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IFI Executive Director Dave Smith got lied to by a few "pro-family" legislators who caved on Civil Unions in Springfield.
This interview with David Smith, Executive Director of Illinois Family Institute (IFI), aired Dec. 11, 2010 [click HERE to listen]. Smith was lobbying in Springfield against the “Civil Unions” bill successfully pushed by the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate, and by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn. (See the Civil Unions roll call in the Illinois Senate and the House.) Smith describes how supposedly pro-family legislators reneged on their “No” pledge as they caved under the tremendous pressure that the Democratic leadership brought to bear on legislators. Several politicians who had indicated they were against Civil Unions switched their vote — as House Speaker Mike Madigan and Quinn wheeled and dealed to secure passage of legislation that constitutes a giant step toward recognizing “same-sex marriage” in the Land of Lincoln. (Madigan and Quinn are “cafeteria” Catholics who disregarded the Illinois Catholic Conference’s strong opposition to the bill.)
AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera comments on the lone Senate Republican who voted to pass Civil Unions: Sen. Dan Rutherford, who was just elected Illinois Treasurer. He notes that Rutherford’s alleged homosexuality is a fairly open secret (or widely suspected) among the state’s Republican activists. In 2005, LaBarbera, then executive director of IFI, challenged Rutherford — who (mis)represents a conservative, rural district in central Illinois –to be forthright and honest about his sexual behavior, after Rutherford made his first major pro-homosexual vote (a pro-homosexual “sexual orientation/gender identity” bill). Rutherford avoided the question. Smith and LaBarbera also note the pathetic GOP opposition to Civil Unions in the state House — with just two Republicans rising on the floor to speak against the bill.
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….”
Perverted and Christian-hating sex columnist treated with great respect in Chicago
"Queer" sex columnist Dan Savage believes straight married couples should have outside sex (like many homosexual male couples) as a way to help reduce the divorce rate. Few in the LGBT movement have a record as extreme and hateful as Savage when it comes to vulgar demonizations of pro-family leaders like former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.
[CORRECTION: Note HERE our technical correction to this article: Dan Savage correctly points out that his and his male partner’s “three way” trysts were with acquaintances — NOT “strangers” as we originally reported in this piece.]
TAKE ACTION: Call taxpayer-funded WTTW at 773-583-5000 (9-5:00 Central Time M-F; hit “0” and ask for Phil Ponce). Or contact WTTW CEO and President Dan Schmidt. Let WTTW know that it is hypocritical and shameful that they were so respectful toward a hate-filled, vulgar anti-religious homosexual extremist like Dan Savage. Eight percent of WTTW’s budget comes from the taxpayers: urge the station to balance their in-depth interview with the anti-Christian Savage with an extended interview with a pro-family leader opposed to mainstreaming homosexuality. You can e-mail the program at chicagotonight@wttw.com. Or leave an online message on Chicago Tonight’s contact form HERE. You can also contact your Congressman at 202-224-3121 (www.Congress.org) regarding cutting off all federal funds the far-left-biased Public Broadcasting System [contact PBS’ Ombudsman HERE].
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Folks, I sent a version of the letter below to WTTW, Chicago’s main public TV station, and its daily evening program, “Chicago Tonight.” Apparently, like most of the rest of Chicago’s Left-dominated media, WTTW has decided that there is no legitimate “other side” on the homosexuality issue. Hence Wednesday they felt free to do an embarrassingly uncritical interview with renegade ex-Catholic Dan (“Saliva Terrorist”) Savage — who is as radical and perverted a Christian-basher as there is in the LGBT movement. [To view Ponce’s fawning interview with Savage, go HERE.]
I forgot to mention in my letter Savage’s admitted “three way” gay sexual romps — he, his “husband” Terry and a male acquaintance [NOTE: see AFTAH clarification: we originally reported that the three-ways were with “strangers”] — while Terry and he were co-adoptive “daddies” of “The Kid” (the title of Savage’s book). AFTAH wondered: who babysat “The Kid” during their orgy? Savage is a leading booster of “gay parenting” and homosexual adoption — once even landing as a guest on the conservative Michael Medved Show (Medved said he was unaware of Savage’s advocacy of “nonmonogamy” and his history of viciously maligning Christians.)
Savage is living proof that nobody hates like hard-core homosexual activists — yet because he is a “gay” activist and Christians are the target of his bile, Savage not only gets a pass from the media but is treated with deference and respect. (While in Chicago, Savage was also the featured speaker at the Chicago Humanities Festival.)
AFTAH banquet’s Married Couples Discount not available to counterfeit homosexual “marrieds”
New York City homosexual activist blogger Jeremy Hooper (right) and his boyfriend/"husband" can attend AFTAH's banquet Saturday, but they will not get our $50 Married Couples Discount, even though they went through a legal "marriage" ceremony in Connecticut.
When: Saturday, Nov. 13, 2010; 6:00 PM; doors open at 5:30.
Who/What: Pastor Ken Hutcherson, keynote speaker. Catering by Maggiano’s Little Italy. Hutch is founder of the “Mayday for Marriage” rallies, a former NFL linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys and Seattle Seahawks, and pastor of Antioch Bible Church in Redmond, WA. [More info on Hutch HERE.] There may also be a testimony by a former lesbian who now helps others change through the Gospel of Christ.
Tickets: $75 per person (after Nov. 8) and at the door. Married couples discount (one man/one woman only!): $100 per couple, no matter when you sign up. Pay online at www.americansfortruth.com/donate. Or mail your check to: AFTAH, PO Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522. Pastors attend FREE; sponsor a pastor with your extra gift of $50!
Yes, AFTAH Discriminates…in Favor of Real Marriage
By Peter LaBarbera, President of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality:
Dear Readers,
It struck me yesterday as I was reviewing my recent e-pitch for our AFTAH banquet — this Saturday, Nov. 13th at Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights — that I wasn’t quite clear about the “discriminatory” intent of our invitation. Well, I wouldn’t actually use that word, but our fanatical homosexual activist opponents certainly would. You see, AFTAH is offering a Married Couples Discount for the banquet of $100 per married couple – a savings of $50 off the cost for last-minute registrants (and those at the door), who normally would have to pay $75 per person (or $150 per couple).
Here’s what I forgot to mention in the e-mail: our Married Couples Discount is available only to legitimately married couples (one man, one woman) – not homosexual “couples” playing house and pretending to be “married” as they practice a changeable and destructive lifestyle that defies their loving Creator and mocks the bedrock institution that they’ve politically appropriated in the name of “equality.”
The cities with large homosexual populations, and which advertise themselves as “gay’ meccas, are the most perverse in the world. San Francisco is an example. Deviance begets deviance, pushing “tolerance” to preposterous extremes. Only the committed, and corrupted, social liberal sees this as acceptable. A couple of years ago when I and others went to observe Folsom and protest the public depravities, we were struck by how straight liberals came to accept these hideous “fairs” in the name of tolerance. One reporter, who told me she had been raised in a Christian home, acted as if we outsiders who were condemning the public lewdness were more suspect than the debauched behavior itself. (I doubt her mother would agree.) God does indeed give people over to a reprobate, depraved mind — and it is only through the inestimable grace of God that some men and women once lost in the twisted world of Gays Gone Wild (and its advocacy) leave it and return to sanity. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org
The photo below was taken by an Americans For Truth reporter who attended the annual Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco on Sunday, September 25, 2010. It confirms that public sex continues at the devent sex “fair” despite past pledges by fair organizers and the city to stop public nudity and open sex in the streets (following exposes by AFTAH and others in previous years). Children were photographed attending this event.
In the (redacted) center of the photo, a naked man is standing on the ground performing oral sex on another naked man, who is standing on the stage of a booth sponsored by ‘Steamworks,’ a local bathhouse (anonymous homosexual sex club). Behind him (at left), another barely-clad man grabs the genitals of a fellow “fair”-goer at Folsom:
Redacted photo of public, deviant sex on the streets of San Francisco, at the annual "Folsom Street Fair," September 25, 2010. (Click to enlarge.) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- a committed ally of homosexual activists -- has declined to criticize the "fair." Photo credit: Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, www.aftah.org, 2010.
Wow. The analytical powers of atheist, homosexual perversion-defender Joe Jervis’ (of the Joe. My. God. blog) are in full display as he exposes the sinister, long-concealed “truth” that AFTAH has been trying to hide for decades — that we are aligned with the … KKK … yeah, that’s it … the KKK! Joe alone had the analytical skills to pull together the story: AFTAH (and by extension FRC, AFA, Liberty Counsel, ADF, PFOX, etc.) have partered with the Klan to stop gay equality!!
I jest, of course. But Joe is serious–that’s the sad part. (Apparently he didn’t get the memo that the first one to call the other guy a “Nazi” in a debate is the automatic loser — that is, unless your opponent, like Wayne Besen, is actually behaving like a Nazi.) Try to focus so you can comprehend at least a portion of GLBT-award-winning Jervis’ sophisticated political equation:
Peter LaBarbera opposes the un-American idea that committed Christian students like Jennifer Keeton would become ineligible to get a college degree in counseling because they refuse to deny their faith by affirming homosexuality.
The Ku Klux Klan — hateful racists that they are — rallies against the same misguided idea.
Ergo, Peter LaBarbera and the KKK are comrades-in-arms.
Jervis ends his piece: “Peter LaBarbera and the KKK, both on the same side of hate. Feels like a perfect match.”
Such finely-honed logic. Such depth of reasoning and discernment. The nuances alone are worth pondering and studying for years to come. Joe, here’s the deal: your hatred of Americans For Truth and this writer (but more important, for the God who lovingly created you) is getting the best of you. Next time you set out to discredit AFTAH, try using a line of argumentation that wouldn’t embarrass a smart 5th-grader if he or she tried it.
Would Ann Coulter speak at an event for “Republicans For Responsible Porn Use,” or “Republicans for Higher Taxes,” or Republicans for Choice (Abortion) -- if such groups took legitimately conservative positions on other issues like gun rights?
CHICAGO — Americans For Truth About Homosexuality President Peter LaBarbera today urged conservative pundit Ann Coulter to reconsider her appearance at “Homocon,” a September event for the homosexual Republican group GOProud.
LaBarbera said:
As a fan of Ann Coulter, it pains me to see her cave in to political correctness and lend credibility to the phony homosexual “conservatives” over at GOProud. Worse, Coulter is sending a dangerous message to young Americans that homosexuality is OK. (It’s actually a sin.) Fully half of GOProud’s top 10 federal priorities center on using the Government to advance homosexuality, including:
#4 – “Repealing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’” – Homosexualizing the military is reckless, especially in wartime. GOProud claims to defend “individual liberty,” but what about the privacy rights of normal soldiers who don’t want to bunk and shower with men who lust after other men? Moreover, if DADT is repealed, the military will become a massive government bureaucracy for pro-homosexual “diversity” – subjecting millions of tradition-minded servicemen to Orwellian, same-sex propaganda to enforce its new lavender crusade. (Chaplains: beware.)
# 7 – “Opposing any anti-gay federal marriage amendment.” Coulter must know that America might be just one Supreme Court justice away from legalizing oxymoronic homosexual “marriage” – which would undermine religious freedom in every state in the nation. A Federal Marriage Amendment could be the only way to stop this Roe v. Wade-like disaster. And since when did state-enforced homosexual “marriage” – with its corrosive effect on liberty and linkage to Homosexuality Promotion in schools — become “conservative”?