At left is a photo on the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History website announcing that the (taxpayer-funded) museum had acquired “civil rights pioneer” Frank Kameny’s papers. At right is a newsletter of the NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Love Association, the notorious pro-man-boy-sex group, whose conference Kameny addressed in 1981.

By Peter LaBarbera

I was going through some of my old files on the “gay” movement and came upon a nugget of “gay” history that I’d forgotten: longtime homosexual activist Frank Kameny — billed as a “gay civil rights pioneer” by the U.S. Government’s National Museum of American History — addressed a meeting of the notorious “man-boy-love” group NAMBLA in 1981. According to the NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) publication “A Way Forward,” Kameny spoke at a NAMBLA membership conference in Baltimore in 1981. 

Now isn’t it interesting that our government — speaking for us as a nation — wants to officially recognize this pro-homosexuality icon as a “civil rights pioneer” when, apparently, Kameny once supported the “civil right” of boys to have sex with men — why else would he attend such a meeting? (NOTE: If you’re opposed to the notion of our Government likening the cause of organized homosexuality to the noble Black civil rights movement, click on AFTAH initial story on Kameny HERE.) The media viciously attack Christian conservative leaders like Jerry Falwell but they give the “gays” a pass. This is why the homosexual “rights” movement has prospered.

Mr. Kameny is an avid letter-writer — and we will be publishing the long interview that Ken Ervin and I did with him several years ago — but maybe he can tell us why he appeared at NAMBLA’s meeting and what he said; Frank, please write me at americansfortruth@comcast.net.

Last year, Americans For Truth alerted you to the U.S. Government’s treatment of Kameny as a civil rights hero by collecting his papers for preservation in the National Museum of American History. Kameny is a brilliant but very confused fellow who, although an atheist, coined the phrase “Gay Is Godly,” and who calls people like me “Christianofascists.”

He also calls us “nutty fundamentalists,” but is there anything more nutty than giving credence to the idea that boys should be able to have sex with men?

Excerpted from AnnCoulter.com; read the whole column HERE. Note the part about Tinky Winky: yes, Virginia, there is a conspiracy — a conspiracy in the liberal, pro-“gay” media to make good people committed to Biblical values look stupid — and Falwell was a victim: 

JERRY FALWELL — SAY HELLO TO RONALD REAGAN!
May 16, 2007

No man in the last century better illustrated Jesus’ warning that “All men will hate you because of me” than the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who left this world on Tuesday. Separately, no man better illustrates my warning that it doesn’t pay to be nice to liberals.

Falwell was a perfected Christian. He exuded Christian love for all men, hating sin while loving sinners. This is as opposed to liberals, who just love sinners. Like Christ ministering to prostitutes, Falwell regularly left the safe confines of his church to show up in such benighted venues as CNN.

He was such a good Christian that back when we used to be on TV together during Clinton’s impeachment, I sometimes wanted to say to him, “Step aside, reverend — let the mean girl handle this one.” (Why, that guy probably prayed for Clinton!)

For putting Christ above everything — even the opportunity to make a humiliating joke about Clinton — Falwell is known as “controversial.” Nothing is ever as “controversial” as yammering about Scripture as if, you know, it’s the word of God or something.

From the news coverage of Falwell’s death, I began to suspect his first name was “Whether You Agree With Him or Not.”

Even Falwell’s fans, such as evangelist Billy Graham and former President Bush, kept throwing in the “We didn’t always agree” disclaimer. Did Betty Friedan or Molly Ivins get this many “I didn’t always agree with” qualifiers on their deaths? And when I die, if you didn’t always agree with me, would you mind keeping it to yourself?

Let me be the first to say: I ALWAYS agreed with the Rev. Falwell. ….

… I note that in Falwell’s list of Americans he blamed for ejecting God from public life, only the gays got a qualifier. Falwell referred to gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle. ….

… Also the ones who promote the gay lifestyle in a children’s cartoon.

Beginning in early 1998, the news was bristling with stories about a children’s cartoon PBS was importing from Britain that featured a gay cartoon character, Tinky Winky, the purple Teletubbie with a male voice and a red handbag.

People magazine gleefully reported that Teletubbies was “aimed at Telebabies as young as 1 year. But teenage club kids love the products’ kitsch value, and gay men have made the purse-toting Tinky Winky a camp icon.”

In the Nexis archives for 1998 alone, there are dozens and dozens of mentions of Tinky Winky being gay — in periodicals such as Newsweek, The Toronto Star, The Washington Post (twice!), The New York Times and Time magazine (also twice).

In its Jan. 8, 1999, issue, USA Today accused The Washington Post of “outing” Tinky Winky, with a “recent Washington Post In/Out list putting T.W. opposite Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche, essentially ‘outing’ the kids’ show character.”

Michael Musto of The Village Voice boasted that Tinky Winky was “out and proud,” noting that it was “a great message to kids — not only that it’s OK to be gay, but the importance of being well accessorized.”

All this appeared before Falwell made his first mention of Tinky Winky.

After one year of the mainstream media laughing at having put one over on stupid bourgeois Americans by promoting a gay cartoon character in a TV show for children, when Falwell criticized the cartoon in February 1999, that same mainstream media howled with derision that Falwell thought a cartoon character could be gay….

Click HERE to read Coulter’s entire column

UPDATE on this story: Chicago Sun-Times religion columnist Cathleen Falsani — author of a controversial column titled, “Sigh of Relief over Falwell’s Death” — contacted Americans For Truth late Friday afternoon for the sole purpose of requesting that we remove her copyrighted photo from our website (which we did). When AFTAH President Peter LaBarbera sought to engage Falsani in a discussion about her anti-Falwell column, she curtly said she was only calling for the “legal purpose” of removing the photo. “I’m not interested in engaging in dialogue with you,” she said.

When LaBarbera countered that this was odd since Falsani is a “reporter” who talks to people for a living, Falsani replied that she is not a reporter, but a columnist. (As you can read below, she was only recently relieved of her reporting duties at the Sun-Times.)

Said LaBarbera, “This story only gets weirder: a religion columnist cruelly trashes a conservative minister days after his death, then refuses to discuss her column with a critic. It seems Cathleen Falsani can dish it out but she can’t take it. We echo Illinois Review editor Fran Eaton’s call for Falsani to be fired as a Sun-Times religion columnist. As one who is obviously bigoted against Bible-believing religious traditionalists, she should not be writing on religion for a major metropolitan daily.”

Our original article follows:

__________________________

You can write Cathleen Falsani at cfalsani@suntimes.com; or write a letter to the Sun Times (phone: 312-321-3000) at letters@suntimes.com.

In fact, my very first thought upon hearing of the Rev. Falwell’s passing was: Good.
     And I didn’t mean “good” in a oh-good-he’s-gone-home-to-be-with-the-Lord kind of way. I meant “good” as in “Ding-dong, the witch is dead.”
— Cathleen Falsani, “Sigh of Relief over Falwell’s Death,” May 18, Chicago Sun-Times

I wrote Cathleen Falsani to say how sad it is that a religion columnist would so cruelly denounce and defame a man shortly after his death. (More of that HERE.) The Religious Left — of which one could now safely say Falsani is a member — prides itself on its compassion, but when it comes down to it, they can be quite mean and guilty of the same harshness and “hate” of which they accuse others. It reminds me of the pro-abortion-rights liberals who fancy themselves as compassionate people who look out for the downtrodden (“the little guy”) — and yet can’t face their own hypocrisy in zealously defending the “right to choose” to kill society’s most helpless people: the unborn.

Sometimes Christian-identified writers and reporters go overboard in attacking Biblical traditionalists to show their media peers that they’re not a tool of the stereotypical “religious right.” Maybe that’s what happened here. Whether or not that’s the case, it’s tragic that Falsani, a Wheaton College grad, has sunk to this level. This is an ugly and tacky piece of writing that exposes the hypocrisy of self-righteous liberals and the disdain of the media for traditionalist Christian leaders. 

Like many in the Fourth Estate, Falsani needs sensitivity training and would surely benefit from a sabbatical at Falwell’s Liberty University. She should be removed as the Sun-Times’ religion columnist (at least she is no longer a religion reporter for the paper), but that won’t happen because most of the paper’s staff probably loved her column. Nothing like beating up on the ‘fundies,’ dead or alive, to burnish your credentials in the media. (Now, writing a fair column about a man or woman who has left homosexuality behind, through the power of the same Christ that Falsani professes to follow, that’s another story….)

Congratulations, Cathleen: you scored some more points with the Left, but you did so at the price of your own dignity, your Christian testimony, and to the detriment of your once noble profession.— Peter LaBarbera 

The following is excerpted by Media Research Council’s “NewsBusters” blog, by Tim Graham (emphasis added). You can read Graham’s entire piece by clicking HERE, and Falsani’s nasty column HERE):

Chicago Sun-Times Writer: Jerry Falwell Was a Spiritual Bully, Like Tony Soprano

By Tim Graham, Newsbusters.org, May 18, 2007

It might not be surprising for liberal blog commenters or talk-radio callers to denounce Rev. Jerry Falwell upon his death, but it’s a little more surprising when it comes to a professed Christian who’s religion columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. Cathleen Falsani reflected on her first reaction about hearing Falwell was “relief” and compared him to gangster TV character Tony Soprano:

Knowing I didn’t have a deadline to meet that day, my first thoughts were not of what to say or write.

 

In fact, my very first thought upon hearing of the Rev. Falwell’s passing was: Good.

 

And I didn’t mean “good” in a oh-good-he’s-gone-home-to-be-with-the-Lord kind of way. I meant “good” as in “Ding-dong, the witch is dead.”

 

But that thought — good riddance, I suppose — was not meant to be cruel or malicious. [!]After all, the faith that the Rev. Falwell and I share teaches us that he was, at that moment, in a far better place, with Jesus in heaven, and not roasting on a spit in Hell’s kitchen.

 

By shrugging off his mortal coil, the Rev. Falwell had ceased to suffer the pain of humanity.

 

Still, I’m not particularly proud of my knee-jerk reaction. But there it is….

 

My initial reaction to the Rev. Falwell’s death was, and remains, relief — not unlike the ease I felt when a particularly nasty bully who used to spit at me on the playground and threaten to beat me up after school moved to another town.

 

The Rev. Falwell was a spiritual bully. He was the Tony Soprano to Pat Robertson’s Paulie Walnuts.

How on Earth can a religion columnist compare a televangelist to a malicious mob boss and killer? We could understand the typical Elmer Gantry comparisons, but Tony Soprano? Including Robertson on the list suggested clearly that was Falsani believes is that conservatism and orthodoxy are “bullying” and that liberalism and relativism brings true spirituality and harmony with God.

Courtesy of lesbian actiivist Pam Spaulding’s website:

“The man was a hateful pig.”

–Homosexual activists blogger John Aravosis. For more of same, click on Aravosis’ “Americablog” page on Falwell HERE.

“It is with great regret that Rev. Jerry Falwell never moderated his position on homosexuality,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “While our hearts go out to his family, we can’t help but to reflect on his life and think about all of the families he’s torn apart and teenagers that committed suicide because he made them feel inferior. He never missed an opportunity to kick our better angels to the curb and capitalize on our lesser demons to advance his career…Unfortunately, the anti-gay infrastructure built by Falwell survives him. With the founding of Liberty University and his legal arm, the Liberty Counsel, his legacy of intolerance will continue for quite some time.””
— Wayne Besen, of Truth Wins Out

“The death of a family member or friend is always a sad occasion and we express our condolences to all those who were close to the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Unfortunately, we will always remember him as a founder and leader of America’s anti-gay industry, someone who exacerbated the nation’s appalling response to the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic, someone who demonized and vilified us for political gain and someone who used religion to divide rather than unite our nation.”
— Matt Forman, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

“It breaks my heart to think that Jerry died without ever discovering the truth about God’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender children. I sincerely hope that one day his school and his church will have a change of heart.”
— Rev. Dr. Mel White of Soulforce, who used to write for Falwell 

“Reverend Falwel’s death today causes my thoughts to turn toward the members of our community who have at great personal sacrifice contended with the Reverendâ??s work and teachings.  As I remember Reverend Falwell’s life, I also remember all of the families of people who have died of AIDS.  Reverend Falwell’s legacy is not about the tenants of Jesus’s ministry such as healing the sick and standing with the disenfranchised but about shunning and ridiculing those who have suffered and died of AIDS and their families.  Many faith leaders today are moving away from his divisive approach and toward the compassion and inclusiveness that Jesus modeled every day of his ministry.”
— Joe Solmonese, Human Rights Campaign (leading homosexual group in America)

“We extend our condolences to Rev. Jerry Falwell’s family and friends.  He was an effective advocate for his vision of America, a vision with which we strongly disagreed.”
— People For the American Way President Ralph G. Neas, with these links to its past coverage of Jerry Falwell

 “While Soulforce has a long history of nonviolent direct action at Jerry Falwell Ministries, our adversary was never Jerry Falwell, but rather the misinformation about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people espoused by Falwell and so many others.”
— Soulforce Executive Director Jeff Lutes

“The passing of as public a figure as Jerry Falwell naturally garners intense media attention. Our condolences are with the Rev. Falwell’s family and loved ones during this emotional time.  And as the nation’s media examine Falwell’s life and legacy, it is important that they focus attention on the damaging impact of his rhetoric and advocacy on millions of gay and lesbian people and families.”
— Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) President Neil Giuliano

“We extend to Reverend Falwell the simple dignity and deference that our own families seek as part of the American family. Reverend Falwell may have attempted to make himself our adversary with his own personal attacks and political campaigns, but we remember that he remained our neighbor. As we understand that each American should be treated equally under the law, we recognize that each neighbor should receive our respect. Our thoughts and our prayers are with his widow Macel, the Falwell family and the membership of Thomas Road Baptist Church.”
— Jo Wyrick, Executive Director, National Stonewall Democrats

“It has to be a difficult time for Rev. Jerry Falwell’s family right now. They are going to have to deal with an intense storm of media coverage, with bloviating from the left and the right, and much of it will not be pretty or complimentary. To have to grieve so publicly is not something to wish on anyone, particularly when the departed is a political lightning rod.

“He was a towering icon of the religious right movement, and he has left quite a legacy — one I cannot agree with in any form or fashion, nevertheless one cannot ignore his success at mobilizing a large portion of the electorate in ways that many organizations on the left have yet to do.

“It’s sad to hear, as of last week (in an interview with CNN), he stood by his 2001 comments  that gays, lesbians, pro-choice advocates and feminists were to blame for 9/11.

“I wish that Reverend Falwell, who at one time was against integration and interracial marriage, could have lived long enough to see full LGBT equality finally come to pass. We all know that it will prove him terribly wrong once again —  that treating one group of citizens the same as everyone else isn’t a threat to marriage, the American family or this country.”

— Lesbian blogger Pam Spaulding. Spaulding was considerably more respectful than some of her fans posting comments on her “Pam’s House Blend” website.

  The following is reprinted with permission from the website of the Family Taxpayers Network, a terrific organization based in Carpentersville, Illinois. (FTN runs “TheChampion.org website, which is loaded with good stuff on education reform, and where you can look up any public school teacher’s salary on their School Salary Database.)

Same old story regarding the GOP’s dalliance with the Log Cabin Republicans, whose “gay” agenda pretty much parallels that of other homosexual organizations. We’ve said it once, we’ll say it a thousand times: the Republican Party cannot be “pro-family” and pro-homosexual-activist at the same time.

The Log Cabin Republicans in Illinois are lobbying hard for House Bill 1826, which would force the state’s businesses to recognize and therefore subsidize homosexual “civil unions.” (So much for freedom of conscience.) HB 1826 is a same-sex “marriage” bill by another name. Peraica strongly supported last year’s Illinois Marriage Protection advisory referendum (which has been relaunched by Protect Marriage Illinois for 2008), so why is he now seeking the support of a group whose radical agenda is 180 degrees in the opposite direction?

With the Democrats nationally the party of abortion-on-demand (including “partial-birth infanticide) and mainstreaming homosexuality, the GOP needs to decide: is it going to mimic the Democrats’ social leftism or present voters with a conservative, pro-life, pro-family alternative? That’s up to them, but they would do well to heed the words of the true “log cabin” president, Abe Lincoln, who said — repeating the words of Jesus (Matthew 12:25): “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” — Peter LaBarbera

Cozying up with a homosexual, anti-Bush group
 
Tony Peraica and Christine Radogno can be seen HERE happily being welcomed at a recent private reception hosted by the Log Cabin Republicans (photo courtesy of the Windy City Times, the newspaper which proudly hails itself as “The Voice of Chicago’s Gay, Lesbian, Bi and Trans Community since 1985.”)
 
The Log Cabin Republicans is of course a group that’s dedicated to advancing the homosexual agenda in America. But putting that aside, just how “Republican” is the group? Well, the Log Cabin Republicans were always a key backer of Judy Baar Topinka, and each year members of the Chicago Chapter were among the most enthusiastic marchers with her in Chicago’s Gay Pride Parade.
 
But while Topinka was welcomed, the group snubbed our Commander in Chief. In 2004 the organization refused to endorse President Bush due to his defense of traditional marriage. The organization even ran television ads in 2004 attacking Bush for his support of a fundamental plank of the Republican Platform.
 
Further, last year the Chicago Chapter of the Log Cabins assisted other gay activists in preparing the legal challenge to the Protect Marriage Illinois petitions – those hundreds of thousands of signatures that so many dedicated Republicans worked so hard gathering across Illinois.
 
How hypocritical that a group that preaches about the “Big Tent” turns on the President and the base when they don’t get their way on THEIR single issue.
 
Peraica’s and Radogno’s support of the Log Cabins is a poke in the eye to every Republican who believes in the Republican Platform –– and especially to the thousands who worked so hard gathering signatures for the Protect Marriage Illinois initiative.

H.R. 2015 Would Force a Gender Confusion Revolution on U.S. Businesses

By Peter LaBarbera

For once we agreed with Barney Frank (sort of), at least before he sold out to the “transgender” lobby. 

“There are workplace situations — communal showers, for example — when the demands of the transgender community fly in the face of conventional norms and therefore would not pass in any Congress. I’ve talked with transgender activists and what they want — and what we will be forced to defend — is for people with penises who identify as women to be able to shower with other women.”

—Homosexual Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), BEFORE he changed his mind and embraced including “transgenders” in the Employment NonDiscrimination Act (ENDA)  

“Technically, you cannot truly change one’s sex. That’s why the procedure is not really called ‘sex change surgery’ but ‘sex reassignment surgery.’ The idea is to alter the physical appearance of a person’s anatomy to approximate as nearly as possible the anatomic arrangement of the other sex.”

— Melanie, “Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS), the Nuts & Bolts,” a “Transgender Support Site” 

*          *          *

Employment NonDiscrimination Act (H.R. 2015) Language: 

“EMPLOYER PRACTICES.—It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer—

(1) “to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to the compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment of the individual, because of such individual’s actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity; or

(2) “to limit, segregate, or classify the employees or applicants for employment of the employer in any way that would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment or otherwise adversely affect the status of the individual as an employee, because of such individual’s actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.”

*          *         *

TAKE ACTION:  Call the Congress (202-224-3121) or use e-mail to urge your Representative and Senators to reject ENDA (H.R. 2015) and the insanity of forcing business across the nation to accommodate and subsidize gender confusion in the name of “civil rights.” Also, call President Bush (202-456-1414) or e-mail him at comments@whitehouse.gov to urge him to veto the “trans”-affirming ENDA, along with the “Hate Crimes” bill (H.R. 1592) that his aides have indicated will likely be vetoed. 

Fast on the heels of the “Hate Crimes” bill (H.R. 1597, recently passed by the House) is the second of two top homosexual activist priorities: ENDA, the “Employment Nondiscrimination Act,” H.R. 2015, recently introduced by homosexual Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.). Please read at the bottom of this story the homosexual newspaper Washington Blade’s analysis of the “transgender” provision of this radical bill.

To read about ENDA’s dubious “religious exemption” provision, click HERE.

Veteran observers of the “gay” movement will recall that Frank himself once strongly criticized the idea of including transsexuals in the ENDA bill (see above quote). But like most “progressives,” Frank has seen the light, or maybe he just heard the shouts — from radical “trans” activists who have skillfully adapted militant “gay” tactics to their own misguided cause, including calling their outspoken critics “transphobes.”

Several giant corporations have already settled on pro-“transgender” bathroom and dress policies — probably the same companies who would subject their employees to biased, pro-homosexual “diversity” lectures — but can you imagine inflicting these “transgender” regulations on small and mid-level companies through federal law via ENDA?

This is one of the most perverse applications of “civil rights” to date — and it’s headed straight for your business if you have 15 or more employees. What female employee wants to share the company restroom with a big-boned man claiming to be “transitioning” to “womanhood”? Will companies have to build “transgender male” and “transgender female” restrooms (or “Designated GLBT Restrooms”) to accommodate the various “orientations” and avoid government prosecution?

 

Churches and religious-oriented groups are quasi-exempt under ENDA but secular businesses owned by Christians or religious Americans are not. ENDA is a “gay” and “trans” lawyer’s dream. What about jobs such as a teacher in which the employer might not want the “transitioning” employee to model his newfound “gender identity” to children? Or service jobs (say a maitre d’) in which the employer may not want the newly “gender variant” employee to be in such a public role?

Imagine a male employee, John, who since he became employed at XYZ Corp., about a decade ago, has used the men’s restroom. Then one day he informs his boss that in a week he will come to work in a dress as “Joanna” and begin his MTF (“male-to-female”) metamorphosis into “womanhood.” (According to widely accepted regulations within the “transgender” world, he must “live” full-time as Joanna, taking female hormones, for a full year before he becomes eligible for “sex-reassignment surgery,” which will turn his healthy sex organ into a makeshift female sex organ. If you have the stomach to read what is actually done to a man’s body in “sex reassignment surgery,” click HERE, but be warned: it’s horrifying stuff. We must pray for these poor souls who are so confused that they would destroy their healthy, God-given bodies to assuage their inner conflict.)

Isn’t it a bit much to expect of normal, female XYZ employees to all of the sudden welcome “Joanna’s” presence in the ladies’ restroom? In fact, as I read the Blade account below, under ENDA’s proposed regulations, John/Joanna would be able to use the female restroom BEFORE his “sex reassignment” surgery. Indeed, the website “e-transgender,” quoting the homosexual/transgender group Human Rights Campaign, advises corporate human resources managers as follows:

“Employers should grant restroom access according to an employee’s full-time gender presentation.”

Read: if John “lives” (identifies) as Joanna full-time, he should be able to use the female restroom. Biologically-born ladies, beware!

What about the privacy rights of John’s female co-workers? Don’t they have the right not to feel personally invaded as they go to the restroom at their job? Will businesses have to put out new bathroom policies and undergo company-wide bathroom-usage training to explain the new policies?

 

But the situation becomes a crisis when the federal government — aided by politically correct activist judges — forces businesses to advance this Gender Confusion Revolution in the name of “civil rights.”

Is this really an area in which the federal government should even be involved? It’s bad enough that big business is rolling over to the bizarre “T” (Transgender) agenda — with some even subsidizing horrifying “sex-reassignment surgeries” that destroy men’s and women’s healthy bodies. (I once attended a conference for FTM (“female to male”) “transgenders” in which young women proudly showed off their flat chests — the result of “chest surgery” operations in which their healthy breasts were removed to make them look like the “men” they wanted to be.)

Of course, the larger goal here — shared by the “gay” and “transgender” lobbies — is to change your mind and heart regarding gender-confused conduct. The law is merely a tool in their never-ending quest to overturn America’s Judeo-Christian norms regarding family, sex and marriage.

We predict that businesses will deal with this very sad and strange “transgender” issue by building special restrooms and/or shower facilities for their “transgender” or alternatively “gendered” employees — spending countless millions to subsidize mentally disordered, deviant behavior. (Gender Identity Disorder, or GID, is a recognized mental disorder.) This corporate spending would accelerate dramatically should ENDA become law, as businesses would fear lawsuits if they failed to honor “trans” rights.

Call Congress (202-224-3121) or use e-mail to urge your U.S. Representative and Senators to reject ENDA, H.R. 2015. Also, call President Bush (202-456-1414) or e-mail him at comments@whitehouse.gov and ask him to veto the pro-“trans” ENDA, along with the “Hate Crimes” bill (H.R. 1592) that his aides have already indicated will likely be vetoed.

The world is turned upside-down. I challenge “Mike/Christine” to do a column describing, in detail, “sex-reassignment surgery” — whereby a penis is turned into a makeshift “vagina” — assuming he is one day going to go that route. (“Transitioning” people are required to live one year as the opposite sex before undergoing the horrifying operation.) Then we’ll see just how “natural” all of this is.

Transsexualism is perhaps one of the most extreme manifestations of the modern philosophy of “I feel, therefore I am.” Just because men (and women) caught up in gender confusion FEEL that society should “respect” their gender-twisting choices, doesn’t mean that it is healthy for society to do so. Nor should taxpayers and corporations be forced to subsidize the radical “sex-change” operations — another goal of many in the “trans” movement. Granting newfangled “civil rights” based on “transgender” identities has it completely backwards: a healthy society would discourage gender confusion as much as possible, rather than celebrate it. And we haven’t even started talking about supposed “transgender” children, the “T” in the “GLBTQ” (“Q” is for “Questioning”) acronym tossed around by pro-homosexual activists and educationists who work with youth. — Peter LaBarbera

FIRST PERSON
Old Mike, new Christine
By Mike Penner, Times Staff Writer
April 26, 2007
During my 23 years with The Times’ sports department, I have held a wide variety of roles and titles. Tennis writer. Angels beat reporter. Olympics writer. Essayist. Sports media critic. NFL columnist. Recent keeper of the Morning Briefing flame.

Today I leave for a few weeks’ vacation, and when I return, I will come back in yet another incarnation.

As Christine.

I am a transsexual sportswriter. It has taken more than 40 years, a million tears and hundreds of hours of soul-wrenching therapy for me to work up the courage to type those words. I realize many readers and colleagues and friends will be shocked to read them.

That’s OK. I understand that I am not the only one in transition as I move from Mike to Christine. Everyone who knows me and my work will be transitioning as well. That will take time. And that’s all right. To borrow a piece of well-worn sports parlance, we will take it one day at a time.

Transsexualism is a complicated and widely misunderstood medical condition. It is a natural occurrence — unusual, no question, but natural.

Recent studies have shown that such physiological factors as genetics and hormonal fluctuations during pregnancy can significantly affect how our brains are “wired” at birth.

As extensive therapy and testing have confirmed, my brain was wired female.

A transgender friend provided the best and simplest explanation I have heard: We are born with this, we fight it as long as we can, and in the end it wins.

To read the rest of the column in the L.A. Times, click HERE.