Gay activist targets AFA video

Radical homosexual activist Wayne Besen has filed a complaint against AFA with the Mississippi attorney general, charging that a video produced and distributed by AFA is fraudulent.

The video, It’s Not Gay, tells the unvarnished truth about the destructiveness of the homosexual lifestyle. Besides interviews with medical and mental health professionals, It’s Not Gay also relies on the testimonies of men and women who have left homosexuality.

One of those men lies at the heart of Besen’s complaint: Michael Johnston, an HIV-positive man who had been caught up in homosexuality since adolescence. After leaving the gay lifestyle through the power of Jesus Christ in the mid-1990s, Johnston began Kerusso Ministries in an effort to bring hope to people wanting freedom from homosexuality.

In 2001, however, Johnston relapsed and once again began having sex with men. His secret was revealed in 2003, and Johnston dissolved his ministry.

“It was with great sadness that AFA stopped selling It’s Not Gay at that time,” said AFA executive assistant Buddy Smith. “Michael remained a friend of ours, and we were so happy to hear that, following his fall, he had placed himself under the spiritual care of Steve Gallagher at Pure Life Ministries.”

Pure Life (www.purelifeministries.org) has been a ministry that AFA has  promoted, since it helps so many individuals who are struggling with various sexual addictions to find freedom in Christ.

Johnston found that freedom at Pure Life. In 2005, after meeting with him and consulting with Gallagher, AFA once again began offering It’s Not Gay to the public.

“At that time we felt confident that Michael had been fully restored and was walking in victory,” Smith said.

However, the fact that AFA was once again offering It’s Not Gay angered Besen. Author of Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth, Besen is also the founder of Truth Wins Out, an organization designed to further the belief that homosexuals cannot change their sexual orientation.

In January Besen announced that he was filing a complaint with Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood against AFA, which is based in Tupelo, Mississippi. Besen alleged that Johnston’s sexual failure proved that his homosexuality was not – and could not be – cured.

AFA “is undeniably peddling false hope to vulnerable and desperate people and bilking them out of their hard earned money,” Besen said in a press release. “In doing so, the American Family Association is unscrupulously capitalizing on the sincere and heartfelt religious convictions of its followers and exploiting them for the organization’s financial gain.”

Besen has also filed a similar complaint with the attorney general of Illinois against Illinois-based Americans for Truth (www.americansfortruth.com), a group established by pro-family activist Peter LaBarbera. This group also offered It’s Not Gay.

A long-time friend of AFA, LaBarbera said Besen’s actions reveal the true motives of many homosexual activists. “We’re getting to the point where gay legal activists are going to try to shut down pro-family groups,” he told WorldNet-Daily. “That speaks to the impulses of the other side.”

Sadly, LaBarbera said, the campaign against Americans for Truth missed the real story. “In their zeal to crush Americans for Truth, Besen and other homosexual activists missed a wonderful story of one man’s redemption and his rescue from deep spiritual hypocrisy and sexual sin,” he said

AFA/ACTIVISM
‘Silent Witness Week’ participation encouraged
AFA is asking Christians to participate in a witnessing event during Holy Week, April 1-8, and to encourage their churches to join in as well.

“Silent Witness Week” will be an opportunity for Christians to share the meaning of Easter with friends, family and even total strangers. AFA has created and produced a very attractive lapel button, which reads: “Easter: He Lives!” and hopes believers will display the pin.

AFA Chairman Don Wildmon said the outreach is called Silent Witness Week because many Christians are nervous about initiating a conversation about the Gospel.

“This way, even if nothing is said verbally, the message on the lapel pin will speak volumes,” he said. “And if someone asks about the message of the Resurrection, the Christian will have an open door through which to share his or her faith.”

Wildmon said he hopes many believers will take advantage of Silent Witness Week. “Imagine thousands of Christians wearing this testimony to the resurrection of Jesus Christ in a non-intrusive manner,” he said. “Our hope is that this button will lead to countless opportunities to share the Gospel.”

Another way for a Christian to get involved in Silent Witness Week is to sponsor his or her church’s particiaption by purchasing enough buttons for members.

“By getting churches involved, we can multiply the impact of this witnessing opportunity in our communities,” said Wildmon, “in an effort to get the nation’s focus back on God.

“Many Christians prefer having a non-confrontational way of presenting the Gospel to other people in their lives, and buttons are an easy way of accomplishing that,” he said.

For more information on Silent Witness Week, people are encouraged to visit www.afa.net. In order for shipments to arrive in time for Silent Witness Week, orders should be placed no later than March 15.

AFA attorneys secure free speech rights for Christian newspaper
After attorneys from the AFA Center for Law and Policy (CLP) threatened federal litigation, a Michigan college agreed to allow students to distribute a Christian newspaper on campus.

Delta College, a state funded community college in Michigan, prohibited the on-campus distribution of a student-sponsored newspaper, written and published from a Christian religious perspective.

Student editor Heston Glenn and fellow students published and distributed the newspaper, Vox Veritas (Latin for “Voice of Truth”), to Delta College students who wished to receive it. According to the students, without explanation and under threat of arrest, Delta College officials demanded that the students cease distributing the paper and confiscated 250 of the newspapers.

CLP attorneys representing Glenn corresponded with Delta College officials, explained the constitutional rights of the students involved and demanded that the students be allowed to distribute their newspaper without censorship or threats. Otherwise, CLP was prepared to file a federal lawsuit.

The attorney for the college responded in late December that the students will be allowed to distribute their newspaper on campus. Though disagreeing with the students’ recitation of facts, the college acknowledged that the students could disseminate the publication without prior approval of Delta College officials.

Bruce Green, CLP vice president, said the case is important. “If the students had not insisted on their constitutional rights, the Christian viewpoint offered by Vox Veritas would have been silenced on campus. Such suppression of constitutional rights quietly occurs with frequency on American campuses on a regular basis,” he said. “Without courageous Christian students who will not be intimidated and without organizations like the AFA Center for Law and Policy, many college campuses would be ‘no free speech zones’ for Christian viewpoints.”

EDUCATION
Faith-based facilities host after-school programs for kids
Nearly one in five (18.1%) students participate in after-school programs at churches, temples, and other faith-based facilities, according to a recent survey conducted by Newton Research for Junior Achievement (JA) Worldwide.

The findings are based on a survey of 1,200 students, ages 13 to 18. Of those surveyed, fewer than 8.6% participate in more traditional after-school programs, such as Boys & Girls Clubs, while most (58.6%) participate in such programs at their schools.

“One may conclude from these findings that churches, temples and faith-based facilities are filling a need in their communities by housing a variety of religious and non-religious after-school programs,” said Dr. Darrell Luzzo, senior vice president of education for JA Worldwide.

JA Worldwide is the world’s largest organization committed to teaching young people about business and economics.

ENTERTAINMENT
Family entertainment comes to DVD
Upcoming DVD releases give viewers the opportunity to enjoy family-friendly entertainment in the comfort of their homes.
From New Line Home Entertainment comes The Nativity Story, a Biblical, historical and realistic depiction of the birth of Christ. The Nativity Story brings a sense of humanity to the supernatural birth of Christ by delving into the lives of Mary and Joseph. The Nativity Story is rated PG for some violent content. Specifically, the film contains some traumatic scenes related to massacres, crucifixions, sacrifices and births. It will be available on DVD March 20 at www.americanfamilyresourcecenter.com.

Christy: The Complete Series is also expected to release March 20 from Fox Home Entertainment. It is a four-disc collection that features all 19 episodes of the Emmy-Award winning television series that follows the life of 19-year-old Christy who leaves a life of luxury to teach in the impoverished Great Smokey Mountains. Christy allows her faith to guide her as she seeks to make a difference in the lives of her students while being emotionally torn between two men. The series is not rated but boasts of faiths and values. However, AFA notes that the series occasionally included mild profanities.

Twentieth Century Fox follows suit with its DVD release of Everyone’s Hero, a light-hearted, inspirational animated feature film about a 10-year-old boy named “Yankee” Irving who journeys from New York to Chicago in search of the great Babe Ruth. Everyone’s Hero is rated G but does include various instances of name calling as well as several crude words and phrases that some parents may not appreciate. It will be available on DVD March 27

FAMILY
State legislature may prohibit spanking
In California, there appears to be a push to remove Biblical standards from the home by attempting to legislate discipline with an anti-spanking proposal.

Democratic Congresswoman Sally Lieber recently introduced a bill she described as banning “any striking of a child, any corporal punishment, smacking, hitting, punching, any of that.”

The purpose of the bill is to make spanking a class 3 misdemeanor child abuse offense when it is used on children age three and under. The misdemeanor could be punishable by up to a one-year jail sentence, a $1,000 fine or a parenting class requirement.

Approval of the bill would make California the first state to explicitly prohibit parents from spanking their children. However, more than 12 European countries have outlawed spanking since 1979.

But a public opinion poll of 500 area adults taken in January reveals a lot of skepticism. According to the poll conducted by Survey USA, 57% of those surveyed opposed the ban while 11% were undecided.

Even parents who do not spank their children are concerned about the government regulating their disciplinary action and grouping ordinary methods with child abuse.

While corporal punishment can be applied incorrectly, “just because a technique is used wrongly … is no reason to reject it altogether,” wrote Christian psychologist Dr. James Dobson. Dobson’s comments are used extensively in a press statement from the Campaign for Children and Families (CCF). Dobson is quoted as writing that when a 2- to 10-year-old child “refuses to yield to adult leadership, an appropriate spanking is the shortest and most effective route to an attitude adjustment.”

Although most public and even congressional opinions do not favor the spanking ban, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has expressed an interest in the bill, but he wants to find out more about it, specifically Lieber’s plans to enforce it.

“[A]nytime we try to pass laws that say you’ve got to protect kids, it’s in general always good,” Schwarzenegger said.

But Randy Thomasson, pro-family activist and president of CCF, has some serious concerns about the proposal, including why the government continues to assume it knows best how to raise children. He sees “the wackiest bill of the year” as ridiculous and offensive.

“[This is] the most blatant violation of parental rights I’ve ever seen,” he said.

HOMOSEXUALITY
Scientists find ‘cure’ for homosexuality?
You just can’t please gay activists. After arguing for years that homosexuality is the result of biological and genetic factors, activists have raised a ruckus over attempts to use biology to ‘cure’ homosexuality.

The controversy revolves around research being conducted on rams by biologists at Oregon State University and the Oregon Health and Science University.

The research was initially funded in order to find new ways to increase the productivity of sheep herds, according to an article in the Sunday Times (London). Since some of the rams preferred mounting other males rather than females, the biologists tried to find ways to change that behavior.

Apparently they did. By varying the rams’ hormone levels, the researchers had “considerable success” changing the males’ behavior, as some of the rams began mating with females.

Sunday Times writers Isabel Oakeshott and Chris Gourlay said the research “raises the prospect that pregnant women could one day be offered a treatment to reduce or eliminate the chance that their offspring will be homosexual. Experts say that, in theory, the ‘straightening’ procedure on humans could be as simple as a hormone supplement for mothers-to-be, worn on the skin like an anti-smoking nicotine patch.”

Gay activists were outraged. Lesbian tennis star Martina Navratilova called the experiments “homophobic and cruel,” while gay activist Peter Tatchell  dredged up the specter of Nazi research on humans.

“There is a danger that extreme homophobic regimes may try to use these experimental results to change the orientation of gay people,” he said.

AFA Chairman Don Wildmon dismissed the entire hullabaloo. “People aren’t animals, and there is no behavior in the animal kingdom that is parallel to human homosexuality,” he said. “And human sexuality is far too complex to be boiled down to hormones or a stray gene or two. These scientists shouldn’t waste their time trying to find a patch to cure homosexuals, and gay activists shouldn’t waste their breath complaining if they did.”

PRO-LIFE
Young Norwegian women choose abortion
Findings from a recent study reveal that abortion in Norway is most common among women who are young and who have little education.

“More than half of pregnant women under 25 chose abortion, a rate double that for pregnant women over 40,” a Norwegian online news site reported. “The abortion rate for women under age 20 was nine times higher than that for women over 40.”

In contrast, only 2.9% of women with a university education opted for an abortion.

“It’s very surprising that it’s more common for women under 25 to have an abortion than it is to carry out their pregnancy,” said Professor Anne Eskild of Akershus University Hospital. Eskild conducted the study making it the first time to track the occurrences of abortions and births among Norwegian women.

While Eskild finds the results “surprising” and “worrisome,” she is curious to know if young women are drawn to abortion because they do not qualify for the country’s maternity benefits. A woman’s income at the time she gives birth determines her receipt of benefits, and many women under 25 are still students.

In addition, others believe economic concerns, dreams for the future, career and self-realization are reasons these young women choose to kill their babies.

Pro-life group succeeds with boycotts
Life Decisions International (LDI) began a boycott list 15 years ago, and the pro-life organization has helped persuade 137 corporations to stop funding Planned Parenthood (PP). LDI (www.fightpp.org) estimates that PP has lost more than $35 million through the group’s efforts.

LDI president Douglas Scott Jr. says the list includes corporations which contribute financially to PP, the world’s largest abortion provider. Scott believes PP and its corporate sponsors initially thought LDI was engaging in a short-lived publicity stunt that would quickly disappear. Evidently, they were wrong.

“We’ve had companies that were on the list for a decade which finally decided enough is enough [and they were] going to stop giving to Planned Parenthood,” Scott said. “So it’s a matter of commitment – and as soon as they realize that we are committed to this for the long term, they finally will decide to change their policies.”

RELIGION
Conservatives give more, care more
Arthur C. Brooks admits he was shocked at his discovery that the religious right gives more in “every measurable way” than does the secular left. From writing checks to donating blood and volunteering time to worthwhile causes, Brooks says conservatives are kinder, more generous and more responsive to the needs around them.

Brooks is a behavioral economist by training who researches the relationship between what people do – aside from their paid work – why they do it, and its economic impact. He published his research findings in November in Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism (Basic Books, 2006).

The author confesses he expected to find conservatives stingy. “That’s what academics think,” he said. “That’s what we are told all the time.” But a Wall Street Journal review of his controversial book quotes him as saying, “I had no option but to change my views.”

Brooks identified four factors that make the difference: church attendance, two-parent families, the Protestant work ethic and a skeptical attitude toward government social services.

One disturbing trend for evangelicals is Brooks’ finding that, even though more money is given to churches, more money is staying within the church body itself. He said only about 2% of church budgets go to missions.

Barna: House churches grow in popularity
Recently, the Barna Group conducted two surveys looking at the growing house church movement. Barna discovered that it is attracting many young believers, older adults who want a deeper experience with God and a deeper sense of community with other believers, and those dissatisfied with their traditional church experiences.

Christian researcher George Barna examined the movement in an effort to discover what has fueled the rising popularity of house churches in America.

Among the Barna Group’s findings is the fact that the average size of a house church is 20 people, and there is an average of seven children under age 18 involved in each church.

Also, the surveys found that three out of every four house church participants have been active in their current gathering for less than a year.

While many variables exist when it comes to house churches, it is also noteworthy that, in general, most did not have a formal pastor.

“There are some of these groups, we found, who really believe that it’s not good to have that one person that has the title, the authority, the responsibility,” the researcher said, “because then everybody becomes dependent on that person, and there are power struggles and authority issues that crop up.”

City zoning laws threatening churches
City and town councils are always trying to find innovative ways to increase the tax base to allow improved services for citizens. However, one of the ways officials are attempting to do that may wind up landing them in court.

That’s because zoning laws are being created that would exclude churches – which because of their tax-exempt status can occupy a prime real estate location while adding nothing to city coffers.

“There’s more interest than ever in attempting to exclude churches and other houses of worship,” Kevin Hasson, president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, told USA Today. “They say they don’t want churches there. They want something that generates tax revenue.”

In East Hickory, Pennsylvania, for example, Lighthouse Christian Center opened several years ago in a small building but quickly outgrew that facility. It agreed to a lease in a commercial area in the city of Titusville, a location convenient for the church’s target population and where a large portion of its members live.

Church officials were pleased with the property, which they deemed large enough to house not only their twice-weekly worship meetings but also to contain a Christian bookstore, a food storage and distribution facility, the church’s teen ministry operation and a television ministry.

However, Titusville officials refused to let the church use the land, claiming the city’s zoning ordinances do not allow churches in the downtown area. Church leaders were forced to file a federal lawsuit.

Liberty Counsel Chairman Mathew D. Staver is handling the case. Staver said the Titusville ordinance is unconstitutional and “also violates the federal law known as the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act,” or RLUIPA.

Staver said that RLUIPA was passed by an overwhelming bipartisan congressional majority in 2000. “What we have learned since then is that churches are not prohibited from going in the inner city or anywhere within the city,” he said. “Cities cannot create what’s called a church-free zone, as the city of Titusville did in this case.”

Similar zoning restrictions cases have cropped up in North Carolina, Texas and Florida, according to USA Today,