LISTEN ONLINE: Why Wasn’t the Murder of Mary Stachowicz a “Hate Crime”?

November 14th, 2006

Originally broadcast on the fourth anniversary of Mary Stachowicz’s murder, Peter LaBarbera addresses the contrast between how the media covered Matthew Shephard’s murder and how they covered the murder of Mary Stachowicz, a pious Catholic, by a violent homosexual.

Crosstalk Radio with Jim Schneider

To listen, click HERE.

DePaul Catholic University Holds Conference to Focus on Pro-Homosexual Teaching, Curriculum

November 14th, 2006

Excerpted from DePaul U. Blasted for Scheduling Pro-Homosexual Conference, by Jim Brown, published Nov 14, 2006, by Agape Press:

The nation’s largest Catholic university is under fire over its plan to host a conference aimed at expanding homosexuality-affirming teaching and curriculum on Catholic university campuses.

Next October DePaul University in Chicago will be hosting a two-day conference for professors and staff who are involved with “lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or queer” issues on Catholic campuses. The first “Out There” conference was held at Santa Clara University in 2005 and reportedly attracted 150 participants from more than 40 colleges and universities.

Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society (CNS), a Catholic renewal group, says he is very troubled by the event and its location.

“The approach that these people are taking is to accept — and in some cases even endorse — the homosexual lifestyle and build an academic curriculum around the homosexual culture as if it’s a distinctive and worthy culture to be studied,” notes Reilly. “And that’s obviously a serious concern for Catholics.”

TAKE ACTION – The Cardinal Newman Society is calling on DePaul president Thomas Holtschneider to drop the plan to host the pro-homosexual conference in October 2007.

DePaul University
1 E. Jackson Blvd.
Chicago, IL 60604
312-362-8000
1-800-4DEPAUL

Read the rest of this article »

Wal-Mart Contributes 5% Of Online Sales Via DC Homosexual Community Center Website

November 14th, 2006

A hat tip to our friends at American Family Association:

In a show of support to help homosexuals legalize same-sex “marriage,” Wal-Mart has agreed to automatically donate 5% of online sales directly to the Washington DC Community Center for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender People. The cash donation will come from all online purchases made at Wal-Mart through the homosexual group’s web site. This move follows Wal-Mart’s joining the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and agreeing to give generous financial help to that group.

AFA says that Wal-Mart also gave a generous cash donation to the Northwest Arkansas GLBT Community Center.

AFA is calling for a boycott of Wal-Mart on the Friday following Thanksgiving, which is typically the biggest shopping day of the year.

To sign a pledge to participate in the one-day boycott,
click HERE.

Note from Americans for Truth – Wal-Mart is not the only company participating in this program. Other familiar retailers include:

  • 1-800-Flowers (6%)
  • Amazon (5%)
  • Avon (8%)
  • Barnes and Noble (5%)
  • Disney Store (5%)
  • FTD (6%)
  • Gap (5%)
  • Hallmark (12%)
  • Office Max (4%)
  • REI (5%)
  • Staples (3%)
  • Toys R Us (via Amazon, 5%)
  • Verizon Online DSL ($40)

For a complete list of companies donating money from purchases to promote homosexuality, click HERE.

Matthew Shepard vs. Mary Stachowicz: Why Did AP Hype One Murder Victim and Ignore the Other?

November 13th, 2006

The ugly truth is too much for most in the media to admit:

they would have cared a lot more about Mary Stachowicz

if she were “gay,”

and if her murderer, Nick Gutierrez, were not.

TAKE ACTION – Call the Associated Press and ask why they ignored the Mary Stachowicz case while continuing to devote extensive coverage to the Shepard case. Politely tell them that “gay” victims are not more important than Christian victims–hate is hate–and that there is no logical reason why Shepard’s case deserves any more coverage than Stachowicz’s.

National Associated Press:

AP Headquarters
450 W. 33rd St.
New York, NY 10001
Contact by e-mail
(212) 621-1500

To contact the Illinois or Chicago Associated Press, click HERE
or call 800-572-2585.

by Peter LaBarbera

All murder victims are equal, but some are more equal than others, to paraphrase George Orwell.

mary-stachowicz.jpgOn Nov. 3, a jury took just three hours to find Nicholas Gutierrez guilty of the first-degree murder and rape of Mary Stachowicz (pronounced Stack-OH-vich), a 51-year-old Chicago mother of four and former co-worker who attended church nearly every day. Gutierrez, a homosexual, is now eligible for the death penalty, and his horrifying crime is the sort that cries out for that form of justice.

On this date four years ago (November 13, 2002), Gutierrez, then 19, raped and sodomized Mary, and stabbed, beat and strangled her to death before hiding her bloodied and mangled body in the floor crawl space of his apartment—above the Chicago funeral home where she worked and where he had been laid off. For three days, family members and friends searched frantically for Mary until Gutierrez guided police to her body and gave a warped “confession” filled with self-serving lies.

nicholas-gutierrez.bmpThe trial revealed evidence of the brutality of Gutierrez’s murderous assault on Mary: the tip on his hunting knife was bent from the force of his 11 stab thrusts against her body, and he broke 10 of her ribs.

As if his savagery were not evil enough, Gutierrez, a stocky man about six feet tall, and his public defender lawyers effectively blamed Mary for her own murder—arguing that the five-foot-five-and-half-inch tall Stachowicz had attacked him because she was obsessed about his homosexual lifestyle. By attempting this preposterous “anti-Christian panic defense,” Gutierrez’s lawyers played to bigoted and crude stereotypes of religious people as crazed “homophobes”—in a desperate ploy to reduce his sentence to second-degree murder.

To demonstrate the folly of Gutierrez’s defense, prosecutor James McKay showed the jury a crime scene photo of her bloodied and disfigured face—which he mockingly contrasted with the superficial cut sustained by “Mr. Band-aid,” Nick Gutierrez, on the day of the assault.

Thankfully, the jury didn’t buy Gutierrez’s story and took just three hours to convict him.

If you are the typical American—even if you live in Chicago—you probably have never heard of Mary Stachowicz because she simply was not the right kind of victim. Matthew Shepard, a “gay” college student from Wyoming murdered by two drug-induced thugs in 1998—now there’s a victim who deserves worldwide sympathy and fame. Shepard’s is now one of the most famous homicide cases in all of history, thanks to media hype and homosexual activists’ “spin” that:

1) falsely linked his tragic death to the rhetoric of Christian pro-family groups; and

2) erroneously reported that he was targeted for murder “just because he was gay.” His tragic killing is now exploited as a teaching tool to promote acceptance of homosexuality on high school and college campuses across the country. (Six years after the murder, ABC finally did some serious journalism challenging this myth, revealing that Shepard’s killers were motivated by money and drugs, not anti-gay hate.)

A whole industry has arisen to exploit Shepard’s tragic killing, which has been used as a teaching tool to promote the acceptance of homosexuality to millions of impressionable high school and college students across the country.

Enter Mary Stachowicz, who may have been killed, at least in part, “just because she was a faithful Catholic”—not that the media cares. (A recent Nexis media database search on Mary’s name found a grand total of only 13 articles; a similar search on “Matthew Shepard” found 997 articles in the last month alone.)

Associated Press completely ignored the Gutierrez trial, ensuring that it would receive little national attention—despite the heart-rending details of the Stachowicz case. (On the day that Mary’s killer was convicted of murder, her daughter Angela gave birth to another grandchild whom she will never get to see. Mary’s widowed husband Jerry was forced to endure the humiliation of testifying as to when they had last made love, to prove that the semen found on her murdered body was not his.)

Adding insult to injury, as Gutierrez’s trial was going on, AP ran a feature story about Judy Shepard, Matthew’s mother, who was speaking to college students in Chicago about “hate.”

I called AP’s Chicago office to ask why they weren’t covering the Gutierrez trial—right there in the Windy City—after all the attention they heaped (and continue to heap) on the Matthew Shepard case. I was told that the Shepard case is different because that was a “hate crime.”

Such is the folly of the “hate crimes” concept. It is hard to conceive of a greater demonstration of hatred than Nick Gutierrez cutting Mary’s life short in such a ghastly way and then cravenly exploiting his victim’s strong Catholic beliefs as a way to reduce his sentence. Did the “monster” who sodomized and killed Mary do so because she caught him stealing from her purse, as prosecutors argued, or did he fly into a rage after she “taunted” him about his homosexuality (as a headline in the Chicago Sun Times gratuitously stated)? Or was that just a convenient yarn he concocted to save his hide, knowing that the media and some gullible defense lawyers might play along? (The Tribune reported that Gutierrez’s homosexual partner, Ray Scacchitti, testified that “Stachowicz knew he and Gutierrez were gay and never questioned them about their lifestyle.”)

All this could have made for some fascinating coverage of a trial that might have yielded larger questions, such as: Was Matthew Shepard more a victim of hate than Mary Stachowicz? Are some homosexuals so obsessed with others’ approval that they pose a threat to religious people? Are Christians a growing target for “hate crimes” in America? No surprise that the local media failed to pursue these angles, seeing that most big Chicago media corporations march every year in the “Gay Pride” parade.

There is no logical reason why Matthew Shepard should be a household name while Mary Stachowicz, by all accounts a good person who devoted her life to her church, dies unknown—a victim of bigotry and slander even in her death. The ugly truth is too much for most in the media to admit: they would have cared a lot more about Mary Stachowicz if she were “gay,” and if her murderer, Nick Gutierrez, were not.

While You Were at Worship This Weekend…

November 12th, 2006

The National Gay & Lesbian Task Force was in Kansas City, MO, for five days hosting their 19th annual “Creating Change” conference. According to their website, over 2000 homosexual activists gathered to strategize for 2007 and beyond.

The closing speaker on Sunday morning was Loretta Ross, national coordinator and co-founder of SisterSong Reproductive Health Collective. Ms. Ross “espoused the need to talk about the human right to sexual pleasure“:

“While we’re fighting each other in our own Oppression Olympics, the neofascists and neoliberals are kicking our asses. They’re killing us. And only a united movement for all of our human rights will save us.”

Additionally: “Dozens of youth 24 and under attended an interactive creative writing and poetry workshop by award-winning folk poet and progressive artist-activist Alix Olson on Friday.”

Note that on Alix Olson’s website, her bio says that “Alix Olson is an internationally touring folk poet and progressive queer artist-activist.” Why do you suppose the Task Force elected to omit that particular adjective?

“At this morning’s plenary, several of the youth performed a collectively written poem about sexuality, pride and radicalism, saying in alternating voices,

‘Pride is personal.

Pride is identifying.

Pride is loving yourself.

Pride is holding hands without fear…

Living these lives is radical.

That is beautiful…

We are bountiful.

And beautiful.'”

Major Corporations Sponsor ‘Gay’ Task Force’s Radical “Creating Change” Conference

November 12th, 2006

How many corporations sponsored state “Protect Marriage” initiatives? Despite the fact that a majority of their employees (and customers) are married men and women with families, American corporations are increasingly supportive of homosexual activist groups. It is tragic that corporations are now taking the lead in undermining the foundations of marriage and family that built our nation and helped make America one of the wealthiest and most stable countries the world has ever seen.

Here is a partial list of companies and organizations that supported the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force‘s radical “Creating Change” conference in Kansas City, Missouri, Nov 8-12, 2006:

  • American Airlines
  • Ameriprise Financial Services
  • Bacardi
  • Bell South
  • Chipotle Grill
  • Cingular
  • Costco
  • Merrill Lynch
  • MS. Magazine
  • National Education Association
  • NARAL
  • Panera Bread
  • Planned Parenthood
  • United Way of Miami Dade
  • Washington Mutual Bank
  • Wells Fargo

(Un)Fair Wisconsin: Homosexual Group Lied and Cheated in Effort to Defeat Marriage Amendment

November 12th, 2006

Well, here you have it: some Wisconsin homosexual activists testify below to the lies and unethical campaign tactics used by the “gay” activist group “Fair Wisconsin” in trying to derail the state’s Marriage Protection Amendment.  This corroborates reports that we heard from Wisconsin of citizens outraged that the homosexual group was intentionally misleading voters into thinking that a NO vote was PRO-marriage (in truth, a YES vote was FOR the Marriage Amendment.)

Despite their dirty tricks and deceptions–and the fact that pro-homosexual lobby in Wisconsin outspent pro-family forces 10-1 in this campaign–the amendment passed easily, by 59-41 percent.  This in the very first state to enact a “sexual orientation” law (back in 1982).  Who says the homosexual movement’s triumph is inevitable?– Peter LaBarbera

Comments posted Nov 7, 2006, on the Fair Wisconsin blog (emphasis added):

At 6:59 AM, Skippy said…

I am not going to take the time to read all of this but… YOU LIED… to so many people… YOU LIED to people who where going to vote no and TRICKED them into voting yes… YOU CALLED PEOPLE AND TOLD THEM TO VOTE NO IF THEY WANTED TO KEEP MARRIAGE BETWEEN ONE MAN AND ONE WOMAN… FAIR WISCONSIN DESTROYED GAY COUPLES FUTURES BECAUSE THEY LIED… YOU LIED… YOU FLAT OUT LIED TO THE PEOPLE OF THIS STATE… Why lie… all we want is the truth… Fair WISCONSIN made us out to be fakes… phoneys… and fair WISCONSIN hurt the gay community SEVERELY… NEVER TO BE FORGIVEN… I would like to see Fair Wisconsin Retired… and will not rest until that happens… NO BODY that sticks up for me is going to go around and LIE…

At 2:05 PM, Miss Judy said……I think that Skippy’s comments are histrionic; however, I think Matt’s comment should not be ignored. The campaign was a mainstream – Democrat-style political campaign. As such, I think compromises were made in the name of perceived political expediency. Although we did indeed talk of gay and lesbian couples and their families, much of the campaign downplayed ‘queerness’ and focused on the effects the amendment would have on “all non-married couples”, i.e., straight folks. It’s a dicey path to walk – on the one hand we were asking people to expand their hearts and consciousness and really question why they are so afraid of queer folks; on the other hand we were in effect saying “Don’t think about homosexuals if they creep you out; think about how this would affect ‘normal’ people,” thus tacitly accepting homophobia.
Could we have waged a successful campaign without making these compromises? Probably not. However, we still need to look at these issues head-on, engage in constructive self-criticism and consider their effects, not just dismiss them as givens or necessary evils.

At 4:03 PM, psion9999 said…
I won’t hide my anger at my life being politicized and I won’t hide my hatred of all those who have done so. I’m not strong enough to keep myself from it. But, this is only directed at those who knew what they were doing, and hid behind the face of their religion and used phrases like “protecting marriage from being redifined” to mask their bigotry and ignorance. I pity all the others who voted “yes” out of confusion and because they were directed to do so by their churches. With education, those people can be reached in the future. It is the truly hateful people that will lose out in the end, because I believe that they are vocal and powerful now, but small in number. The youth of today truly will bring a bright future. They are more enlightened in what is truly good and right in society, and they will overcome the bigots and religious zealots in time.

AFT Calls on Republican Senatorial Comm. to Rescind “Sexual Orientation” Policy, Says Pro-‘Gay’ Political Correctness Led to Sen. Allen’s Loss

November 10th, 2006

AN AMERICANS FOR TRUTH PRESS RELEASE

NAPERVILLE, IL—Americans For Truth President Peter LaBarbera today called on the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) to rescind its “sexual orientation” policy as inconsistent with the GOP’s professed pro-family values, and said pro-“gay” Political Correctness contributed to Sen. George Allen’s narrow loss for re-election in Virginia.

LaBarbera also called on all homosexual staff in both major parties to be open about their lifestyle in the interest of full disclosure to the public and each Member’s constituents.

Allen’s defeat—after failing to strongly embrace Virginia’s successful marriage amendment—led to the GOP’s loss of the Senate. Allen is widely reported to have homosexual staff. Jay Timmons, a senior Allen aide and former director of the NRSC, is among those being targeted for “outing” by homosexual bloggers, as is Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman.

“In recent weeks, homosexual activists have sought to ‘out’ various high-level GOP staffers and leaders as homosexuals, to highlight their hypocrisy in working for a socially conservative party,” LaBarbera said. “Now we in the pro-family movement are calling for full disclosure for a different reason: because homosexual GOP staff and pro-‘gay’ policies in the party are undermining the wholesome values Republicans say they support.”

Noting that the homosexual newspaper Washington Blade reported in 2004 that the NRSC has a nondiscrimination policy based on “sexual orientation,” LaBarbera said:

“Who knew that the Republican Party committee responsible for electing senators across the country has embraced the exact same pro-homosexual ‘orientation’ policy that social conservatives have been fighting for decades?” Due to the Mark Foley scandal, social conservatives are learning about the existence of a network of homosexual GOP staffers on Capitol Hill who promote policies antithetical to the party’s stated “family values.”

In 2004, the pro-family group PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays) was outraged when Sen. Allen refused to sign their pledge supporting tolerance for former homosexuals, then went ahead and broke a promise to another pro-family group by backing a pro-“gay” federal “Hate Crimes” bill. Allen also signed a pro-homosexual “nondiscrimination” pledge for his Senate office.

“George Allen’s lukewarm support for Virginia’s marriage amendment cost him his Senate seat,” LaBarbera said. “Now we are left to wonder: did the stealth influence of gay Republican staffers move him toward this course that would ultimately turn the Senate over to the Democrats?”

TAKE ACTION – Call or write the National Republican Senatorial Committee and ask them to rescind their “sexual orientation” policy. Politely tell Sen. Elizabeth Dole, Chairwoman of the NRSC, that such policies advance the agenda of homosexual activists, and that any political party that promotes homosexuality cannot be called “pro-family.” Remind her that pro-“gay” Political Correctness HURT the GOP on Nov. 7th:

Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.), Chairwoman

National Republican Senatorial Committee
Ronald Reagan Republican Center
425 2nd Street, NE
Washington, DC 20002

202-675-6000

webmaster@gopsenators.com


Support Americans for Truth about Homosexuality

Center For Morality
2783 Martin Rd.
#327
Dublin, OH 43017

Peter's Lifesite News Articles'

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Peter's Lifesite News Articles'


Americans for Truth Radio Hour

Americans for Truth Academy

Peter's Lifesite News Articles'