If you don't want to miss anything posted on the Americans For Truth website, sign up for our "Feedblitz" service that gives you a daily email of every new article that we post. (This service DOES NOT replace the regular email list.) To sign up for the Feedblitz service, click here.
We hit you with a lot of bad news at Americans For Truth, thanks to the committed morality-phobes on the Left. So here’s some great news for a change: a wonderful Christian legislator, Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern, refused to be cowed into submission by the nation’s self-described “queer” movement. Get pumped for truth-telling by watching these rally videos (about 43 minutes total for all six videos).
The following are YouTube videos of last week’s “Rally for Sally” Kern held April 2 at the Oklahoma State Capitol, including my talk representing Americans For Truth. A huge and enthusiastic crowd of 1,500 (Daily Oklahoman estimate) or more citizens came out to support State Rep. Kern, who had been deluged with hate mail and hate phone calls after a homosexual activist group, the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, created an anti-Kern YouTube using selectively edited portions of a public speech she had given.
The quality of these videos is not that great, but it is more than made up for by the moral clarity of the speakers. Below is part one of Sally’s moving speech:
Compare this “Rally for Sally” crowd to an earlier “anti-Sally” homosexual protest rally in the same Capitol Rotunda, which drew less than 100 activists. (The Daily Oklahoman later misreported the homosexualist rally attendance at 500 people; Paul Blair of Reclaim Oklahoma observed the rally and said there were 60 people there.)
America the Decadent? Would previous generations have allowed homosexual propagandists to spread their ungodly message of male-to-male erotic love to young children — in schools — as this children’s picture book, ‘King & King,’ has been used to do?
QUESTION: How do we get back on the offensive in the Culture War battle against homosexual activism and gender confusion? Send your ideas to americansfortruth@comcast.net
Dear AFTAH Readers,
My friend Laurie Higgins below has hit on a microcosm of why our movement is on the brink of an astounding cultural defeat — the triumph of immoral same-sex behavior as a “civil right.” In the last decade, some of our leaders, and many conservatives, chose to “downplay” the very force — homosexualism — that was leading the assault on marriage, normalcy and children in our culture.
About three years ago, I sat in a roomful of evangelical leaders at a major ministry where it was taught that you should not criticize homosexual behavior in advocating against “same-sex marriage.” The “expert” speaker cited poll data and negative audience reaction to the issue being raised.
The following speech was given by Stephen Black, executive director with Oklahoma City-based First Stone Ministries, at the “Rally for Sally” in support of Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern (R), held April 2 at the state Capitol :
Good afternoon and thank you for the privilege of sharing with you today. My name is Stephen Black and I am the Executive Director with First Stone Ministries located here in Oklahoma City. First Stone is dedicated to helping men and women overcome unwanted same-sex attraction and to live in accordance with what we believe is God’s design for sexuality — which is one man and one woman in a covenant marriage relationship.
I stand with Rep. Sally Kern today to say that I, who once lived as a gay man, agree with her assessment, that there is a political agenda and a cultural message about homosexuality [and] that it is destructive to our country.
ABC’s Good Morning America hit a grand slam on March 28 for the homosexual activist movement by airing a profoundly misleading segment that asks, “Can a Baby Be Gay?” A longer segment ran on 20/20 that evening.
Convincing the public that some people are “born gay” is a central strategy of homosexual activists, who are being aided by a compliant media that routinely fails to examine such claims. If sexual behavior is hard-wired like race, then moral considerations can be swept aside, homosexuality declared a “civil right” and governments can move against people who believe homosexuality is wrong.
The Good Morning America story follows the script proposed in the gay strategic manual After the Ball, by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen. The two Harvard-trained PR experts set out to “overhaul straight America,” which was the title of an article out of which After the Ball was born as a full-length book in 1989.
My friend and Americans For Truth Board Chairman Mike Heath, who also serves as Executive Director of the Christian Civic League of Maine, sent out the message below about Good Friday and “Hate.” Mike can relate to Oklahoma’s beleaguered State Rep. Sally Kern, as like her, he and his wife Paulie have been vilified and demonized by Maine’s pro-homosexual lobby for years as outspoken Christian, pro-family advocates.
I love Easter. The Christ whose sacrificial death we commemorate and whose resurrection we celebrate on Easter Sunday is real and alive, but His redemptive work in everyday people’s lives only rarely makes Fox News. Just today I received a call from a Christian man who had left the “gay” life behind and has been married for 16 years; he and his wife are raising their children, much like countless other married couples raising families. Another wonderful ex-“gay” story that belies the homosexual propaganda myth that homosexuals can’t change, but which probably will never appear in the media.
Pastor Ken Hutcherson of Antioch Bible Church in Redmond, Washington, is speaking out strongly against the pro-homosexual “Day of Silence” on Friday, April 25. A growing coalition of pro-family groups is calling for parents to keep their children home from school on that day.
TAKE ACTION: First, check the two Mission America lists to see if your local schools are participating in the Day of Silence. The best way to ascertain whether YOUR children’s school is promoting or enabling DOS is to call the school and ask this question: “Are you allowing students to go silent in the classroom on the upcoming pro-homosexual “Day of Silence” (Friday, April 25)? (Some schools say they are NOT endorsing D.O.S., yet still allow students to not participate in class — which disrupts the learning process.) If the school administrator answers “yes” (or cannot say “no”), then yank your child out of the school on April 25th to protest their capitulation to homosexual activism. Of course, many committed Christians, and groups like Exodus Mandate, would advise you to pull them out of the public schools for good.
NOTE: Please notify AFTAH at americansfortruth@comcast.net with information about the response of your local school authorities to your DOS inquiries, and to tell us if you are pulling your children out of school on April 25th. Thank you!
By Peter LaBarbera
Folks, the politicization of America’s schools — both public and private — in favor of the the proud homosexuality (and now transsexuality) agenda is a crisis that continues to spiral downward. There was a time — back in the days when “Gay Power” was more a dream slogan for sexual radicals than the liberal establishment reality it is today — when homosexual activists disavowed any interest in our nation’s schools or recruiting youth. (Meanwhile, they had yet to kick out NAMBLA — the North American Man/Boy Love Association — from their coalition; in fact, the notorious pederasty group once marched in big-city “Gay Pride” parades.)
Fast-forward to today: homosexual activists and their liberal allies are all over the schools — even grade schools. In that respect, they are not unlike other nefarious ideological movements in their utilitarian misuse of schools to sway young minds. The result is that today’s young people are more pro-homosexual yet more pro-life at the same time — a curious mix and one that testifies to the effectiveness of pro-homosexuality marketing tactics. (Pop culture and media elites have decided that the “gay” debate is settled and we lost.)
In my experience, many of today’s teenagers and twenty-somethings are profoundly ignorant of the larger homosexual activist agenda, and even Christian youth are severely truth-challenged on this issue (to which the poll-driven church movement responds by scolding the larger Church for being too “anti-homosexual”).
By Peter LaBarbera, with additional commentary below by David Smith
Well, for those of you who saw the WGN broadcast (above) on the “gay brothers” research (www.gaybros.com), I’m sure that you were as disappointed as I was at the obvious bias — unless you’re a homosexuality advocate, of course. While I’m glad that WGN invited me on as a critic, I got just 12 seconds compared to three separate on-air segments featuring a pair of homosexual brothers who are part of the experiment.
Dr. Michael Brown says that Jesus Christ did not simply accept outcasts, He changed them, and that evangelical leftist Jim Wallis has“lost sight of the fact that homosexual practice is always wrong.” (Wallis today, in parrying off a question about the Biblical view of homosexuality as sinful, said, “Abomination is a pretty strong word.”) Wheaton College has invited Wallis to speak tonight to its Center for Applied Christian Ethics. TAKE ACTION: to contact Wheaton College President Duane Litfin regarding Wallis’ speech, e-mail duane.litfin@wheaton.edu. Or call and ask for President Litfin’s office during office hours at 630-752-5000.
__________________________
TAKE ACTION: we urge all those who love and appreciate Wheaton College’s great contributions to the advancement of Gospel of Jesus Christ to contact Wheaton College President Duane Litfin (duane.litfin@wheaton.edu) regarding the college’s invitation of evangelical leftist Jim Wallis as a speaker. Wallis favors homosexuals “rights” legislation including “civil unions,” and takes issue with the Biblical text of homosexual behavior as a sinful “abomination.” At the very least, you can suggest that Wheaton now invite an orthodox Christian speaker like Dr. Brown who is faithful to the Bible, to counter Wallis’ more socialist, revisionist, pro-homosexual-activist worldview. E-mail Wheaton President Duane Litfin at duane.litfin@wheaton.edu. Or call and ask for President Litfin’s office during office hours at 630-752-5000.
DETAILS ON WALLIS SPEECH: tonight (Tuesday) at Wheaton College (Billy Graham’s alma mater in Wheaton, IL): Free and open to the public, the lecture will take place at 7:30 p.m. in the Kresge Room, located in the east wing of the Edman Memorial Chapel at Washington and Franklin streets in Wheaton (campus map). http://www.wheaton.edu/news/events/events_07_08/02.19.08_CaceWallis.html
As Christians, it is only natural for us to side with the outcast, to be moved with compassion for those whom society rejects, to reach out to the marginalized and disenfranchised, just as Jesus, our Master did, setting an example for us to follow. In fact, in the words of Prof. Jeffrey Siker, many gay-affirming theologians argue that “Jesus’ merciful attitude of inclusion should be a guide to the contemporary church,” specifically with regard to the gay and lesbian community, the outcasts and marginalized of today. (See Homosexuality and Religion: An Encyclopedia.)
Left-leaning, Christian author Jim Wallis espouses a similar position, arguing in his newest book, The Great Awakening, that “justice” requires us to support (and even bless) same-sex unions. After all, many of these couples have been devoted to each other for years, yet they remain stigmatized by both the world and the church, bereft of the most basic benefits extended to married couples (from hospital visitation rights if their partner is on his or her death bed, to the ability to collect their partner’s social security payments after death). And, to add insult to injury, many of them are committed, churchgoing people. How can we harden our hearts to their plight? Surely, justice – let alone the example of Jesus – would require us to recognize their unions and fight for their “rights.” Or would it?
Having heard the stories of many such couples, it’s easy to sympathize with their pain, and certainly, they deserve our compassionate understanding, forcing us to explore issues such as hospital visitation rights and the like. But the questions remain: What would Jesus do and what would justice require?
To help jar us back to reality, consider this quote from the late John Hopkins professor, John Money:
“Pedophilia and ephebophilia [referring to sexual attraction felt by an adult toward an adolescent] are no more a matter of voluntary choice than are left-handedness or color blindness. There is no known method of treatment by which they may be effectively and permanently altered, suppressed, or replaced. Punishment is useless. . . . One must simply accept the fact that they do exist, and then, with optimum enlightenment, formulate a policy of what to do about it.”
To be sure, I am not comparing homosexuals with pedophiles, but it is striking that almost identical arguments are used by advocates of homosexual practice – just substitute the word “homosexuality” for “pedophilia” and “ephebophilia” in Dr. Money’s quote – yet we categorically reject pedophilia and ephebophilia as wrong, regardless of the claims that they are innate and immutable. On what basis, then, should we sanction same-sex unions, even monogamous, non-abusive, long-term unions? Are they not also wrong in God’s sight? Where does Scripture even hint that “abusive” same-sex relationships (such as pedophilia) are wrong but “non-abusive” ones are right?
Former American Psychological Association president and gay rights advocate Dr. Nicholas Cummings recently critiqued the APA’s endorsement of same-sex marriages, asking, “Does any serious scientist regard as evidence the following: loving relationships are mentally healthy, gay marriage is a type of loving relationship, therefore gay marriage is mentally healthy. Good grief! This statement is so elastic it could be stretched to justify polygamy, marriage to your own mother, or even your lovable pet dog.” Yet parallel arguments are now being advanced in the name of biblical justice. How can this be?
Wallis and others seem to have lost sight of the fact that homosexual practice is always wrong, representing a fundamental violation of God’s order, and they appear to have forgotten that God’s ways (which, from creation, have included male-female unions only) are always best. Yes, true justice requires us to recognize that He knows what is best for the family and for society and that His standards are ultimately in everyone’s best interest – be they heterosexual, homosexual, or other. In fact, agreeing with His standards is the path to liberation, even for those involved in same-sex relationships.
What about the fact that Jesus reached out to the disenfranchised and marginalized? To be sure, in doing so, He rebukes a lot of our stiff religiosity, a religiosity that is afraid to get its hands dirty. But let’s read the Gospels rightly: Jesus did not simply accept the outcasts, He changed them. Yes, He touched the leper, but that touch healed him. Yes, He ate with the prostitutes and tax-collectors (who were notoriously dishonest), but He didn’t encourage them to be better prostitutes and more proficient tax-collectors, He transformed their lives and brought them to repentance.
The inclusion Jesus practiced and that we must practice today is a transformational inclusion. Otherwise, we are hurting people more than we are healing them, and that is certainly not the path of justice.
Michael L. Brown holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University. He is the director of the Charlotte-based Coalition of Conscience and president of FIRE School of Ministry in Concord, North Carolina. He can be reached by phone at: 704-782-3760; and by email at: ministry@icnministries.org
Brown is involved in reaching out to the gay and lesbian community of Charlotte while at the same time working to resist the gay activist agenda, and he is a speaker for the Focus on the Family “Love Won Out” conferences, focusing on mobilizing communities for godly activism. He has produced two extensive DVD series, “Homosexuality, the Church, and Society,” and “Can You Be Gay and Christian?” and he recently debated Harry Knox, director of Religion and Faith for the (homosexual activist group) Human Rights Campaign. His book, A Queer Thing Happened to America, is scheduled for release in 2009.
Brown has preached around the world and appeared on numerous TV and radio programs, and is a published Old Testament scholar, a leading Jewish Christian apologist, and the author of twenty books. His website is: www.revolutionnow.org.
