Justin's Political Corner

Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality appeared on VCY America’s Crosstalk yesterday to discuss the recent decision by the Boy Scouts to include openly gay members under the age of 18 and the upcoming vote on marriage equality legislation in the Illinois State House. Understandably, LaBarbera was quite despondent and even resigned to increasing gay rights victories, warning that “God is giving us over to our sin.”

LaBarbera: I’ll tell you, I fear for our country, I believe God is giving us over to our sin. It seems that way to me, I don’t have a red phone to the Lord but it just seems that America is on such a precipitous decline, you know God seems to be saying: ‘You want homosexuality? You want abortion? Here, go ahead and have it.’ We’re a free society. The culture war on this issue alone is frightening, how much more resources and money the pro-sin side—which would be the homosexual side, that’s a sin—how much more resources they bring than to the side of righteousness and in a free society the people who bring the most organization, resources, money and people win and that’s what’s happening.

During the program, host Jim Schneider read Michael Swift’s obviously satirical “Gay Manifesto,” the 1987 essay which facetiously talks about gay “private armies” that will “conquer the world” and defeat the “hetero swine,” as if it was a serious political treatise, lamenting that “we are seeing item by item virtually everything that he has laid out here to be fulfilled today.”

LaBarbera called Swift’s piece “demonic” and “shockingly evil,” while even he admitted that it “may have been a satirical essay.”

Schneider later claimed that “same-sex assaults that are taking place in the military are just drastically on the increase” since the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy was lifted.” As we have already pointed out, however, CNN has reported that the current sexual assault rate among active duty men has “remained unchanged” from 2010, the year before Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was repealed.

In many of the states that have waged marriage equality fights recently, opponents have often coalesced around a coalition consisting of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the state’s Catholic conference, and the state’s “family policy council” affiliate of the Family Research Council. In Illinois, however, these typical players have not united in the same way, seemingly in part because the state social conservative group is the Illinois Family Institute (IFI), a hate group in its own right associated with the American Family Association.

IFI’s rhetoric is quite a bit more brazen than what anti-gay groups have used in other states, which may have scared away its would-be allies. 

Today marks three months since the Illinois Senate passed the marriage equality bill, and with only three weeks left for the House to pass it, here’s a look at some of IFI’s rhetoric that is dominating the opposition:

• Today, IFI posted numerous photos from its rally this weekend, including a sign that reads, “The crime against nature will never be equal.”
• Speakers at the rally included ex-gay advocate Linda Jernigan and another hate group leader, Peter LaBarbera, who told the crowd that homosexuality is “unnatural and wrong,” citing HIV rates among men who have sex with men as evidence of “the dangers of homosexuality.”
• In February, IFI’s Laurie Higgins wrote that gay people shouldn’t even be allowed to teach because they’ll put pictures of their partners on their desk that students will see.
• In fact, IFI believes that parents should pull their children from any classroom that attempts to create a safe environment for LGBT students.
• IFI has claimed gays and lesbians already have equality because they can marry the opposite sex like everyone else; same-sex marriage is thus a demand “to be treated specially.”

This extreme rhetoric extends beyond the talking points conservatives have traditionally used in these fights, which tend to focus on supposed protections for children, gender norms, and the institution of marriage. By openly condemning homosexuality as unnatural and curable through therapy — as well as enabling the bullying of LGBT youth — IFI sets itself apart.

H/T: Zack Ford at Think Progress LGBT

ngered by Sen. Rob Portman’s newfound support for marriage equality and an unofficial pro-gay rights panel at CPAC, Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality is warning the GOP against “trying to ‘out-gay’ the Democrats.”

LaBarbera’s advises Portman and others to treat their gay family members like drug addicts rather than support them, which he says would be “like telling a loved one who is has a drug problem: ‘I love you so much that I’m going to send you a five ounces of cocaine every month, because that’s how much I care.’”

He claims Portman “kicked God to the curb” and that Hillary Clinton, who recently endorsed marriage equality, “blasphemes her Creator.”

“No nation can survive moral decay of the sort America is experiencing,” LaBarbera writes. “It is the height of folly to dumb down conservatism and jettison the wholesome dictates of the Bible and Christianity because the “Glee” Generation has a new idea about sodomy.”

In the midst of the CPAC gathering, news broke that Sen. Portman had flip-flopped on homosexual “marriage” because his 21-year-old son Will is a homosexual. Thus Portman succumbed to the emotionalism and illogic that dominate post-Christian America. Employing some awful theology, he kicked God to the curb — as is becoming habit in a land that increasingly mocks its own national motto, “In God We Trust.”

Here is a dose of Politically Incorrect truth: homosexual behavior is sinful (read: always wrong in the eyes of God), unnatural, destructive and yet – thankfully – changeable. To become homosexual-affirming because someone you love announces he or she is homosexual is the antithesis of “tough love.” It’s like telling a loved one who is has a drug problem: “I love you so much that I’m going to send you a five ounces of cocaine every month, because that’s how much I care.”

As for “gay conservatives,” beware of homosexuals like Tammy Bruce and GOProud, who sound and act much more like “gay” activists than conservatives whenever their special interest — justifying their own dysfunctional embrace of homosexuality — is involved.

As for the pro-homosexual ”Christian Left,” faithful believers must insist that homosexuality be treated like other sins in the Bible. (Have you ever heard of a “Porn-Users Pride Parade,” or been called an “adultery-phobe”?) Homosexuality is what you do, not who you are, and Jesus Christ has set many men and women free from this besetting sin. Hillary Clinton may be good at politics, but she blasphemes her Creator by using His Holy name to support her faithless push for counterfeit “marriage” based on conduct that God Himself calls an abomination.

It is the height of folly to dumb down conservatism and jettison the wholesome dictates of the Bible and Christianity because the “Glee” Generation has a new idea about sodomy. Instead, principled conservatives need to fight back against politically correct shibboleths and bravely stay the course; defend transcendent Truth against modern, secularist lies; affirm marriage (one-man, one-woman) and virtuous morality for everyone; and return to reason and the biblical idealism of yesteryear.

Porno Pete at its finest.

H/T: Brian Tashman at RWW

For decades, the gay community and its allies have been doing incredible work combating HIV/AIDS and providing care for people with the virus, but according to anti-gay activists Janet Mefferd and Peter LaBarbera, gay rights supporters have tried to whitewash the epidemic and show little compassion to HIV-positive people.

While discussing LaBarbera’s “20 Resolutions for Pro-Family Advocates Battling the Homosexual-Transgender Agenda in 2013” on her radio show, Mefferd said that the Religious Right had an opening to exploit the issue of HIV/AIDS “because we’ll say, we care about people who are having terrible diseases because of the behavior and where is the compassion on your side for these people who have these illnesses?”

Of course, Mefferd and LaBarbera both support the criminalization of LGBT status, which only exacerbates the spread of HIV. 

H/T: Brian Tashman at RWW

Illinois pastor John Kirkwood joined Peter LaBarbara on Americans for Truth About Homosexuality Radio Hour last week to discuss a pending challenge to Illinois’ ban on same-sex marriage. The two were up in arms because the Cook County circuit court judge presiding over the case, Sophia Hall, is openly gay. Not only do they want Judge Hall to recuse herself from the case (the Right made a similar, unsuccessful demand of Judge Vaughn Walker, who presided over the Prop 8 trial in California), but they take issue with the very existence of openly gay judges.

Kirkwood, perusing a newsletter article about a function honoring openly LGBT judges in Cook County compared the event to one honoring “the adulterous judges of Cook County” and mused, “We were better off when the Mafia ran Illinois because they were interested in making a profit, not making some kind of political statement that is totally abhorrent.”

h/t: Miranda Blue at RWW

Some of the Right’s most extreme anti-gay voices are up in arms this week because the judge set to hear the challenge to Illinois’ ban on same-sex marriage is gay herself. Judge Sophia Hall was a charter member of the Alliance of Illinois Judges, a group committed to “promoting and encourage respect and unbiased treatment for LGBT individuals as they relate to the judiciary, the legal profession, and the administration of justice.” This alone, these hate group leaders argue, should disqualify her. Peter LaBarbera of American for Truth About Homosexuality rounded up responses from Rena Lindevaldsen of Liberty University, who defended ex-gay child kidnapper Lisa Miller, and Scott Lively, who has promoted homophobia in Uganda and believes homosexuality is responsible for the Nazi party:

LINDEVALDSEN: If the tables were turned and she was a charter member of an organization that had as its mission to overturn Roe v. Wade and she was presiding over a case where the validity of Roe was in question, there would be incredible outcry to have her removed from the case. Given the significance of the case before her, Judge Hall should take steps to avoid even the perception of a conflict of interest, and recuse herself.

LIVELY: Judicial recusal to prevent the appearance of bias is an essential component of our legal system. Its authority depends on public confidence in its impartiality. Can anyone reasonably expect an open lesbian and member of a “gay rights” advocacy group to be impartial on the issue of “gay marriage”? If this judge has any respect at all for our judicial system, she must recuse herself.

Both comparisons are fallacious and insulting. Judge Hall helped found an organization committed to promoting professional respect, not a legal player or party to the case. 

h/t: Zack Ford at Think Progress LGBT

After complaining that gay rights advocates were trying to censor him, Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality now wants MTV to cancel an upcoming show with Dan Savage, SavageU, because he is a “a radical and raunchy homosexual activist” who is enganged on an “evil crusade” against Rick Santorum.

h/t: Brian Tashman at RWW

Recently, Right Wing Watch has uncovered Patrick Wooden, the newest rising star of the Religious Right from the Raleigh-Durham Metro area of North Carolina. He is one of the people in the movement to make North Carolina have a constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality there.  Wooden has a long history of homophobic viewpoints. He is the senior pastor of Upper Room Church of God in Christ (COGIC) in Raleigh.

Just today, on AFTAH (Americans For Truth About Homosexuality)’s Americans for Truth Hourhosted by rancid homophobe Peter LaBarbera, Wooden misleadingly implied that “gay men shove cell phones, baseball bats, and animals up their rectums.”

Today, Wooden appeared on LaBarbera’s show and stood by his claims, going as far as to say that gay men regularly shove objects such as cellphones, baseball bats and animals up their anuses and that he personally knows a gay person who “literally died in diapers” because he “literally lost control of himself.”

Wooden: I do not back off or back down from my statements at all. I was giving anecdotal examples that I am personally aware of that have happened as a result of men who have given themselves over to this lifestyle. One man past away, a friend of mine shared this information with me, that where what used to be his anus had become a gaping hole and he literally died in diapers, he literally lost control of himself. There are examples of men who have stretched their anuses, their sphincter muscles so that they could fit objects into themselves that once the sphincter muscle is stretched too much it will not contract. Because the truth is, despite the anger of the homosexual community, the anus is not a vagina. A vagina, a woman can give birth, God so designed it, the hips release can give birth to babies and things return back to normal. The anus doesn’t work that way; this is one of the reasons why many male homosexuals place larger and larger objects in their rectums.

I know of a case where in a hospital a homosexual male had a cellphone lodged in his anus and as they were operating on him the phone went off, the phone started ringing! There’ve been instances where men have put bats, baseball bats, in their rectums!

An idiot indeed, and maybe even WORSE than what Bryan Fischer, David Barton, John Hagee, Pat Robertson, and their homophobic ilk have said combined.

He started getting widespread national attention when he made the insanely amateurish and homophobic comment regarding “gay men having to wear diapers.”

RWW:

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.”

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?

H/T: JGibson at Daily Kos

Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality joined Janet Mefferd yesterday for an hour of attacking LGBT rights and urgently praying for gays and lesbians to be freed from Satan’s captivity. Mefferd dedicated to help “set LGBT people free from the sin and the bondage that The Enemy has them in” and prayed that gays receive her message so they don’t end up in Hell, which she called a reflection of her love for LGBT people:

Like other conservative activists, LaBarbera condemned the Navy for allowing Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta kiss her girlfriend, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell, after winning a raffle for the traditional first-off-the-ship kiss. LaBarbera claimed that the military was sanctioning “indecent behavior” and that a photo of the couple should be considered an “indecent photo,” lamenting the event as a “sad day.”

H/T: Brian Tashman at RWW