Using Christian faith to justify 'LGBT Pride Month'
OneNewsNow: Since taking office in 2009, President Barack Obama has declared the month of June "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month." Now he is celebrating his "evolved" thinking and pushing for marriage equality.
On Friday, June 1, just after a group of African-American pastors requested a meeting with Obama to discuss their concerns with his "endorsement of gay marriage as a civil right," the president pointed to his wife and told ABC News, "[W]hen we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is not only Christ sacrificing Himself on our behalf, but it's also the golden rule -- treat others the way you'd want to be treated."
Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) founder Peter LaBarbera finds it surreal that the end the president's "LGBT Pride Month" proclamation refers to "the year of our Lord, 2012" -- a reference to the nation's Christian heritage. So in the same statement posted on the White House website, notes the activist, Obama both speaks to that heritage and celebrates rights based on homosexuality.
Peter LaBarbera (AFTAH)"... He acts as if rights based on perverse and immoral behavior are basic rights," LaBarbera laments, "and, of course, those aren't basic rights. Basic rights are what we all share as Americans. Rights based on perversion, on changeable homosexual sin are not basic rights."
The AFTAH president contends that when President Obama uses his anti-bullying platform to promote sin, Christians cannot be silent.
"For a man like Obama, who professes to be a faithful Christian, to be celebrating an agenda based on using the government to create rights based on changeable homosexual behavior, that's a travesty," the activist decides.
LaBarbera goes on to point out that in the proclamation, the president lists all of his accomplishments -- essentially making it "another chance for the president to pander to his radical, homosexual activist base," he concludes.
Marriage in Maryland
According to a USA Today/Gallop poll released last month, 26 percent of Americans are less likely to vote for Obama this year because of his open support for "gay marriage." Only 13 percent are more likely to vote for him. On that note, traditional marriage proponents in Maryland are looking forward to getting the chance to overturn that state legislature's homosexual marriage law. (Listen to audio report)
In March, the Maryland Legislature passed the law legalizing homosexual marriage, which is scheduled to take effect next year. But that plan has been put on hold due to a referendum effort. Derek McCoy of the Maryland Marriage Alliance tells OneNewsNow volunteers continue to collect signatures this month, even though the campaign surpassed the requirements before the May 31 deadline.Derek McCoy (MMA)
"We turned in over 100,000 in excess of what we needed for our first turn-in," he reports. "So we've turned in over 122,000 to date. Our full turn-in of what we needed to have to validate the entire thing was only 55,736."
The signatures will have to be validated by the Board of Elections, but McCoy's group is excited about the results.
"That just shows you that we've had incredible engagement of people all across the state," he says. "People from every walk of life have been working this thing, and we're just really enthusiastic because in the lines of all the public polling that's been out there, and all of this recent activity with the president making his statement and the NAACP making theirs, we're finding that the opposite is actually taking place on the streets."
When the final signatures are turned in later this month, the Board of Elections and the secretary of state will have 20 days to determine that the petition is valid and decide on the language to be placed on the ballot November 6.