Recently we came across the following question posed to “Ask the Therapist” at the pro-homosexuality “health and wellness” website, GayHealth.com (created by “gay” doctor Stephen Goldstone):

Q I’m attracted to other men and am always a top. I don’t ever bottom with anyone. The problem is that when I’m in a relationship I tend to feel awkward and after sex, even disgusted and I want to get up and leave. I’m not a one night stand kind of guy, however. I want to hold someone close and not distance myself and feel suffocated. Sometimes I wonder if I’m not supposed to even be with guys. What’s my problem?

Glen A. Heiss, PhD, gave the following advice:

A I don’t know whether you are “supposed” to be with guys or not, but to ask the question that way implies that there is a right answer to the question, “Who do you find attractive?”

The fact is, we are attracted to whomever we happen to be attracted to. When we’ve internalized messages that tell us those attractions are somehow wrong or bad, it is very difficult to get close to without becoming uncomfortable.

From what you write, you can enjoy sex with another man, but other kinds of closeness with a man are uncomfortable. The “awkward/suffocated/disgusted” feelings you experience most likely stem from your own mixed feelings about being in a relationship with another man. If those feelings are especially strong after you have sex, they are probably being caused by shame you feel about the sex you‘ve just had. And if you are invested in keeping this part of your life a secret, that’s going to make it more difficult to try to integrate your sexual feelings for someone into a more complete relationship with him.

If you want to do something about this, I would recommend that you try to talk with the guys you are dating BEFORE you have sex about the unpleasant feelings you tend to have afterwards. That may reduce some of the worry or dread that you may have about what will happen after you reach orgasm.

You are likely to find that the men you are dating have struggled with this same issue in their own ways. They may be able to offer help about how they have worked to resolve such difficulties, allowing you to develop some of the closeness you say you want even as you talk about how that closeness can be difficult at times.

We can agree with exactly two sentences of Heiss’ response: “The ‘awkward/suffocated/disgusted’ feelings you experience most likely stem from your own mixed feelings about being in a relationship with another man. If those feelings are especially strong after you have sex, they are probably being caused by shame you feel about the sex you‘ve just had.”

Shame is the correct response of a sinful man’s conscience toward God. Being “proud” about homosexual behavior offends the Creator while being contrite about any sin — sexual or otherwise — draws us closer to Him. (For more on the Bible and homosexuality, see Pittsburgh Theological Seminary professor Rob Gagnon’s website.) In that sense, this writer’s shame is a good thing and something that all (religious) homosexual advocates could use more of as they strive, with futility, to “please” God even as they rebel against His wonderful created order. — Peter LaBarbera

P.S. The Bible is an infinitely more reliable guide for this struggling soul than any pro-homosexuality website. But it must be read with the humble understanding that we are to conform to its truth, rather than pretend that its Author, a holy and all-powerful God, must conform to our thoughts and feelings.

In our e-mail version of this story, I mistakenly reported that there were a “series of [pro-violence] posts” on Pam Spaulding’s, when I meant to say “comments.” I confess that I am still learning all the blogging lingo. There was only one controversial POST in question (which we saw) advocating violence; that post contained several violence-endorsing COMMENTS (by Barry Wick) in the overall thread. I apologize for the error — PL

Lesbian activist Pam Spaulding, creator of the “Pam’s House Blend” blog, sent me the following e-mail note at 11:36 CST stating that she did not know that the violence-justifying posts against me were on her blog. She has removed those posts, for which we are grateful. At Americans For Truth, we believe that although our disagreements with pro-homosexual activists are great, we can and should debate the issue of homosexuality with civility, and without resorting to name-calling. — Peter LaBarbera

Here is Spaulding’s note:

Peter,

That string of comments referred to as threats in the CWA piece [“CWA: Pro-Family Leader’s Life Threatened on ‘Gay’ Website”] clearly violates the community standards of the blog, and they have been promptly deleted once I was alerted. Those participating in that subthread have been notified as well.

     I have never advocated for threatening physical harm to anyone, as I have been on the receiving end of the same treatment, along with having my home and phone information published. We may be on the opposite sides of the fence on most matters, but on this we can agree — our families (whether you regard mine as such or not) have a right to be safe.

     I will also place a post on the blog to that effect.

By Peter LaBarbera

TAKE ACTION — Call your U.S. Representative and Senators (202-224-3121) and politely convey your opposition to the new “Hate Crimes” bill that includes “sexual orientation” (HR 254), and ENDA, the “Employment Nondiscrimination Act.” Also, call or write President Bush (202-456-1414) and urge him to veto these two top “gay’-priority bills if they are passed by the Democratic Congress.

If enacted, HR 254 and ENDA would federalize “sexual orientation” law, creating the long-term foundation for widespread anti-religious tyranny in our nation in the name of pro-“gay” tolerance. To see two good ads featuring victims of Pennsylvania’s “hate crimes” law, click on www.stophatecrimesnow.com. Events in Great Britain should warn us about the grave dangers ahead…

Blair: ‘Gay Rights’ trump religious freedom

When homosexual activists and “gay equality” win, Christians and religious freedom lose. So do children who need a mom and a dad, as the world is witnessing again in Great Britain.

Prime Minister Tony Blair unwittingly cut to the nub of how “sexual orientation” laws inevitably destroy religious freedom when he said that Britain’s “gay”-inclusive nondiscrimination laws should not exempt Catholic adoption agencies that refuse, for reasons of faith, to place children in homosexual households:

“There is no place in our society for discrimination. That’s why I support the right of gay couples to apply to adopt like any other couple. And that way there can be no exemptions for faith-based adoption agencies offering public funded services from regulations that prevent discrimination.”

Under Blair’s “compromise,” Catholic adoptions agencies will have 21 months to comply with the “sexual orientation” laws, but some say they would rather close down than violate their religious beliefs, BBC News reports.

Christians are fast becoming second-class citizens in Western nations that have bought into the ideology of homosexuality as a civil right. In Canada and France, legislators recently were fined for publicly criticizing homosexuality. In 2004, pastor Ake Green was jailed for a month for preaching –– in his small church in Borgholm, Sweden –– that homosexual behavior is an egregious yet forgivable sin. And recently, a British couple told how they were denied the chance to adopt because it was determined that their Christian faith might “prejudice” them against a homosexual child put in their care.

Britain’s “gay adoption” travesty parallels that which followed the triumph of homosexual “equality” and legal “same-sex marriage” in Massachusetts. Last year, Catholic Charities of Boston ceased all adoption operations in the state after being told that under Massachusetts’ pro-“gay” nondiscrimination law, only agencies that place children in homosexual-led households would get licensed by the state.

Catholic doctrine states that it is “gravely immoral” to put children in such homes:

As experience has shown, the absence of sexual complementarity in these [homosexual] unions creates obstacles in the normal development of children who would be placed in the care of such persons. They would be deprived of the experience of either fatherhood or motherhood. Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development. This is gravely immoral and in open contradiction to the principle, recognized also in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, that the best interests of the child, as the weaker and more vulnerable party, are to be the paramount consideration in every case.
Source: Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons”

But “gay rights” tramples religion in post-Christian England, where the government has lately even set out to prosecute “homophobic” speech. It is almost inconceivable that the same country that gave us the rule of law and limited government –– and powerfully gifted Christian preachers like George Whitfield who helped shape America –– now bows down to the homosexual revolution of organized sin masquerading as “civil rights.”

Queer, indeed.

“Breeders” Still Required
Sad as it is, this is a marketing story for the ages: in a few short decades, “gay liberation” activists went from including the notorious “man-boy love” group NAMBLA in their “pride” parades and mocking married couples as “breeders” –– to passing “sexual orientation” laws worldwide that put government officially in the role of defying Nature and Nature’s God, to quote our Declaration of Independence.

But is it progress to empower a legal and cultural revolution that criminalizes the common sense idea that society should put the welfare of children first by favoring natural parenting (mom and dad) over an experimental version (dad and male lover) that models perversion to innocent children in their own home?

Let’s be clear: Nature discriminates against homosexuality. Same-sex arrangements can never be “equal” to the God-ordained institutions of marriage and family. They cannot produce children by themselves. Homosexual partners cannot acquire a child without involving heterosexual procreation in some way.

Yep, those irritating “breeders” come in handy once in a while.

TAKE ACTION — Express your gratitude to Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicana (pictured right) for denying homosexual activist Thomas Gumbleton access to parishioners.

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Excerpted from No Catholic Venue in Tucson for Gay Activist Bishop Gumbleton, by Hilary White, published Jan 31, 2007, by LifeSite News:

One of the Catholic Church’s most infamously disobedient bishops has been refused a venue in Catholic Churches of the diocese of Tucson, Arizona after his decades-long repudiation of the moral and doctrinal teachings of his Church.

MSNBC reports that Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, an auxiliary bishop in the diocese of Detroit, was invited to speak by the anti-Catholic group Call to Action, an organization that campaigns against Catholic teachings on chastity, holy orders and marriage. Among his many other questionable associations, Gumbleton was the founding president of the very liberal and frequently [homosexual] movement associated Pax Christi organization.

Tucson Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas has barred Gumbleton from speaking at Catholic churches in the diocese citing Call to Action’s opposition to Catholic moral and doctrinal teaching…

Continue reading at LifeSite News…

Mike Adams poses questions to those who have elected to remain members of United Methodist congregations, despite evolving views on heaven/hell, sin, extra-marital sex, homosexuality, and more.

If you have left a congregation because leadership became apostate on the issue of homosexuality, we’d like to hear your story.

——————————

Excerpted from Open Hearts, Open Minds, and Open Legs, by Dr. Mike Adams, published Jan 31, 2007, by Townhall:

1. A young pastor was conducting a UMC 101 course required of all prospective members of a small Methodist Church. When asked whether there was such a thing as hell, she answered “I’m not sure and I don’t know that it’s important.” Given that Jesus talked about hell more than anyone else in the Bible, isn’t the question of whether hell exists an “important” one? If there is no hell, doesn’t that make Jesus a liar?

2. A Methodist preacher makes the statement “We don’t like to talk about sin here at (deleted) United Methodist Church.” Instead, he likes to talk about “grace.” If there is no sin and there is no hell, what was Jesus saving people from? Does silence on the issue of “hell” and “sin” render the term “grace” completely meaningless?

3. A man asks the Methodist preacher to pray to give Congress the courage to protect the institution of marriage from homosexuality. The preacher corrects him in front of the entire congregation saying “give Congress wisdom as difficult decisions are considered.” Why did she publicly correct him? Was he out of line?

Continue reading at Townhall…

“It sounds so churchy, but I felt like God spoke to my heart and said ‘[homosexuality] is not a sin.'”

–Jay Bakker, son of disgraced televangelists Jim & Tammy Faye Bakker, and co-founder of “Revolution Church” as quoted in Punk Pastor Preaches Tolerance, Compassion,
by Rebecca Lee, published Dec 8, 2006, by ABC News

Spiritual hubris? Yes. A new “truth”? Sorry, Jay. Thankfully, we have a bit more reliable divine revelation and church tradition upon which to base our moral beliefs than the young Bakker’s alleged private revelation, which would cause us to re-write the Bible. We recommend to Jay Bakker and to everyone the excellent website of Rob Gagnon (www.robgagnon.net), author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice, for a bit more thorough analysis of God’s attitude toward homosexual sin. More on this latest Bakker scandal later. — Peter LaBarbera

Excerpted from At Axis of Episcopal Split, an Anti-Gay Nigerian, by Lydia Polgreen and Laurie Goodstein, published Dec 25, 2006, by The New York Times (free registration required):

…Archbishop Akinola, a man whose international reputation has largely been built on his tough stance against homosexuality, has become the spiritual head of 21 conservative churches in the United States. They opted to leave the Episcopal Church over its decision to consecrate an openly gay bishop and allow churches to bless same-sex unions. Among the eight Virginia churches to announce they had joined the archbishop’s fold last week are The Falls Church and Truro Church, two large, historic and wealthy parishes.

In a move attacked by some church leaders as a violation of geographical boundaries, Archbishop Akinola has created an offshoot of his Nigerian church in North America for the discontented Americans. In doing so, he has made himself the kingpin of a remarkable alliance between theological conservatives in North America and the developing world that could tip the power to conservatives in the Anglican Communion, a 77-million member confederation of national churches that trace their roots to the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

…The 62-year-old son of an illiterate widow, Archbishop Akinola now heads not only Nigeria — the most populous province, or region, in the Anglican Communion, with at least 17 million members — but also the organizations representing the leaders of Anglican provinces in Africa and the developing world. He has also become the most visible advocate for a literal interpretation of Scripture, challenging the traditional Anglican approach of embracing diverse theological viewpoints.

“Why didn’t God make a lion to be a man’s companion?” Archbishop Akinola said at his office here in Abuja. “Why didn’t he make a tree to be a man’s companion? Or better still, why didn’t he make another man to be man’s companion? So even from the creation story, you can see that the mind of God, God’s intention, is for man and woman to be together.”

Archbishop Akinola’s views on homosexuality — that it is an abomination akin to bestiality and pedophilia — are fairly mainstream here…

Other conservative American churches that have split from the Episcopal Church, the American branch of the Anglican Communion, have aligned themselves with other archbishops, in Rwanda, Uganda and several provinces in Latin America — often because they already had ties to these provinces through mission work…

…One of Archbishop Akinola’s principal arguments, often heard from other conservatives as well, is that Christianity in Nigeria, a country where religious violence has killed tens of thousands in the past decade, must guard its flank lest Islam overtake it. “The church is in the midst of Islam,” he said. “Should the church in this country begin to teach that it is appropriate, that it is right to have same sex unions and all that, the church will simply die.”

He supports a bill in Nigeria’s legislature that would make homosexual sex and any public expression of homosexual identity a crime punishable by five years in prison…

Archbishop Akinola said he supported any law that limited marriage to heterosexuals, but declined to say whether he supported the specific provisions criminalizing gay associations. “No bishop in this church will go out and say, ‘This man is gay, put him in jail,’ ” the archbishop said. But, he added, Nigeria has the right to pass such a law if it reflects the country’s values.

A press release dated Jan 22, 2007, from Repent America:

On Friday, January 19, 2007, United States District Court Judge Lawrence F. Stengel granted summary judgment to both the City of Philadelphia and Philly Pride Presents, Inc. in the federal lawsuit brought by the Philadelphia Eleven.

PHILADELPHIA ELEVEN AFTER THEIR VINDICATION BY A PHILADELPHIA CRIMINAL COURT

On October 10, 2004, six men and five women with Repent America (RA), who became known as the Philadelphia Eleven, were arrested while ministering the Gospel on the public streets and sidewalks of Philadelphia at a $10,000 tax-payer funded celebration of homosexuality called “OutFest,” which was organized by Philly Pride Presents, Inc.

Prior to their arrest, the Christians were confronted by a militant mob of homosexuals known as the “Pink Angels” who blew loud whistles and carried large pink signs in front of them to block their message and access to the event, while others screamed obscenities. The Philadelphia police, under the direction of Chief Inspector James Tiano, the City’s “police liaison to the gay and lesbian community,” refused to take any action as the Christians were continuously followed, obstructed, and harassed, even though they respectfully cooperated with police, obeying orders to move, short of being directed out of the event.

After spending 21 hours in jail, Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham’s office charged them under Pennsylvania’s hate crimes law called “Ethnic Intimidation,” along with a host of other felony and misdemeanor charges. If convicted, the Philadelphia Eleven could have faced up to 47 years in prison and $90,000 in fines each. These charges were later dismissed by Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas Judge Pamela Dembe as being without merit. Subsequently, on October 21, 2005, the Philadelphia Eleven filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Philadelphia and Philly Pride Presents, Inc. for violations of their civil rights.

In his decision, Judge Stengel sided with the defendants, explaining that police were permitted to discriminate against the plaintiffs because of safety concerns coupled by Philly Pride Presents’ securement of a permit from the City to hold the $10,000 tax-payer funded celebration of homosexuality on the public streets, covering fifteen city blocks. Although Stengel conceded “the activity in question took place in a public forum,” and that “there is no doubt that the venue for Outfest, a designated section of streets and sidewalks of Philadelphia, was a public place,” he concluded that “once the City issued a permit to Philly Pride for OutFest, it was empowered to enforce the permit by excluding persons expressing contrary messages.”

“Obviously, we are very disappointed. We believe that the law clearly supports the rights of the plaintiffs in this case, as well as all individuals, to be able to engage in free speech activities on the public streets and sidewalks,” stated Ted Hoppe, attorney for the Philadelphia Eleven. “We do not believe that the fact that there was an event also taking place, even with a permit, diminishes that right,” Hoppe concluded.

“I cannot even begin to comprehend what Judge Stengel’s thought process was in making this decision,” stated RA director Michael Marcavage upon hearing the decision. “This ruling was entirely unexpected considering that all the evidence has been overwhelmingly in our favor, complete with video documentation, not to mention the fact that all eleven of us were vindicated of any wrongdoing in criminal court,” he continued.

“It is without question that Judge Stengel’s decision has set a precedent to eliminate the First Amendment rights of others by citing that a ‘permitting scheme’ can be used by police and event organizers to ‘exclude persons expressing contrary messages’ in public areas and at public events. It is for this reason that his ruling is especially troubling and must be overturned,” Marcavage stated. “Christians must be free to speak the truths of God’s Word, warn the wicked, and to preach the Gospel in the public square without interference from government, and therefore, we will continue to battle for these God-given liberties by appealing this decision,” Marcavage concluded.

“When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.” — Ezekiel 33:8-9

Note: You may read the version on Philly Pride’s website to decide which you believe to be true. Remember to pray for our enemies and for those caught up in sin.