The Fundamental Transformation of the Armed Forces
By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media
When men dress as women and serve openly in the U.S. military, there are bound to be problems identifying these people. But don’t worry. The National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) has come to the rescue. This special interest group, backed financially by all the major media organizations, has issued special guidance in the form of an “open letter” to the media on how the “transgendered” are supposed to be covered.
For example, it says that referring to “transgender woman” or “transgender man” is acceptable on first reference, but that subsequent references should refer to a transgender woman as a “woman” or a transgender man as a “man.”
In other words, forget about someone’s DNA, the scientific and objective measure of one’s gender and sexual identity. The “open letter” makes that clear, noting that someone’s sex “assigned at birth” is not relevant to one’s “gender identity.”
We are told that the term “transvestite” is an “antiquated term” and should be avoided.
Transvestite or cross-dresser are terms that used to refer to Corporal Klinger wearing dresses and women’s hats as a character on the comedy show M*A*S*H. It was his attempt to get discharged. Today, in real life, Obama’s Defense Secretary Ash Carter hasannounced the transgendered can serve openly without fear of being discharged.
Under the Constitution, the Congress is supposed to make the rules and regulations for the Armed Forces. Article I, Section 8, clause 14 says, “The Congress shall have Power To …make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces….”
Our media reported the policy change without explaining on what basis, legal or constitutional, the change was made.
CNN simply said Carter had removed “one of the last barriers to military service by any individual,” and that he “had been studying the issue for almost a year.”
The New York Times said, “The decision pushes forward a transformation of the military that Mr. Carter has accelerated in the last year with the opening of all combat roles to women and the appointment of the first openly gay Army secretary.”
On what basis, however, can Carter or his boss Obama “transform” the military? The original ban on homosexuals in the military was changed through congressional action. There has been no congressional lifting of the ban on the transgendered.
Columnist and radio commentator Bryan Fischer noted that “President Obama and the Pentagon have violated the Constitution and committed an impeachable offense by unilaterally admitting transgenders, transvestites, and transexuals into the military.”
Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council noted that the enormously unpopular and disruptive policy is being implemented “without Congress’s approval.” Such a move has constitutional and legal implications.
House Committee on Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-TX) issued a statement questioning the change, but did not assert the constitutional requirement that the new policy be approved by Congress before taking effect. Once again, Congress has abdicated its responsibility.
This is, of course, no concern to the NLGJA, which monitors the media to make sure not that the Constitution is followed but that the demands of the gay lobby be met.
Thornberry says that “when we learned DOD was looking at new policies on the service of transgender individuals, the Committee posed a number of questions to DOD. In particular, there are readiness challenges that first must be addressed, such as the extent to which such individuals would be medically non-deployable. Almost a year has passed with no answer to our questions from Secretary Carter.”
How’s that for an executive branch out of control and showing complete disdain for Congress?
Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK), senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee,called for hearings, saying that the military “is facing historic readiness shortfalls, putting our service members’ lives at greater risk.” Instead of addressing these problems, Inhofe noted that the Obama administration is “forcing their social agenda” through the Department of Defense.
Inhofe did not question the legal or constitutional basis of what Obama and Carter had done.
Perhaps a hearing will attempt to answer the questions posed by Roger Severino of The Heritage Foundation:
- Will biological males who identify as female be subject to physical fitness requirements for men or women?
- Will they be required to do 35 pushups or 13 pushups to pass basic training?
- Will American taxpayers be required to pay for expensive “sex reassignment” surgeries, including breast implants in men and shaving down Adam’s apples when that money can be spent on better weapons or more training?
- Will service members who have addressed an officer as “sir” for years be booted out of the military if they refuse to address him as “ma’am?”
- Wouldn’t the loss and impact on recruiting offset any supposed gains of allowing a relatively few transgender troops the ability to dress according to their chosen identity?
One of these questions has already been answered. Carter said that by October 1, 2016, DOD will “create and distribute a commanders’ training handbook, medical protocol and guidance for changing a service member’s gender in the Defense Eligibility Enrollment System (DEERS),” and that the services “will be required to provide medically necessary care and treatment to transgender service members.”
At a briefing, Carter said, “The transgender individual, like all other service members, will get all medical care their doctors deem necessary.”
None of this is a controversy for the major media, which finance the NLGJA and do not dare question this radical sexual agenda. As reported extensively by Accuracy in Media, the NLGJA holds conferences and fundraisers on a regular basis that are sponsored by all of the major news organizations.
A benefit for the NLGJA in New York featured what the group itself called “some of the biggest names in media.” They included:
- Don Lemon of CNN
- Tamron Hall of NBC
- Simon Hobbs of CNBC
- Alisyn Camerota of CNN
- Christine Romans of CNN
- Poppy Harlow of CNN
- Harris Faulkner of Fox News
A more recent benefit event for the NLGJA in Los Angeles was sponsored by Comcast/NBC Universal and CBS News.
If members of Congress challenge this “transformation” of the military and assert their legislative powers, they would be going up against two of the most powerful interest groups in the country—the gay lobby and the major media.
So they take the easy way out by asking a few questions and meekly requesting hearings.
It’s difficult to know which is declining at a more rapid rate — the morality of the country or the relevance of the U.S. Constitution. Perhaps they are both hitting rock bottom at the same time.
Overthrow the Judicial Dictatorship
By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media
Commentators have missed the real significance of Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent in the gay marriage case. He calls the decision a judicial “Putsch,” an attempt to overthrow a form of government—ours. His dissent, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, was written “to call attention to this Court’s threat to American democracy.”
His comment about the Court using the kind of reasoning we find in a fortune cookie is a funny line. But there is much of the Scalia dissent that is not funny and which serves as a warning to the American people about what the Court has done to us.
Scalia understands the power and meaning of words and he chose the word “putsch” for a specific purpose. One definition of the term means “a secretly plotted and suddenly executed attempt to overthrow a government…” Another definition is “a plotted revolt or attempt to overthrow a government, especially one that depends upon suddenness and speed.”
Hence, Scalia is saying this was not only a blatant power grab and the creation of a “right” that does not exist, but a decision that depends on public ignorance about what is really taking place. It is our system of checks and balances and self-rule that has been undermined, he says.
In that sense, he is warning us that we need to understand the real significance of this decision, and go beyond all the commentators talking about “marriage equality” and “equal rights” for homosexuals. In effect, he is saying that the decision is really not about gay rights, but about the future of our constitutional republic, and the ability of the people to govern themselves rather than be governed by an elite panel making up laws and rights as they go.
Scalia’s dissent cannot be understood by listening to summaries made by commentators who probably didn’t read it. Although I may be accused of exaggerating the import of his dissent, my conclusion is that he is calling for nothing less than the American people to understand that a judicial dictatorship has emerged in this country and that its power must be addressed, checked, and overruled.
The implication of his dissent is that we, the American people, have to neutralize this panel, perhaps by removing the offenders from the court, and put in place a group of thinkers who are answerable to the Constitution and the people whose rights the Court is supposed to protect.
He says the majority on the court undermined the main principle of the American Revolution—“the freedom to govern themselves”—by sabotaging the right of the people to decide these matters. The Court destroyed the definition of marriage as one man and one woman “in an opinion lacking even a thin veneer of law.” In other words, the Court acted unlawfully and unconstitutionally.
Scalia called the decision “a naked judicial claim to legislative—indeed, super-legislative—power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government.”
Justice Scalia goes on, however, to attempt to explain why this is happening. He basically says, in so many words, that the majority of the Court is un-American, completely out of touch with American traditions and the views of ordinary Americans. He rips the Federal Judiciary as “hardly a cross-section of America,” people from elite law schools, with not a single person from middle-America, and not a single evangelical Christian or even a Protestant of any denomination. He calls the Court, on which he serves, a “highly unrepresentative panel of nine,” that has engaged in “social transformation” of the United States.
More than that, after examining the elite views and backgrounds of the “notorious nine,” he declares that while the American Revolution was a rejection of “taxation without representation,” we have in the gay marriage case, “social transformation without representation.”
One cannot help but think that Scalia wants readers to recall Obama’s promise of the “fundamental transformation” of America, except that in this case Obama has been assisted by five judges who did not represent, or even care about, the views of America as a whole.
While Scalia zeroed in on his colleagues on the Court, we can easily apply his analysis to the unelected members of the liberal media who pretend to offer the American people an objective and sensible interpretation of the decision.
On CNN, for example, anchor Brooke Baldwin “moderated” a discussion between lesbian liberal Sally Kohn and liberal pro-gay “Republican” Margaret Hoover. The only issue was when the Republican Party would accept gay rights and sell out conservative Christians. Baldwin herself is a member, or at least a supporter, of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association.
Conservatives watching Fox News and hoping for a pro-traditional values perspective are likely to be seriously disappointed as well. The new Fox star, Megyn Kelly, is getting rave reviews from the liberals for defending homosexual and transgender rights. A special report by Peter LaBarbera examines how Fox has been almost as biased on this issue as other media, calling the channel “unfair, unbalanced and afraid.” The word “afraid” describes the general failure to challenge the homosexual movement, into which Fox News has been pouring a significant amount of money for many years. Indeed, some “conservatives” have gone way over to the other side, with Greg Gutfeld, another rising Fox star, insisting that gay marriage is a conservative concept.
The Scalia dissent demonstrates why the fight for traditional values cannot and must not stop. That fight must continue because our form of democratic self-government is in grave jeopardy, and has in fact suffered a major blow. A federal constitutional amendment to protect traditional marriage is one obvious course of action. But that won’t solve the basic problem of an emerging judicial dictatorship willing to redefine historical institutions, make up rights, and defy common sense.
The court’s reputation for “clear thinking and sober analysis” is in danger because of this terribly misguided decision, Scalia writes. In other words, the Court is drunk with power and cannot see or think straight.
The same can be said about the major media, which cover this decision as just another controversial ruling that people will disagree on.
In fact, as the Scalia dissent notes, this decision will live in infamy. It is as if a Pearl Harbor-type attack has been achieved on America’s moral fabric and constitutional foundations.
In this context, Scalia talks about the Court overreaching its authority and moving “one step closer to being reminded of our impotence.” In my view, this is an open invitation for responsible elected officials to take power away from this Court and return it to the people.
But how will the Republican Party respond? Some big money players are demanding the white flag of surrender, so the GOP can “move on.” This is what the British “Conservative” Party has done, and we see the consequences there, as Christians are now being arrested by police or fired from their jobs for expressing views in favor of traditional values and traditional marriage.
Scalia’s discussion of “social transformation” of the United States without the voluntary input or approval of the people captures the essence of the coup that has been carried out. This process now has to be explained in terms that most people understand. It is, in fact, the phenomenon of cultural Marxism, an insidious process explained so forcefully in Professor Paul Kengor’s new book, Takedown.
As Kengor notes, gay marriage is only the beginning of this cultural transformation. By redefining the historical institution, the Court has opened the door to multiple wives, group marriages, sibling marriages, fathers and stepfathers marrying daughters and stepdaughters, and uncles marrying nieces.
A country that descends to the bottom of the barrel morally and culturally will not be able to defend itself against its foreign adversaries and enemies. Indeed, we have the evidence all around us that, as the culture has degenerated, our ability to defend ourselves has simultaneously been weakened. The recent Pentagon gay pride event featured a male General introducing his husband, as a transgender Pentagon civilian employee looked on.
The next step, from the point of view of those objecting to this fundamental transformation of America, has to be to find those elected leaders willing to act. The presidential campaign of 2016 is an opportunity to find out who understands the crisis and whether they have a way out.
“Happy Pride Month” From the Media
By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media
The coming out of Bruce as Caitlyn Jenner is happening as various sexual minorities are celebrating “Pride Month.” It used to be “Gay Pride Month,” but the number of oppressed sexual minorities seems to be growing at an amazing pace. Without a scorecard, it is hard to keep up.
Sooner or later, pedophilia will emerge as just another orientation.
One of the leading enforcers of political correctness in the media, the site known as BuzzFeed, is coming down hard on “misgendering” by other outlets. It is not permissible, according to this way of thinking, to refer to “Bruce Jenner” anymore, or to call him a male.
The BuzzFeed literary editor has published a quiz titled, “How Transphobic Are You?” That’s right: “transphobia” is the new catchword, designed to silence those of us who still believe in the scientific, biological and traditional definitions of the sexes.
Publications such as BuzzFeed and The Huffington Post, as well as the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA), represent the forces of cultural Marxism, designed to highlight and affirm what seems like an endless stream of sexual minorities objecting to their oppression by pro-traditional forces in society.
In a similar vein to what the NLGJA has directed in terms of acceptable coverage of transgenders, the ACLU has gotten into the business of telling the media how to report and what to think. The Daily Caller refers to it as the ACLU going “full fascist,” though it would be more accurate to label it as a Marxist way of thinking.
In any case, ACLU official Casey Strangio has declared, “Words matter, and erasing the identity of trans people by calling them by their birth names and birth-assigned sex is an act of hatred—one that is inextricable from the brutal violence that so many trans people, particularly trans women of color, encounter just for existing in the world.”
Strangio goes on, “There is no need to mention what her name used to be or what sex she was assigned at birth. And as writer and activist Janet Mock brilliantly explained to Piers Morgan, neither Janet nor Caitlyn were ‘born boys.’ They were born babies and they are women—brave and fabulous women.”
This is really beyond the pale. Babies are not born male or female anymore, just babies? What’s more, we are supposed to wait years or decades, in order to determine what they are, or at least what they claim to be.
“Caitlyn Jenner still has her penis” is the headline over a Richard Johnson story in the New York Post. That seems to make him still a man, at least in my book.
What’s more, Jenner still has male DNA. He can never eliminate that.
Nevertheless, “Caitlyn Jenner” is being honored with the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at The 2015 ESPYS on ABC on July 15.
At the same time, CNN has announced that some “activists” are objecting to the “misgendering” of Caitlyn Jenner when people in the media label “her” as a “him.” These activists “say that when news anchors and commentators purposefully use a male pronoun for Jenner, such as ‘he,’ they are misgendering her, thereby insulting her and the transgender community more broadly,” CNN reports.
CNN adds, “News outlets are generally striving to be sensitive. Many journalists immediately adopted ‘she,’ and ‘her’ in articles and discussions.”
Count me a member of the “insensitive” group of journalists and commentators. I still believe in the science and biology of DNA.
The propaganda barrage comes as President Barack Obama has officially designated June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month.
Interestingly, however, the Defense Department is highlighting “the achievements and sacrifices of LGB service members and LGBT civilians.” That’s because transgenders cannot yet officially join the combat services.
DoD News reports that Air Force General Counsel Gordon O. Tanner, a gay attorney, said he plans to do two things in celebrating LGBT Pride Month—“set new mentoring goals to mentor more rising young LGB leaders, and visit the gravesite of former Air Force Tech Sgt. Leonard Matlovich in the Congressional Cemetery on Capitol Hill.”
“Sergeant Matlovich was the first to fight the ban on gays serving in the military,” Tanner told DoD News. “His picture was on the cover of Time Magazine in 1975; NBC made a movie about his life.”
Matlovich died of AIDS in 1988.
The Washington Blade reports that Tanner is the first-ever presidential appointee confirmed by the Senate who’s not only openly gay and married to a same-sex spouse, but also a military veteran. He was confirmed by the Senate by voice vote last September without any dissent.
Much has happened in the intervening years, to the point where the Council for Global Equality recently marked the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOT). I am not sure what “biphobia” is.
The Council for Global Equality was a recent co-sponsor of the “Conference to Advance the Human Rights of and Promote Inclusive Development for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex (LGBTI) Persons.” The term “intersex” is apparently another new addition to the list of politically correct gender identity categories. I’m not really sure what it means, either.
What’s important, of course, is that in addition to the Obama administration, a lot of big liberal money is backing this international campaign for new “rights” for various sexual minorities.
The Council reports that it has been “generously funded” primarily by the Arcus Foundation, Sigrid Rausing Trust, the Open Society Foundations, Ford Foundation, and an anonymous source.
The executive director of the Arcus Foundation is Kevin Jennings, the former Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education in the Obama administration, while the Open Society Foundations are funded by billionaire hedge fund operator George Soros.
You may recall that Jennings’ activism was “inspired” by Harry Hay, the Communist Party member and “Radical Faerie,” who believed in the power of the occult. Hay was also a supporter of the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA).
Now that Robert Gates, the former defense secretary and current president of Boy Scouts of America, has called for the organization to open itself to homosexual Scoutmasters, can the acceptance of pedophilia as just another sexual orientation be far behind?
NAMBLA operates in the open, with a website devoted to “the benevolent aspects of man/boy love” and advocating “sexual liberation and youth liberation.”
In the past, the ACLU has defended NAMBLA, saying it goes to bat for “unpopular organizations” and believes in “robust freedom of speech for everyone.”
On the other hand, if you call Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner a he, which is how he was born, you are denounced by the ACLU as being guilty of hatred and possibly provoking violence. That’s enough to intimidate most of the media.
This is how a society spirals out of control, with the media afraid or unwilling to tell the truth any longer. Young people are clearly being singled out as the next victims, with sexual abuse being defined as love.
You might think, based on the media’s preoccupation with the terrible sexual abuse that has been documented in the Duggar family, that the media would oppose the sexual exploitation of children. But this scandal seems to be a convenient way for many in the media to make fun of the Duggars’ professed Christianity.
Our media have no principled objection to making children into sex objects. Otherwise, they would campaign to close down NAMBLA and expose the evil campaign to make sexual exploitation into just another sexual orientation.
The next phase of this sick campaign will be to present kids claiming to benefit from having sex with adults. If you object, you will be labeled as insensitive.
DNA Denier Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner is a Big Media Star
By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media
As the next phase in the Kardashian campaign for big bucks from reality TV gets underway, with former Olympic athlete Bruce Jenner declaring himself “Caitlyn,” the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) went into action. The gay lobby quickly issued an “Open Letter to Our Colleagues” on how to “accurately” cover “Caitlyn Jenner.”
The verdict from this special interest lobby is that Bruce Jenner can call himself anything he/she wants to, and the media are obligated to go along with whatever or whoever he says he wants to be.
There is no evidence that Jenner has changed his male DNA or even that his name has been legally changed to Caitlyn. Nevertheless, the NLGJA declared that “Now that Jenner has publicly announced a gender identity, the best practice is to refer to Caitlyn Jenner by the name she announced.”
On this basis, journalists are supposed to disregard reality and accept whatever various sexual minorities or psychologically disturbed individuals claim to be the case.
This flies in the face of normal rules of objective reporting, which require that things be covered in the way they are, not as people wish them to be.
By this standard, Jenner can claim to be a man one day and a woman the next, and the media are supposed to adjust their coverage accordingly.
The major problem with the NLGJA’s instruction to the media is that “Caitlyn Jenner” is still a “he.” There is no evidence that “he” has actually become a “she” in any physical or biological sense.
What’s more, there’s no way a “he” can actually become a “she,” since DNA determines whether a person is male or female. One is born a male or female and this information is recorded on a birth certificate.
“Today,” the NLGJA said in its Monday “open letter” to the media, “the person we have previously known as Bruce Jenner revealed preferred pronouns, and her new name, Caitlyn.”
So that’s it. A man wants to be called a woman and the media are supposed to fall in line.
The NLGJA informs the media that “Transgender people should be referred to by the name and gender with which they identify. Some transgender people choose to take hormones or have medical procedures, but that’s not what determines the right name and pronoun to use. It is stating one’s gender identity that is what should guide word use. Jenner should be referred to as she and her.”
How does growing one’s hair long and wearing a dress make Bruce Jenner into a woman? Some might say it makes him appear to be crazy, a pervert or a lunatic.
The issue of Vanity Fair featuring the photos of “Caitlyn Jenner” has not yet hit newsstands, but the photos are appearing everywhere in the media, including on the Fox News Channel, where Megyn Kelly declared “Caitlyn Jenner” to be a “courageous” figure.
The rest of the media are also falling into line. “She has finally made her debut,” reported CNN. “Caitlyn Jenner, Formerly Bruce, Introduces Herself in Vanity Fair” was the headline in The New York Times. The paper now calls her “Ms. Jenner.”
But where is the evidence that this is anything but a hoax?
“To get special early access to the revealing story and stunning photographs now, before it hits newsstands on June 9, subscribe to Vanity Fair’s digital edition on the iPhone or iPad,” the magazine’s website declares.
Hence, Vanity Fair is financially exploiting the “transgender” figure in the same way that he/she is doing, in preparation for a new reality show about Jenner declaring himself as somehow becoming a new gender.
Jenner has been a character in the E! reality series “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” along with wife Kris Jenner. A new show on the channel will feature Jenner in the “transition” to being a woman.
All the advance publicity guarantees curiosity seekers tuning in to see how strange the show is going to get. It means big bucks from advertisers.
The photos in Vanity Fair that have been released publicly seem to be heavily doctored or airbrushed, in order to make Jenner appear to be more feminine than he really is.
Rather than be skeptical of this publicity stunt, the major media are following the instructions of the NLGJA and taking the whole thing seriously.
The NLGJA, a group funded by all of the major media organizations, works to manipulate news coverage on behalf of various self-declared sexual minorities, the latest being so-called transgendered individuals. “We are not an advocacy group,” NLGJA claims. “Our mission is to ensure fair and accurate coverage of issues that affect the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities.”
This is nonsense, of course. The NLGJA is a major component of the gay rights lobby.
As AIM reported earlier this year, the NLGJA held a New York City fundraiser featuring day-time talk show host Meredith Vieira, who described pushing acceptance of so-called transgenders as the next phase of the gay rights campaign. “The transgender community continues to make strides to gain greater acceptance with more portrayals in the mainstream media,” she said.
Vieira referred to Jenner’s April 24 interview with Diane Sawyer as an important phase in the campaign.
The Vanity Fair photos and a video are the next phase.
“In this exclusive video filmed at our Annie Leibovitz photo shoot,” Vanity Fair proclaims, “the Olympic champion discusses her inspirations and how she hopes to encourage others.”
But rather than “encourage” others, the effect of the coverage could very likely be to confuse young people into thinking that one’s gender can, or should, be changed.
While we expect the liberal media to trumpet this new progression in the never-ending campaign for new rights for sexual minorities, it is troubling that conservative media personalities have jumped on the bandwagon, contributing to the idea that one’s sexual identity can be decided on a whim, from day to day, depending on the circumstances or how someone feels.
During a period when America desperately needs strong families grounded in the traditional male-female relationship, this message of sexual confusion can have an extremely damaging impact on young people who may be going through challenging periods in their lives.
But for reporters to even consider this possibility runs the risk of being declared “homophobic,” or somehow biased against sexual minorities.
It is way past time for the major media, including such outlets as CNN, NBC and Fox News, to stop pouring money into the NLGJA. This funding represents a major conflict of interest for the media. Why not start covering this issue of “sexual identity” in a manner that begins to approach objectivity by letting the viewers and readers know that there is at least a controversy over people choosing their sexual identities and disregarding science?
The truth is that the media have already bought into this hoax and are too far gone, and the United States may be on the inevitable decline as well.
The “courage” we really need is that which stands up to this decline and affirms the traditional relationships based on America’s founding values. But it appears it is just too much to ask for this kind of courage from the media.
America’s families will pay the price. The nation may not survive, as it becomes a laughingstock before self-destructing or becoming easy pickings for a determined foreign adversary.
Phony “Conservatives” and Britain’s Cultural Collapse
By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media
The usually astute Heritage Foundation commentator Nile Gardiner calls the win by the Conservative Party in Britain a defeat for socialism. Yet, Conservative Party head David Cameron ran on a platform boasting that “we have protected the National Health Service, with 9,500 more doctors and 6,900 more nurses, and ensured generous rises in the State Pension.”
Based on this precedent, we can anticipate that Republican Party politicians here in America will one day run on a platform of making Obamacare more affordable, rather than seeking to abolish it. This, then, will be defined as the “conservative” position.
The coverage of the recent British elections has demonstrated that the term “conservative” has lost much of its meaning. It’s time to take a hard look at what the term has come to mean in Britain and how it is being distorted and transformed here.
In addition to the Conservative Party’s embrace of socialist programs, the Cameron government, which has ruled Britain for five years, has embraced Islamic immigration to Britain, going so far as to pay more deference to global Islam than traditional Christianity. Demonstrating this bias, the supposedly “conservative” government in Britain banned American anti-Jihad activists Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer from the country. Geller and Spencer had intended to rally opposition to the Islamization of the West. Spencer called Cameron, who has labeled Islam “a religion of peace,” as the “dhimmi appeaser.” The term means a non-Muslim who accepts Muslim dominance.
Cameron and his Conservative Party have also embraced the legalization of homosexual marriage. The Conservatives’ 2015 manifesto says: “Our historic introduction of gay marriage has helped drive forward equality and strengthened the institution of marriage. But there is still more to do, and we will continue to champion equality for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people.”
We can easily anticipate the Republican Party going down this road in the United States. In fact, the publication Politico notes that GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush is among those trying to “have it both ways” on homosexual marriage. “While he publicly maintains his opposition to same-sex marriage, reaffirmed over the weekend by a surrogate he sent to Iowa, Bush is sending signals that he may be more accepting of ‘marriage equality’—the strongest signal, perhaps, coming when he referred to the issue using that term favored by LGBT advocates—than he’s able to let on,” the publication reported.
It noted that Bush has hired a communications director, Tim Miller, who is openly gay, and his inner circle of staffers “have all expressed strong support for marriage equality, including Mike Murphy, hired to run his messaging shop, who wrote about the GOP’s need to evolve on policy following Romney’s defeat in 2012.”
Jeb Bush is shaping up as the David Cameron of the Republican Party.
In Britain the changes keep coming, now at an astounding rate. Andrea Williams of the British group Christian Concern says the Cameron government has not only “destroyed marriage” by redefining it to include homosexual couples, but it is also pursuing liberal policies in other areas. For example, she says the government has liberalized abortion and refused to outlaw abortions on the basis of the sex of the fetus. She says that in Britain nurses and teachers have been suspended for wearing Christian crosses, judges have been replaced for refusing to place children in homosexual relationships with two fathers or two mothers, and Christian street preachers are being jailed for “offensive” comments. “We have no leader at the helm of any of our main parties, whether it’s the Liberal Democrats, the Labor Party or the Conservative Party, who are speaking a moral vision,” she says.
Another British group, the Christian Institute, confirms these ominous trends and warns that “…here in the UK religious liberty is being increasingly challenged…Street preachers have been arrested. Christians have lost their jobs for answering questions about their faith or for taking an ethical stand. Christians in business have come into conflict with equality laws and faced fines for holding to the belief that marriage is between a man and a woman.”
Commentator Charles Moore had warned in March 2015: “Socially conservative moral views are now teetering on the edge of criminality, and are over the edge of disapproval by those who run modern Britain.”
In arguing that “Britain is at heart still a conservative country,” Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation was talking about a country that no longer exists. His only reference to Britain’s cultural collapse came in his observation that Cameron had “alienated many grassroots supporters with highly controversial ‘modernizing’ policies such as backing gay marriage and increasing spending on foreign aid, both deeply unpopular with the Conservative base.” In fact, as we have seen in the statements quoted above, the conservative base has been betrayed on a host of issues. Today, even free speech is at risk in Britain.
In the U.S., it appears that big money is driving the Republican Party to the left, along the same path taken by Britain. The Politico article quoted earlier noted the influence of hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, who has decided that since his own son is gay, the Republican Party should embrace the homosexual lifestyle and homosexual marriage. The publication said that Bush is determined to win Singer’s personal support, and added that “other billionaire bundlers like Seth Klarman and Dan Loeb, another hedge funder known for asking any candidate who enters his office where they stand on gay rights,” are also looking for Republicans to finance and push their pet causes.
As these developments unfold, it will be up to conservatives in the media and the think tanks to shine a light on the attempted takeover of the Republican Party. That will be much harder to do if the conservative media become part of the problem and go AWOL on the need for a moral vision to save the country.
In this context, Guy Benson, the political editor of its conservative Townhall.com website, has announced that he is a practicing homosexual. Benson, a supporter of homosexual marriage, is a Fox News contributor who appeared on Megyn Kelly’s Fox News show to discuss coming out of the closet through a footnote in his new book. “I think it’s very brave,” Kelly told him.
Fox News has been a major financial backer of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, a group that featured a male stripper at its recent New York City fundraiser. However, Townhall.com’s parent company is a Christian firm, Salem Media Group, which has refused comment on whether Benson will retain his influential position within the company. The company describes its mission as “targeting audiences interested in Christian and family-themed content and conservative values.”
Male Stripper Performs At Gay Journalism Event
By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media
Their slogan is, “We’re here, we’re queer. We’re on deadline.” But on April 16th, when the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) held their 2015 “Headlines & Headliners” fundraiser in New York City, they were cheering a strip-tease performer from Chippendales.
Chippendales strippers usually perform for sex-starved women. This time the audience consisted of sex-starved gay men.
It was an eye-opening experience that included stars from CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. The emcee was Javier “Javi” Morgado, Executive Producer at CNN’s “New Day” program, who introduced the live auction of two VIP seats at the Las Vegas Chippendales show. He’s a former board member of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association. Tyson Beckford, who has joined Chippendales in Las Vegas as their celebrity guest host, participated in the live auction, encouraging higher bids.
I paid the $150 ticket price to get into the event. This isn’t the first time I had covered and filmed the event, and I never encountered any problems in the past. But this time the group told me to leave. My own video shows the confrontation.
The National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association is financed by all of the major media organizations, from MSNBC and CNN on the left to Fox News on the right. It has issued a “Stylebook” to advise news organizations on how to use “lesbian, gay, bisexual & transgender terminology.” For example, you are not supposed to use the term “ex-gay,” even though thousands of former homosexuals do exist. The gay “Stylebook” warns that the term “ex-gay” is “mostly rooted in conservative religions” and has been “generally discredited as therapy in scientific circles.”
That this is complete nonsense can be demonstrated by the well-known case of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray. For years she publicly called herself a lesbian, even writing an essay titled, “I Am a Lesbian.” But she got married to de Blasio and has two kids. The gay “Stylebook” is why you rarely see interviews with ex-gays on the air. They are not supposed to exist.
The National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association event was actually a public event, in the sense that tickets were available to anybody who bought them. That’s how I got in. In addition to the ticket prices and the financial sponsorship from big media organizations, the auction sold special VIP access to such programs as Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN. Other auction items included MSNBC star Rachel Maddow’s book, access to the MSNBC “Morning Joe” program, an “adults only” stay at a hotel and spa, and two tickets to “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”
This year’s event was different because of the inclusion of a live auction of two VIP seats to the Las Vegas performance of Chippendales. The auction price went up and up until, finally, at around $1,500 the vacation was sold.
CNN had a big contingent that included its president, Jeff Zucker, and correspondents Brian Stelter, John Berman, Christine Romans, Richard Quest and Brooke Baldwin.
MSNBC sent Contessa Brewer and Willie Geist. Gerri Willis from Fox News was there.
The mix of attendees shows that, on the matter of gay rights, there’s no competition among the big media. They’re on the same side.
I filmed the strip-tease auction and wanted to film the main speech by Meredith Vieira, the day-time talk show host, but was approached by someone with the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association who said I would have to stop filming. I refused and suggested calling the cops. Then, I was approached by Matthew Berger of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, who was accompanied by the building’s security guard. Berger insisted it was a private event that I couldn’t film. I noted that I had filmed it two years ago with no resistance.
Berger is a former reporter for NBC News and the National Journal who went to work for Dezenhall Resources dealing with “crisis communications.” Berger definitely had a crisis on his hands this time.
It may have been the videos of this event that I had taken in the past which had caused the group a problem. Those videos featured a big media star, Natalie Morales of NBC News, boasting about how they had changed public opinion in favor of gay marriage. Natalie Morales declared, “Many of us here in this room—the media—we are responsible for opening the world’s eyes to these issues and the stories that have brought about such change.” These comments seem to cast doubt on the idea of a “fair and balanced” media on the gay rights matter.
Not wanting to cause a physical confrontation, I eventually agreed to stop filming. But according to others who covered the event and recorded the remarks, Meredith Vieira described the next phase of the campaign.
“The transgender community continues to make strides to gain greater acceptance with more portrayals in the mainstream media,” she said. “This past year we saw Laverne Cox make history as the first transgender person to grace the cover of Time magazine, the series ‘Transparent’ on Amazon won two Golden Globes and next week Bruce Jenner breaks his silence in an interview with Diane Sawyer about what many expect to be an open conversation about his transitioning…It is because of organizations like NLGJA that push for fair and accurate coverage of the LGBT community that we are where we are today, continuing to educate decision makers in newsrooms to sensitively cover the issues confronting each and every one of us.”
Of course, the group is not promoting “fair and accurate” coverage at all. Their gay “Stylebook” dictates coverage of the issue to benefit the seemingly endless parade of sexual minorities.
The next stop, as Vieira made clear, is the “rights” of the transgendered. “Bruce Jenner: the Interview” is scheduled to air on April 24.
At the same time, CBS’ soap opera, “The Bold & the Beautiful,” has unveiled a transgender story line about what the New York Daily News describes as one of the show’s most popular female characters, fashion model Maya Avant, being born male.
After the transgendered get their rights, what’s next? My bet is on special coverage for members of the “leather community” who practice forms of sexual bondage. There is actually a New York Bondage Club where people can get tied up, punched, wrapped, or tied down on a cross.
I’m sure The Huffington Post, always on top of the latest bizarre sexual trends, will be updating us on the demands for the rights of those engaged in this “alternative lifestyle.” Indeed, the publication has run several stories about this perversion, even one about the show “Ellen” featuring NBC’s Matt Lauer in bondage gear.
As someone “schooled” by Communist Frank Marshall Davis, a pornographer and pedophile, it is possible that President Obama will extend these bondage practitioners special rights before he leaves office.
The Real Power of the One Percent
By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media
Statistics show that 1.6 percent of the population identifies itself as gay or lesbian. But judging from the hysteria over Indiana’s religious freedom law, it seems that many of them are in positions of power in the media. These power brokers are not only openly gay, but also anti-Christian. Even Holy Week hasn’t kept them from demonstrating their anti-Christian animus.
Indiana’s Republican Governor Mike Pence spoke on Tuesday about the media misinformation over his state’s religious freedom bill. The “perception problem” he referred to is of the liberal media’s making. In fact, one can argue that the misperception was deliberately created by the media.
“I have to tell you,” he said to the press and the public, “that the gross mischaracterizations about this bill early on and some of the reckless reporting by some in the media about what this bill was all about was deeply disappointing to me and to millions of Hoosiers.” He called the coverage a “smear.”
Pence was reluctant to identify the source of the bias—homosexual influence in the major media. But until conservative politicians step forward to identity the real source of the problem, the homosexuals will continue to win the public relations battle and hide behind the façade of “objective” coverage when none exists. The fact is that the liberal media and the gay lobby are essentially one and the same.
It’s this kind of media bias that should not have come as a surprise to Pence, a former member of Congress and a strong conservative.
Liberal media bias is an old problem. The new wrinkle over the last several years has been the relentless promotion of the homosexual lifestyle.
Two years ago a Pew Research Center study of news media coverage of the gay marriage debate found that “Stories with more statements supporting same-sex marriage outweighed those with more statements opposing it by a margin of roughly 5-to-1.” Pew reported, “The findings show how same-sex marriage supporters have had a clear message and succeeded in getting that message across all sectors of mainstream media.”
The media know they’re biased, of course. They are careful to conceal the depth and extent of the bias, in the sense that few members of the public are being told that most of the major news organizations are financial backers of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA). Literally all of the major media, ranging from MSNBC on the left to Fox News on the right, are in bed with the NLGJA.
However, we were somewhat surprised to find that even a financial channel such as CNBC is not above the slanted coverage. On Monday, as we reported, coverage of the markets and economics gave way to a lengthy interview with open lesbian Kara Swisher, who smeared opponents of gay rights as the equivalent of racists.
Regardless of what happens in Indiana, where Pence has vowed to clarify the statute, the issue won’t go away.
The Indiana case should serve as a lesson in how the media distort the news. The clear homosexual/media strategy, in this case, has been to redefine discrimination as the failure to do what homosexuals have demanded that you do, without explaining to the public how the meaning of the term has been changed to meet the demands of the powerful gay lobby.
Since our major media organs are openly pro-homosexual, we have to conclude that the bias in the Indiana case is deliberately designed to fool the American people into thinking that homosexuals are the victims when they are, in fact, the victimizers.
In practical terms, this bias is reflected in the typical ongoing failure of the media to quote pro-family and Christian voices, such as American Family Association of Indiana Executive Director Micah Clark, who has called the claim that the law bestows a “license to discriminate” as “perhaps the biggest lie about this law.” Pence said much the same thing at this press conference.
If our media had simply bothered to cover the other side of the story, rather than rely on pro-homosexual interest groups, we might have gotten some truth and facts in the national debate.
The victims of this bias, unfortunately, include top CEOs and businesspeople, such as Marriott International CEO Arne Sorensen, who called Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act “madness.”
Upon reflection, Sorensen must himself be mad or completely misinformed. Or, perhaps, he’s just pandering to homosexuals for their business. Marriott was named Corporation of the Year by the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce in 2014. It received a 100 percent score on the Human Rights Campaign’s “Corporate Equality Index.”
The Human Rights Campaign is the group whose co-founder, Terry Bean, has been arrested on child sex-abuse charges.
Perhaps people like Sorensen don’t want to know the facts and simply don’t care whether the rights of Christians are violated in the pursuit of providing special rights for homosexuals.
Micah Clark, of the American Family Association (AFA) of Indiana, explains how the Indiana law works: “This law does not allow a person of faith to deny service to someone, nor should it,” he points out. “No Christian bakery owner should say that people involved in homosexual behavior couldn’t shop in their bakery. That, in my opinion is wrong, un-Christian and discriminatory unless the patron is misbehaving ( i.e., ‘no shirt, no shoes, no service’). However, when a customer seeks special participation from the baker, asking him or her to specially decorate a ‘gay’ wedding cake and come set it up at a homosexual wedding, then there is a very different line crossed, and a problem for most people of faith.”
The Indiana law attempts to protect people of faith from being forced to participate in activities that they have religious objections to.
The American Family Association has noted the following four cases in states without a religious freedom law involving Christian business owners being prosecuted, fined or punished for refusing to bow to homosexual demands:
- Washington: Florist Barronelle Stutzman was fined by the state for not providing flowers for a homosexual wedding.
- New Mexico: Photographer Elaine Huguenin was ordered by the state to give a lesbian $7,000 for declining to take pictures of a lesbian wedding.
- Oregon: Aaron and Melissa Klein were fined $150,000 by the state for refusal to bake a cake for a lesbian wedding.
- Kentucky: Blaine Adamson was ordered by the city of Lexington to undergo “sensitivity training” for refusing to print T-shirts for a gay pride festival.
Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal group involved in several of these cases, says there are three key issues at stake:
- Whether the government can force Americans in expressive professions to communicate messages and ideas against their will
- The freedom of Americans to live and do business according to the teachings of their faith and the dictates of their conscience
- Whether Americans should be forced to compromise freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution
The case of the florist in Richland, Washington, Barronelle Stutzman, owner of Arlene’s Flowers, illustrates the stakes. She is being sued by the Attorney General because she declined to decorate for a same-sex ceremony and may be forced into financial bankruptcy.
Joseph Backholm of the Family Policy Institute of Washington state has commented about the case: “…there’s a problem with the argument that she discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation. She has consistently and happily done business with people who identify as gay for years, including the individuals involved in this case. She considered them friends.” What she objected to was being part of a same-sex marriage ceremony.
In this case, as noted by her attorneys with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a state judge ruled that the government can force her to do custom design work and provide wedding support services “even if she has a religious conviction that marriage is between one man and one woman.”
As such, this is a violation of the basic God-given right to freedom of religion that the founders of the United States gave to the American people. It is as sacred as freedom of the press.
This is the issue: In the name of “non-discrimination,” homosexuals want to force Christians and other religious believers to violate the principles of their faith. But this is precisely the point that has been deliberately obscured by a media that functions as the propaganda arm of the militant gay lobby.
ADF Senior Counsel Kristen Waggoner noted, “The couple had no problem getting the flowers they needed. In fact, they received several offers for free flowers. So, where’s the tolerance for Barronelle Stutzman? It’s hard to believe that Barronelle should prepare to have everything she has earned and built seized by the state just because of her beliefs about marriage.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook, an open homosexual, attacked Indiana’s religious freedom law, saying, “There’s something very dangerous happening in states across the country.” What is dangerous is how a small minority is trying to dictate the acceptance of their lifestyle by the majority. They have gotten this far because the same small minority also seems to control major centers of media and corporate power in the United States.
Unholy Assault on the Hoosier State
By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media
I was watching CNBC on Monday for updates on the markets and economic affairs when I suddenly found technology “journalist” Kara Swisher of “Re/code” being “interviewed” by the “Squawk Alley” team about Indiana’s new religious freedom law. She compared opponents of the homosexual agenda to racists and said that Indiana Governor Mike Pence (R), who signed the law, is “shameless.” The interview went on and on, with no opposing views presented.
Although shocked at first by her blatant hostility toward Christian America, a little digging discovered that Swisher is a major player in the gay community and CNBC is a major outlet for homosexual propaganda.
Swisher, who has interviewed President Obama and Hillary Clinton, had been a featured speaker at the “Lesbians Who Tech” summit, where she used the “F” word quite liberally and declared: “I’m often confrontational, so F— you.”
The group “Lesbians Who Tech” describes itself as “a Community of Queer Women in or around tech.” The American people might be interested to know that the sponsors of the “Lesbians Who Tech” event included Google, ebay, Wells Fargo, Intel, Walmart, Target and Amazon, among other corporations.
Not surprisingly, the pro-homosexual Huffington Post ran a glowing profile of the summit by its own correspondent, a self-described “Lesbian-Feminist, Public Intellectual PhD” by the name of Marcie Bianco. This appeared in the on-line publication’s “Gay Voices” section, which has also featured a video of full frontal male nudity.
When I pointed this out recently, I was attacked by the “conservative” Daily Caller for somehow exaggerating what The Huffington Post had done. It’s a sign of the times that even a “conservative” outlet is reluctant to expose the shameless promotion of homosexuality in the media. One of the main funders of The Daily Caller is a Christian by the name of Foster Friess.
At the risk of promoting this kind of repulsive “journalism,” it is important to note that The Huffington Post item, Male Full-Frontal Nudity Supercut: Which Stars Have Bared It All?, which appeared in the “gay voices” section, was exactly as I described it—a form of gay porn.
But when Christians get repulsed by this kind of thing and seek to protect their families and children from it, they are singled out as bigots.
With Google in the news because of its clout and influence with the Obama administration, it is important to note that Swisher has announced on her website that Megan Smith, a former vice president at Google and Swisher’s “longtime spouse from whom I am now separated and have two children,” is now the Chief Technology Officer of the United States, working for President Obama.
Smith’s White House bio also discloses that she previously served as CEO of PlanetOut, a company that targeted lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders. It was then acquired by Here Media Inc., which owns the Alyson Books publishing division.
Do you remember the “children’s books” which carried the titles Heather Has Two Mommies and Daddy’s New Roommate? Those were published by Alyson. Some of its more recent titles include the “S/M classics” Coming to Power and Leatherfolk. The latter is described as a book about a “distinct subculture” known as “the gay and lesbian leather underground.”
But don’t expect any coverage of this “lifestyle” by the major media, except perhaps to promote it.
Swisher’s softball interview was not a surprise. She has a CNBC “profile” on the channel’s website, demonstrating that she is a regular. Indeed, her online “news” service “Re/code” is owned by Revere Digital, whose minority investors and strategic partners include the NBCUniversal News Group. This guarantees Swisher access to such media properties as CNBC, MSNBC, “Today,” and the “NBC Nightly News.”
This helps explain some of the homosexual movement’s clout in the major media.
CNBC won’t advertise the fact, but the channel is itself a big backer of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA). Mandy Drury, Simon Hobbs and Carl Quintanilla of CNBC have appeared at NLGJA fundraisers.
At one NLGJA event, Natalie Morales of the NBC “Today” show described how “Many of us here in this room—the media—we are responsible for opening the world’s eyes to these issues and the stories that have brought about such change.”
Now that they’re on the verge of getting the Supreme Court to declare gay marriage the law of the land in all 50 states, the homosexuals in the media are identifying and demonizing their enemies in the heartland of America. That’s what Indiana is all about.
Swisher and her lesbian and gay allies are saying “F— You” to traditional American values.
Who Will Defend Free Speech in America?
By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media
In a story about Bret Baier’s withdrawal from a Catholic conference, where he was going to speak about his Catholic faith, the website known as Mediaite noted that Republican Governor Bobby Jindal (LA) was going to go through with his appearance at the event. But the website warned him about the consequences of offending the homosexual lobby. “Given the controversy that follows House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) more than a decade after he allegedly spoke before a group connected to white supremacists, Jindal, who has presidential ambitions of his own, must be giving his appearance some serious thought right about now,” it said.
Hence, the philosophy of white supremacism associated with the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis is compared to Catholicism. That’s the message this so-called “respectable” source of news and information is sending. Jindal rejected that. The governor’s spokesman said, “Governor Jindal looks forward to addressing the summit and speaking about what faith means to him.”
The summit is sponsored by Legatus, a group that upholds the teachings of the Catholic Church on human sexuality and other matters.
If Baier was speaking at or attending a fundraiser for the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA), that would have been perfectly okay. After all, many Fox media stars, including Megyn Kelly, have done so in the past. In addition, Fox pours money directly into this important lobby in the homosexual movement, and it’s not even a controversy.
What’s fascinating in this case is that the attacks which forced Baier and actor Gary Sinise out of the Legatus conference do not involve opening fire on anybody’s editorial offices and murdering the offenders. These things are mostly done differently in America. I say “mostly” because of the terrorist attack on the Washington, D.C. offices of the Family Research Council (FRC) in 2012. That was inspired by a “hate map” posted by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) pinpointing the location of the FRC. A security guard was injured as he stopped a homosexual militant from trying to carry out a massacre in the FRC offices.
In most cases, however, the weapons of character assassination, distortion, and anti-Christian bigotry will suffice. The purpose is to intimidate and ostracize those who dare to associate with groups affirming traditional standards of morality. One of the new tactics, as used by Mediaite, is to associate Catholics with racial extremists. This is a smear that is beneath contempt, but the gay lobby and its fellow travelers will stop at nothing.
The message that the site was sending to Jindal is that he risks his political future by associating with a notorious hate group called the Catholic Church. It was a threat disguised as news.
The leftists have no quarrel with the views of the pope on economic matters. And they certainly won’t quibble with his encyclical on climate change when he issues that in March. But challenging the morality of the lifestyle of so many in Hollywood and the media is something else. Questioning the homosexual lifestyle simply cannot be tolerated.
Jindal, who is a Catholic, didn’t succumb to the pressure. He had the intestinal fortitude to remain true to his beliefs. He understood that the attacks on Legatus were an attack upon his own faith. He couldn’t back down and maintain his own principles. Jindal’s decision to stand up to the modern totalitarians in the gay rights movement has to be seen as courageous.
Backing out is especially troubling in the case of Bret Baier, since his speaking appearance at the Legatus summit was for the purpose of talking about his own Catholic faith expressed in his book, Special Heart: A Journey of Faith, Hope, Courage and Love. He wasn’t there to talk about gay rights. Neither was Sinise, for that matter.
Baier, or his corporate bosses, have to take the blame for giving in to the pressure. We would have thought that the Fox News Channel would have stood firmly for freedom of expression and freedom of conscience. It sets a terrible precedent that a “conservative” news channel, which became successful by speaking for many without a traditional voice in the liberal media, should bow at the altar of political correctness. Why they buckled to the pressure is a story in itself.
As we have pointed out, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith is allowed to pontificate on the air, including on behalf of the gay rights cause. But a Bret Baier speech about his book at a Catholic event is supposed to be offensive. This is the state of our media today.
The tactics used by the homosexual lobby have been perfected by such groups as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Council on American-Islamic Relations against their enemies. What’s new is that the official Catholic Church teachings on human sexuality are now labeled as so offensive that people can’t even be associated with a group that promotes them. This is the kind of religious discrimination we have seen in countries like France against the Jews.
Some in the media called the summit “anti-gay,” which is a complete lie. As Legatus Executive Director John Hunt said in a statement, “Legatus embraces all that the Catholic Church teaches—nothing more, nothing less. Of course, at the core of all that the Church teaches is Christ’s unconditional love for every man and woman. While the Church has and always will teach about the morality of certain behaviors, these teachings are always to be understood in the context of the value of and respect for every human person.”
Turning Christian love into “hate” is an indication of how a situation can be twisted into something it’s not. This is how political correctness, a form of cultural Marxism, works in practice. The homosexual lobby has perfected this tactic of intimidation.
Hunt said the group’s members are only asking for the freedom to exercise their religious beliefs, “which includes the ability to gather together and discuss their faith.”
That such a meeting has become controversial, to the point where major figures in the media and Hollywood can be forced to back out, is a terrible reflection on the condition of the First Amendment right to free speech in America today. The news organizations that are involved in this silencing of freedom of expression have shown they have no understanding of what “I am Charlie” is all about.
In Memoriam
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