The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has dealt a severe blow to religious freedom and freedom of speech in a highly publicized case involving a New Mexico photographer. 

The High Court has refused to hear the appeal of Elaine Huguenin, who was found guilty of “sexual orientation” discrimination for failing to photograph a same-sex ceremony. 

Huguenin owns Elane Photography along with her husband, Jon, in Albuquerque.  They are both committed evangelical Christians.  Elaine was approached in 2006 by a lesbian “couple” who asked her to photograph their civil union ceremony. 

When Huguenin declined to accept the job, the lesbian women filed a complaint with the New Mexico Human Rights Commission, alleging “sexual orientation” discrimination.    

New Mexico has adopted revisions to its “public accommodations” law that prohibits businesses and business owners from discriminating based on “sexual orientation.” 

The Human Rights Commission found Elaine guilty, and required her to pay $6,600 in attorney fees to the lesbian couple. 

The Huguenins filed an appeal.  In a shocking decision, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion did not apply to business owners such as Huguenin. 

New Mexico’s High Court stated that business owners are compelled to conform their convictions to those of their customers.  In the decision, one of the Justices stated that business owners are required to compromise their religious beliefs “as the price of citizenship.” 

The U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection to hear the case reflects a remarkable degree of high-level cowardice.  The Court has consistently held throughout the nation’s history that freedom of speech includes not only the right to speak but the “right to refrain from speaking.” 

Federal courts have repeatedly stated that the government cannot coerce private citizens to engage in compelled speech.  The government cannot mandate that an individual communicate a message which they find morally repugnant, including through the artistic license and creative work of a photographer.   

The Huguenins have been represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) in this case.  David Cortman, senior counsel for ADF, condemned the Court’s failure to confront this crucial religious liberty case. 

Americans oppose unjust laws that strong-arm citizens to express ideas against their will.  Elaine and numerous other business owners are more than willing to serve any and all customers.What they are not willing to do is to promote messages that violate their core beliefs.  A government that forces any American to create a message contrary to her own convictions is a government that every American should fear.

Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, says the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case allows lower courts to trample on the First Amendment rights of conscience of every American. 

Americans are being forced by government to buy Obamacare, and are now being forced to engage in speech with which they morally disagree.  Is our judicial branch writing the epilogue to the American experiment in religious liberty?  Americans cannot be silent any longer to this affront to our First Amendment freedoms.

The New Mexico Supreme Court decision flies in the face of overwhelming public opinion on this issue.  A Rasmussen survey found that more than 80 percent of American agreed that no photographer should be forced under penalty of law to take pictures of a homosexual ceremony.   

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Last week, the Family Research Council (FRC) issued a press release in which they publicly ask Illinois’s U.S. Senator Mark Kirk to apologize for his bigoted decision to cancel a U.S. Senate office building room reservation for our friends at the Rockford-based Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society,  a decision Kirk made at the behest of radical homosexual activists.

According to Kirk’s press secretary, Kirk cancelled the meeting because he “will not host groups that advance a hateful agenda.” The so-called “hateful agenda” was a discussion titled, “[W]hat might conservative Americans learn from Russia, Australia, and other nations about rebuilding a pro-family policy?”

Despite the out-pouring of calls and emails from his own constituents and the public appeal from FRC, Kirk has not responded.

In response to Kirk’s narrow-mindedness hostility toward pro-family conservatives, IFI’s Laurie Higgins wrote an article in which she points out:

Sen. Kirk thinks that it’s hateful to believe that marriage is inherently sexually complementary, but not hateful to kill the unborn. To Kirk, cross-dressing and perverse sexual acts are moral goods and fighting for the rights of children to survive the womb and be raised by a mother and father are moral evils. What kind of man thinks like this? C.S. Lewis calls men like this “men without chests,” and Isaiah warns, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness.”

FRC President Tony Perkins also had a strong statement in response to this foolishness:

Sen. Kirk’s decision is true discrimination, silencing anyone who doesn’t adhere to a politically correct view of sexuality.

We welcome open debate about policy differences on social issues. However, Sen. Kirk’s decision to cancel the event signals that he wants to silence those who disagree with him. We are encouraged by the many Illinois residents who have stood up in support of the Howard Center and its right to free speech and freedom of assembly.

Holding a different view of marriage and sexuality is not discriminatory – especially when all the social science research demonstrates the benefits of the natural family.

Sen. Kirk should respect our faith and our views, even if he doesn’t agree with them – instead of literally closing the door to any debate or discussion.

Take ACTION: Don’t let him off the hook! Please click HERE to contact Senator Kirk to express your opposition to his endorsement of homosexual “marriage,” his engagement in religious discrimination, and his subordination of the wishes of Illinois conservatives to the desires of homosexual activists.

You can also call his office in these locations:

(202) 224-2854  —  Washington D.C.
(312) 886-3506  —  Chicago
(217) 492-5089  —  Springfield

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President Barack Obama has announced his “strong  opposition” to efforts in Congress to protect the religious freedoms of members of the U.S. Armed Forces. 

U.S. Representative John Fleming (R-LA) and U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) have offered amendments in their respective chambers to the National Defense Authorization Act.  The amendments would require the military branches to accommodate actions and speech of service members which reflect “the conscience, moral principles, or religious beliefs of the members.” 

Rep. Fleming’s amendment has been adopted by the House Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Lee’s amendment has been approved by the Armed Services Committee in the Senate.  President Obama says he opposes the amendment because it would result in a “significant adverse effect on good order, discipline, morale, and mission accomplishment.” 

Rep. Fleming deplores the President’s stance on his amendment.  “This administration is aggressively hostile toward religious beliefs that it deems to be politically incorrect.  For many of our men and women in uniform, their faith and religious beliefs are what sustains them through the enormous pressures and stresses of the battlefield.  The First Amendment rights of our military members must be protected.” 

There have been stunning incidents of anti-Christian and anti-religious actions by military officials in recent weeks.  In one case, the U.S. Army Reserve used training materials that identified “evangelical Christians” and Catholics as “religious extremists,” in the same vein as Al Quaeda, Hamas, and the Ku Klux Klan. 

In the latest case, the Defense Department had warned military personnel that they could be disciplined and even court-martialed if they shared their faith with fellow service members. 

It was further revealed that the Pentagon was developing its religious liberty policies with active consultation from Mike Weinstein, an atheist activist.  Weinstein has called evangelical Christians “fundamentalist monsters of human degradation” and a “national security threat.” 

Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, bemoaned the President’s efforts to scuttle the religious liberty language, saying “the Administration has now gone beyond accommodating the anti-Christian activists who want to remove any vestige of Christianity from the military, to aiding them by blocking this measure. This chilling suppression of religious freedom is driving faith underground in our military and will eventually drive it out.  That undermines the moral foundation of the world’s most powerful military and the country they serve.”

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A university employee who was suspended from her job because of her support for the institution of marriage has been reinstated to her position.   Angela McCaskill was relieved of her job last October as the chief diversity officer for Gallaudet University, one of the nation’s leading colleges serving the deaf and hard of hearing. 

McCaskill was shown the door when it was learned that she had signed a petition in support of placing Question 6 on the Maryland statewide ballot.  Passage of Question 6 would have reversed action by  the Maryland Legislature redefining marriage to include homosexual unions. 

McCaskill, who is African-American, had been employed by the Gallaudet for 23 years.  University officials said that McCaskills’ views were inconsistent with those necessary for a chief diversity officer.   

Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, and other Christian leaders had taken Gallaudet University to task.  “The University’s action underscores that far more is at stake in redefining marriage than what two people walk down the aisle,” Perkins had said.  “If marriage is redefined, we can expect more of these discriminatory actions against those who believe in marriage as the union of one man and one woman.” 

McCaskill’s case is similar to that of Crystal Dixon, another African-American human resources administrator.  Dixon was fired by the University of Toledo after she wrote a letter to a local newspaper objecting to an editorial comparing the “gay rights” movement to the civil rights movement. 

Dixon is appealing her dismissal to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.  Her attorney, Robert Muise, says the case is an example of the “one-way diversity” of many universities. 

“Anti-Christian bias and bigotry is a hallmark of the diversity crusade promoted in our public institutions.  This case is an egregious example of its pernicious impact on our fundamental rights.” 

In light of the recent attempted murder of employees at the Family Research Council (FRC), several pro-family organizations, including IFI, and private citizens are asking Fox News to discontinue guest appearances by homosexual agitator Wayne Besen on the popular O’Reilly Factor TV show. 

Besen has a long history of slandering conservative groups and the ex-gay community in language that foments hatred and undermines civil discourse.  

Last week Fox News reported that Tony Perkins, FRC’s president, blamed the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and its rhetoric of hateful lies against FRC for helping to create a climate that led to shooter Floyd Corkins’ actions, (attempting to kill conservative Christians at FRC for opposing ‘gay’ marriage).
 
The SPLC and Wayne Besen are united in demonizing conservative organizations and individuals.  Despite repeated complaints about Besen’s appearances, producers of the O’Reilly Factor continue to feature Besen, a radical homosexual activist aligned with the SPLC, as a guest commentator.

SELECT HERE TO READ A FULL LIST OF PRO-FAMILY LEADERS SIGNING THIS PETITION.

Last year the controversial Besen and the SPLC ally jointly staged a protest  outside of FRC’s Values Voters conference, falsely accusing FRC and the American Family Association of hatred and lies.  Besen publicly labeled FRC’s conservative speakers as “certifiable lunatics with dangerous agendas.”  Both Besen and the SPLC took out an ad in the Washington Post falsely blaming FRC for gays being more likely “to be victimized by violent hate crimes” and “driven to suicide by relentless bullying.” 

Besen and the SPLC also target the ex-gay community, claiming that former homosexuals are a ” “ and that ex-gays are not entitled to the same rights and respect that gays currently enjoy.  In a bizarre move, Besen and SPLC are now filing complaints against therapists who counsel homosexuals with unwanted same-sex attractions, thereby denying gays the right of therapeutic self-determination.  (Read more HERE.)
 
Condemnation of the SPLC’s — and by extension Wayne Besen’s — designation of pro-family groups as “hate groups” comes from both the political Right and Left. Rich Lowry of National Review wrote, “The SPLC’s promiscuous labeling of organizations it disagrees with as ‘hate groups’ came to the fore last week when someone tried to shoot up one of its targets.” 
 
And liberal journalist Dana Milbank echoed Lowry’s criticism: “[T]he Southern Poverty Law Center should stop listing a mainstream Christian advocacy group alongside neo-Nazis and Klansmen.”
 
It is time that the O’Reilly Factor cease using Besen as a guest commentator. Providing Besen with a forum lends credibility to his pernicious tactics and enables Besen to exploit his appearances for fundraising purposes.
 
When Fox News provides a forum to a radical homosexual activist known for employing inflammatory and hateful language in the service of promoting lies, the network becomes complicit in the damage done to the victims of Wayne Besen’s and the SPLC’s smear campaigns.
 
We ask the News Corporation, Fox News, and Bill O’Reilly to find more ethical spokespersons for the liberal view of sexuality.  In their infamous Washington Post ad accusing FRC of hateful values, Besen and the SPLC claim that “words have consequences.”  Yes, they do.  And Besen’s may lead to violence.

TAKE ACTION FOUR WAYS:

1) Click HERE to sign our free petition now, write a free comment, and we will deliver your first name, state, and comments to FOX NEWS and Bill O’Reilly.

2) Send Bill O’Reilly an email (oreilly@foxnews.com) and ask him to “Stop Inviting Wayne Besen and Stop Helping Anti-Christian SPLC.”

3) Tweet these words to your friends:  “Tell Bill O’Reilly to STOP giving airtime to SPLC anti-Christian haters. Sign the Petition: http://dld.bz/bKfu3 “

4) After you sign below, please share our petition widely on facebook, twitter, and email. 

LET’S STOP THE VIOLENCE AGAINST CHRISTIANS WHO DEFEND MARRIAGE = 1 MAN + 1 WOMAN.

It’s probably too much to hope for, but perhaps the day of reckoning for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has come. Perhaps the shooting last week at the Family Research Council headquarters in Washington D.C. will bring scrutiny to and condemnation of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s pernicious “hate group” list on which the Family Research Council (FRC), American Family Association (AFA), and we, the Illinois Family Institute (IFI), are included.

All three organizations are included on the SPLC’s ever-expanding list of hate groups that also includes “neo-Nazi” groups, ”racist skinhead” groups, and the Ku Klux Klan. FRC, AFA, and IFI are listed as “anti-gay hate groups.”

News reports revealed that shortly after the FRC shooting, the FBI contacted the Traditional Values Coalition, another conservative Christian organization on the SPLC’s “anti-gay hate group” list to notify them that the shooter, Floyd Corkins, had its address in his backpack. The Traditional Values Coalition is so small that very few conservatives have even heard of it, so where might Corkins have learned about  it? Hmmmm, let’s see… Could it be from the SPLC’s hate group list?

In an interview following the shooting, FRC President Tony Perkins said, “I believe the Southern Poverty Law Center should be held accountable for their reckless use of terminology.” While Mark Potok, editor-in-chief of the SPLC’s ironically named “Intelligence Report” and “Hatewatch” blog continues to spew defamatory lies, he takes umbrage at this criticism of the SPLC’s ethics.

Countless liberal bloggers, political pundits, and the mainstream press repeat the SPLC’s specious designation of conservative Christian groups as “hate groups.” But one wonders how many of those who repeat the SPLC’s fallacious claims bother to read the criteria that the SPLC uses to determine who goes on its “hate group” list. Do any journalists, law enforcement agencies, or gullible acolytes of the SPLC bother to analyze the soundness of the evidence the SPLC provides for the inclusion of groups on their “hate group” list?

And do disciples of the SPLC know that it included groups on its “anti-gay hate group” list prior to the establishment and publication of any criteria to determine which groups would go on it?

SPLC’s “hate group” criteria center on social science research and policy speculation with which the SPLC disagrees.

The SPLC has been harshly criticized for its anti-religious bias, even—irony of ironies—its hatred of orthodox Christians. In an obvious attempt to distract attention from the truth of that criticism, Potok and his accomplices Heidi Beirich, Evelyn Schlatter, and Robert Steinback manufactured a set of criteria in 2010 that would enable them to include groups like the FRC, AFA, and IFI on their “anti-gay hate group” list. They apparently counted on Americans not noticing that their criteria bear no resemblance to actual hatred: no expressions of hate, no calls for violence, no claims that those who identify as homosexual are less valuable as human beings.

What the SPLC has done is create an elastic definition of hatred that centers on social science research,  facts, or propositions that the SPLC doesn’t like.

One criterion that the SPLC uses to establish “hate group” status is whether an organization makes any predictions that the SPLC doesn’t like about the potential legal consequences of law or policy related to homosexuality.

The SPLC claims that groups warrant inclusion on its “hate group” list if they propagate “known falsehoods” about homosexuality. I’m not sure if Potok and his compeers actually understand what a “known falsehood” (also called a lie) is. A known falsehood is a statement that is objectively, provably false and is known to be false when made.

The SPLC has said, for example, that if an organization argues that hate crime legislation may result in the jailing of pastors who condemn volitional homosexual acts as sinful, the organization is guilty of “anti-gay” hatred and will be included on the SPLC’s “hate group” list.

And any organization that argues that allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military will damage the military in some way merits inclusion on its “anti-gay hate group” list.

How can Potok sensibly claim that speculating that hate crimes legislation may lead to the jailing of pastors who condemn homosexuality is a known falsehood? It is a prediction of possible future events that may result from the logical working out of a law. This prediction may not come to fruition, but at this point it cannot reasonably be deemed a “known falsehood.”

And how can a prediction about the effects of allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military be a known falsehood. Certainly, there are differences of opinion on the effects of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, but liberal speculation that such a change will not damage the military is not a known truth.

Another criterion used by the SPLC to determine whether an organization is a “hate group” is whether the organization cites any social science research that the SPLC doesn’t like.

According to the SPLC, if an organization says that “gays are more prone to mental illness and to abuse drugs and alcohol,” it goes on the SPLC’s hate groups list. I’m sure this is not news to Potok, but there is a lot of research showing just that.

The SPLC engages in some tricksy rhetoric to defend this intellectually and ethically bankrupt criterion. Schlatter and Steinback argue that mental health organizations no longer consider homosexuality a mental disorder, which is true, but has no relevance to the fact—which even the SPLC concedes—that homosexuals experience much higher rates of mental illness and drug and alcohol abuse.

What really sticks in the craw of the SPLC is that conservative organizations don’t agree with the unproven speculation by the  SPLC and some social scientists that the reasons for the increased incidence of mental disorders and drug use are social stigma and “discrimination.”

The SPLC deems hateful the claim that same-sex parents harm children. Of course, Potok and his minions don’t feel any obligation to define harm and apparently reject a whole body of social science research that claims that children fare best when raised by a mother and father in an intact family. Even President Obama in his Mother’s Day and Father’s Day proclamations argued that both are essential to the welfare of children.

While homosexual activists revel in even the most poorly constructed social science research if it reinforces their presuppositions, they reject better constructed studies that undermine them. The truth is that if organizations don’t accept the ever-fluid, controvertible, and highly politicized social science research that the SPLC favors, they go on the “hate group” list.

“Hate group” designation relies on the redefinition of terms

In addition to marshaling only that social science research that fits their subversive sexual worldview, the SPLC does what virtually every homosexuality-affirming organization does, which is redefine terms to silence dissent and enable them to promote fallacious charges of hate with carefree abandon.

Among the many terms that homosexuality activist organizations like the SPLC have redefined are “hatred,” “tolerance,” “acceptance,” “bias,” “discrimination,” and “safety.” What the new definitions share in common is their utility in humiliating, intimidating, and silencing those who believe that same-sex attraction is disordered, that homosexual acts are immoral, and that  marriage is the inherently procreative union between one man and one woman.

The SPLC is continually telling people who identify as homosexual that those who believe homosexual acts are immoral hate them. The tragic effect of propagating that ugly lie is not only that it may lead unstable people to commit acts of violence. The truly tragic effect is that it undermines the potential for relationships between people who hold diverse moral views and effaces the potential for dialogue.

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To borrow from President Obama’s Black Nationalist mentor, Jeremiah Wright, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hate-baiting chickens “have come home to roost.” The hard-left group has become everything it presumes to expose.

On Wednesday, homosexual activist Floyd Corkins entered the Washington-based Family Research Council (FRC) armed with a gun and a backpack full of ammunition. He also had 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches (FRC recently defended the food chain’s COO Dan Cathy for pro-natural marriage statements).

The only thing standing between Corkins and mass murder was FRC facilities manager and security specialist Leo Johnson. As Corkins shouted disapproval for FRC’s “politics,” he shot Johnson who, despite a severely wounded arm, managed to tackle Corkins and disarm him (of course, this is all impossible as it’s illegal in Washington, D.C., to carry a concealed weapon).

Of Johnson’s actions, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said, “The security guard here is a hero, as far as I’m concerned.”

I agree.

Upon hearing of Leo’s selfless act of heroism, I was reminded of John 15:13: “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

But according to the SPLC, Leo’s heart is, instead, full of hate. In fact, everyone at FRC is hateful. After all, in 2010 the SPLC, with much fanfare, “officially certified” FRC as a “hate group” for its orthodox Christian positions on marriage and family.

Alongside violence-charged photos of actual hate groups like the Aryan Brotherhood and the KKK, the SPLC lists on its website the decidedly mainstream and always peaceful FRC.

It’s a clever strategy, dishonest and reprehensible though it may be. By juxtaposing FRC and other Christian organizations with violent extremist groups, SPLC has engaged in intellectual sloth at its worst (the organization has repeatedly declined to debate FRC President Tony Perkins over its “hate group” smear).

Rather than debating – on the merits – mainstream Christian groups with which it has ideological disagreement, SPLC has chosen, instead, the coward’s way out: demonization and marginalization through false guilt by association.

It’s a scheme not only slimy, but extremely dangerous.

If ever there were a time I’d prefer not to have been right, now is that time. Back in November 2011, I essentially predicted both the FRC shooting and the SPLC’s undeniable complicity therein.

With a column headlined, “Liberal violence rising,” I wrote, “The SPLC’s dangerous and irresponsible (‘hate group’) disinformation campaign can embolden and give license to like-minded, though less stable, left-wing extremists, creating a climate of true hate. Such a climate is ripe for violence.” (If anyone deserves to be taken out – rationalizes the unbalanced SPLC dupe – its members of this or that evil “hate group” whom, as he’s been repeatedly told, mean him great harm.)

That was before the fact. After the fact – one day after the shooting – Tony Perkins addressed exactly that which I forecast:

“Let me be clear that Floyd Corkins was responsible for firing the shot yesterday,” he told Washington reporters. “But Corkins was given a license to shoot an unarmed man by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center that have been reckless in labeling organizations hate groups because they disagree with them on public policy.”

The SPLC “should be held accountable for their reckless use of terminology that is leading to the intimidation and what the FBI here has categorized as an act of domestic terrorism.”

Regrettably, Mr. Perkins finds himself in a uniquely credible position to make this charge.

Still, although there remains a vast ideological divide between the SPLC and the tens of millions of Christian Americans represented by the Family Research Council, the Southern Poverty Law Center now finds itself with a brief window of opportunity to both do the right thing and rehabilitate its badly damaged reputation.

To the SPLC, I say this: Your cynical efforts to dehumanize Christians and equate biblical truth to “hate” are working better than I think even you expected. It’s now within your power to right a horrible wrong and restore a sense of peace and security to the rattled folks at FRC. What a gift that would be.

I appeal to your sense of goodwill. This is not a game. Lives are at stake. I know you have good employees (I’ve met some) who believe they’re doing the right thing; so, please, validate that belief. It’s time to remove your metaphorical “hate group” Star of David from mainstream Christian organizations before another of your ideological allies spills blood.

And to homosexual activists and other liberal groups, I say this: Rise above the fray. Let’s come together. Here is something on which even we can agree. Publicly encourage SPLC to lift this veil of fear.

Media, you, too, are on notice. Remember Wednesday’s shooting next time you even think about repeating SPLC’s “hate group” brand while addressing the Christians upon whom it’s tattooed. You also have share in the blame.

SPLC, hear me now: If, God forbid, something like this – or even worse – happens in the future and you have yet refused to retract and apologize for your “hate group” propaganda, then your hands will forever be stained with the blood of innocents.

Still, either way, we Christians are commanded to speak the truth of Christ “even unto death.”

FRC will not be deterred. “We’re not going anywhere,” Tony Perkins told reporters Thursday. “We’re not backing up; we’re not shutting up,” he vowed. “We feel that – we don’t feel, we know [that] we have been called to speak the truth. Speak it in love, but to speak the truth nonetheless – and we will not be intimidated, we will not be silenced.”

“I was there as [Leo] came to from the anesthesia,” said Perkins, “and I told him, ‘Leo, I want you to know you’re a hero.’ And he thought about it for a minute and he said, ‘You know, this hero business is hard work.’”

Heroes don’t work for “hate groups,” and FRC’s hard work is heroic indeed.

I’m proud to count them my friends.

You should be, too.

Wednesday morning at the offices of the Family Research Council (FRC) in Washington D.C., a man entered the building and made remarks about “not liking FRC’s politics.” An FRC security guard, Leo Johnson, took interest in the man’s intentions for being in the building, at which point the man retrieved a pistol from his backpack and shot several rounds at the guard. Johnson was wounded in the arm but subdued the suspect and wrestled away his gun, and another guard held him until police arrived.

Leo Johnson underwent surgery on his arm, and FRC’s President, Tony Perkins, reports Johnson’s surgery went well.

According to the FBI’s report, the alleged gunman, Floyd Corkins II of Herndon, VA, was carrying a backpack with an additional 50 rounds of ammunition, and 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches. Other media reports claim that Corkins is a volunteer at a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender clinic.

Family Research Council issued an early statement praising Leo Johnson for his quick actions and bravery, stating that his recovery was the organization’s highest concern, and thanking people around the world for their encouragement and prayers.

Please continue your prayers to God for Leo Johnson, the employees and families of FRC, and the Corkins family, and offer up praise for the response of FRC’s security team and the DC police force.

WARNING: Not for younger readers

My article on Dan Savage’s upcoming speaking engagement at Elmhurst College was posted and sent out late Monday afternoon. By early Tuesday morning, we discovered that several of Savage’s YouTube videos had been “removed by the user,” including two of the videos for which I had provided links in my article. One of those is the video in which Savage savages Christians in general and Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins in particular, using hateful, vulgar language.

Subsequently, I discovered that a Savage video I had referenced in an earlier article has been removed also. That one was titled “How to Come Out to Your Evangelical Family.”

Since multiple videos in which Savage discusses perverse sexual practices in obscene language remain on YouTube, it appears that the videos that have been removed are those in which Savage expresses virulent anti-Christian bigotry using language so hateful, he makes Reverend Fred Phelps look like a choir boy.

Elmhurst College administrators must be happy about the removal of these videos, since they’ve been busy doing damage control in the past few days over their foolish decision to invite Savage to speak at Hammerschmidt Chapel this Sunday.

Elmhurst College’s Managing Director of Public Affairs, Desiree Chen, is sending out this letter to critics of Dan Savage’s invitation:

Many of our speakers are controversial to one segment of society or another, and Mr. Savage is no exception. While we understand that Mr. Savage writes a newspaper column that deals with provocative topics and sometimes addresses them in debatable ways, the column is not why he was invited to speak here, and is not the topic of his presentation.

Mr. Savage will talk about the It Gets Better Project, which he created in 2010 in response to a number of heartbreaking incidents in which young students took their own lives after being bullied in schools across the country. Mr. Savage’s project invites mature people to create online videos that support and reassure young people facing harassment. The videos are specifically aimed at struggling lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth. Their message is one of hope for a life of dignity in a society that needs their service and perspective. The Project has led to the creation of more than 40,000 videos, which have been viewed more than 40 million times.

It is important to note that an invitation to speak at Elmhurst College does not represent an unqualified institutional endorsement of everything the speaker says or does, here or elsewhere. We ask a speaker to come here because we believe that he or she has something significant to say that is worthy of the consideration of our campus and the larger community. Not everyone will agree with all of our selections; but we do try to achieve a balance of thought-provoking speakers and topics.

What remarkably euphemistic, reductive language and compartmentalization Ms. Chen employs in the service of defending the indefensible. Savage’s advocacy for extramarital sexual dalliances and  his lighthearted approval of using excretory functions as sexual practices are merely “provocative topics” and calling Christians “bat sh*t, a**h*le, dou**ebags” is merely a “debatable way” of talking about theological differences.

Does Ms. Chen believe that Reverend Fred Phelps’ similarly hateful beliefs about homosexuals constitute merely a “provocative topic” and that the rhetoric Phelps uses to describe them is merely a “debatable way” to talk about that topic?

Chen, speaking for the Elmhurst College administration, goes on to defend Savage’s invitation based on the fact that he was not invited to talk about his sexual ideology. Rather, Elmhurst invited him to speak about his much-viewed “It Gets Better” online video project, which she asserts promises “hope for a life of dignity.”

Chen is asserting as fact the disputable notion that telling hurting kids that embracing a homosexual life offers them hope for a life of dignity. Many, however, would argue that the embrace of a homosexual life effaces human dignity and compromises human flourishing. 

Moreover, neither the number of video submissions, nor the number of viewings mean that the project is a good one or  justify hiring a speaker who uses the very same kind of ugly, hateful, bigoted language that he claims hurts teens. What utter hypocrisy to invite a man to speak against bullying who calls people “bat sh*t, a**h*le, dou**ebags” and who recently called teens “pansies” who walked out during one of his anti-Christian rants.

Even those who believe that the “It Gets Better” project has value should be able to see that Savage’s other public work is so corrosive , so puerile, so hateful, and so obscene as to render him a lousy advocate for a life of dignity and a woefully unsuitable guest speaker.

I wonder if in the service of exploring provocative topics and trying to “achieve balance,” Elmhurst College will invite a speaker to explore ideas that oppose Savage’s, preferably in less “debatable ways.” 

I wonder too how much Elmhurst College paid Savage.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to contact Elmhurst College President Dr. S. Alan Ray in protest of this event.

WARNING: Not for younger readers

Let’s hope that audience members at the Dan Savage speaking engagement this coming Sunday, April 29, 2012 at Elmhurst College demonstrate the good sense and courage that several high school students recently demonstrated.

Dan Savage, the vulgar, vitriol-spewing, homosexual sex columnist was for some bizarre reason invited to be the Friday keynote speaker at a national convention for high school journalism students held in Seattle, Washington last week.

Savage, being Savage, employed his usual anti-religious, obscene rhetoric, and when some offended high school students walked out, the middle-aged Savage called them “pansies.”

In the convention’s program, Savage is described as a “popular, sex advice columnist” who offers “frank, funny advice on sex and relationships” and “creates a safe space for all audiences to discuss ‘taboo’ topics.” Two things to note: 1. The event planners knew exactly what they were getting in hiring Savage for an event for high school students. 2. In academia, a “safe space” means a place where volitional homosexuality must be affirmed as moral. The presence of any dissenting ideas renders a space “unsafe.”

After Savage’s presentation, faculty adviser for students from Overland Park, Kansas, Jim Mccrossen, told his students that “‘it is important to be challenged in what you believe because you never become stronger in anything if you are not challenged.'” When I worked at Deerfield High School, English teacher Jeff Berger-White made this same claim in our local press when defending his decision to teach the obscene, homosexuality-affirming play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes by homosexual playwright Tony Kushner:

‘There are going to be times during their years in high school, if we (teachers) are doing are (sic) jobs well, when most students should feel intellectually, emotionally, and even morally challenged.’ 

Some questions emerge from these teachers’ claims: First, is it really the job of public high school teachers to challenge students emotionally and morally? Second, if it is, how often do teachers in public schools provide resources or activities that challenge “progressive” views of homosexuality? How often do they have students read essays by scholars who dissent from the views of Dan Savage or Tony Kushner? How many students have read an essay by Princeton law professor Robert George or Providence College English professor Anthony Esolen or Amherst professor Hadley Arkes? How many students have read any essays at all by a conservative scholar on topics related to homosexuality?

Dan Savage’s signature project, the effort for which he is most well-known, is the “It Gets Better” Campaign in which actors, politicians, and ordinary people affirm homosexuality while telling hurting kids who experience same-sex attraction that life will get better. This has the superficial gloss of a positive message but is based on foundational assumptions that are ultimately socially irresponsible, intellectually bankrupt, and an affront to human dignity — the very opposite of the values Elmhurst College claims to hold.

Here are some of the values and visions that Elmhurst College affirms:

Mission

Elmhurst College inspires its students…to prepare for …ethical work in a multicultural, global society. … [W]e foster learning, broaden knowledge, and enrich culture through…scholarship.

Vision for the Future

Elmhurst College …asks our students to become… academically grounded, intellectually engaged, and socially responsible citizens, who understand and respect the diversity of the world’s cultures and peoples.

Core Values

Intellectual Excellence
We value intellectual freedom, curiosity, and engagement; [and] rigorous debate.

Community
We are committed to… mutual respect among all persons…and fairness and integrity in all that we do.

Stewardship
We are committed stewards of the human, fiscal, and physical resources entrusted to us.

Faith, Meaning, and Values
We value the development of the human spirit in its many forms and the exploration of life’s ultimate questions through dialogue and service. We value religious freedom and its expressions on campus. Grounded in our own commitments and traditions as well as those of the United Church of Christ, we cherish values that create lives of intellectual excellence, strong community, social responsibility, and committed stewardship.

Let’s see if Dan Savage reflects the mission of Elmhurst College to prepare students for “ethical work”; or its vision to have students become “academically grounded” and socially responsible citizens who “respect the diversity of the world’s peoples”; or the college’s core values regarding “mutual respect,” “integrity,” “intellectual excellence,” and “social responsibility.”

Here are some quotes from Savage (with links to videos, lest anyone think I’m cherry-picking quotes or pulling them out of context):

He describes conservative Christians like “Tony Perkins” as “right-wing, fundamentalist, bat sh*t, a**h*le, dou**ebag Christians,” and as the “Evangelical Taliban Christian Family Association.” He also tells “progressive” Christians to start “screaming in Tony Perkins’ face.”  I wonder if such rhetoric creates a “safe space” for people who hold orthodox, historical theological beliefs?

Even with asterisks, I can’t repeat what Savage says at his speaking engagements. If you choose to watch the ones we’ve provided links to, bear in mind that Savage has an adopted son who was between 10-12 years old when Savage was saying things publicly that no father should say even privately (WARNING—GRAPHIC,  OBSCENE LANGUAGE):  HERE, HERE,  HERE, HERE and HERE.  (UPDATE:  We discovered last night that a number of Savage’s YouTube videos were removed after this article was published.)

What is ironic is that after Rush Limbaugh used offensive language to describe a feminist activist, the Obama Administration took him to task, but even Dan Savage’s well-documented history of referring to conservative Christians as “bat sh*t, a**h*le, d**chebags” and advocating the most perverse sexual practices in the most foul language doesn’t stop President Obama from inviting him to the White House.

Elmhurst College claims to value “rigorous debate,” the “exploration of life’s ultimate questions through dialogue,” intellectual engagement, and diversity. If so, will the college be inviting speakers who espouse different views of the nature and morality of homosexuality than Savage and who do so in a different manner, that is to say, without obscene language that degrades rather than develops the human spirit.

Savage’s invitation seems to be part of a larger effort on the part of Elmhurst College to promote arguable assumptions about the nature and morality of homosexuality. Some months ago, Elmhurst College made the national news for being the first college in the nation to ask on its college application whether applicants identify as homosexual, bisexual, or transgender. The administration defended this question by asserting an offensive and absurd comparison of race to conditions constituted by subjective desire and volitional sexual acts.

In so doing, Elmhurst College administrators reveal their own ignorance. And by promoting contemporary ideas about “LGBT identity,” they reveal their theological heresy — not that theological orthodoxy is important to Elmhurst College, which bears virtually no imprint of its theological heritage. But boy oh boy does it proudly show the mark of sexual unorthodoxy to which even pedagogical soundness must bow in obeisance.

Elmhurst College’s Hammerschmidt Memorial Chapel, which once echoed with the thoughtful, civil voices of Elie Weisel and Martin Luther King Jr., will now be polluted by the odious rhetoric of Dan Savage.