Wheaton College speaker Jim Wallis says affirming homosexual couples is a “justice issue.” See the Wheaton  announcement here: www.wheaton.edu/news/events/events_07_08/02.19.08_CaceWallis.html

By Peter LaBarbera 

With polls showing more evangelicals — especially younger evangelicals — warming to the idea of voting Democratic (despite the party’s rigid pro-abortion-on-demand and pro-homosexuality agendas), we found this item of interest: this coming Tuesday, Wheaton College will be hostng liberal evangelical advocate Jim Wallis as a featured speaker at the college’s Center for Applied Christian Ethics (CACE). See the CACE announcement here: www.wheaton.edu/news/events/events_07_08/02.19.08_CaceWallis.html

This follows on CACE last September inviting homosexual “gay christian” activist Harry Knox to speak at a panel discussion on “HIV and Morality,” as a representative of the (traditional-Christian-bashing) homosexual activist group Human Rights Campaign. You may recall that it was Knox who, in a TV debate with CWA’s Matt Barber (watch it HERE), called his homosexuality an “unchangeable gift from God, one for which I am very grateful. And it would fly in the face of my respect for God to give that gift back.” (We insensitive Bible-thumpers at AFTAH called that “Satan’s Talking Points.”)

If I’m not mistaken, Harry talked about his relationship with his male partner at the Wheaton panel discussion, which was titled, “Thy Kingdom Come: Christian Moral Engagement in the World.” I don’t believe there was much if any critical “engagement” of Knox when he brought up his homosexual relationship. What a pity. (You can listen to the discussion by going HERE and clicking on the “HIV and Morality Panel” links; there is Part One and Part Two.)

I’m reading Wallis’ new book, “The Great Awakening” (introduction by pro-abortion-rights, pro-homosexuality Jimmy Carter), and I’m not quite sure how Wallis can square his own “applied Christian ethics” with the inspired and authoritative Word of God, which is hardly nuanced on the sin of homosexual behavior. Of course, Wallis, as a leading light of the Religious Left, has plenty of his own criticisms of us on the “Religious Right.”

It would seem appropriate that Wheaton College — as one of the most respected and Biblically faithful Christian colleges in the United States– would at the very least allow equal time for an orthodox evangelical spokesman who is more in line with Christian conservatives on moral issues– perhaps even a stellar representative like Rev. Al Mohler, who surely will not be voting for the Democrats this November.
 

 Matt Foreman, outgoing National Gay and Lesbian Task Force executive director admits, “HIV is a gay disease.”

URGENT ALERT TO HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVIST “FACT CHECKERS”  AND “ANTI-HOMOPHOBIA” BLOGGERS EVERYWHERE: somebody straighten out homosexual activist Matt Foreman, outgoing executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, who had the temerity to admit the obvious: “HIV is a gay disease.”  Next thing you know, Foreman — who is actually one of America’s most strident anti-Christian bigots … er, “gay” leaders — will be acknowledging that men and women practicing homosexuality can leave the lifestyle and lead contented lives outside the “gay” fold. 

Government’s fault? 

The Gay Thought Police need not be too alarmed: pro-family stalwart Gary Glenn of AFA-Michigan subsequently informed us that Foreman, talking to a Detroit homosexual newspaper, added this caveat to his statement about HIV and homosexuality: “I dont blame our community for the fact that MSM [men who have sex with men] still account for nearly three quarters of men living with HIV. I hold our government accountable.”

Whew, I’m glad Foreman straightened that out!  For a moment there, I thought were were going to witness a major homosexual leader actually encouraging “gay” men to take responsibility for their own sexual (mis)behavior. 

In a future post, we’ll address some of Foreman’s other remarks at Creating Change — which might cause conservatives consternation but which should have a sobering effect on the pro-family movement.  (Here’s a clue: they’re gaining; we’re losing.) — Peter LaBarbera

P.S.  Click HERE  and HERE if you missed our stories about the homosexual Task Force and Creating Change honoring a sadomasochistic advocate of “consensual slavery” at their Detroit conference — during Black History Month, no less.

P.P.S.  Public school sex-ed instructors and educators everywhere, take note:  

American Family Association of Michigan 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wed., Feb. 13, 2008
CONTACT:  Gary Glenn  989-835-7978

National Gay & Lesbian Task Force Admits: “HIV is a Gay Disease”

Michigan family values group welcomes admission,
urges lawmakers to block homosexual “rights” legislation

DETROIT, Mich. — A Michigan family values organization Wednesday welcomed the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force’s startling admission that homosexual activity is predominantly responsible for the spread of the HIV virus in the U.S. and called on Michigan legislative leaders to block pending legislation that would give special “protected class” status to individuals who engage in such behavior.

Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force — in an address Friday to the National Conference on Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender Equality [“Creating Change”; see AFTAH article HERE] in Detroit — shocked attendees by calling HIV “a gay disease.”  Despite medical data identifying homosexual activity among males as by far the largest single source of HIV infection in the U.S., homosexual activists have routinely have condemned conservative and public health organizations for characterizing the disease as being predominantly associated with and spread by homosexual behavior.

Foreman further shocked attendees by himself referring to such data, saying that “with 70 percent of the people in this country living with HIV being gay or bi[-sexual], we cannot deny that HIV is a gay disease. We have to own that and face up to that.”

AFTAH in the News

Perhaps one day when historians write about the decline of the once-great American civilization, they will include this story about school authorities encouraging gender confusion in the life of a second-grade Colorado boy — and thereby helping to mainstream it to all his classmates. (Click HERE for WorldNetDaily’s story on the subject.) Here is the incredible story as reported by American Family Association’s One News Now (go HERE to listen and click “Hear Report”):

Colorado school encourages gender confusion in second-grader

Pro-family activist Peter LaBarbera says the case of a second-grade boy in one Colorado school who wants to be identified as a girl shows that the country has normalized deviance.

Staff at a public school in Highlands Ranch are preparing to accommodate the second-grader, who wants to attend classes dressed as a girl and be addressed with a girl’s name. The school will allow the boy to use a unisex bathroom, and they are giving parents packets of information on transgendered people.
 
Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth, says the real victims of the supposed “diversity policy” are the young man’s classmates. “If the parents are so misled to encourage their child in this gender-confused behavior, they should not be allowed to teach that same behavior to all the other students in the school,” argues LaBarbera. “I think it’s a terribly sad situation. This boy needs help, the parents need help, obviously.”
 
The pro-family advocate says it is also troubling that the pro-homosexual group “Trans-Youth Family Advocates” has been working with the school district. He says such groups are “in the business of mainstreaming gender confusion” — but somehow manage to work their way into the schools under the guise of being “consultants.”

New law ‘mainstreams sexual deviance among children’

Feb 7, 2008 

Contact: E. Ray Moore, Jr., Chaplain (Lt. Col.) USAR Ret, Director of Exodus Mandate or Dr. Bruce Shortt, 803-714-1744. California Exodus contacts: www.Californiaexodus.org, press@californiaexodus.org

COLUMBIA, South Carolina, Feb. 7 /Christian Newswire/ — California Governor Schwarzenegger signed legislation mandating that public school children be indoctrinated to accept as normal the homosexual lifestyle and other forms of sexual deviancy. In the wake of the failed effort to obtain a referendum to repeal this legislation, a broad coalition of Christian grassroots organizations have endorsed the Campaign for Children and Families’ call for California families and churches to rescue their children from California’s public schools.

Appeals Judge issues outrageous ruling embracing homosexual ‘tolerance’ lessons, ignoring Constitutional religious guarantees; links ‘same-sex marriage’ to homosexual instruction

 Judge Sandra Lynch

Folks, it is astonishing how far the “gay agenda” (which some homosexual activists say doesn’t exist!) has come in the last 30 years. From defending homosexual bars to opposing parents who merely want to be informed about pro-homosexuality lessons in their young child’s class, the agenda moves on.  Massachusetts and California are the states to watch to see where the homosexual youth- and school agenda is headed. 

We recommend carefully studying the MassResistance website, and other sites like Linda Harvey’s TruthatSchool.org to get engaged on this issue. 

____________________________ 

The following is MassResistance.org’s report on Judge Lynch’s decision, which the Parkers and Wirthlins are appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court:  

Federal Appeals Court Upholds Dismissal of David Parker Case

Judge issues outrageous ruling embracing homosexual “tolerance” lessons; uses notorious “1999 Curriculum Frameworks” in argument; Parker’s lawyers already preparing to appeal case to US Supreme Court

Federal Appeals Judge Sandra L. Lynch, a Clinton appointee, wrote the opinion 
 
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS (JAN. 31, 2008) www.massresistance.org — A three-judge federal appeals panel issued a bizarre and horrific ruling today denying the recent appeal  by David Parker, his wife Tonia, and Rob and Robin Wirthlin in their federal Civil Rights case against the Lexington school system. The ruling, written Judge Sandra L. Lynch, upholds the dismissal of the case by Federal Judge Mark Wolf, agrees with his reasoning (with some minor exceptions) and even goes a bit further.

BACKGROUND RESOURCES:

• Full text of ruling by First Circuit Court of Appeals (44 pages, Adobe Acrobat format)
• MassResistance’s comprehensive report on the Parker case;
• MassResistance article: “David Parker lawsuit having chilling effect on schools’ homosexual programs”;.
• Reaction by New England’s leading homosexual activist group GLAD (Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders) to Judge Lynch’s decision;
• Click HERE for MassResistance’s article about Judge Wolf’s ruling, which Lynch upheld

Strange legal reasoning
Judge Lynch shows little interest in the major point made by Parker attorney Rob Sinsheimer that the basic Constitutional protections of religious belief are being trampled on by the school. Instead, she attempts to show how Massachusetts law makes it necessary. She digs pretty deep to do that. In her ruling references 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act as mandating that standards “be designed to inculcate respect for the cultural, ethnic and racial diversity of the commonwealth.” 

Lynch then uses the extremely controversial Massachusetts 1999 Comprehensive Health Curriculum Framework to justify homosexual-oriented “tolerance” lessons in the lower grades. She quotes from its “measurable goals” in the lower grades, such as “define sexual orientation using the correct terminology.”  But Lynch completely ignores the fact that that document was clearly intended as a non-mandatory, informal set of guidelines.  That is why Planned Parenthood has filed bill H597 this year to make that document a legal guideline, not informal. (Even the resources listed in the document are from the radical fringe.)

Lynch also presents an interesting analysis of the state Parental Notification Law (Ch. 71, Sec. 32A) which succinctly explains that it is so watered down — and is particularly compromised by the Department of Education’s “advisory rulings” — that it is essentially useless in this situation.

Lynch then observes that the 2003 Goodridge decision held “that the state constitution mandates the recognition of same-sex marriage” and therefore, she implies, the schools must recognize it also.

Most of the rest of Lynch’s reasoning consists of a merry-go-round of excerpts from various “case law” decisions going back several years. That is always suspicious, as we’ve seen throughout this case, because one can cherry-pick language from past decisions (often out of context) almost forever.

Click HERE for the full article on Judge Lynch’s ruling by MassResistance

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.

 Cal Lutheran’s gym: the high school was sued for expelling two alleged lesbians. Their attorney argues that the Christian school should be treated like a business, and adhere to the state’s homosexual “nondiscrimination” laws.  

Note below how the alleged lesbians’ attorney calls the Lutheran school a “business” that must adhere to California’s pro-homosexual nondiscrimination laws. It is foolhardy to argue that such laws do not war against religious freedom — the litigious evidence is all around us. So it now becomes a battle over priorities: many “gay” activists believe their homosexuality-based “rights” — a trendy legal concept dating back a few decades, based on supposedly innate and unchangeable “orientation” — take precedence even over religious schools’ faith creeds. However, religious freedom dates back to the founding of this nation. Certainly, preserving America’s “first freedom” must take priority (the lesbians are free to form their own school if they wish).

Also, consider how a federal ENDA law (Employment Nondiscrimination Act) would open schools in states without “sexual orientation” laws to similar lawsuits in federal courts. — Peter LaBarbera 

WorldNetDaily.com, which is to be commended for its vigilance in covering these matters, reports (emphasis added):

Lesbian suit against Christian school tossed
‘No triable issues’: Academy’s right to expel 2 girls in ‘relationship’ confirmed

© 2008 WorldNetDaily.com, Jan. 25, 2008

A California judge has ruled that Christian schools can set standards for behavior for their students, and impose penalties if they are not met.

The decision comes from Riverside County Superior Court Judge Gloria Trask, who found ‘no triable issues’ on claims that a Christian school discriminated against two girls because of their perceived sexual orientation, according to a report in the North County Times.

Trask recently dismissed the claims made against California Lutheran High School in Wildomar by the two girls and their parents.

The case developed in 2005 when the girls, members of the junior class, were expelled after school officials noticed behavior by the two that may have indicated a lesbian relationship.

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

__________________________

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.