Truth In Action Ministries

Earlier today we posted video from Truth in Action Ministries of Religious Right leaders condemning the Obama administration’s push to curb anti-LGBT violence and persecution and the criminalization of LGBT status. now the group’s president Dan Scalf is comparing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the Pharisees in John 8:1-11, who wanted to stone a woman for adultery, for her attempt to “promote homosexuality globally”:

How should Christians react to our tax dollars being used to promote homosexuality globally?

I am reminded of the situation religious leaders created in an attempt to trap Christ. They brought a woman to him they had caught in act of adultery and asked, “Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do you say?”

Hillary Clinton did something similar to that in her speech. She reminded the international leaders and representatives in her audience that the United Nations had adapted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Then, she went on to state that homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people deserve the same protections as people persecuted because of their religion, ethnicity, age, or gender.

Christians are often trapped by that type of intellectual posturing. We allow those who call good evil and evil good to frame the argument without challenging their agenda or assumptions. We cannot come to a good solution when beginning with a flawed presupposition.

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Hillary Clinton, and all those who promote homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender rights have an agenda. It is not “equal” rights. They want nothing less than complete cultural acceptance for a practice that God’s holy and infallible Word calls sinful.

Concerned Women for America is also voicing their opposition to efforts to decriminalize homosexuality. CWA’s Mario Diaz called the administration’s policy against anti-LGBT discrimination “embarrassing,” claimed that a “majority of Americans” do not believe that gays and lesbians should have equal rights, and even heralded a statement from the Foreign Minister of Russia, which has a dreadful record on safeguarding LGBT rights and protecting LGBT community from violence:

U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has made clear that the President has put an emphasis on all foreign assistance from the U.S. to advance lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) "rights."

"Gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights," Clinton said in a speech at the end of last year that sparked strong criticism from many nations who do not adhere to the same belief.

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Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said:

We have repeatedly said that the Russian Federation condemns any forms and manifestations of discrimination on any grounds…

In this connection we cannot agree with attempts to artificially single out this category of people as an independent group claiming that its rights and interests should be specially protected.

Embarrassing.

This is yet another reason why the next election is so crucial for our nation. Will we continue to export homosexuality as a human "right," despite the fact that the majority of Americans do not agree with that?

There is little doubt as to where President Obama stands in this question. His emphasis on the promotion of homosexuality as a human right internationally and his all-out effort against the traditional definition of marriage have been swift and decisive.

While many "conservatives" plead with us to stop talking about "social" issues and focus on the economy, the President has been steadfast in undermining marriage and the family. Under his leadership, the future looks bleak in this regard.

After comparing the “radical homosexual agenda” to the iceberg that sank the Titanic, Truth in Action Ministries yesterday discussed how homosexuality results from a “deep pathology” and deficient “biblical” parenting and today went into how gays and lesbians are stealthily using anti-bullying programs to turn kids gay. The claim is common in Religious Right circles, and Jerry Newcombe told host Carmen Pate on Truth that Transforms today that gay rights supporters want to “indoctrinate children” into “a deadly lifestyle” through anti-bullying programs.

Pate: As we talk about the radical homosexual agenda and their attempts to take their agenda into the public school, we see evidence day in and day out in the news, in activities that are coming up in public schools, activities that are put together by an organization called Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. They seem to be set on taking their agenda and teaching our children that their lifestyle is actually an inherent identity. How do you see this infiltrating our children’s school systems?

Newcombe: It’s something where they are basically taking a legitimate concern, which is that of bullying, and they are using that serious problem that does happen as an opportunity by which they will then promote and essentially indoctrinate children and expose children to the acceptability of the homosexual lifestyle. Now bullying is wrong but so also is indoctrination into a deadly lifestyle and frankly homosexuality is a deadly lifestyle and that fact is withheld from the children.

Later in the program, Newcombe suggested that it may not be a coincidence and is “ironic” that the anti-bullying Day of Silence takes place on April 20th, Adolf Hitler’s birthday. While the Day of Silence last year took place on April 15th, as the date has changed over the years, Newcombe sees something more sinister:

Newcombe: It’s sad to see groups like GLSEN be accepted by the teacher's establishment and then allow the platform to go into the public schools and try and indoctrinate children. For example, they have something called the Day of Silence. Now they chose April 20 of all days to be the Day of Silence, I looked that up, I was like, ‘isn’t that Adolf Hitler’s birthday,’ I looked it up and sure enough it is Adolf Hitler’s birthday. I don’t think there’s a link there but how ironic. But they are using this day as a means by which to promote their lifestyle as if it is a positive thing.

While Truth in Action Ministries recently informed us that the “radical homosexual agenda” is the iceberg out to sink the ship that is America, it turns out that the plot is even thicker, as it appears that feminism and evolution are also culprits in the country’s devastation. Today on the group’s flagship radio program Truth that Transforms, Doug Phillips of Vision Forum appeared to discuss an event he organized in Branson, Missouri, “to celebrate [the] Christian Legacy of Titanic’s sinking.”

“Though more than 1,500 people died in this international tragedy, the Darwinian notion of the ‘survival of the fittest’ was rejected in favor of the age-old Christian doctrine that the ‘strong sacrifice for the weak,’” Phillips said in a statement.

As Julie Ingersoll in Religion Dispatches notes, “as is often the case with ‘providential history,’ the actual history is distorted to tell make specific theological points”:

By percentage, twice as many women in third class died as did women in first class; children in first class had nearly three times the survival rate of those in third. One would only use "raw numbers" if one was trying to make a point not supported by the numbers.

In biblical patriarchy, the refrain of "women and children first" hides an agenda whereby the women are "first" only insofar as they keep their place which is subordinate to men.

On Truth that Transforms, Phillips pointed to an 1898 shipwreck on the French ship La Bourgogne where hundreds of women and children died, blaming it on “a culture that embraced evolution” and “the French Revolution which had rejected biblical Christianity and embraced paganism.” He went on to argue that the theory of evolution ultimately leads to the growth of feminism, and the “result is babies are killed en masse, women are treated like chattel and men no longer take on their masculine role as defenders.” The host, former Concerned Women for America president Carmen Pate, later bemoaned that evolution and feminism have “infiltrated” almost all aspects of society:

Phillips: People that were on board the deck of the Titanic at that time were individuals that grew up in a culture which was distinctively Christian in its perspective of the role of men and women and there’s an interesting contrast because in the year 1898 a French vessel called La Bourgogne sunk and when it sunk the sailors and the officers literally threw women and children into the water, beat them over the head, and the men lived and the women died. It sent shockwaves throughout the entire world, people said, ‘how could such a thing happen?’ And in trying to understand why that happened, the commentary was, they grew up in a culture that embraced evolution, it was the struggle of the survival of the fittest, they grew up in the culture of the French Revolution which had rejected biblical Christianity and embraced paganism and the consequences were that men treat women horrifically.

Now we flash forward to the year 2012 and this year our president has finally taken us over the abyss and we have full-fledged commitment to women in the frontlines of combat in overseas battles, we need to understand that that’s the first time in the history of the West that any nation has formally endorsed such a thing and it represents a radical departure from the values that were on board the ship in 1912.

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Phillips: Evolution says the struggle of the survival of the fittest, there are no differences between men and women, there is no charity, there is no deference, and in an evolutionary world feminism reaches its height and we see no distinctions. The result is babies are killed en masse, women are treated like chattel and men no longer take on their masculine role as defenders.

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Pate: As you’ve pointed out, throughout society for thousands of years we have looked at the protection of the innocent as of utmost importance and yet as we’ve allowed evolution and feminism to infiltrate our education system, even our churches and certainly our entertainment, our the media, we have lost sight of what God’s word has said about the protection of the innocent.

Based on the derogatory myth that gays and lesbians use schools to “recruit” children into becoming gay, cries of “homosexual indoctrination” have become a favorite tactic of the Religious Right to stoke fears among gay rights opponents and boost fundraising.

For example, Jennifer Kennedy Cassidy, the daughter of the late D. James Kennedy, yesterday in a fundraising email for Truth in Action Ministries, formerly Coral Ridge Ministries, warned members that the “radical homosexual agenda” will make the “celebration of homosexuality” become “required by law”:

Today our children and grandchildren are under an attack to force them to grow up in a world where homosexuality is NOT simply “tolerated” ... but CELEBRATED.

Not because you want to, but because your celebration of homosexuality is required by law.

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We, as God’s people, must oppose anything that contradicts His Word — including the radical homosexual agenda. We must take a stand now — or apologize, in the years to come, to the children and grandchildren whom we have left to be victimized themselves. [emphasis theirs]

Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, responding to a Faithful America campaign asking MSNBC to stop elevating the anti-gay rhetoric of Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, cautioned “Muslim activists” against working with the “Homosexual Lobby” because “they, too — as opponents of the sin of homosexuality – could become a target of the pro-‘queer’ silencing campaign,” which he says will begin “with the indoctrination of young children in schools”:

Do you see what is happening? The intellectual cowards on the Left — puffed up by a compliant media and suffused with enough “gay pride” and arrogance to presume that their aberrant sexual/gender ideology has NO LEGITIMATE OPPOSITION — are busier than ever trying to bully the media into joining their “Pro-Gay-Only” crusade. It is despicable, but worse: it is a grave threat to American liberty. Because when the media en masse kowtow to censorious activists — a road on which they are quite far along with the Homosexual Lobby — accountability, reason and fairness are jettisoned, paving the way for ever more reckless and extreme pressure campaigns against the dreaded “haters.” (That would be you, me and just about anyone who takes a public stand against homosexual behavior or “gay” agenda goals like same-sex “marriage.”)

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Libertarians, secular-minded conservatives, and honest liberals, take note: if the Left succeeds in “silencing” all media voices critical of homosexuality and LGBT activism, it will move on to its next target, with gullible media sycophants in tow. Which perhaps explains why savvy Muslim activists and their allies have latched on to making frequent accusations of “Islamophobia” as a means to demonize their opponents (again, mostly Christians).

These opportunistic Muslims should reconsider their tactics. They forget that they, too — as opponents of the sin of homosexuality – could become a target of the pro-”queer” silencing campaign that brooks no dissent in its push for public approval and the power to enforce Political Correctness, beginning with the indoctrination of young children in schools.

Former Indiana Rep. John Hostettler lamented yesterday that the “church has extracted itself from government,” creating a vacuum filled by “those adversarial to biblical truth.”

Hostettler, talking with Truth in Action Ministries’ Carmen Pate on the organization’s radio program, agreed with Pate that the education system is controlled by “those who really don’t want our kids to understand what the Constitution has to say” – namely, as Hostettler, puts it, that “government is an institution that is not just a God-centered one, but it was ordained by God.”

Hostettler represented southwest Indiana in Congress from 1995 through 2007, and is now president of the Constitution Institute, which dedicates itself to providing state legislators and others with “a greater understanding of the United States Constitution.”

Pate: You know, it seems to me, Congressman, it’s very clear that the founding fathers intended for the government’s role to be limited, and they based this Constitution on biblical principles and truths. Yet we know that those on the left, the secular humanists, see the importance of a big government, not limited, because then they can wield more power over the people.

Not to sound conspiratorial here, but I wonder if there have been attempts perhaps by those secular humanists, those on the left, to really not allow or to take away some of the opportunities for learning more about what the Constitution has to say. Say in our public schools, you mentioned in school you didn’t learn all these things. I didn’t either. It wasn’t until I got out of school and started working with pro-family organizations that I really dug into the Constitution.

Have we allowed the education of our children to be given over to those who really don’t want our kids to understand what the Constitution has to say?

Hostettler: Well, Carmen, you’re exactly right. That is what has happened. Because the church has extracted itself from government and we have fundamentally forgotten, as Dr. Kennedy taught, that government is an institution ordained by God. Just as the family was ordained by God, and just as the church was ordained by God, government is an institution that is not just a God-centered one, but it was ordained by God.

So we have extracted ourselves from it – the church, the body of Christ has – we’ve handed it over to others, and we’ve forgotten that just has nature abhors a vacuum, politics and public policy and government likewise abhor a vacuum. Someone is going to occupy that space, some philosophy is going to occupy that space. And it’s either going to be fundamentally a philosophy that is sympathetic and is agreeable to biblical truths, or it is a philosophy that is adversarial to biblical truth. It’s going to be one of the two. And as you pointed out, it has been a philosophy overall that is adversarial to biblical truth.
 

Tim Graham, the Media Research Center’s Director of Media Analysis, appeared on Truth in Action Ministries’ flagship radio program Truth that Transforms today, where along with host Carmen Pate, he railed against the media for not giving more attention to “ex-gay” activists or promoting the “idea that someone can change, that someone can choose their sexuality.” Later in the interview, he twisted the recent statements of actress Cynthia Nixon, who said that while the way she identifies herself is a choice her sexual orientation is bisexual. Graham also criticized Glee and The Voice for “promoting the gay lifestyle” and accused the media of trying to “constantly exclude the conservative view on marriage,” which is par for the course for the MRC, which has a long record of attacking “gay propaganda” on shows like Glee and defending “reparative” therapy.

Pate: I think about the debate on marriage when you see the major news media talk about the issue they only present one side, they very seldom if ever talk to former homosexuals, people who left the lifestyle who are now enjoying heterosexual marriage. You don’t hear that side of it, you only hear one side, so that leaves the audience thinking there is no other side and that does change opinions over a time period when the truth is silenced.

Graham: I think the narrative they’ve tried to establish, and one of the reasons why they constantly exclude the conservative view on marriage, is that they want to present this as all historically inevitable, basically it’s already happened, let’s move on, why are we even discussing this anymore, it’s all done, there’s no need for debate, it’s over. What’s really intriguing, as long as we’re talking about the broadcast networks, is most of the news media coverage of this issue now will say, of course this is going to happen because you can see it on Glee, you can see it last night on The Voice, you can see it on all these television programs that are promoting the gay lifestyle. They’re using Hollywood and New York promoting these things as a reason for why this is going to happen and there’s no reason, just surrender, there is no way this is going to lose. It’s not just bias, it really becomes intimidation, you better come around to this point of view. And you’re absolutely right, one of the things that is so wildly controversial that you can’t even discuss it on television is the idea that someone can change, that someone can choose their sexuality.

We are surprised to find that it actually took some Religious Right activist almost a whole day before publicly blaming Monday's tragic shooting at Chardon High School in Ohio on the lack of school prayer, as what Jerry Newcombe of Truth in Action did in an op-ed for Crosswalk yesterday: 

There were never school shootings when prayer was in school. Nothing even remotely like it. But now, for the most part, God has been thrown out of our public schools, and they have had to install the metal detector instead. Even that is not fail-proof ... I find it ironic that yesterday’s shooting would occur in the shadow of the 50th anniversary of the infamous school prayer decision. In June 1962, in Engel v. Vitale, the Supreme Court ruled that schools could not officially participate in prayer.

Specifically, the High Court banned this seemingly innocuous prayer: "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessing upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country."

...

As long as our schools don’t have a prayer, I suppose some of them need to have a sign installed out in front: Enter at your own risk.

Rick Santorum raised eyebrows last week for making claims that he has been making for years, including his criticism of public schools. As the Los Angeles Times reported, Santorum called public schools “anachronistic” and compared them to factories:

In his remarks to the Ohio Christian Alliance, however, Santorum went further, seeming to attack the very idea of public education.

In the nation’s past, he said, “Most presidents homeschooled their children in the White House.…

Parents educated their children because it was their responsibility.”

“Yes, the government can help,” he continued, “but the idea that the federal government should be running schools, frankly much less that the state government should be running schools, is anachronistic.”

He said it is an artifact of the Industrial Revolution, “when people came off the farms where they did homeschool or had a little neighborhood school, and into these big factories … called public schools.”

While industry has evolved, public schools remain stuck in the factory era, he said, “back in the age of Henry Ford. You get what we give you. One color, two models. It wouldn’t work for Henry Ford today, and it won’t work for America today.

Santorum has long opposed public education and in his 2005 book It Takes a Family marveled how “so many kids turn out to be fairly normal, considering the weird socialization they get in public schools.” In fact, public schools are consistently in the crosshairs of Religious Right activists, as seen in this anti-public education film made by Truth in Action Ministries:

While Santorum is an unapologetic opponent of public schools, or as he calls them, “government-run schools,” he has no problem making taxpayers cover the tab for his homeschooling. While a U.S. Senator, Santorum moved his family to Virginia but still stuck Pennsylvania taxpayers with the bill for his decision to have his children attend a cyber-school:

The Republican senator owns a home in Penn Hills, but lives in Leesburg, Va.

Penn Hills School District is paying $38,000 this year for five Santorum children to attend Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School based in Midland, Beaver County. The district has paid an additional $62,000 for his children to attend the school since 2001.

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Penn Hills School District, which is required by state law to pay cyber charter tuition costs for students living in the district, is investigating whether Santorum is actually a resident.

A statement issued by Santorum's press office on Tuesday (yesterday) stated he had been in contact with the school district officials and is awaiting questions from them that he will answer to clarify his residency and the education of his children.

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Santorum and his wife, Karen Garver Santorum, have owned the house at 111 Stephens Lane since 1997. They pay about $2,000 annually in property taxes to the district.

But records at the Allegheny County Election Office also show that the couple are not the only people claiming the home as their residence.

Bart and Alyssa DeLuca, both 25, are registered voters listed for the same address. They are not related to Penn Hills Mayor Anthony DeLuca or his father, state Rep. Tony DeLuca.

Alyssa, Karen Garver Santorum's niece, registered as a voter living at the Santorum house in September 2000. Then Bart registered with the election office in June 2001 by using the same address.

Focus on the Family’s Glenn Stanton joined John Rabe of Truth in Action Ministries on Truth that Transforms yesterday to discuss same-sex parenting. The two claimed that supporters of marriage equality are “unscientific” when it comes to family stability and have “completely ignored” evidence showing that same-sex parenting harms children.

Rabe: Glenn, it’s always very interesting to me because we Christians are portrayed as being often anti-science and anti-progress and so forth yet when you talk about the issue of marriage and family it’s interesting how the other side very quickly becomes the sentimentalists in the group, suddenly all the empirical data, all the scientific stuff, is completely ignored and you hear statements about ‘people who just love each other should be able to marry and define that for themselves.’ From an empirical perspective there’s not even any argument about how beneficial a traditional man-woman marriage and family is as opposed to other models, is there?

Stanton: You said it exactly right. It’s remarkable how those folks on the other side being the ‘reasonable ones,’ the ones who unlike us don’t believe in sentimentality and myth and things like that, they become very, very unscientific.

The claim that there is no “empirical data” or “scientific stuff” confirming the idea that same-sex parents can raise healthy and well-balanced children is false. In fact, it is anti-gay activists who are ignoring the research about same-sex parenting.

The American Psychological Association’s review of mainstream scientific literature has debunked claims that children of same-sex couples would have more mental and emotional problems. In addition, studies consistently find that children raised by same-sex parents are just as well-adjusted those raised in households with opposite-sex parents.

A University of Amsterdam study [pdf] on the “quality of life (QoL) of adolescents in planned lesbian families” found that their quality of life is no different from their peers:

In conclusion, the reported QoL for adolescent offspring in planned lesbian families is similar to that reported by the matched adolescents in heterosexual-parent families. This finding supports earlier evidence that adolescents reared by lesbian mothers from birth do not manifest more adjustment difficulties (e.g., depression, anxiety, and disruptive behaviors) than those reared by heterosexual parents.

Researchers from the University of Virginia similarly found that “adolescents with same-sex parents did not differ significantly from a matched group of adolescents living with opposite-sex parents”:

The results of the present study, which is the first based on a large national sample of adolescents living with same-sex couples, revealed that on nearly all of a large array of variables related to school and personal adjustment, adolescents with same-sex parents did not differ significantly from a matched group of adolescents living with opposite-sex parents. Regardless of family type, adolescents were more likely to show favorable adjustment when they perceived more caring from adults and when parents described close relationships with them. Thus, as has been reported in studies of children with lesbian mothers (e.g., Chan et al., 1998), it was the qualities of adolescent – parent relationships rather than the structural features of families (e.g., same- vs. opposite-sex parents) that were significantly associated with adolescent adjustment (Golombok, 1999; Patterson, 2000).

A Stanford University sociologist also sees no major differences among children in terms of educational achievement:

To the extent that normal progress through primary school is a useful and valid measure of child development, the results confirm that children of same-sex couples appear to have no inherent developmental disadvantage. Heterosexual married couples are the most economically prosperous, the most likely to be white, and the most legally advantaged type of parents; their children have the lowest rates of grade retention. Parental [Socio-Economic Status] accounts for more than one-half of the relatively small gap in grade retention between children of heterosexual married couples and children of same-sex couples. When one controls for parental SES and characteristics of the students, children of same-sex couples cannot be distinguished with statistical certainty from children of heterosexual married couples.

But groups like Focus on the Family and Truth in Action Ministries try to damage to the health and welfare of families led by same-sex parents with their consistent promotion of anti-gay laws and social stigmas.