The anti-LGBTQ group MassResistance announced yesterday that as it “continue[s] to expand,” it is bringing Peter LaBarbera, the founder of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, onto its staff.
From the announcement:
Peter LaBarbera, a premier front-line culture war fighter with a stellar career going back to the 1980s, has joined the MassResistance staff. “We are extremely fortunate to have Peter LaBarbera,” said Brian Camenker, president of MassResistance. “MassResistance has been expanding and we have needed someone of his caliber for a while. It will really bring our fight to a new level.”
These days, most people know Peter LaBarbera as president of Americans for Truth about Homosexuality (AFTAH), which has gained national stature. AFTAH will continue to post high-quality material on the LGBT issue, while working more closely with MassResistance.
“Pete truly understands this larger battle in a fundamental way that 95% of today’s pro-family leaders and activists simply haven’t grasped,” said Camenker. “The power of truth and not backing down – fearlessness – is so fundamental. I can’t overstate how important that is when confronting the vicious and militant LGBT movement infiltrating our schools and society.”
MassResistance’s announcement runs through LaBarbera’s long career working on anti-LGBTQ issues for groups including Concerned Women for America, the Family Research Council, the Illinois Family Institute and LifeSiteNews, and as a speaker for Focus on the Family’s “Love Won Out” ministry, but criticizes CWA for having become “less aggressive on confronting the homosexual agenda” and Focus for starting to “abandon its strong advocacy on this issue.”
LaBarbera and MassResistance’s Brian Camenker have found themselves increasingly isolated as outright anti-LGBTQ bigotry becomes less accepted in parts of conservative politics. This year, MassResistance was banned from sponsoring a table at the Conservative Political Action Conference after organizers found a video we had posted of Camenker saying that there is “a place for being insulting and degrading” in the fight against LGBTQ rights. LaBarbera quickly came to Camenker’s defense.
LaBarbera has also been promoting Camenker’s recent book “The Health Hazards of Homosexuality,” including offering copies of the book to supporters in exchange for a $100 donation to his group.
Even as Camenker has become increasingly isolated on the national stage, he has been quietly picking local battles, for instance going to war against a local library in Texas over a Pride Month display and working with Liberty Counsel to oppose the formation of a Gay-Straight Alliance club at a high school in Tennessee. He has also boasted in recent years of helping anti-equality activists in Mexico and Taiwan and establishing a chapter in Nigeria. In the past few years, MassResistance has also launched state chapters or affiliates in Texas, Virginia and Maine.
