CWA Release, November 8, 2007

[Call your senators at 202-224-3121 or go to www.congress.org; call President Bush and urge him to veto ENDA if it passes at 202-456-1414 or 202-456-1111, or www.whitehouse.gov/contact.]

Washington, D.C. — On Wednesday, lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives passed — largely along party lines —  H.R. 3685, the so-called Employment Non-discrimination Act (ENDA), by a vote of 235–184. [Click HERE for the Roll Call and HERE to see which Congressmen voted against their party’s majority.] 

Matt Barber, CWA’s Policy Director for Cultural Issues, said, “By passing this Orwellian piece of legislation, the Democrat-controlled House has displayed exceptional arrogance.  Congress apparently believes it has carte blanche authority to nullify any constitutional provision which it finds bothersome.  In this case, they’ve drawn a black line through the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.”  

ENDA contains an extremely weak religious exemption which might partially protect some religious organizations but would leave many others — such as Bible bookstores and many Christian schools — entirely unprotected.  It would additionally crush individual business owners’ guaranteed First Amendment rights.   

PFOX News Advisory:  November 8, 2007

Contact:  Regina Griggs, Director, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX)

703-360-2225  PFOX@pfox.org   www.pfox.org
 
New “Gender Identity” Law Would Have The Effect of Legalizing Indecent Exposure to Minors

‘Weekend Transgenders’ to Use Women’s Shower Rooms and Bathrooms?
 
Montgomery County, MD — A bill before the Montgomery County, Maryland Council puts girls and women at risk by opening women’s restrooms and locker rooms to men who dress as women, warns Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX).  The bill virtually eliminates gender distinctions by allowing Montgomery County residents to choose if they are male or female even when the choice conflicts with their biological sex. 

The bill, slated for a vote on Tuesday, Nov. 13, would add ‘gender identity’ as a protected class for ‘transgenders.’  It would guarantee the right to use public facilities consistent with the person’s gender identity “publicly and exclusively expressed or asserted.”  No sex change is necessary.
 
As an organization that aids former transgenders, PFOX can attest that many transgenders prefer to dress and act publicly and exclusively as a woman or man on weekends and then as their birth gender during the work week.  These are known as “weekend transgenders.”  Pedophiles could also put on a dress and assert they are exclusively female in order to get near naked children in swimming pool locker rooms. 

When asked if the proposed law would apply to weekend transgenders, Council member Duchy Trachtenberg refused to answer, instead insisting that “transgender people face serious discrimination … in public accommodations.” 

“There’s a good reason why transgenders face ‘serious discrimination’ when using shower rooms and toilets that don’t apply to their gender,” said Regina Griggs, executive director of PFOX.  “It’s because they don’t belong there.  What parents want their daughter to use the public pool’s locker room with a naked man who cross-dresses full-time or part-time?  This bill in effect legalizes indecent exposure to minors in these kinds of situations.” 

Matt Barber lost his job at Allstate due to pro-homosexual activism. He says it’s a canard that Christians are “focusing too much” on this issue. Why do some Christians feel guilty about opposing a homosexual lobby that is so brazen it now openly promotes homosexual activity as normal to innocent, young children? (See page from “King and King” children’s book below.)

Folks, my good friend Matt Barber, policy director for cultural issues at Concerned Women for America and Americans For Truth Board Member, is right on in this excellent essay rebutting the increasingly common complaint that Christians are focusing too much on homosexuality. 

I find it curious at this juncture in American history when the homosexual lobby is at the zenith of its power — and on the verge of passing an oppressive, sweeping federal bill creating special workplace privileges based on people’s inclination toward aberrant sex — that Christians of all people would urge a de facto public policy and cultural retreat in opposing that movement.

Why are so many people of faith riddled with guilt in opposing a sin-based movement that threatens everybody’s religious and First Amendment freedoms? Perhaps it’s because many Christians, far from “hating gays,” as the trendy accusation goes, are intimidated by the liberal media and no longer agree with their Creator  that homosexual acts are an egregiously sexual sin.

Victim of harassment lawsuit tells his story

 Larry Cirignano (right) in courtroom with Michael Gilleran, the attorney who helped him beat bogus charges by ACLU activist Sarah Loy that he assaulted her after she disupted his pro-marriage rally. Click HERE for more on the case, and HERE to read about a Worcester, Mass. reporter who helped smear Cirignano but who refuses to recant his discredited story. For MassResistance’s comprehensive account of Cirignano’s trial and Sarah Loy’s fraud, click HERE.

By Larry Cirignano

This week we celebrate All Saints Day and All Souls Day.  The Catholic Church venerates saints as role models for all of us to emulate, and to encourage us to strive to defend our faith and principles as they did, despite each of them being a sinner.

In early American history, back in 1597, five Franciscan friars were martyred, in what is now Georgia, for standing up against polygamy and defending marriage.

In early church history St John the Baptist, St John Fisher and St Thomas More were all beheaded for standing up for marriage. 

If we are going to continue as a society, we need to stand up for marriage as these brave saints did, by promoting families raising children, and by protecting our children as our most precious resource.

The family is an essential building block for society.  Families are the first protectors of children as the first providers of food, shelter, health care and education. The home is the domestic church and serves as the first hospital, school and restaurant that most kids will know.

Why Aren’t Teenage Boys Warned of These Health Risks? 

WARNING: Graphic Homosexual Descriptions

“[An] anus is the highest risk place for STDs [sexually transmitted diseases].”
— Dr. Stephen Goldstone, homosexual author and “gay” advocate, The Ins and Outs of Gay Sex: A Medical Handbook for Men,” p. 16.

The following is adapted from the Fall 1999 issue of the Lambda Report, the printed publication monitoring the homosexual activist agenda that preceded the formation of Americans For Truth. (LR was launched in 1993.) We have been remiss in not putting any of the old printed Lambda Report issues online; they shed much light on the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) movement –– often using firsthand information, including homosexual writings like those from “GayHealth.com” founder Dr. Stephen Goldstone.

Our headline makes light of Halloween, but clearly what you will read below is no laughing matter. We do not delight in reporting these sobering facts. Rather, we seek to bring some balance to the ubiquitous pro-homosexuality messages that dominate today’s media, academia, and pop culture — celebrating a lifestyle centered around wrong and destructive behaviors. What opinion-making elites don’t like to talk about is that God has helped many men and women leave this lifestyle: click HERE for Stephen Bennett’s website; HERE for James Hartline’s site; HERE for ex-lesbian Charlene Cothran’s testimony at our recent banquet and HERE for her Venus Magazine site.

As we reported last year, radical homosexual groups like the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force decry Christian Halloween “Hell Houses” that teach children by linking homosexuality and other sins to destruction ending in hell — an eternal destination from which they hope to scare the kids away. But the following shows that the churches and their old-fashioned morality are not the problem; it’s homosexuality advocates who should be made to answer for marketing this unhealthy lifestyle as hip and glamorous to young men.

For as you will see, there is nothing cool and glamorous about homosexual practices and what they do to the body. — Peter LaBarbera 

REPEAT WARNING: Graphic Homosexual Acts Described; Why Aren’t Teenage Boys Warned of These Health Risks?

Adapted from the Lambda Report on Homosexuality (Fall 1999):

Is Homosexual Sex ‘Safe’?

Note from Lambda Report publisher, Peter LaBarbera (1999): We apologize in advance for the uncomfortable subject matter described in the following excerpts from a book about “gay” male sex by homosexual doctor Stephen Goldstone (“The Ins and Outs of Gay Sex: A Medical Handbook for Men”; Dell: New York, 1999). Foes of homosexuality are often charged with hating “gay” people, but in reality most just are repulsed by the idea of men having sex with men, or women with women. And for good reason. No amount of pro-homosexual propaganda or condom use can eradicate the health risks of homosexual sex, especially between men.

The following is but a small sample of the many warnings found in Dr. Goldstone’s book. These excerpts focus on anal sodomy. Keep in mind that this is not a “religious right” source: Goldstone is a “sex positive” homosexuality advocate who dedicates his book to his “gay” lover, Bruce.

Editor’s note for today: as I re-read these quotes from a practicing homosexual and proud “gay” advocate, Dr. Goldstone, it is a sad reminder of the ongoing delusion of homosexuality activists, who complain bitterly when we expose the special health risks associated with male homosexual behavior. Clearly, these dangers are manifold, but due to political correctness they remain an “insider’s secret” that rarely is broached in public.

The truth that homosexual ideologues deny is as obvious as it is simple: the body was not made for homosexuality – and homosexuality-mimicking acts such as straights practicing anal sex. Now we are witnessing a resurgence of HIV, including among young men. (A New York City health department report found that the “group with the fastest-growing rate of H.I.V. infection comprised males between the ages of 13 and 19, for which H.I.V. diagnoses doubled from 2001 to 2006.”) 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in June in its Fact Sheet, “HIV/AIDS among Men Who Have Sex with Men” (emphasis added):

In the United States, HIV infection and AIDS have had a tremendous effect on men who have sex with men (MSM). MSM accounted for 71% of all HIV infections among male adults and adolescents in 2005 (based on data from 33 states with long-term, confidential name-based HIV reporting), even though only about 5% to 7% of male adults and adolescents in the United States identify themselves as MSM.

Please read this excellent column by Janice Crouse, which tries to restore some sanity to the AIDS discussion: HIV/AIDS: Anybody Can Get It?. Allso, check out this AFTAH picture-story, Graphic Youth Flier Guides “Queer” “Boyz” on How to Engage in Homosexual Sodomies, which demonstrates the risks that “gay” activism poses to teenage boys.

The truth is, Nature itself discriminates against homosexuality.  

How tragic that boys are joining the “gay” movement in droves with no inkling of the dangers that will befall them when they actually start practicing homosexual sex. The quotes below make for very difficult reading, but please don’t run from the truth: read them carefully. Then ask yourself how misguided it is – and incredibly irresponsible from a public policy standpoint — that adults and school authorities are promoting homosexuality (“gayness”) as a natural “identity” to impressionable teenagers and even younger children. —Peter LaBarbera

Anal Sex: Sign of Gayness
“Many men view anal sex as the final step on their path to gayness. (Once you’ve done it you must be gay.) For some it’s a sign of their first true love….”
— Stephen Goldstone (“The Ins and Outs of Gay Sex: A Medical Handbook for Men”; Dell: New York, 1999), p. 2.; emphasis author’s.

Anal Fissures
“An anal fissure is a tear or cut in the anal lining and usually begins as an extremely painful event… Anal fissures most often result from a hard bowel movement tearing the sensitive lining of the anal canal … In gay men, other common causes of fissures are trauma from anal intercourse or fingers and [sex] toys as well as ulcers related to HIV … If a fissure occurs during anal sex, stop immediately. Avoid any attempt at further intercourse or manipulation of the anus until healing occurs. If pain is severe or if fever develops, it could mean that a penis (or toy) tore through your sphincter into the delicate tissue surrounding your anus. Seek medical attention immediately, because infection will usually result and antibiotics and/or surgery will be required….”
— Dr. Stephen Goldstone, ibid., pp. 35, 37; emphasis added.

STD Danger Zone
“[An] anus is the highest risk place for STDs [sexually transmitted diseases].”
— Dr. Stephen Goldstone, ibid., p 16, urging condom use.

Battering Ram
“Just as your internal sphincter muscle involuntarily relaxes when feces enter your rectum, it involuntarily contracts when a penis or other object attempts to enter from the outside … An anal tear can occur during the initial phase of anal sex precisely because your partner pushes his penis through a closed sphincter. Think of his penis as a battering ram, one for which your internal sphincter is no match.”
— Dr. Stephen Goldstone, ibid., p 4, (emphasis author’s).

Incontinence from ‘Injurious’ Anal Sex
“In one medical study of men who practiced anoreceptive intercourse [being the receiving “bottom” in anal sex], 25 percent reported at least isolated episodes of fecal incontinence. An age-similar group of heterosexual men had only a 3 percent incontinence rate. … What does this mean to men who enjoy anal sex? Although the threat of incontinence is small, it is present nonetheless. Incontinence in men who practice anal sex is thought to result from repeated injury to their internal sphincter muscle. … Again, although a penis is often the size of a large bowel movement, your sphincter involuntarily relaxes to allow the bowel movement to pass and your muscle is not injured. Insertion of a penis, however, causes your muscle to contract involuntarily. Repeated insertion through a contracted internal sphincter muscle may cause cumulative damage so that the muscle loses its ability to seal the anorectal canal tightly.
— Dr. Stephen Goldstone, ibid., p 21-22; emphasis added.

‘Direct Injury’ and Sphincterotomies
“Gay men who practice anoreceptive intercourse may develop an acute fissure from direct injury …Most often men who have had anal intercourse have already stretched their sphincter (I’m sure you can figure out how) and spasm is rarely present. The fissure usually will heal if the surgeon removes the scar tissue and closes the tear with a few stitches. Keep this in mind if a surgeon tells you a sphincterotomy is necessary. In this instance, you might be placing yourself at a higher risk for incontinence because your sphincter is already loose. You can always go back for a sphincterotomy if your fissure doesn’t heal after a simple closure.”
— Dr. Stephen Goldstone, ibid., p 40; emphasis added.

‘Homophobia’ or Just Plain, Common Sense?
“I remember standing in horror as a physician I worked with berated a gay man he treated with a terse ‘Your [a—hole] is for [defecating], not [having sex]!’ Well, this is not the case. Anal sex can be both pleasurable and safe if practiced properly. Unfortunately, homophobia has clouded the issue….”
— Dr. Stephen Goldstone, ibid., p. 2.

 Eastman Kodak Company now gives preferential treatment to homosexual-owned “minority” subcontractors, and proudly gives funds to the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network. (GLSEN sponsored the notorious “Fistgate” workshop in 2000 and promotes homosexuality- and transsexuality-affirming lessons for grade schoolers.) Would Kodak be emboldened under an ENDA law to restrict “anti-gay” discussions or speech among its employees?

Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Professor Rob Gagnon, author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice, examines the potential assaults on liberty if the ENDA bill (Employment Nondiscrimination Act, H.R. 3685) becomes law. Gagnon’s paper, “Don’t ENDAnger Your Liberties in the Workplace,” is a must read, as it delves into the potential reactions (and over-reactions) of corporation managers to a federal law that bans “discrimination” based on homosexuality (“sexual orientation”). Check out these scenarios offered by Gagnon:

• Suppose in the lunchroom or at the water cooler you engage in a conversation about sexual ethics. If a fellow employee extols homosexual bonds and you express your moral reservations about such bonds, you or the company could be liable for an anti-discrimination lawsuit for creating an intimidating atmosphere in the workplace that adversely affects the standing of a person who is vocal about his or her homosexual activity.
• Let’s say that, in response to “diversity” posters, you post on your cubicle the text of Rom 1:24-27. Or in response to a corporate directive that you participate supportively in a “Coming Out Day” you respectfully decline because you find homosexual practice to be morally offensive. Or in an attempt to get exempted from the email list of the company’s “GLBT” organization (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender) you send an email requesting to be removed from the list because you think homosexual practice is immoral. In all these circumstances, you are far more likely to be disciplined or fired, and to have no legal redress, with an “ENDA” in place than without it.
• As a means of protecting the company against “discrimination” lawsuits, your employer may require you to attend indoctrination seminars that stress that homosexuality is as morally neutral as race or sex; and, moreover, to participate in “coming out” celebrations in the workplace that affirm “sexual diversity.” Your employer may further prohibit, under penalty of termination, any conversation, written communication, or act that calls homosexual practice into question.
• While homosexual and bisexual persons will have their jobs protected under this act, your job status and advancement will have no such protections if you manifest “discriminatory” words against homosexual behavior. Indeed, not only will your religious convictions not be protected in a secular workplace, but also they will be treated as “bigotry” akin to racism and sexism. Corporations don’t generally hire or promote bigots. It is not good for business.
• Monitoring of “discriminatory” beliefs toward homosexual and bisexual persons could even extend, at least in the case of white collar employees, outside the workplace. For example, if a school teacher has published in a newspaper a letter that advocates that society not provide legal incentives for homosexual practice, or offers counseling for those seeking to come out of the homosexual life, the courts could rule (as the British Columbia Supreme Court ruled a couple of years ago) that the employer is entitled to take such discriminatory views into consideration in suspending or firing the employee.

Gagnon’s entire paper can be viewed in HTML format HERE or as a PDF document HERE. Also see Americans For Truth’s special report on ENDA, “14 Good Reasons to Oppose H.R. 3685, the ‘ENDA Our Freedom” Bill.”

From Traditional Values Coalition’s website. TVC has led the charge against ENDA, the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, on Capitol Hill: 

October 26, 2007 – Shortly after the White House issued a veto threat on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced she was delaying a vote on ENDA.

Pelosi is delaying the vote because Democrat leaders can’t find enough votes for passage of ENDA with “gender identity” added back into it. However, this supposed delay may only be a strategic move to undermine organized opposition to ENDA.

Click HERE to read the whole article

Janice Shaw Crouse (JCrouse@cwfa.org) of CWA’s Beverly LaHaye Institute deals with the elephant in the room in this excellent article, reprinted from Concerned Women for America’s website (emphasis added). Crouse is one of the few public policy experts to puncture the latest propaganda theme pushed by ‘AIDS activists’ — i.e., “heterosexual women” as the leading growth group for contracting the disease. As she states, “The fine print reveals that the heterosexual category includes persons who have had sex with bisexual men and drug users.” In other words, reckless behaviors including anal sex — not heterosexuality — are the problem. Please help us give this article the widest circulation possible. –Peter LaBarbera 

Anybody Can Get It?    

Published by Concerned Women for America, Oct. 17, 2007

By Janice Shaw Crouse, Beverly LaHaye Institute

The politically correct mantra about HIV/AIDS is that “anybody can get it

The politically correct mantra about HIV/AIDS is that “anybody can get it.” This half-truth is as bizarre as pointing to the tragic death of professional naturalist Steve Irwin, best known as “The Crocodile Hunter,” and saying “anyone can die from the barb of a stingray.” There is an obvious missing piece in both instances. You’re not going to die from a stingray’s barb unless you dive in waters that are home to stingrays. Likewise, unless you (1) Have intimate sexual contact with someone who is infected with the HIV/AIDS virus, (2) Share contaminated needles to do drugs, or (3) Are a healthcare worker who comes in direct contact with the body fluids of an infected person (or as in the heartrending case of Kimberly Bergalis, who contracted AIDS from her infected dentist), you will not, I repeat, you will NOT contract HIV/AIDS.

Another phony slogan foisted off on the public is that women are the “new face of HIV/AIDS.” These myths are among the pernicious efforts to disperse the stigma associated with a disease that is almost exclusively a homosexual male and drug addict epidemic. Insidious myths like these leave today’s young people misinformed, misled and, thus, unprotected.

In fact, Unprotected is the title of an important book that every parent of teenage children needs to read. It exposes the political correctness that leaves college students especially vulnerable to a whole range of health and emotional problems. The author, Miriam Grossman, M.D., is a psychiatrist who has worked for two decades with college students and served during the past decade at the student health center at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Others have commented on various aspects of Dr. Grossman’s exposé of the biases that harm students at university student health centers. I was especially appalled that basic medical knowledge about the transmission of the HIV/AIDS virus is kept from students. In spite of the fact that we are now well past the quarter century mark in the AIDS epidemic, and in spite of the fact that 1 in every 500 college students may be HIV positive, basic HIV/AIDS information is not known by the general public; our students in particular, the very ones most in need of truth to reinforce self-discipline, are not fully informed about the facts.

We treat HIV/AIDS differently from any other public health threat. While doctors are required by law to report nearly 50 communicable diseases (including tuberculosis, measles, syphilis, meningitis), and people with those communicable diseases are ordered by law to get treatment or go to jail, United States laws prohibit disclosure of anyone’s HIV status. Even the HIV tests use a code name to avoid identifying any infected persons. Thus, the only way anyone knows that a person has the virus is if that information is voluntarily given.