choice

Fox News is apparently getting tired of media watchdog Media Matters  pointing out the network’s inaccuracies and right-wing bias. How else to explain the recent even-less-fair-and-balanced-than-usual attack  on Media Matters and its tax status?

One of the most prominent endorsers of Rick Perry’s The Response prayer rally said in a recent interview that the United States needs to confront and stop legalizing same-sex marriage in the same way the country confronted slavery. Che Ahn is a self-proclaimed apostle and, along with his mentee Lou Engle, co-founder of The Call, a militantly anti-choice and anti-gay prayer rally. Many of the organizers of Gov. Perry’s rally are heavily involved in The Call and its affiliated IHOP ministry.

In an interview with a British ministry, Ahn discussed his commitment to Seven Mountains Dominionism and the need for Christian Apostles to get to the top of the “government mountain” because “once we do get to the head we can make decrees and declarations and shift and influence that whole mountain.”

In another segment of the interview, Ahn likened the abolitionists’ fight against slavery to passing Proposition 8 in California and ultimately banning same-sex marriage nationwide:

As I noted yesterday, I have started reading "The Stoning of Sally Kern" and will probably have another "Random Book Blogging" post up about it later today. 

I have made it halfway through and two things stand out: one being how Kern frames everything that has happened in her life as part of God's plan for her, so much so that she claims she never even wanted to run for public office, but did so only because God wanted her to so that she could be used "ultimately for His glory."

The second thing that stands out is how utterly clueless Kern is over why people were so outraged over her statement that the "homosexual agenda is destroying this nation ... it's the biggest threat that our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam" and that gay/straight alliances are like a cancer which is destroying America.  She literally cannot understand how people could get so angry at her for simply telling the truth ... and, judging by this interview with the Tulsa Beacon, it seems that Kern is content to remain a lightening rod as she says gay marriage will lead to bestiality and pedophilia and that nobody is born gay because God would never make a mistake like that:

“The average American doesn’t understand the threat that homosexuality and the total acceptance of it into our society is to our nation,” Kern said. “We need to wake up to this threat.

“I am always being accused of hating homosexuals. I don’t hate anyone. This isn’t a matter of hating someone or trying to deny them their equal rights. All American citizens have equal rights under our Constitution. This is trying to get acceptance for a behavior that is specifically mentioned in God’s Word that is wrong.”

If the homosexuals get special status for same-sex marriage, what would stop them from seeking approval for group marriage or marriage to animals or children, Kern said.

“It just opens Pandora’s Box,” Kern said.

The book looks at the AIDS epidemic and points out that infection is much higher among homosexual men than any other group – even illegal drug addicts.

“I took a lot of heat when this all started because I said this is a lifestyle they choose,” said Kern.

"And when I say choose, they don’t choose it in the sense of like going through a cafeteria line and looking at all the different types of lifestyles and saying, I’ll take that one because it looks exciting.

“No. Everybody knows it is not exciting. It has many harmful effects. They choose it in the sense that they succumb to the temptation to give into it. They are not born that way. God would not call something an abomination and make someone where they had no choice. They have the opportunity, they have the power to say no to that lifestyle.”

“None of us gets to choose the temptations we deal with. We are all tempted. We are all sinners. We can all say no to destructive temptations.”

Not only is there a battle against the homosexual movement but the so-called mainstream media is generally a partner against defense of biblical and traditional values ... "The media, Hollywood – all of them are in bed, trying to promote this ungodly, humanistic philosophy,” Kern said. “It’s really sad because if you are a Christian and you believe God’s Word, you have to believe in the sovereignty of God. You have to believe in the goodness of God. God makes no mistakes.

• Newt Gingrich’s campaign continues to implode.

• Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel thinks People For the American Way and other members of the “intolerant left” are going to purge religion from the US.

• Focus on the Family is, ironically, upset that gays are political.

• Abby Johnson has signed on as a blogger for Life News, even though her story about leaving Planned Parenthood falls short of reality.

• Finally, the Family Research Council pleads that we pray against marriage equality in New York.

Right Wing Watch has looked into organizers of Gov. Rick Perry's The Response from Cindy Jacobs, who blamed the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell for mass bird deaths in Arkansas, to televangelist John Hagee, who claimed God sent Hitler to be a “hunter” of Jews, and the rabidly anti-gay International House of Prayer. The Response's National Church and Ministry Mobilization Coordinator Doug Stringer, a Texas ‘Apostle’ who believes that the America only had it self to blame for the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 because the country rejected God and His protection:

In our gathering in Dallas, we realized there are three primary things in Scripture that are so disheartening to God that they cause Him to be ill, and they ultimately cause His presence to depart from His people:

1. Ritual or temple prostitution

2. The shedding of innocent blood on the altar

3. Licentiousness or moral looseness to the degree that it is “in your face,” including homosexuality

…

Immediately after the tragedy of 9/11, I was contacted by national media who asked me if I thought this was a judgment of God. Along with Anne Graham Lotz, I stated:

“WE ASKED GOD NOT TO BE IN OUR SCHOOLS, NOT TO BE IN OUR PUBLIC VENUES, NOT TO BE THE LORD OF OUR LIVES ANY MORE EXCEPT IN IMAGE. YET WE WANT TO BLAME GOD WHEN THINGS LIKE THIS HAPPEN?

“IT REALLY DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU MEAN BY ‘JUDGMENT’ OF GOD. IF YOU’RE SAYING GOD’S NOT PRESENT SO JUDGMENT COMES, THEN THE ANSWER IS YES. BUT THE BIBLE SAYS SIN PRODUCES DEATH. IT WAS OUR CHOICE TO ASK GOD NOT TO BE IN OUR EVERY DAY LIVES AND NOT TO BE PRESENT IN OUR LAND. THIS IS NOT AN ACT OF JUDGMENT, IT’S A WAKE-UP CALL. GOD IS LONGING TO BE IN THE MIDST OF HIS PEOPLE AGAIN.”

When I asked my friend David Ravenhill to address a gathering of pastors in Houston, he challenged us with this question: “Are you asking God to come as invited guest or as an inhabitant?”

I have many close friends who will invite me into their houses and tell me to make myself at home. While there, I know I can help myself to the kitchen, get up or go to bed when I want to, borrow a book from a bookshelf. But what would my friends think if I began painting the walls, changing out the furniture, or redecorating the living room to fit my own tastes?

This is, sadly, what we do with God. We want Him around, but only as our invited guest rather than One who has the right to create an atmosphere or an environment in which He wants to dwell.

My spiritual grandfather, Leonard Ravenhill, used to say, “Is the life you’re living worth Christ dying for?” We cannot live the kind of life worth the price our Savior paid unless we allow God in, not as a guest but as an inhabitant. We must open our hearts, our churches, and our public venues as dwelling places and allow Him to conform them to fit His preferences instead of our own. That is the difference between institutional Christianity and impartational relationship with the person of Jesus Christ.

Rabid anti-choice activist Clenard Childress, who believes that gay rights are a sign of the End Times, is now comparing advocates of LGBT equality to the people in the Bible that called for Jesus' death. Wrongly suggesting that the American Psychological Association believes that homosexuality is a choice (the group says the opposite), Childress also claims that gays and lesbians can't claim to have civil rights "because your sexual orientation could be flawed." Childress writes:

The Roman Empire had been occupying and subjugating Israel for multiple years along with the religious elite. They were enslaved to man outwardly and sin inwardly and blind to both. Certainly at that point, Jesus saw the futility of trying to reach that audience with truth, yet out of compassion he persisted. The elites were determined to twist and malign the facts to accommodate their lifestyle, though in error. They lived in a vacuum of denial refusing to see the obvious. When truth is ignored, or denied, the course often taken by those in denial is to first obfuscate, then defame, diminish, and finally denounce the messenger. This crowd resorted to using the "N-word" of that day: "Samaritan," and even went so far as declaring that Jesus was the devil. Sound familiar?

It is similar today, for instead of examining the data, this generation's elites combat truth with ideology, character assassination, deception, and of course, denial. The two defining issues of the day which will determine the course of our culture, and the destiny of our nation, are abortion and homosexuality... Pro-choice, and homosexual and lesbian activists, all claim their cause is a Civil Rights issue. Yet the "Civil Rights" of the unborn children are being denied, and it is intellectually dishonest to claim a "right" for yourself, and by so doing, deny the rights of someone else, especially when that someone is an unborn infant. These individuals are completely wrong because you do not give Civil Rights to sexual orientation because your sexual orientation could be flawed. "Civil Rights" are based on "Birth Rights," and according to the APA, homosexuality and lesbianism is an acquired behavior, not something like the color of your skin — something you're born with. You were not born homosexual, so sexual preference is not a Civil Right — it's a preference.

The American Family Association's Bryan Fischer is warning that the adoption of children by same-sex couples is a "social tragedy of the first order." Calling adoption by gay parents "a devastating trend" of "narcissistic" and "self-centered adults," Fischer said that families led by same-sex couples are the greatest threat to children today:

The pages of the New York Times Monday morning were all aflutter with a story extolling the skyrocketing increase in the number of gay couples who are adopting children.

This is a social disaster, a social tragedy of the first order, and is something no society that cares for its youngest and most vulnerable citizens would do.

Every homosexual adoption places a child in a home with a missing mother or father. No society that loves children and places their welfare ahead of the desires of narcissistic adults would ever do this.
...

Placing children in settings that even homosexuals admit are inherently unstable and even dangerous is obviously a terrible, terrible idea.

While the trend line for gay adoptions is “absolutely straight up,” according to Adam Pertman of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, Gary Gates of the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law at UCLA estimates that only four percent of the adopted population lives in gay-headed homes.

That means it’s not too late to halt and reverse this devastating trend. Vulnerable young children, who have no choice in these matters, deserve no less from the adults in the room. Family, after all, is about optimal nurturing environments for children, not about self-centered adults getting what they want.

• It looks like Newt Gingrich's entire campaign staff resigned en masse today, but Gingrich and his ego will soldier on.
• Tim Pawlenty has secured the coveted Joe "You Lie" Wilson endorsement.
• FRC says Govs. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Nikki Haley (R-S.C.) and Christine Gregoire (D-Wash.) are matching Rick Perry's prayer rally with days of prayer in their own states.
• Herman Cain surprises nobody by saying being gay is a sin and a choice.
• Another informative poll from the AFA.
• Apparently, the problem with George W. Bush was that he was really just too moderate: "A lot of people who had been in the [Reagan] administration were systematically thrown out by the Bush crowd. They only wanted people who were more pragmatic...moderate...middle-of-the-road and establishment Republicans. And look at what we ultimately got -- we ultimately got Barack Obama."

The right-wing group Save California is apoplectic over the recent enactment of a day to honor Harvey Milk, the openly gay San Francisco politician and civil rights activist who was assassinated in 1978. Led by Randy Thomasson, Save California has urged parents to pull their children out of public schools to protest efforts to recognize the role of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in California history. During an interview with the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow, Thomasson attacked the looming “tsunami of perversity” approaching schools and charged that openly gay Senator Mark Leno “sees children as little homosexuals-in-waiting”:

Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com, tells OneNewsNow that parental rights and decency are "meaningless" in public schools.

"Wake up, parents. Public schools are no longer for the public," he says. "They're government institutions that think that you're children are their children -- and they are going to turn them into homosexual, bisexual, transsexual political activists."

…

"Just wait now until Harvey Milk is on a weekday next year, and it's going to be what? Anything goes," Thomasson laments. "It could be gay pride parades on campus; it could be mock gay weddings on campus; it could be essays, mandatory homework saying why Harvey Milk, a bad guy, was a great guy. I mean, this is in-your-face stuff."

The family advocate adds that children in California's public schools are being hit with a "tsunami of perversity" and homosexual indoctrination. He cites another example in which first-graders were read a homosexual book in honor of Milk.

…

Around 40 elementary schools students in San Francisco were read author Eric Ross' new children's book My Uncle's Wedding as part of Harvey Milk Day. California adopted an official holiday honoring Milk, who was the first openly homosexual elected into office in the state.

Thomasson argues Harvey Milk Day is being used to push the homosexual agenda in public schools -- just like the Day of Silence. "Now Harvey Milk Day is taking hold, and again, first-graders who don't even know about sexuality [are] being taught unnatural sexuality."

Openly homosexual State Senator Mark Leno visited Ross during the launch of My Uncle's Wedding and spoke briefly on S.B. 48, a bill the lawmaker is trying to push which would require textbooks in California to include information about lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and "gay" individuals. Thomasson laments that Leno will promote the bill wherever he can.

"He sees children as little homosexuals-in-waiting," he contends. "And he wants to tell them they're homosexual, tell them they're bisexual, tell them they're transsexual -- not tell them that transexuality is irreversible and it's obviously a choice; not tell them that bisexuality is obviously unnatural and obviously a choice; not telling them that the gay gene has never been found."