Peter LaBarbera

Americans For Truth About Homosexuality president Peter LaBarbera thinks about gay people a lot, even admitting that he talks about issues concerning gays and lesbians “all the time.” Therefore, it wasn’t a surprise to see him appear on VCY America’s Crosstalk with Jim Schneider where he disparaged the Day of Silence for making students “celebrate perversion” and creating “pro-homosexual indoctrination zones,” and criticized same-sex parents and their children for appearing at the White House’s Easter egg hunt. And after all that, LaBarbera grumbled that gays and lesbians have “an almost pathological drive” to their activism:

Schneider: Peter, what harm is there in having a Day of Silence?

LaBarbera: I think there is great harm in the schools becoming pro-homosexual indoctrination zones and that’s what’s happening Jim. Now GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, has created a whole host of events, National Transgender Remembrance Day, all these various activities all designed to celebrate perversion, what we as Christians consider sin and perversion. So the school, a place of authority for schools, you have your parents and you have your teachers for your children and if the teachers and the administrators of the school are basically telling the kids that celebrating homosexuality is OK, then our schools are directly promoting immorality and corruption to children, and that’s wrong. This is one reason why many parents are just getting out of the public school system altogether.

Schneider: Let’s transition from the classroom now to the highest office in our land, the White House, Peter they are doing anything but remaining silent as they are going full force, year-round now in the promotion of LGBT, just a week ago the White House made a big deal over their Easter egg roll and all the LGBT families that were coming to the event. But Peter, I didn’t see any news release talking about all the heterosexual families coming out?

LaBarbera: It’s so obnoxious, Jim, and I know we agree on this because we talk about it all the time. Everything they can use, the homosexual activists are using, even innocent events like an Easter egg hunt at the White House to promote homosexuality, because it’s all about the homosexual activists, right? Every institution, every event they can use to promote their lifestyle, they do. It’s an almost pathological drive to gain and to promote the acceptance of that which is unacceptable—homosexuality—so we see these innocent, wholesome events like the Easter egg hunt, being hijacked by the LGBT, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender movement, and this is one of those cases.

But LaBarbera’s tirade didn’t end there, as he warned that the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is transforming the Pentagon into “the world’s largest so-called gay rights organization.” LaBarbera even attacked the “so-called gay families,” including their loved ones that serve in the military, for bringing “immorality” to military bases.

LaBarbera: When you open up the military to perversion, which is what President Obama and largely the Democrats although some Republicans helped, this is what you would expect. We shouldn’t be surprised when we assaults happening and Jim again, this administration, we’re going to see more homosexual activism in the military. Now they’re going to be lobbying hard for bases, for families, so-called gay families, to be allowed on bases. What does that mean? That means if you have a family with a young son or a young daughter next door could be homosexual soldiers modeling that immorality to your youngsters, right there in the military.

…

We’re seeing what we predicted which is that under the Obama administration, with the homoseuxalization of our military, the Pentagon has become the world’s largest so-called gay rights organization.

With Rick Santorum suspending his presidential campaign, far-right activists lauded Santorum for pushing his fellow Republicans to the right, particularly on social issues.

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, who did not officially endorse Santorum but clearly favored his candidacy, applauded Santorum’s “message of faith, family and freedom”:

"Rick Santorum's historic run for president achieved remarkable success because his campaign was based not on money spent but on the message of faith, family and freedom that he carried. I commend his courage, boldness and tenacity in fighting for the values that made America great, and are fundamental to returning America to greatness.

"Millions of voters flocked to Rick not because he was a Republican, but because he passionately articulated the connection between America 's financial greatness and its moral and cultural wholeness. He realizes that real problem-solving starts with an understanding that the economy and the family are indivisible.

"This values message generated enthusiasm and drew many new voters into the process. If the Republican establishment hopes to generate this same voter intensity in the fall elections, Santorum voters must see it demonstrate a genuine and solid commitment to the core values issues," concluded Perkins.

Marjorie Dannenfelser of Susan B. Anthony List, who organized a bus tour on Santorum’s behalf, said:

“With great vision and passion, Rick Santorum reached the hearts of pro-life voters and allowed them to show the strength of their voting bloc,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA List. “The Susan B. Anthony List is proud to have mobilized those key voters.”

“Pro-life voters are a consistent and growing constituency, who proved invaluable to Senator Santorum in state after state throughout the primary elections. We will continue to reach out and mobilize those voters and millions more like them across the country. The political muscle of the pro-life movement will be critical to defeating President Obama in November.” Others were more plain in their disappointment.

Right-wing radio host Steve Deace tweeted that it is “time for a slate of new blood after Obamney loses in November,” and anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera lamented that the Republican Party is “stuck” with the “pro-homosexual” Mitt Romney.

Conservative luminary Richard Viguerie, who yesterday made clear that he will never consider Romney a bona fide conservative, today urged Romney to pick a conservative running mate, but is disappointed in the current crop of potential candidates:

The demand that there must be some conservative vs. moderate balance on the Republican ticket is already starting to lead the media to engage in some comical contortions as various establishment commentators try to bend their favorite Republican elected official’s record and views to be conservative enough to place a Romney led ticket in the conservative camp if their favored candidate is picked.

The problem with this exercise is that by-and-large the names offered are either not movement conservatives or they are not yet power players in national politics with a strong movement conservative constituency of their own.

Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, Bob McDonnell, Nikki Haley, Susana Martinez and the rest of the names floated by the inside-the-Beltway pundits all have their good qualities – but none has established their conservative bona fides by being tested on the national scene and none brings a strong base in the conservative movement to add real grassroots conservative credibility to a Romney led ticket.

Viguerie also warned that Romney’s attacks on Santorum may hurt him with the conservative base:

To date Mitt Romney has spent some $100 million to drive the conservative candidates from the field, in some case through vicious personal attacks. However, he has spent little effort making the case for his own candidacy to grassroots movement conservatives.

The first great challenge facing Republicans is whether or not Mitt Romney can heal the wounds created by his negative campaigning.

The grassroots movement conservative voters who powered the Santorum campaign can not be taken for granted. During the 2006 congressional elections some 4 million conservative voters stayed home, producing one of the biggest defeats for the Republican Party in the modern era.

The next step is up to Mitt Romney. Romney is seriously behind with committed conservative voters, to catch up he must make the case that he merits the support of movement conservatives and that a Romney administration, if elected, can and will produce conservative government.

UPDATE: Gary Bauer of the Campaign for Working Families and a prominent Santorum supporter said his candidacy “will contribute to the end of the Obama Administration this November,” and Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention claimed Santorum successfully “resurrected himself once again as a major political figure in our nation” through his role “in the most important election in our nation since 1860.”

Another Santorum booster, Concerned Women for America CEO Penny Nance, urged Romney to “reach out to conservative women since they are the ones who get on the phones and do tons of volunteer work,” and on a similar note Liberty Counsel chairman Mathew Staver, who backed Newt Gingrich, said Romney has “to make some intentional steps to reach out to evangelicals and religious conservatives,” adding that “it would be a mistake to assume he has every vote from evangelicals and religious conservatives locked up.”

However, Michael Farris of the Home School Legal Defense Association and Patrick Henry College, who signed a letter of far-right leaders who described a Romney nomination as a “disastrous mistake,” told CNN that he may not back Romney in the general election:

Evangelical activist Michael Farris was not exactly surprised that Rick Santorum suspended his campaign on Tuesday. But that doesn’t mean that Farris, a longtime political organizer, knows what he’s supposed to do now.

“Right now my choice is to sit on my hands and do nothing or to actively try to find some alternative” to Mitt Romney, Farris said in an interview shortly after Santorum's announcement.

“Some of us just have a hard time supporting a person who said he was going to be more liberal on gay rights than Ted Kennedy,” said Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association, referring to remarks Romney made in a 1994 letter.

Farris’ reaction is a stark emblem of the disappointment among religious conservatives over Santorum's announcement, and a reminder that Romney’s enthusiasm deficit among the conservative evangelicals who form the GOP’s base hasn’t gone away.

Last week we reported that the Family Research Council asked members to pray against “homosexual tyranny” in America after the federal government agreed to have Blue Cross Blue Shield offer full benefits for a same-sex spouse of a federal employee after a judge ruled in favor of the employee in her lawsuit against the Defense of Marriage Act. Naturally, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality president Peter LaBarbera is demanding that Congress impeach President Obama as a result of his administration’s decision to grant her health benefits:

"This is another shocking act by the Obama administration, which has got to be the most arrogant and Constitution-abusing president in America's history," he decides. "The Obama administration didn't like the Defense of Marriage Act, which was passed by Congress [and] signed into law by then-President Clinton, and so now they're just ignoring it and blatantly disregarding it."

This particular case, however, is not over, as Republicans have appealed the district court's decision, which has no effect on enrollments requested by other same-sex couples. Even though the law is being challenged in court, LaBarbera says it is still the law.

"I believe that President Obama should be impeached on this alone," he suggests. "He's not dictator of the United States of America; he's president, and he can't just ignore the law, ignore the Constitution, to pander to his homosexual activist base."

Religious Right pundits have been up in arms since GLAAD publicized many of their most vitriolic anti-gay statements as part of their Commentator Accountability Project, comparing GLAAD to the Irish Republican Army and calling the group a tool of Satan. Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality took his pity party to The Janet Mefferd Show yesterday, where he said that conservatives have been “a little too tolerant of the media bias” and that “activist-minded homosexuals” in the media are “leading a lot of other journalists to not bring both sides.” LaBarbera also defended Ron Paul’s writings about a “federal-homosexual coverup on AIDS,” saying they are not “homophobic” and no one should use that term anyway because it is “homosexual activist rhetoric.”

“You don’t see any Christians or any pro-family advocates, at least any that I’m aware of,” Mefferd said, “organizing any sort of accountability project to keep gay activists off the air.” Actually, the radio host didn’t have to look so far as LaBarbera himself, who who repeatedly tried to get Grove City College to fire professor Warren Throckmorton for his opposition to Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

Mefferd: Here’s what is interesting too, because you don’t see any Christians or any pro-family advocates, at least any that I’m aware of, organizing any sort of accountability project to keep gay activists off the air. I mean, this doesn’t go both ways. I actually think the Christians and the pro-family leaders are awfully, awfully tolerant of activists and what they have to say and what kind of media coverage they get.

LaBarbera: I think we’re a little too tolerant of the media bias, you’re absolutely right. You read a typical AP story these days, you won’t find another point of view.

…

LaBarbera: Then there’s lots of openly, I would call them, activist-minded homosexuals in the newsroom and I think they are leading a lot of other journalists to not bring both sides.

Mefferd: That’s true.

LaBarbera: And you do have gay journalists, openly gay journalists, covering stories and they might not be fair because maybe they’re too close to the story because they are activist-minded homosexuals themselves.

…

Mefferd: Tell both sides and stop calling it hate because I’ve never seen a Christian or a pro-family person ever exhibit hate toward a homosexual.

LaBarbera: Yes and stop using tendentious words like ‘homophobe,’ I remember Chris Wallace on Fox ran a story on Ron Paul, he described Ron Paul’s past writings as homophobic, I think it was ‘blatantly homophobic,’ and I read them and I said, look, this is Ron Paul’s point of view, these were not fearful, this is just a point of view about homosexuality and AIDS and something I don’t recall but we can’t use homosexual activist rhetoric in telling these stories.

Former child star Kirk Cameron’s anti-gay tirade, calling homosexuality “unnatural” and “detrimental and ultimately destructive,” led to a backlash from some prominent actors, but Religious Right groups are more than happy to broadcast his claims. Tony Perkins of FRC Action defended Cameron from criticism by citing a poll by the anti-gay Alliance Defense Fund which tried to overstate the number of people who oppose marriage equality, as recent surveys show that more Americans favor marriage equality than oppose it and that support for legalizing same-sex marriage is on the rise.

Where is the tolerance? You won't find any on display with homosexual activists who are determined to attack and silence anyone who dares to disagree or challenge their political or social agenda. Their latest target is actor Kirk Cameron. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is attacking Cameron for remarks he made in an interview with Piers Morgan last Friday, in which he said that the definition of marriage should be, "One man, one woman for life till death do you part." Cameron, a born-again Christian who starred in the movie Left Behind and the pro-marriage film Fireproof, also said he considers homosexuality to be "unnatural," "detrimental," and "destructive." Perhaps it's GLAAD, not the 1980s teen star, who's out of step, since a 2011 poll showed that 62% of Americans agree with the statement, "I believe marriage should be defined ONLY as a union between one man and one woman." Another 2011 poll found a substantial majority of Americans (56%) believe that "sex between two adults of the same gender" is "morally wrong."

Gary Bauer of the Campaign for Working Families also weighed in, saying that the “radical left” is trying to expunge “faith” and “traditional values” and that conservatives need to fight back and make sure that there “will be no ‘truce’ in the culture war”:

The left went nuts. Homosexual rights groups blasted Cameron's alleged bigotry and intolerance. Liberal Hollywood types rushed to Tweet their condemnation of Cameron's values and to reaffirm their fidelity to the gay marriage cause.

Not long ago, virtually no one would have argued with Cameron's comments. But the cultural left is determined to impose its values on the rest of society. It began by purging faith from the public square and forcing it into the closet. Then abortion was forced on every state in the country. Now marriage is being redefined. The secularists want an America where traditional values cannot be spoken.

As the Democrat Party embraced the radical left, more and more values voters found a home in the Republican Party. They expect the GOP to unapologetically defend their cherished values. Increasingly, however, it seems only one party is committed to fighting and winning the culture war.

…

Yet I am bothered when I hear conservatives buy into this line of reasoning. There will be no "truce" in the culture war. The left fully intends to win it. It's absurd that many Republicans and even some conservatives are preemptively surrendering by refusing to bring up these issues!

Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality attacked the “Hollywood liberals and LGBT militants” who have criticized Cameron:

As you can see, this is not the tone of an “extremist” but a thoughtful Christian man who is smart enough to know that Hollywood liberals and LGBT militants will pounce on any statement he makes critical of homosexual behavior [sic], which God through the Bible condemns. (By the way, I think Kirk would have been better off just saying “yes” to Morgan’s question about whether he believes homosexuality is a sin.)

GLAAD is awarded unprecedented access and sway in Hollywood (and the media) to advocate for, essentially, one side of a controversial moral issue. Here it stokes anti-Christian bigotry against Cameron, as it does against anyone who voices politically incorrect beliefs about homosexuality through the media. Ultimately, GLAAD (while curiously extolling “diversity”) hopes to keep interviews like Morgan’s with Cameron out of the media altogether. (Otherwise, why would they previously have lobbied so hard against CNN for including Christian former homosexual Richard Cohen in a debate segment?) GLAAD is afraid of a fair debate, hence their demonizing name-calling against Cameron. Please help encourage him.

Of course, American Family Association Bryan Fischer praised Cameron on Focal Point for standing up to “anti-Christian, anti-morality bigot” Piers Morgan:

DL Foster, an anti-gay activist and professed “former homosexual,” called for the arrest of author Dan Savage for his role in founding the It Gets Better Project, which has consistently been in the crosshairs of Religious Right activists over its inspirational message geared to LGBT youth. Foster, who made the comments last week on Americans For Truth About Homosexuality Radio Hour with Peter LaBarbera, is the founder of Gay Christian Movement Watch.

In the interview, Foster argued that Savage “should be arrested” for his “vile” It Gets Better “charade.” “You know, homosexual kids are still killing themselves after believing his message,” he said.

Listen:

Foster: It’s really indicative of the character of these individuals, this individual Dan Savage, is also the creator of the so-called anti-bullying It Gets Better charade. You know, homosexual kids are still killing themselves after believing his message. I think he—personally—I think he should be arrested for propagating this lie to—for these kids to have this false promise without any sort of information on what is ‘it’ anyway? It’s really so vile to me that it disturbs me to even talk about it.

I think we all owe Peter LaBarbera a sincere thanks for bringing Patrick Wooden into his anti-gay activism because every time Wooden opens his mouth, we get great content for our blog.

When we were searching for a photo of Wooden to use for our latest video of him asserting that gay men shove cellphones, baseball bats, and gerbils into their rectums, we went to Wooden's website where we discovered a video of LaBarbera and Wooden talking about "Fighting Homosexuality in America."

Most of the video consisted of things we had already heard Wooden say, but then the two started discussing transgender issues with LaBarbera calling it "the most awful, God-rejecting movement" and citing Chaz Bono, whom Wooden asserted was under "the influence of the Devil, demon spirits [and] spirits of perversion": 

Americans For Truth About Homosexuality held a rally last week against the Southern Poverty Law Center with AFTAH president Peter LaBarbera, Liberty Counsel deputy Matt Barber and North Carolina marriage equality opponent Patrick Wooden for labeling groups like AFTAH “anti-gay hate groups.” Among the other “pro-family leaders” at the press conference included Rochelle Conner, a representative of Scott Lively’s Abiding Truth Ministries, who read a statement from Lively calling for “God himself to destroy” the SPLC:

My prayer as one who really does hate irrational prejudice is that the Lord by His sovereign power will remove this dangerous, hate-spreading organization from our nation and its leaders and its members cause them to repent of their wickedness. Finally, to prevent the Southern Poverty Law Center from using my prayer as part of its perpetual fundraising campaign, I want to make clear that I am asking God himself to destroy their organization and I am asking that it be by His miraculous hand and not by human beings just so as with Sodom and Gomorrah, they will know that God will get the glory, and not man.

Conner later claimed that the SPLC should now be called the “Southern Poverty Hate Center” as it has “now become a tool of the God-haters”:

The Southern Poverty Law Center has willfully, knowingly slandered, maligned, libeled Scott Lively, Abiding Truth Ministries, they have spread malicious lies in an attempt to undermine and destroy his credibility because as a leading authority on the homosexual agenda he exposes their villainy. The Southern Poverty Law Center has now become a tool of the God-haters, promoting hatred in the form of vicious lies against Christianity. The Southern Poverty Law Center has abandoned its mission of serving and protecting minorities and has evolved into the Southern Poverty Hate Center.

Peter LaBarbera read a statement from Brian Camenker of MassResistance, who portrayed the SPLC as Nazis for working “to dehumanize groups of people, twist the truth, and foment hatred”:

The Southern Poverty Law Center loves to use Nazi imagery to incite people against Bible-believing Jews and Christians. It’s extremely offensive but also very ironic. In the 1930s and the 1940s, the Nazis themselves used many of the same techniques that the SPLC use today to dehumanize groups of people, twist the truth, and foment hatred against those with traditional values through propaganda campaigns and also by working through governments, schools and police departments. I am surely here with you in spirit and so are thousands of others across America, all good people must fearlessly stand against this.

Another one of the “pro-family leaders” at AFTAH’s press conference included Timothy Johnson of the Fredrick Douglass Foundation, a right-wing group which targets African Americans. Sarah Posner writes in AlterNet about Johnson’s history of domestic violence, and he was convicted of aggravated assault in 1996. Johnson tried to explain away the charges with a supportive letter from his ex-wife, who claimed that he fabricated the letter:

According to court records, Johnson was arrested on Christmas Day 1995 in Cleveland, Ohio, and was later indicted by a grand jury for two felony counts, one of felonious assault and the other of kidnapping. According to the arrest report, when the police arrived, they found Felix-Johnson bleeding from the face. Timothy Johnson told the officers, according to their report, "I admit it. I hit her, that's the only way I can get her attention." Felix-Johnson told the officers he restrained her on the couch, holding down her neck. One officer reports Ofelia Felix-Johnson saying that Johnson also punched her breasts, saying that she had no heart, and hit her over the back and buttocks with a plastic shoe rack, breaking the rack. The police report in the court file states that Johnson broke his wife's nose and toes, causing her to be hospitalized.

…

AlterNet obtained documentation of a second incident when police were called to intervene in a domestic conflict at the home of Timothy Johnson and Ofelia Felix-Johnson. Land records show the couple purchased a house in Perrysburg, Ohio, in March 1997. In 1998, Johnson was arrested by the Perrysburg Police, again on domestic violence charges. According to the police report, Johnson provided a "very similar" account of the incident to that his wife Ofelia and 14-year-old son gave police. Both wife and son reported that Johnson had Ofelia Felix-Johnson in a wrist lock, and when the son attempted to stop Johnson from hurting his mother, Johnson put the son in a head lock such that he was "unable to breathe and was choking up food," according to the police report. After the son broke free, the police report continues, Johnson "put his right hand around [the boy's] throat and pushed [him] against the wall with his back to the wall and choked [the boy] for about 5 seconds."

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.