Anti-Gay

When not warning that President Obama is pushing gun safety laws in order to have Americans “slaughtered by the thousands and the hundreds of thousands,” Alan Keyes usually sticks to issuing dire warnings about gay rights.

Today in his column for WorldNetDaily, Keyes claims that if the government repeals laws discriminating against gays and lesbians then it will have to remove laws against rape, incest and pedophilia as well.

Today the elitist faction promoters of so-called “homosexual rights” use and abuse the language of rights even though they reject the logic that, in light of America’s political heritage, invests that language with moral force. By that logic every claim of unalienable right (i.e., a right that trumps the provisions of merely human law) can be tested with a simple question: What is the provision of the “laws of nature and of nature’s God” that obliges and authorizes the action or activity the claim involves? The pursuit of pleasure, sexual or otherwise, does not in and of itself correspond to such an imperative (even though, thanks to the goodwill of the Creator, most bodily activities required for our survival, are in some degree pleasurable.) Loving human relations are of course an imperative of our nature. But loving human relations need not involve the particular physical pleasures connected with what we call “sexual relations.” If by natural necessity they must, then the prejudicial prohibitions against incest or pedophilia would be as much a violation of right as those that target homosexual relations.

Absent any God-endowed natural imperative to engage in homosexual relations, doing so is a matter of choice involving a preference for one form of sensual gratification over another. It’s absurd to suggest that government should by law, force others to approve of and accommodate such preferences, especially when doing so requires trampling on proven claims of unalienable right, like the right freely to exercise (put into practice) one’s religion. We may justly penalize the neglect of right that permits some to feast while others are denied the opportunity to glean bare subsistence from their leftovers. But it makes no sense to say that because some people want to eat pork others are forbidden to disapprove of doing so, and that the latter are required to prepare and serve it whenever pork eaters demand that they do so.

Moreover, unless we mean to repeal the laws against rape, no one can by law be forced to respect or cater to the sexual appetites of others. Even temple prostitutes could discriminate against those who desecrated the idols they served. Shall we then submit to laws that require that we violate our obligation to the Author of our nature, the very authority from which our whole people derives its right of self-government, and from which our Constitution and laws derive their claim to our allegiance and respect? As the famous American patriot said, on the eve of the war occasioned by a less egregious travesty of right, “Forbid it, Almighty God.”

Pastor Scott Lively of Defend the Family, who is best known for his anti-gay activism in Uganda, is once again pushing the claim that President Obama is secretly gay. Like fellow conservative activists Jerome Corsi and Vic Eliason, Lively believes that President Obama is covering up his gay past.

Today, he finds new “proof” in a Weekly Standard article which notes that Obama went on a weekend trip with his aide Reggie Love over the weekend…without the First Lady.

Earlier this month we broke the story that Tim Tebow was scheduled to appear at a megachurch led by far-right pastor Robert Jeffress. Today, Tebow announced on Twitter that he is pulling out of the event “due to new information that has been brought to my attention.”

Jeffress has claimed that Roman Catholicism is Satanic, criticized Mormonism and Islam as faiths from the “pit of Hell,” warned that President Obama is ushering in the Antichrist and frequently attacked gays and lesbians.

The preacher has been making the rounds on conservative media denying claims about his extremist rhetoric, and yesterday told radio host Janet Mefferd that liberals simply cannot understand his words because they are “spiritually blinded” and are “the most intolerant and hateful people.”

He added that Tebow won’t cancel his appearance “as long as he listens to the Holy Spirit and to God’s voice.”

Or maybe Tebow is just another victim of gay brainwashing: 

UPDATE: In an interview today with fellow anti-gay activist Tim Wildmon, the president of the American Family Association, Jeffress said that Tebow told him “he would like to come back to our church at a later date” once the current controversy blows over.

Pastors Kevin Swanson and Dave Buehner of Generations Radio are no strangers to using harsh and inflammatory anti-gay rhetoric, and so it came as no surprise that in their latest radio show Swanson claimed that homosexuality is “destructive to the family, to sexuality, to life itself and it destroys civilizations.”

During his introduction of an ex-gay activist named Brian, Swanson claimed that homosexuality is part of “the curse of God [that] has come down upon our land” and is like a “high-tension bear trap that grabs onto young men and young women.”

The incidence of homosexuality is seven times, ten times worse than it was twenty-five years ago. There were forty homosexual clubs in high schools back in 1995; today, thousands and thousands of them, an increase of a hundred times what we saw just fifteen or twenty years ago. The breakdown of the family in the Western world means the breakdown of sexuality, it means the increase of aberrant forms of sexuality like homosexuality and it is of course a massive infringement of the laws of God. Of course, this also means the breakdown of society and the breakdown of civilization, birth implosions, etcetera. These are indications that the curse of God has come down upon our land when we give way to these grotesque forms of morality, immorality and sexuality.

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The sin of homosexuality is far more rampant today than it was in 1990, 1980 and 1960. Ladies and gentlemen today what makes this sin so rough, it’s so destructive to the family, to sexuality, to life itself and it destroys civilizations, social systems eventually. But what makes the sin really, really, really tough is that it’s hard to pull away from it. Now some make it out but many, many don’t. It’s one high-tension bear trap that grabs onto young men and young women when they make their way into the lifestyle of homosexuality. The way in may be easy but the way out is tough. Now today, we’re going to interview somebody who made it out.

Swanson and his guest discussed the “pro-homosexual” bent of the culture and how homosexuality is like a bear trap that “has got its claws into these people.”

Guest: Something about it depressed me, that lifestyle, it felt very I guess almost enslaving in terms of becoming a part of it unwillingly and it becoming a controlling factor in my life. If I could I wanted to turn it off and get rid of it but I felt that I couldn’t.

Swanson: Now the educational systems, the media, the culture, the movies, I mean you name it, they are all out their waving the flags: go, go, go! They are very, very pro-homosexual; they are doing what they can to encourage young people in that lifestyle. Did you get a sense of that at all?

Guest: I think that I was involved in the arts and media in terms of working in the television industry and acting so even back then, even though this is going back ten or fifteen years, nowadays I think it is more prevalent in the mainstream even more than it was back then. Back then it was already prevalent in the arts more so, I did get the essence that it was almost kind of trendy to be in that lifestyle, almost kind of cool in some ways, not necessarily to my family but to be in the arts.

I was hanging around different celebrities and would find out that a big celebrity that everybody would recognize the name find out that they were gay or at least had those tendencies and they would hang out in certain clubs and be spotted and things and I was like, ‘oh wow that’s kind of cool, I’m hanging out in the same place that that person’s hanging out as well.’ So definitely the media and the systems were definitely glorifying that lifestyle even back then and definitely I can see much more now.

Swanson: You think it’s appropriate to liken the lifestyle as a bear trap? I mean it just really has got its claws into these people.

Guest: Oh my gosh, yes. Definitely. It just kind of encompasses you to the point of where you feel like you can’t break free.

Later, Swanson described gays and lesbians as being “up to their elbows in muck” as they “are in a stinking, stinking bog” that has put them “in the utmost bond slavery.”

They create a fantasy land but they are really in a deep, deep bog of despair and they don’t know it. It’s just a fantasy land the way it’s presented and the way it’s maintained in their minds. They try to create that fantasy, in truth they are actually up to their elbows in muck and they are in a stinking, stinking bog and they need to get out of it.

…

I think the irony of it all is that they sought freedom by going into this lifestyle and found out that they would be in the utmost bond slavery in the lifestyle that they chose, and what you found is freedom indeed.

Swanson also introduced Brian’s wife, who insisted that they have a very good sex life!

Guest: He’s told me in the past when you know he’s talked to somebody and he’ll admit, ‘I found that person attractive,’ he’s so open about it that I could never think that he could be keeping something from me. I totally trust him.

Swanson: And your relationship, your intimacy is good?

Guest: Oh yeah.

Swanson: Amen. Amen. That’s what it’s all about.

Guest: Is it too much detail?

Swanson: Oh no.

American Life League founder Judie Brown says that the Roman Catholic Church must drive out pro-choice and pro-gay equality Catholics from the church because they are under “demonic deceit.”

She argues that Catholic Democrats such as the late Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Kathleen Sebelius advocate “anti-Christian” positions such as the decriminalization of abortion and “anti-family militant homosexuality and the destruction of marriage.”

“As the faithful watch the accelerated destruction of morality in America and the Henry the VIII style tactics of the attempted destruction of Catholicism in America by Obama and his ‘Catholic’ drones, one wonders where most of America’s bishops are,” Brown laments, “Why have these high-profile destructive Catholics not been publically rebuked?”

This nation’s moral decline is astounding not only because it has been a relatively swift slide, but more importantly because Catholics have taken leading roles in bringing about the decline.

Until the time of his death, Ted Kennedy was, for years, the most influential U.S. politician advocating an anti-Christian moral culture in America. While doing so he experienced good personal relations, if not admiration, from many American Catholic prelates.

Catholic vice president Joe Biden first took public office in 1972. Since the decriminalization of abortion in 1973, Mr. Biden has supported every major effort to protect and expand abortion in America. Most recently Mr. Biden has become a proponent of the destruction of the covenant of marriage by redefining it to suit the winds of the day which favor so-called same-sex marriage.

Nancy Pelosi, Catholic congresswoman and a graduate of Catholic Trinity Washington University, has been a consistently fierce opponent of life. She has worked doggedly to expand the “right” to abortion in America and to enshrine contraception and sterilization as the force de jure on America’s employers—including the Church. She is also a staunch advocate of forcing the acceptance of anti-family militant homosexuality and the destruction of marriage as “human rights” in America.

Catholic Kathleen Sebelius, as the head of Health and Human Services, is singularly responsible for wreaking upon the American Catholic faithful her Planned Parenthood “HHS” mandate that dictates that all employers pay for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilizations, and contraception for their employees. Kathleen Sebelius is also a graduate of Catholic Trinity Washington University.

As the faithful watch the accelerated destruction of morality in America and the Henry the VIII style tactics of the attempted destruction of Catholicism in America by Obama and his “Catholic” drones, one wonders where most of America’s bishops are.

Why have these high-profile destructive Catholics not been publically rebuked? In fact, why did this not happen years or even decades ago? To cut right to the heart of the matter, why haven’t each of these hypocrites been publically and unequivocally excommunicated?

This near total absence of effective rebuke and call to accountability from the shepherds has created a perception that “American Catholics” are free to support intrinsic evils as “civil rights” because Catholic teachings, in their view, are subjective and arbitrary.

How many millions of people have bought into this demonic deceit and, in the process, jeopardized their souls? And where are the bishops who should risk life and limb in the defense of our Church? Why haven’t they, in a united fashion, rebuked the deceivers and championed Christ and His truth at all costs?

With only a few exceptions, they are hardly to be found.

…

They have far too long allowed deception and deceit without consequence and at great cost to the faithful. Now the “Catholics” who have perpetrated great public scandal and harm are looking to devour the weak shepherds and their flocks through mandates, dictates, and the total deconstruction of morality in America.

This dire situation reminds me of the biblical account in the Gospel of Mark when Christ confronts an evil spirit that has possessed a man. He commands the spirit to depart, which it does with great violence and screeching. Witnessing this, Christ’s disciples ask why they could not drive out the demon. Christ responds: “This kind can only be driven out by prayer and fasting.”

I believe the current situation in America falls into the same category. A demon of despair and compromise has afflicted a majority of our Catholic bishops, and in response faithful Catholics must pray and fast.

Therefore, I am encouraging every faithful Catholic to pray and fast for our bishops. Pray that God raises up more heroic souls who will help defend and reclaim the truth of Christ through decisive action.

Pray that each bishop will be touched by the Holy Spirit, on fire with a renewal of commitment to Christ and an active desire to abandon everything else in order to defend Christ and His Church from sacrilege—even unto death if that be God’s will.

While he certainly has a lot of competition serving among the likes of Michele Bachmann, Steve King, Louie Gohmert and Steve Stockman, Rep. Tim Huelskamp is doing his best to position himself as the leading congressman of the anti-gay radical right.

Huelskamp told Family Research Council president Tony Perkins in an interview before last night’s State of the Union address that President Obama seeks “to destroy the family and replace it with his view of a radical new social agenda.”

This President has a radical social agenda and the media will probably give him a pass when instead of talking about the fact that mom and dad don’t have a job we’re going to talk about how to destroy the family and replace it with his view of a radical new social agenda. So we’re going to hear a lot about that, we’re going to hear a lot of blaming and also a lot of talk about how he would solve this and that problem but gosh darn it he’s had four years to do that and he hasn’t solved one and I would argue it’s gotten progressively worse since he took office.

The congressman went on to criticize the Republican leadership for trying to avoid a discussion of social issues. Huelskamp, who last year falsely claimed that 85 percent of people in the U.S. don’t support legalizing same-sex marriage, insisted that Republicans “defend the seventy percent position that most Americans support traditional marriage,” which in Religious Right-speak means oppose marriage equality.

Of course, most polls find that just over half of Americans support same-sex marriage.

Huelskamp went on to call the Department of Defense’s extension of partnership benefits to same-sex couples and the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) as “radical ideas” that “most Americans do not accept” because they “specifically and selectively reward homosexual behavior.”

Once again, the majority of Americans favor job protections and partnership benefits for gays and lesbians.

The response from the general leadership is: gosh, we can’t talk about social issues. But the President can? Someone has to stand up and defend the seventy percent position that most Americans support traditional marriage, most Americans understand the value of family, they understand it’s under attack and they understand that, they see it, they believe it. So we got to stand up. I’ve always been confused by Republicans that refuse to support a seventy percent position and say, ‘gosh we can’t take our stand there.’ But whether it’s Obamacare, whether it’s these radical DoD [Department of Defense] proposals coming out of the White House or changing all the employment rules to specifically and selectively reward homosexual behavior, those are really radical ideas and most Americans do not accept them.

So we’ll have an opportunity to hear from the President but again don’t forget he is a lame duck President, he’s not running for election again and I think this could be the most radical we’ll hear from him in a long time because it is Obama unleashed. We’re going to hear tonight probably exactly what he would like to do and he promised he’s going to change America and he’s still after that agenda and that goal.

The Pentagon’s recent decision to extend certain benefits to the same-sex partners of service members following the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has provoked the ire of the American Family Association, which is upset that they may now be eligible for burial at Arlington National Cemetery.

A new action alert from the AFA asks members to email their representatives in Congress, telling them that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has “effectively devastated our nation's military by allowing the ‘gay agenda’ to take priority over national defense.”

The AFA claims that homosexuality “presents an unacceptable risk to good order, discipline, morale and unit cohesion” and that the “most disturbing [thing] is his decision to allow homosexual partners to be buried on the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery.”

This means the military will recognize homosexual lovers as “married” and will give a full slate of benefits, including burial in Arlington National Cemetery.

Panetta, at every turn, has exposed the military to open homosexuality, which presents an unacceptable risk to good order, discipline, morale and unit cohesion - qualities essential for combat readiness.

TAKE ACTION

Send a letter to your members of Congress, letting them know that, on their watch, they have allowed the security of our nation to be endangered by focusing on social experimentation, rather than defense.

Under your watch, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has effectively devastated our nation's military by allowing the "gay agenda" to take priority over national defense.

This week, his decision to grant "marriage" benefits to homosexuals in the military presents an unacceptable risk to good order, discipline, morale and unit cohesion - qualities essential for combat readiness.

Most disturbing is his decision to allow homosexual partners to be buried on the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery.

I urge you to do your part in restoring sanity to the Department of Defense and stop social experimentation in the military.

Rep. Steve Palazzo (R-MS), best known for voting against Hurricane Sandy relief after pushing for federal aid after Hurricanes Katrina and Isaac for his district, is now championing the opposition to any change in the Boy Scouts of America’s policy on gay members. In an interview last week with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, who has repeatedly linked homosexuality to pedophilia, Palazzo warned that liberals are “using our very culture against us” and that “it’s time for the silent majority once again to step into the fight and protect America from the direction it’s heading.”

Palazzo: Conservative Christians across America have to wake up to reality that the liberal, the very well organized liberal base of this country is very organized and they are using our very culture against us. We have to stand up and have our voices heard. I know it’s difficult because people, you know they get up, they send their kids to school, they go to work, Friday nights they’re at the ball field, Saturday’s they’re in the yard, Sunday’s they’re in church, but if you don’t like the way this country is going and the direction it’s going down then it’s time for the silent majority once again to step into the fight and protect America from the direction it’s heading.

The congressman compared his efforts to maintain the BSA’s ban on gay Scouts to fighting in the Marines and accused President Obama and “his highly organized liberal machine” of having “unfairly attacked” the organization. “These people who are out there protesting and petitioning, I don’t think they care one thing about the Boy Scouts of America” and want the organization to fail, Palazzo said.

Of course, Palazzo endorsed Mitt Romney, who also urged the BSA to lift its ban on gay members.

Palazzo: I guess the Marine in me is you know when we hear gun fire we don’t run from it we run towards it, we want to help people whether they’re our fellow Marines or whether someone’s been innocently in the crossfire. That’s one of the reasons I’ve engaged in this conversation, I’m just not wired to stand by and watch an organization that wasn’t doing anything be unfairly attacked by Obama, which I’m pretty safe to say he was probably never a Scout, and his highly organized liberal machine. You made an example of Canada; Canada did something like this and within five years fifty percent of the membership has declined. These people who are out there protesting and petitioning, I don’t think they care one thing about the Boy Scouts of America and in fact I think they would like to see the organization probably go the way of a lot of other faith and family based organizations have gone in the past ten years.

Perkins: What prompted you to weigh into this? I will say I’ve actually talked to a few members, actually some more on the Senate side, encouraging them to weigh in and there is a little reluctance on some. So what prompted you to step in?

Palazzo: You know I’ve jumped out of C-130s before, I jumped out of a few Hueys; maybe I’m just not afraid of weighing in on things that are extremely important to me. That’s the way I’m wired as a parent of three young children, as a former Boy Scout, Cub Scout, whose actually benefited from the values and principles this organization espouses to just say listen I’m tired of watching organizations be unfairly attacked.

In a letter to the BSA board [PDF], Palazzo attacked gay rights advocates who he said “only seek to impose their liberal agenda with reckless disregard of the impact that this significant membership policy change would have on our children.”

I urge the Boy Scouts of America to refuse to give in to peer-pressure from politicians and media outlets by allowing openly gay members and adults as part of the organization. They only seek to impose their liberal agenda with reckless disregard of the impact that this significant membership policy change would have on our children. They fail to recognize that such a significant change to membership policies would compromise the overall message of the Boy Scouts, undermine its spiritual principles, and create conflicting membership policies among local chapters.

Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family appeared with John Rabe and Carmen Pate on Truth that Transforms, the flagship radio program of Truth in Action Ministries, to argue that same-sex marriage is an oppressive and satanic ploy. After Rabe asked him why opponents of same-sex marriage sometimes have problems explaining “why redefining [marriage] is deadly,” Stanton claimed that the marriage debate “goes deep into not just our own faith but humanity itself.”

He argued that resistance to same-sex marriage is necessary because “throughout the world if you look at how cultures do marriage, every single culture throughout time has done marriage as a union between men and women, God has given it to us this way.” “Every human culture needs marriage and we redefine it at our own peril,” Stanton said.

Later, Stanton repeated his assertion that homosexuality “is a really pernicious lie of Satan” because it denies “the distinct God imaging in each of us as males and females.” He went on to warn that gay equality leads to the “persecution” of Christians and will “redefine not only marriage but the family itself if not humanity completely.”

Stanton: This is a really pernicious lie of Satan to say that the gender part of humanity doesn’t really matter because the gender part of humanity is really denying the distinct God imaging in each of us as males and females. We need to understand that as Christians. That’s the biggest thing. The other is that, ‘you know kids don’t really need a mom and a dad they just need any configuration of loving adults who care for them,’ in fact, and this has already been in the case, we all know about what hate speech is, the fact of saying a child needs a mother and a father will be deemed hate speech because that is a statement against same-sex marriage and parenting. That’s a radical thing. The other thing is religious freedom, I mean we’re already seeing that on a vast, vast scale; the other side really in a pitiful way goes, ‘oh we’re not going to violate religious freedom, you’re not going to have to marry same-sex couples in your church,’ but it goes far beyond that. But it goes far beyond that. Doctors refusing to inseminate a lesbian couple because it violates his conscience, people like that have and will be hauled into court and prosecuted and persecuted because of their long held and deeply felt convictions about what is right and what children need.

Rabe: That’s a major point. The way that this has been portrayed societally and how it’s gotten so much traction is via the idea, ‘well if two people love each other, who are we to say that they shouldn’t be together and that they shouldn’t be able to get married?’ That very simple idea has a lot of persuasive power with people as it turns out and yet when you really break it down you start to get the sense that that’s really not what this is about. It’s not so much that people want to be able to have that long-term commitment to each other as it is being able to redefine what society is about and being able to silence people who disagree.

Stanton: That is exactly it. As a good friend of mine says, ‘you know a lot of these people advocating for same-sex marriage, I’ve been in the marriage work for decades, I’ve never seen these people come to the stump to advocate for marriage, the only time they are for marriage is when it has same-sex in front of it.’ Think about that. These are not advocates of marriage; they’re advocates for redefining marriage. They know that making gender any irrelevant part of the equation really does redefine not only marriage but the family itself if not humanity completely.