Beverly LaHaye Institute

CWA: Learning About Sexual Behavior Furthers The “Homosexual Agenda”

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wednesday, 3/16/2011 10:41 am

Janice Shaw Crouse of Concerned Women for America’s Beverly LaHaye Institute is outraged that the government is studying sexual behavior and the rate of sexually transmitted infections. In fact, Crouse is upset that the government is using the term “sexually transmitted infection (STI),” which the health community believes is the most accurate term since sexually transmitted diseases are infections that show symptoms. She is also upset that the terms “straight,” “gay,” and “lesbian” were included in the study.

Crouse is even angered that the survey found that, indeed, straight people contract STI’s and HIV. According to Crouse, any study of STI’s is part of a twisted plan concocted by the Obama Administration and the “homosexual lobby” to promote the “homosexual agenda”:

Note that, under the Obama administration, statisticians have adopted the use of STIs instead of STDs (sexually transmitted infections rather than sexually transmitted diseases). Representatives of Planned Parenthood and SEICUS told me, when I asked at a meeting about the difference between the two terms, that “infections” carry less of a stigma than a “disease,” because “anybody can get an infection, but a disease is more serious and carries a connotation of blame.”

While the focus ostensibly is on STIs, there are 10 graphs of same-sex attraction, sexual identity, sexual behavior, and sexual activity. All this attention produced evidence, not surprisingly, that 86 percent of HIV cases are acquired through sexual behavior (others acquire HIV through transmission from an infected spouse or partner, or from a pregnant mother to her baby) and that the cost of the 50,000 new cases of HIV each year is approximately $20,000 per person. Amazingly, (is this really necessary?) the study noted that, in addition to terms such as “heterosexual” and “homosexual,” they used the terms, “straight,” “gay” and “lesbian” so that respondents could easily “recognize” the meaning.

…

Clearly, the intent of this report is to document same-sex attraction, identification, behavior, and activity, rather than to report on sexually-transmitted diseases. Is this a sign of the times, or a calculated effort of the Obama administration to continue pushing the homosexual agenda? Or both? Is it really the federal government’s responsibility, and a good use of taxpayer money, to mine survey data to try to support the homosexual lobby’s claim that “we are everywhere” and “anybody can get HIV?”

Apparently Crouse has a problem with science: as this study documents, straight people are able to contract HIV, along with all other STI’s. While she says that the government should instead “report on sexually-transmitted diseases” (which it does), one of the best ways to learn about the transmission of STI’s is to learn about sexual behavior. Crouse could have learned this by reading the second sentence of the first paragraph of the study: “These behaviors and characteristics are relevant to birth and pregnancy rates, as well as the incidence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).”

Moreover, she believes the Obama Administration is responsible for this outrageous research, but the National Survey of Family Growth conducted it from 2006-2008, under the Bush Administration.

This demonstrates another example of shoddy reporting from CWA’s “resident expert.”

Right Wing Pushes “Super Death Panel” Myth

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Thursday, 12/30/2010 11:52 am

After The New York Times reported that the new health care reform law will cover “voluntary advance care planning” as a reimbursable Medicare service, the Obama Administration immediately feared pushback from right-wing opponents of reform. Anti-reform politicians and activists jumped on a widely-discredited and disputed article by former New York Lt. Governor Betsy McCaughey, who predicted that the reform bill will lead to government control over end-of-life decisions.

Republicans pounced on the false claim, as Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) declared that the country “should not have a government run plan to decide when to pull the plug on grandma” and House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) warned that the “provision may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia.” Most famously, Sarah Palin wrote on Facebook that her “baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide” if he is “worthy of health care.” The New York Times said that “Ms. McCaughey has been the hammer to Ms. Palin’s nail” as the two “have driven some of the most disturbing, and distorted, claims about the proposals.”

Not only is the service voluntary, but Medscape Medical News reports that since January 1, 2009, “Medicare has been paying for [end-of-life care plans] in a limited fashion — and with little if any protest,” and the American Academy Family of Physicians and American College of Physicians applauded the move as a way to “tailor care” for each patient.

Conservatives though are already decrying the decision as the return of the death panels. Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel condemned what he called “a super death panel” that will put “pressure on the elderly to end their lives prematurely” by targeting senior citizens:

When you have the government mandating this end-of-life counseling, they're conscripting doctors to do end-of-life counseling on a massive scale. It will be the equivalent of a super death panel. Elderly patients will get confused and will end up signing documents without having a clue what they're signing, and they will sign away care they might really want.

Spokesmen from other Religious Right groups, including the American Life League, Concerned Women For America, and Operation Rescue, also denounced the purported "death panels":

"Nothing good can come of this," said Judie Brown, the president of American Life League. "This will affect everybody's parents and grandparents and preborn babies, and it will not affect anybody for the good."

Congress must step up to cancel the regulation, Brown added. "If not, a death certificate is written for an awful lot of elderly people."

"Those of us who voted in common-sense representatives to take control of the House will be expecting to see reversals of regulations like these that run roughshod over the will of the American people," said Dr. Janice Crouse, director of the Beverly LaHaye Institute at Concerned Women for America.

…

Operation Rescue President Troy Newman called the Obama approach "Darwinist," and predicted it would lead to rationing of health care.

"When you have a fixed amount of money that is allocated to health care, it's only logical that some bureaucrat will regulate it and decide who will get treatment," Newman told WND. "That treatment will be based on some humanist, egalitarian principle that these bureaucrats always seem to hold. Their principles are Darwinist, survival of the fittest.

"My grandmother is 94 years old," Newman continued. "Suppose she breaks her hip. Are they really going to authorize that expense over a 16-year-old who has urgent needs? It was Obama who said maybe Grandma should take a pill rather than get this expensive treatment."

…

"Having just returned from the funeral of a dear lady – widow of a Navy man, both buried at Arlington National Cemetery – I couldn't be more repulsed by the idea of government-controlled death panels that will make end-of-life decisions for the most vulnerable of our citizens," Crouse added.

Conservative columnist Cal Thomas uses Charles Dickens to blast the move, and claims that it redeems Sarah Palin:

Sarah Palin deserves an apology. When she said that the new health-care law would lead to "death panels" deciding who gets life-saving treatment and who does not, she was roundly denounced and ridiculed.

…

Do you see where this leads? First the prohibition against abortion is removed and "doctors" now perform them. Then the assault on the infirm and elderly begins. Once the definition of human life changes, all human lives become potentially expendable if they don't measure up to constantly "evolving" government standards.

It will all be dressed up with the best possible motives behind it and sold to the public as the ultimate benefit. The killings, uh, terminations, will take place out of sight so as not to disturb the masses who might have a few embers of a past morality still burning in their souls. People will sign documents testifying to their desire to die, and the government will see it as a means of "reducing the surplus population," to quote Charles Dickens.

Religious Right Working to Limit Reproductive Choice At Home and Abroad

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 7/21/2010 3:42 pm

It is important to remind ourselves occasionally that right-wing anti-choice groups don't just want to control the rights of women in America, they want to control the rights of women everywhere.

Case in point: Pat Robertson's ACLJ has been deeply involved and spent tens of thousands of dollars in trying to keep abortion out of the constitution being drafted in Kenya ... and now it looks like dozens of other Religious Right leaders are backing the effort:

With just two weeks to go until Kenyans vote on a new Constitution, World Congress of Families Managing Director Larry Jacobs announced the conclusion of a successful petition drive "In Support Of The 'No' Campaign -- Kenyans Opposed To The Pro-Abortion Constitution."

In less than a week, the Congress gathered signatures from more than 170 pro-life and pro-family leaders in 21 countries. Signers include former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Former Boston Mayor and Vatican Ambassador Ray Flynn and Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay ...

Organizations whose leaders are represented include:

-- Priests for Life
-- Tradition, Family and Property
-- Concerned Women for America
-- Alliance Defense Fund
-- Human Life International
-- Liberty Counsel
-- Americans United for Life
-- National Right to Life Committee
-- LifeSiteNews.com
-- Eagle Forum
-- Vision America Action
-- Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission
-- The Beverly LaHaye Institute
-- Focus on The Family
-- Family Talk [w/James Dobson]
-- Traditional Values Coalition

While the Religious Right is working to outlaw abortion overseas, they are also working to limit access to legal abortions here in the US in increasingly imaginative ways, which is why the ACLJ is representing a Texas bus driver who lost his job after refusing to take a passenger to a Planned Parenthood facility because it performed abortions:

[Edwin] Graning had asked his wife to call the facility; she heard a recording directing callers to call 911 in case of abortion complications. "I said, dear God in heaven, this woman's gonna have an abortion," he said.

Graning said that no protocol for orders to drive people to abortion clinics had ever been discussed. "I'm a Christian ... I love the Lord and I'm not going to be a part of something like this," said Graning, a former pastor. He pointed out that the woman quickly received a ride from another bus.

When he told his supervisor that he would not make the drive, Graning says the supervisor replied, "Then you are resigning." He objected, but was later directed to bring his vehicle and belongings back to CARTS, and received a letter of termination on grounds of insubordination.

Graning, 63, who celebrated his 40th wedding anniversary last month, is a father of two and grandfather of three.

He is being represented by lawyers from the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ).

Crouse: Lack Of Morals Making Our Children Susceptible to Becoming The Next Hitler Youth

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 2/18/2010 5:30 pm

Janice Shaw Crouse of The Beverly LaHaye Institute joined the EagleForum's Phyllis Schafly and Tim Goeglein of Focus on the Family for a CPAC panel entitled "Saving Freedom from The Enemies of Our Values."

While Schlafly spent most of her speech rambling on about the internal enemies of the conservative movement, namely RINOs and Rockefeller Republicans, and Goeglein spent most of his time quoting other people, Crouse got right down to business, explaining that the those who are undermining our families, our morals, and our values are making today's children susceptible to becoming the next Hitler Youth:

Understanding Rick Warren's Work in Africa

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 1/7/2009 11:29 am

Writing in The Daily Beast, Max Blumenthal takes a look at the work that Rick Warren is doing combating AIDS in Africa and finds some rather disturbing connections.  For instance:

Troubled by what he was witnessing in Africa, Rep. Tom Lantos led the new Democratic-controlled Congress to reform PEPFAR [the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief] during a reauthorization process in February 2008. Lantos insisted that Congress lift the abstinence-only earmark imposed by Republicans in 2002, and begin to fund family planning elements like free condom distribution. His maneuver infuriated Warren, who immediately boarded a plane for Washington to join Christian right leaders including born-again former Watergate felon Chuck Colson for an emergency press conference on the Capitol lawn. In his speech, Warren claimed that Lantos’ bill would spawn an increase in the sex trafficking of young women. The bill died and PEPFAR was reauthorized in its flawed form.

A release announcing this press conference shows that Warren wasn't only sharing the microphone with Colson, but rather a bevy with right-wing Congressmen and activists including Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, Rep. Joe Pitts, Rep. Mike Pence, Rep. Jeb Hensarling, Bishop Harry Jackson, Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America, and Day Gardner of the National Black Pro-Life Union.

Even more disturbing is Warren's close ties to Ugandan pastor Martin Ssempa:

Warren’s man in Uganda is a charismatic pastor named Martin Ssempa. The head of the Makerere Community Church, a rapidly growing congregation, Ssempe enjoys close ties to his country’s First Lady, Janet Museveni, and is a favorite of the Bush White House. In the capitol of Kampala, Ssempa is known for his boisterous crusading. Ssempa’s stunts have included burning condoms in the name of Jesus and arranging the publication of names of homosexuals in cooperative local newspapers while lobbying for criminal penalties to imprison them.

...

In August 2007, Ssempa led hundreds of his followers through the streets of Kampala to demand that the government mete out harsh punishments against gays. “Arrest all homos,” read placards. And: “A man cannot marry a man.” Ssempa continued his crusade online, publishing the names of Ugandan gay rights activists on a website he created, along with photos and home addresses. “Homosexual promoters,” he called them, suggesting they intended to seduce Uganda’s children into their lifestyle. Soon afterwards, two of President Yoweri Museveni’s top officials demanded the arrest of the gay activists named by Ssempa. Terrified, the activists immediately into hiding.

I remember this incident because I actually wrote a post about it at the time that included a quote from Janice Crouse of the Beverly LaHaye Institute hailing the Ugandan protesters for standing up when “the Devil is attacking them”:

I thank the Lord that we have people in Uganda who are devoted Christians who are willing to go out there at the beginning, at the outset, to say “you’re not going to change our culture, you’re not going to have influence here. We stand up for what is right, what is legal, and what is part of the culture of Uganda.”

It also included this photo taken of one of Ssempa's protesters:

Is this the anti-AIDS work in Africa of which Warren is so proud?

God Forbid

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 4/30/2007 5:24 pm

Some PBS stations are reportedly set to air a three-part BBC series entitled “A Brief History of Disbelief” which seeks to “uncover[] the hidden story of atheism.” 

Not surprisingly, the Right doesn’t like it at all:

Janice Crouse, director of the Beverly LaHaye Institute for the conservative group Concerned Women for America, told Cybercast News Service that "airing the program gives credibility and cohesiveness to individuals who seek to undermine the beliefs and values on which democracy and the American dream are founded."

"One has to wonder why it is so important to them for everyone to understand their 'disbelief,'" she said. "The program is not a dispassionate, positive voice - as they claim. Instead, it is clearly demagogic and propagandistic."

Perhaps Crouse is not the best judge of what is or is not “dispassionate” considering that Beverly LaHaye, the namesake of the institute which Crouse heads, believes that “Christian values should dominate our government. The test of those values is the Bible. Politicians who do not use the Bible to guide their public and private lives do not belong in office.” And when it comes to demagogic, it’s hard to top this:  “In recent times, Western Civilization has willingly chosen to exchange the faith and logic of a Biblical worldview for an irrational secularism based on an unthinking and cruel relativism. This foolish exchange is at the root of the glaring injustices of modern American public policy.”

But CWA is not alone in opposing this program:

By airing "Disbelief," [Peter] Sprigg [of the Family Research Council] added, PBS is "revealing their bias against Christianity, against traditional faith."

…

"If they really want to be objective, they need to have a three-part series documenting the evidence in favor of Christianity," he added.

Indeed.  PBS hardly ever runs anything about Christianity.  

Syndicate content

Beverly LaHaye Institute Posts Archive

CWA: Learning About Sexual Behavior Furthers The “Homosexual Agenda”
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Wednesday 03/16/2011, 10:41am
Janice Shaw Crouse of Concerned Women for America’s Beverly LaHaye Institute is outraged that the government is studying sexual behavior and the rate of sexually transmitted infections. In fact, Crouse is upset that the government is using the term “sexually transmitted infection (STI),” which the health community believes is the most accurate term since sexually transmitted diseases are infections that show symptoms. She is also upset that the terms “straight,” “gay,” and “lesbian” were included in the study. Crouse is even angered that... MORE >
Right Wing Pushes “Super Death Panel” Myth
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Thursday 12/30/2010, 11:52am
After The New York Times reported that the new health care reform law will cover “voluntary advance care planning” as a reimbursable Medicare service, the Obama Administration immediately feared pushback from right-wing opponents of reform. Anti-reform politicians and activists jumped on a widely-discredited and disputed article by former New York Lt. Governor Betsy McCaughey, who predicted that the reform bill will lead to government control over end-of-life decisions. Republicans pounced on the false claim, as Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) declared that the country “... MORE >
Religious Right Working to Limit Reproductive Choice At Home and Abroad
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Wednesday 07/21/2010, 3:42pm
It is important to remind ourselves occasionally that right-wing anti-choice groups don't just want to control the rights of women in America, they want to control the rights of women everywhere. Case in point: Pat Robertson's ACLJ has been deeply involved and spent tens of thousands of dollars in trying to keep abortion out of the constitution being drafted in Kenya ... and now it looks like dozens of other Religious Right leaders are backing the effort: With just two weeks to go until Kenyans vote on a new Constitution, World Congress of Families Managing Director Larry Jacobs... MORE >
Crouse: Lack Of Morals Making Our Children Susceptible to Becoming The Next Hitler Youth
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Thursday 02/18/2010, 5:30pm
Janice Shaw Crouse of The Beverly LaHaye Institute joined the EagleForum's Phyllis Schafly and Tim Goeglein of Focus on the Family for a CPAC panel entitled "Saving Freedom from The Enemies of Our Values." While Schlafly spent most of her speech rambling on about the internal enemies of the conservative movement, namely RINOs and Rockefeller Republicans, and Goeglein spent most of his time quoting other people, Crouse got right down to business, explaining that the those who are undermining our families, our morals, and our values are making today's children susceptible to becoming... MORE >
Understanding Rick Warren's Work in Africa
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Wednesday 01/07/2009, 11:29am
Writing in The Daily Beast, Max Blumenthal takes a look at the work that Rick Warren is doing combating AIDS in Africa and finds some rather disturbing connections.  For instance:Troubled by what he was witnessing in Africa, Rep. Tom Lantos led the new Democratic-controlled Congress to reform PEPFAR [the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief] during a reauthorization process in February 2008. Lantos insisted that Congress lift the abstinence-only earmark imposed by Republicans in 2002, and begin to fund family planning elements like free condom distribution. His maneuver... MORE >
God Forbid
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Monday 04/30/2007, 5:24pm
Some PBS stations are reportedly set to air a three-part BBC series entitled “A Brief History of Disbelief” which seeks to “uncover[] the hidden story of atheism.”  Not surprisingly, the Right doesn’t like it at all: Janice Crouse, director of the Beverly LaHaye Institute for the conservative group Concerned Women for America, told Cybercast News Service that "airing the program gives credibility and cohesiveness to individuals who seek to undermine the beliefs and values on which democracy and the American dream are founded." "One... MORE >