Two months ago, I posted that Americans for Truth About Homosexuality was holding a “Truth Academy” in order to train the next generation of anti-gay-rights activists. Attendees needed to pay a registration fee and get a “recommendation” from a pastor. I wrote that I would gladly pay the fee for anyone who wanted to go.

Ultimately, two people — Maria Pahl and “Perry D’Olia” (a pseudonym) — were accepted into the Academy. They did this using their real names and providing the requested documents. Both were present for the entirety of the academy, with any exceptions listed below.

The opinions expressed are entirely their own. Since there was a lot of overlap in their experience, I’ve used Maria’s writing as the basis for their perceptions of the day itself while Perry’s writing is the basis for the specific lectures.

This is Part 3 of 3. Part 1 can be read here. Part 2 can be read here.

…

Perry:

Maria was late to the Academy this morning. LaBarbera spoke about the two pro-gay people who got into the event. Apparently, the guy who was recording the event posted information about the event already. The spy had said, “I would rather turn Bill Gates’ vast fortune into a giant mountain of pennies and count them, than endure one more tedious anti-gay seminar.” These are the types of comments that I do not feel are constructive. Preston Noell indicated that his recording of the event is a felony. LaBarbera said that it looked like Maria would not be returning and then explained the ‘great lengths’ she went to to get in (a letter from a pastor). He used this as evidence that the opposition will lie and cheat to get ahead.

Maria:

The trains run later on the weekends, which I hadn’t really realized before Saturday morning. As a result, I found myself running from the train station to the conference at full tilt in order to not be any later than I already was. I took my seat, a little warm from my rush over in the hot weather. I started fanning myself with my binder.

One of the women I had talked to several times over the last couple of days got up from her seat. She grabbed a water bottle from the back of the room and gave it to me, whispering to me that I looked warm, and I should drink something. I smiled and thanked her.

A few minutes later when I had cooled down a bit, I got out my computer to start taking notes. Immediately, an older man tapped me on the shoulder.

“We’re not allowing blogging today,” he whispered. “Please put your computer away.”

I was a little confused, because I hadn’t even begun to type anything yet, but I put my computer away and asked if I could write my notes down instead.

“I’ll have to check on that,” he said.

A minute or so later he came back and with a self-deprecating chuckle he told me, “I don’t know why I even thought that wouldn’t be okay. Of course you can take notes.”

During the breaks in between lectures, lots of people who had never talked to me before were calling me by name and asking to talk to me. But instead of what most had talked to me about at breaks the previous two days (namely, homosexuality, how it’s immoral, and how dangerous it is), I found that everyone was suddenly asking me about my life, the weather, where I was from… just basic pleasantries. A couple asked me where I’d been that morning, and when I explained the train situation to them, a little bit of a hesitant air seemed to go out of their expressions.

Apparently, as I found out later, since I’d shown up an hour late, Peter LaBarbera (and I suppose everyone else) assumed I wasn’t coming. So he explained to everyone that I and the other young man had been recording the previous day, that we were infiltrators from the gay rights movement, and that this is just the type of underhanded tactics one should expect from the LGBT side.

I guess it was a bit of a shock to everyone when I showed up.

The older man who had asked me to put away my computer came up later and asked me what I needed the computer for. I got to explain myself more fully: no, I wasn’t live-blogging, just taking notes, and I hadn’t been live-blogging the previous day either. He seemed satisfied with the explanation and told me it would be fine if I used the computer to take notes.

“Really though,” he said amiably, “do you think if the positions had been reversed, if one of us had gone to an LGBT meeting without identifying ourselves, do you think we would have been allowed to come back?”

I think it was supposed to be a rhetorical question, but I answered anyway.

“Yeah,” I said. “I mean, as long as you weren’t being disruptive or anything. I don’t think anyone at any of the LGBT activist meetings I’ve been to would’ve had a problem with it.”

He gave me a bit of a confused and surprised look. But maybe I’m reading too much into it.

Even though I had been ignored by the speakers on previous days (not that it was on purpose or anything; I just hadn’t really gone to strike up a conversation with any of them), Laurie Higgins and Greg Quinlan both made a point to come and talk to me. Both of them were very pleasant, and I really enjoyed speaking with them. Greg mostly asked me questions about my laptop and whether or not I really liked Macs better than PCs. Laurie broached the subject of why I was there, and when I explained to her that I thought people were too quick to dismiss their arguments offhand and that I thought part of intellectual discourse was understanding your opponent’s point of view, she seemed really happy I was there.

At the end of the day, Peter LaBarbera even apologized for “calling me out” in front of everyone. I told him it was fine. I apologized for seeming to be deceptive. I explained to him that I’d never outright lied, but I had just thought that if he knew I didn’t agree with them, I wouldn’t have been let in to the conference. He admitted that maybe they’d been a bit too harsh in trying to keep disruptive gay activists out. I told him I would e-mail him the article when I finished writing it. All in all, it was quite a nice interchange.

I’d like to think it showed them that there are pro-LGBT people who want to attend their conferences who aren’t disruptive liars and Communists trying to infiltrate and conquer while we twirl our curled mustaches and cackle maniacally.

At the very least, I hope it makes them question some assumptions just a little bit.

Perry:

Overall, the speakers were quite knowledgeable, although misguided. There really seemed to only be one or two genuinely hateful people there (Kincaid and possibly LaBarbera). The vast majority were loving, but with the presupposition of their religion. I thanked everyone before I left.

…

The Lectures:

[Because there was so much repetition of points made in the previous two days, the notes for these lectures are relatively thin.]

Robert Gagnon, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary: “But Jesus Never Said Anything About Homosexuality: Answering ‘Queer Theology’ — New Testament“

Perry:

Gagnon, once again, was all Bible, all the time. There’s nothing more to add from before.

Robert Knight, Coral Ridge Ministries: “Destructive Legacy: Alfred Kinsey and the (Homo)Sexual Revolution“

Perry:

Knight’s talk dealt largely with the flaws in Alfred Kinsey’s studies. He started by saying that “sexual orientation” is a term made up by the psychiatric community which implies that gays are born that way. He then discussed how Friedrich Engels predicted the demise of the family and the rise of state-raised children, which Engels said would create equality.

He said that the free-market system requires family to function. In history, human cultures that respected marriage thrived while those that didn’t fell apart. He referenced the way that Kinsey’s experiments were immoral and how they have been used to defend homosexual behavior. The reports also influenced pro-gay laws. He then discussed fraudulent science and called to take children out of public schools.

Greg Quinlan, Pro-Family Network: “The Big, Pink Plan for a Lavender Culture“

Quinlan discussed what he believes to be the actual set-in-stone gay agenda. For some reason, I doubt that the gay community is behind this…

1. Take over the military
2. Redefine marriage
3. Take over the educational system
4. Change the church
5. Take over corporate America

A few notes on some of those points. For (2), he said they want to redefine marriage to undermine the family unit. For (3), he said they want to change sex education and health classes to promote acceptance of homosexuality. They also want to create bullying rules that explicitly protect gays and create discrimination laws that promote gay teachers. How would they (4) change the church? Gays want to change the religious community’s opinion on homosexual marriage. For (5), gays want to impose homosexuality regulations that will force companies to hire gay employees.

Quinlan added that apostasy rates are up (true, and a good thing, I feel). He then discussed the amount of money that the gay community has — about $800 billion in the community altogether.

He then said that pro-gays will lie to achieve these goals and said, “When you live a lie, you’ll tell a lie.”

There were a couple Orwellian statements, displayed in all caps on his PowerPoint: EQUALITY IS CONTROL. EQUALITY IS DOMINANCE.

He finished with, “Truth is not a word. Truth is not an idea. Truth is a person. Jesus Christ is Truth.”

Cliff Kincaid, America’s Survival and Accuracy in Media: “Can You Be In Support [of] Homosexual Activism and be ‘Conservative’? Confronting the Pro-’Gay’ Right“

Perry:

Cliff felt that what happens in Canada will directly affect what happens in America. He pointed out how accepted homosexuality is in Canada and that the government funds gay activities. He again called out multiple conservatives for being pro-gay.

When discussing the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill, he didn’t explicitly say he supported the bill, but clarified it as not a “kill-the-gays” bill. Rather, the death penalty would only apply in cases of “aggravated homosexuality.” These offenses include: same-sex relations with those under age 18, same-sex relations while being infected with HIV, multiple offenses, and use of force or drugs.

Even Libertarians were not with them on social issues, he complained. When asked about Bill O’Reilly, he said that he was not a conservative but rather a “windbag.” He also dismissed all Libertarians because of their support for the legalization of drugs.

Robert Gagnon, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary: “Agreeing with God: A Truly Biblical Approach Toward ‘Out and Proud’ Homosexuality“

Perry:

One of the interesting things he said during this talk is that the greatest thing would not be to eliminate homosexual urges, but to keep the urges and still follow God.

Also, he stated that the pro-gays use the arguing method of just throwing too many incorrect facts to respond to in the time allotted.

This was interesting to me because this is what Creationists constantly do during debates. There’s even a name for it — the Gish Gallop. They then film the babbling skeptic who is simply baffled at the stupidity of the arguments and cannot think of where to begin.

Ryan Sorba, Young Conservatives of California: “Confronting the Zeitgeist: New Strategies to Turn Around Younger Americans on ‘Gay Rights’“

Perry:

Sorba gave accounts of gays disrupting conferences and speeches at which he was present. Again, I feel this does not apply to the arguments. He indicated that if you ask a homosexual what their story is, it will always be the same because they have been told to have a “normal” story at “gay training camps.”

During this talk, he did outline a plan that might be used to spread the conservative viewpoint. He said that they need to start 100 campus groups over the next 1-2 years, each of which would have four events per year.

He also wanted to find out if kids believed in the “politically correct” view of South Park. (This entirely confused me; I think South Park is one of the least politically correct shows ever.)

Sorba also mentioned wanting to poll psychiatrists to see if they thought homosexuality was a mental disorder. If they say it is, they want to use this as publicity for their cause. Pro-gays want to rebrand the anti-gay movement as the “counter-culture” in order to attract rebellious teens. Sorba also wanted to have a good list of refutations for kids arguing the gay agenda.

Matt Barber, Liberty University: “Don’t Ask, Don’t Bleed: Stopping Obama’s Campaign to Homosexualize the U.S. Military“

Perry:

I didn’t take very many notes during Barber’s talk. Not to say that he was boring, just that his points were less clear and I was counting the minutes to the end.

He made another call to love gays, but we had to be forceful in that their lifestyle was wrong. Religious arguments would work with good people, but society embraces evil and rejects good. Finally, he noted that his side would lose in the short run, but God will ultimately win.

Closing thoughts/summaries from Maria:

Though they themselves were not outwardly hateful, many of the attendees and speakers completely lacked any understanding of how the vocal espousal of their views directly contributes to the views of others who do wish active harm upon homosexual people.

This is not to say that they shouldn’t be allowed to express their beliefs as often and as loudly as they want, or that they are fully responsible for the actions of fag-bashers, but I would have liked to see a little more sensitivity or realization of how they are contributing to the discourse in some very negative ways. Most lack any conception that their belief system is not, or even that it may possibly not be, an objectively truthful one. They don’t seem to understand that it’s not realistic or acceptable to impose their belief system on all Americans in the same way it wouldn’t be realistic or acceptable for Muslims in America to pass legislation prohibiting everyone from drawing Muhammad.

Most of the speakers were not fans of citation. The citations they did use were either citing themselves as the authority (as was almost always the case with Cliff Kincaid), citing psychoanalytic theories (as was the case with Arthur Goldberg), or citing natural law and metaphysics of philosophical theory (as was the case with Ryan Sorba). Most often, they simply didn’t cite their sources at all, but merely stated “studies show,” or “you can find this all on the Internet.” There was no real citation to peer-reviewed, scientific studies.

On Thursday, when any study was brought up that seemed to favor homosexuality as being a perfectly healthy or natural behavior, it was scoffed at and immediately refuted as being a “flawed” or “biased” study, without much explanation or any scholarly rigorous documentation to prove that this was really the case.

There was some citation (by Sorba) of the writings of certain homosexual activists and writers, such as Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen (again, two men I had never heard of until this day), but this citation of a specific individual’s opinion was fallaciously applied as evidence of the opinion and goals of the gay movement as a whole. In some cases, the opinions quoted were purposefully misconstrued and taken out of context to seem more alarming than they actually were.

Homosexuals (or at least homosexuals who commit homosexual acts) were alternately cast in the role of immoral sexual deviants, aggressive liars, Communists, Fascists, and oppressors of Christians, intent on imposing their lifestyle upon all Americans — OR — as confused, sexually abused, disenfranchised victims who have been lied to by a larger pro-gay society, falsely told they couldn’t change their orientation, and taken advantage of by the militant gay movement. Practically every mention of transgender individuals was met with a smirk from the speaker and a rumbling chuckle from the audience. This was in spite of the fact that the argument being put forth was that transgendered people were suffering from a mental disorder.

I’ve never heard any group of people laugh so scathingly at any other mental disorder. No serious-minded, concerned person in a professional setting should be overcome with mirth when someone starts talking about people who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or obsessive compulsive disorder.

Some of the speakers (Sorba, Higgins, Gagnon, and Lindevaldsen in particular) were obviously highly intelligent individuals. It was clear that they had studied their subjects extensively. Their arguments were internally consistent. This is not to say that their arguments were wholly academic or unflawed (perhaps with the exception of Gagnon), but I truly enjoyed listening to them speak, in spite of my disagreement with them (though I must say I don’t disagree with Gagnon on the Bible’s proscription of homosexuality).

Sorba‘s arguments relied almost exclusively on natural law philosophy. However, I feel compelled to point out as someone who has some philosophical training (my BA is in Philosophy from the University of Michigan) that, in my opinion, philosophy is interesting, but 90% of it is BS. Most of philosophy is ultimately untestable. You can use it to create theories about the nature of reality, but you shouldn’t make the mistake of applying a priori non-evidential philosophical systems to the real world to inform you about how it works. That’s a bit backwards; the evidence should inform the structure of the representational system, not the other way around. As such, most of Sorba‘s arguments came across as clever Sophistry.

The majority of Peter LaBarbera‘s statements were anecdotes about how he has personally been threatened and mistreated by gay activists. These stories, whether intended to have this effect or not, cast the homosexual as the aggressive, hateful antagonist and LaBarbera as the peaceful, befuddled victim completely unaware of why these vicious activists would insult and threaten him. If he was so mistreated, it’s regrettable, and those who treated him that way acted wrongly. However, LaBarbera‘s experiences are certainly not representative of all LGBT individuals, nor do they make any statement on the moral question of whether or not homosexuality is reprehensible.

His argument would have been served better if he hadn’t constantly told stories that seemed calculated to demonize all LGBT people. The stories had the effect of fear-mongering among the attendees, suggesting that all LGBT people (or at least all LGBT activists) were angry, hateful individuals of a militant organization who would probably have no compunctions about lying to, manipulating, and even raping children if it would help them to gain their political aims. LaBarbera and the other speakers seem to disapprove of how liberals equate their entire movement with whack-jobs like Fred Phelps, but then the same argument is made with the respective whack-job analogues within the LGBT activist movement.

The totality of Cliff Kincaid‘s lectures were rife with arguments from emotion and fear (“Look at this photo of AIDS lesions. Horrible things will happen if the gay movement gets the rights it asks for!”), and he spent the majority of his time slandering the character of specific members of the gay community and giving examples of sex predators (many of whom probably didn’t even identify themselves as gay) to extrapolate upon the whole of the gay community (“Look at this specific gay activist who is a Communist and look at this pedophile; the entire gay movement is made up of Communistic and pederastic ideology!”).

In addition to this, he constantly asserted the information was available “on the Internet,” only sometimes referring people back to a website he or a like-minded colleague ran or was affiliated with, maybe occasionally to a legitimate news article (like from the New York Times) but usually to highlight a point that was not integral to the greater argument. It seems like he didn’t think about, or blatantly ignored, that all the examples of what he no doubt saw as a typical gay man were in no way typical. The examples were of sex predators and criminals who any decent person would condemn, whether or not they were LGBT or otherwise. The entire presentation came off like a hysterical Glenn Beck conspiracy theory. Within five minutes or so, it was as if a low-level buzz of panic was coloring all of his statements and underlying every phrase was a tiny voice shouting, “All homosexuals are Communists! They’re pedophiles with no moral character! We have to DO something! They’ll come for us all! AAAAHHHHHH!!!!”

Arthur Goldberg also didn’t cite sources very often, if at all. He said the phrase, “Studies show that…” at multiple times throughout his speeches, without going on to explain which particular studies he was referring to. When he did refer to how a particular statistic was found, it was usually by the American College of Pediatricians, a non-profit organization that recognizes the basic mother-father unit within the context of marriage as being the optimal situation in which to raise a child. They are in no way an accredited or official medical organization and make it obvious through their mission statement that they’ve already concluded homosexual parents are bad parents and then have set out to discover evidence for how this is true. In the scientific community, that’s a big no-no, and goes quite a ways to discrediting Goldberg‘s entire argument.

By the same reasoning used to poo-poo the twin studies (namely, that unless 100% of identical twins are both gay, it shows that homosexuality isn’t caused only by biology, and is therefore not an immutable trait), we can make the argument against the supposed moral bankruptcy of gays. According to many of the lectures, homosexuality directly causes substance abuse, promiscuity, etc. By their line of reasoning used to discredit the twin studies, unless you can show 100% of homosexuals are substance abusers and/or promiscuous, there is not a causal connection between the two, but rather, it’s a combination of factors. Even if we were to say there is a correlation between homosexuality and substance abuse/promiscuity (which I think is debatable), this still does not in any way prove that homosexuality directly leads to substance abuse.

Most arguments presented about the correlation between homosexuality and moral vices such as drug use were not rigorous enough to prove causality, and at the very least they may be reasonably doubted if not outright dismissed.

One of Ryan Sorba‘s main arguments was that there is a fundamental difference between men and women. He says this difference is complementary, and that it is sinful or morally reprehensible to use your sex organs for something other than heterosexual attempts at procreation within the context of marriage. He argues that the sex organ’s function is procreation, which is why this is so.

Basically, the strictly classic purpose or function of your body parts determines what you should be doing with them. If I follow this line of reasoning, it turns out my mouth, lips, and teeth have a strictly classical function of speaking and eating. So kissing, biting my nails, or chewing on my lip are all just as morally reprehensible as having homosexual sex, if the functionality of the organ determines a particular action’s moral status.

The fatal flaw in Sorba‘s, Higgins‘, Gagnon‘s, Quinlan‘s, and Lindevaldsen‘s arguments was the necessary requirement of the belief in a Judeo-Christian conception of God and an acceptance of the Bible as wholly true.

These were the propositions upon which all their other arguments hinged. For example, Sorba needed to presuppose a “design” in his arguments about how the genders are complementary, and it is only moral to act in accordance with our “design” in terms of sexual practices. Higgins also gave the complementary genders argument. The only other real argument I heard her give for why homosexuality is immoral is that it is said to be immoral in the Bible (though I tend to agree with her in thinking both sides of an argument should be presented in schools as long as the books available are of a high, scholarly rigorous standard. We may disagree about what constitutes “scholarly rigorous,” however).

Lindevaldsen argued that it’s rational to conclude that if God says the action is sinful, it’s not good for you. Gagnon kept his argument fully within the context of the Bible; it was merely a refutation of moderate, pro-gay Christian theology in the sense that one can’t truly believe in the scripture as truth without also believing that the scripture proscribes homosexuality. I tend to agree with him on this point.

In order to be successful in their goals, the attendees and speakers would need to prove their viewpoint is demonstrably true for everyone, not just for Christians. It was obvious they were at least cognizant of this fact; it was mentioned a couple times, especially on the last day. But to most (if not all) of the people at the conference, Christianity is the only truth.

Greg Quinlan in particular was very clear on this point. Lindevaldsen stated in her lecture entitled “The Zero Sum Game” that, “When they ask me to be secular in my argumentation, they’re asking me to give up Truth. They’re asking me to give up my best weapon which is the absolute reality that I know from God. They’re asking me to go over onto their playing field and use their weapons that they chose for me.” The argument necessarily breaks down there for non-Christians or even Christians who don’t believe the same way that AFTAH does. It’s an intellectual impasse. If you can’t accept their premise of truth in scripture (which many people can’t), it’s impossible to accept the rest of the argument.

Question the validity of their specific worldview, and the entire house of cards comes tumbling down. For their view to apply to the whole of society, they would need all of society to believe in God and the Bible in the sense that they do. It’s perfectly rational for them to believe what they believe if they assume the existence of God and their interpretation of the Bible as truth. What is not rational is for them to make those two assumptions in the first place. They are faith-based propositions and can’t be expected to apply to people of different faiths or non-faith.

Purely secular arguments deny them what they think is their ultimate trump card: their religious truth as revealed by their faith.

Until we can come to a consensus on what “truth” and “evidence” should be defined as, this argument is never going to be resolved. I don’t hold out much hope that it will be.

Most of the speakers’ worldview is dichotomous; it’s Us vs. Them. It’s absolutist. Everything is black and white and there are no shades of gray. It’s radical. Sorba supported the re-criminalization of sodomy (albeit with a fine as punishment instead of imprisonment), and Lindevaldsen said there can be no compromise on issues like civil unions or any gay rights cases. To her, and from what I can gather, to the rest of the speakers, “gays” do not have any civil rights beyond those they can “freely choose” if only they would give up their “homosexual lifestyle” and live according to AFTAH’s brand of Christianity.

This is disturbing to me for a number of reasons, not least of which is the heavy-handed arrogance involved in wanting to write legislation that controls the private lives of others. If they truly believed in the truth of their statements, they should be able to eventually win everyone over to their side on the merits of their argument alone, without any need to force compliance through legal means. But I suppose if, in the minds of these folks, the stakes are as high as eternal damnation, their position is understandable. If that’s truly the case for them, though, there’s no more that can really be said in the way of intellectual discourse. There is no ability on their part to agree to disagree, or to live and let live. They need to battle for their point of view on this issue, because in their opinion, to do less would be to betray their faith and allow countless souls to slip into Hell. Though I believe their concern is incredibly misguided, I don’t doubt most of the people at this conference truly care. They want to help; they’re just, in my opinion, going about it in entirely the wrong way.

Two months ago, I posted that Americans for Truth About Homosexuality was holding a “Truth Academy” in order to train the next generation of anti-gay-rights activists. Attendees needed to pay a registration fee and get a “recommendation” from a pastor. I wrote that I would gladly pay the fee for anyone who wanted to go.

Ultimately, two people — Maria Pahl and “Perry D’Olia” (a pseudonym) — were accepted into the Academy. They did this using their real names and providing the requested documents. Both were present for the entirety of the academy, with any exceptions listed below.

The opinions expressed are entirely their own. Since there was a lot of overlap in their experience, I’ve used Maria’s writing as the basis for their perceptions of the day itself while Perry’s writing is the basis for the specific lectures.

This is Part 2 of 3. Part 1 can be read here. Part 3 can be read here.

…

Maria:

I hadn’t been able to stay for the evening presentation on Thursday (Day 1) because I was taking public transportation and, since I’m new in Chicago, I was nervous about taking the bus at night (I know, I know, I’m a baby). As a result, I had missed the protest that the Gay Liberation Network had put on the night before. When I arrived in the morning, everyone was talking about it.

One woman told me she found it ironic that someone at the protest had a sign reading, “Teaching hate and lies to kids is the real abomination.” My mind was blown when I heard her say this. It was both incredibly weird and very interesting that while we agreed on the truth of the statement, we completely disagreed on what the “lies” referred to.

A few minutes into the conversation, someone else piped in, “It’s not a Christian thing to disapprove of homosexuality. Even atheists and agnostics find homosexual acts unnatural and wrong.” As an atheist, I couldn’t disagree more, and I fought back the urge to whimper, cringe, or sigh in exasperation. Maybe all three at once.

The day went by much the same as the previous until around 5 pm, when Rena Lindevaldsen‘s lecture on Prop 8 had just finished. Peter LaBarbera came up to where I was typing my notes on my laptop.

“Are you recording?” he asked me.

“No,” I said. “I’m just typing notes.”

“Are you reporting on this?”

I think this is where a little miscommunication occurred: as I found out later, when he said “reporting” he meant reporting as in live-blogging. I thought he just meant to ask if I was going to be writing an article on the conference.

“Yeah,” I answered. “I’m blogging about it.”

“What blog?” he asked.

“My blog,” I said.

“Are you with us or against us?”

I fumbled for a bit; I didn’t want him to think I was doing anything devious because I don’t think I was, really. I had never straight-up lied to them throughout the whole process about my intentions for being there. My application letter was something to the extent of, “I’m really interested in what the speakers have to say, and I think I would learn a lot.” I just hadn’t explicitly stated I wasn’t anti-gay, nor did I think it was in any way illegal or wrong of me to want to write about my experience. But Peter LaBarbera was obviously distressed and a little angry (most likely because he had just dealt with a person who had straight-up lied to them, I later found out), and I didn’t want to agitate him further.

“Uhh… against. But I just want to understand—” I started to explain.

“Are you a lesbian?”

“No.”

“Well, we just caught a young man recording on his computer. I’m going to have to ask you to leave for this next portion. We’ll be strategizing about what to do about this whole Prop 8 thing, and I just don’t want—”

“No, I completely understand,” I said. “That’s fine.”

“You can come back after; just take an early dinner,” he said.

I couldn’t come back for the evening presentation, but I did want to come back the next day.

“Oh, okay. That’s totally fine. Can I come back tomorrow as well?”

“Yes.”

That’s how I remember the conversation. It may not be 100% accurate, but that’s the best recollection I have.

I packed up my things and left.

…

Perry:

When telling us that the lunch break was beginning, LaBarbera indicated that they knew that there were two pro-gay supporters there. I thought that they might have somehow figured out why I was there, but this turned out to be unfounded. Maria, however, was found out and was not allowed to stay for the final panel meeting.

…

The Lectures:

Cliff Kincaid, America’s Survival and Accuracy in Media: “The Battle Over Blood: ‘Gay’ Health Risks and Public Policy“

Perry:

Cliff’s second talk dealt mainly with “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the problems that repealing this would cause to the military. We were told repeal would undermine the hyper-masculine culture that makes our military the best in the world. According to him, 19,000 soldiers are gay.

He showed pictures of gay pride events, namely sadomasochistic individuals — this got exclamatory negative reactions from the audience. He also indicated that there was a large amount of public fornication at these events.

Kincaid noted that one consequence of repealing DADT would be increased presence of HIV in the military, and because of the numbers, the VA is the largest treater of HIV in the country. He then looked at a few cases of sexual abuse by homosexuals in the military. This was mostly an appeal to emotion, as these were isolated cases and do not represent the gay community as a whole. He said that the military must raise its standards, not lower them.

What about donating blood? Kincaid said that this would endanger anyone who receives blood products by exposing them to known and yet-to-be-discovered diseases. He showed pictures of AIDS patients to drive home the emotion involved with having the disease. He explicitly said that repealing DADT would equal death. The only way the policy on blood donation should change is by showing that disease rates are the same in homosexuals as in heterosexuals. Rejecting gay blood donations is not special discrimination, he added, because there are other people who cannot donate as well, such as people who have lived in Europe at specific times.

He indicated that safe-sex practices fail and that disease rates in gays are on the rise. He used another slippery slope argument to say that repeal of DADT would eventually allow for sex offenders and transvestites in the military.

Maria: According to Kincaid, you can see what gay culture is like by looking at cruising, bathhouses, circuit parties, Internet hookups, and prostitution.

One of the stories of sexual abuse committed by homosexuals was that of Pfc. Johnny Lamar Dalton, who pleaded guilty to knowingly infecting a 17-year-old boy with HIV. This case supposedly illustrated the dangers of having homosexual soldiers in the ranks even if they were restricted. However, he failed to mention that Dalton was married and had a 4-year-old daughter at the time. It’s also possible he didn’t self-identify as gay.

This line stood out: “Do you and your loved ones want to die in order to advance the pro-gay agenda?… In order to satisfy their demand for full acceptance, they want to sacrifice people, maybe even people in this room, on the altar of their self-importance.”

Rena Lindevaldsen, Liberty University School of Law: “The Zero-Sum Game: Homosexuality-based ‘Rights’ vs. Religious and First Amendment Freedoms“

Perry:

Rena said that there is only winning or losing this issue on both sides. She urged her side not to give up the Bible; it is their best weapon. Religious people are keeping their worldview consistent. Everyone has an opinion which they base their moral on, even atheists, which she refers to as a faith-based position.

She stated that a worldview leads to a logical conclusion and, because of this, gays don’t want to admit the logical conclusion of their beliefs. She never explicitly indicated what this was. We were told gays want to make homosexuality moral in society and they support same-sex marriage so they can destroy the marriage concept altogether. Religious freedom would come second to these freedoms.

She then pointed to a few cases where people were prevented from expressing their religious convictions in professional environments, and this caused them either financial loss or loss of a job. If gay rights are passed, she warned us, this will lead to business owners not being able to discriminate (true) and schools openly endorsing homosexuality.

There was mention of some radical gay groups who wanted to eliminate gender identity altogether. She said that laws will someday say that teaching your child family values is illegal. Finally, she explained that for a class to be protected under law, certain conditions must exist, one being a history of discrimination — and no history of discrimination against gays exists in America.

Maria‘s commentary on these and future talks will resume in the Day 3 posting.

Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute: “Corrupting Children, Politicizing Schools: The Homosexual Youth Agenda“

Perry:

Laurie explained how schools are pushing the gay agenda — gays-only high schools exist and a middle school will soon be opened. She explained how the transsexual agenda is being pushed by using terminology like, “Most men have penises.” This got a surprisingly loud response from the audience. By affirming this in schools, conservativism is becoming hated.

She said that if discomfort is not allowed, teachers cannot deride smoking or plagiarism either. She said that anti-bullying rules are promoting gay acceptance — these rules specifically mention gays but leave out other groups that are bullied, such as promiscuous students, overweight ones, and those poor at sports.

It was noted that schools are pointing out people who have achieved a lot and are also homosexual. But positive character traits do not make bad traits good, Laurie explained. In order for critical thinking to occur, all views must be presented and not doing this qualifies as indoctrination. There should be equal time for opposing views.

She then read some emails from her former colleagues which indicated how much they disliked her views.

Arthur Goldberg, Jews Offering Healthy Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH): “The Gender Confusion Agenda: ‘Transgender rights’“

Perry:

Arthur pointed out Biblical prohibitions against cross-dressing and castration. He interpreted this as a prohibition of sex changes. He said that in some schools, children as young as five are encouraged to come out as “gender nonconformist.” He derided Barbara Walters and Oprah Winfrey for portraying gays positively on their shows.

He said that as few as 39% of people who get sex changes are satisfied with it, adding that we need to fix these people’s minds, not their genitalia. There was no study, we were told, showing the efficacy of the surgeries. In fact, deaths from the surgeries are five times that of the expected suicide rate in these individuals. He compares people who want sex changes to those who want to be amputees. We were also shown the profitability of the sexual reassignment industry. Goldberg said that these surgeries would probably be covered in “Obamacare.”

He explained that those who want the surgery are displaying a cry for help, using examples of individuals who prayed for a sign that they should not go through with it and had their prayers answered.

Robert Gagnon, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary: “From Abomination to ‘Gay’: Answering ‘Queer Theology’ — Old Testament“

Perry:

Robert’s talks all dealt with interpretations of the Bible that forbid homosexuality. He was a generally good speaker and was extremely knowledgeable, but the subject matter was of little interest to me. I took very few notes as a result.

His first talk here, though, could be summed up as follows: A man is incomplete without a woman and vice-versa. This cannot be achieved in homosexual relationships.

Rena Lindevaldsen, Liberty University School of Law: “The Legal Strategy to Stop Homosexual ‘Marriage’: Triumphs and Pitfalls“

Perry:

Rena indicated that we have redefined marriage as a society to eliminate the value of procreation. Gays are using victimization to win arguments. One interesting thing she said was that she never read the Constitution in law school; instead, she and her peers just listened to the interpretations of it from their teachers. She said that this was bad and that it was easy to get very far away from the truth if you did not consider the source document.

I immediately thought about the fact that none of the Biblical accounts are firsthand accounts.

She then discussed the future minority status of gays, saying that she saw this litigation as a ministry opportunity. Then, she began talking about Prop 8’s overturning. She went into some of the reasons why the defense failed — among them, that there were only two witnesses for the defense (to ban same-sex marriage) and seventeen on the opposition (to repeal the ban). The judge was given no information that gays could change. The defense had no expert witnesses and even admitted that gays could forms healthy relationships and that they were discriminated against in history.

The judge was later discovered to be gay, something that she believed should have prevented him from taking the case.

Maria was asked to leave at this point. She returned the next day with AFTAH’s permission.

Panel Discussion, featuring Rena Lindevaldsen, Matt Barber, Laurie Higgins, Ryan Sorba, Arthur Goldberg, Cliff Kincaid, Robert Knight, Robert Gagnon, and Greg Quinlan: “Returning the Debate to Behavior — Getting off the ‘GLBT’ Playing Field“

Perry:

This is what they termed their “strategic” discussion. All recording devices were turned off, and those who were known gay sympathizers (including Maria) were asked to leave. This makes me wish that I had a recording device, but I guess it is enough that I was there. In all honesty, there was not very much strategy being talked about. Instead, they focused on the problems occurring within their own movement.

The Alliance Defense Fund (the group that lost the recent Prop 8 case in California) was brought up as having possible serious corruption within its ranks. Someone indicated that we needed to default to God’s truth and could not deviate from that.

The defense in the Prop 8 case went into the proceedings saying that gays are okay. This got a big response of outrage from the audience. They said that if the decision to be anti-gay were bigotry, rates of problems within the communities would be the same. They are not, so they said that this discrimination was justified. I guess the differences within the racial communities justify discrimination, too.

They also spoke about how they were being too soft. They were trying to defend only the word “marriage” when they should have been defending a lot more. Lindevaldsen talked about a conversation she had with an ADF representative where she asked if they could be included in the litigation. She said that they told her that they wanted this “fundraising opportunity.” This prompted gasps from the audience.

Mitt Romney was called out as being pro-gay. This ruling marks the first time that gays are a protected class. The only real plans they made were to possibly create a manifesto that organizations could sign onto to support their values.

Robert Knight, Coral Ridge Ministries: “From Destroying DOMA to Homosexualizing the Military: Obama’s Radical Homosexual/Transsexual Agenda for America“

Perry:

A side note: Knight was introduced by Sandy Rios, a FOX News contributor.

Knight’s talk focused on the Obama administration. He started by saying that Obama is a hypocrite by saying that he is a Christian while rejecting their morals, adding that he was a socialist with Muslim sympathies. He said that Obama voted to the left of everyone else in the senate, even avowed socialists; that, in fact, Obama used the recession to push through his socialist agenda.

Obama was so successful at this, Knight pointed out, that a third of the evangelical Christian community voted for him. Yet, Congress has an 11% approval rating. He said that the Democrats are controlled by billionaire gays and Obama had been appointing gays to high offices. The civil rights act had been improperly applied to include gays. Also, (new Supreme Court Justice) Elena Kagan was very pro-gay and she should have been filibustered.

Knight stated that hate crime laws were becoming hate speech laws, and this would cause them to be silenced. People were re-examining what makes America great and discovering its Judeo-Christian roots.

Finally, he said that Obama is closed minded. He talked about the media having a pro-gay bias, so people are going to other news sources. He made the analogy that gays are like people running off a tall building. We would have to attack them to save their lives.

…

Tomorrow: When Maria doesn’t show up in the morning, Peter LaBarbera (wrongly) calls her out as someone who lied and cheated her way to get in. But he doesn’t know Maria only missed her early train…

Two months ago, I posted that Americans for Truth About Homosexuality was holding a “Truth Academy” in order to train the next generation of anti-gay-rights activists. Attendees needed to pay a registration fee and get a “recommendation” from a pastor. I wrote that I would gladly pay the fee for anyone who wanted to go.

Ultimately, two people — Maria Pahl and “Perry D’Olia” (a pseudonym) — were accepted into the Academy. They did this using their real names and providing the requested documents. Both were present for the entirety of the academy, with any exceptions listed below.

The opinions expressed are entirely their own. Since there was a lot of overlap in their experience, I’ve used Maria’s writing as the basis for their perceptions of the day itself while Perry’s writing is the basis for the specific lectures.

This is Part 1 of 3. Part 2 can be read here. Part 3 can be read here.

…

Maria:

I arrived at the first day of the AFTAH Truth Academy at 8:45 a.m. on Thursday morning.

After a few hastily gulped servings of coffee, AFTAH president Peter LaBarbera asked everyone to take their seats.

LaBarbera kicked off his welcome speech with an anecdote about how AFTAH had been ejected from more hotels than they’ve actually held conventions in, and yet somehow people accused them of being the hateful ones! (Cue laughter)

Quite honestly, I found that many of these people were not “hateful” in the sense that they don’t actively wish LGBT people harm. They truly believe that if homosexuals would only live the lifestyle and hold the beliefs they themselves hold, those homosexuals would go on to live richer, more fulfilling lives. I experienced many of those attending the conference to be kind, concerned individuals. With perhaps a couple exceptions, they certainly didn’t believe things of the Fred Phelps variety. (Phelps was mentioned a couple of times, and everyone seemed to agree he was crazy. It was also stated at one point that Bill O’Reilly is a windbag, though I don’t know if they think he’s a windbag for the same reason I do.)

By my count, around 45 people attended the conference on any given day. That’s including the speakers and the families of the speakers, so actual attendee numbers on any given day were lower, and some new attendees were there on Friday and Saturday. Of the people attending, a large majority were older. On the first day there were only around five people attending who looked to be under the age of 30.

Throughout the first day, I had several conversations with a girl named Timna. Unlike the other attendees, who generally spoke at length about their viewpoints on the subject of homosexuality, Timna simply asked questions and listened. As the day came to a close, I handed her my e-mail address. She pulled me aside out in the hallway and told me that we needed to talk.

“I just want you to know,” she said, “I’m not an anti-gay activist. I’m writing a blog on it…”

I started to laugh. “Me too!”

I found it at least a little comforting that, from what I could gather, Perry and I weren’t the only ones there who disagreed with the speakers.

…

Perry:

I went to dinner with two very nice people who mainly discussed the seminar issues. Upon returning from the break, about 100 protesters were outside. None of them confronted us, but stories were told later of the hateful things they said to some of the other attendees. I just got a lot of dirty looks while passing them.

I really wish that the protesters were more civil. It seemed like the ones who were behaving themselves were the attendees. The attendees seemed like a much more cohesive group after that. They talked amongst one another more, probably because of the faces they could then place on the opposition. Before the last talk of the evening, LaBarbera spoke for a moment about the hateful things they said. He used that as evidence for the difference between the two sides. He said that AFTAH espouses love, not hate.

He then led a short prayer for those outside. At the end of the day, I spoke with a few of the protesters and revealed why I was there. They were appreciative, but were still not very civil about what they wanted to do. I highly doubt that screaming matches will help anything. The protesters indicated that Ryan Sorba (see below) was the only one who was inflammatory.

…

The Lectures:

Peter LaBarbera: “From Gay Pride to Gay Tyranny“

Perry:

LaBarbera threw around several statistics, and other speakers did as well. Because there was no dissenting opinion present, there was no way to verify this information, and I have not had time to look into each myself. So I will present any statistics recorded as they were presented.

He began by indicating that homosexuality is harmful, and thus, must be stopped. He indicated that homosexuals have 44 times the incidence rate of HIV and 46 times the rate of syphilis when compared to heterosexuals. He talked about how the “pro-gays” have a clear agenda that endangers the Christian way of life. He said that the pro-gays are getting backing by the public schools to educate the children about homosexuality. He explained that even nature is against gays.

He went on to say that eventually building owners would be legally required to rent their homes to gays. Personally, I don’t see the problem with this. If I am a homeowner, I should not have the right to discriminate based on sexual orientation.

He brought attention to the comparison in the media between Tony Blair and Barack Obama — amongst other traits like charisma, Obama and Blair also shared support for the gay community. The decriminalization of gays has allowed them to organize and force their views on others. This is just plain wrong, but he explicitly laid out the idea that tolerance has become acceptance and will eventually become forced acceptance. He called for no civil unions to be legalized, as it is simply marriage by another name. He also asked people to call out “supposedly” Christian organizations that do not take hard enough a stance on gay rights.

This is one thing I give everyone at this seminar credit for: they are consistent. Even when other Christian organizations express tolerance of homosexuality, they call them out on it.

For example, he called out Andrew Marin, the Christian who apologized for once being a homophobe at the Gay Pride Parade in Chicago. He asked why we allow this type of behavior as a norm in our society.

He said that CEOs of pro-gay organizations make between $200,000 and $300,000 per year and so clearly want to keep it going. He closed by saying that we need to return to a law of Biblical backing. In a final display of paranoia, he explained how teenage television is teaching the kids that homosexuality is normal and that the continued acceptance of gays might eventually lead to anti-gays being jailed and the illegalization of Christianity.

Maria:

LaBarbera also failed to mention how all the HIV risk factors work together and he never mentioned the difference between MSM (men who have sex with men) and gay — MSM often self-identify as straight.

Rena Lindevaldsen, Liberty University School of Law: “History of Modern ‘Gay’ Activism and the Courts“

Perry:

Rena was very knowledgeable about the laws behind the pro-gay movement. Here, she basically gave a history of the litigation that has allowed gays to become accepted in our society. She explained how laws have progressed to allow more and more homosexual behavior and portrayed this as a slippery slope that will eventually allow everything, including pedophilia.

She said that by eliminating sodomy laws, we are showing acceptance of the behavior. I don’t disagree with her idea that by making it legal, it eliminates the idea that it is wrong. I do believe, however, that among consenting adults, this behavior is not wrong.

She explained how gays are using “backdoor” methods to legalize gay marriage. Examples she used were same-sex adoption, rulings putting children with their non-biological parents, and the changing of birth certificates to allow two parents of the same sex.

She says that sexual orientation is now a protected class above gender. She called out conservative judges for not being hard enough. She equated civil unions with legalized promiscuity (I don’t quite understand that relationship, as a civil union is a commitment to one person). She explained why they do not want gay partnerships to have benefits of marriage. She said this is because the reason the benefits exist is to give an incentive to procreate.

Maria:

Lindevaldsen explained we are where we are today in regards to accepting homosexuality because we strayed from God’s standard, and that there’s a homosexual agenda trying to eliminate the concept of right and wrong by making homosexual conduct equivalent to straight conduct.

God’s standards are unchanging and we’re called to fight and educate the public on these standards. She asked: Is it rational for me to say that which God tells me is sin is not good for you? She answered her own question: Yes, it is. Marriage is the foundation for all that is stable and noble for the continuing of civilization. If it preserves our nation, it is essential.

Cliff Kincaid, America’s Survival and Accuracy in Media: “No Criticism of Homosexuality Allowed: Combatting Pro-Homsexual Media Bias“

Perry:

Of all the speakers, Cliff seemed to be the only one that was genuinely hateful.

His talk was all about the “Marxist philosophy” of the gay movement. He said that gays have a mental disorder that makes them more susceptible to manipulation and they want to strike back against American values. He explained how Bradley Manning, the serviceman responsible for the Wikileaks release, was gay and was getting back at the American military.

He showed Manning’s Facebook page, which showed many pro-gay group memberships. I also happened to notice Manning was a fan of P.Z. Myers‘ Pharyngula. Kincaid indicated that someone in the Obama administration must have known that Manning was gay and chose not to remove him, as is demanded by law.

He then went into a large web of information linking gay activists to Marxism. He drew a connection between pedophilia and homosexuality. Apparently, pro-gays want to eliminate age-of-consent laws because they are in cahoots with NAMBLA. He made the same connections with the Gay Liberation Network, the organization that picketed the event. He finally made a connection between Obama and communism.

Maria:

Kincaid also pointed out that Manning flaunted his sexuality — he made that point at least five times — he flaunted it, he flaunted it, he flaunted it. Manning was also non-religious, we were told.

Kincaid said that Harry Hay was considered to be the founder of the homosexual movement. I’ve been an LGBT activist for the past five years, and before today, I had never heard of Harry Hay. I looked him up on Wikipedia — it turns out he was a player in some gay rights efforts, but largely withdrew from LGBT activism in the late 1970s. Still, we were told Hay was an atheist, a Marxist, a member of the “Radical Faeries” pagan sex magic group, and his confusion about his sexual identity is something to be pitied and studied. His real contribution to Communism in America was developing the idea that homosexuals, like workers under capitalism, were being oppressed and had to assert their “rights.”

Finally, he talked about what we “knew” about Obama — that the mysterious individual known as “Frank” from Obama’s book Dreams from My Father was actually Frank Marshall Davis, a known communist. He was a sex pervert, a pornographer, and a bisexual. This was reported as a fact, though we were given no citation.

Ryan Sorba, Young Conservatives of California: “The ‘Born Gay’ Hoax“

Perry:

Ryan’s talk was very hard to follow. He was a terrible public speaker and read to us for the most part. The real problem was that he did not even read properly. He chopped up sentences and stumbled over words.

His talk attempted to disprove the “born gay” idea. As evidence for this, he said that there was no gay identity in history — prior to 1862, there was no known record of any human being claiming to have been born gay. He then drew a connection between childhood molestation and homosexuality. This was a connection that was made by many speakers. Apparently, the only way to be gay is by childhood molestation or lack of proper rearing.

He said the gay agenda includes moving public attention toward civil rights and away from the fact that all they want to do is commit sodomy. He listed the reasons for homosexual behavior as power (as in prisons), attention (as in lesbians at parties), and money (as in homosexual pornographic actors).

He reiterated that legality makes normality. He said that TV and Hollywood desensitize the public to gays. Moderate Christians lend credibility to this idea. (I thought the moderate Christians comment was interesting because atheists often point to moderate Christians as lending credibility to extreme Christians. I guess nobody likes the moderates.)

He went on to say that if sexuality is shown to be fluid, the gay movement fails. He claims this is because the gay movement relies on showing that people cannot change. I know for a fact that homosexuals consider sexuality to be fluid. There is variation among this, but it is not essential to the gay movement that people be “born gay.” He said that gays are too prideful and therefore lack meaningful relationships because they cannot accommodate another person in their lives. He again returned to saying that gays have a developmental disorder. Also, that non-gay children are sent to training camps where they are told to be gay.

I, for one, would love to find out where these “training camps” are.

He used another slippery slope argument to both oppose gay marriage and say that homosexuality was not natural. He said that if a child lacks paternal care, he over-relates to the mother. This makes him want to hang out with and relate to girls at school, which results in attraction to boys.

Maria:

As for the fluidity of sexuality, queer theory does say that sexuality is fluid, meaning it falls along a spectrum and not in discrete boxes, but nowhere does it imply that it can be changed through a force of will.

Fluidity of sexuality in no way supports a theory that it can be forcibly changed — merely that sexual attraction is a more complicated subject than the discrete definition of “gay,” “bi,” or “straight” can successfully describe. I would further point out that queer theory is not representative of LGBT individuals, but merely a theory about the social construction of gender and normative sexual practice, and that a small portion of the LGBT community actually ascribe to it.

Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute: “Using Reason and Logic in Answering Pro-Homosexuality Arguments“

Perry:

Higgins mentioned that she spoke with Hemant about their clashes and that he was very nice. She also said that a large number of students from the high school he works at would be at the protest and that even though he kept his atheism separate from his teaching, he still influenced the students negatively.

[Hemant adds: It's true that I spoke with Higgins earlier this summer to discuss some of the things we've written about each other. As for her comment about students from my school protesting, not a single student contacted me about going to the protest. Nor have I been in a school environment since I first learned about the protest. I looked at the protest's Facebook page and while there were students from my school listed as "Attending," I didn't know a single one of them. I never taught them. I don't know who they are. Why are they attending? I think that protesting anti-gay-rights activists is so important to so many high school students that there will inevitably be an overlap, but it's completely unfair to insinuate that I directly had something to do with that.]

She explained how the public schools are teaching the children to be pro-gay and do not provide an alternate viewpoint, later adding that polyamory was the closest analogy to homosexuality. She also said that the pro-gays use intimidation and rhetoric to silence conservatives.

On her side, religion informed their morality and, for that reason, she believed they could not give up religion in an argument. She said that gays should not be singled out for discrimination — as is the case with recent anti-bullying laws — because there are many groups that are denied marriage. Gays are blocked based on gender, pedophiles on age, polygamists on number, and incestuous people by relation. She called for conservatives to stop being timid.

Maria:

Higgins spoke about how a bigot treats a group with hatred or intolerance. Holding moral precepts is not bigoted and that’s what they were doing.

What about the interracial marriage argument? Banning interracial marriage was based on a false belief that different races were of different natures. However, there are differences between sexes — they have different natures — so it’s ok to ban same-sex marriage.

She said that children fared best when raised by a mother and a father and that study after study had shown this… however, there were no citations offered.

Arthur Goldberg, Jews Offering Healthy Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH): “Can Gays Change? Is Gay Parenting Good for Kids? Presenting the Research on Homosexuality“

Perry:

Goldberg runs a gay conversion therapy organization. He began by saying that we have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. And that if we allow homosexuality, we also have to allow bestiality… (I don’t see the connection.)

He said that leaving homosexuality was possible for those who wanted to change, adding that there was no evidence that this therapy was harmful. He said that the incidence of other disorders was much higher in gays and that homosexuality was caused by men being too sensitive.

He used the same argument that Ryan Sorba did: Gay boys are too attached to their mothers and so they identify with them. He also said that gays have body image issues and that this makes them desire in the same sex what they wish they had themselves. He noted that sexual abuse is present in 40-70% of gays. I’m not sure why the wide discrepancy exists (30% is a very large level of variation in statistics). For lesbians, he cited abuse in 50-90% of cases (40% discrepancy).

He then took issue with same-sex parenting. These parents pushed gender-normative activities less. We were told the average homosexual relationship lasted 3-5 years and had three times the violence rate that heterosexual relationships do. Lesbians are especially violent, he added, because they lack a male counterbalance and compensate by being forceful.

He boiled down homosexuality to eroticization of envy.

Maria:

Goldberg referred to “sound evidence” that children exposed to homosexual lifestyles were at risk for emotional, developmental, and physical harm. Again, citations weren’t given.

One line he said stood out to me: “We have the Communist Manifesto. We have Mein Kampf. Now, we have the Gay Agenda.”

Panel Discussion, featuring all of today’s speakers, along with Greg Quinlan (Pro-Family Network) and Matt Barber (Liberty University): “Can the Effort to ‘Mainstream’ Homosexuality in American Culture be Stopped?“

Perry and Maria:

Barber: We should not be politically correct. It’s natural for gays to be reviled. It’s important to focus on the health risks of homosexuality, but we need to be aggressive and unapologetically loving.

Quinlan: If you Bible-thump or talk about sex, it turns pro-gays off. If you give them the science, you sound like somebody in authority and they don’t know how to respond to that.

Goldberg: We need to use the term “homosexual” instead of “gay” because it has a more negative connotation. No one is gay; they’re only “gay identified.”

Kincaid: This issue of homosexuality affects you because gays are demanding to give blood. The hemophiliacs are outraged by the homosexual lobby saying they have a right to give blood. They want to force themselves into the blood supply in a callous and arrogant manner. Mothers need to speak up. Mothers, your children are at risk!

Quinlan: The church has to be involved in politics. Politics are dirty. Our Founding Fathers were all religious men. They weren’t all just deists. They were Bible-believing men. We do have the truth and the truth is this: a family is made up of a mother and a father because it takes a mother and a father to raise a child.

Higgins: Parents need to remove their children from public schools. Even after doing that, they need to make law changes because our taxes go to the public schools. When we are silent on this issue, we teach our children through role-modeling to be cowardly conformists. We bequeath a legacy of much greater oppression to our children and our grandchildren. At least I can say to my children that I did everything I could.

Lindevaldsen: We need to work to completely eliminate public schools — government schools — and push a Christian/Biblical model of educating our children

Sorba: We need to unify behind common winning talking points. Boycott the term “gay.” They are in no way attached to any kind of identity because it’s not an identity. They’re not functioning in accord with their design. We need to repeat over and over and over again that there is no scientific evidence that people are born gay. There is no study that proves causation. Psychiatrists need to reclassify homosexuality as a mental disorder.

LaBarbera: “Born gay” evidence is unreliable. There was once a pro-gay activist yelling as loud as he could that I was a maniac who wanted to kill gay people. This shows how unstable these guys are.

Sorba: Genes code for proteins, not for behaviors. The “born gay” thing is a debate that we’re definitely going to win. Nobody’s a meat puppet dangling from the strings of the chemical reactions of their brain. It’s letting your emotions rule instead of your reason. It’s a debate about if you’re able to define reality vs. your ability to intellectually understand the reality of world around you. We should be able to argue for the re-criminalization of sodomy and overturn Lawrence v. Texas — the punishment would just be a fine. It would inhibit gay night clubs from springing up where AIDS is spread. It’ll inhibit pornography. We need to go on the offense. Then we know we’re gonna win. You’re not born gay; it’s a vice. These people need help.

Barber: The reality of ex-gays poses an enormous threat to the homosexual movement. Their entire argument hinges on the immutability of homosexuality.

LaBarbera: [Discussing LGBT protesters] They come there with their hateful signs; this is the level of fanaticism we’re dealing with. It’s just as hard to convey how radical the movement is as how bad the behavior is.

Barber: At gay pride parades, they have sex in the street in front of children.

Kincaid: Left-wing student groups are leading boycotts of blood drives, because they’re “discriminatory.” This movement is expanding. If this keeps getting bigger and bigger, we are going to face a shortage of blood. It’s extortion. I remember when AIDS happened. I remember covering this. You have to be older to understand what was happening at this time. I really don’t think a lot of the young people today remember the panic and catastrophe that enveloped the nation because of AIDS. They don’t understand how it developed. They don’t understand the devastation. We need to educate the young people about this disease as well as new-and-potentially-just-as-deadly diseases that may not be being detected currently through blood tests. It’s not a matter of discrimination. It’s a matter of life.

Sorba: Of course romantic attraction can happen between any two people, but the question is whether it adheres with the “Good.” A thing is Good insofar as it helps actualize the potential for humanity. Man is a rational animal. His final end is to know God and truth; truth means correlation with reality. Absent truth, what’s the point? Absent correspondence with reality, what are we doing here, dreaming? If Eros is the thing by which you define the Good, a man leaves his wife and kids in the name of “love.” Love is not the supreme decision maker for us. The Good is.

[Several panelists were also cited saying if homosexuality were genetic, twin studies would show 100% correlation.]

Greg Quinlan: “An Ex-Gay Christian Discusses Love, Truth, and Homosexuality“

Perry:

Greg is an ex-gay and he started with his detailed testimony. He was abused by his atheistic, chain-smoking father. His mother took him to church. He was introduced to sex at age 13. He felt this affirmed him as a person, and he got love that he was not getting elsewhere. He had over 100 of his friends die from the homosexual lifestyle.

He then talked about the deathbed conversion of his father and how this made his father no longer hate him and no longer racist. The story was all very heartfelt and Quinlan was an extremely powerful speaker. He then promoted his conversion organization and explained how they have to stand up for the truth despite the criticisms.

Maria was not at this talk.

…

Tomorrow: Maria gets kicked out before a post-Prop-8 strategy session AFTAH didn’t want her to hear! But Perry was there and he tells us what happened…

Part 2 can be read here.

Andrea Crain devotes a lot of her free time to achieving full LGBTQ equality with Join The Impact Chicago. When she heard that the Americans for Truth About Homosexuality was holding a three-day “Truth Academy” in order to train the next generation of anti-gay-rights activists, she wanted to be a voice of dissent. So she joined a group protesting the event on Thursday night (the first day of the Academy) and wrote up her thoughts for this site. Her full account is below, as are several of her pictures.

Additional photos (watermarked) are reprinted with permission of Amy Harkness. You can see Amy’s full gallery of AFTAH protest pictures here.

Beginning tomorrow, I’ll be posting what took place inside the Academy, from the perspective of a couple of the attendees who — unbeknownst to AFTAH — were there on my behalf.

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“…Then there wouldn’t be any more morality,” said an authoritative male voice from behind me. It was Thursday evening in Arlington Heights, IL, temporary home of the Americans For Truth About Homosexuality academy, and I was prepared for such talk — but not quite yet, and not in the Panera Bread. I snuck a glance behind me. A couple of men in formal clothes, easily recognizable by the AFTAH conference badges around their necks, were finishing up their dinners.

I felt like a secret agent — they had no idea that an LGBTQ rights activist (and atheist) was listening in. As I ordered my food, I noticed many more of the AFTAH people talking about who was going to go first with the cameras to film the counter-protesters. About eight of them were standing around, blocking the exit. Food and drinks in hand, my partner and I decided we’d better make our escape if we were going to greet them when they got to the school. “Excuse us, pardon us,” I said as we walked through the towering clump of guys to the door. Once we were outside, I continued privately, “We don’t want to be late to protest you…”

As regular readers of this blog probably know, AFTAH is run by Peter LaBarbera, an anti-gay activist who’s worked for the Concerned Women for America, the Family Research Council, and most recently the Illinois Family Institute, before leaving to form AFTAH, and who is known by some gay activists as “Porno Pete” for his unusually detailed firsthand research into gay male S&M events and extremely hardcore, fringe pornography. He organized the not-so-aptly named “Truth Academy” to teach people as young as 14 how to follow in his footsteps.

Peter LaBarbera

We got to the Christian Liberty Academy, the school playing host to the event, right around 7:30 p.m., and there were already a lot of demonstrators:

The protest was co-sponsored by the Gay Liberation Network (GLN), DuPage NOW, Woodstock/McHenry County PFLAG, La Voz de los de Abajo, and the group I belong to, Join the Impact Chicago (JTIC). There were NOW folks and others on the corner, displaying signs to those driving by on Euclid Ave. There were GLN, PFLAG and Standing On The Side of Love folks with huge banners, lots of people with homemade signs like my own, and Andy Thayer of the GLN with his portable sound system leading a picket line up and down the sidewalk, chanting against homophobia and for equal rights.

Andrea Crain with her sign

Andy Thayer

About ten police officers were monitoring the situation, and some school staff hung out, watching us, from the steps leading to the entrance.

Within a few minutes, the picket line became a knot around a few people at the end of the sidewalk. Peter LaBarbera and a couple of other AFTAH people, including a person with a big television-style camera, were on the sidewalk among us. They were allowing themselves to be surrounded; there were plenty of police keeping a clear path to the entrance when other AFTAH people wanted to enter and leave.

I rushed over to where they were. Peter seemed delighted to have us there. I felt he just wanted to catch some excellent footage for use in portraying our movement for justice as the real haters. We were, of course, angry at him not because he privately thinks we’re sinners, but because of his attempts to enforce his religious opinions on everyone else and to fill the minds of young people with hateful lies about us. We had noticed the school’s sign had been set up with a special message for us: “Truth is not hate except for those who hate truth.” Rubber and glue, AFTAH, rubber and glue.

He and the men with him talked to members of our crowd for a few minutes, filming the whole time. I was only a few feet away but I could not hear a word any of them said, because people from our side had bucket drums, Andy Thayer led a round of chanting “Peter LaBigot,” and there was a lot of general yelling. They filmed an extensive conversation between a young man and one of the AFTAH folks. I just held up my sign for the camera to see and hoped that young man was good at debating. When I asked someone else who got close enough to talk to the AFTAH people what they’d said, he just shook his head and said it was like talking to a wall.

Once Peter’s entourage got inside, we went back to picketing and holding up signs. I went over to talk to the Standing On The Side of Love group. This is a social justice campaign that was initiated by the Unitarian Universalists. I have seen their distinctive yellow signs at a bunch of rallies and marches, and I was interested to talk to them. These folks were from the Countryside Church Unitarian Universalist in Palatine.

Their minister, Hilary Krivchenia, said the members of her church who’d come out this evening “believed that the United States can do better than fomenting hatred against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered persons.” I asked her what she’d say if she could talk one-on-one with the kids attending the Academy. She said she’d tell them to get to know the people behind the slogans, rather than falling for the very narrow interpretations of Christian teachings on offer at the Academy.

She added: “If Jesus were here, he’d be standing with us.”

One of the members, Jane Matthews, told me that they were part of a program at their church called Living the Welcoming Congregation and that they “make explicit efforts to welcome and include LGBT people in the life of the congregation.” What would she say to the “Truth Academy” attendees? She hoped they would reach out and get to know some LGBT youth so they could learn to appreciate each other. “I don’t think lectures work, and I sure hope this doesn’t work,” she said, gesturing to the school.

Jane’s husband, Jim Booth, said he’d come to the protest because he’d always believed in equal rights. He said he was 79-years-old and he’d known and liked gay people for a long time, even forty or fifty years ago. “They have such a difficulty,” he said, “with all the bigotry they’re faced with, so I just have always wanted to support them.” When I asked him what he’d say to the kids, he said he’d tell them to study all sides and come to their own conclusion. “I would not insist that they see my own way of thinking or believing, I don’t think that’s right, but I think the important thing is that they do their own research.” Jim is a member of the Unitarian congregation and also an atheist. I asked him if he felt accepted at the church as an atheist, and he said he’d helped start up an agnosticism, humanism and atheism discussion group there about three years ago and it was still quite active. Laughing, he said, “Atheism is alive and well within Unitarianism.”

After I left the folks from the Unitarian Universalists Church, my partner, wearing our rainbow flag like a superhero cape, went to stand with the NOW and PFLAG folks. I wandered around taking pictures of some of the great signs people had made.

Then we noticed that the window on an upper floor had opened, and a couple of AFTAH people were filming the crowd from above.

I held up my sign to face the camera. A young lesbian next to me started jumping up and down to get their attention. She had heard one of the AFTAH people told one of our people that we must have been molested to cause our homosexual behaviors. “I’ve never been molested,” the young woman yelled up at the cameraman. “No one abused me! No one’s ever touched me without my consent! I’m gay because I like it and because I can’t change!”

Some of the other JTIC members who were there came up to me and told me that we were offered a chance to speak, and that they thought I should do it. I agreed without thinking and then realized I didn’t have anything prepared. I frantically tried to figure out what I should say.

Pretty soon we gathered into a circle to start our rally. Hilary Krivchenia started us off with a prayer that as we speak, we would increase the light and love in the world and transcend barriers of hatred, fear, and misunderstanding in order to create bonds of love.

Then a number of activists spoke. A former teacher from Palatine talked about how bigotry at school can wear down a kid’s self esteem and dignity. A younger activist talked about not being afraid of who you are, referencing the school’s sign about the “real meaning” of truth. A PFLAG mom talked about how disgusted she was at the idea of teaching kids to hate. “Teaching that my son is less-than or a sinner is child abuse!… God loves my son, and I love my son exactly as God made him.”

When my turn came, hoping the sound system was loud enough that people inside could hear us, I decided to address the kids directly. I said I was willing to bet a lot of kids who would sign up for such an academy did so because they were struggling with being gay themselves. I told them there was a whole world outside their sect, that there were Christians and agnostics and atheists like myself out here who are good people and who wanted to support them. I asked them to do their own research, follow their own hearts, and listen to their own feelings.

What I said will probably be used in AFTAH propaganda as evidence that we came to recruit, but all I wanted was to encourage and strengthen any kid in there who was like Amanda.

Amanda is a young, Christian, bisexual woman who had been expelled from the very school that was hosting the Academy. What she said was very moving. “This school terrified me. I think every time I went to this school I had an anxiety attack. It was so terrifying to be myself,” she began. Please watch the video of Amanda’s full speech.

There was also some political talk. A young man reminded us about the boycott of Target. Some meetings were advertised and Eric Broad, who lives in the same town as Peter LaBarbera and helped organize the protest, wanted to deliver the message that their community does not tolerate bigotry.

Andy Thayer of GLN reminded us that a large movement with activists out in the street has always been needed for any social change and invited everyone to get involved in creating the sort of climate where lawmakers and bigots and the Supreme Court justices, who will eventually rule on whether to uphold the amazing Prop 8 victory that had come out the previous day, know that the people will not stand for anything less than full equality.

At its peak, our side had over a hundred people standing on the side of love, freedom from fear, and justice under the law. I hope next time hate comes to your town, you will be standing there as well.

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Incidentally, AFTAH wrote about the protest here.