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“You will not acknowledge the freedom of those who seek change”
Homosexual activist Wayne Besen of "Truth Wins Out" viciously attacks people who have overcome homosexuality in their lives--like former lesbian Janet Boynes. To order Boynes' book, go to www.JanetBoynesMinistries.com.
The following is an open letter to “Truth Wins Out” (TWO), a homosexual activist organization that attempts to discredit the observed truth that people practicing homosexuality can change their dominating sexual attractions (and behaviors). This letter was sent to members of the California state Assembly, which is considering SB 1172 — passed in late May by the state Senate — banning “sexual orientation” change therapy (also know as “reparative therapy”) for homosexual youth. The letter’s signers are: myself [Peter LaBarbera, Founder and President of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH)], Wayne Lela, Founder of H.O.M.E. (Heterosexuals Organized for a Moral Environment), and John McCartney, Jr., an AFTAH Board Member and advocate with the Citizens Concerned About Media, also based in Chicago.
TWO viciously demonizes “ex-gays”; typical is TWO founder Wayne Besen’s crass and demeaning characterization HERE of former lesbian Janet Boynes as an “ex-gay fraud” and “con artist.” Significantly, much of Besen’s and TWO’s efforts are directed at denying media visibility to people like Boynes who have overcome homosexuality in their lives. You can also listen HERE to Besen’s embarrassingly unprofessional appearance last year opposite me on liberal radio host Barry Lynn’s talk show, “Culture Shocks”: in addition to repeatedly calling me “Porno Pete” (a nasty smear he concocted) on air, Besen exposes his own folly of trying to “prove” homosexuals cannot change by admitting that he hasn’t (and of course cannot) monitor every former homosexual. (Besen and his small outfit evidently hadn’t been tracking successful Chicago former lesbian Linda Jernigan.)
I wish to add, for myself personally as a Christian who has monitored the homosexual movement for two decades, that some people trapped in homosexuality HAVE experienced rapid and, many would say, miraculous change away from homosexuality — mostly (but not always) through spiritual regeneration in Jesus Christ. However, that should not be the expectation of every person seeking sexual healing and transformation. As in all areas of life, each person brings his or her own unique circumstances, struggles, beliefs and personality to the process of overcoming adversity, sin and addictions in their life. And the lingering effects of temptation, abuse/family dysfunction and indulged, habitual sin — of whatever stripe — usually last a lifetime.
Peter LaBarbera, President of Americans for Truth, interviewed Susan Wright, Founder of the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, on September 28, 2008, at the annual “Folsom Street Fair” in San Francisco. (LaBarbera and several other pro-family advocates were there to protest and document the open nudity that occurs every year, with police protection, at Folsom.) In this portion of amateur video shot by Diane Gramley of American Family Association of Pennsylvania, Wright affirms her belief that sadomasochism is a “sexual orientation.” (She referes to BDSM, which according to practitioners stands for “Bondage & Discipline, Domination & Submission, Sadism & Masochism.”) The first part of the video is a discussion about tolerance; start watching at 3:14 as it turns to behavior (as LaBarbera calls it) versus Wright’s view of “orientation.”
It’s rare when I agree with (pro-homosexual-“marriage”) Chris Matthews, the fast-talking host of the MSNBC program “Hardball” — but here he hits the nail on the head. At a March 24 book signing in Framingham, Mass., Matthews was “ambushed” by video-camera-wielding activists with the pro-homosexual, leftist group Faithful America. They badgered him about having Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, on as a repeat guest on “Hardball.” Here’s Matthews’ response [more commentary after the video]:
Silencing “hate”?
Needless to say, Faithful America justifies its blacklisting campaign against Perkins on the basis of Family Research Council being (mis)labeled a “hate group” — by fellow left-wingers at GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) and the Southern Poverty Law Center. [See Faithful America’s Youtube comments HERE.] Perkins is a good man who ably and articulately defends the historic Judeo-Christian sexual and marriage ethic, for which he is rewarded with the usual vitriol by embittered homosexual activists and bloggers. Anyone who has seen Perkins debate on TV can see he is not “hateful” in the least — nor is the respected family organization FRC (where I once worked as a cultural analyst).
Do you see what is happening? The intellectual cowards on the Left — puffed up by a compliant media and suffused with enough “gay pride” and arrogance to presume that their aberrant sexual/gender ideology has NO LEGITIMATE OPPOSITION — are busier than ever trying to bully the media into joining their “Pro-Gay-Only” crusade. It is despicable, but worse: it is a grave threat to American liberty. Because when the media en masse kowtow to censorious activists — a road on which they are quite far along with the Homosexual Lobby — accountability, reason and fairness are jettisoned, paving the way for ever more reckless and extreme pressure campaigns against the dreaded “haters.” (That would be you, me and just about anyone who takes a public stand against homosexual behavior or “gay” agenda goals like same-sex “marriage.”)
Signs assail Biblical change away from homosexuality is “hateful”; imply Jesus Christ was homosexual
By Peter LaBarbera
It says all you need to know about the mischieviously-named homosexual activist group “Truth Wins Out” — headed by “gay” gadfly Wayne Besen — that it would feature anti-Christian photos like these prominently on its website. The photos are part of a story about a TWO protest outside the recent Exodus International “Love Won Out” conference in Atlanta, for people who have left or seek to leave homosexuality behind in their life. TWO attempts to discredit the idea that hcaltlhy change away from homosexuality is possible (by championing failed “ex-gays” and ignoring success stories).
In the TWO promotional photo at right proclaiming a “failed” Exodus conference (click to enlarge), the man’s sign reads, “The Bible is not a tool of hatred and injustice” — implying that efforts to help men and women overcome unwanted homosexual desires are hateful. This is now the standard propaganda line for almost all homosexual activist organizations. Of course, the truth is that most loving thing that a holy God and caring Christians can do for a person struggling with homosexuality (or any besetting sin) is to help him or her overcome that sin in their life. [More photos after jump.]
Online flier by homosexual activist group GLAAD smears Kirk Cameron as "anti-gay extremist."
The following is Christian actor/director Kirk Cameron’s response (posted on his Facebook page) to the controversy and pro-homosexual vitriol over his comments on homosexuality, in a recent interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan. (A transcript of the interview can be found HERE; watch the three-minute interview segment HERE; and go HERE for the homosexual activist group GLAAD’s online attack on Cameron.)
______________________________
I recently was asked to join Piers Morgan on CNN for an interview about my new film “Monumental.” During that discussion, I was asked to express my views about homosexuality, gay marriage, and abortion. While that was not the agreed-upon purpose of the interview, I was pleased to answer Piers’ questions as honestly as I could.
In some people’s eyes, my responses were not sufficiently “loving” toward those in the gay community. I can only say that it is my life’s mission to love all people, and that I expressed the same views that are expressed clearly and emphatically throughout the Judeo-Christian scriptures. As a Bible believing Christian, I could not have answered any other way.
Kirk Cameron has bravely stood for Christian and biblical values in Hollywood.
Below is a graphic put out by the homosexual media pressure group GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) — smearing Kirk Cameron as an “anti-gay extremist” for his recent heartfelt comments about homosexual behavior and “same-sex marriage,” on CNN’s Piers Morgan show. Watch the CNN interview HERE. As you can see, this is not the tone of an “extremist” but a thoughtful Christian man who is smart enough to know that Hollywood liberals and LGBT militants will pounce on any statement he makes critical of homosexual behavor, which God through the Bible condemns. (By the way, I think Kirk would have been better off just saying “yes” to Morgan’s question about whether he believes homosexuality is a sin.)
[In the CNN interview] I expressed the same views that are expressed clearly and emphatically throughout the Judeo-Christian scriptures. As a Bible believing Christian, I could not have answered any other way….
I also believe that freedom of speech and freedom of religion go hand-in-hand in America. I should be able to express moral views on social issues–especially those that have been the underpinning of Western civilization for 2,000 years–without being slandered, accused of hate speech, and told from those who preach “tolerance” that I need to either bend my beliefs to their moral standards or be silent when I’m in the public square.
I hope more than a few people could see the large volume of secularist morality being imposed on me….
I posted this comment today on the homosexual website “Truth Wins Out,” in response to an article they posted about a nasty video targeting yours truly as “Porno Pete”:
Wayne, you are a hater and hypocrite of the highest order, though you do a good con-job on TV playing a respectable, decent gay activist. (I still remember the days debating you back in DC before you left HRC — how you would obnoxiously talk over your opponents whenever they brought up inconvenient truths like the disproportionate rates of sexual disease for Men Who Have Sex with Men.)
It’s too bad now, as one who should be a mature man, that you have to resort to such crude demonizations, sophomoric slanders and character assassination to advance your dubious cause. What a waste of writing talent, but Saul Alinsky would be proud.
The jig is up: despite the Gay Left’s campaign to smear Christian, pro-family opponents as “haters,” more and more everyday people are recognizing that the nastiest, cruelest and most intolerant activists in America are homosexual militants like you, Dan Savage, Evan Hurst and the comically-named “Truth” Wins Out. All of you would be exposed as phonies if the “mainstream” media were anything close to impartial.
As for me, I wear Truth Wins Out’s hatred and very “queer” putdowns like this as a Badge of Honor.
Peter LaBarbera
Founder and President
Americans For Truth About Homosexuality www.aftah.org
One of the three panelists, Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain, went out of his way in a concurring opinion to dispute that either the U.S. Constitution or the Supreme Court’s interpretation of it provided “a member of the armed forces (with) a constitutionally protected right to engage in homosexual acts or to state that he or she is a homosexual while continuing to serve in the military.”
O’Scannlain also criticized the lower court judge who invalidated “don’t ask, don’t tell” last year, U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips. He accused Phillips of willfully failing “to apply established law” so she could issue a ruling “that invalidated a considered congressional policy and imposed a wholly novel view of constitutional liberty on the entire United States.”
Per the usual, the Log Cabin Republicans put their pro-homosexuality activism way ahead of loyalty to the conservative Republican Party platform. (After all, for homosexual activists, it’s all about “me.”) The question now is: will the same conservative Republicans and GOP candidates who rightly pledge to repeal Obama-care also work to reinstate the homosexual military exclusion policy – or will they capitulate to the Left’s (and libertarians’) radical social agenda for the Armed Forces? If they surrender, pro-homosexual “diversity” policies will turn the Pentagon into massive “gay rights” bureaucracy that undermines religious freedom and the very conservative values that make our military strong. We shall see. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal appeals court refused Thursday to decide the constitutionality of the military’s now-repealed “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy banning openly gay troops, saying the issue has been resolved since Americans can enlist and serve in the armed forces without regard to sexual orientation.