heavily on The Baptist Message, which broke the story). — Peter LaBarbera, AFTTAH
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LifeSiteNews reports:
Marco Rubio’s deputy campaign manager is a gay ‘marriage’ activist
First published by LifeSiteNews Feb. 18, 2016; to read full article, click HERE; sign up for LifeSite daily updates HERE
CHARLESTON, South Carolina, February 18, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – A pivotal member of Marco Rubio’s campaign actively encouraged the Supreme Court to impose gay “marriage” on the entire nation by judicial fiat.
Senator Rubio’s deputy campaign manager, Rich Beeson, signed a legal brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to redefine marriage in last summer’s Obergefell v. Hodges case.
The amicus curiae brief, which was signed by 300 Republican operatives whose names spill over 24 pages, argued that having the court discover a nationwide right to same-sex “marriage” served “conservative values.”
Shoebat slams LaBarbera as “filthy pig” for denouncing his holy-war approach toward homosexualism
Ted Shoebat
“[W]e do not have the right to take the law into our hands and attack homosexual men and women. And if you have God’s heart of love and you want to see them saved and transformed, why would you want to beat them up?”–Dr. Michael Brown
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Dear AFTAH Readers,
I support my friend and Christian leader Dr. Mike Brown in exposing the reckless rhetoric of Christian Ted Shoebatfor condoning anti-homosexual violence. For my entire professional career in the pro-family and conservative movements, I have eschewed violence and real hatred against people caught up in homosexuality–and I’m not going to change now.
Recently, Shoebat viciously attacked yours truly as as a “filthy pig” because I–like Dr. Brown, Matt Barber and Linda Harvey and many other pro-family leaders–criticized his “holy war” approach toward the homosexual agenda. (See video below captured by the pro-homosexual organization People For the American Way’s “Right Wing Watch.“) [See the new Shoebat video criticized by Brown HERE; more on this controversy will follow.]
Some of my friends in the movement opposed to Big Gay Inc have opined that Shoebat sounds more like a fundamentalist Muslim than a Christian with his irresponsible rhetoric. Jihadist, Sharia-loving Islamists–not faithful Christians–advocate stoning homosexuals and pushing them off of tall buildings. Shouldn’t we emulate our Savior, Jesus Christ, who said to the Pharisees who were about to stone a woman they caught in adultery:
“Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8; see Matthew Henry commentary HERE)
And to the woman shown mercy the Lord said:
“Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
We must, as Dr. Brown often says, Resist the homosexual-bisexual-transgender agenda, while Reaching Out to homosexuals with the Gospel and love of Christ. Having said that, I am not like one of those namby-pamby evangelicals or “cafeteria Catholics” who seeks an accommodation with homosexualism. Shoebat below derisively references “Chick-fil-A Christians”–but AFTAH was almost alone in challenging Chick-fil-A C.O.O. Dan Cathy’s regrettable 2014 capitulation to Political Correctness when he decided to “step back from the gay marriage debate.” This effectively sold out the many thousands of Christians who stood in line at CfA restaurants on “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day” in 2012 to defend Cathy’s right to speak out for Truth in the Public Square. But more importantly, Cathy sold out his God. Not coincidentally, one of the people who advised Cathy to retreat on marriage was Shane Windmeyer, a homosexual activist (the founder of Campus Pride) whom Cathy had befriended.
Loving sinners biblically should not abet a sin movement, and going silent on homosexualism does just that.
In contrast, Mike Brown is not seeking the world’s favor. He ably works to achieve the right balance of loving homosexual and gender-confused strugglers while bravely challenging the LGBTQ-IAAM (“It’s All About Me”) sin lobby. Shoebat’s rhetoric not only justifies thuggery against homosexuals and does harm to the Gospel, as Mike states. It also makes it easier for “gay” radicals and their allies to advance legislation like the Criminalizing Christianity Act (aka LGBT “Equality Act”)–thus inadvertently helping them to extinguish the voice of believers in the culture. All in the name of “stopping anti-gay violence and hate.” — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH; @PeterLaBarbera
Mike Brown writes:
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No, Theodore Shoebat, Jesus Would Not Have Killed Gays
In a very troubling video, Theodore Shoebat, son of former Muslim Walid Shoebat, has claimed that if “sodomites” had walked into the temple of Jerusalem, Jesus would have killed them.
This is absolutely outrageous, totally unscriptural and downright dangerous.
Mr. Shoebat, I urge you to repent.
To be perfectly clear, I agree with Theodore that homosexual practice is detestable in God’s sight (as stated plainly in the Scriptures); I totally oppose same-sex “marriage”; and I firmly believe that homosexual activism is the principle threat to our freedoms of religion, speech, and conscience.
I also share Theodore’s abhorrence of the abusive acts of homosexual predators, just as I abhor the abusive acts of heterosexual predators.
At the same time, I categorically reject his encouragement of violent acts against homosexual men and women, and I renounce his statement that Jesus would have killed homosexuals who walked into the temple.
This is a terrific discussion with my friends and Christian activists Coach Dave Daubenmire and Mike Heath–which we recorded Monday (January 25, 2015). We discuss the defeat in committee of the Tennessee Natural Marriage Defense Act. This bill, offered by State Rep. Mark Pody, would nullify the Supreme Court’s evil Obergefell decision “nationalizing” homosexuality-based “marriage.” As Coach writes about HERE and Matt Trewela writes about below, the TNMDA bill received only one vote in the Civil Justice subcommittee–thanks in part to the “cover” provided by Tennessee affiliate of Focus on the Family, FACT (Family Action of Tennessee), which came out against the bill.
I had not studied up on the politics surrounding the Natural Marriage Defense Act prior to this interview, but what I know from experience is that our pro-family movement has been plagued by a defeatist mindset for decades. In 2006, 81 percent of voters in the Volunteer State made their will clearly known–protecting marriage as it naturally is: between a man and a woman. Or so they thought–because nine years later, five unelected Supreme Court Justices–led by pro-homosexual advocate Anthony Kennedy–arrogantly disenfranchised them, creating another fictional, newfangled “constitutional right” (homosexuality-based “marriage”) fundamentally at odds with “Nature and Nature’s God.”
Desperate times call for bold measures–led by lawmakers like State Rep. Pody who are willing to buck political correctness and take back legislative authority for We the People. FACT prefers another lawsuit–despite the legal profession’s steadily increasing subservience to LGBT activist ideology. We will continue to follow closely the efforts of people in Tennessee and many other states to fight back against judicial supremacists, including those five SCOTUS justices who think they know better than God what marriage is. –Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH; @PeterLaBarbera [Watch this video on YouTube HERE.]
Matt Trewela writes:
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What happened in Tennessee? A bill to defend marriage killed by Christians and GOP
By Matt Trewela, reprinted from his blog, January 23, 2016
Watching a nation burn itself to the ground is a hard thing. Watching the cowardice of men while it is happening is even harder.
I always tell people that – “If you give politicians something less to do than what is needed and necessary – they’ll take it every time.” Such was the case in Tennessee.
The largest pro-family group in the state, Family Action Council of Tennessee (FACT), put all their time, energy, and money into defeating the bill of interposition introduced by Representative Mark Pody – a bill that would have interposed against the lawless Obergefell opinion by SCOTUS. The bill had 22 co-sponsors. [See the FACT response to Pody’s bill HERE and a flowchart explaining their lawsuit strategy HERE.]
FACT stated they planned to bring a lawsuit in court to oppose the Obergefell decision. They stated that if this bill of interposition passed it would ruin what they were planning to accomplish through the lawsuit. The Republican legislators, or more properly stated, the GOP leadership loved what FACT was saying in opposition to the bill and had the bill killed on Wednesday, January 20th, in the Republican-controlled committee before it could ever come before the full legislature.
New York values: Trump bragged that he came up with homosexual “civil rights” idea before Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley
Donald Trump’s interview with The Advocate magazine in 2000. Trump boasted that he was ahead of Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradly in crusading for adding homosexuality to the 1964 Civil Rights
Dear AFTAH Readers,
This is our first foray into the positions past and present of the leading presidential candidates in the 2016 race. AFTAH is non-partisan–we expose all politicians by the same principled standard without deference to party–so these articles will be factual. We begin with the current GOP front-runner, Donald Trump, who back in 2000 sat down with the editors of the nation’s leading homosexual magazine, The Advocate.
Interestingly, as you can read below, Trump bragged about being ahead of Democratic presidential candidate (former U.S. Senator)Bill Bradley on “gay rights”–by calling for the addition of “sexual orientation” to the landmark 1986 Civil Rights Act. That proposal is embodied today in the so-called LGBT “Equality Act” (HR 3185), which was backed exclusively by Democrats until it received its first two Republican co-sponsors this week: Sen. Mark Kirk and Rep. Bob Dold, both from Illinois. AFTAH has renamed the HR 3185 the “Criminalizing Christianity Act,” since it would negate religious freedom protections in the name of LGBT “equality.”
Of course, many candidates have changed their position on issues, but Trump among all the GOP contenders holds several past positions that are more in line with “progressive” Democrats than Republicans–on key issues like abortion, homosexuality, and national health insurance. In a much talked about 1999 interview with the late Tim Russert [partial YouTube video HERE], he chalked that up to living in liberal-dominated New York City.
Trump says he is now conservative but does not appear to be so on the homosexual issue–see the LGBTQ lobby group Human Rights Campaign’s analysis of his record HERE. Unlike several other Republican 2016 contenders, he has not committed to signing the “First Amendment Defense Act” in his first 100 days as President—-but did say he would support it. And the real estate magnate-turned politician–though a longtime opponent of homosexual “marriage”–now opines that due to the Supreme Court’sObergefell ruling, the issue is over; he told the Hollywood Reporter that “anybody that’s making that an issue is doing it for political reasons. The Supreme Court ruled on it.” We will have more on Trump and other presidential candidates in future posts.–Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH; @PeterLaBarbera