CINCINNATI, Ohio — A co-author of Michigan’s Marriage Protection Amendment and three Michigan pastors are appealing a federal judge’s dismissal earlier this month of their civil rights lawsuit arguing that the new federal “hate crime” law unconstitutionally violates religious free speech rights by threatening to criminalize public opposition to homosexual activists’ political agenda, including so-called homosexual “marriage.”

The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) — a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor (www.ThomasMore.org) — Tuesday filed formal notice of an appeal to the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati on behalf of plaintiffs Gary Glenn of Midland, president of the American Family Association of Michigan and co-author of the Marriage Protection Amendment approved by voters in 2004; African-American Pastor Levon Yuille of The Bible Church in Ypsilanti and host of Joshua’s Trail, a Detroit radio talk show; Pastor R.B. Ouellette of the 7,000-member First Baptist Church of Bridgeport, and Pastor James Combs of Waterford, pastor of four Christian congregations totaling approximately 10,000 members.

The plaintiffs’ lawsuit was dismissed Sept. 7th by U.S. District Judge Thomas L. Ludington of the Eastern District of Michigan, located in Bay City, who ruled that the plaintiffs don’t have standing to sue in the first place because they have not yet been prosecuted under the law. http://www.mlive.com/news/bay-city/index.ssf/2010/09/federal_judge_in_bay_city_dism.html

Glenn in public comments has regularly cited the use of such “hate crime” laws in Europe, Canada, and at the state level in the U.S. to prosecute Christians merely for speaking out against homosexual activists’ political agenda.

“In Michigan, homosexual activists have clearly and openly admitted that they want to see pastors and others who peacefully speak out against the homosexual agenda criminally prosecuted as ‘accessories’ any time a violent crime is committed against an individual who engages in homosexual behavior or cross-dressing,” Glenn said.

The lawsuit cites a Saginaw News interview in 2005 with prominent homosexual activist Jeffrey Montgomery, former executive director of the Triangle Foundation, a Detroit-based homosexual lobby: The News reported:

“Jeffrey Montgomery is calling out the political extremists and religious fundamentalists whose rhetoric, he says, has fueled a steady rise in hate crimes against gays and lesbians. ‘We’ve seen an increase in vitriolic, vociferous, vehement, demonizing rhetoric against gays and lesbians,’ said Montgomery… ‘The vocal anti-gay activists should be held accountable as accessories to these crimes because, many times, it is their rhetoric that led the perpetrators to believe that their crimes are OK.’ …If a criminal borrows a gun and then uses it to kill someone, the law considers the gun owner an accessory to the crime. So, too, are the people who own the words that incite violence, Montgomery said.” (“Triangle exec decries violence” by Lania Coleman, p. 4A, The Saginaw News, April 27, 2005)

The suit also cites a report by State News, the Michigan State University student newspaper, which quoted another prominent homosexual activist — former Triangle Foundation director of policy Sean Kosofsky — as saying: “We personally believe that the AFA may support the murder of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people.” http://www.statenews.com/article.phtml?pk=6737

The suit also cites a news release issued by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in 2007 which accused Glenn and Cardinal Maida of the Archdiocese of Detroit — merely by having publicly disagreed with homosexual activists’ political agenda on marriage and other issues — of being responsible for inciting the falsely-alleged beating death of a homosexual senior citizen in Detroit. http://thetaskforce.org/press/releases/prMF_022307

“It is appalling hypocrisy for (Glenn and Maida) to pretend that their venomous words and organizing have no connection to the plague of hate violence against gay people, including the murder of Mr. Anthos,” the NGLTF statement said.

Glenn said homosexual activists and their political allies — including Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who condemned the purported “hate crime” against Anthos on the U.S. Senate floor — were later embarrassed when Detroit police announced they had found no evidence of any assault and the Wayne County Medical Examiner ruled Anthos suffered a blow to the head after falling due to arthritic paralysis of his neck. (Associated Press, March 28, 2007: http://www.randythomas.org/blog/2007/03/hate-crime-or-arthritis.html)

The statements by Montgomery, Kosofsky, and NGLTF “make clear that homosexual activists hope to sell society and the courts on their repressive view that anyone who dares publicly disagree with their political agenda should face the threat of being criminally prosecuted, and they’re not beyond fabricating false ‘hate crime’ claims to do it,” Glenn said.

The lawsuit argues that a pre-existing provision of federal law could be used by homosexual activists and their judicial allies — in conjunction with the new “hate crime” law — to justify such prosecutions.
U.S. Code, Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 1, Section 2(a) states: “Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal.” http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/2.html

Dictionary.com defines the word “counsel” to mean “advice, opinion or instruction given in directing the judgment or conduct of another.” http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/counsel

Dictionary.com defines the word “induce” to mean “to lead or move by persuasion or influence, as to some action or state of mind.” http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/induce

Glenn said under the federal “hate crime” law, “there will no doubt be openly homosexual or sympathetic federal judges appointed by President Obama who agree with homosexual activists’ legal strategy of accusing anyone who non-violently speaks out against homosexual activists’ political agenda of ‘inducing’ criminal activity any time a crime is alleged, falsely or otherwise, to have been committed against an individual who engages in homosexual behavior or cross-dressing.”

Glenn cited as examples of that concern a group of state-level judges in Michigan whose campaigns were endorsed by homosexual activist groups and who he believes are likely to share the Triangle Foundation’s legal reasoning about criminally prosecuting speech:

* Openly homosexual 36th District Judge Rudy Serra, Wayne County, a former member of the Triangle Foundation’s board of trustees, and 57th District Judge William Baillargeon, Allegan County, a former member of the Triangle Foundation board of advisors.

- Serra: http://www.vendio.com/mesg/read.html?num=28&thread=223286

- Baillargeon: http://web.archive.org/web/20021029115642/www.tri.org/advisors.html

* Triangle Pride PAC, the Triangle Foundations’ affiliated political action committee, also endorsed the following sitting judges in the 2008 election: 15th District Judge Chris Easthope, Washtenaw County; 46th District Judge William Richards, Oakland County; 91st District Judge Elizabeth Church, Chippewa County; Ingham County Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, Oakland County Circuit Judge Mary Ellen Brennan, Wayne County Circuit Judges Connie Kelley and Lynne Pierce, and Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper. http://www.pride-pac.org/guide/showall.php

* Michigan Supreme Court Justice Diane Hathaway “supports (homosexual and cross-dressing) rights and issues and was strongly endorsed by” Between the Lines, a homosexual activist newsmagazine in Detroit. Circuit Court Judges Christopher Yates and Donald Shelton were also endorsed by Between the Lines in 2008, as were District Court Judges Bill Richards and Elizabeth Church. http://www.pridesource.com/article.shtml?article=32861

* Ingham County Circuit Judge Joyce Dragunchuk — whose 2005 ruling in support of homosexual activists’ lawsuit against the state Marriage Protection Amendment was overturned by the Michigan Court of Appeals — was endorsed by both Triangle Pride PAC and another homosexual activist group, the Lansing Association for Human Rights.
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Monday, September 27, 2010

The study exposed the jaw-dropping fact that one-in-five “gay” and “bisexual” men in American cities have been infected with HIV/Aids. Needless to say, this scandalous revelation completely blows out of the water, the left’s morally relative, propagandist line that homosexuality is “normal, natural and good.”

To believers, it’s never surprising when modern science serves to validate the transcendent truths found in Scripture (not that God’s truth needs validating.)

James 1:15 warns: “Then when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death.”

Indeed, it seems the common moniker “homosexual lifestyle” has it exactly backwards. As opponents of the extremist “gay” lobby have long illustrated, homosexuality falls dead center within our nation’s burgeoning culture of death.

First, take that feminist rite of passage: abortion. Due to a national lack of sexual self-governance, in 2010 we find that – post Roe v. Wade – 50 million of God’s precious children have been slaughtered at Satan’s altar of euphemistic “choice.”

Moreover, millions of self-styled “gay” men have – as a direct result of homosexual conduct – died from AIDS, Syphilis, Hepatitis and all other forms of homosexually transmitted disease.

Romans 1:26-27, which Obama once comically called an “obscure passage in Romans,” addresses the homosexual deathstyle: “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”

It’s tragic when people yield to disordered sexual temptations that can literally kill them spiritually, emotionally and physically. Nobody with any compassion enjoys watching others “[receive] in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.” But a corollary to free will is living – or dying – with the choices we’ve made.

Another problem lies in the fact that far too many Christians have contributed to the dilemma by failing to speak truth, in love, on the issue of homosexuality (pastors with “gay” congregants and family members, I’m talking to you). Nobody likes to be unfairly labeled a hater, “homophobe” or bigot, but fear of such attacks offers no justification for failing to speak truth in love. There are even self-professed Christians today who inexcusably join in with the secular-left in affirming homosexual sin as a good thing. There’s a word for these types: apostate.

There’s no wiggle room here. If you defend or seek to justify homosexual conduct, you defy God. Not good. As I recall, He’s got a little something to say about “causing one of these little ones” to sin.

But even if you choose not to acknowledge biblical truth, you’re still left without excuse. As the CDC has once again verified, if you affirm or defend homosexual behavior as “normal, natural and good,” you also defy science. You’re on the wrong side of history, let alone reality.

What is it about this particular PC-protected practice that causes so many otherwise intelligent people to become blinded blathering buffoons?

Let’s say we had a group of people who defined their identity based upon a penchant for running headlong into brick walls. Oh, we’ll call them, “Wallies.” (Wally pride, baby!)

As significant percentages of Wallies began to drop dead, or suffer irreversible brain damage, do you suppose the left would demand tolerance for such behavior? Do you think they’d begin handing out bicycle helmets in elementary schools, telling kids to practice safe walling? With liberals, anything’s possible, but I’m more inclined to think that even the moonbat left might agree that people tending toward such behavior would be best served to simply avoid running headlong into walls altogether.

I don’t mean to be flip (okay, maybe a little flip) but can someone please tell me why on earth the left insists that we “tolerate” homosexual behavior while – as the CDC has once again confirmed – it continues to have results similar to brick walling?

We throw paper-thin latex condoms at kids who struggle with same-sex attraction and tell them: “You’re gay! Embrace who you are. Gay pride, baby!”

We push them out onto a paper-thin latex tightrope with a one-in-five chance they’ll plummet to their death.

What in the name of all things sacred are we doing? One-in-five with AIDS? Seriously? If five people got into a car and were told that one of them wasn’t going to survive the drive, how quickly do you suppose they’d scatter?

Unnatural behaviors beget natural consequences. Scripture admonishes: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23.

Do you consider yourself “gay” or lesbian? As untold thousands of ex-gays will tell you, you don’t have to be. It’s my most sincere prayer that going forward you’ll choose Christ over sin: Life over death.

You think sexual “freedom” makes you happy? You should experience the true freedom that comes through abiding in He who is “the way, the truth and the life.”

That’s liberation.

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ONE NEWS NOW
Tupelo, Mississippi
September 15, 2010

Judge denies challenge to ‘hate crimes’ act
by Charlie Butts

A federal judge in Michigan has dashed an attempt to overturn the federal “hate crimes” law, but that ruling will be challenged.

The Shepard-Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act criminalizes actions against homosexuals on the same level as race and religion. Three ministers and Gary Glenn of the American Family Association of Michigan filed suit against the law, claiming it violated their First Amendment rights, but U.S. District Judge Thomas L. Ludington dismissed the case.

“We anticipated this from the very beginning,” Glenn notes. “This is one of those cases that, if the Supreme Court will accept it, that’s exactly where it’s going to end up, and that’ll be the only decision that matters.”

The judge said the defendants had no merit to bring the lawsuit because they had not yet been accused of violating the law by publicly expressing their opposition to homosexual behavior as a sin. He stated in his ruling that case law requires that a plaintiff’s claim must be more than a “generalized grievance.” Glenn disagrees.

“The United States Constitution has been interpreted by the Supreme Court in the past to provide a higher level of protection for our First Amendment free-speech rights, but you don’t have to wait until you get prosecuted,” the AFA of Michigan president contends.

He adds that the decision will be appealed, and regardless of the appeals court’s decision, the case will be carried to the Supreme Court, where he hopes the lower court will be instructed to try the case based on its merits — which he argues were ignored at that level.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=1165908
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