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Folks, it looks like the case of Barronelle Stutzman–the Christian florist who was sued by two “marrying” homosexual men and the Washington State Attorney General because she would not create a floral arrangement for their “wedding”–is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
On Feb. 16, the Washington State Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Stutzman of a lower court decision and ruled that “the government can force her—and, by extension, other Washingtonians—to create artistic expression and participate in events with which they disagree,” according to Alliance Defending Freedom, which is handling Stutzman’s defense (see more info below video). [Read the court’s decision HERE.]
Below is a background video on Barronelle’s case created by ADF. You will note from this 2016 court filing that ADF et al are defending Stutzman on “artistic freedom” grounds. We at AFTAH are not attorneys but we do know this: in a free society, anyone–Christian florist, Muslim cake-maker or atheist wedding chair-supplier–should have the liberty not to use their business to celebrate homosexuality-based “marriage,” which we, as Christians, regard as sin on steroids.
We hope that this kind, brave and faithful woman prevails at the Supreme Court. If she doesn’t, you can stop singing that America is the “land of the free.” — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH [more background after jump and video]
Law banning pro-heterosexual Reparative Therapy for minors now likely to go into effect
Mat Staver
June 30, 2014
The following is reprinted from LC.org (web links added by AFTAH); to donate to Liberty Counsel, go HERE:
Washington, DC—The Supreme Court passed on Liberty Counsel’s petition regarding California’s ban on change therapy in the case of Pickup v. Brown. Two lower court judges and two separate appellate panels have issued conflicting opinions upholding and blocking the ban on change therapy. A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an injunction pending appeal, followed by a three-judge panel that upheld the law. That panel then agreed to continue the injunction blocking the law until he Supreme Court had a chance to weigh in on the case. Today’s decision by the Supreme Court to pass on the case means the proceeding will go back to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which could lift the injunction and allow the law to go into effect.
Former homosexual David Pickup says, “Reparative Therapy helped save my life.” Read his testimony HERE; read other ex-“gay” and ex-lesbian testimonies on the PFOX website.
The California law was the first to restrict licensed counselors from offering, and minor clients and their parents from receiving, any counsel to change unwanted same-sex attractions, behaviors, or identity.
“I am deeply saddened for the families we represent and for the thousands of children that our professional clients counsel, many of whom developed these unwanted attractions because of abuse of a pedophile. The minors we represent do not want to act on same-sex attractions, nor do they want to engage in such behavior. They are greatly benefiting from this counseling. Their grades have gone up, their self-esteem has improved, and their relationships at home are much improved,” said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. “These children have been victimized twice – first by the likes of Jerry Sandusky, and second by legislators and judges who have essentially barged into their private therapy rooms and told them that they must pursue their unwanted and dangerous same-sex sexual attractions and behavior,” said Staver.
Bill Whatcott says he will go on distributing his pro-family and pro-life flyers despite the Canadian high court’s outrageous “hate speech” ruling against him.
Folks, as bad as things are in the United States with regard to Political Correctness, it seems they are always worse in Canada. Below, Christian pro-family activist Bill Whatcott comments on an outrageous Supreme Court of Canada ruling declaring his anti-homosexual-agenda fliers as “hate speech.” AFTAH is cited in one of the flyers, which can be viewed at the end of the court decision HERE.
Shocking as it may seem, Whatcott — a fearless pro-family advocate — might end up in jail simply for passing out flyers warning fellow Canadians about the aggressive agenda to normalize homosexual behavior.
This Orwellian ruling should be studied as a lesson in the incompatibility of “group rights” — especially those based on homosexuality — with true liberty. Whatcott cites this incredible bit of judicial doublespeak from the ruling:
“Truthful statements can be presented in a manner that would meet the definition of hate speech, and not all truthful statements must be be free from restriction.”
Stunning as that is, I find the most amazing claim in the ruling that supposed “hate speech” like Whatcott’s deserves to be banned because it could “silence” its target. Really? The homosexual activists are a lot of things, but “silent” sure isn’t one of them.
In an excellent piece analyzing the Whatcott decision, Canadian columnist Rory Leishman summarizes:
In short, with this Whatcott ruling, the Supreme Court of Canada has held that nothwithstanding the ostensible guarantees of freedom of expression and freedom of religion in the Charter, a Canadian can be found guilty of violating the prohibition on hate speech in a human rights code by making a statement even if (a) the statement is true; (b) the speaker did not intend to express hatred; (c) the speaker was expressing his or her honestly held religious conviction; and (d), there is no proof that the statement has caused any harm.
The United States, unlike Canada, has a First Amendment. But it is important to remember that Americans’ freedom to oppose homosexuality has already been greatly abridged — through our own Supreme Court decisions like the 1996 Romer v. Evans ruling striking down Colorado’s Amendment Two (through which citizens were attempting to block the very sort of “sexual orientation” rights that lead to discrimination against Christians).
Protecting homosexuality as a right and a “minority” erodes true liberty and historic Judeo-Christian morality. Please support Bill Whatcott in any way you can. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org
The judicial confirmation process has become a spectacle almost as comical as one of Al Franken’s (D-MN) jokes. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan was not grilled on whether she believes Americans have a First Amendment right to oppose homosexuality — i.e., whether their religious and moral liberties are overridden by “sexual orientation” laws.
“Kagan did not deny that her application of Harvard’s [‘sexual orientation’ nondiscrimination] policy would have excluded the Catholic Church.” —CNSNews.com, reporting on Kagan’s confirmation hearing
By Peter LaBarbera
Solicitor General Elena Kagan has been confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 13-6 vote — after hypocritically dodging and weaving her way through the farce that now masquerades as the judicial confirmation process. Sen. Lindsey Graham (SC) was the lone Republican to vote for her — despite the fact that South Carolina is conservative while Kagan is the ideological cousin of our elitist, far-left president. (Click HERE for the MassResistance report on Kagan’s pro-homosexual record at Harvard.)
Kagan’s future now rests with the Democrat-dominated Senate — where most pundits (betting on listless GOP opposition) expect her to win confirmation; the vote is expected to come in early August.
Americans now face the prospect of a radically pro-abortion and pro-homosexuality social Leftist-for-Life sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court, potentially for 30 or more years. In just 105 days, on Election Day (Nov. 2), U.S. citizens will be able to cripple Barack Obama’s power — a day anticipated by millions of citizens outraged over his arrogant and reckless presidency. In two more years, Obama could be voted out of office a la Jimmy Carter.
Not so with Kagan. Unless Republicans summon up the guts to actually block her via filibuster (don’t bet on it), she likely will soon become Justice Kagan until she retires at an old age. There, if her past is any indication, one day she will vote to create a new “fundamental right” of “same-sex marriage” out of an “evolving” Constitution — all the while protecting that old make-believe “constitutional right,” sacrosanct to liberals, of abortion-on-demand. (See this Omaha World-Herald story on Kagan’s manipulation of expert testimony in the Clinton administration to fight legislative attempts to ban the gruesome practice of partial-birth abortion.)
For the last few weeks I’ve been working with Mass Resistance’sAmy Contrada, who has pulled together a wealth of information about Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s time at Harvard University, where she served as Dean of the Law School. Many will be shocked at just how extreme Harvard has become — and the radical sexual/gender policies advanced by Kagan. Kudos to Contrada and our friends at Mass Resistance for doing the reporting that most in the liberal media refuse to do (because too many agree with Kagan’s left-wing social agenda). And thanks to Chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt of the Pray in Jesus Name Project for supporting this work. Please read the full report, which ends with questions that members of the Senate Judiciary Committee should be asking Kagan.
TAKE ACTION: Fax and e-mail the Kagan report to Judiciary Committee members and request that they question Kagan on her full record at Harvard, which is way out of touch with the vast majority of Americans. Click on the names of the individual Committee members HERE and fax to their MULTIPLE offices (D.C. and local); request that the Senator ask Kagan the questions at the end of the report (reprinted below). Do the same to your own two U.S. Senators. (Congress switchboard: 202-224-3121.) — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org
Below are some Highlights of Elena Kagan’s Record as Dean at Harvard Law School, 2003-2009:
Kagan accelerated and legitimized the GLBT “rights” concept and law studies at Harvard Law School and in the larger university community.
Kagan encouraged Harvard students to get involved in homosexual activist legal work. At a time when she as Dean pushed students to engage in “public interest law” and to get “clinical” legal experience, the Harvard Law School established the LGBT Law Clinic. How could a “Justice Kagan” on the Supreme Court be impartial involving cases brought by “gay” legal activists — when she so openly advocated for homosexual legal goals and integrating homosexuality into legal studies and practice at Harvard?
Kagan recruited former ACLU lawyer (and former ACT-UP member) William Rubenstein to teach “queer” legal theory. Few Americans can comprehend the radical nature of “queer” academics. Rubenstein described one of his courses as the taking up of “newer identities (bisexuality, trans, gender[f**k]).” as well as involving “polygamy, S&M [sadomasochism], the sexuality of minors.”
Focus spokesmen said homosexual “orientation” would not have been stumbling block for potential Obama Supreme Court pick
“Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, contends the position held by Focus on the Family is the equivalent of ‘moral retreat.’ ‘It’s not just the damage caused by Focus on the Family’s moral retreat on the issue,’ Glenn argues. ‘[That explanation] will be used by homosexual activists and their allies in the media to further marginalize and delegitimize any pro-family organization that continues to take a Biblical standard.'”
It's hard to imagine former longtime Focus on the Family leader James Dobson saying that pro-family groups should not consider a homosexual judge's "sexual orientation" as a factor in evaluating that judge.
The issue of openly homosexual judges is back in the news, providing us the opportunity to publish this 2009 One News Now piece and agree with our friend Gary Glenn of AFA-Michigan on a very significant “moral retreat” by Focus on the Family. Back when there was talk of President Obama possibly nominating a lesbian judge to the Supreme Court, two Focus analysts asserted that a judge’s homosexual “sexual orientation” would not be a major consideration for Focus in evaluating such a judge. It is precisely this sort of naïveté that helps explain why aggressive homosexual lobby groups are winning major battles against their pro-family opponents.
I’ll issue the same challenge to Focus that I have made to Grove City College’swayward, “gay”-affirming prof Warren Throckmorton: show me where you can find (benign) “sexual orientation” or (in Throckmorton’s case) “sexual identity” in the Bible, and I’ll change my tune that you are selling out Christian, biblical principles. After all, Focus launched a “Truth Project” that teaches believers how to have a “biblical worldview” — and it’s a huge leap from “abomination” to “sexual orientation.” Surely committed Christians should understand how the latter term has been used to strip morality out of the homosexuality equation. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org
Should homosexuality be a ‘litmus test’ for high court?
by Jim Brown
Conservative political activists are divided over whether homosexual behavior should disqualify a judicial nominee from consideration for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Focus on the Family’s judicial analyst, Bruce Hausknecht, recently told liberal (Washington Post) blogger Greg Sargent that Focus would not oppose a Supreme Court nominee solely because of their homosexual behavior. “Our concern at the Supreme Court is judicial philosophy,” Hausknecht said. “Sexual orientation only becomes an issue if it effects their judging.”
Moderate Act? Judge Sonia Sotomayor ably played the moderate in her Senate confirmation hearings. Now let’s see how she performs as Justice-for-life on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Committee For Justice (CFJ) Executive Director Curt Levey writes on today’s vote on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor:
“Although the numbers in the Senate ensured that the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor was never in doubt, those of us committed to restoring the rule of law to the federal judiciary have many things to be happy about in how Sotomayor’s confirmation battle played out. Those include Republican senators’ courage in mounting a strong opposition; the repudiation of the living Constitution philosophy that has been so fashionable in recent decades; the multi-edged defeat of identity politics; the strong signals sent to the White House about future Supreme Court picks; and the profound change in the politics of judicial confirmations wrought by the explosion of the Second Amendment issue.
“The engagement of the Second Amendment community will long be remembered as the most significant aspect of this confirmation battle. Although the NRA’s decision to oppose Judge Sotomayor and score her confirmation vote got the most attention, the grassroots mobilization of gun owners from the bottom up is probably the biggest story. As a result, gun rights emerged as the most influential issue in this and probably future Supreme Court confirmation battles.
Sen. Sessions: “I don’t think a person who acknowledges that they have gay tendencies is disqualified per se” from Supreme Court
Will Obama Nominate a “Gay” Supreme Court Justice? Liberal opinion-makers like Mark Halperin of MSNBC (left) now treat homosexuality as an element of “diversity” that should be celebrated by society. See YouTube video and interview transcript below. TAKE ACTION: Urge Sen. Sessions (202-224-4124) to oppose the confirmation of pro-homosexuality (activist) justices to the U.S. Supreme Court and all federal courts.
By Peter LaBarbera
Welcome to the new “Sexual Diversity” landscape created by decades of homosexual activism — with its essentially anti-Christian, anti-Biblical ethos. Liberal opinion-making elites like MSNBC’s Mark Halperin below now treat homosexual perversion (oops, sorry, “sexual orientation”) as part of America’s “minority” tapestry — eligible for all the “diversity” demands — read: quotas — of other (genuine) minority groups. Identity politics and affirmative action are bad enough with real minorities; they will become unbearable once expanded to include advocates and practitioners of changeable sexual sin — which is what an open and proudly “gay” Supreme Court justice would be.
Please watch the YouTube video clip below of an interview yesterday morning (May 7) between Halperin and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the new highest ranking Republican in the Senate Judiciary Committee following the party switch of Sen. Arlen Specter. Note how Halperin eagerly pushes the “homosexuality-as-diversity” line — which Sen. Sessions attempts to fend off with his “gay tendencies” remark. With all due respect to the senator, if that’s the best that conservatives can do, we will be squashed by liberal and libertarian advocates of proud homosexuality in this debate.
Imagine: what Senator is going to have the guts to challenge the idea that it is “wrong for a justice to be disqualified because of ‘who he is'” — to quote the now widely accepted but biblically false homosexual-activist cliché? There is a deeply personal and emotional level of activism in anyone who self-identifies as “openly gay” — as opposed to one who struggles against the unwanted pull of homosexuality — because that person flips timeless morality on its head. The unapologetic “gay” person has his or her whole life and, indeed, eternal destiny invested in the idea that Judeo-Christian teachings against homosexual behavior as sinful should be discarded. An openly homosexual judge “not promoting any agenda personal, religious or moral” — how absurd and naive!A transcript of the MSNBC exchange between Halperin and Sessions follows the video:
