Anti-Gay

The National Organization for Marriage is now promoting last week’s rally hosted by virulent anti-gay activists Peter LaBarbera and Patrick Wooden, of ‘gay diapers’ fame, against the Southern Poverty Law Center. The rally included speeches from not only Wooden and LaBarbera but also a representative from Scott Lively’s Abiding Truth Ministries, who said in a statement that he is “asking God himself to destroy this organization.” Wooden, who spoke alongside NOM president Brian Brown at a North Carolina rally for a constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex marriage, has said that homosexuality is a “wicked, deviant, immoral, self-destructive, anti-human sexual behavior” and that gay men are forced “to wear a diaper or a butt plug just to be able to contain their bowels” as a result of “the problems that homosexuals have with their rectums.”

The rally was organized by Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, the group led by LaBarbera who has said that gay rights is “Satan’s plan” and “Satan’s point of attack on the United States,” claimed “Oprah [Winfrey] will have to answer to her Creator” for “promoting” homosexuality, wondered if gay TSA agents were deliberately groping passengers, attacked the US for trying “to lecture the Ugandans about homosexuality” by opposing their “kill the gays” bill, and agreed with Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern that homosexuality is more dangerous than terrorism and the greatest threat to America.

NOM is not alone in pushing Wooden and LaBarbera’s work. American Family Association president Tim Wildmon and Family Research Council president Tony Perkins recently had Wooden on their radio show Today’s Issues where they lauded his stance against gay rights.

The Religious Right legal advocacy group the Alliance Defense Fund is working with the far-right Alaska Family Council to fight an anti-discrimination ordinance in Anchorage, Alaska, because it will protect people based on their sexual orientation and gender identity. The Arizona-based ADF has made it its mission to fighting against gay rights in the courts, and its president Alan Sears earlier claimed that “no compromise is possible” with “the homosexual agenda.”

The Anchorage Daily News reports that ADF lawyer Holly Carmichael is telling Anchorage voters that religious liberty would be threatened by the initiative, but local religious groups and Anchorage employment lawyer Thomas Daniel interviewed say that the ADF isn’t telling the truth as the ordinance plainly does not affect existing religious exemptions:

A national conservative Christian legal group says the gay rights initiative on Anchorage's April 3 city election ballot, coupled with existing Anchorage discrimination law, undercuts religious liberty.

But a well-known Anchorage employment lawyer, Thomas Daniel, says he doesn't think the initiative impinges on freedom for religious groups at all.

The initiative up for public vote would extend legal protections against discrimination to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in Anchorage. Current law already prohibits discrimination in employment, loans, rentals, real estate deals and other activities on the basis of race, color, marital status, sex, religion, disabilities and the like. The initiative would add sexual orientation and transgender identity to the list.

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The main problem as the Alliance Defense Fund sees it is that private business owners could be forced to hire or do business with people whose sexual orientation doesn't match their religious beliefs, said Holly Carmichael, a lawyer for the fund.

"The ultimate concern with enacting something like that is that it infringes on religious freedoms," Carmichael said. "There's a huge constitutional concern here. Both Carmichael and Daniel, the Anchorage attorney, agree that religious organizations are protected by an exemption already in city law that says religious institutions and groups can give preferential treatment to people of the same religion if they are, for example, hiring someone who will promote religious principles.

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The Defense Fund analyzed the Anchorage initiative several weeks ago at the request of the Alaska Family Council, a conservative Christian organization that opposes the initiative.

"We just want to be really clear about the consequences of enacting it," said Jim Minnery, Alaska Family Council president.

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Supporters of the initiative also include religious people, with 40 ordained pastors plus others in two pro-initiative groups, Christians for Equality and Faith Leaders for Equality, said the Rev. Michael Burke of St. Mary's Episcopal Church.

Burke said sponsors of the initiative consciously decided not to change the existing Anchorage law regarding religious exemptions to discrimination law. In cases where religious principles are not involved, religious groups do have to follow discrimination law with regard to race, color, sex, religion, etc. But the initiative sponsors did not add sexual orientation or transgender identity to the list.

Yesterday, North Carolina pastor Patrick Wooden appeared with right-wing activists Peter LaBarbera and Matt Barber at the protest against the Southern Poverty Law Center, which Wooden condemned for its support of LGBT rights. Prior to the demonstration, Wooden appeared on LaBarbera’s radio show where he railed against gays and lesbians and claimed that gay men “have to wear a diaper or a butt plug just to be able to contain their bowels”:

Wooden: The God of the Bible made the human sperm, the God of the Bible designed it and it was not designed to be emptied into an area that is filled with feces, there is nothing for it to germinate with, it will most certainly mean the extinction of the human race. My belief is that if the medical community would just step forward and just would share with the American people what happens to the male anus, the problems that homosexuals have with their rectums, the damage that is done, the operations that are needed to sew up their bodies if you will, and how many of the men don’t even give these stitches time to heal before they are back out there practicing that wicked behavior. Some are bleeders, men who are not turned off by ingesting the feces of other men.

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If the truth was told, people would literally gag and no one would want to be in a lifestyle like that. Who wants to practice anything that is going to ultimately lead a grown man to about the time he’s in his 40s or 50s, or what not, having to wear a diaper or a butt plug just to be able to contain their bowels?

He also told LaBarbera that homosexuality was “wicked, deviant, immoral, self-destructive, anti-human” and that African Americans “ought to be appalled, ought to be angry” at gay rights advocates.

Wooden: It’s easy for African Americans when they’re not thinking, when they’re not thinking, to equate their beautiful blackness, their beautiful skin color, those of us who are darker than blue, it’s easy for us to equate given the history of the country our plight with those who want civil rights status based on who they have sex with, and it’s deviant, ungodly, unhealthy sex at that. I think that every African American ought to be appalled, ought to be angry, and should begin to wave their fist in the air and declare black power and say to the homosexual lobbyists, the homosexual groups, how dare you compare your wicked, deviant, immoral, self-destructive, anti-human sexual behavior to our beautiful skin color.

But Wooden is no fringe figure, and is actually one of the major spokesmen for the campaign to pass an amendment to North Carolina’s constitution outlawing same-sex marriage.

Wooden was “the main speaker for the rally” organized by the conservative North Carolina Family Policy Council where he shared the stage with National Organization for Marriage president Brian Brown and Randy Wilson, the Family Research Council’s National Field Director. He also spoke at a press conference alongside Republican House Speaker Pro Tem Dale Folwell and Kevin Daniels of the right-wing Frederick Douglass Foundation in support of the bill, and Wooden is spearheading outreach to African American voters on behalf of Vote for Marriage NC, the umbrella group led by NOM, the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, NC Values Coalition and the Christian Action League.

So while the amendment’s proponents claim that their campaign “will focus on the unique common good that marriage provides to society,” they also bolster the message that gay men have to wear diapers (or a butt plug) because of “what happens to the male anus.”

Today, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality’s Peter LaBarbera and Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber protested today outside of the headquarters of the Southern Poverty Law Center, along with other anti-gay activists, over the group’s “thinly-veiled, one-sided campaign to demonize adherents of traditional Judeo-Christian morality.” AFTAH, along with other anti-gay organizations, is incensed that the SPLC classified them as “anti-gay hate groups.”

One of the activists joining them was North Carolina pastor Patrick Wooden, one of the chief organizers for the North Carolina amendment to ban same-sex marriage. Not that the SPLC needed further proof of AFTAH’s demonization of gays and lesbians, but while appearing on LaBarbera’s radio show, Wooden told LaBarbera that homosexuality would “most certainly mean the extinction of the human race.” He claims that the medical community is suppressing the truth about the medical problems of homosexuals as it would make people “gag and no one would want to be in a lifestyle like that,” arguing that by the time gay mean reach their middle ages they “have to wear a diaper or a butt plug just to be able to contain their bowels” because of “what happens to the male anus.”

Listen:

Wooden: The God of the Bible made the human sperm, the God of the Bible designed it and it was not designed to be emptied into an area that is filled with feces, there is nothing for it to germinate with, it will most certainly mean the extinction of the human race. My belief is that if the medical community would just step forward and just would share with the American people what happens to the male anus, the problems that homosexuals have with their rectums, the damage that is done, the operations that are needed to sew up their bodies if you will, and how many of the men don’t even give these stitches time to heal before they are back out there practicing that wicked behavior. Some are bleeders, men who are not turned off by ingesting the feces of other men.

…

If the truth was told, people would literally gag and no one would want to be in a lifestyle like that. Who wants to practice anything that is going to ultimately lead a grown man to about the time he’s in his 40s or 50s, or what not, having to wear a diaper or a butt plug just to be able to contain their bowels?

Wooden also said that black people must “declare black power” and fight against gays and lesbians who he says compare their “wicked, deviant, immoral, self-destructive, anti-human sexual behavior to our beautiful skin color.”

Listen:

Wooden: It’s easy for African Americans when they’re not thinking, when they’re not thinking, to equate their beautiful blackness, their beautiful skin color, those of us who are darker than blue, it’s easy for us to equate given the history of the country our plight with those who want civil rights status based on who they have sex with, and it’s deviant, ungodly, unhealthy sex at that. I think that every African American ought to be appalled, ought to be angry, and should begin to wave their fist in the air and declare black power and say to the homosexual lobbyists, the homosexual groups, how dare you compare your wicked, deviant, immoral, self-destructive, anti-human sexual behavior to our beautiful skin color.

Steve Baldwin, the former executive director of the Council for National Policy, an influential conservative policy group founded by Tim LaHaye, went on the Steve Deace show yesterday to discuss why he thinks a President Romney would be disastrous for the country and the Republican Party. Baldwin’s major gripe is his dubious claim that Romney was “obsessed” with gay rights as governor of Massachusetts.

Baldwin expressed frustration that Romney has been given a “free pass” by conservative media, which he chalked up to “conflicts of interest” in the right-wing press. Among those he claimed are biased towards Romney is the publisher of the far-right Human Events, whom he identified as a “homosexual who likes Romney.” Although he didn’t name names on the show, Baldwin has previously asserted that Jeff Carneal, president of Human Events' publisher, is an “avowed homosexual” who has supported pro-equality causes.

But Baldwin’s gay-baiting did not end with his attack on conservative media. He let loose on Romney’s tepid pro-gay rights record as governor of Massachusetts, saying, “His whole administration was characterized by an almost obsessive devotion to the homosexual agenda.” Romney, he fumes, was involved in “gay proclamations, gay dances, gay proms, gay assemblies, gay this, gay that,” adding obliquely, “You gotta start wondering here.”

Baldwin: Our conservative media won’t write negative stories about Romney. They won’t even investigate him. I’ve submitted story after story to National Review, to Human Events, to American Spectator, and every once in a while they’ll do a story with a few negative things about Romney, but a full-scale investigative piece about Romney has not appeared in most of the conservative movement’s media. And you’ll find out there’s conflicts of interests, you’ll find out National Review endorsed Romney last year, they like him this year. You’ll find out that the chairman of Regnery Gateway, that publishes Human Events, is a homosexual who likes Romney. You find out these editors have various biases. And as a result, they have collectively, along with talk radio I have to add – Sean Hannity likes Romney, a lot of our radio talk show hosts have been very hands off when it comes to Romney’s record, even though they have all been briefed and all been given information about Romney’s background. Coulter and other national columnists and Hannity and even Mark Levin say very little about Romney’s record and refuse to dig into it. So you hear nothing from our own media, so the mainstream media, they’re too lazy to dig up the stories. And so as a result, Romney’s getting a free pass here.

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Deace: Does Mitt Romney have a history of supporting homosexual issues beyond the gay scoutmasters thing that we saw from 1994? What did he do in Massachusetts when he was governor?

Baldwin: Oh my goodness. Gay proclamations, gay dances, gay proms, gay assemblies, gay this, gay that. He had an entire commission called the Governor’s Commission, which served at his own discretion, and they funded gay events and programs in the schools. He promoted all kinds of laws, rules, internal, a lot of internal things, like his department of social services awarded Family of the Year, Parents of the Year, to a gay couple. He appointed homosexual leaders to key positions throughout his administration. I mean, his whole administration was characterized by a an almost obsessive devotion to the homosexual agenda. I would venture to say that Mitt Romney was the most aggressive pro-gay governor in American history, either party. Period. I mean Amy Contrada wrote a thousand page book documenting hundreds of actions by this man to advance the homosexual agenda. Hundreds. He was obsessed with it. You gotta start wondering here.

Under Chairman Paul Cameron, the mission of the Family Research Institute is "to generate empirical research on issues that threaten the traditional family, particularly homosexuality, AIDS, sexual social policy, and drug abuse."

The "research" produced by FRI has been widely discredited by social scientists and earned the organization a designation as an anti-gay hate group from the Southern Poverty Law Center, but is nonetheless routninely cited by other anti-gay Religious Right organizations.

Yesterday, FRI released its latest "scholarly" investigation into how the education and entertainment industries are "disproportionately populated by homosexuals and are in the midst of boy-molesting scandals" ... which can all be traced back to the introduction of the birth control pill:

Universities have a preponderance of heterosexuals. But, the perhaps 8% or so of employees who practice homosexuality are responsible for the great bulk of the child molestations! Everyone knows that homosexuals go ‘where the boys are.’ Thus the Boy Scouts and Catholic Priest scandals. But the University and Hollywood scandals exhibit another rule — ‘where gays cluster, boys suffer.’

Everyone knows ‘the pill’ freed heterosexuals from social control — but it also (indirectly) freed those who practice homosexuality. Before the 1960’s, ‘everyone’ had to conform to a norm that guaranteed a future — each citizen was responsible to get married and produce children. This social milieu was self-reinforcing: ‘If I must be disciplined in my sex life, then everybody else should be as well!’ Thus the citizenry generally worked to suppress those with deviant sexual habits.

But that changed radically with the invention of ‘the pill.’ Shielded by the anonymity of modern life, the pill assured that those with heterosexual tastes could live their sex lives almost free from social discipline. Pregnancies would no longer reveal your liaisons, and no one knew whether you were childless by fate or choice. Good news for homosexuals, because if heterosexuals could ‘do whatever they wanted’ sexually, the notion of fairness inevitably pushed heterosexuals to agree with ‘why punish those with other harmless sexual tastes?’

Of course, ‘harmless’ is the operative word. Is homosexuality indeed harmless?

Evangelizing for homosexuality, the entertainment industry (joining the psychiatric professions) began to flood the media with the message that ‘homosexuality is different, yet harmless.’ Hollywood asserted that homosexual practitioners were just as stable, just as worthy of marriage, just as worthy of parenthood, etc. The combination of these two new realities — the pill and Hollywood promotion of homosexuality — is the key to understanding where we are today.

Americans For Truth About Homosexuality president Peter LaBarbera is still livid about the traditional first-off-the-ship kiss between Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta kiss her girlfriend, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell, which the couple won in a raffle. LaBarbera earlier dubbed the kiss “indecent” and today on his radio program lamented that Navy families “are going to be forced to be exposed to, essentially, public perversion.” The anti-gay activist went on to claim that “photo will probably end up in a history book that kids will be forced to study and there will be tests on it” as the culture promotes “illicit behavior” to children:

You know we talk about this propaganda that’s ubiquitous, it’s constant now, I think it actually plays to the disfavor of the, it plays against the homosexual side because people are sort of tired of all this propaganda. I don’t know if we mentioned it last week but you got this ‘first kiss’ coming out of the Navy ship in which two, a lesbian sailor was allowed to do the traditional first kiss with her female partner. People don’t think about this. When homosexuality is celebrated in a culture and when it is celebrated by the government because the ship’s captain, the head officer of the ship, he sanctioned this, and now every time because of homosexuality being openly celebrated in the military, and recognition often translates into celebration as we’re seeing right here, now every time when you’re going to have families, when there’s a reunion or a ship comes in, you’re going to have families who are going to be forced to be exposed to, essentially, public perversion. That’s what we’re talking about.

I made the point on our website that when President Obama put this photo, which is now famous, of these two women kissing, when he put it on his Tumblr site, he was putting an indecent photo—he was publicizing an indecent photo on his page. It’s still indecent, despite what the cultural radicals are saying. Now our kids will be taught that it’s OK for two women to kiss each other, it’s OK for two guys to kiss each other, this becomes a lesson. Now we’re seeing in California of course this will be mandated, this photo will probably end up in a history book that kids will be forced to study and there will be tests on it. It’s just obscene actually that this is now being promoted in such a way when it’s still illicit behavior.

Today on Pathway to Victory, Robert Jeffress claimed that equal rights for gays and lesbians will lead to the end of America. Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas and a prominent endorser of Rick Perry, earlier claimed that gays and lesbians “engage in a high degree of promiscuity” and are incapable of monogamy, and also maintained that the media is using “brainwashing techniques” so homosexuality can be “crammed down our throats.” On Pathway, Jeffress said that gays and lesbians “engage in the most detestable, unclean, abominable acts you can imagine” as homosexuality is an “unnatural” and “filthy practice” that leads to disease:

Jeffress: Why is there such a high incidence of disease among homosexuals? Because ladies and gentlemen, what they are doing is more than holding hands and kissing, OK? They are engaged in the most detestable, unclean, abominable acts you can imagine. Because what they are doing is unnatural, it goes against nature, because of that filthy practice; there is a natural result to it. There is natural, physical consequences to homosexual behavior. That’s why God says don’t engage in it, you are going to harm your bodies in doing so.

Jeffress dedicated much of Pathway to bemoaning the Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas, which found state anti-sodomy laws to be unconstitutional, and said that supporters of LGBT equality are “fueled by sexual perversion” and “rebellion toward a holy God”:

Jeffress: The Lawrence decision of 2003 has paved the way to what both conservatives and liberals agree is the inevitable redefinition of marriage. Now folks don’t let anyone mislead you, this fervor to redefine the family is fueled by sexual perversion, and it is fueled by a sexual perversion that is in turn fueled by nothing but rebellion toward a holy God.

He claimed that Lawrence was the third case, along with Roe v. Wade, which barred states from criminalizing abortion, and Engel v. Vitale, which blocks officially organized prayer in public schools, that will lead to America’s destruction:

Jeffress: The third explosion that has weakened the social and spiritual infrastructure of our nation, making our collapse I believe inevitable, is the Supreme Court decision Lawrence v. Texas in 2003.

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Sometimes God destroys a society immediately. But other times, as in our case, there is a series of seemingly unrelated explosive choices, followed by a delay, and then followed by the sudden and dramatic collapse, just as in an implosion. Ladies and gentlemen, I am convinced that we are living in that in between time right now. We are living in that in between time between these explosive, wrong choices our country has made and the inevitable implosion of our country.

Americans For Truth About Homosexuality president Peter LaBarbera today condemned Israel over the government’s plan to recruit unofficial gay and lesbian volunteers to publicize the country’s LGBT-friendly policies and improve the country’s image abroad. In an interview with the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow, LaBarbera said that Israel is now in defiance of God:

But Peter LaBarbera, founder and president of Americans for Truth about Homosexuality (AFTAH), sees nothing intolerant about opposing a deviant lifestyle.

"This is a very sad development because Judaism is responsible for our moral condemnation of homosexual and all deviant behaviors," he notes. "And so for Israel now to be proclaiming itself friendly to homosexuality is a repudiation of Israel's own heritage and the God of Israel."

He decides it comes down to a question of promoting sin.

"The moral truth never changes -- but unfortunately, we live in decadent times in which governments are using homosexuality to get money, basically," LaBarbera laments.

The AFTAH president says it is unfortunate that corporations and countries are going out of their way to appeal to homosexual customers.

Israel, in fact, already permits adoption by same-sex couples, allows gays to serve openly in the military, protects sexual orientation in anti-discrimination laws and recognizes same-sex marriages conducted abroad.

LaBarbera’s sharp attack on Israel comes despite the fact that AFTAH Board President Matt Barber’s organization Liberty Counsel said that any criticism of Israel “curses America” and Barber himself likened disagreement with the Israeli government to anti-Semitism.