Liberty University

At Liberty Counsel’s recent Awakening conference, gays were portrayed as enemies of religious freedom who are bent on turning public schools into indoctrination centers using the issue of bullying as a “Trojan horse.”  Greg Quinlan, president of Parents and Friends of ExGays and Gays, who describes himself as ex-gay, complained that New Jersey’s new anti-bullying law is being used to bully Christian students, and hollered that the law is actually fascism.

You don’t need a law, inculcated and put into code, to talk about bullying. What this bully bill is is behavior modification. That’s the job of the parents and the teachers and we don’t need that put into law. This is fascism! This is fascism! We need to put a swastika on it!

Quinlan complained that public officials, including Gov. Chris Christie, would not listen to Religious Right objections to the bill because gay rights advocates had exploited the suicide of a bullied boy:

Because one boy -- and the homosexual agenda is extremely good at this, when there’s a disaster -- one boy jumps off the George Washington Bridge, kills himself in the Hudson River. And they seized that moment and they took it and used it to their advantage. And what did we do? We said “Oh, that’s terrible that that happened,” but we don’t have any statements to make when these issues do happen. This is where we have to have better messaging.

Matt Barber, one of the most ferociously anti-gay voices in public life, used a question about the treatment of an anti-gay protestor to charge that gays are motivated by hatred for Jesus Christ and that the “homosexual lifestyle” is a sin-condemned “culture of death.”

The question was, an elderly woman was at a homosexual rally and she was carrying this big styrofoam cross and she was knocked around, it was caught on film, no charges were filed, they took her cross, and stomped it, and crushed into tiny bits. That is a microcosm of what we’re up here – and I thought, something that immediately occurred to me was, wasn’t that a metaphor for what we’re up against. It’s about the cross. It’s about the cross and a hatred of Christ, who is what? The way, the truth, and the life.  They hate the way, which is Christ, they hate the truth, which they are in conflict with, and they hate life. This is a culture of death we are talking about here, and the wages of sin is what? Is death. The homosexual lifestyle astronomically, from a statistical standpoint, leads to death. The wages of sin is death.

Other speakers on the panel were Rena Lindevaldsen, a Liberty University law professor and associate dean, and Cynthia Dunbar, a Religious Right activist who served on the Texas state board of education and who is now also a law professor at Liberty. Dunbar bragged in her conference bio that her work has earned her a “position” on Right Wing Watch.

Liberty University professor Judith Reisman is out with a column in WorldNetDaily today which seems to blame homosexuality on “erototoxins,” or mind-altering chemicals, which she believes are emitted from pornography.

She points to a lecture which called pornography a “visual pheromone” to argue that sex-ed rewires the brain and consequently promotes homosexuality.

Reisman points to a case where pheromones were used to confuse male gypsy moths in order to prevent them from mating with females, which is apparently like how pornography could be confusing men and making them less attracted to women, or something.

On Sept. 21, 2012, Texas neurosurgeon Donald L. Hilton Jr., M.D., spoke on pornography addiction and sexual orientation, saying:

“Pornography is a visual pheromone, a powerful 100-billion-dollar per year brain drug that is changing sexuality even more rapidly through the cyber-acceleration of the Internet. It is ‘inhibiting orientation’ and ‘disrupting pre-mating communication between the sexes by permeating the atmosphere’ and Internet.” (emphasis added)

Hilton’s lecture, “Changing the Stamp of Nature: Pornography Addiction, Neuroplasticity, and the ASAM and DSM Perspectives,” put a hard neuroscience face on pornographic brain rewiring, implicating sex-education promotions of homosexuality as a normal genetic variation.

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Pornography, homosexuality and the gypsy moth Hilton agrees, “Pornography is inducing a cultural pheromonic effect,” recording the mis-orientation of male gypsy moths.

In 1869 gypsy moths, imported to create an American silk industry, instead decimated our deciduous trees – oaks, maples and elms – and devastated our forests for the next 150 years. In the ’60s scientists found male moths mate with the female “by following her scent,” her “pheromone.”

A 1967 paper, “Insect population control by the use of sex pheromones to inhibit orientation between the sexes,” reported that scientists permeated the moth’s environment with strong, artificial female moth pheromone “This … scent overpowered the normal females ability to attract the male, and the confused males were unable to find the females.”

So, our trees got saved by what could be called olfactory moth pornography, a heavy-duty phony scent that unmanned male orientation to create an impotent moth population.

Hilton reports this abstract of the paper: “We have for the first time obtained experimental confirmation that pre-mating communication between the sexes can be disrupted by permeating the atmosphere with an insect pheromone.”

In 1972 another paper described mating disorientation as “preventing male gypsy moths from finding mates,” using pheromones. Called the confusion method:

“An airplane scatters … pellets imbedded with the scent of the pheromone … [that] overpower the male’s ability to find the female. He is thus desensitized to the natural scent of the female by this artificially produced pheromone. … The male either becomes confused and doesn’t know which direction to turn for the female, or he becomes desensitized to the lower levels of pheromones naturally given out by the female and has no incentive to mate with her.” (emphasis added)

Gypsy moth pornography? In the trapping method, male moths looking for the female, enter traps with no exit “only to find a fatal substitute.” As a neurosurgeon, Dr. Hilton concludes:

“Pornography is a visual pheromone, a powerful 100-billion-dollar per year brain drug that is changing sexuality. … It is ‘inhibiting orientation’ and ‘disrupting pre-mating communication between the sexes by permeating the atmosphere’ and Internet.”

So can Cynipidae desensitization tell us genius humanoids about pornographic mating desensitization, say, about pornography as Erototoxic, as the toxic form of Eros? Gosh.

• After 42 years, Liberty University gets its first female commencement speaker: Fox News correspondent (and LU alum) Shannon Bream.
• In a shocking development, Religious Right activists and candidates don't think the GOP should moderate its stance on social issues.
• Matt Barber says gay marriage is "like taking a rotten apple, spray-painting it orange, and then calling it an orange. 'Same-sex marriage' is no more real marriage then a rotten apple is an orange. It’s mock marriage."
• Scott Lively is apparently very hurt by a recent article about him in Boston Magazine.
• Finally, Buster Wilson defends the AFA's practice of boycotting companies: "Will God be ok with us willfully making a purchase, or purchases from a business that we KNOW will use that same money we are stewards over to help create an 'in your face' action against God?"

• I guess we can now look forward to the Religious Right freaking out over the news that the Washington National Cathedral will begin performing same-sex marriages.
• A federal judge has ruled that a Texas school district can expel a students for refusing to wear an identity card containing an RFID chip on the grounds that it was a "mark of the beast."
• Dick Armey claims he mistakenly granted an interview to Media Matters regarding the debacle at FreedomWorks because his thought he was talking to the conservative Media Research Center.
• Apparently releasing the names of priests who molested children will turn into a "witch hunt [that] would negatively impact the church as a whole."
• Finally, in March, Tim Tebow will speak at Liberty University's Convocation.

Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver recently appeared on Janet Parshall’s radio show to promote his claim that the health care reform law is unconstitutional and an immense “setback to religious liberty.” While representing Liberty University, Staver sued over the health care law’s individual mandate in 2010, but the Supreme Court ruled in June that the mandate was constitutional. Over the summer, Liberty asked the Supreme Court to reconsider its arguments against the employer mandate and the contraceptive coverage mandate, which it said were not addressed by the court’s ruling. The court agreed to the request and told the 4th Circuit to hear arguments on the two pieces.

While speaking to Parshall, Staver fueled the myth that Obamacare is “a frontal assault to religious freedom” and that employers and individuals are “being forced to fund abortion.” Staver drew no difference between abortion and contraceptives in his assertions, and echoed the misconceptions of many Religious Right groups and conservative politicians who argue that the mandate compels religious individuals pay for abortion coverage.

But no part of Obamacare actually coerces anyone to fund abortion coverage. Women who choose health plans that do cover abortion must pay a separate premium out of their own pockets. Because insurers must assess a $1 per month surcharge on all enrollees in the plan to take into account the cost savings of abortion, anti-choice activists are complaining that this constitutes taxpayer funding for abortion.

Although a conscience clause was added allowing churches who object to birth control to be exempt from the requirement, many religious leaders argue that this exemption is not wide enough.

Precedents have already been set that counter Staver’s claims, as several judges have ruled that Obamacare does not violate the religious freedom of employers that do not want to cover contraceptives. A pivotal Supreme Court opinion previously established that a law that applies uniformly to the faithful and the non-faithful alike does not violate the First Amendment. Though individuals are still free to exercise their religion by abstaining from using contraceptives, Staver contends that the law is “[telling] you what to believe [and] how to practice.”

Staver: This is something that’s either or. Either we follow our religious conviction that life is sacred and it begins in the womb, and disobey Obamacare and pay the penalties for it, or we obey Obamacare and disobey our religious convictions and conscious. There is no in between. It is a frontal assault to religious freedom unprecedented in its scope since the founding of its country. So this I think is a very strong argument as we go back to the high court, and in addition to the free exercise for Liberty University and other religious employers, we have the free exercise claim for all individuals. Because in addition to being forced to fund abortion from an employer’s perspective, individuals are also forced to have a fee assessed which goes to funding abortion.

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Parshall: If they say, you know what, too bad government has the right here, religious liberty, that’s nice, not now, not here, what would be the impact of religious liberty, far beyond the boundaries of Liberty University’s campus, what would it mean for the church capital C universal as well?

Staver: Oh it would be huge in terms of its setback to religious liberty because this is a classic conflict. A lot of times you have laws that, you know maybe an irritant, you know for example you might want to use a library for a room that’s a common meeting and you might want to have prayers and somebody says no you can’t do that because its religious speech. Well sort of another free speech issue the question is, is this a free religion exercise? It may be, but you know the argument would be well, you can still practice your religion, we’re not telling you what to believe, what to practice, but this here tells you what to believe, it tells you how to practice, it is a core component of your belief. So, if we were to lose on this issue, wow, I mean the implications of that would be huge, it would mean that the government, for the first time in history, is able to pass a law that directly conflicts with a religious belief.

Peter LaBarbera on Americans for Truth About Homosexuality Radio Hour once again hosted Liberty University’s resident junk scientist Judith Reisman, who after telling LaBarbera about her time working on music for “Captain Kangaroo,” went on to say that anti-gay bullying and gay youth suicides are complete myths based on “ignorance” and that many kids “are going to be very susceptible to the homosexual urging” because children are taught that “homosexuality was being discriminated against.”

Of course a lot of them are going to be very susceptible to the homosexual urging and that sort of thing, I mean as a kid if I thought homosexuality was being discriminated against and this was normal and natural and this is genetic, give me a break, we have no genetic support for that at all. And if we did, where was it in the ’60s and the ’70s? And all this bullying stuff we’re talking about for being gay and the suicides? Well where are the data back in the ’60s and the ’70s, you think we didn’t record data on kids who were committing suicide, on kids who were being beaten up for sexual interests and that sort of thing, come on! There is such an ignorance of our history, such an ignorance out there and we’ve maintained ignorance.

Reisman went on to argue that a child who would otherwise be a “normal, regular, human, heterosexual kid” is being brainwashed by sexual education classes to think he or she might be gay, transgender or “all kinds of other things.” And why are schools “creating” kids? Reisman says that is because they want “these kids become fodder for adult predators, that’s exactly what they become.”

These kids, their brains are plastic, they’re going to the classroom in school, they’re told now in kindergarten about various forms of sexual activity and ‘you should all be happy,’ ‘make love not war,’ though love now is war. The next thing you know they’re also being told that they really don’t know that they’re a normal, regular, human, heterosexual kid, but they could be bisexual, they could be homosexual, they could be transgender, they could be all kinds of other things, well they couldn’t be unless there is some kind of identifiable proof that that actually is taking place and so we know that what we’re doing is traumatizing these children.

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We’re turning our kids into incredibly confused activists, we’re creating these gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, undecided and indiscriminate, whatever the last one is I think there’s another one now, and you have to ask yourself: Who is doing this? What adults are pulling this one off? Because these kids become fodder for adult predators, that’s exactly what they become.

And while the two anti-gay activists in their last interview likened gays to Soviet spies and radical Islamists, LaBarbera and Reisman went straight to the Nazi comparisons this time, with LaBarbera warning that the “homosexual activists” who control Hollywood are “demonizing [Christians] like the Nazis used to do to the Jews.” Reisman eagerly agreed and likened public education in the US to schools in Hitler’s Germany and said that just as Nazis put up Hitler posters instead of the Ten Commandments, “here in the United States we removed the Ten Commandments but we didn’t put up Hitler we put up the AIDS posters, which is just as telling, isn’t it?”

LaBarbera: Homosexual activists in many ways drive our culture, they decide what’s going to be in a movie, we see all the portrayals, homosexuals are the most positively portrayed in the movies and on TV, Christians are often negatively portrayed and stereotyped. In many ways, in fact Judith you are Jewish, I think you’re starting to see Hollywood what they’re doing to Christians and to people of faith who actually adhere to traditional values, they’re demonizing them like the Nazis used to do to the Jews. They would compare Jews to rats and we see these vicious, ugly caricatures of Christians coming out of Hollywood. How did we go from that in such a short amount of time to homosexuality being deviant conduct which wasn’t spoken about to now driving our culture?

Reisman: You answered it. I mean it’s not that much time when you think that Germany, Hitler’s Germany, I think was twenty years that went from a basically conservative German culture to the films being controlled by—I forgot which one—and the films being made that described what you are now describing for Christians well that was what they were doing for Jews and actually they included Christians in there quite often too, and the schools were taken over by the fascist government and the children were told that their parents, who were old-fashioned, were old-fashioned and you know you don’t have to tell your parents, you mustn’t tell your parents, what you’re learning here in school. They gutted the libraries of anything that was Christian in belief and they pulled down the Ten Commandments. You had the Ten Commandments all over the walls of the schools in Germany, just like we had in the United States of America, and so they had removed all the Ten Commandments and they put up of course Hitler. Well here in the United States we removed the Ten Commandments but we didn’t put up Hitler we put up the AIDS posters, which is just as telling, isn’t it?

• Focus on the Family has spent over $50,000 on behalf of Todd Akin's run for Senate.
• Kirk Cameron will be speaking at Liberty University's Convocation on Friday.
• Speaking of Liberty U, Jerry Falwell, Jr. continues to defend Donald Trump's recent speech there, saying it was all a part of the "free exchange of ideas." Because everyone knows that LU is all about free speech and diversity.
• The organizers of the America for Jesus rally need your help in paying off the $98,000 deficit they now face.
•  Finally, Matt Barber declares that President Obama is "a white-hating racist."

As we have noted over the last few days, there has been a bit of confusion over the remarks that Donald Trump recently delivered at Liberty University when he told the students at this Christian university: "Don't let people take advantage; get even!"

Trump, of course, is standing by his remarks and so is Liberty University, as chancellor and president Jerry Falwell Jr. told Newsmax that Trump's Convocation speech was "probably the best one in the history of the school" and that his message of "get even" was not "contrary to what Jesus taught at all":

The excitement was palpable in the room and the students were just so enthusiastic and excited about Mr. Trump's visit. And it was probably the best Convocation - we have three Convocation's a week here; have for years - probably the best one in the history of the school and I've heard that from literally hundreds of students that feel the same way and it was really a great day for Liberty University and we've made a great new friend in Donald Trump.

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You know, Jesus ... the Associated Press article quoted where Jesus said turn the other cheek, but Jesus also ran the money-changers out of the temple in anger with a whip. And so there is a time to be tough, there's a time to, I wouldn't necessarily say get even, but there's a time to look out for yourself and for your family and for your country and to defend yourself and I don't think that's contrary to what Jesus taught at all.  

For some truly inexplicable reason, Donald Trump was invited to be the Convocation speaker at Liberty University yesterday where he delivered a typically self-aggrandizing and buffoonish message that superficially about the importance of God and his Christian but was really about self-promotion and the importance of always getting even with your enemies.

At one point, Trump weighed in on the subject of the Middle East as he declared that any president "with some brain power" would have agreed to help the rebels in Libya only after getting them to agree to give the United States fifty percent of the nation's oil. In fact that same policy should has applied toward Iraq as well, Trump said, since the US was also entitled to that nation's oil because "to the victor belong the spoils." Yet despite the fact that we go in and "decimate a country," Trump said, we leave with nothing, prompting him to declare that "the way this country is being run is horrible": 

Then after another twenty minutes or so of incoherent self-absorbed rambling, Trump finally got around to delivering his uniquely Christian message to the students at Liberty University: "Don't let people take advantage; get even!"