Laigle’s Forum

When is hate not hate?

Commentary by Donald Hank

Why, when the victims are not victims.

Make sense? It does to the Left in America, where, according to an analysis by Public Advocate, a church that is torched by homosexual activists is, in today’s terms, not a victim of anything because only “gays” can be the victims, so when they commit crimes, well, that is just - irrelevant, because it is apparently fine and dandy to hate Christians in the United States of America today.

In the case of the Wasilla church, arsonists attacked when they knew there were women and children inside. They didn’t care if people were killed. The only thing that mattered to them was their own lusts and a lifestyle known to be lethal.

There is a way that seemeth right unto man but the end thereof are the ways of death.

Here is what the Washington Times said in its report on the crime:

The 1,000-member evangelical church was the subject of intense scrutiny after Palin was named John McCain’s running mate. Early in Palin’s campaign, the church was criticized for promoting in a Sunday bulletin a Focus on the Family “Love Won Out Conference” in Anchorage. The conference promised to “help men and women dissatisfied with living homosexually understand that same-sex attractions can be overcome.”

According to the Illinois Family Institute, gay activists have been threatening to use arson to get their way. Their web site provides damning quotes and links to pro-”gay” forums where activists actually call for homosexuals dissatisfied with the results for Prop 8 (denying the redefinition of marriage) to torch buildings associated with persons known to oppose same-sex “marriage.”

 After the cited calls to violence appeared on pro-”gay” sites, lo and behold, Sara Palin’s church, known for its defense of traditional marriage, was torched and almost totally destroyed. Some people were inside, including several children, when the arsonists did their dirty deed. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the arsonists actually intended to murder these innocent people.

Now you know when hate is not hate.

But do you know when enough is enough?

Scots Government set to weaken age of consent

Here it comes! The UK has already seen the legalization of “gay” marriage. Now comes the next stage — legalized pederasty. And if you look at the names of the Scotts who are behind this, I bet to dollars to donuts they are some of the same ones who supported same-sex marriage.

This goes hand in hand with the article about the Nassau PTA official who was caught with her panties down with a 13 year old boy in her car.

The “gay” agenda will pave the way for legalized pederasty. That is why we need to ask, in our debate with ”gay” activists, what is the difference between what they espouse and pederasty.

I asked a member of the Center on the First Amendment (don’t recall name exactly) that in an email exchange, and he could not answer. When I tried to pin him down, he stopped writing.

From our friends in the UK:

Scots Government set to weaken age of consent

The Scottish Government is moving head with plans to water down Scotland's age of consent law.

The plans are contained in the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Bill, currently making its way through the Scottish Parliament. Britain's age of consent laws, which prohibit sexual activity under 16, are largely the result of the campaigns of 19th Century Christian, Josephine Butler. She cared for damaged prostitutes and recognised that a robust age of consent law was needed to protect young girls from sexual exploitation.

Last month The Christian Institute presented evidence before the Justice Committee at the Scottish Parliament.

Please pray for The Christian Institute has we campaign against plans to weaken this important protection.

For more information about the Scottish Government's plans see:

http://www.christian.org.uk/issues/2008/family/aocscot/

Please forward this email to your friends.

Yours in Christ,

Colin Hart, Director, The Christian Institute

Registered office: The Christian Institute, Wilberforce House, 4 Park Road, Gosforth Business Park, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE12 8DG

The Christian Institute is a company limited by guarantee, registered in England as a charity.

Company No. 263 4440 Charity No. 100 4774 / A charity registered in Scotland Charity No. SC039220       

Not all “First Amendment” groups are for the First Amendment

By Donald Hank

Round two in my exchange with The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center group, which started with a November 28 posting relating to an article Mr. Haynes had had published in the media, is now complete (see separate column).

In Haynes’ article, addressing the actions of both gay marriage advocates and traditional marriage advocates, he had mentioned a number of grievances perpetrated by the gay marriage advocates, but had also said the following about the other side:

At the same time, Mormon church leaders not only stir up anger, but also hurt their cause when they lend their support to campaigns that use scare tactics [my emphasis] about homosexuality in elementary schools and misrepresent the religious-liberty threat to churches. Mormon leaders repeatedly call for Mormons to show “kindness and respect” toward people on the other side of the marriage debate. Good advice, but in my view, the “Yes on 8″ campaign didn’t meet that standard.

The background of these “scare tactics” is well known to Laigle’s Forum readers but let us recap some details first:

In areas where same-sex “marriage” is legal, pastors and even people denouncing homosexual activity on medical grounds (70% of AIDS cases are male homosexuals) have been jailed or fined. Fines of up to $15,000 Canadian dollars have been imposed in Canada, while in Sweden, Pastor Aka Green was jailed and charged with a “hate” crime for preaching the biblical viewpoint on homosexuality (the “offense” carried what amounted to a life sentence for the elderly pastor), and in Philadelphia, 11 Christians were arrested and charged with a similar “crime” for staging a peaceful protest at a “coming out” fest.

People who oppose “gay” “marriage” have pointed out the David Parker case. Here is a video that was part of this so-called “scare tactic.” It shows an interview with David Parker, who was jailed because he asked parental notification when pro-homosexual lessons were given in their son’s kindergarten, and was told by the school board that the school had a right to promote homosexuality to kindergartners without notifying parents because same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts. For protesting this policy, David Parker was put in handcuffs and jailed. Let me point something out that Mr. Haynes has failed to grasp.

Now a scare tactic is an unfair tactic that uses artificially generated fear of something that without this tactic, would not normally be feared.

So what Mr. Haynes and his group are saying is that people would not normally be afraid of being arrested for demanding parental notification of the fact that a school was about to teach their 5 year old that homosexuality - which the Bible clearly denounces -  is acceptable. Let me remind Mr. Haynes that I can go out and protest the Iraq war, and the government cannot threaten me with a fine or jail. I can protest any legislation I dislike. I can protest the tax law. I can protest against illegal immigration. I can protest against immigration law. I can protest laws against prostitution, laws for prostitution, laws protecting women or children, laws that hurt women and children, anything, anything under the sun. Except homosexual activity. If I protest that in Canada or Europe, I can be fined or jailed. Even in most American cities I will be harassed by the police and Americans have already been arrested for this. This is a true First Amendment issue.

But now, consider this: If they do jail or fine me and I then try to warn others that my constitutional rights are being denied me and that your rights can be denied in the name of “protecting homosexuals” (gosh, those church desecrators must be really helpless!), then Mr. Charles Haynes and his group, ostensibly dedicated to the First Amendment, not only will not protect me, they will in fact accuse me of using a scare tactic simply because I had the audacity to tell the plain truth!

One would expect that a group with a name like Freedom Forum First Amendment Center would be interested first and foremost in the free speech aspects of this “gay” issue. Yet, they complain that people on both sides aren’t polite enough. When have you ever heard of any homosexual being fined, jailed or charged with a crime simply for protesting in favor of homosexual “rights” or “marriage”? And when did the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center ever raise a finger in protest against such obvious violations of the First Amendment as the jailing or fining of Christians, which - need I remind them? - was written largely to protect religious speech.

Obviously, this group is interested in something quite different from the right of free expression, because they are lumping peaceful opponents of same sex “marriage” in with homosexuals who riot on the streets, break into churches, destroy property and disrupt religious services.

To refer to legitimate protests against horrific tyrannical deprivation of basic human rights as a “scare tactic” can only be a tactic in its own right to muzzle those who protest homosexual “marriage.” To this extent it is part of the Left’s agenda to undermine the value of the traditional family to the greatest possible extent.

For those who think this idea of the Left promoting homosexuality is a chimera of my imagination, let me share with you an email I received from Walter Schneider of Fathers for Life. I asked Walter if there was any literature on how homosexuality is used by the Left to promote their anti-family agenda. His response:

Yes, there is information, in The Socialist Phenomenon and elsewhere, on how homosexuality is used to push the socialist agenda.

I know that you will be interested in the information I will provide in response to your question.  For that reason I give you a fair amount of it and will provide pointers of a more general nature.

Just now I searched The Socialist Phenomenon for “homosexual” and found this:

• Deschamps considers various manifestations of evil to be the result of social conditions; he includes even homosexuality, for example. (p. 117)
• Marcuse speaks here of the end of culture in the old sense of the word: “It would still be a reversal of the process of civilization, a subversion of culture — but after culture had done its work and created the mankind and the world that could be free.” (119: p. 198) The essence of this upheaval Marcuse describes in poetic terms by juxtaposing Prometheus, the hero of repressive culture, with the heroes of his own New World — Orpheus and Narcissus. He ends as follows: “The classical tradition associates Orpheus with the introduction of homosexuality.

[232]

---

Like Narcissus, he rejects the normal Eros, not for an ascetic ideal, but for a fuller Eros. Like Narcissus he protests against the repressive order of procreative sexuality. The Orphic and Narcissistic Eros is to the end the negation of this order — the Great Refusal. In the world symbolized by the culture hero Prometheus, it is the negation of all order; but in this negation Orpheus and Narcissus reveal a new reality, with an order of its own, governed by different principles.” (119: p. 171)

The most active socialist current of recent times, the New Left, proved to be extraordinarily receptive to Marcuse’s teaching and was to a considerable extent influenced by it. Marcuse’s basic propositions are closely paralleled in the slogans of this movement and serve as their theoretical foundation. For instance, the liberation of sexual instincts finds expression in the “sexual revolution,” and the suppression of repressive reason is demonstrated in the “psychedelic revolution,” that is, in the mass use of hallucinogens. Even ostentatious slovenliness can be theoretically justified, for according to the theory, ego and superego suppress the instincts connected with the sense of smell and enforce the perception of strong smells as “disgusting.” (Furthermore, the dominant classes associate garbage with the lower classes, which are perceived negatively as “the dregs of society.”) These views also serve as a theoretical basis for “left art,” which fosters the idea of “anti-cultural” (or “cultural”) revolution, of the destruction of “repressive” or “stifling” culture, up to and including a heightened interest (in both literature and ,art) in garbage and excrement as means of “exploding bourgeois culture.”…. (pp. 232, 233)

• The last hundred years, particularly the twentieth century, have brought socialism unheard-of success. This has been primarily a success of socialism in its Marxist form, mostly because Marxism has been able to answer two questions that always stand before socialist movements: where to seek the “chosen people” — i.e., who is to destroy the old world — and what is the supreme authority sanctioning the movement?

[299]

---

The answer to the first question was the proletariat; to the second, science. At present both answers have become ineffective, at least for the West. “The proletariat has become a support for the system,” Marcuse complains. “What is a proletariat if it is not revolutionary? And it is, indeed, not revolutionary,” Sartre confirms. And science has lost its prestige and its role as unquestionable authority; it has become too popular and widespread, and ceased being the secret knowledge of a select few. Moreover, many of its gifts have recently proved to be far from beneficial. For this reason, Marcuse calls for replacing science with a utopia, for granting the role held by reason to fantasy. Until these fundamental questions find answers adequate to the new epoch, it will scarcely be possible to expect success for socialism commensurate with that of Marxism. Meanwhile there have been and continue to be attempts in this direction. For example, the search for the “chosen people” seems to be the real meaning behind the “problem of minorities” which so engages the Western leftist movements: students or homosexuals or American blacks or local nationalities in France. …There is no doubt that other answers will be found — the tendency toward socialism that grips the West speaks for this. (pp. 299, 300)

Herbert Marcuse was a member of the “Frankfurt School”, a communist think tank (The Frankfurt Institute for Social Research), whose members (all Jewish) were invited in the beginning of the 1930s to come to the USA, to take teaching positions in the USA.  Some went to Columbia, where a department was created for them.  Some went to Brandeis, and some of them took controlling positions in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (yes, McCarthy was right; there was a communist behind every bush).

Especially Herbert Marcuse and Theodor Adorno became key-influences for the launching and implementation of the cultural revolution in the 1960s and 1970s.  The Frankfurt School is very much alive now and re-established itself in Frankfurt, Germany.  (At Fathers for Life you can find more leads on the nature, role and influence of the Frankfurt School.  That will produce a large number of returns.  You can narrow down those returns by combining “Frankfurt School” with other terms.  The most convenient method for searching the site is to use the search-input field at the upper right-hand of the web pages at Fathers for Life.)

Rather than merely focusing on homosexuality, The Socialist Phenomenon mentions, more often and more prominently, various circumstances that are manifestations of the deliberate destruction and replacement of the traditional nuclear family, such as “community” families, polygamy, state-ownership of children, and so on, all of which are of course, becoming very pronounced developments in the present socialist re-engineering of humanity.

End of Walter’s message.

Friends, there are 2 main types in the homosexual “rights” movement:

1 - Actual homosexuals who desire to be affirmed by society and are prepared to reshape society to make this happen. To some extent or another, these are what Lenin called “useful idiots,” not because they are stupid but because they are unaware that they are being used for a cause that has nothing to do with their own group’s issues.

2 - Leftists who are following the agendas set forth by “social change” agitators like Marcuse, using any and all interest groups that can be portrayed as “victims.” Homosexuals, who have never been seen as victims in the past (rather, by many, as carriers of an unhealthy and dead-end lifestyle and, as seen by the religious communities, as people given over to sin), now become downtrodden underdogs, never mind the fact that many are multimillionaires and their average net incomes exceed that of the general population.

It is hard to say exactly what the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center’s agenda is. But one thing is certain: They are not focused on protecting your First Amendment rights.

I previously presented the first round in an exchange in which I defended traditional marriage against an influential proponent of “gay” marriage. It is worthwhile to consider the arguments both for and against marriage in order to become more effective in the fight for our culture. Every one of you who believes marriage is sacred and is between a man and a woman is now considered the enemy by our leftward tilting elite in media, education, academe, the psychology racket, and, increasingly, in government. But you don’t have to sit and take it. Not by any means! Their arguments may sound intellectual, but it is all a facade, and you can break it down instantly with a little training.

Here is round 2 in my discussion with Charles Haynes. My responses are in brackets:

Hi Don,
Thank you for your very full and interesting response.  I am not trying to sway you on this issue.  I recognize that deeply-held convictions are at stake here [pro-homosexual activists like to speak of "deeply-held" convictions of religious people who oppose them. Are they trying to say that their own convictions are shallowly held?]
 
But I do have a few additional comments in response to the points you made.  Your Brazilian example offers some support to the arguments made by advocates of same-sex marriage:  When interracial relationships were legally recognized as “marriage,” people did accept these marriages, “whether they liked them or not” — as you say.  Having grown up in the deep South, I can assure you that many people rejected interracial marriages as marriages (some still do) — but, of course, were forced to “accept” them for legal/civic purposes after the Supreme Court’s decision in Loving.  This is now happening with same-sex marriages in Mass. and in some countries. [But interracial marriages were still recognized as marriage, legal or not. My focus was on the definition, not the legality. That is why I use quotation marks around "marriage" when it is preceded by "same-sex"]
 
I am not an expert in the history of marriage, so I will continue to read about it (including the authors you suggest).  But I think the struggle of women (and their supporters) to change the legal definition of marriage in ways that give women basic rights is well-documented [Unfortunately, the "victimization" of women hurt them more than it helped them]. I understand the “protection” argument (from another era [Are you trying to say protection of women is outdated...?])… but I think most of us now recognize that in matters of property, inheritance, divorce etc., women were indeed exploited in that system [But marriage was between a man and a woman. That was the definition. You are getting off-topic].  This is, of course, still the case in many parts of the world.  Most women most certainly do not “rule the roost” in much of the developing world. In India, for example, the treatment of millions of married women is appalling. True, there is a tradition of women taking charge of the household in families where the husband is the bread-winner (although this usually means the mother-in-law with the wife often treated very poorly).  But for the many poor women who do the back-breaking work in the fields while husbands often do little or nothing… women who have little protection in a culture that traditionally defers to male power and dominance … it would come as a shock to be described as “ruling the roost.”  I have spent considerable time in India — and I can only hope and pray that marriage continues to be redefined [Is marriage not a union between a man and a woman in India? I think you are being creative with the word "redefine." They won't need to redefine marriage to protect women. BTW, I wonder if Indian women would consider it safe to be sent on a bombing mission in Iraq, why the work would not be back-breaking if men did it and why it is more abusive for women to do hard work than men] there in ways that finally and fully protect women.

I agree that same-sex marriage is a very significant redefinition of “marriage” (bringing to the surface relationships that have existed throughout history, mostly underground [But never referred to as "marriage" in the past.]).  For those who believe as a matter of religious conviction that this is wrong — and that the sexual activity associated with same-sex relations is “unnatural” and wrong — no amount of “acceptance” of homosexuals in society will make same-sex marriage “right.”  I understand that. [But do you understand that not all proponents of traditional marriage are religious - or at least not all Christian? Please check out this article on that subject].  But I think the consequences are more likely to be good for society, rather than the dangers you cite.  Gay relationships and families are a reality that will not go away [Is the fact that you think "gay" "families" won't go away an example of why "the consequences are more likely to be good for society"? If so, then we could also say terrorism will not go away, so we need to legalize it so that we can control it better, right?].  Legal recognition and state benefits will help provide stability and strengthen gay families [Now you are redefining "family." I do not accept this redefinition].  After so many decades of “marriage” being debased in our culture (quickie weddings and divorces, TV contests for picking a wife/husband, etc), recognition of same-sex marriage may strengthen the meaning of marriage [Please show me how "gay" marriage would remedy the problems with heterosexual marriages. BTW, "gay" men have well over 100 sexual encounters on average over their lifetime].
 
As for adoption, that’s easy [I think a more appropriate word is "facile"] for me.  I know a number of wonderful same-sex couples with beautiful, well-raised children.  I would leave my children to them in a heartbeat.  [Many people have been charged by the police with being a pedophile and people said that about them too, before they were caught. BTW, you never answered my question: If homosexual adoption is ok, what is wrong with pederasty? You can't answer that, can you?]. The larger questions about how couples have children “artificially” [do you feel uncomfortable using the word "artificial"? If so, why? If not, why the quotation marks?] applies as much or more to straight couples as to gay [As much? Even though most straight couples can have children without artificial insemination?].  I realize the ethical questions are complex and the subject of much debate [Subject of much debate only in a hopelessly corrupted society, which is what the West has become]. But the desire of people (straight and gay) to have children is strong — and these various methods are here to stay [Only if people in authority positions allow that to happen. It is clear where you stand. You now sound much different than in your article, where it almost seemed that you were neutral. You quickly have shifted into high gear for homosexual "marriage." Really, if that was your agenda in the first place, you should have told the readers that you had chosen sides --  not that it wasn't obvious for those of us who read between the lines]. So we need to continue to press for the best ethical guidelines for the use of these methods [or for discouraging people from using them. Don't forget that option].
 
I do believe abuse of children is “objectively wrong” [But Mr. Haynes, you keep redefining things, so I have no idea what you think child abuse is! I had asked you why pederasty is abuse and you couldn't answer that. And you wonder why conservatives are leery of "culture change"?]– and I think the arguments for protecting children ["protecting children" has become an excuse to remove fathers from children's lives in "family" courts throughout the West. It has already been redefined. See why I don't like redefinitions?] are deeply ingrained in our legal system.  I see no connection between legalizing gay marriage and child abuse [What do you mean by "child abuse"? I am sure your definition is no more traditional than the other definitions you are busy eroding, and that is worrisome].  On the contrary, I think increasing the number of stable, loving homes for children, including many unwanted and abused children, will help address the problems of child abuse. The fact that a small number of (disturbed) people promote such things as pederasty is a red herring [Again, why are they "disturbed"? Only a few years ago, homosexuals were recognized as disturbed, until they organized well enough to represent a powerful interest group capable of bullying psychologists. Once pederasts get that much power, how will people combat them? By your method? That is, by redefining our vocabulary? Lord forbid! Culture changers like you really scare me, and I am not saying that as a scare tactic. I am 100% serious].  There are groups of people in this country that promote all manner of evil things… [how do you define evil? Today, that is. I know that tomorrow your definition may be different].
 
When I travel to nations in Europe, most recently Spain, where same-sex marriage is legal, I find most people see this as a matter of fairness — and think it is healthy for their societies [They think climbing in the ring with a raging bull armed with nothing but a cape is healthy too, Mr. Haynes. Let's be serious here].  This is new, of course, and my observations merely anecdotal — so the jury isn’t in on how this change will ultimately affect Mass., Canada, parts of Europe etc. What does seem to be the case, however, is the legal recognition of gay relationships will continue apace in the many parts of the world (including, surprisingly, Latin America [doesn't surprise me a bit. Latin America has drifted to the far left, and the Left is anti-family, as confirmed by their own writings -- which is why they constantly redefine "family"]).  The challenge will be to strengthen marriage for all — and to ensure that the welfare of children is a high priority in public policy.  That’s where we should be focusing our attention in my view. [I would only ask what the definition du jour of "welfare of children" is. I am sure that in your mind, that is "the subject of much debate."]
 
Best, Charles 

 
Charles Haynes
The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center
555 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001
202/292-6293 - office

 

Just a reminder that

December 15^th is
Bill of Rights Day

Let us give thanks to the Divine Author of Liberty

Dear Friends of Liberty,

There’s still time to register for the Bill of Rights Commemorative Banquet on Monday, December 15, 2008. I hope you are planning to join us.

I am including as an attachment a copy of the registration form and cover letter for the banquet. I hope you will forward it on to others, even persons in other states. We would like to hear that there were observances of some kind in every state!

For the Bill of Rights,
and the Ten Commandments,
Carris Kocher
Bill of Rights Bicentennial Committee
P.O. Box 912
Concordville, PA 19331
610-476-3482

The “gay” marriage issue no one discusses

by Donald Hank

A reader alerted me to an article in a local paper discussing the recent culture war between homosexual activists and Prop 8 supporters in California. The author, a Mr. Charles Haynes, focused entirely on the tone of the discussion, completely ignoring the content.

You can read the article here.

 

I responded to the author as follows:

Hello Mr Haynes,

Your article covers a lot of territory but ignores a detail which can provide some insight perhaps.

I am a technical translator by trade and have a reading knowledge of numerous languages, including 2 Asian ones.

Now in each of these - and in all 600+ languages in the world - there is a word that is the equivalent to our word “marriage.” Please prepare yourself for an amazing revelation, Sir:

In ALL of these world languages, there is a word equivalent to our word marriage and it means a union between a man and a women. In NONE of these languages is there a word that means approximately the same as our word “marriage” but additionally means a union between 2 people of the same sex.

Thus, when proponents of same-sex “marriage” say they are fighting for rights, that is technically true.

However, the right they are fighting for is the right to change all of human language arbitrarily to suit their own particular situations, NOT the right to be equal.

I say “arbitrarily” because to be completely equal, this new unprecedented “right” would have to encompass not only homosexuality but all kinds of sexual relationships, including bestiality, polygamy, necrophilia, pederasty, sex slavery, rape and so on, which no society will probably ever condone.

Clearly, Sir, the idea of equality here is simply a smokescreen and nothing more.

I am at a loss to explain how so many otherwise intelligent writers miss this central issue while so articulately discussing all the minor trivia surrounding it.

Best,

Don Hank

Executive editor

http://laiglesforum.com

 

Mr Hanyes’ response: 

Thank you for writing.  As you may know, “marriage” has been redefined often in history.  Not so very long ago, “marriage” was understood as a contract involving property (the wife).  Of course, some cultures still treat women as property today.  I would also point out that in much of the Islamic world (a considerable part of the world’s population), a man may have up to four wives. I live in Virginia where, until fairly recently, mixed race marriages were illegal — not recognized as “marriage” by law.  So marriage has meant (still means) different things in different times and places.  The slippery slope argument you advance is similar to the “parade of horribles” arguments advanced against mixed race marriages.  It failed then, and I suspect it will fail again.  Societies do indeed decide what is in the best interest of people, especially children.  Lines are drawn against harm to others, abuse of children, etc.  To suggest that if we give legal recognition to committed same-sex relationships, we would be compelled to erase all lines is absurd in my view.  CH
 
Charles Haynes
The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center
555 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001
202/292-6293 - office

 

Hello Charles,

I appreciate your response very much. Due to the extreme volatility of this issue I rarely have the opportunity to engage in serious dialogue on it. Most interlocutors on the subject are content to hurl a few invectives and insults and run away, like a bandit in a western movie who runs out of ammo and throws his six-shooter at the sheriff and posse before taking it on the lam. You are a rare exception.

The issue of interracial marriage in any given society has not really affected the definition of marriage per se as you suggest. Unlike same-sex unions, interracial marriage has fallen under the definition of marriage throughout time, for example, 4,000 years ago when Moses took an Ethiopian wife. Before legalization of interracial marriage, Americans were aware that Brazilians intermarried among the races and accepted these arrangements as marriages, whether they liked them or not. Nor did natural societies truly accept the notion of “owning” a woman, and the languages of the world do not define marriage as an ownership contract. There was in fact an African society that was truly matriarchal in that the women had several husbands. Feminist lore has it (whether factually or not) that the American Indians were semi-matriarchal as well, with women exercising ownership of plots of land and men owning nothing. If you really believe marriage was ever an ownership contract in the West, then you need to read “The Myth of Male Power” by feminist Dr. Warren Farrell, who ably demonstrates that marriage, far from being exploitive, was devised universally for the purpose of protecting women and offers the woman more protection than it does the man (who is always the one designated to die in wars to protect her). And if you think Asia has that ownership notion, then you have never lived in Asia, where women universally rule the roost (I lived in Asia for 3 years studying Chinese and Japanese).

Incidentally, I would caution anyone in favor of same-sex marriage to be careful when choosing examples of marriage definitions from the Muslim culture, because Sharia law calls for the death of all homosexuals. Thus the Muslim culture is not compatible with your support of homosexual marriage so using it as a source of supporting examples is like drawing water from a poisoned well.

But even so, the whole idea of marriage being somewhat different between cultures is not germane because the issue is whether by definition a man can marry another man, or a woman another woman, and is unrelated to these peripheral issues that you mention. Marriage has universally been a heterosexual arrangement despite all those red herrings. Thus to legalize same-sex “marriage” is to tamper with language in a dangerous way that invites unintended consequences to an unprecedented extent, because, ultimately, such legalization is tantamount to redefining marriage as I said in my first email, and you have not proved otherwise.

When you bring up the topic of children, you really open up a can of worms, because I cannot think of anything more abusive to children than deliberately siring them artificially, as is now increasingly done in same-sex relationships, and thereby eliminating in utero, so to speak, the possibility of knowing their mother or father, something all children have a right to barring unusual circumstances such as death of a parent.

I always like to ask people who claim they are in favor of same-sex “families” if they would be willing to stipulate in their last will and testament that, in the event of both parents’ death, they would prefer to have their children adopted by a “gay” couple rather than a straight couple. And if so, why or if not, why not?

I also ask them if they would prefer to have been brought up in a same-sex home rather than a mother-father home. And if so, why or if not, why not? (In other words, did you really hate one of your parents that much?)

I think modern liberals (I was one for 40 years, being a late maturer) often advocate things for children that they themselves would find it hard — or impossible — to tolerate.

It is always easy to sit down and write a law that forces helpless children to tolerate things they themselves would not want in order to please some powerful interest group that might otherwise threaten their livelihood (journalism or the like), for example, but I fail to detect any honor in this cowardly practice.

As for your mention of “slippery slope,” that was not my argument.

If you really and truly believe, however, that same-sex adoption (which would automatically be legal if same-sex marriage were legal) is acceptable, then I would ask you to explain why pederasty is objectively wrong. Remember that answers like “well, it is just wrong and that’s all there is to it” are the kind of answers the pro-gay marriage groups have been rejecting — or should I say will not tolerate, with reference to their issues, and might support the other side of the argument.

It is a facile argument to say: “To suggest that if we give legal recognition to committed same-sex relationships, we would be compelled to erase all lines is absurd in my view.”

However, why is it absurd? To add “in my view” suggests you have some special authority to say this, but do you?

If this is absurd, couldn’t we just as easily say that same-sex marriage absurdly erases lines that have been in place for a sound purpose since the beginning of recorded history?

Finally, lest you think pederasty is not a threat, you should read the book “Woman Hating” by feminist icon Andrea Dworkin, who unabashedly condones parent-child incest therein and quotes other “authorities” such as Allen Ginsberg who also condone it. And of course, you need to visit the NAMBLA site to see how persuasive their arguments are — and how eerily similar to the ‘gay’ marriage arguments. (You will need to register first).

http://www.underneathpolitics.com/polqhnamblasite.html

I remain respectfully unswayed.

Best,

Don

[Charles Haynes wrote a further response that we will save for a future edition of Laigle's Forum]

 Have you ever spoken with a person who is dying of AIDS? Do you think they would beg you to be more “tolerant” of the lifestyle that is killing them? If so, you will be surprised at the following article.

Please, if you never forward another message in your life, do forward this one by James Hartline, who is dying of AIDS but has received God’s salvation for his sins, and cares deeply about young people who are being lured into this hellish lifestyle by cynical PC politicians, teachers, professors, media and dangerously ignorant friends and family who are “tolerant” but not compassionate enough to warn them. Forward a link to this article ( http://laiglesforum.com/2008/09/18/a-dying-mans-wish-for-americas-children-please-forward-a-link/) to your whole list, and make sure it is seen by your loved ones who may be flirting with the homosexual lifestyle. It is that important!

Please read James’ message prayerfully and thoughtfully and try to grasp the extreme significance of what he is saying here.

I believe that if everyone in America read this message, there would be no more indifference, in the schools or government, toward the problem of homosexuality. Instead of teaching our children how to “do” it, they would teach why they shouldn’t! Barney Frank would either get saved or be voted out of office. Government would stop pandering to “gays” and start reforming our country. There would no longer be unisex bathrooms in schools. The bathhouses in San Francisco would shut their doors forever. There would be no more lewd “gay” parades like the one in Folsom Street last summer, or in many of our big cities. Philadelphia would stop touting its status as the “gay” capital of the USA.

American municipalities would stop arresting Christians who warn about homosexual sex.

Mainstream denominations, including even “conservative” ones like the Baptists and Southern Baptists, would lift their shameful ban on frankly discussing homosexuality in church and in the pulpit, pretending it is not a problem or a sin.

Television preachers would sermonize on the subject, causing people to weep and flood the altar with tears of genuine repentance.

In short, there would be a real Holy Ghost revival in America and the healing would begin-both spiritually and physically.

Donald Hank

 

The Journal of James Hartline

Preparing For My Departure

But Running My Race Until I Leave!

 

How I Overcame 30 Years of Homosexuality

A Chapter From The Journal of James Hartline:

Gaining Life By Overcoming Death Through Jesus Christ

 

Part 1: August 4, 2008 – Facing Death 

 

     It was another very hot, muggy day as I walked towards the UCSD Owens Clinic, a medical clinic in San Diego where I have been treated for AIDS and Hepatitus C for the past ten years.  Throughout the early part of the summer of 2008, I had been experiencing episodes of extreme fatigue, heavy night sweats and weight loss.   I attributed most of the symptoms I was enduring to my exhausting schedule.  From competing as a candidate for the San Diego City Council to a recent speaking tour in the state of Ohio, I  was tired and I really had pressed myself to the limit.  However, this day was an even more trying time.  It took all of my strength just to get over to the doctor’s office.

 

     As I headed quickly towards my appointment with the physician who specializes in treating patients who are co-infected with AIDS and Hepatitus C, I was really laboring to walk the three miles to the clinic. With each passing minute I was becoming sicker and sicker.  Something was wrong — very wrong.  I was literally pouring sweat from every pore in my body and the loss of fluids was draining every ounce of strength left in me.

 

     With a faith in God that has been tried and tested in the fierce fires of great affliction over many years, I walk everyday with an unshakable confidence in the promises of Jesus Christ.  His promises to me are ultimate truth — truth that will see me through every trouble that I will face today and everyday that follows.  Despite the fact that I suffer daily with physical pain, I am confident that Jesus Christ will heal me from every disease because His word promises me this eternal gift: His body was broken and crucified so that I might be healed.   

 

     This is the attitude that I woke up with on the morning of August 4, 2008 when I was scheduled to see the liver specialist at Owens Clinic.  The previous night had been a miserable one for me.  I barely slept, waking up every two or three hours soaked in my own sweat.  Throughout the night, my joints hurt so much that I felt like my back was being realigned by an invisible and cruel surgeon.  I sluggishly got dressed and then ate a couple of spoonfuls of cold cereal before heading out the door.  With anticipation that the doctor would provide some answers to why I was enduring such an unusual affliction, I headed as quickly as my tired carcass would carry me to Owens Clinic.

 

      Upon arriving at the clinic I fell into a waiting room chair.  Within a matter of minutes I was wisked into the nurse’s room where my vitals and weight could be checked.  As the nurse was taking my blood pressure, I suddenly jerked my head up and declared, “I am going to throw up!” 

 

     “Hold on!” the nurse responded as she ran out of the room to get me a plastic bucket to vomit in.

 

    Within five minutes I was vomiting convulsively.  The room began to spin and I was headed for a black out.  Something was terribly wrong and I was sinking fast from my harsh reality, a reality that I had not previously experienced in the nearly eleven years I had been fighting the AIDS virus.

 

     Things soon went from bad to worse. The doctors were so concerned with my disintegrating condition that they decided to immediately admit me into the hospital.  Left for a few moments alone in one of the examination rooms, I began to weakly cry, “What is happening to me Lord?”  I really just wanted to go home and lay in my own bed, but I simply had no strength to move, much less make it to my house.  There are times in life when the most we can communicate to God is the simplest, but most sincere of all prayers, “Help me God.”  And that is what I prayed as I nearly blacked out.

 

     For two agonizing days, I laybeing in a hospital room at the University of California, San Diego.  It was a mysterious illness that had attacked my body.  With IV’s in a number of sites on my arms, I was pumped full of pain medication and at least five or six other medications designed to make my bodily functions work more normally.

 

    The doctors tested me for everything imaginable, but mysteriously, they could not find any foreign viruses, bacteria or other culprits that were causing my bleak condition.  To this day, my doctors have not been able to diagnose what attacked my body earlier this summer.  Like I have done so many other times during the past eleven years of fighting the AIDS virus, I simply drew close to my God, crying out for His revelations and a resolution to my affliction.

 

     Over the weeks that have followed since the attack against my body, the Lord has revealed to me a reality that brings me so much closer to a deeper walk with the God who reigns in Heaven and on this earth.  As I began to recover from this time of intense sickness, the Lord explained to me that He had allowed me to go through a baptism of affliction, a passing through a river of death, where a more intimate relationship with my Father in Heaven would be forthcoming.  The attack against my physical body was a spiritual one that had manifested itself with many dangerous physical symptoms.  According to the laboratory tests, my liver was toxic.  My liver enzymes were thirty times normal.  My immune system was diminished and not producing the normal number of t-cells required to fight off diseases.  My digestive system was in complete chaos as my entire being was under assault by this enemy.

 

     After leaving the hospital I was tested for dozens of unique diseases, as well as typical ones.  The doctors were not able to find any infections or diseases that had caused the type of illness I had battled over the summer.  These doctors are some of the finest HIV specialists in the nation and if a disease was causing my illness they would have found it.  In the midst of seeking God for relief from my affliction, I was privileged to hear from my Father in Heaven in a most unusual way.  What God has spoken to me during the dark nights of my summer ordeal has initiated in me a new and profound understanding of His call upon my life in this generation. 

 

     We are not guaranteed to live this day out, but as servants of the Lord Jesus Christ we are required to live each day as if we will not be here tomorrow.  If I were to leave this earth tomorrow, what would I want to be doing as I depart?  That is the question that the Lord impressed upon me during the time of my recent sufferings. 

 

     “What is it you hear in the night, in your suffering,” God would ask me.

 

      I would toss and turn as my body sought to find a comfortable place to lay on my bed in the midst of my heavy night sweats and extreme aches and pains.  I responded to God’s question by saying, “Lord. Lord  I hear the haunting sounds of many mothers crying out for their sons to come home from the homosexuality that has taken them away to a place of destruction.” 

 

     The voices of these mothers haunted my mind and I was not sure at the time what was more painful for me, my afflicted body or the realization that these mothers live with the knowledge that their sons are destroying themselves.

 

      “Lord, I also hear the cries of a young sister who misses her brother, a brother who has abandoned her and the rest of his family for the degradation of a homosexual relationship.  And I hear a dad who agonizes over a son who he did not spend more time with.  A son who is now lost to a homosexual lifestyle that will eventually kill him prematurely.”

 

     God responded to my answers by saying to me, “You have heard correctly.”

 

     Then the Lord announced His new edict for my life.  The Lord proclaimed to me, ”I am taking you to a place in this nation where you are going to fight to get those children back.  There is a chance they will come back, but you will have to make even greater sacrifices in your life than the sacrifices you have already made in obedience to Me.  And in this battle to save these lost children, you will be willing to make those sacrifices if you love them enough to give up your life for them.”

 

     The Lord has instructed me that I now must make myself even more vulnerable to humanity.  In doing so, there is the weight of knowing that the greater one exposes the intimate details of one’s struggles in this life, the greater there will be persecution and mockery and pain.  Yet, isn’t that the experience of our Lord as they beat Him and exposed His tortured and naked body to the world while hanging Him upon the cross at Golgotha?

 

Part 2: September 16, 2008 — Night Turns To Morning

 

     It is now the month of September and the sickness that tortured me during the earlier part of this difficult summer is completely gone.  I actually feel healthier now then I have felt in years.  Still, I am often awakened during the hushed late night hours by the haunting voices of sisters and mothers and fathers who weep over their lost sons and brothers, and their lost sisters and daughters, all of them having gone astray into the homosexual life with all of its horrific and terrifying outcomes.

 

     The suffering of so many families who cannot resolve the loss of their children to  homosexuality is the reason that I am about to do something so extremely personal that I have not been willing to do such a thing before.  The struggle of so many men and women who would leave homosexuality and lesbianism, if they were shown the way, is the reason I am about to begin this incredibly significant new phase of my ministry. 

 

     In all of the years that I have been in public ministry, from appearing on the 700 Club to having my life story told throughout America on television, radio, in newspapers and magazines, I have never revealed the contents of my personal journals.  For the past ten years, I have kept scores of journals that contain the most intimate details of my battle to overcome homosexuality, dealing with AIDS, and other important issues in my life.  On the pages of my journals are my life and death struggles, the dreams and visions given to me by the Lord, and my innermost thoughts, feelings and emotions as my mind was being converted from the depravity of homosexuality to that of a man who has the mind of Christ.  These are my secret diaries and contained in them is the descriptive essence of my transformation into a man of God where all old things pass away and all things become new.

 

     I am opening up my life so that many lost souls will be retrieved from the fires of hell.  I fully intend to rescue as many lost souls as I can from those unending and eternal flames of torment.  And if I get burned up in the process, then let everything that is left of me burn up.  The Word of God instructs me in Jude v.22-23: “And have mercy on some, who are doubting; save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.”

 

     God did not bring me this far so that I could look the other way and not feel the despondency and the hopelessness of so many families as they grieve over their sons and daughters who are now engaged in homosexuality and lesbianism.  There is also the added weight of knowing that there are people in our world who are actually deceiving these lost sons and daughters into accepting homosexuality as some type of gift from God. This is a demonic lie, a trap designed by Satan to lure as many as possible into an eternal hell that they will never, ever be able to escape. 

 

     Does true love look the other way or does true love challenge the enemy until he releases these sons and daughters from their impending demise?  My heart beats with a love that will not allow me to remain silent nor standing on the side with those who are too apathetic to care about the condition of the lost children of our generation. 

 

     My journals will reveal the hope of deliverance from homosexuality that is available to every human being who seeks the power to be set free.  Where there was once so little hope in our society, God is now saying through me, that there is a new wind blowing across these United States, a wind that brings refreshment to the thirsty souls who are bound up in sexual depravity.  Things are now changing in our nation.  We are not of the same old stale religion that was willing to sacrifice a generation to the deviancy of unfulfilling sexual urges.  No, we are so much more than what has been seen in previous generations.  The fires of deliverance have begun to burn in our nation and these awesome flames shall not be extinguished.

 

     It is, perhaps, the most evil of all of the devil’s assignments, that an arrangement has been made to allow members of the clergy to stand in pulpits under the sacrificial cross of Jesus Christ while such clergy proceed to tell their congregations that being involved in homosexuality is not a sin, but rather the act of two people who love and care for each other.  This deception must be challenged by the true servants of the Lord because the eternal destiny of souls is on the line.  With the Lord’s help, I fully intend to battle against this deception and to contend for every lost soul trapped in the snare of sexual depravity.

 

      All of my struggles, my pains, and my victories are stored in my journals.  Today, I allow you to read an entry from my journal that I wrote nearly ten years ago when I was crying out to God to be delivered from homosexuality.  Surely you can see that the Lord did not abandon me in such a humbled state.  Indeed, He did for me exactly what His word promises.  One of my favorite passages in the Bible that is a constant reminder to me that God will always do what He has promised to do according to His word is found in Romans 4:20-21:  “Yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform.”  The Lord Jesus Christ granted me complete freedom from the very homosexuality that had kept me spiritually, mentally and physically crippled for thirty years.

 

Part 3: From The Journal of The Dark Days

Entry 1: Dated March 2, 1999 

 

These are the words I wrote as I approached a place of near death.  Infected with

AIDS, battling the use of crystal meth and alone with no family, these words are

the cries of a man who was dying and so very close to the fires of eternal hell.  

     “I am so sick.  I am now closer to dying than ever.  And I am pushing myself closer and closer to that point where I will no longer exist in this world.  How does a forty year-old man learn those things that he should have learned as a child?  I ask myself this day, can God teach me at this point in my life to learn what I should have learned as a child?  Will He even answer me?  I have sinned and sinned and sinned against God, against my fellow man, against myself.  Why should God heal  me from AIDS?  Why should He do anything for me when I have refused to obey  Him?  I have been disloyal in every way to Him.  I have been unfaithful to Him in every way.  I don’t know how to be faithful or loyal to Him.  I don’t know how.   I never learned how.  I ask Him to forgive me for all of these grievous sins and show me how to be obedient to Him.  I need so many miracles.  I have HIV.  I am a compulsive homosexual.  I am a compulsive drug addict.  I am a criminal.  I am a liar.  I am dishonest.  I am disloyal.  I am a thief.  I am lazy.  There is nothing good in me.  If there ever was a worse person, I don’t know him.  How does God do His will in a person like me?  Oh, what a transforming miracle I need from Him.  If He doesn’t help me than I am doomed to die the failure that my parents created.  I am all alone.  O God be with me.  I pray this day that He will appear to me and that He is with me and will work this out.  Only God can help me now.” Dated: March 2, 1999

     In the spring of 1999 you didn’t have to ask me if I was dying.  I looked the part and most people who dared to gaze at my emaciated body just assumed I was suffering from some terminal illness.  In reality, I had been spiritually dead for many years and now my physical appearance was merely catching up to the coffin that my spiritual existence had been buried in for decades.

     By the spring of 1999, I had been suffering for nearly two years with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.  In 1997, my obsession with homosexuality and crystal meth had led me to become infected with the same deadly disease that had already killed millions of men who had given themselves over to the gay lifestyle.  Added to the physical tortures that came with AIDS was the burden of knowing that I had never been able to overcome my involvement with homosexuality, no matter how many times I had tried.

     In my journal entry from March 2, 1999, I was crying out to God to deliver me from the sorrows that had harassed me physically and spiritually for so many years.  I had never wanted to be plagued with homosexuality and yet, like so many others have stated in our society, the homosexuality had been a part of my personality since childhood.  I had first begun to experience homosexual desires at six years of age.  For years I had pleaded with God to set me free from a desire that the Bible clearly calls a sin.  Not just any sin, but a sin that the book of Revelation says will keep the person out of heaven forever if they practice it and refuse to repent.

     When I began keeping my first journal in 1999, I was a classic spiritual misfit because of the homosexuality which had controlled my way of life.  Prior to 1999, there were periods of time when I would renounce the homosexuality and give my all to follow God and go to church.  When the homosexuality would control me, then I would cease to go to church.  I was never one to engage in hypocrisy.  It was either all homosexuality or all church, but never the mixing of the two.  My conscience would never allow me to be involved in overt sin at the same time that I was sitting in the church and praising the Lord.

     Little did I know that God was truly and intently listening to my prayers during all of those difficult years when I would scream out in the midnight hours for His help.  Sometimes my heart would feel as if it was being seared with an acidic wounding as I pled for His help because I would interpret God’s delays as denials of my requests.  Of course, this tortured assumption on my part was the result of fear, rather than faith, controlling my beliefs about God.

     Oftentimes, God’s timing is not our timing.  Thus, we think that God is not listening to our pleas as we continue to suffer.  Many men and women who have prayed to God for deliverance from homosexuality have not recognized this critical reality.  There is a time for everything under the sun.  Unfortunately, most men and women who are practicing homosexuality, and who also claim an experience with Jesus Christ, have not waited for the timing of God’s miraculous intervention.  In turn, they give up on God and give themselves permanently over to live a life of complete sexual depravity.

     In 1999, God was about to intervene in my own life and answer the thousands of prayers I had prayed to be set free.  His intervention intensified during the time when I was starting to feel the real affects of the AIDS virus.  That was His time for me to begin the real battle for my freedom from homosexuality.  God’s timing is different for each man and woman.  The sooner we understand that, the better off we will be in our respective journeys to freedom.

     God’s plan for bringing me out of homosexuality was not the same plan that I had envisioned.  I was too fatigued in my life to have wanted any more suffering than what I had already been through.  My own personal strength was not a concern to God when He began to take me through my deliverance.  In fact, God was about to drain every drop of my own strength out of my life, leaving me mentally, physically and emotionally bankrupt.  God didn’t want me leaning on my own strength.  He wanted me to learn to depend solely on Him as my deliverer, my strength and my comforter.

      Deeper wounds and heavier sorrows, these were the realities that I encountered along the path that God was taking me on as I struggled through the afflictions of AIDS, homosexuality and drug addiction.  There was nothing in my life that I found enjoyable at that point.  And that is just the way that God wanted it.  I was literally experiencing my own funeral, a funeral where the pleasures that I had previously experienced in homosexuality and drug use, were no longer viable.  Someone once said that we only change what we can no longer tolerate.  I have found that statement to be mighty true in my own life.

     The Bible describes in Revelation 2:10 the full spectrum of the process that God brought me through in delivering me and granting me a permanent victory over homosexuality: “Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”

     To know God is to know suffering.  It is the way of Jesus. That is why He was willing to go to the cross and die for us. The reward that comes at the end of the suffering far surpasses the pains caused by that same suffering. That is what the writer in Revelation is describing when he talks about the crown of life one receives if they remain faithful in the midst of the trial of suffering and the imprisonment to sin.

     God tells us in His word that if we are to apprehend Him, then we must follow the same path that Christ took to the cross.  The great difference between myself and those who are still in bondage to homosexuality is their attitude towards suffering in this life