Anti-Gay

Last week we reported that James Dobson hosted Elaine Donnelly where she roundly criticized rights for women and gay service members, and on the following program the two anti-gay activists went after the Obama administration for potentially allowing service members’ same-sex spouses to collect housing, education and health benefits. Currently, the military is prohibited from providing such benefits under the Defense of Marriage Act.

After Dobson read a statement from Congressman Todd Akin attacking President Obama for his “appalling” attempt to “use the military” to defend his support of gay rights, Donnelly and Dobson played the victim by complaining that they receive unfair criticism for opposing equality for gay soldiers and their families. Donnelly said that LGBT rights groups are targeting the military because they realize that “in the military everybody must follow orders” and cannot protest the administration’s “very bad orders” and “flawed philosophy”:

Dobson: We mentioned Congressman Akin who has been very, very concerned about the same things we are talking about today. He wrote a statement and released it and I want to read what he had to say: “The President announced his new position on same-sex marriage, and used the military as a campaign prop to advance the liberal agenda. Whatever Obama’s views may be, I find it appalling that the he would so blatantly use the military for political cover on this controversial issue…. This liberal agenda has infiltrated our military, where service members and chaplains are facing recrimination for their sincerely held moral and religious beliefs. Moral or religious concerns about same-sex marriage or the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell have become potentially career-ending.” That’s quite a statement and it’s what you’ve been saying but elaborate on it.

Donnelly: That’s true. Remember that the advocates of LGBT rights in the military are not at all concerned about this. They consider anyone who disagrees to be, well pick your favorite epithet, ‘name-calling,’ ‘bullying,’ ‘how dare you,’ ‘this is a civil right issue,’ all of those kinds of charges are launched.

Dobson: Hate-mongering.

Donnelly: Oh yes, all of those things. And it’s really unfair because we’re talking here about something as basic as human sexuality, we’re talking about marriage, we’re talking about raising children. The Pentagon has said we will not extend the family benefits, yet, because of the Defense of Marriage Act, but within two heartbeats when the President said ‘I am for gay marriage’ he also said, ‘I hear from military people who say they should get benefits he same as opposite-sex couples in the military.’ That’s where the drive is going. This agenda doesn’t quit, it doesn’t stay within one narrow area, because the LGBT groups, they’re quite large, they’re well-funded, they’re determined, and they really do realize that because in the military everybody must follow orders, this is the way it should under the Constitution, but the military is vulnerable to a president, to secretaries of defense and the services who give very bad orders, who are giving a flawed philosophy, control of the armed forces and personnel. This kind of thing is very troubling.

In New Mexico today the state Court of Appeals upheld decisions by the state’s Human Rights Commission and a district court and found that a photography business which refused to photograph a same-sex couple’s commitment ceremony violated the state’s Human Rights Act, which declares that public accommodations like photo studios can’t discriminate on the basis of “race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, sex or sexual orientation, gender identity, or physical or mental handicap.” The court rejected the business’s claim that they are like a black photography company which wouldn’t want to photograph a Ku Klux Klan rally, pointing out that the “Ku Klux Klan is not a protected class. Sexual orientation, however, is protected.” The right-wing Alliance Defense Fund represented the couple and pledged to repeal the decision.

American Family Association’s Tim Wildmon and the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins said the case points to the danger of the “homosexual agenda.” “Folks, it’s coming to your town, the homosexual agenda, their social and political movement is coming to your town, you can’t avoid it,” Wildmon said:

AFA spokesman Bryan Fischer claimed that New Mexico “kicked out” the First Amendment, and said the further proof that homosexuality and freedom are incompatible:

I just cannot exaggerate the reality of what we face; we have got to come to grips with the fact that in America we are going to have to choose between homosexuality and religious liberty. You can just ask Elaine Huguenin, this Christian photographer in New Mexico, she is not even being allowed by the Court of Appeals in the state of New Mexico to make her own business decisions, to decide who she would like to do business with.

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You can see right away the entire First Amendment has just been kicked out of New Mexico, the First Amendment is a worthless scrap of paper now in the state of New Mexico, no respect for freedom of religion, no respect for freedom of speech, no respect for freedom of association. That’s what’s at risk here, ladies and gentlemen, I am not exaggerating this: we have to choose as a nation, it’s either homosexuality or religious liberty, homosexuality or freedom of speech, homosexuality or freedom of association, we are going to have to choose.

Gary Bauer in an email to members of Campaign for Working Families lamented, “In New Mexico, the private bedroom behaviors of homosexuals trump religious freedom”:

For six years the Christian owners of a small photography business have fought the state of New Mexico for violating their religious liberty. At issue in this case was whether the owners would be forced to photograph a homosexual "marriage." When the couple refused, New Mexico's Civil Rights Commission accused them of discrimination and slapped them with a $7,000 fine. So the couple sued.

Last week, an appeals court upheld the Civil Rights Commission's fine ruling that religious freedom could not be the basis for discriminating against "protected classes," including homosexuals. According to one report, attorneys for the Christian couple asked the court to consider the example of a black photographer being asked to photograph a KKK rally. The judge was unmoved. In New Mexico, the private bedroom behaviors of homosexuals trump religious freedom.

My friends, I know the economy is front and center in this election, but the culture war is very real. This election will have tremendous consequences for the values we will pass on to our children and grandchildren. I cannot stress enough just how important it is for every conservative to vote this November.

More and more activists on the far right have blamed the recent political and legal victories of gay rights advocates on what they perceive as reluctance among conservatives to attack gays and lesbians more directly and aggressively. In response to a recent court ruling that struck down a section of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as unconstitutional, MassResistance said that supporters of the law must do more to challenge DOMA opponents’ underlying claims that gays and lesbians are “simply a minority group whose rights are illegally being denied by the federal government.”

“As long as homosexual behavior is not presented as abnormal, medically dangerous, and morally repugnant,” the group writes, “we will continue to lose.” MassResistance lamented the use of “cowardly” legal arguments that stress the importance of opposite-sex relationships instead of explicitly attacking homosexuality, concluding, “any legal argument on homosexual ‘marriage’ is bordering on madness, because the concept itself is sheer lunacy. We need to start saying that.”

The decision thus asserts that homosexuality and same-sex "marriage" are legitimate and unassailable from a moral or other standpoint. And from that assertion, homosexual "marriage" and heterosexual marriage are morally and legally interchangeable. And homosexuals are simply a minority group whose rights are illegally being denied by the federal government. This is all the homosexual groups needed to move forward.

The homosexual movement knows it cannot accomplish its goals through the ballot box (they've lost 32 state elections in a row). They've had some success through massive lobbying of state legislatures. But their most direct way is through corrupt courts. Taking down the DOMA law is key to forcing the imposition of "gay marriage" throughout America despite the votes in those 32 states. But it's still a considerable legal challenge to do it all at once. So by successfully attacking this narrow part of the DOMA law -- federal benefits and income tax filing status -- the homosexual movement opens the door to sebsequently [sic] dismantling all the rest of it.

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As long as homosexual behavior is not presented as abnormal, medically dangerous, and morally repugnant we will continue to lose. If other side is allowed to portray homosexuality as normal and natural (but something conservatives simply are "bigoted" about) in their legal arguments, they will always eventually prevail. We cannot concede those points and instead attempt to argue on the basis of "legal" reasoning, the historical "purpose" of marriage, or weak-kneed arguments such as "every child needs a mother and father." But unfortunately that is exactly what too many pro-family lawyers and pro-family spokesmen do. It's the "respectable" path. But it's cowardly, ineffective, and the road to hell (so to speak).

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The next step is the US Supreme Court. Will they agree with this? We certainly hope not, but it's frighteningly possible.

Our side has a terribly bad record of winning these kinds of court cases -- for the reasons stated above. In the grand scheme of things, any legal argument on homosexual "marriage" is bordering on madness, because the concept itself is sheer lunacy. We need to start saying that. As George Orwell once said, "We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." Let's hope that the House of Representatives' legal team can find it in themselves to do the right thing.

On Friday, Brian wrote a post taking note of a recent column by Bryan Fischer in which he called on conservatives to "reclaim the ‘D’ word" and begin to boldly defend the practice of discriminating against gays and lesbians.

As Fischer normally does whenever he posts a new piece, he ended up discussing it later that day during his radio program where he made the case that "it is altogether right to discriminate against homosexual behavior" because homosexuality is not something that should be accepted by "any rational society":

As previously reported, the Florida Family Association is preparing for its protest of ‘Gay Day’ at Disney World, and the group has now announced that it has secured two planes with banners “to warn unsuspecting families” and condemn the “public promotion of homosexuality”:

Florida Family Association will fly two planes to warn unsuspecting families about Gay Day at Disney which is scheduled for Saturday, June 2, 2012 at the Magic Kingdom in Orlando. A special thanks to Florida Family Association supporters who generously donated $12,802.37 designated just for this project.

Florida Family Association has received many, many letters and emails from people across the country who patronized Disney World in Orlando to find themselves in the middle of one of the annual Gay Days at Disney. The most recent letter we received was from Willis in Sarasota who wrote “Just a note to let you know that about 18 years ago my wife and I and our 2 year old granddaughter were at Disney World when it was ‘Gay Day.’ It was the most deplorable sight that we ever saw. I thank you so much for the vision of the airplane banner warning people.”

We want to warn families before they expose their children to Gay Day’s same-sex revelry, before they pay money to Disney for parking, admission, novelties and food. We also want to send a message that Gay Day’s public promotion of homosexuality to a captured audience inside the park is wrong.

In its action item, the organization called on Disney to stop “Gay Day” participants with the same policy it uses against gang members:

Dozens of gang members visiting Disneyland in California have been evicted after entering the park wearing gang colors according to Kenneth Green, Director of Corporate Communications. He said the company was concerned the groups might intimidate or invoke fear in the hearts of regular patrons. So, Disney can see where a dozen people wearing gang colors might be offensive to regular families but not thousands of same-sex revelers wearing shirts that flaunt and promote homosexual, lesbian and transgender behavior.

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Please stop this offensive event from occurring in the midst of thousands of children by requiring that it be held after regular operating hours when thousands of children will not be in the park.

After the American Family Association closed its Center for Law and Policy, right-wing attorney Steve Crampton joined up with another fervently anti-gay group, Liberty Counsel, where he now serves as the organization’s Vice President of Legal Affairs. Yesterday, he appeared on VCY America’s Crosstalk with host Jim Schneider to discuss Liberty Counsel’s claim that the Department of Justice compelled a public university in Arkansas to allow a transgender woman, Jennifer Braly, to access the women’s restroom.

However, the DOJ says that it simply sent a letter to the university, following protocol, to notify the school that they received a complaint from the woman, noting that “department’s letter stressed that it had reached no conclusions as to whether a violation of federal law had occurred. This was an initial inquiry, and the department never directed the university to take a specific action or change any of its policies.”

Crampton spent his time on Crosstalk by twisting that fact and attacking the LGBT community. He said Braly is “confused” and under a “delusion,” arguing that she and “those who really hate God” are “attempting to destroy the distinctions that God has built into mankind.” Later, Crampton wondered, “If I self-identify as the President of the United States, am I then entitled access to the Oval Office, can I go stay the night in the White House because that’s who I think I am?”

In response to a caller who compared homosexuality to cigarette smoking, Crampton and the host agreed that it is inconsistent for the government to defend the rights of LGBT people while opposing smoking, alcoholism and obesity. Crampton dubbed homosexuality “the most dangerous lifestyle out there,” asserting that it is “virtually a suicidal undertaking”:

Schneider: We put all these rules and laws and disclaimers on packs of cigarettes and alcohol and all these issues but, what about homosexuality? What about its impact upon health? We have the First Lady who is out making sure we don’t sell soda and potato chips in our schools but what about this Steve, in which we are actually seeing a shortened life expectancy by those who are practicing the very lifestyle that the Department of Justice is promoting?

Crampton: Again, an excellent point from the caller. The data is in, even the homosexuals’ own researchers, the CDC and the federal government all confirm what we have long known: homosexuality may be the most dangerous lifestyle out there, with respect to their own people. This is virtually a suicidal undertaking, and there risky behavior increases year after year despite all the educational efforts and attempts to distribute condoms and so forth. In response to the question, what about that argument? Rest assured, we make that argument regularly. Sadly, there is a blindness both on the part of the homosexuals themselves and frankly on the part of the courts for the most part. It is just too hot a potato for the courts to take under these circumstances, so the argument has not proven all that successful. But as you point out Jim, the double standard is just stark and startling in its application here isn’t it? Cigarette smoke, sodas at the school, you can’t pass out candy at certain schools and so forth, and yet they want to say ‘just come on down’ for this homosexual lifestyle.

Crampton concluded by warning that the “ruthless” supporters of the “homosexual agenda” are not attempting to have equality but are instead trying to “do away with the church” as they are “dead set against Christianity and all that America has stood for over the ages”:

When we put into office a man who has come out and openly embraced same-sex marriage as a civil right we should not be surprised that his Department of Justice is really not about neutrality, this is about the promotion and furthering of a particular agenda. An agenda, by the way, that I think is wholly inconsistent with and perhaps contradictory to the foundational principles on which our nation was built. It is dead set against Christianity and all that America has stood for over the ages.

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It really isn’t about equality, is it? You know, a lot of folks want to go to sleep on this issue, don’t want to discuss the homosexual agenda, want to say, ‘let’s just leave them alone; after all, they’re not hurting anyone.’ But this is where it leads. Inevitably, once they seize power, they are ruthless in wielding it.

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You know the oft-used phrase of Edmund Burke, ‘All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.’ I’m afraid, in the end, the buck stops with us, does it not? We know better as believers and we have condoned by our inaction the takeover of our institutions and our political power as well, it’s been said here by [callers] Jerry and Judy and others, it is high time, it is beyond time, for believers to get on our knees and take it back. There is what scripture says is a natural enmity between the world and God and the church, and that enmity is playing itself out now. Christians and true religion is identified as an enemy of the state. They are not out there to gain equality; they are out there to do away with the church.

National Organization for Marriage’s Jennifer Roback Morse stopped by Richard Land Live this weekend, where the embattled head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission claimed that homosexuality has demonic origins. Land chatted with a caller who thanked him and Morse for fighting the “demon of homosexuality,” and Land agreed with her that “the Devil takes pleasure in anything that causes destruction in human society and the homosexual lifestyle does cause destruction.” He went on to claim that homosexuality was at least partly responsible for the collapse of empires in the past:

Caller: My comment is that I thank God for you all for standing up for God’s holiness and righteousness against this demon of homosexuality. My pastor past but he once said that this demon will be the last one to leave this earth because it is so strong and over in all of the New Testament and coming up to now it’s—

Land: Let me just say that first of all that the Devil takes pleasure in anything that causes destruction in human society and the homosexual lifestyle does cause destruction. It’s seen as one of the evidences in the decline of every empire we have seen; studies have shown it became rampant in the Persian Empire, the Greek Empire, the Roman Empire, the British Empire.

Land and Morse said that they are working against a “secular theocracy” and “sexual nihilists,” with the SBC’s top “ethicist” maintaining that America is witnessing a return to “paganism” where homosexual priests worshiped sex:

Morse: What we learned in California in the marriage fight is that the secularist thrust, I don’t even know what to properly call it, Richard, maybe you have a good name for it, but the secularists, the sexual nihilists.

Land: It’s a secular theocracy is what it is.

Morse: Yes, that’s exactly—

Land: It’s a secular theocracy driven be a full-blown pagan understanding of human sexuality. It’s just pagan.

Morse: When you say pagan, what do you mean by pagan? I can imagine what you mean.

Land: I mean totally focused on self, anything that feels good do it, just like the Greco-Roman orgies of the 1st Century and 2nd Century AD; same thing that our early Christian forefathers faced.

Morse: That’s very true, the hedonism, the hedonistic aspect of the culture. What I wondered you were going to say is full-on paganism I would think of as somehow worshiping sex, as sex taking on a kind of sacramental role.

Land: As you know many of the Roman religions, the idolatrous religions were sexual, and the priests were homosexuals and they worshiped in Corinth they had homosexual priests had these temples that were pre-Christian paganism.

While taking to Americans For Truth About Homosexuality president Peter LaBarbera, Brian Camenker of MassResistance said that like racism, “homosexuality is unnatural,” and now “just like you had to have the Jim Crow laws to keep the races apart, you have to have these laws and diversity trainings and constant propaganda to keep it going.” Camenker explained that gay rights advocates are passing laws and disseminating “propaganda” with the aim of ending the freedom of speech, which he says they need to do since homosexuality “is generally repulsive to large numbers of people if not everybody”:

LaBarbera: Brian Camenker’s website MassResistance, that is hate, because they don’t like that Brian Camenker opposes homosexuality. This is the world we are living in and I think it’s tempting to laugh at it but if they keep going our First Amendment rights will be gone.

Camenker: There’s no question about it and that’s what they want. They want that to happen.

LaBarbera: They can’t handle a free and fair debate, where we can just talk about ideas, they have to censor everybody who opposes them?

Camenker: The problem that they have is that homosexual behavior in it of itself, to put it bluntly, is generally repulsive to large numbers of people if not everybody. In order to normalize this in any way there has to be this constant stream of propaganda.

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Camenker: Homosexuality is unnatural and you have to have, just like you had to have the Jim Crow laws to keep the races apart, you have to have these laws and diversity trainings and constant propaganda to keep it going.

In advance of a court case on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and amid calls to repeal the discriminatory law, the Family Research Council today sent an appeal to members urging them to tell Congress that a repeal of DOMA would present a “grave threat” to the family and religious liberty. In an email to members, FRC president Tony Perkins lamented that the Obama administration has already “forced open homosexuality upon the military” and provided “taxpayer-funded marriage benefits to same-sex couples.”

Few were shocked by the recent announcement of President Obama's "evolved" support for redefining marriage. His words have finally followed his actions - or his inaction when it comes to marriage policy. In less than four years, the Obama Administration has forced open homosexuality upon the Armed Forces, opposed state marriage amendments, refused to do its constitutional duty to defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DoMA), and awarded taxpayer-funded marriage benefits to same-sex couples.

Now some in Congress are seeking to repeal DoMA - an act that would endanger the marriage laws in 44 states that currently define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

There are those who hope you will step aside and allow this God-given institution to be redefined. We cannot allow the DoMA law to be repealed. Please sign our Stand for Marriage petition, and join us in showing Congress and President Obama that marriage is worth standing for.

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Given that the family consisting of marriage between one man and one woman is the foundation of civil society, I urge Congress and President Obama to uphold and defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DoMA), which defines marriage for the federal government and affirms the rights of states to protect the institution of marriage. President Obama's cynical endorsement of same-sex "marriage," along with his failure to do his constitutional duty to enforce and defend federal law in relation to marriage, combined with the plans of some in Congress seeking to overturn DoMA - is a grave threat not only to the well-being of the family, but to the religious liberty of countless Americans who do not wish to be forced to embrace a counterfeit version of marriage.