“Abomination is a pretty strong word.”

— Leftist evangelical writer Jim Wallis, as part of his reponse to a question by Peter LaBarbera (of Americans For Truth) on the Christian Moody Radio Network in Chicago, February 19, 2008. Wallis, who is on a book tour and is speaking tonight (Feb. 19) at Wheaton College, was asked how he reconciles his support for granting civil rights based on homosexuality —  including government-sanctioned “civil unions” — with the Bible, which calls homosexual behavior an “abomination.” Wallis says supporting “gay” rights — he opposes homosexual “marriage” — is a “justice issue.”  He said in the Moody interview that there is a debate and questions over the meaning of the word “abomination,” yet he said (correctly) that the Bible is very clear about the need to help the poor.

For clarity’s sake, here are a few major Bible translations of the Old Testament Levitical prohibition on homosexual sodomy (men having sex with men), Leviticus 18:22; click HERE for the Bible Gateway site and then you can choose whatever Bible translation you want. This is among the commandments given by God to Moses regarding unlawful sexual relations (emphasis added); as always, we remind our readers that this sin, like any sin, can be overcome and forgiven through faith in Jesus Christ (1 Cor 6:9-11):

• You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination. (Lev. 18:22; New American Standard Bible; NASB)
• Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. (King Jame’s Version, KJV)
• Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable. (New International Version, NIV)
• Do not practice homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman. It is a detestable sin. (New Living Translation)
• You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. (English Standard Version, ESV)
• It is disgusting for a man to have sex with another man. (Contemporary English Version)

This is an oldie but a goodie from the brilliant, politically incorrect (lesbian) feminist Camille Paglia, from her 1998 online Salon Q&A column “Ask Camille.” Now, before you think we’ve sold our conservative souls and are ready to join the Wayne Besen Homosexual Hysteria Club so we can start smearing ex-gays, ridiculing common sense, and destroying traditional marriage — no, we are not sanctioning lesbianism by posting this piece. (Personally, my hope would be that Paglia would outgrow lesbianism, but that’s another essay.) She just makes some refreshing observations that, frankly, we wish more traditionalists would make. (And Paglia has always opposed the Gay Left’s totalitarian impulse by defending the free speech righs of opponents of homosexuality.) 

Of course, the problem Paglia addresses below has only grown exponentially worse in the decade since she wrote this.– Peter LaBarbera

Emphasis is added below:

Dear Camille:

I am a black, conservative female. I am proud to say that you are one of my heroes. I would like your opinion of the following press release, which I am forwarding to you. It’s regarding the Gay Youth Pride Day. Now, according to some, I may have no right to have an opinion about this, because of my heterosexuality. However, I think some in the so-called “gay community” take this pride thing a bit too far. As a 19-year-old, openly straight female, I really don’t understand the need for the self-anointed leaders of the gay rights movement to draw gay youngsters into their self-indulgent politics. Am I misguided or insensitive in my approach to the “young gay dilemma”?

Your conservative admirer in Va.
Dear Conservative:

The psychological turmoil of adolescents at sexual awakening cannot be underestimated. Everything is in flux — impulses, fears, dreams, with simultaneous longings for independence and for protection by adults. What I dislike about the push of organized gay activism into high schools is that it imposes a rigid political paradigm on a stage of life that is in rapid, painful transition for everyone, gay or straight.

As an equity feminist, as well as an open lesbian, I oppose special protections for any group, including my own. Teachers and administrators should obviously not permit physical harassment of any kind on school property, but verbal epithets, however offensive or hurtful, have First Amendment protection. The PC thought police, having been defeated on college campuses after the court-ordered banning of the fascist speech codes, are now oozing their way into high schools. “Hate” cannot be stopped by authoritarian manipulation but by slow social change, which may take generations.

The Internet has been a boon to lonely gay teens in geographically remote areas — but, of course, computers still remain largely a white middle-class luxury. I find very suspicious the statistics about teen suicides with which gay activists badger the media. If gay teens are indeed attempting suicide at a higher rate than straight teens, perhaps more questions need to be asked about the genesis of homosexuality. The intolerable sense of isolation may precede the homosexuality, rather than vice versa.

I have written repeatedly about my theory that homosexuality is an adaptation, rather than an innate trait, and that it is reinforced by habit. With its cant terms of “oppression” and “bigotry,” gay activism, encouraged by the scientific illiteracy of academic postmodernism, wants to deny that there is a heterosexual norm. This is madness. We need more art and history and less politics in primary education. Art gives the young the psychological and spiritual tools for authentic self-discovery. And art is where sexual dissenters have contributed the most to the human record.

In short, I agree with your concern about the Trojan Horse of gay activism, which is being dragged into high schools under the false flag of compassion. Young people who oppose homosexuality for any reason have a constitutional right to express their views, in or out of the classroom. Whatever they may privately believe as individuals, educators have a professional obligation to remain ideologically neutral in their treatment of students.

More evidence that homosexuality is a public health hazard

SAN FRANCISCO — A new variety of staph bacteria, highly resistant to antibiotics and possibly transmitted by sexual contact, is spreading among gay men in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles, researchers reported Monday. …

 

The risk of contracting this difficult-to-treat bug is 13 times greater for gay men than for the rest of the city’s population, researchers found….

 

What is unusual in this case is the high percentage of infections – up to 40 percent – occurring in the buttocks and genitalia. — San Francisco Chronicle story on new staph bacteria spreading among homosexual men

What a mystery … How could it be that so many infections are occurring in the “buttocks and genitalia” of San Francisco men (who have sex with other men)? …

Is this not an eerie reminder of the initial stories about AIDS — then called GRID (Gay-Related Immunodeficiency Disease) — 25 years ago? It is unfathomable that after that plague, disease specialists and the media are now surprised at the correlation of new infections with homosexual behavior.

Wake up, medical and political establishment: homosexual behavior is unhealthy — no matter how many secular sermons you preach against “homophobia.”  Due to liberal political correctness, which insists on treating aberrant — even deadly — behaviors and lifestyles as a “civil right,” we as a society don’t seem to have learned much from the AIDS pandemic.  This latest news begs some serious questions:

• Why aren’t all schoolchildren being taught that there are special health risks associated with homosexual behavior and that they should “just say no” to homosexuality? (Instead, schools are willy-nilly working to spread the PC idea among youth that certain people are naturally “gay,” and that this is a harmless identity);
• Why won’t the news media make the common-sense connection between these frequent stories about (male) homosexual behavior and disease — to the idea that perhaps it’s probably not smart for society and pop culture to celebrate homosexuality and bisexuality?;
• Why isn’t there a concerted government effort — akin to the current anti-smoking campaigns — to reign in homosexual promiscuity — beginning with closing down all sex businesses (bathhouses) that facilitate homosexual perversion?  (Of course, we favor closing down straight prostitution businesses as well.)  We know that bisexual behavior (men on the “down low”) help spread dangerous diseases to the general population: how many deaths and illnesses have to result from “second-hand sodomy” before authorities take corrective action? (Curiously, even President Bush’s White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, recently abruptly cut off a question by reporter Les Kinsolving critical of homosexual bathhouses);
• If any other behavior were as closely linked to death and disease as male homosexuality, would we be so careful not to criticize it — or would we offer healthy alternatives to it like abstinence and the ex-“gay” movement?

Here is just one Reader Comment to the Chronicle piece that makes a lot of sense:

luvgabe wrote:
We as a species just don’t seem to get it: There are consequences to behavior! We no longer take AIDS seriously anymore because of drug treatment, so we go back to doing the same behavior, which brings on a new epidemic that now threatens to jump the boundary to become a hetero scourge as well.

I have already heard a few horror stories from people who knew someone who has contracted MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) at a hospital, or who has tried to take extraordinary measures to get explicit assurances from doctors that their facilities are MRSA-free (I don’t know if this is possible). A friend writes: 

I have an older lady friend who has been battling MRSA since October when she had a knee replaced.  It’s just horrible — even though she got prompt treatment, the infection will ebb, but then surge again.  The doctors thought she was on her way back to health, but she’s back at the infectious disease specialist this month with increased sed rate and a hot knee. Very scary!

Be careful to ask questions about MRSA before you go in for an operation!  We’ll be watching this story carefully. Now watch as “gay” activists blast me and AFTAH for pointing out the obvious link between homosexual behaviors and the spread of diseases, new and old. — Peter LaBarbera

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As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle‘s medical writer, Sabin Russell; to read more Reader Comments to the Chronical story (some very interesting), go HERE (emphasis added): 

S.F. Gay Community an Epicenter for New Strain of Virulent Staph 

SAN FRANCISCO (Jan. 15) — A new variety of staph bacteria, highly resistant to antibiotics and possibly transmitted by sexual contact, is spreading among gay men in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles, researchers reported Monday.

The study released online by the journal Annals of Internal Medicine found the highest concentrations of infection by the drug-resistant bug in and around San Francisco’s Castro district and among patients who visit health clinics that treat HIV infections in gay men in San Francisco and Boston.

The culprit is a form of MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a bug that was once confined to hospitalized patients but, since the late 1990s, has been circulating outside medical settings, afflicting anyone from injection-drug users to elementary school students. A strain called USA300 has been a leading cause of MRSA infection in this decade, and an exceptionally drug-resistant variant of it is now on the loose, researchers say.

The study estimated that 1 in 588 residents living within the Castro neighborhood 94114 ZIP code area [San Francisco’s famed “gay” center] is infected with that variant, which is resistant to six types of commonly used antibiotics. The risk of contracting this difficult-to-treat bug is 13 times greater for gay men than for the rest of the city’s population, researchers found.

“We probably had it here first, and now it is spreading elsewhere,” said Binh An Diep, a researcher at San Francisco General Hospital and lead author of the report. “This is a national problem, and San Francisco is at the epicenter.”

The germ typically causes boils and other skin and soft-tissue infections and, despite its resistance to some drugs, is still treatable by surgical drainage and several classes of antibiotics. What is unusual in this case is the high percentage of infections – up to 40 percent – occurring in the buttocks and genitalia.

Although researchers have stopped short of declaring this form of staph a sexually transmitted disease, the infections are found where skin-to-skin contact occurs during sexual activity.

 From the book, The Gay Gospel: How Pro-Gay Advocates Misread the Bible, by Joe Dallas (Harvest House Publishers, 2007). To order The Gay Gospel ($14) or other Biblically-oriented resources by Joe revolving around sexual purity, go to his website at www.joedallas.com.

Note that Joe’s life as a former homosexual gives the lie to the second tactical approach of the aggressive “gay Christian” movement, which he discusses below:

As the gay Christian movement continued finding allies in churches and secular circles, it also continued to follow the trends of the larger gay-rights movement. And the gay-rights movement’s most noticeable trend, from the mid-1980s into the 1990s, was aggression.

 

The AIDS epidemic, in full bloom by the mid ’80s, fueled a strident form of gay activism. Groups such as the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), Queer Nation, and the Lesbian Avengers caught the public’s eye as they staged boisterous demonstrations and invaded churches and corporations they considered to be “enemies.”

 

The gay Christian movement did not take long to develop its own style of aggression. Fundamental to its identity were two beliefs: Homosexuality is not unbiblical; and homosexuals can’t change, even if they want to. … 

  

   — The Gay Gospel, Joe Dallas p. 88; To order The Gay Gospel ($14), go to www.joedallas.com. Dallas is founder of Genesis Counseling, which seeks to “Reclaim Godly Sexuality through the Saving Work of Jesus Christ, The Sanctifying Work of the Holy Spirit and the Body Ministry of the Christian Church.” See their “Frequently Asked Questions About Sexual Addiction and Recovery from a Biblical Perspective.”  

I was greatly encouraged by the many letters AFTAH received responding to 14-year-old “Joe,” who wrote via our website explaining that he is a gay atheist who hates Americans For Truth. I will be passing on all the notes to Joe, and publishing a few, including this from suburban Chicago writer Laurie Higgins (emphasis added)–Peter L.:
_________________________________________________________________________
 
Dear Joe,
 
What you have said, what you feel, and what you think break my heart. All reveal the deception that our culture has taught our children. Mr. LaBarbera doesn’t hate you or homosexuals. And even though I firmly believe that homosexual conduct is not moral, I do not hate you either.
 
I no more hate you than I hate those who engage in other behaviors that I consider immoral, and those would include me, my husband, and my children. Every single human who has ever lived, save one, engages in immoral behavior. Our task is figuring out what constitutes moral and immoral behavior. You have appropriated one philosophical perspective on what determines right and wrong: you believe that if a behavior doesn’t directly harm another person physically, then it’s moral. But some of the greatest thinkers who have ever lived define morality differently. Defining morality as you have would permit adult consensual incest, lying, selfishness, polyamory, and apotemnophilia.
 
Neither Mr. LaBarbera nor I believe that homosexuals choose the feelings they have anymore than those who are attracted to adolescents or children or their siblings choose their powerful attractions, or those married men who are attracted to other women choose those attractions, or those who are powerfully drawn toward gambling or alcohol or drugs choose those attractions. We do believe, however, that those who experience same-sex attraction choose how they will respond to their desires, just as I choose how to respond to my selfish, or greedy, or angry, or lustful desires. Some in society tell you that acting on same-sex impulses is legitimate and good. They have lied to you, and it is a cruel lie.
 
You ask why someone would care about the sexual practices of others. I care that others are teaching children lies. I care that others are teaching kids that homosexual conduct is morally equivalent to heterosexual conduct when it’s not. I care because that lie carries devastating emotional, psychological, physical, and spiritual consequences. I care because I care about truth and its impact on the lives of individuals and on society.
 
Joe, homosexuals do have the full complement of civil rights.  They even have marital rights. Every homosexual can get married; they simply can’t redefine marriage. They can’t eliminate the criterion of complementarity, just as those who “love” children cannot eliminate the minimum age criterion, and those who love relatives cannot eliminate the consanguinity requirement, and those who love multiple partners cannot eliminate the binary requirement. The fact that homosexuals cannot redefine the institution does not mean the institution is unavailable to them.
 
As to your comment that homosexuals can think logically: You’re absolutely right, Joe; you were created in the image and likeness of God, and, therefore, you possess the gift of reason. It is not just religious traditions that inform us that homosexual conduct is wrong. Natural law tells us that. You are heterosexual, Joe. All humans are. Species cannot procreate homosexually. Our bodies are not designed for homosexual sex. They are exquisitely designed for heterosex. Desires do not define identity. And the male sex drive is so powerful, it can be misdirected to a whole host of inappropriate objects and activities. Don’t allow the unbidden presence of desires, impulses, or attractions define who you are. None of us should.
 
Please, do not dismiss arguments that emerge from religious tradition. Speaking as one who deeply values logic, evidence, and intellectual argument, I can attest that Christianity holds up intellectually. And remember, atheism too is based on faith. You are no more able to prove the non-existence of God than I am able to prove unequivocally God’s existence. But search out some “apologetics.” I would recommend the website of Ravi Zacharias. And read about the conversions of atheists like Mortimer Adler who was a famous University of Chicago philosopher, or British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, or more recently the physicist Anthony Flew. And it’s not just the Christian Bible that teaches that homosexuality is wrong; the Old Testament does also, as does the Koran.
 
By the way, there are no scientific studies that prove that homosexuality is genetic. In fact, most scientists, even those who identify as gay and whose studies are most often cited, believe that at most, biology may play a part in desire, but that environmental influences are significant. In addition, the presence of biological influences tells us precisely nothing about morality.
 
Joe, there is freedom, truth, beauty, joy, and peace available to you. Seek them relentlessly, and know this, except for a very few fringe wackos, those who hold traditional beliefs do not hate you. On the contrary, they grieve for the lies you’ve been taught and desire nothing but that which is truly good for you.
 
If you would like to talk more, and your parents are agreeable to us talking, I would love nothing more. You can contact me through AFTAH. 
 
Laurie

 Which homosexual activist(s) got AFTAH’s “Gay Grinch” award for 2007? Hint: it involves the Boy Scouts. Listen online to find out.

By Peter LaBarbera 

Click HERE to listen to the first hour, and HERE to listen online to the second hour of my guest-hosting appearance Dec. 17 on WYLL (a Christian station outside Chicago, Ill.) for the Sandy Rios Show. Sandy is a dear friend, president of Culture Campaign, a commentator on FOX News, and — I almost forgot — a Great American.

The show features (in the first hour) some great exchanges with my friends, African Americans Rev. Al Cleveland of Rehoboth Empowerment Christian Church and Charlene Cothran, discussing DiversityInc publisher Luke Visconti’s nutty comparison of me to a 19th Century slavery advocate.

The second hour features: an interview with Dan Zanoza of Republicans For Fair Media on CNN’s “political ambush” using a supposed “gay general” at its YouTube Republican Presidential Debate to promote homosexuality in the military; a short but sweet exchange with AFTAH Board Member Mike Heath of the Christian Civic League of Maine on getting men back involved in the “culture war”: and a short interview with Dave Smith of the Illinois Family Institute on his campaign to get the NFL to stop allowing bawdy ads during football games.

You can also listen at the end for AFTAH’s first annual “Gay Grinch” award for 2007. Hint: it involves the Boy Scouts of America.

There’s one big problem with the broadcast: I don’t think I said “um” enough…. Oh well, practice makes perfect. Thanks to Sandy for the opportunity. — Peter LaBarbera

Charlene Cothran/David Parker AFTAH BANQUET VIDEO Is Finally Available!

Excellent teaching tool for young people who are being brainwashed to accept homosexuality!
 
The AFTAH Banquet Videos are finally available and will be shipped ASAP!  To order a complete DVD (or CD) set of both ex-lesbian Charlene Cothran’s and parental rights hero David Parker’s outstanding talks, make an online donation of at least $25 postpaid to Americans For Truth (http://americansfortruth.com/donate/). Please use the online form at https://americansfortruth.nozonenet.com/donate/cc.php to specify your order.  You can substitute an audio CD but you must request this specifically. To order by regular mail, send your check or money order specifying “2007 Banquet DVD” (or CD) to: Americans For Truth, P.O. Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522.

Bulk Orders available: 2 for $40; 3 for $55; 4 for $70; add $10 for each additional DVD or contact us at americansfortruth@comcast.net (or 630-717-7631) for large bulk order pricing.

 Can God bless homosexual activism? Nancy Pelosi thinks so. Speaking before the world’s most powerful homosexual pressure group, she said: “God has certainly blessed America with the work of the Human Rights Campaign.” Help Americans For Truth oppose such lies with a tax-deductible, year-end gift.

Recently, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) appeared before a massive fundraiser put on by the largest homosexual pressure group in the world, the Human Rights Campaign, to accept their 2007 National Equality award. In her speech — which you can watch by clicking HERE — Pelosi praised HRC “for being a powerful and positive counterbalance to the voices of hate.” Thus she confuses, as does the group that honors her, defense of marriage and the natural family — and opposition to homosexuality — with “hate.”

Here is how Speaker Pelosi ended her speech:

“Thank you, HRC. May God bless you. God has certainly blessed America with the work of the Human Rights Campaign.”

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Support AFTAH with a Year-End Gift! 

Will you support Americans For Truth with a year-end gift to sustain us in our daily battle to answer the lies of the homosexual movement and their powerful allies? Click HERE (http://www.americansfortruth.org/donate/) to donate by credit card or Paypal.  Or you can send your tax-deductible gift of $500, $100, $50 or whatever you can give to: Americans For Truth (AFTAH), P.O. Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522. 

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Please forward this appeal on to your friends and family members:

A Note from Americans For Truth to Our Supporters:

By Peter LaBarbera

They have the power, the money and the influence.

We have the Truth.

They have Hollywood and the media.

We have the Truth.

They have the schools, the universities, the professional organizations, the corporate “diversity” programs.

We have the Truth. And the simple truth is that homosexual behavior is always wrong, but it can be overcome — like any sin — in a person’s life through the power of the Christ of Christmas, who came not to “condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” (John 3:17)