Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Exodus 20:16
(paraphrased by InterstateQ!) Pastor Ric’s News & Views: Marriage Part 1
…what do you really believe about gay marriage? Let me just lay it out for you, my members. My views have not changed in 30 years. I’ve been accused of equating gay partnerships with incest and pedophilia. I believe no such thing. You’ve never heard me in 30 years talk like that.
I’ve in no way ever taught that homosexuality is the same as a forced relationship between an adult and child or between siblings. I’ve never taught that in 30 years. I understand why people think that because of a recent BeliefNet interview. In that interview I named several other relationships such as living together, a man with multiple wives, a brother and a sister relationship, adults with children or common-law relationships. I don’t think any of them should be called marriage. There should only be one definition: one man, one woman.
WARREN: The issue to me, I’m not opposed to that as much as I’m opposed to redefinition of a 5,000 year definition of marriage. I’m opposed to having a brother and sister being together and calling that marriage. I’m opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that marriage. I’m opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage.
BELIEFNET: Do you think those are equivalent to gays getting married?
WARREN: Oh, I do! For 5,000 years, marriage has been defined by every single culture and every single religion – this is not a Christian issue. Buddhist, Muslims, Jews – historically, marriage is a man and a woman.
See, Rick, we have this thing called The Internet which allows us to look up what you said in the past. If you did not say these things then there might not be a controversy. Now you have the gall to attack us: AmericaBlog
Merry Christmas from Rick Warren! You’re all hateful, evil, and not even Christian!
Barack Obama’s good buddy Rick Warrenrecorded a video yesterday, talking about the outcry over his being chosen to given the invocation at Obama’s swearing in. And it’s a doozie. Warren’s big mouth, and apparent ego, is pretty much guaranteeing that this controversy will continue all the way up until the inauguration and beyond.
In the new video, Warren accuses gays of “hate speech,” of launching “hateful attacks” against him, and he then says that gay and lesbian Americans have “Christ-ophobia,” a clear effort to mock the term “homophobia.” He goes on to explain that gays are “afraid of any Christian,” suggesting that gay and lesbian Americans – gay and lesbian Obama voters – are not Christians. He then goes on to call gays criticizing him “evil.” All this from a man who compared gay marriage to incest and pedophilia, and who explicitly bans “unrepentant gays” from his church membership.
Now we find out that you haven’t really had a change in heart of welcoming gays and lesbians but you’d rather clarify with more condemning language. What can Barack Obama do to mitigate this situation? Nothing at this point. Either he rescinds his invitation to Pastor Warren and faces the ire of the evangelical community or he keeps Warren and alienates his base supporters.
Yesterday it was reported that Saddleback had taken down it’s unwelcome message to “unrepentant homosexuals” to its church, which some hailed as being a victory.
Today, Saddleback Church clarified for Queerty what was really happening.
“I wanted to make sure you were aware that the Q & A addressing homosexuality on the Saddleback Church Web site has not been permanently removed, but rather repurposed for clarity. I know your readers have noticed the change.
Attached is the audio response from Saddleback Associate Pastor Tom Holladay regarding the question, “What Does the Bible Say About homosexuality – is it a sin?” that will be posted later this morning on the site.
Wanted to make sure you were aware of this. Thanks!” – Kristin Cole, Saddleback PR
Well Peter LaBarbera, of the virulently anti-gaywebsite, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality has finally explained his no commenting policy on his site. It’s because his skin isn’t thick enough.
By the way, and for the record, AFTAH does not allow comments to be posted on our website precisely because of the sheer viciousness, vulgarity and ad hominem, hate-filled attacks that characterize so many messages against us from pro-homosexual activists. Responding to the lies and smears would take all of our time. Uncivil homosexual activists would love that.
Porno Pete?
As veteran AFTAH readers know, one of the favorite, ongoing “queer” lies against me is that I am a secret homosexual or, worse, a covert aficionado of (unspeakably evil and revolting) homosexual S&M and pornography. Hence the nasty slam against me concocted by homosexual spinmeister Wayne Besen: “Porno Pete.” (I suppose if you use the logic of ‘Wayne’s World,’ someone who exposes abortionists secretly yearns to slaughter innocents in the womb — and Wayne himself, who monitors and exposes allegedly fraudulent “ex-gays” through his comically named Truth Wins Out — is a closeted fundamentalist Christian who TiVos every episode of “The 700 Club” while pretending to fight for Queer Liberation.)
He still doesn’t understand the concept that he doth protest too much which is why people assume he’s a closet queer. And trust us when we say, it’s not just Wayne that thought that. Many have independent thought of their own.
Peter also still hasn’t figured out the art of analogy. The logic would be like someone, who goes around telling people about the evils of smoking and how horrible it is while spending hours in smoke filled bars occasionally taking a drag while he drinks himself into the grave.
Peter, you logically get these conclusions because it’s been said by one of your former employees that you had massive piles of gay porno mags in your office. You logically get these conclusions because you frequent things like IML, and Folsom where everyone knows what goes on and frankly could care less unless it affected them. If he wants to dispel the rumors he might want to take pictures of himself to show everyone that he wears normal street clothes to these events. Until then all we can do is speculate.
Another of my favorite Homosexual Hate Sites — and a quick-and-easy resource for finding examples of nastiness and anti-Christian bigotry — is lesbian blogger Pam Spaulding’s Pam’s House Blend. Yet as out there as Spaulding is, and she’s out there, Pam’s blogging buddies’ comments make her seem almost respectable by comparison: see this piece about AFTAH Board Member Matt Barber and mecounter-protesting a Chicago “gay marriage” rally — rife with personal insults and the same, old “they must be gay” attacks. (Funny, it seems that accusing someone of being “gay” is the biggest insult that radical homosexuals can hurl at their opponents.) Can you imagine trying to deal with daily submissions from such bitter extremists? We can’t, and we won’t.
No, being gay is not an insult. We’re making assumptions based on his behavior and psychological state of mind. We’re actually genuinely concerned about him.
Our advice, he should grow up, get some thicker skin, and allow some sort of discourse otherwise his site is just as one sided as he claims sex-ed classes are against Christian ideas.
Well here we go again. Did we really just vote for “business as usual” in Washington or did we vote for change? I’m starting to think the former.
It was reported today over at Pam’s House Blend that Rick Warren, the mega-pastor at the mega-church who wrote the mega-best-selling book The Purpose Driven Life, has been asked by the Obama transition team to do the invocation at President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration on January 20th, 2009.
This is the same Rick Warren who has, on numerous occasions defended the passage of Proposition 8 in California, and compared gays and lesbians to zoophiles, pedophiles and polygamists.
(listen around the 2:10 mark)
The last time the President-elect was confronted with this sort of situation it was almost forgivable because the person was rather obscure. In particular I’m talking about the Rev. Donnie McClurkin, an ex-gay pastor who would sing at Obama campaign rallies.
ABC News’ Martha Raddatz interviewed Mr. Bush just before he left Iraq on Sunday. Mostly the corporate media run news has been playing the clip of him saying, “And it was amusing. I mean, I’ve seen a lot of weird things during my presidency and this may rank up there as one of the weirdest.” However very few are reporting the more important, more infuriating statement made after Martha called Mr. Bush on linking al Qaeda to Iraq.
Raddatz: Let’s talk about this trip. Your last trip to the region as president. Your last trip to Iraq. Surely your legacy will be largely about this war. Talk to me about how that feels being here? The last trip and what you really think that legacy will be.
Bush: Well, first of all I think a president’s legacy is going to take time. We’ve accomplished a lot in my administration. Like No Child Left Behind; 52 months of uninterrupted job growth; PEPFAR, which is the AIDS initiative in Africa; fighting malaria, where there’s poverty; faith based; I mean there a lot that people will be able to judge this administration on.
Clearly, one of the most important parts of my job because of 9/11 was to defend the security of the American people. There have been no attacks since I have been president, since 9/11. One of the major theaters against al Qaeda turns out to have been Iraq. This is where al Qaeda said they were going to take their stand. This is where al Qaeda was hoping to take …
Raddatz: But not until after the U.S. invaded.
Bush:Yeah, that’s right. So what? The point is that al Qaeda said they’re going to take a stand. Well, first of all in the post-9/11 environment Saddam Hussein posed a threat. And then upon removal, al Qaeda decides to take a stand. And they’re becoming defeated and I think history will say, one, the world was better off without Saddam, two, along with the Iraqi troops we have denied al Qaeda a safe haven because a young democracy is beginning to grow, which will be an important sign for people in the Middle East.
Essentially Bush is saying to the families of 4209 dead soldiers (as of the date of this post) ‘So what if I sent them to their deaths on a pack of lies?’ Bush is saying to the 30,852 (official as of the date of this post) wounded Iraq war veterans, ‘So what if you’re wounded, missing limbs, forever disfigured, hearing impaired, blinded, paralyzed, or mentally impaired? I don’t care.’
To the Iraqi people who are angry at him for invading, and occupying their country, “Yeah, that’s right. So what?” To the almost 100, 000 or more Iraqi civilians, consisting of children, fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, “So what?”
This is the value of human life to George W. Bush. As he said at the end of the presser where the shoes were thrown at him “It’s like people on the highway not gesturing with all five fingers.” That is his parting gesture to the world.
Ross, subbing for Andrew Sullivan, just doesn’t seem to get why the “partial-birth abortion ban” and SCOTUS’ affirming stance is such a problem.
I guess I don’t think of laws banning prostitution, or even laws banning drugs, primarily as public health regulations – I think of them as morals legislation, outlawing practices that the majority considers sufficiently offensive to human dignity to deserve an outright ban. And in this context, I don’t see why killing one’s unborn offspring, even if the offspring isn’t a legal person and the crime therefore isn’t the same as murder, shouldn’t be something that the state has an interest in regulating on moral grounds. (We have laws against animal cruelty, for instance, even though animals aren’t legal “persons.”)
This, incidentally, is why so many conservatives hated on Lawrence v. Texas – not because it did away with sodomy laws, but because Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion seemed to hint that any and all morals legislation was effectively unconstitutional. That was the substance of Scalia’s dissent, which warned that laws against everything from prostitution to obscenity would be threatened by the decision. For now, though, that threat hasn’t been fulfilled – and as long as morals legislation in general is still safe from Supreme Court override, there’s no reason a state or Congress shoudn’t be able to restrict abortion (in a post-Roe world, that is) even without claiming legal personhood for the fetus.
No that’s not what it’s about. Most on our side of the fence of this issue see the human element that is at stake here. There are many circumstances at which a woman might want to or need to have a private relationship with her doctor and discuss such a “late term abortion”, as it’s more aptly called. This law makes no exception for the health of the woman. Circumstances where the fetus has a terminal illness and is likely going to die anyways either in the womb or shortly after the womb. Also circumstances where carrying the baby to full term could endanger the life of the mother or cause such permanent damage to the woman that she will never have the ability to have children again in her lifetime.
Abortion is never an easy decision for a woman to make! In most cases it is a mother’s decision to determine what is best for her and her child unborn or not. The government has no business making decisions like this for her. Conservatives want smaller government but at the same time want to regulate what happens inside of a woman’s body and in her own bedroom. RU486, or “Plan B” as it’s called is just one of many examples of this.
When it comes to public health issues the government has an interest in maintaining the lives of all currently born and future generations of its citizens which is why mandated HPV vaccinations are so important. Just like we were able to erradicate small pox and polio to almost complete non-existence, we should work to do the same with other diseases, especially ones that have been shown to cause cervical cancer.
In general most conservatives only see what is “moral” in their Leave it to Beaver fantasies of American life. What is reality and what is practical takes a back seat to fantasyland visions of 1950’s television sitcoms. The SCOTUS decision is just a step in the direction towards such a fantasyland, one where women find it necessary to get “back alley abortions” or travel to neigboring countries with the fear of jail to terminate an unwanted pregnancy to avoid the anguish of carrying to term her rapists baby. Ahh yes, the good ‘ole days.
My my, after yesterday’s ‘revealing’ (and now removed) look into the minds of “Porno” Peter LaBarbera and Sonja “Rim-job” Dalton, I find their fascination with leather-bondage and kids is just a little too much. Their website really should be censored because it’s just so full of smut! I wonder of “The Internets” filter that AFA provides (probably their only good idea) blocks their friends’ websites?
In an article where the Christian Civic League of Maine try to link one man’s extracurricular activities with his professional volunteer activities, completely ignoring the fact that the leather bondage fetish is also part of the heterosexual community, the Fundies have had to dig deep through the tubes of the Internets to ”research” and find the “dirt” on the man they decry, going through many bottles of lube and tissues, no doubt.
(Re-)Pete LaBarbera re-publishes the article in it’s entirety.
From our very fine friends at Christian Civic League of Maine: Is this the kind of man you would care to have invited to perform at your son’s elementary or junior high school? In the homosexual activist social sphere, Lew Alessio is considered not just normal, but laudable. Meet their “Homosexual of the Year”…
From Lew Knows Leather, by Mike Hein, published Mar 21, 2007, by Christian Civic League of Maine:
New York’s “New American Leathermen”, 2001
Homosexual activist Lewis (Lew) Alessio of Greene, Maine was recently announced by EqualityMaine to be the 2007 recipient of the Cameron Duncan Award. The annual award is the radical homosexual lobbying group’s ‘homosexual of the year’ award. The award was presented to Alessio at EqualityMaine’s 23rd Annual Awards Banquet on March 10 at the Holiday Inn by the Bay in Portland.
The EqualityMaine press release spoke of Alessio as a homosexual demonstrating “extraordinary accomplishment, commitment, and service within the AIDS community” and “an outstanding leader in Maine’s gay community.” Lew Alessio is better known in the central Maine community as being the leader of a homosexual men’s social club called “Just Guys.” The “Just Guys” motto from their website is “… the new men’s social group for men who have sex with men.” The group meets at MaineGeneral Heath’s Green Street location, located immediately adjacent to the Green Street United Methodist Church in Augusta.
New York Leathermen Contestants
Less well known is Alessio’s recent past, where he competed, and was named 1st runner up, in a homosexual leather bondage fetishist contest in 2001 in New York City. Alessio placed 1st Runner Up in the homosexual leather bondage “New American Leatherman 2001″ according to the homosexual leather bondage fetish website Leatherweb.com. Later that same year, Alessio “married” his homosexual partner, Jim Shaffer.
Besides being a leather bondage fetishist and leader of a homosexual sex men-only social club, Alessio is also self-employed as part of the theater troupe “Actors Theater of Maine.” The State of Maine Arts directory website states the theater group charges $500 per performance and caters primarily to children, from pre-kindergarden to 8th grade. Alessio’s ‘Actors Theater of Maine’ troupe stages plays that “all use students in the performances along with the professional casts. [The performances] are accompanied by extensive teaching materials,” according to the Maine government website.
From what I gather from the article…The Christianist Civic League and Porno Pete are trying to defame a man who does a lot of good things for his community and for children by revealing what he does in his private life. Like always they attack the messenger and not the message.
The problem is, what this man does in his off time, when he’s not saving the world, is really only his business. In no way does what this reflect on the GOOD the man has done in his community with fighting the AIDS epidemic and for what he does for a living entertaining kids. Using the bolded scare tactic “[The performances] are accompanied by extensive teaching materials,” means absolutely nothing. The CCL is insinuating that the man hands out instructions on how to be a leather daddy. This simply is not true. The teaching materials are directly related to acting and interacting with one another in a play or improv situation. I hardly doubt the kids are going to tie eachother up and pull out whips afterwards!
My advice to the CCL and Porno Pete, keep your salad-tossing, leather-bondage with kids fantasies to yourselves and stop trying to paint the whole of the gay community with a narrow brush and only one color! Check out what people on your side of the fence do too in their off time. You shouldn’t be shocked.
Using classic P.R. strategy, the Zogby news release highlighted the meaningless “comfort” question, “Are you comfortable interacting with gay people?” Of those responding, 73% said they were. But this is an innocuous question, about as relevant to the controversy as an inquiry about daytime talk shows: “Would you rather watch Ellen DeGeneres’ show or Rosie O’Donnell on The View?”
The key question asked of survey respondents was, “Do you agree or disagree with allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military?”
On that question, 26% of respondents agreed, but 37% disagreed. The poll also found that 32% of respondents were “Neutral,” and only 5% said they were “Not sure.”
The 26% of respondents who want the law repealed cannot compete with the combined 69% of people who are opposed or neutral on repeal. This is hardly a mandate for radical change.
Lets start with the first paragraph. Comparing the opinions of individuals of whether or not they feel comfortable interacting with gays and lesbians to if they like a campy, dancing, lesbian who interviews celebrities and kids to a loud, opinionated, lesbian who gossips with three other women for an hour a day, is like comparing the tastes of individuals who can stomach Hawaiian pizza or not to those who choose between Domino’s or Pizza Hut commercials. We can interact with people like we can eat Hawaiian pizza. We can only view Ellen or The View.
The question was not a direct question but it’s no less meaningful. To ask whether or not our armed forces felt comfortable interacting or more aptly put, serving alongside, with gay people, is the premise behind the MREA and the push to repeal this less-than honorable policy. 78 percent is a large portion. Why? Because, people in the military aren’t stupid. They know they already DO serve alongside gay and lesbian service members.
While it’s true that the direct question gave very mixed results but just because you lump 37 percent who agree with the current policy with 32 percent who, frankly, just don’t care either way. Insomuch as I can add the neutral 32 percent to the 26 percent and say that 58 percent of respondents who are in support or are neutral to repeal of the policy soundly defeat the 37 percent who prefer the status quo. This is hardly a mandate for keeping this ridiculous law.
Regarding the Endorsement of Candidates2/20/2007 By Staff
Recently, there have been several articles in the press reporting on Maxine Sieleman’s support for Senator John McCain for president. These articles have mentioned that Mrs. Sieleman founded the Iowa chapter of Concerned Women for America (CWA). CWA wanted to take this opportunity to clarify that Mrs. Sieleman was acting in an individual capacity when she endorsed Senator McCain and was not acting on behalf of CWA or its Iowa chapter. CWA does not support or oppose candidates for political office. CWA’s state director for Iowa is Tamara Scott.
Concerned Women for America of Pennsylvania Legislative Action Committee endorses Rick Santorum for U.S. Senate
Zelienople- – Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee of Pennsylvania considers it an honor to endorse Senator Rick Santorum for re-election to the U.S. Senate.
Beverly LaHaye, founder and chairman of Concerned Women Political Action Committee (CWPAC), states, “If the United States Senate falls into the hands of Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton, you and I can forget about another pro-life justice on the Supreme Court and overturning Roe v. Wade. And we can forget about any other meaningful pro-life, pro-family measures ever seeing a vote. Even pro-abortion Senators like Barbara Boxer have come out in favor of Bob Casey, JR., saying ‘to dislodge Santorum is a pro-choice win!!!”
Hmm, well we see that not only is CWA irresponsible with other’s information, they aren’t even responsible enough to check to see if they’ve made endorsements before.
