Mayor Rahm Emanuel, with his finger ever on the pulse of “progressives”—I mean, Chicagoans—has discerned that two of the top three problems facing the city are the absence of casinos and legalized “same-sex marriage.”

The city’s failing schools, gang activity, murder rate, debt, unemployment, poverty, family breakdown, child abuse, and drug use pale in significance when compared to the absence of casinos. Perhaps Mayor Emanuel sees casinos as the solution to all those problems.

One of his top priorities is bringing casinos to the city, casinos that will disproportionately harm those of lesser incomes because they have less financial padding to sustain the ineluctable losses on which predatory casinos rely.

Judging from his letter to the Chicago Sun Times, his de facto top priority is same-sex marriage, which will further erode the institution of marriage, the erosion of which has already disproportionately harmed the black community.

But why should these inconvenient truths bother Emanuel when he’s got fat cat casino-backers and wealthy homosexuals in his corner.

Emanuel in a display of “progressive” ignorance and uncharacteristic mushiness claimed that “gays and lesbians are still denied one essential freedom: the right to make a lifelong commitment to the person they love.” Say what?

Every unmarried person of major age is free to marry as long as he or she is seeking to marry one person of the opposite sex who is not closely related by blood. Homosexuals are not denied the right to marry. They choose not to participate in this sexually complementary institution.

Homosexuals are simply not permitted to unilaterally jettison the central defining feature of legally sanctioned marriage: sexual complementarity.

Similarly, polyamorists may not unilaterally jettison the requirement regarding numbers of partners, and those in love with their siblings or parents may not unilaterally jettison the requirement pertaining to close blood kinship.

Moreover, homosexuals are not denied the right to make a lifelong commitment. Homosexuals may, indeed, love, have sex with, set up households with, and commit for life to any person they wish.

Mayor Emanuel seems to have adopted the view that marriage is an institution centrally or solely concerned with the loving feelings of those involved. But if that’s the case, if marriage is solely about love and has no intrinsic connection to procreation, then why does the government limit it to two people? And if marriage is solely about love, why not permit two loving brothers to marry?

If marriage were centrally or solely about the recognition of love, there would be no reason for the government to be involved. The government has no vested interest in “recognizing” subjective feelings. The government has a vested interest in the objective connection of sexually complementary coupling to procreation.

The government is in the marriage business because a two-person, sexually complementary union is how children are produced, and the government has a vested interest in recognizing, regulating, and promoting the type of relationship that can produce children—whether or not any particular couple has children.

In describing Chicago’s diversity, Mayor Emanuel paired race and “sexual orientation” revealing that he’s also bought into the intellectually vacuous comparison of race to homosexuality, which is the flawed analogy upon which the entire homosexuality-affirming house of cards is built. Whereas race is 100 percent heritable, in all cases immutable, and has no behavioral implications whatsoever, homosexuality is constituted by subjective feelings, volitional sexual acts that are legitimate objects of moral assessment, and is not 100 percent heritable.

Despite exploiting the language of the civil rights movement by trumpeting his defense of “equality,” Emanuel is not advocating for equality. He’s advocating for the unilateral redefinition of marriage by homosexuals to serve their desires.

Emanuel, envisioning himself as the Martin Luther King Jr. of the homosexual movement, proclaims “Marriage equality is the next step in our nation’s march forward. Illinois must lead the way.” Emanuel would do well to remember these words of Martin Luther King Jr.:

“How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law….An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.”

Illinois has certainly proved itself capable of leading the way, leading the way to fiscal insolvency, educational malpractice, and incomprehensible murder rates. Why not lead the way to the destruction of real marriage by pretend marriage.

Repeating what has been a rallying cry of gay activism for years, the cover of the December 16, 2008 issue of The Advocate announced, “Gay is the New Black: The Last Great Civil Rights Struggle.” Last week, on May 19th, headlines across the nation announced, “NAACP endorses gay marriage as ‘civil right.’” So, is gay the new black?

There are prominent black leaders who say yes, including Congressman John Lewis, who was active in the early Civil Rights movement. There are other prominent black leaders who say no, like Timothy F. Johnson, founder and president of the Frederick Douglass Foundation.

For a number of reasons, I concur with Johnson and others who say that gay is not the new black.

1. There is no true comparison between skin color and behavior. Although gays and lesbians emphasize identity rather than behavior, homosexuality is ultimately defined by romantic attraction and sexual behavior. How can this be equated with the color of someone’s skin?

Skin color has no intrinsic moral quality, and there is no moral difference between being black or white (or yellow or red). In contrast, romantic attractions and sexual behaviors often have moral (or immoral) qualities, and there is no constitutional “right” to fulfill one’s sexual and romantic desires.

Also, skin color cannot be hidden, whereas a person’s sexual orientation is, generally speaking, not outwardly recognizable (unless it is willfully displayed). Put another way, blacks do not have to “come out,” since their identity is self-evident, whereas gays and lesbians have to come out (or act out) for their identity to be clearly known.

2. The very real hardships endured by many gays and lesbians cannot fairly be compared with the monstrous suffering endured by African Americans. Conservative gay journalist Charles Winecoff wrote, “Newsflash: blacks in America didn’t start out as hip-hop fashion designers; they were slaves. There’s a big difference between being able to enjoy a civil union with the same sex partner of your choice – and not being able to drink out of a water fountain, eat at a lunch counter, or use a rest room because you don’t have the right skin color.”

Today, we have openly gay members of Congress, openly gay celebrities, openly gay CEO’s, openly gay financial gurus, openly gay sports stars, openly gay Hollywood moguls, and openly gay college professors, bestselling authors, scientists, and on and on. In the days of segregation in America, there were few, if any, blacks in such prominent positions, not to mention the fact that in many cities in America, even the lynching of blacks was accepted. Where in America are gays and lesbians being lynched today with societal approval? And what is the LGBT equivalent to the American slave trade?

3. Skin color is innate and immutable; sexual orientation is not. Contrary to popular opinion, there is no reputable scientific evidence that people are born gay or lesbian. Even the unabashedly pro-gay American Psychiatric Association stated that, “to date there are no replicated scientific studies supporting any specific biological etiology for homosexuality.” As expressed bluntly by lesbian author Camille Paglia, “No one is born gay. The idea is ridiculous.”

John D’Emilio, a gay activist and a professor of history and of gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois, wrote, “What’s most amazing to me about the ‘born gay’ phenomenon is that the scientific evidence for it is thin as a reed, yet it doesn’t matter. It’s an idea with such social utility that one doesn’t need much evidence in order to make it attractive and credible.”

Also contrary to popular opinion, there are former homosexuals; there are no former blacks (despite the best efforts of the late Michael Jackson). This also underscores the fact that skin color cannot be compared to behavior, since even someone who remains same-sex attracted can modify his or her sexual behavior. A black person cannot modify his or her blackness.

Stated another way, genetics determine skin color, not behavior. Otherwise, if genetics unalterably predetermined behavior, then someone with a so-called violent gene could tell the judge, “My genes made me do it!” (For more on this important subject, see the chapter “Is Gay the New Black” in my bookA Queer Thing Happened to America.)

4. Removing the unjust laws against miscegenation (interracial marriage) did not require a fundamental redefinition of marriage and family; legalizing same-sex “marriage” does.Marriage between a black person and a white person always included the two essential elements of marriage, namely a man and a woman (as opposed to just two people), and as a general rule, interracial marriage could naturally produce children and then provide those children with a mother and father. In contrast, same-sex “marriage” cannot produce children naturally and can never provide children with both a mother and father. (Another newsflash: Two dads or two moms do not equal a mom and a dad.)

Removing the laws of miscegenation simply required the removal of anti-black bigotry (since a white man could marry a Native American woman but not a black woman), whereas legalizing same-sex “marriage” requires the redefinition of marriage (opening the door to polyamorists, polygamists, and advocates of incestuous “marriages,” who are already mounting their legal and social arguments) and the normalizing of homosexuality (beginning with elementary school education), among other things.

That’s why many black Americans are rightly upset with the hijacking of the Civil Rights movement by gay activists.

How did they vote?

IFI strongly opposes the bill proposed by lesbian activist State Representative Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago).  Sixty votes were needed to pass this bill in the Illinois House, and it passed by a vote of 61-49-2. It will now be considered in the Illinois Senate. Look at the official roll call below to see how your state representative voted on HB 5290, or click HERE to download it.

Lest anyone be deceived about the central goal of Illinois’ anti-bullying laws, remember that homosexual activists created the original anti-bullying law, served on the task force charged with making recommendations for implementing the anti-bullying law, and sponsored the anti-bullying bill that just passed in the House. 

Here are a few of the problems with the bill: 

1. In order to prevent the kind of ideological indoctrination to which homosexual activists want to expose students, we requested that this language be added to the bill:

This course shall not include any instruction, resources, or activities that implicitly or explicitly contradict or undermine students’ or parents’ beliefs, including religious, moral, political, and philosophical beliefs, or that might be construed as criticisms or indictments of students’ or parents’ beliefs.”

Our request was ignored.

Some may argue that the following language in the existing anti-bullying law is sufficient protection against indoctrination:

Nothing in this Section or in the prevention course is intended to infringe upon any right to exercise free expression or the free exercise of religion or religiously based views protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution or under Section 3 or 4 of Article 1 of the Illinois Constitution. 

This is not sufficient. We know from experience with the civil union bill that proclaimed “intentions” are meaningless in the face of committed homosexual activists.

It’s interesting to note how much stronger the language in Sections 3 and 4 of Article 1 of the Illinois Constitution is than that in the anti-bullying law:

The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination, shall forever be guaranteed, and no person shall be denied any civil or political right, privilege or capacity, on account of his religious opinions….

All persons may speak, write and publish freely….

Moreover, even a course that teaches wildly liberal views of homosexuality and gender confusion could be construed as not infringing on right to exercise free expression and as not infringing on the right to freely “exercise one’s religion or religiously based views.” Even if students are forced to listen to Leftist propaganda in a “youth programming” context, schools could argue that listening to such ideas does not infringe upon students’ rights to exercise free expression or freely exercise their religion or religiously based views. IFI is trying to prevent the government from forcing kids to be exposed to ideas that contradict their personal or religious beliefs.

This bill should say something stronger like “no student will be required to participate in any course, program, or activity that infringes upon free expression or contradicts personal beliefs or religious beliefs.”

2. This bill calls for a range of “restorative measures” to be implemented by schools in order to reduce the incidence of suspensions and expulsions, but one of the recommended restorative measures is the use of “peer juries, peer circles, and peer mediation.” IFI asked that language be included to ensure that participation in potentially emotionally manipulative peer juries, circles, and mediation be voluntary only. Our request was ignored.

3. We are deeply troubled by both the enumerated protected groups in existing law as well as the addition of yet more enumerated protected groups in Cassidy’s bill. Since it is impermissible to bully any student for any reason, enumerated categories are unnecessary.

Retaining and expanding enumerated categories opens the door to other special interest groups demanding the inclusion of yet more categories in this ever-expanding enumerated list. In addition, it will increase resentment among those groups who are bullied for reasons not enumerated.

In addition, since “sexual orientation,” and “gender identity” (conditions enumerated in existing law) are conditions constituted by behaviors that many consider immoral, their inclusion raises the possibility that those who affirm other conditions constituted by volitional acts that many consider immoral (e.g., polyamory) will demand inclusion of their conditions.

Cassidy “promised” that the categories she added to the bill would be deleted from the Senate bill, but as Representative Jerry Mitchell (R-Sterling) pointed out, this is a promise that Cassidy can’t guarantee will be kept.

Even if her promise is kept, however, all the enumerated protected groups from the original law will remain. What is the rationale for eliminating the newest protected groups while retaining the ones included in the disastrous original 2010 law?

Before the Senate version is passed, all enumerated protected groups should be eliminated.

4. We’re also troubled by the following squishy, ambiguous language regarding restorative measures, which opens the door to all sorts of problematic and mandatory ideological training:

Restorative measures means a continuum of school-based alternatives that contribute to maintaining school safety; protect the integrity of a positive and productive learning climate; teach students the personal and interpersonal skills they will need to be successful in school and society; [and] serve to build and restore relationships among students, families, schools, and communities.

Who will determine the nature of the “personal and interpersonal skills” needed for “success in school and society”? Who will decide what constitutes “the integrity of a positive and productive learning climate?” Homosexual activists believe that expressing conservative beliefs about homosexuality or having students study resources that express conservative moral beliefs creates a negative learning environment and will undermine chances for social success.

Who will decide how “safety” is defined? Homosexual activists have redefined the term “safety.” For them, it means absence of the expression of any ideas that dissent from theirs on the nature and morality of homosexuality. Homosexual activists believe that if students who identify as homosexual hear the idea that homosexual acts are immoral or that children deserve a mother and a father, they feel bad; and if they feel bad, they’re “unsafe.” That’s precisely how liberals defend censorship in public schools.

5. The existing Illinois anti-bullying law states that “‘Bullying’” means any severe or pervasive physical or verbal act or conduct.” It is critical to change the language from “severe or pervasive” to “severe and pervasive.” The Supreme Court decision in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, which was a case dealing with sexual harassment in schools, illuminates the potential problems with the language “severe or pervasive”:

Courts…must bear in mind that schools are unlike the adult workplace and that children may regularly interact in a manner that would be unacceptable among adults. See, e.g., Brief for National School Boards Association et al. as Amici Curiae  (describing “dizzying array of immature . . . behaviors by students”). Indeed, at least early on, students are still learning how to interact appropriately with their peers. It is thus understandable that, in the school setting, students often engage in insults, banter, teasing, shoving, pushing, and gender-specific conduct that is upsetting to the students subjected to it. Damages are not available for simple acts of teasing and name-calling among school children….Rather, in the context of student-on-student harassment, damages are available only where the behavior is so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it denies its victims the equal access to education

The Davis decision was clear that if the language of the law is “severe or pervasive,” it opens the door to onerous litigation for school districts:

Although [i]n theory, a single instance of sufficiently severe one-on-one peer harassment could be said to [deny victims the equal access to education], we think it unlikely that Congress would have thought such behavior sufficient to rise to this level in light of the inevitability of student misconduct and the amount of litigation that would be invited by entertaining claims of official indifference to a single instance of one-on-one peer harassment.

 While this bill is being debated in the Illinois Senate, an amendment should be proposed that changes “severe or pervasive” to “severe and pervasive” in order to protect schools from potentially costly lawsuits.

Time permitting, we will shortly expose some of the embarrassingly weak reasoning–if it can even be considered “reasoning”–offered by Cassidy during floor debates just prior to the vote.

Please contact your senators and urge them to vote “No” on this bill unless the reasonable changes discussed above are implemented.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to contact your senator and urge him/her to oppose HB 5290.

In the past few months, we have seen the LGBTQ lobby working overtime. With the passage of the “civil unions” bill and the consequent assault on the religious liberties of child welfare organizations here in Illinois and the recent legalization of homosexual so-called “marriage” in New York, their agenda is quickly moving to the forefront of the political landscape nationwide.

Yesterday, President Barack Obama issued his support for The Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the federal law that defines natural marriage as the union of one man and one woman. White House spokesman Jay Carney said President Obama “is proud” to support this federal legislation (S. 598 and H.R. 1116)

The bill is co-sponsored by Illinois U.S. Senator Dick Durbin and 26 other senators. In the U.S. House, it currently has 119 co-sponsors, including U.S. Representatives Danny Davis (D-Chicago), Louis Gutierrez(D-Chicago), Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Chicago), Mike Quigley (D-Chicago) and openly gay U.S. Representatives Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Barney Frank (D-MA) and Jared Polis (D-CO).

This is a monumental show of support for a radical anti-family political agenda by a sitting president that has far reaching consequences. IFI’sLaurie Higgins points out:

Homosexuals are fighting tenaciously to repeal DOMA because they do not want conservative Americans anywhere in the country to have a voice in what types of relationships are recognized by the government as marital relationships. Homosexuals and their ideological allies want to impose their non-factual ontological and moral assumptions on every state regardless of the will of the majority of citizens.

Sponsorship and support for the repeal of DOMA represents either profound ignorance about the nature and morality of homosexuality; the nature of marriage; and the public purposes of marriage, or indefensible cowardice.

Take ACTION: Contact President Obama and to Congress to urge them to defend DOMA, natural marriage and family from the attacks of the far left.

Background
This morning, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held the first congressional hearing on proposals to repeal DOMA. In response to this hearing, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins made the following comments:

The Defense of Marriage Act reflects recognition of the uniquely important role that marriage between a man and a woman plays for society, in encouraging the reproduction of the human race and the joint nurture of children by the mother and father who produce them.

DOMA has stood the test of time, being upheld as constitutional by several courts and successfully ensuring that federal law reflects our national consensus on marriage and that states will not have a radical redefinition of marriage forced upon them by other states.

In every one of the thirty-one states in which the definition of marriage has appeared on the ballot, voters have upheld the definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman. A national survey released last May showed that 62 percent of Americans agree that ‘marriage should be defined only as a union between one man and one woman.’ All of these facts show that there remains a strong national consensus in favor of defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

For more information on the Defense of Marriage Act, read Family Research Council’s pamphlet on the law HERE.

During the first half of the Illinois Veto Session in Springfield (Nov. 16-18), IFI’s two lobbyists and I spoke to dozens of lawmakers about the ramifications of passing same-sex “civil unions” legislation (SB 1716) in Illinois. Many lawmakers are unaware that section 10 of this bill states that any partner in a civil union shall be legally considered a “spouse” and “family.” It isn’t just conjecture to say that the proponents of this bill are trying to redefine the very meaning of marriage and family.

To make matters worse, too many lawmakers do not realize that if passed, this legislation will open the floodgates to discrimination and civil rights lawsuits. Religious liberty and freedom of conscience willdiminish for conservatives in Illinois.

Lawmakers will be in Springfield for the second half of the Veto Session Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week (Nov. 29-Dec. 1). According to one pro-homosexual website, a vote on this bill may come as early as Tuesday, November 30th.

Take ACTION: Please call your State Representative during this time and ask him/her to vote “NO” on SB-1716 and to inform you of his/her decision before casting a vote. Simply call the Capitol switchboard at217-782-2000, tell the operator you need to find your state representative, and give the operator your zip code. You should be transferred to his/her Springfield office via the switchboard immediately.

The Left is engaged in a full court press. Governor Patrick Quinn, Comptroller-elect Judy Baar Topinka, House Speaker Mike Madigan, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, and Chicago Mayoral candidates Rahm Emmanuel and Carol Moseley Braun are all lobbying state legislators for this extreme anti-family bill. They need 60 votes to pass this bill in the Illinois House, and they are working hard to achieving that number.

That is why they must hear from us today! Grassroots Illinoisans must be heard on this issue. Voters in 31 states have rejected the redefinition of marriage and family at the ballot box. The people in Illinois are no different.

Thankfully, Cardinal Francis George and the Catholic Conference of Illinois issued a strong statement in a press release last week saying that “the public understanding of marriage will be negatively affected by passage of a bill that ignores the natural fact that sexual complementarity is at the core of marriage.”

Background

A recent e-mail from Penny Pullen, a former state lawmaker and current state president of Eagle Forum of Illinois, warned that the passage of a civil unions bill would result in the following:

• Civil union legislation would force employers to grant registered same-sex cohabiters the benefits currently provided for spouses of married employees.
• Such legislation undermines the unique position which marriage holds in our society as the foundation of the family.
• It also will cost taxpayers to add unrelated persons to health insurance coverage for public employees and as dependents under workers compensation benefits.
• And it will force employee benefit costs to rise in the private sector.
• Additionally, based on experience with the impact of such legislation in other states, this corruption of Illinois’s official treatment of marriage will likely lead to mandates on schools to teach quasi-spousal relationships as equivalent to marriage.SB-1716 is a jobs killer and an added burden for taxpayers. It will negatively affect our state’s moral climate and our children’s understanding of the family.

Equality Illinois, the state’s full-time pro-homosexual lobby and political group, lists the following organizations and unions as supporters of SB 1716:

• Access Living
• ACLU of Illinois
• Anti-Defamation League
• Advocacy Council for Human Rights, Bloomington
• Chicago Bar Association
• Chicago Coalition of Welcoming Churches
• Citizen Action Illinois
• Chicago Teachers Union
• Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights
• Illinois Department of Human Rights
• Illinois Federation of Teachers
• Illinois Network of Centers for Independent Living
• Illinois Planned Parenthood Council
• Illinois State Bar Association
• National Association of Social Workers of Illinois
• Northwest Suburban Now
• People for the American Way
• Protestants for the Common Good
• Quad Cities for Diversity
• Service Employees International Union
• Unite Here, Local 1

Prayer Request

Finally, I am urgently seeking your prayer covering this week as we work to educate our lawmakers on the perils of this bill. I ask you to pray that we are able to connect with the key lawmakers that we’ve identified as “on the fence” and that the Lord would give us favor in their eyes. I ask you to pray that the Lord would give these lawmakers wisdom and understanding of how the passage of “civil unions” will lead to the weakening of the family and God’s institution of marriage.

Please pray that these lawmakers would recognize how this will undermine the foundation of our Judeo-Christian culture and harden the hearts of people to the Gospel message through the promotion of sexual behavior and a humanistic ideology that the Bible clearly identifies as sin. And pray that God would give them the courage to stand for truth.

By Lillian Kwon –The Christian Post

Dr. Michael Brown believes Christians have already lost the battle when it comes to public opinion on homosexuality and gender identity issues.

Pro-gay books are being read in elementary school classrooms, teachers are being mandated to use gender neutral language, gay activists have been welcomed in the White House, and young evangelicals see no problem with same-sex marriage.

Yet the prevailing thought in churches is that “this stuff is happening elsewhere” or that Jesus is coming back soon and “we’re out of here any minute,” Brown, a Jewish believer in Jesus, lamented.

“[We can] put our heads in sand or we can recognize that massive transformation is happening in our society right in front of our eyes, on our watch,” he told Christians over the weekend at the National Conference on Christian Apologetics in Charlotte, N.C.

Author of 20 books, Brown has spoken to revival in America, the need for moral and cultural revolution and Jewish outreach throughout his ministry career. But homosexual issues were never on his radar.

“This is not something that made sense for me to focus on,” he said. It was just six years ago when he felt a divine mandate to start dealing with the issue. Since then he has realized that many Christians have largely avoided the issue as well.

“The definitions of male and female are being eroded but don’t sweat it because praise the Lord you had a lovely service last Sunday,” he said sarcastically. “Don’t let me disturb you with these trivialities.”

Brown wants to awaken the conscious of Christians and bring them to a “divine reality” about what’s happening in America.

There is a need to reach out to homosexual men and women with compassion, he said, but at the same time there is “a gay activist agenda that we must resist.”

The speaker and author listed a host of examples, particularly in the public school system, to demonstrate how much GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) activism has advanced.

Currently, the Los Angeles Unified School District has a policy on “ensuring equity and nondiscrimination” for “transgender and gender nonconforming students.” The policy defines gender identity as “one’s understanding, interests, outlook, and feelings about whether one is female or male, or both, or neither, regardless of one’s biological sex.”

In San Francisco, the school policy for restroom accessibility states, “Students shall have access to the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity exclusively and consistently asserted at school.”

And the policy for locker room accessibility states, “Transgender students shall not be forced to use the locker room corresponding to their gender assigned at birth. In other words, if Joey’s convinced he’s Jane, then he can use the girls’ locker room and restroom,” Brown summarized.

Pro-gay books have also become prevalent in the classrooms. Just ten years ago, it was difficult to get a copy of Heather Has Two Mommies. Now, Brown has been able to collect stacks of similar children’s books.

They include One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dad, Blue Dads; Two Daddies and Me; Oh The Things Mommies Do!: What Can Be Better Than Having Two?; and the coloring book Girls Will Be Boys Will Be Girls.

Recently, middle school students in Washington, D.C., were given surveys that asked them about their gender (male, female or transgender) and sexual orientation (straight, bisexual, gay or lesbian, nor sure).

Even the largely religious state of North Carolina is not exempt. A preschool teacher in Charlotte was told not to address the class as “boys and girls” but rather as “friends.” In Burke, one Christian girl quit her high school softball team because she was the only non-lesbian, Brown said.

Many schools are also using the Riddle Homophobia Scale, where repulsion, pity, tolerance, and acceptance are measured as homophobic. Meanwhile, “positive levels of attitudes” that are encouraged toward GLBT persons include support, admiration, appreciation, and nurturance.

“Like it or not, this is coming to a community near you,” Brown warned.

“All the while, Christians have not concerned themselves with the issue and pastors are afraid to speak out for fear of being perceived as homophobic,” he lamented.

“The fact is, when our answer is ‘let’s retreat more quickly,’ we’re already defeated,” Brown said. “When our main concern is ‘I don’t want to be perceived as bigoted, intolerant and hateful, therefore I’ll say nothing instead of speaking truth in love,’ we’re already defeated.”

There is an abysmal lack of teaching and preaching on the issue, he pointed out.

“We’ve been silent because this is unpopular, because people will be offended, because ‘one of my biggest givers in the church has a daughter who’s gay.'”

And while some may be extra sensitive in these times because of the recent bullying of GLBT students and teen suicides spotlighted in the media, Brown pointed out that there are some 4,000 to 5,000 suicides a year among teens and little is said about the other kids.

“I want to find out what these real problems are so we can address them,” he commented.

Brown made clear that he isn’t trying to stir up anything hateful. Rather he is speaking out of love and a broken heart. He also stressed that he is not an alarmist or extremist and that he has done careful research.

“If I’ve given you information, it’s based on facts. It’s not cherry picking things to give a misleading impression,” he said.

He has packed all the collected information into a 475-page book that is slated for release in February.

Though he has published with major publishers before, no secular or Christian publisher was willing to go near his new book, titled A Queer Thing Happened to America: What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been.

His book was rejected by about 20 publishers, all of whom said the title needs to be changed and that the contents are too controversial.

“You have Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, kindergarten kids being taught terms like gender queer, queer theology and study programs in our schools, and [yet] to have a book [titled A Queer Thing Happened to America] is too controversial to touch,” Brown said.

The book, he stressed, does not have a single hateful syllable in it. He calls for compassion and understanding of gay and lesbian persons while taking issue with gay activism.

“We fail to understand the struggles,” he said. “Can you imagine what someone goes through, raised in the Lord and believing they must be condemned, crying themselves to sleep every night, hoping that they’ll change the next day and their desires don’t change. And then they meet someone and they love this person and they feel like it’s God but it can’t be God and they have to be celibate for the rest of their life and as the best answer you tell them to just suck it up.”

Brown is calling on Christians to repent of their sins against the GLBT community, particularly for making homosexuality out to be the worst of sins. He himself has made public apologies.

He is also challenging the church community to repent of sins within its own household (i.e. high divorce rate).

At the same time, he believes the GLBT issue is the greatest challenge to religious freedoms and family foundations in this generation and is something Christians cannot ignore.

“We must pray for awakening in the church. America’s messed up because the church is messed up,” he said. “This has happened on our watch.”

“We must take a stand for righteousness in our society. We’re called to … expose darkness and to be a moral conscience and moral preservative. If we’re not shining the light, if we’re not making a difference … how’s the world going to have a moral conscience and know the difference between right and wrong.”

Brown has created his own publishing firm called Equal Time Books to get his book out on shelves. With the release of his book next year, he’ll also be launching a speaking tour called Campaign for Religious Tolerance and Intellectual Diversity.

Literally within minutes after President Barack Obama took the oath of office yesterday, the official White House webpage was updated – under the heading of “The Agenda: Civil Rights” – to detail Obama’s wholesale “support for the LGBT (homosexual activist) community.”  His stated plans include the following:

• Defeating all state and federal constitutional efforts to defend the millennia-old definition of natural marriage; 
• Repealing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) signed by Bill Clinton – the only line of defense keeping all 50 states from being forced to recognize so-called “same-sex marriages” from extremely liberal states like Massachusetts and Connecticut;
• Repealing the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy;
• Passing constitutionally dubious and discriminatory “hate crimes” legislation, granting homosexuals and cross dressers special rights – denied other Americans – based on changeable sexual behaviors;
• Passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) which would force business owners (religious and otherwise) to abandon traditional values relative to sexual morality under penalty of law; and, 
• Creating intentionally motherless and fatherless homes and sexually confusing untold thousands of children by expanding “gay adoption.”

Matt Barber, Director of Cultural Affairs with both Liberty Alliance Action and Liberty Counsel released the following statement today in response to Obama’s stated pro-homosexual agenda:

“Well, the high-sheen veneer and ‘cult of personality’ euphoria surrounding Barack Obama looks to be dissolving rather quickly.  While millions had hoped for a political ‘messiah,’ it’s rapidly becoming evident that, instead, we’ve stuck ourselves with an extreme leftist ideologue whose brand of ‘change we can believe in’ is, in reality, ‘change we never imagined.’    

“For all the talk of ‘hope,’ ‘change’ and ‘coming together,’ it’s becoming abundantly clear that Barack Obama’s administration will likely be the most leftist, divisive and discriminatory in recent memory.  I suspect the immediate, stark and ‘in your face’ changes made to the White House website are a metaphor for what we can expect, in terms of policy, from his administration. 

“The gravity of this situation cannot be overstated.  Right out of the shoot, Obama has told the world that he is signing off, without exception, on every demand of the extremist homosexual and transsexual lobbies.  The radical homosexual agenda and religious and free speech liberties cannot occupy the same space.  It’s a zero-sum game.  When 1 – 2 percent of the population is granted special rights based on deviant sexual proclivities and changeable sexual behaviors, to the detriment of everyone else, that’s called tyranny of the minority.  People of faith and those of you with traditional values: hold on to your hats – it’s going to be a bumpy four years.”