ADF Sues Massachusetts Legislature

Dec 12, 2006, press release from ALLIANCE DEFENSE FUND:

Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Glen Lavy will address the media Wednesday [Dec 13, 2006] after filing a lawsuit against members of the Massachusetts Legislature. The suit alleges that the lawmakers have acted illegally by refusing to vote on a citizen initiative that would define marriage in the commonwealth’s constitution as the union between one man and one woman.

“Elected officials should be held accountable when they deliberately violate the law,” Lavy said. “The legislators have a constitutional duty to vote on citizen initiatives. Some members of the legislature have even admitted publicly that they are deliberately violating their constitutional duty. This flagrant violation of the constitutional right of the citizens to amend their constitution must be stopped.”

Also participating in the press conference is Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute.

“All we are asking is that the legislature fulfills its responsibility to the voters of Massachusetts,” Lavy said. “These legislators will face no liability if they vote on the amendment, but it appears that the Legislature is only going to stop their illegal behavior when they understand they’ll be held accountable for it.”

ADF is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.

Posted in "Civil Unions" & "Gay Marriage", Current State Law, News

Pro-Family Leaders Believe Homosexual Divorce is a Tactic

Excerpted from Lesbian Couple Married in Massachusetts Seeks Divorce in Rhode Island, by Josh Montez, published Dec 11, 2006, by Family News in Focus:

Since RI doesn’t recognize gay marriages, gay divorce seems pointless. Could it be the couple wants another way to legitimize same-sex unions?

The divorce-seeking lesbian couple is working their way through the Rhode Island court system. A family court refused the case, referring it on to the State Supreme Court. Kris Mineau with the Massachusetts Family Institute believes this is a ploy to get the legal system to recognize gay marriage, through divorce.

“Isn’t that bizarre? They’ll seize at any opportunity, whereas in New Jersey and Maryland, they are seeking to marry, and suing through the courts. Here they’re seeking to divorce and suing through the courts.”

Attorneys for the gay couple say they aren’t asking Rhode Island to recognize same-sex marriage, just same-sex divorce. But Peter LaBarbera with Americans for Truth doesn’t buy that argument.

“I think if you recognize same-sex divorce, you’re recognizing same-sex marriage. It’s amazing how political the activists are. The problem here is we’re dealing with a very political movement and Americans on the side of decency and truth just aren’t as political as the gay activists.”

LaBarbera says this is more than a gay couple trying to make headlines; it’s an attempt to change the law.

“The modus operandi of the homosexual activists is to use anything possible, even divorce, to win approval of their lifestyle. That’s what the main agenda is. They are desperate for approval of their lifestyle and even if it means recognizing gay divorce as opposed to gay marriage, they’ll do that.”

The Rhode Island Supreme Court has yet to decide if it will take the case.

Posted in AFT In the News, Homosexual Divorce, News

A Pastor with Courage

Excerpted from Pastor at Senate Invocation curses ‘Spirit’ of Gay Marriage, published Dec 12, 2006, by Star-Ledger (New Jersey):

A pastor delivering the invocation at the opening of yesterday’s Senate session included in his prayer a condemnation of gay marriage.

“We curse the spirit that would come to bring about same-sex marriage,” the Rev. Vincent Fields, pastor of Greater Works Ministries in Absecon, prayed as lawmakers listened, heads bowed. “We ask you to just look over this place today, cause them to be shaken in their very heart in uprightness, Lord, to do that is right before you.”

Earlier yesterday the [NJ state] Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation to allow gay couples to form civil unions with the same rights as married couples.

Continue reading in Star-Ledger…

Posted in "Civil Unions" & "Gay Marriage", A - What does the Bible say about homosexuality?, News, Pending Legislation, Pentacostal

Tony Perkins: All You Need Is Love?

From the Dec 8, 2006, issue of “Washington Update by Tony Perkins, Family Research Council:

For the last three days, media outlets from across the country have flooded FRC with calls on our reaction to the news that Vice President Cheney’s daughter, who has a lesbian partner, is expecting a child. We have purposefully declined to comment on the story, in order to maintain FRC’s focus on policy discussions. However, when an event such as this is used by some as a catalyst for advancing a political agenda or promoting public policy that attacks traditional marriage or parenting, I have no reservations about stepping forward and defending morality and the family — regardless of who is involved. Today’s Washington Post features such an attempt by editorial columnist Ruth Marcus. With an air of noble tutelage, Marcus writes, “Whether she intends it or not, [Mary Cheney’s] pregnancy will, I think, turn out to be a watershed in public understanding and acceptance of this phenomenon.”

Unlike Marcus, authorities on child and family health do not use anecdotes as the basis for public policy. Their analysis is fact-driven, not emotion-driven. And those facts have seldom changed. Marcus writes that “To be a badly wanted child… in a home with two loving parents is no tragedy. If they’re worried about ’emotional devastation,’ they would do better to reserve their lamentations for children in poverty, those who are abused or neglected, or for children in families splintered by divorce.” Children’s needs, however, are more than the sum of the wants in the lives of the adults who reside with them. Study after study demonstrates that no amount of care or financial privilege can compensate for the missing physical and emotional benefits experienced by children who enjoy the lifelong love and presence of a married mother and father.

Comprehensive studies published in the peer-reviewed journals Archives of General Psychiatry, Interpersonal Violence, Social Service Research, Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Nursing Research, Developmental Psychology, Adolescence, and others too numerous to list here, all cite the devastating effects of domestic violence, increased substance abuse, mental health problems, sexual identity confusion, depression, and suicide associated with the homosexual lifestyle. A child fortunate enough to escape those realities still faces a distinct disadvantage throughout childhood — the irreplaceable influence of the missing biological parent. In rearing children, the complementary contributions of a mother and father are rooted in the innate differences of the two sexes, and can no more be arbitrarily replaced than can the very nature of male and female.

But besides dismissing science, Marcus misrepresents the reality of Virginia law. In her eagerness to exploit the circumstances, she asserts that the state’s new marriage protection amendment “casts doubt on the ability of Cheney and Poe to write binding medical directives and wills.” The law casts no doubt on the matter. It implicitly allows individuals to engage in private contracts. Here Marcus succeeds in personalizing her argument but not substantiating it. She concludes, “[This] high-profile pregnancy will help the Republican party come to grips with [the] facts of life. If not, [Mary Cheney] will have to explain to her child what mommy was doing trying to help a party that doesn’t believe in fairness for families like theirs.” What is at stake in these debates, however, is ultimately not the fate of political parties or the lateral “fairness” adults seek, but what is fair and favorable for children, all of whom have a stake in whether our nation stands by the ideal of homes embraced by, and embracing, a mother and father, a husband and a wife.

Posted in "Civil Unions" & "Gay Marriage", Conception, Mental Health, News, Physical Health, Suicide

A&E’s “Wedding Wars” and GLAAD’s War on Normalcy

If the homosexual activist group GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) is recommending a new show, it must be pretty bad for traditional values. So watch out for “Wedding Wars,” a new movie produced by A&E debuting tonight (Monday, Dec. 11, 9:00 PM EST, 8:00 Central) and which is the subject of the giddy online post, below, by GLAAD.

Just what America needs: more homosexual propaganda on TV. Yep, every day I’m reminded just how disenfranchised this poor, beleaguered “gay minority” is. Who are they kidding? The homosexual activist lobby has elite power — far disproportionate to their tiny numbers — and they aren’t afraid to use it.

If you have any doubts about how ludicrous it is to say that the “gay marriage” movement has ANYTHING in common with the noble civil rights struggle that ended state-sponsored segregation in this country, check out this link for the annual “Aspen Gay and Lesbian Ski Week” (note the appropriate theme of the Seven Deadly Sins). Talk about wealth, power, and privilege.

We can chuckle at the symbolism of actor John Stamos’ career path, from playing a caring father of twins in “Full House” to playing a homosexual party planner in “Wedding Wars.” But the downward evolution of the fight for “equality” in America — from Selma to Aspen, from ending horrible Jim Crow laws to shilling for counterfeit “marriage,” from stigmatizing racist bigotry to scoffing at Christian morality — is a sober reminder of the corruption of civil rights in this nation.

A&E need not have bothered with its condescending GLAAD “public service” announcement (actress Julianne Moore lecturing us about “freedom and equality”) running alongside the show. Looks like the whole “Wedding Wars” movie is designed to promote GLAAD’s perspective. Memo to GLAAD and A&E: homosexual practice will always be wrong, no matter how many millions of dollars worth of PC programming you throw at the public. “Gay marriage” is the ultimate rebellion against a God who lovingly created men and women for each other, united in marriage to raise children.

Which takes us to an aspect of the ongoing “gay” crusade that many Americans are only now beginning to understand. So often pro-family advocates are asked why we care so much about “what two people do in their bedroom,” “why can’t we just leave them alone?” etc., as if homosexuality is a private matter that just sort of exists without demanding attention. For some, of course, it is. But “Wedding Wars” shows us the flip side of the “gay” movement, which proudly DEMANDS approval at every opportunity, and feels the need to ridicule Judeo-Christian values in order to score points for the “gay” cause.

Makes sense: sinful lifestyles cannot be elevated to normal and even “Christian” status unless sin itself is redefined, and normalcy and Christianity are brought lower.

This seeming pathological drive for approval (tolerance is passe) is why proud homosexuality will remain the most divisive social issue this country has faced in a long time. The “gay” activists won’t leave us alone. They can’t. To achieve their revolutionary, egalitarian goal of treating homosexuality the same as heterosexuality in our culture, they and their increasingly radical straight allies are forced to discredit and destroy a lot of good, Bible-based tradition — and turn the hearts of America’s children against God’s created purpose for sexuality.

There are other sins like pornography, pre-marital sex and abortion that war against tradition, but none has the organizational, insider power that homosexuality now has, nor the massive chip on their shoulder that drives self-styled “queer” activists, compulsively, to sneer at normalcy and true religion.

Yes, “gay”-friendly Hollywood is laughing at us and our supposedly antiquated beliefs. But I have to believe that although confirmed liberals might watch and enjoy shows like “Wedding Wars,” the average American is put off by the overkill of “gay, gay, gay” in the popular culture. Please take a minute to remind yourself that God is right and GLAAD is wrong, then tell A&E what you think about their latest sellout to the homosexual lobby. — Peter LaBarbera

TAKE ACTION – Tell A&E that you do not appreciate
programming that promotes homosexuality.

GLAAD writes:

The A&E Network will premiere Wedding Wars on Monday, Dec. 11 at 9pm ET, a comedic take on the battle for marriage equality starring John Stamos (ER), Eric Dane (Grey’s Anatomy) and James Brolin (The Reagans).

Stamos plays Shel, a gay party planner, who agrees to organize the nuptials for straight brother Ben (Dane) and Maggie (Bonnie Somerville), the governor of Maine’s (Brolin) daughter. After Shel finds out that Ben, a campaign manager for his future father-in-law, is behind the governor’s speech against marriage equality, he decides to go on strike for equal rights. Shel’s strike picks up steam and eventually spreads nationwide, showing the extent that gay and lesbian people make up the workforce of this country.

“A&E’s original movie Wedding Wars offers a fresh, entertaining take on marriage equality — and how people are growing to realize that banning their gay family members, friends and acquaintances from marrying is both unfair and hurtful to everyone,” says GLAAD President Neil G. Giuliano. “This is the kind of storytelling that can invest more and more people in our lives and our families, and we’re thrilled that millions of A&E viewers will soon be able to see this movie and share it with their loved ones and friends.”

During the world premiere broadcast of Wedding Wars, A&E will air an award-winning GLAAD public service announcement starring Julianne Moore.

Produced by Storyline Entertainment in association with Sony Pictures Television,Wedding Wars is directed by Jim Fall (Trick, The Lizzie McGuire Movie) from a script by Stephen Mazur (Liar, Liar). Storyline Entertainment’s Craig Zadan and Neil Meron serve as executive producers.

Posted in "Civil Unions" & "Gay Marriage", A&E, GLAAD, Movies, News

Actress Julianne Moore Helps GLAAD Distort “Freedom” and “Equality”

by Sonja Dalton

Julianne Moore is the spokesperson for GLAAD (the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) in what they call “an award-winning GLAAD public service announcement.”

To view the Julianne Moore PDF,
please click HERE.

In the continuing quest to conflate special status for sexual perversion with civil rights for black Americans, the piece begins with a quote from Abraham Lincoln: “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.”

Then the actress says: “I love this country. I love it for the principles it was founded upon, where every American is created equal, regardless of skin color or sexual orientation…”

It would come as quite a surprise to George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and the other God-fearing leaders of the American Revolution to learn that they had “sexual orientation” (homosexuality) in mind while drafting the Declaration of Independence, framing the Constitution and drafting the Federalist Papers.

General Washington approved the court martial of Lt. Gotthold Frederick Enslin from the Continental Army for attempted sodomy on another soldier, so we don’t think he would have agreed with Moore’s and GLAAD’s revisionist history.

Moore goes on to say: “People who love those of the same gender were created as every other American — equal…”

People who have sex with people of the same sex were indeed created equal; however, they choose a lifestyle which is not morally equal nor equally valuable to society. In this country, now that the Supreme Court has declared sodomy a de facto constitutional right, they are at liberty to have deviant sex anywhere in the USA with any consenting adult — but they cannot reasonably expect to enjoy universal approval and respect any more than an adulterer can.

Julianne Moore says: “Promote freedom — Embrace equality.”

GLAAD is an odd group to speak out for “freedom.” They haven’t exactly stood up for the rights of former homosexuals to tell their stories, but instead have worked to keep those stories from reaching the public. (GLAAD justifies its censorious impluse against ex-gays and others in the pro-family movement by saying it is protecting the airwaves from “hate.”)

So now GLAAD is again exploit America’s noble civil rights movement for its own ends, which will include curtailing the “freedom” of those who object publicly to homosexual behavior.

Let’s examine what the Scriptures say about true freedom.

The Bible teaches: “Promote freedom — Embrace Jesus Christ” – the Son of God, who affirmed His Father’s design for marriage and sexuality, and who said…

“If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.
Then you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free…
If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.”

–John 8:31-41

When the Bible speaks of freedom, its inspired authors are referring to freedom from the ceremonial Law of Moses and the requirement for constant blood sacrifice, which was necessitated by their sins. Through baptism into the death of Jesus Christ (Romans 6:3-4), we can be fully released from the spiritual consequence of sin, which is eternal death (Romans 8:23), a permanent separation from God’s glory, His provision and His mercy.

The disciples of Jesus do not use their freedom as an occasion to indulge the sinful nature (Galatians 5:13-14) and they do not allow sin to reign in their bodies (Romans 8:11-14); instead they become slaves to righteousness (Romans 6:18).

Ironic, is it not, that those who promote a lifestyle which is physically, emotionally, and spiritually harmful, would call it “freedom”? Do not be deceived.

Posted in Celebrities, GLAAD, News

Queens Parents Riled Over Raunchy Sixth-Grade Reading

Parents, please take the time to read this article in its entirety on the New York Daily News website. Of particular note:

• Be wary of the books on your child’s required or recommended reading lists, especially if a book carries the label “Young Adult.” Your elementary, middle school, junior high school age child is not a “young adult” – nor is your high school adolescent a “young adult” until they’re 18.
  
• You cannot trust the judgment of the library or the recommendations of teachers’ groups. You must evaluate your child’s reading materials for yourself.
• If you find such materials at your local school, there is something you can do. Follow the example of the parents in this story and get personally involved in opposing inappropriate materials.
  

——————————

Excerpted from P. S., These Books Are Sick!, by Rachel Scheier and Carrie Melago, published Dec 7, 2006, by New York Daily News:

Sixth-graders at a Queens school were getting quite an education – in homosexuality, French kissing and cursing – thanks to three books widely available in classroom libraries.

But after numerous complaints from parents at Public School 150 in Sunnyside, the books – a profanity-laced poetry book, short stories about homosexuality and a novel called “First French Kiss” – were pulled from the shelves last week.

…The poem “I Hate School” in a book called “You Hear Me?“ includes the rhyme, “F— this s—, up the a–. I don’t think I’ll ever pass.”Another poem compares eating an orange to having sex, while several passages repeatedly use vulgar slang for genitalia. And the book “Am I Blue?“ is an anthology of stories about gay teenagers that parents found too adult-themed for 11- and 12-year-olds.

…Parent and leadership team member Michael Novak said the books, which are labeled “young adult” by the New York Public Library, are “material that is totally inappropriate for sixth-graders.”

Principal Carmen Parache said she had not reviewed the books until she received complaints but said they were “definitely inappropriate.” She said classroom materials would be more carefully screened in the future.

“As soon as I saw them, I pulled them and they are no longer in the school,” she said. “This is something that shouldn’t have happened and it will not happen again.”

“You Hear Me?” was suggested for sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders by the Columbia University Teachers College’s Reading and Writing Project because it is the only anthology with poems written by minority teenagers, said Lucy Calkins, its founding director.

Continue reading in New York Daily News…

Posted in Books & Required Reading in Public Schools, News

What’s at Stake for Christians in The War Over Homosexuality

A Plea to Pastors and Christian Leaders

By Linda Harvey of Mission America

The conflict in our culture over homosexuality is heating up at an astonishing pace. The battle now needs to be waged on many fronts simultaneously: in the media, in our schools, in the courts, on campus, and within the medical profession. Most tragically of all, the battle over sexuality threatens to divide Christianity as nothing has since the Reformation.

It is in this last arena where I entered the fight to begin with, and where I believe our central focus should be. We are in a fight to determine who we are created to be. God is our Creator, so the battlefield always ends up at the foot of the cross.

So why isn’t this issue of immediate concern to more confessing Christians? Homosexual activists and their allies are, in case one hasn’t noticed, the torch-carriers for a movement to destroy biblically-oriented Christianity and its positive influence on our culture. They won’t be able to reinvent Christianity, of course. Christ’s authentic Church of true believers will remain steadfast even if we’re stripped of all we have in this world. But they could destroy our culture.

The bigger point is, how will Christians account to God for how we responded to this challenge, and the people whose souls, health and lives could have been salvaged?

I am increasingly convinced that much of the Church will have a lot of explaining to do. Why did most pastors allow evil to be “sold” to our young people with barely a whimper of protest? Why did you allow this tragic behavior to become a chic cause celebre in the media without trying to take a stand against it? Why did you let seminaries teach this blasphemy? Why did you spend little or no time in the pulpit dealing with this and all the related sexuality issues – promiscuity, pornography, adultery, fornication – sins that are tearing apart the families and personal lives of even Bible-confessing Christians? Why did you constantly decry “political involvement” when this is a deeply moral issue, one for which there are ready arguments to be made in the public square had more Christian leaders been willing to make them?

And the big question is: why do you let the world define what’s right to do? What will be “accepted” or not? What is “hate” or not? This defense of inaction completely undermines who Christ is and what God is able to do. Such cowardice should make us tremble. For God would not only be with us if we tried to talk some sense into the world, He is just as able to judge each Christian and the society we live in for our disloyalty and cold-heartedness. I believe right now, He is doing just exactly that.

The moral decline in our world — the violent images that are the daily bread of our children, the school shootings, the acceptable treason of our elected leaders — will not stop until the Church is willing to be politically incorrect and cry out loudly in protest to proclaim what is good, instead of meekly retreating in the face of evil. With all the hope that is in the Gospel, why do so many remain silent?

We win the argument in the end, of course. Homosexuality will eventually be seen for the lie it is, a lie against all that God created a person to be; a lie about how people are best to love and relate to one another; a lie of omission about the health hazards involved, the sinful origins of homosexual desire and the real possibility of change. It will be seen for a lie that invalidated the authenticity of Scripture for many, leading them to believe in false gods and goddesses, creating worship of a “Jesus” that does not exist. They will realize that the defenders of homosexuality were wolves masked by this false worship, leading many of Christ’s sheep to be fed in fields fertile with enticing poison.

But it will be too late for America as we know it when “experts” and “authorities” — and even the Church’s leaders — finally realize their error. My fear is that we’ve already crossed a line where Pandora’s box cannot be closed. These practices are well-established already in the lives of many teens and young adults, and we are soon to live in a society of sexual barbarians where all types of unspeakable practices are accepted.

Violence, as in Sodom and Gomorrah, accompanies widespread sexual license, already evident in the millions of abortions performed each year. Why are we surprised when violence emerges from behind the closed doors of clinics, and into our schools and eventually, our streets and homes? Decline will be swift and painful and Christians will not escape the trauma in this world. We can look forward to eternity, which in all its glory will be a blessed aftermath. But tribulation here and now is coming unless we turn our society around. Only Christians can do this, for we are the only ones willing to stick it out.

Or so one would think.

There aren’t many folks in this fight, but this is why we are. It simply represents the essence of who people are, and who Christ is. We don’t know how much impact we can have, but we know we are called to try. It would be encouraging to have more Christians join us.

Preach the word!
Be ready in season and out of season.
Convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and teaching.
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine,
but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears,
they will heap up for themselves teachers;
and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables.”

–2 Timothy 4:2-4 NKJV

Posted in Born that Way?, GLBTQ Targeting Youth and Schools, News, The Bible, Churches, & Homosexuality