Excerpted from Batavia Gender Controversy Persists, by Marketta Gregory, published Sept 15, 2006, in Rochester Democrat & Chronicle:

…”It seems like the administration is sweeping this under the rug and saying that any opposition is losing steam,” said Donald Shirk, the parent of a sophomore and senior pastor at Grace Baptist Church. “I strongly disagree.”

The district first heard about the teacher’s plans around Christmas; Shirk heard about it a little more than a week before school started. Since then, he and his assistant pastor, Mark Hurlbut, have been scouring medical journals, researching court cases and writing editorials saying that students shouldn’t be made to assist in the teacher’s treatment.

“This hit our community like a tsunami,” Shirk said. “Now we’re caught up in the surf.”

Other pastors have contacted Shirk, and they are hoping to start a petition to show that not everyone approves of the actions that have been taken by the school district. Also, a national group that offers free legal counsel to advance religious freedom has written to Stutzman, saying that students’ religious rights are being violated.

Attorneys working for the district wrote back to the Florida-based Liberty Counsel and explained the school’s position.

Meanwhile, the district has heard from several parents who support the teacher and what the district is doing. And even some of the people who don’t agree with sex reassignment surgery understand that the district is doing what it must do, Stutzman said, adding that gender identity disorder is considered a disability and protected under New York law.

“There are no other options in New York state.”

Continue reading at Democrat & Chronicle…

This is the second installment in our series of responses to “Out in Scripture,” Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) attempt to do the impossible: re-interpret the Bible to be in support of homosexual behavior (sin).

By Sonja Dalton

The primary text for the Sept 17 HRC’s Out in Scripture Commentary is Isaiah 50:4-9a:

The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward. I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.

Who was this one called to minister to the weary and to warn the unfaithful? Was he a homosexual? The “Out in Scripture” commentary claims, “Isaiah 50:4-9a offers the testimony of one who knows herself to be called by God.” Is that true?

No, certainly not.

This book of prophecy is the inspired testimony of the bearded male prophet, Isaiah, to a rebellious Judah – of whom he says in chapter 1:

If the LORD of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have become like Sodom and become like Gomorrah. Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom! Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!… [God Himself speaking:

“I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly…

When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you;

even though you make many prayers, I will not listen…“

So, in likening the rebellious character of Judah to the rampant homosexuality in Sodom and Gomorrah, the prophet Isaiah (like all of God’s prophets, apostles, and teachers) affirmed God’s design for human sexuality (faithful marriage) and overtly condemned homosexual practice.

It used to be American leftists and peaceniks who crusaded against Big Business. Now it’s moral-minded and largely Christian conservatives–who have watched one Fortune 500 company after another embrace pro-homosexual advocacy, dressed up as “diversity.”

While the pro-family movement focused on doing battle against the homosexual lobby in Washington, D.C., and state capitals, “gay” activists won over corporations, largely through internal activism within each company. Kodak, a leading national sponsor of GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network) went heavily into homosexual advocacy after a top female executive declared her lesbianism to fellow execs. Kodak is among the 138 companies that received a 100% score on the “Corporate Equality Index” (read: Pro-Homosexuality Index) of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s leading “gay” lobby group.

The battle to restore corporate neutrality on the homosexual issue will be a long and tough one, but it must be fought. People of faith inside companies can refuse to participate in pro-homosexual, one-sided “tolerance” sessions that undercut their moral beliefs. Or at least, they can request that the pro-family perspective on the issue be represented in the name of diversity. And they must work closely with outside family advocates to fight against corporate grants to homosexual groups like HRC that have a well-earned reputation for radicalism and bigotry–e.g., supporting taxpayer-funded transsexual “sex-change” operations and demonizing religious people and groups opposed to homosexuality.

You may get hassled or even punished along the way for standing for truth, but Christ said, “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also” (John 15:20).  If you need some help sharing the Gospel with a homosexual co-worker, try reading this short, helpful paper by former lesbian Yvette Schneider, “How Christians Can Talk to Homosexuals.”

The pendulum is swinging toward a politically correct corporate embrace of immoral and unhealthy sexual behavior, dressed up as an “orientation.” It will swing back toward normalcy in the years ahead. –– Peter LaBarbera

The following is excerpted from New Report Shows Corporate America Competing to Be the Most GLBT-Friendly, published Sept 19, 2006, by the homosexual activist group Human Rights Campaign:

The Human Rights Campaign today released a report showing that a record number of the largest U.S. companies are increasingly competing to expand benefits and protections for their gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees and consumers. This year’s report, the Human Rights Campaign’s fifth annual Corporate Equality Index, showed an unprecedented 138 major U.S. companies earned the top rating of 100 percent.

Continue reading the HRC report…

Excerpted from List of GayFriendly Companies Continues to Grow, published Sept 21, 2006, by Agape Press:

The 2006 Corporate Equality Index’s 138-member list includes perennial representatives like IBM, Levi-Strauss, Nike, and even Ford Motor Company. It measures benefits and protections to “gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender” employees and customers, including promises against discrimination. The jump from a list of 101 last year to 138 this year is being called a reflection of several culture trends. (See related article on WorldNetDaily)

Peter LaBarbera is president of Americans for Truth, a group that monitors the homosexual agenda throughout American culture. He contends that the campaigns to portray homosexuals and transgenders as a minority — and to represent them as large contributors to corporate America’s bottom line — has been successful…

Continue reading at Agape Press…

The UK’s largest teachers’ union, the National Union of Teachers (aptly abbreviated NUT), has demanded that acceptance of homosexual relationships must be included in nursery school curriculum.

NUT is “well established as a major engine in Britain’s homosexual activist community” and is also “currently lobbying to overturn the legal right of religious schools not to hire homosexual teachers.”

A forerunner of things to come in the USA?

Excerpted from Gay Parents Encouraged to Be Activists at School, published Sept 18, 2006, by Citizen Link:

Gay-activist group Family Pride has produced a pamphlet to guide homosexual parents in introducing themselves to their children’s schools.

“Building Family Equality in the Classroom” suggests parents attend the first PTA meeting together and introduce themselves as a couple.

Barbara McPherson, legislative affairs coordinator for the California Family Council, told Family News in Focus such activism doesn’t belong in school.

“It’s a crossing of the line almost between information that helps people understand tolerance within their community versus an indoctrination,” she said, “trying to get other people’s children to think that same-sex partners are normal.”

Continue reading at Citizen Link…

Excerpted from Disgustingly Graphic Girls’ Sex Ed Book Urging Lesbianism Coming to Manitoba Schools, by Gudrun Schultz, published Sept 19, 2006, by LifeSite News:

High school girls in Manitoba may soon be reading detailed instructions on lesbian sex acts as part of their normal sex education curriculum, after the Ministry of Education accepted a manual emphasizing homosexuality as an optional resource for high school educators.

The Little Black Book [for Girlz]–A Book on Healthy Sexuality …claims to be a youth-friendly guide to teenage sexuality, offering girls advice and information.

In reality it reads like a guide to lesbian pornography, with section titles such as “My First Time F***ing a Girl” and “How to Use a Dental Dam” (a “safe sex” device for oral/anal sex).

…“This is one of the most irresponsible and obscene school documents that we have ever seen,” said Joseph Ben-Ami, executive director for the Institute for Canadian Values, in a press release. “Using this as a guide to healthy sexuality for teenage girls would be one of the most potentially harmful decisions that any school could make.”

Continue reading at LifeSite News…

WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT THIS BOOK?
The Institute for Family Values will send whatever evidence they have of the offending material to those who send an email with their contact information to: noblackbook@canadianvalues.ca

The Institute is urging those concerned to contact Manitoba Premier Gary Doer and Minister of Education Peter Bjornson:

Hon. Gary Doer
Premier
204 Legislative Building
450 Broadway,
Winnipeg, Manitoba.
R3C 0V8
Phone 204-945-3714 or 204-945-3715
Fax 204-949-1484
email: premier@leg.gov.mb.ca

Hon. Peter Bjornson
Minister of Education
168 Legislative Building
450 Broadway,
Winnipeg, Manitoba.
R3C 0V8
Phone 204-945-3720 or 204-945-0418
Fax 204-945-1291
email: minedu@leg.gov.mb.ca

Excerpted from Illinois Pro-Homosexual Groups Launch Counterfeit “Marriage” Project, by Peter LaBarbera and Dave Smith, published Sept 13, 2006, by Illinois Family Institute

Illinois Family Institute has been warning you for a long time that pro-homosexual forces in the state would be pushing hard to legalize counterfeit “marriage”–even as they disingenuously argue that a statewide marriage amendment is not necessary because “Illinois already has a marriage law on the books.”

Well, now they have formally begun their dubious crusade to overturn that law: a coalition of pro-homosexual activist groups, including Equality Illinois, Lambda Legal, and the ACLU of Illinois, will soon be launching a statewide campaign under the name “Equal Marriage Illinois” project–a misguided rip-off of Protect Marriage Illinois.

Equal Marriage Illinois (EMI) “has been building alliances in communities statewide, and has received terrific pro bono creative work from ad agency Young & Rubicam,” according to an e-newsletter from the homosexual lobby group Equality Illinois. (To give feedback to Young & Rubicam for their promotion of counterfeit “marriage,” call their Chicago branch office at 312-596-3000.)

The campaign is a statewide “public information and dialogue campaign focusing attention on the core issues of justice and family at the center of the marriage equality debate,” according to Equality Illinois.

In other words, you’re about to be hit with a slick PR campaign to radically twist the age-old definition of marriage, in the nice-sounding name of “equality.” This latest move by the state’s rich and powerful (yet tiny in numbers) homosexual lobby only proves our point: we MUST enact a Marriage Protection Amendment, as 20 states already have, and seven more likely will this fall.

Continue reading at IFI…