Persecution
How Liberals are Waging War Against Christianity

by David Limbaugh

Chapter Seven: “Muzzling Public
Officials, Employees, and Appointees”
Congressional, State, and Local Chaplains, page 182

In Ferndale, Michigan, a volunteer chaplain, Pastor Tom Hansen, came under attack because he was an outspoken critic of the homosexual lifestyle. He argued against the city’s plans for a downtown gay pride festival, and at council meetings reportedly called homosexuality “an abomination to the Lord.” But Hansen denied that opposing homosexuals was the focus of his ministry…(and) said his opinions on homosexuality never came up in his work with prisoners. …Nevertheless, homosexual groups demanded that the city terminate Hansen, and…charged that Hansen’s views amounted to “spiritual violence” to homosexuals, bisexuals, and transgender persons. Ferndale police captain Tim Collins said that Hansen had not expressed “any discrimination of any type to anyone.” The American Family Association said that it would sue the city in a civil rights action if it dismissed Hansen, and Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, said that being chaplain doesn’t mean you forfeit your constitutional rights. “I can’t help but marvel at the reported sight Monday night when the so-called ‘tolerance’ and ‘non-discrimination’ crowd so clearly demonstrated their intolerance for Pastor Hansen’s sincerely held religious views, and demanded that he be discriminated against and fired for daring to express those views.”

Chapter Nine: “State Endorsement of Non-Christian Values”
Diversity Sticker, page 244

In some cases, local governments affirmatively endorse the homosexual lifestyle and try to impose acceptance of it forcibly on their employees. Traverse City, Michigan, inaugurated a “diversity” sticker campaign in which it placed on city vehicles stickers that were modeled after the rainbow flag homosexuals use to celebrate their lifestyle. Over the rainbow stripes was the message, “We are Traverse City.” The campaign was ostensibly in reaction to a number of race- and sexual orientation-motivated crimes and was aimed at unifying the city. It did the opposite, as citizens bombarded the city with complaints over the campaign. American Family Association (of Michigan) President Gary Glenn said, “Homosexual activists’ allies on the city commission have quickly moved from preaching tolerance of homosexual activity to forcing city police officers to display the official flag of ‘gay pride’ militants.” One Traverse City policeman, David Leach, a thirty-year veteran, registered his strenuous objection to the campaign during an interview with a local Christian radio station. He said he found it “offensive driving a vehicle proclaiming (the homosexual) lifestyle.” He later told the Associated Press, “It is a sign of the homosexual, and it’s on my patrol car.”

“Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, sent me an e-mail to ask if I had written a column about the National Day of Prayer controversy in Troy. Not only did I not write an article, I did not even know there was a National Day of Prayer controversy in Troy. To explain his reason for asking, Glenn told me that Laura Berman, a liberal Detroit News columnist, had ‘quoted’ me regarding the brouhaha… How dandy. I was quoted on an issue about which I had written nothing and that I didn’t even know was an issue. To make matters worse, the false attribution was intended to make my friends at the American Family Association look bad. A quick review of Laura Berman’s columns reveals her habit of attacking Christians. Gary Glenn also documented her attitude in an article he wrote in 2000 after Berman allegedly told him in a phone conversation that ‘Christians are more fun to beat up on than homosexuals.’”
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When some (Troy city) council members found out the program for the hour-long (National Day of Prayer) event included only Christian speakers, they voted to turn the group away. …before finally allowing the Christian group to gather where it had asked to gather. Meanwhile, the council was threatened with a lawsuit by the American Family Association (of Michigan), an organization that said the Christian group was being discriminated against.”

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“Gary Glenn, president of the Midland-based American Family Association (of Michigan), criticized the Lavender Graduation, the celebration for gay students, calling it ‘inappropriate.’ Glenn was an active supporter of Proposal 2, which was approved by Michigan voters in November to define marriage in the state Constitution as the union of only a man and a woman. ‘For anyone who is truly concerned about the personal health and well-being of young people, it should be considered extremely inappropriate for the university to take any action that encourages or validates or enables sexual behavior that poses such a dramatic risk to the health and even the lives of college students,’ Glenn said.”
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