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“Sexual Orientation”/”Gender Identity” and the Law
ADF to appeal ruling that allows Eastern Michigan U. to expel Christian students for holding to beliefs University banished graduate counseling student for not affirming homosexual behavior
DETROIT — Alliance Defense Fund attorneys will appeal a problematic federal court decision issued Monday in a lawsuit filed on behalf of student Julea Ward against Eastern Michigan University after it kicked out the Christian student for holding to her beliefs. EMU dismissed Ward from its graduate counseling program in March 2009 for not affirming homosexual behavior as morally acceptable. Ward would not agree to change her religious beliefs about homosexual behavior or express a message contrary to them during counseling sessions as a condition to receiving a degree.
“Christian students shouldn’t be expelled for holding to and abiding by their beliefs,” said ADF Senior Counsel David French, who argued before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan last month. “To reach its decision, the court had to do something that’s never been done in federal court: uphold an extremely broad and vague university speech code.”
Here’s the latest victim of the Pro-Gay Thought Police (PGTP): Jennifer Keeton. Her predicament is further evidence of the “zero-sum game” in the Culture War between pro-“gay” policies/laws and religious liberty. It’s incredible that this public institution, Augusta State U,, is requiring this principled young woman to alter her beliefs and even attend a “gay pride” parade as a condition for completing the program. (Imagine the outcry if a public university required a committed, secular “gay” student to go to a Bible-believing church as part of a remediation plan.)
Will authentic Bible-believing Christians (as opposed to the compromised, homosexuality-affirming variety) be boxed out of the counseling profession? If so, faithful Christians will have to support alternative counseling institutions, because unrepentant homosexuality will never be compatible with Christianity. And there are way too many happy ex-gays and ex-lesbians out there for sexually struggling people not to be given this healthy option.
Modern “diversity” is to genuine diversity as Marxist-Leninist “People’s Democratic Republics” are to true democracy. Wouldn’t true “diversity” allow people to exercise their own choice to see either a pro-homosexual counselor or one that adheres to traditional moral views? I guess that’s asking too much of left-wing academics and the pro-“GLBTQ” movement. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org
P.S. Check out this Queety blog post on the Keeton case. It contains a video of Keeton giving her side of the story. Note the nasty and irrational pro-homosexual comments that follow the Queerty post, including this one:
Imagine if a KKK member became a firefighter and said “If a black person is in a fire I’m not going to save their life. It’s against my beliefs.” Rubbish.
Augusta State Univ. to Counseling Student: Change Beliefs or Get Out
AUGUSTA, Georgia, July 22, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) filed suit against Augusta State University Wednesday on behalf of a counseling student who was allegedly told that her Christian beliefs are unethical and incompatible with the prevailing views of the counseling profession. The student, Jennifer Keeton, says she has been told to stop communicating her beliefs and that she must undergo “training” to accept homosexuality in order to graduate from the counseling program.
Augusta State ordered Keeton to undergo a re-education plan, in which she must attend “diversity sensitivity training,” complete additional remedial reading, and write papers to describe their impact on her beliefs. If she does not change her beliefs or agree to the plan, the university says it will expel her from the Counselor Education Program.
Here is Part Two of our interview with Wayne Lela (founder of H.O.M.E.) and John McCartney, two Chicago men who for years have reached out to college youth in the Chicagoland area with facts about homosexuality that the liberal media and pop-culture ignore. This interview aired July 24, 2010. (Listen to Part One HERE.) In this interview they discuss the four themes they stress in their interaction with students, including the severe health risks of male homosexuality. Both Lela and McCartney will be attending our Truth Academy: Chicago 2010 next week (Aug. 5-7) at the Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights, IL. You can access the archive of Americans For Truth interviews HERE.
HOW TO LISTEN: This is an mp3 file. Left click once on the link below to play. (Please be patient, depending upon the speed of your internet connection it may take a moment or two to load.) OR right click the link then “save target as” to download the whole show.
In this interview (Part One of two), which aired Saturday, July 17, 2010, AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera talks in studio with John McCartney and Wayne Lela — two Chicago men who have a unique “ministry” of going to local Chicago colleges and universities and educating students about homosexuality and “gay” activism. They do this from a pro-natural-family perspective that most young people rarely hear. For that they have been harassed by liberal professors — among other trials — but they persevered and have now gained entry on to all the Chicago-area public colleges, which cannot legally engage in viewpoint discrimination.
In the interview, McCartney discusses the way “brainwashing” works on this issue — censoring negative information about homosexuality while demonizing opponents of the “gay” agenda. Lela (who as an agnostic is not a member of the so-called “Religious Right”) formed a group called HOME, Heterosexuals Organized for a Moral Environment. McCartney is a retired English teacher and committed Catholic living in Chicago who has long served both the pro-life and pro-family causes. Both men will be attending AFTAH’s upcoming Truth Academy Aug 5-7, to be held at the Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights, IL.
In this (Part One) interview, the two discuss the reactions of students to their work — and how Chicagoland newspapers seem to be cutting back on printing letters-to-the-editor that are critical of homosexuality — which would be consistent with the increasingly censorious posture of Chicago’s major media, which generally are very pro-“gay.” Lela and McCartney deserve our commendation. There are millions upon millions of people who affirm the truth that homosexual behavior is wrong, destructive, unnatural and changeable. But there are precious few like these two men who actually contend for this truth in the public square — and especially with students who, as they say, are “brainwashed” by the non-stop pro-homosexual propaganda in the media and popular culture.
HOW TO LISTEN: This is an mp3 file. Left click once on the link below to play. (Please be patient, depending upon the speed of your internet connection it may take a moment or two to load.) OR right click the link then “save target as” to download the whole show.
Oftentimes when activists on the Left have no evidence that something they disagree with is actually “hateful,” they just label as such anyway, and then repeat themselves ad nauseam so that we’ll all get the message that said conservative activity is, well, “hateful.” Here is People for the American Way (PFAW) “Senior Fellow” Kyle Mantyla’s trenchant analysis of AFTAH’s Truth Academy curriculum:
“Peter LaBarbera has unveiled the instructor list and official curriculum for his upcoming three day anti-gay hatefest/”truth academy” … and it is pretty much going to be the gay-hatingest thing you have ever seen.”
Wow. “Gay-hatingest.” Reactionary liberals are expanding their smear-term lexicon. Seriously, though, most people on the Left are not quite willing, yet, to define anyone who disagrees with homosexuality as “hateful” — although they might call them “homophobic” (an artificial construct whose elastic definition has evolved to meet the needs of pro-“gay” liberals). I’m sure there are exceptions, but I suspect that most “gay”-affirming people would not automatically label anyone who believes that homosexuality is immoral — or that homosexual sex is unnatural — as “haters.”
However, if you reflect that moral opposition in the public square — if you defend the age-old position that homosexuality is wrong — then suddenly you become, yes, “hateful.” Hard to win that argument: ME: pro-gay, loving and tolerant. YOU: anti-gay, hateful and intolerant. Is this what now passes for discourse in dumbed-down America? Give me the old-fashioned liberals who might disagree with AFTAH’s beliefs forcefully but who at least understand that name-calliing is no substitute for an argument.
The judicial confirmation process has become a spectacle almost as comical as one of Al Franken’s (D-MN) jokes. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan was not grilled on whether she believes Americans have a First Amendment right to oppose homosexuality — i.e., whether their religious and moral liberties are overridden by “sexual orientation” laws.
“Kagan did not deny that her application of Harvard’s [‘sexual orientation’ nondiscrimination] policy would have excluded the Catholic Church.” —CNSNews.com, reporting on Kagan’s confirmation hearing
By Peter LaBarbera
Solicitor General Elena Kagan has been confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 13-6 vote — after hypocritically dodging and weaving her way through the farce that now masquerades as the judicial confirmation process. Sen. Lindsey Graham (SC) was the lone Republican to vote for her — despite the fact that South Carolina is conservative while Kagan is the ideological cousin of our elitist, far-left president. (Click HERE for the MassResistance report on Kagan’s pro-homosexual record at Harvard.)
Kagan’s future now rests with the Democrat-dominated Senate — where most pundits (betting on listless GOP opposition) expect her to win confirmation; the vote is expected to come in early August.
Americans now face the prospect of a radically pro-abortion and pro-homosexuality social Leftist-for-Life sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court, potentially for 30 or more years. In just 105 days, on Election Day (Nov. 2), U.S. citizens will be able to cripple Barack Obama’s power — a day anticipated by millions of citizens outraged over his arrogant and reckless presidency. In two more years, Obama could be voted out of office a la Jimmy Carter.
Not so with Kagan. Unless Republicans summon up the guts to actually block her via filibuster (don’t bet on it), she likely will soon become Justice Kagan until she retires at an old age. There, if her past is any indication, one day she will vote to create a new “fundamental right” of “same-sex marriage” out of an “evolving” Constitution — all the while protecting that old make-believe “constitutional right,” sacrosanct to liberals, of abortion-on-demand. (See this Omaha World-Herald story on Kagan’s manipulation of expert testimony in the Clinton administration to fight legislative attempts to ban the gruesome practice of partial-birth abortion.)
Will Obama, like U.K.’s Tony Blair, usher in ‘gay’ tyranny in the United States?
Former British P.M. Tony Blair used state power to promote the acceptance of homosexuality in the U.K. He is now working to make Christianity "gay"-affirming.
By Peter LaBarbera
I was sent this must-watch CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network) video by my friend Gary Glenn, head of the American Family Association of Michigan. Glenn is backing a civil rights lawsuit by the Thomas More Law Center against Attorney Gen. Eric Holder over the new homosexuality/transsexuality–inclusive “hate crimes” law. This video deserves wide circulation as a warning to America.
The Homosexual Activist Movement, aided and abetted by liberal straights, currently is the greatest threat to religious freedom in the United States. This is because homosexual radicals like lesbian Chai Feldblum (appointed by President Obama as a Commissioner on the E.E.O.C.) believe “gay rights” supersede Americans’ freedom to oppose homosexuality and gender confusion. To quote Feldblum, “Gays win, Christians lose” when the “zero-sum” game of “gay rights” versus religious freedom hits the courts.
More commentary follows the video below:
Already, we in the USA are seeing the same sort of persecution for opposing homosexuality as is occurring in Great Britain, only on a lesser scale. (See University of Illinois story over dismissed Catholic professor Kenneth HowellHERE.) It will only get worse if homosexuality- and transsexuality-based special “rights” are federalized under the proposed “Employment Non-Discrimination Act.”
Aide to veteran Republican says he has not issued statement on issue
UPDATE/Note to Readers: I have just called Sen. Lugar’s D.C. office (July 7, 2010) and an aide said that he has NOT issued a statement on the congressional effort to repeal the ban on homosexuals in the military — despite the Washington Blade report cited below. Now is the time for all conservatives — but especially those in Indiana — to contact Lugar and urge him to stay true to conservative principles on this issue. — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH.org
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TAKE ACTION: Contact Sen. Dick Lugar [202-224-4814; e-mail him HERE] and urge him to oppose the homosexualization of the U.S. military, in a time of war — and to STOP pandering to the Homosexual Lobby. Lugar’s statewide office contact information is at the bottom of this email. Urge Sen. Lugar to support a filibuster of the Defense spending bill, with its provision to repeal the Armed Forces’ sensible homosexuality ban. Please pass this alert on to your friends and family living in Indiana.
A repeal measure passed by the House and contained in the Senate Defense spending bill would inject open homosexuality into the military without even waiting to hear from a (biased) review of the policy by Defense Sec. Robert Gates, which is slated for completion in December. Respectfully urge Sen. Lugar to respect the military by resisting the reckless experimentation with the Armed Forces. For the best information on this issue, go to the Center for Military Readiness website.
Well, it appears veteran Sen. Dick Lugar [(202) 224-4814; e-mail him HERE; see statewide office contact info at bottom] is another Republican who has “grown” on homosexual issues — leaving wholesome, conservative Indiana values far behind. If the Washington Blade is to be believed, Lugar is not even willing to wait for Defense Sec. Robert Gates’ biased review on how (not whether) to implement President Obama’s homosexuals-in-the-military plan.
The Blade, a newspaper for homosexuals, reports that Lugar will not support a motion to strike language repealing the ban on homosexuals in the military (“Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell”). Here is an excerpt from the Blade (emphasis added), followed by statewide contact info for Sen. Lugar:
U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) told the Blade last week that he isn’t concerned about the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal language in the fiscal year 2011 defense authorization bill and wouldn’t support an effort to rid the legislation of the provision.
Asked whether he would support a substitute amendment or a motion to strike, Lugar replied, “No. I would just leave it as it is.”
