American Civil Rights Union

Perkins and Knight Dismiss Jason Collins, Cheer on Anti-Gay Commentator as True Hero

The lesson of the Jason Collins story, according to Religious Right activists, is that true courage is found in attacking gay people… since not enough people are doing it these days.

In his daily radio bulletin, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council contended that Chris Broussard, the sportscaster who claimed that Jason Collins was rebelling against God, showed “real courage,” unlike Collins…because no one criticized him for being gay, except for Broussard (and many, many, many others).

Jason Collins doesn't play for the Trailblazers, but he's being treated like one. Hello, I'm Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. When the NBA's Jayson Collins announced he was gay, people were literally jumping through hoops to praise him. But if you want to know what real courage looks like, try standing up for truth. NBA reporter Chris Broussard did--and he found out that coming out as Christian might be harder than admitting you're gay. "There [are] a lot Christians in the NBA and just because they disagree with that lifestyle, they don't want to be called bigoted and intolerant ...[T]rue tolerance and acceptance is being able to [act like] mature adults and not call each other names." Personally, Chris said, he didn't know how Collins could reconcile homosexuality with his faith. "If you're openly living in unrepentant sin... not just homosexuality, [but] adultery... premarital sex... whatever... that's walking in open rebellion to God..." ESPN apologized for his comments, but they should have been sorrier for fouling up the debate.

The American Civil Right Union’s Robert Knight made the same case in the Washington Times, arguing that the really brave people are those who attacked Jason Collins since not enough people attacked him.

“A lynch mob is chasing ESPN the Magazine writer Chris Broussard,” Knight writes, “Like openly devout quarterback Tim Tebow, Mr. Griffin and Mr. Broussard are the brave ones — rocks in a flood tide of insanity and cowardice.”

When pro basketball player Jason Collins “came out,” the media went nuts. He was toasted from coast to coast, received congratulatory phone calls from President Obama and Bill Clinton, and made magazine covers.

On May 1, Washington Post sportswriter Mike Wise joined the parade by bashing “Old Testament moral certainty” and denouncing anyone who “trumpeted their bigotry under the guise of ‘religious beliefs.’” There’s no hint in Mr. Wise’s vitriolic column that someone could possibly hold sincere, faith-based moral beliefs. Bullies like the oxymoronically named Mr. Wise are types that the Age of Tolerance is spawning by the truckload.

This brings us to our final word, which is “brave.” Mr. Collins was widely hailed as brave, but it’s the few people who dared question the wisdom of his volitional behavior who are brave.

A lynch mob is chasing ESPN the Magazine writer Chris Broussard because he reiterated classic Christian doctrine to an interviewer: “If you’re openly living in unrepentant sin, whatever it may be — not just homosexuality, [but] adultery, fornication, premarital sex, whatever it may be — I believe that’s walking in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ. So I would not characterize that person as a Christian, because I don’t think the Bible would characterize him as a Christian.”

Another brave soul is Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III, who on April 30 tweeted: “In a land of freedom, we are held hostage by the tyranny of political correctness.” Like openly devout quarterback Tim Tebow, Mr. Griffin and Mr. Broussard are the brave ones — rocks in a flood tide of insanity and cowardice.

As we watch word after word twisted into doublespeak by corrupt elites, it brings to mind George Orwell’s observation: “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
Brian Tashman's blog

Truth In Action Ministries Film Warns Gays 'Puts Boys At Serious Risk'

Truth In Action Ministries, which last year produced a film warning that the “radical homosexual agenda” will destroy America like an iceberg hitting the Titanic, is out with a new short film opposing gay members in the Boy Scouts. Featuring Religious Right leaders like Bob Knight of the American Civil Rights Union, Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family, Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, the anti-gay activists warn that gays pose a physical and spiritual danger to children and do away with morality.

Watch highlights here:

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Knight: Gay Equality Is 'The Greatest Domestic Threat to the Freedoms of Religion, Speech and Assembly'

Washington Times contributor Robert Knight of the American Civil Rights Union warns in a column today that “the left’s drive for ‘gay rights’ poses the greatest domestic threat to the freedoms of religion, speech and assembly.” He asserts that legalizing same-sex marriage “will lead to less freedom and more government” as “civil rights enforcement becomes a gun aimed at the head of citizens, forcing them to choose between God and Caesar.”

“Tyranny is masquerading as enlightenment,” Knight writes, arguing that the effort to overturn statutes banning same-sex marriage is really a drive to “repeal reality.”

Recently, Sen. Rob Portman, Ohio Republican, announced support for homosexual “marriage” because his son is homosexual.

It’s one thing to have unconditional love and compassion toward a friend or loved one, and another thing to redefine marriage for the whole nation. Public policy is the force of law. Civil libertarians who are jumping aboard the homosexual “marriage” bandwagon might want to stop and consider why this will lead to less freedom and more government.

Sundered by no-fault divorce and cohabitation, marriage as a “genderless” institution will lose even more legitimacy and contribute less to stability, prosperity and self-sufficiency. As nuclear families fail, government grows to pick up the pieces — and to enforce the new reality.

This brings us to the bigger picture. The left’s drive for “gay rights” poses the greatest domestic threat to the freedoms of religion, speech and assembly. When traditional morality is equated with racist bigotry, civil rights enforcement becomes a gun aimed at the head of citizens, forcing them to choose between God and Caesar. That should never happen in America, where our Founders said rights come from our Creator, not capricious man, who can mistake fashion for morality.

In Massachusetts, which legalized homosexual “marriage” in 2004, public schools openly entice children to try homosexual behavior despite well-documented health risks. Penalties are enforced against dissenters. People are losing jobs. Catholic Charities, the largest Massachusetts provider of foster homes for orphans, closed its doors rather than give up placing children only in married, mother-father homes. Tyranny is masquerading as enlightenment.

…

In New Jersey, the Southern Poverty Law Center is suing Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH) under consumer fraud law. They contend that no one can overcome this particular temptation, despite ample evidence to the contrary.

In California, legislators passed a law making it criminal for parents to take their children to counselors for help in overcoming unwanted same-sex desires — even children who have been molested. A court has enjoined the law for now, but is this still America, land of the free and home of the brave?

Yet, conservatives, the GOP and even the Tea Parties are told they must bow before this increasingly intolerant movement. President Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Lady Gaga and the Democratic Party embrace homosexual “marriage,” so it must advance conservative principles, right?

Laurie Higgins, a perceptive writer for the Illinois Family Institute, asks this question: “What if Portman’s son had announced he was bisexual or polyamorous? Would Portman then seek to have the government recognize plural unions as marriages? Imagine if everyone decided that the ‘Bible’s overarching themes of love and compassion’ and the ‘belief that we’re all children of God’ compel us to affirm all the feelings, beliefs and life choices of our loved ones. The truth is, it is entirely possible to deeply love people while finding their feelings, beliefs and life choices disordered or false. In this wildly diverse world, most of us do it all the time.”

Instead, we’re being asked to repeal reality, which is an unreasonable and dangerous request.
Brian Tashman's blog

Sandy Rios Warns Gay Rights Lead to 'Fascism' and a 'Lack of Freedom'

American Family Association radio host Sandy Rios today warned listeners that gay rights advocates are promoting a form of “fascism” and that gay equality will result in a “lack of freedom.” 

Rios: We all watched the inauguration recently of the President and we saw on the platform where things lie. We know that if you think that homosexuality is a problem you will not be allowed into public service hardly in any way. If you think that homosexual couples should not be able to adopt, if you have a problem with that, then you are out of the adoption business. I think it is fascism personally; I would go to that extreme and say that, it’s a lack of freedom.

Her guest Robert Knight of the American Civil Rights Union also criticized gay rights supporters and argued that any shift in the Boy Scouts of America’s ban on gay membership “would destroy the Boy Scouts,” and later called for a “new board of directors” who would not “entertain such bizarre notions as opening up the ranks to homosexuals.”

Knight: What they are saying is they are going to leave it up to parents and local councils and Scout troops on whether to allow homosexual leaders and members in. This would destroy the Boy Scouts, let’s cut to the chase, what parent would put their young boy under the authority of men who are attracted to males and take them camping and swimming, etcetera. It’s not designed to make the scouts fairer it’s designed to destroy the Boy Scouts as we know them.

…

Rios: There’s really no pressure in the courts and the financial pressures they were facing earlier had subsided so this is like a new assault on them, isn’t it? Now they are coming out because of the corporate angle.

Knight: Yeah and I think what people have to do is say the Boy Scouts need a new board of directors if they are going to entertain such bizarre notions as opening up the ranks to homosexuals. This is about getting corporate money so they can keep their fat headquarters in Texas. Think about it, Scout troops raise money locally they can survive just fine without corporate donations, but not the people at the top, they are the ones who ought to be replaced.
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Robert Knight says for Secular Jews, ‘Liberal Politics is the Religion’

Mission America’s Linda Harvey hosted Robert Knight of the American Civil Rights Union this weekend and expressed her dismay that the Jewish community in the U.S. is not rallying en masse against President Obama, as polls show that Obama has a commanding lead among Jewish voters, and that she has even met Jews in Israel who favor Obama. Knight explained Jewish support for Obama by arguing that he is merely winning the backing of secular Jews, pointing to his former chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel who he said “is Jewish himself but he is secular Jewish” (both Emmanuel and Obama’s current chief of staff Jack Lew are Orthodox Jews). "Liberal politics is the religion, that’s the mindset, that’s the values world that they live in,” Knight claimed, and Harvey added that “Judaism for those folks who are secularists are just an identifier, kind of tribal, but in so many ways they just don’t get it.

Harvey: There is so much of a legacy of traditional liberal values lining up with pretty much secular Jews and that’s true in the US too, and their eyes are being opened, don’t you think?

Knight: I do, I think when the election rolls around we’ll see a record percentage of Jewish votes for the Republican candidate. Not that they love Mitt Romney but I think that they fear Barack Obama and they’ve seen him in any number of ways signal to Israel that he’s not their friend. It’s kind of funny because of his chief of staff used to be Rahm Emmanuel who is Jewish himself but he is secular Jewish, his family wasn’t but he is. Apparently, liberal politics is the religion, that’s the mindset, that’s the values world that they live in.

Harvey: Judaism for those folks who are secularists are just an identifier, kind of tribal, but in so many ways they just don’t get it. But they’re starting to I think so many folks are waking up and are starting to understand that this man is no friend to Israel and will betray you.

Harvey, who earlier argued that Obama “bends over backwards for Islam while sticking it to Christians time and again,” asserted that liberals are now aiding advocates of Sharia law, which Knight said is because both groups “hate America” and are “trying to destroy Judeo-Christian America.”

Harvey: Anybody who is an apologist for Islam is no friend to liberalism, either, I find myself looking at these strange bedfellows of all the left who are such apologists for the repressive values of people that advocate Sharia.

Knight: It’s a weird alliance…what they have in common is the liberal left hates America and the Islamists hate America and they have common cause, trying to destroy Judeo-Christian America, that is the main enemy.
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Anti-Gay Activists Slam Obama for 'Doing the Devil's Work' on Marriage Equality

The outcry from the Religious Right over President Obama’s endorsement of legalizing same-sex marriage continues, with the American Civil Rights Union’s Robert Knight attackig Obama for trying “to invoke Christ when doing the devil’s work” and creating “the sinews of tyranny”:

After having done everything in his power to undermine marriage, President Obama has come out of the closet, so to speak, with his announcement that he’s now for brideless or groomless “marriage.” But he didn’t come out alone. He brought Jesus with him, citing Christ as his inspiration for directly attacking God’s moral order. It’s one thing to be a hypocrite, which Mr. Obama has been for years. Since he began pretending to oppose the redefinition of marriage but refusing to defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act while homosexualizing the military. It’s quite another thing, however, to invoke Christ when doing the devil’s work.

Forget the voters. Mr. Obama’s going to have to answer to God for this one. Wednesday’s announcement even might sober up the people who voted for Mr. Obama simply to show that America has overcome racial division. Someone should survey pastors who support Mr. Obama and ask: Which is more important - electing a man on the basis of race or upholding the integrity of the faith and what the Scriptures say about marriage? Citing Genesis 2:24, Jesus said in Matthew 19:5: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”

This actually is about much more than marriage. It’s about truth. Mr. Obama is asking us to put into law a requirement for us to recognize as a marriage something that is not a marriage. When you do that, you create the sinews of tyranny, which stretch out to strangle freedom of speech, freedom of association and, eventually, freedom of religion. The virtue of tolerance is strangled, too, morphing into the vice of mandatory celebration.

With this wicked move, Mr. Obama is insisting that we bow down and worship the false idol of sexual anarchy. That’s what his wealthy supporters in Hollywood demand. On Thursday, they ponied up a reported $15 million to his campaign at George Clooney’s pool party. When you accord more respect to liberal film stars and gay billionaires than you do to the Creator of the universe, you’re not leaving much doubt about what you really worship.

Jerry Newcombe of Truth in Action Ministries said that Obama’s announcement is “another nail in the coffin of the American Family”:

With this statement, America’s self-proclaimed Christian leader has professed a clearly non-biblical belief that further weakens the moral fiber of our nation. “This could be another nail in the coffin of the American Family, if we don’t stand up now” says Jerry Newcombe, spokesman for Truth in Action Ministries. “Same sex marriage is wrong on many fronts—especially by codifying immorality into law. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the president’s position is to put the government’s sanction on something God has clearly revealed to be sin. Thankfully thousands of homosexuals have been freed from their sin through the power of Christ and continue to be freed every day.”

Christians in America must speak the truth on this issue— before it’s too late. Please help us make a difference. We, as God’s people, must speak out against anything that contradicts His Word — including the radical homosexual agenda. We must oppose it now — or apologize, in the years to come, to the children and grandchildren whom we have left to be its victims.

Ken Hutcherson reaffirmed his pledge to the Christian Post to “take back” the word “gay”:

"The most important thing is that there is no way in the world that I would vote for, regardless who it is, regardless how white they are, regardless how black they are, there is just no way I am ever going to vote for someone who believes in same-sex marriage and abortion," Hutcherson said in an interview with The Christian Post on Thursday.

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"God hates the killing of innocent life, and God hates divorce, and God hates the whole effeminate aspect of man going after man or woman going after woman. You can't get around that – it's in the Bible. And what we need to understand as Christians, is that this is America. We stand on our biblical views regardless," he noted.

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"We have given up so much territory; we are confused about how to take things back. Just like the word 'gay.' I am not homosexual, but I am gay – I am happy. And we've lost that word – we've given it up. We need to take back the rainbow, and we need to take back the word of God," the pastor concluded.
Brian Tashman's blog

Robert Knight Accuses NAACP head Ben Jealous of 'Treason' for Denouncing Attack on Voting Rights

Robert Knight of the American Civil Rights Union is fighting back against claims that recently passed state laws restricting voters rights will adversely affect people of color by arguing that critics of the laws are “racist.” Today in his column Knight argues that it was treasonous for NAACP president Ben Jealous to denounce the new laws at the United Nations in Geneva.

What would you call it if some Americans went overseas to the UN's Human Rights Council and gave aid and comfort to some of the most repressive regimes on the planet?

What if they falsely accused America of suppressing the vote of racial minorities because some states require voter photo ID and other measures to deter fraud?

I'd call it "treason," but you could also say it's just liberal politics as usual.

Their core argument is that minorities are incapable of getting an ID and playing by the same rules that all adult citizens must follow regardless of race. It's the same poisonous brew of lowered expectations that liberals have been pushing on minorities in order to expand government and foster dependency.

On Wednesday (March 14), NAACP president Benjamin T. Jealous, who apparently longs for an electoral system like those in Cuba, China or Saudi Arabia, whose representatives hung on his every word, trashed his own country. I was not there, but I'm assuming these regimes enjoyed seeing a certified "civil rights" leader criticize the United States.

Here's some of what Mr. Jealous said, according to CNSNews.com:

"These voter-suppression laws included so-called strict voter ID laws, cutting of Sunday voting, early voting and same-day registration, and the re-imposing of notoriously racist bans on formerly incarcerated people voting." Mr. Jealous claimed that 25 laws passed in 14 states "will together make it harder for more than five million people to vote."

It's true, at least, that Mr. Jealous, a zealous Democrat, wants to deliver more of the ex-felon vote, disproportionately represented by minorities. This is because, sadly, minority communities have been targets of liberal "compassion," and fatherless young men commit a disproportionate number of crimes. Upon release, ex-cons of any race find a natural home in the Democratic Party, which uses taxes to steal in ways that unreformed ex-cons can only dream about.

…

The left is getting desperate. They have lost every fact-based argument about domestic policy. Their social experiments -- along with Hollywood's relentless mythmaking about sex without consequences -- have shattered families, left cities in shambles, and created a debt-ridden, mega-nanny government that is careening toward the cliffs of Greece. It isn't just minorities who are victimized by liberal policies, but they have taken the brunt of the war on marriage, religion and personal responsibility.
Brian Tashman's blog

Robert Knight Claims it is 'Racist' to Oppose Voter ID Laws

Robert Knight of the far-right American Civil Rights Union appeared yesterday on VCY America’s Crosstalk to discuss so-called voter fraud problems, where he accused people who oppose restrictions on voting rights such as voter ID laws of being “racist.”

Knight: To suggest that showing a Photo ID like everybody else is supposed to show is a way to suppress the minority vote to me is a rather racist thing to say, because it implies that these people are just incapable of operating by the same rules everybody else is. It’s that soft liberal racism that pops up over and over.

As detailed in the Right Wing Watch: In Focus, The Right to Vote Under Attack, research overwhelmingly dispels claims of widespread voter fraud and found that the proposed laws set out to solve this invented problem have a lopsided impact on African American voters. And according to a NAACP report [pdf], such laws are “threatening to disfranchise millions of people, a disproportionate number of whom are people of color.”

Brian Tashman's blog

Robert Knight Claims Marriage Equality is 'Straight out of George Orwell's Newspeak'

Robert Knight of the American Civil Rights Union today railed against legislation in Maryland in a column, “Counterfeit Marriage is Anti-Religion,” arguing that marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples “violates the very essence of marriage.” According to Knight, legalizing same-sex marriage would do “incalculable” damage to religious freedom and would endanger the future of society because where “marriage is weak, devalued or redefined, communities fail.” “Whatever the expressed good intentions behind the same-sex ‘marriage’ legislation,” Knight writes, “creating a counterfeit and then forcing it down people's throats is straight out of George Orwell's Newspeak in 1984”:

Maryland's proposed Civil Marriage Protection Act, which would legalize same-sex "marriage," is not about tolerance.

It's about using the law to force people to recognize a counterfeit as the real thing. In fact, it should more accurately be called the Attack on Religious Freedom Enabling Act.

That's because this is about more than the feelings of any two people. When you declare a couple "married," with the force of the law behind it, you bring everyone into it.

A brideless or groomless couple is not merely an addition to the marriage definition; it violates the very essence of marriage by excluding one or the other complementary sex.

…

Marriage over the millennia on all continents has meant the uniting of male and female. Customs have varied, but sex is universally channeled into marriage to protect children and families -- the lifeblood of communities. Where marriage is weak, devalued or redefined, communities fail.

Whatever the expressed good intentions behind the same-sex "marriage" legislation, creating a counterfeit and then forcing it down people's throats is straight out of George Orwell's Newspeak in 1984. Compassionate motives cannot mask the inevitable bad outcomes of a bad law.

…

I urge legislators to consider that the drive to legally impose same-sex "marriage" is neither inevitable nor irreversible, despite the media's blatantly biased treatment of this issue.

However, should Maryland take this step, the damage to freedom -- particularly religious freedom -- could be incalculable.
Brian Tashman's blog

Themes from the Right -- Nomination Day

Right-wing political and legal groups and pundits responded to President Barack Obama’s nomination of federal appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court by cranking up their well-funded attack machine, following their pre-fab attack script (they have been attacking her for months as a potential nominee), launching ads against her confirmation, and threatening to use the nomination as a political bludgeon against Democrats from more conservative states.
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