Box Turtle Bulletin

Does Lou Engle Really Oppose Uganda’s “Kill-the-gays” Bill?

The answer to that very simple question was never clear. Today, we might have a bit more clarity than before. If so, the news isn’t good.

Lou Engle addressing a rally in Kampala, Uganda. (Marc Hofer/New York Times)

American evangelical leader Lou Engle traveled to Uganda last month to put on another of his TheCall rallies on the sports field of Makarere University in Kampala. That event turned into a political rally in support for passage of the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill. The rally featured key bill supporters like MP David Bahati, the bill’s sponsor; Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo, and Ugandan pastor Julius Oyet. Just before Engle traveled to the rally, he released an extremely ambiguous statement in which he promised that he “will not promote this bill.” He continued:

In fact, we challenge the Church of Uganda to join with Christians around the world, to first examine our own moral failures, confess our own lack of love, and from that heart seek to establish true biblical standards, reflecting compassion for those struggling with same-sex attraction and equal justice for criminal offenses committed by heterosexuals or homosexuals. We believe this also reflects the heart and intent of the Christian leaders of Uganda.

But news reports from Uganda itself suggests that Engle went back on his promise and spoke in favor of the bill. The New York Times reported that he praised Uganda for its “courage” and “righteousness” in proposing the bill. Further reports indicate that while Engle was clearly careful in not calling explicitly for the bill’s passage, he nevertheless gave his implicit support by defending Uganda’s pastors who were dealing “with a controversy they never wanted.” He also refused to comment when other speakers took the stage and demanded the bill’s passage. It’s pretty obvious from several reports of people who were there that the crowd was left with the distinct impression that Engle supported the bill, and Engle did nothing to disabuse them of it.

Five weeks later, and almost immediately following Exodus International president Alan Chambers’ contrite statement regretting his failure to more vigorously oppose the infamous “nuclear bomb” conference held in March of 2009, Engle tried to jump on the same bandwagon. Just two days later, Engle issued a press release:

I was actually asked to release a petition at TheCall for the people to sign in support of the Bill. I did not allow that to happen because the purpose of the gathering was not a political gathering; it was a prayer gathering. However, I had to leave the prayer meeting early to catch our flight back home. After returning home, I was told that the Bill had been clearly promoted after I left the meeting. I apologize that this took place and that my stated purpose of not promoting the Bill was compromised. I take responsibility for what was done on the stage of TheCall, even in my absence.

Engle’s apparent defense is that his tacit non-endorsing endorsement could have been worse. He could have circulated a petition that would have removed any lingering doubt whatsoever as to his real stance on the bill. Thanks for small favors.

But even if we try to look at this with the deepest rose-colored charitable glass-half-full benefit of the doubt, Engle’s true position on the bill still remains ambiguous at best. Even in this latest statement, he repeated his admiration for Uganda’s commitment ” to raise up a principled stand to protect their people and their children from an unwelcome intrusion of homosexual ideology.”

So even under the most generous assumptions, Engle’s stand with this bill would still remain anybody’s guess. I think you know mine. And today, we have some more information which confirms my strong suspicion that Engle really supports the bill but won’t actually allow those precise words to escape from his lips.

Engle’s most recent statement prompted Jeff Sharlet to write about his encounter with the bill’s supporters while attending Engle’s rally in Kampala. Sharlet, author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, spent quite a bit of time with Oyet and Bahati immediately following the rally and reports that they were both “ecstatic at what they perceived as Engle’s strong support of the bill. They felt his rally and his statements would be a turning point for the bill, reassuring their Ugandan allies that they had support abroad.”

Sharlet also says that Oyet and Bahati both insisted that Engle had explicitly supported the bill when speaking with them, but that he had to “lie to the Western media because gays control it.” Bahati recounted that Engle spoke to the BBC against the bill, and then promptly walked over to Bahati offer his private support. Sharlet continues:

I tend to believe Bahati here, since Engle didn’t mean anything to him until he met him that day. He hadn’t heard of him and decided to attend the rally only after I’d told him a few things about Engle. In other words, he left the rally thrilled with Engle based on that encounter with Engle alone. Clearly, Engle did something to please him.

Sharlet also says that despite reports that Uganda may remove the death penalty from the bill, both Bahati and Oyet strongly support retaining the provision.

"Apostle" Julius Oyet

Sharlet confirms that Oyet is playing a very prominent role in promoting the bill, and is now officially working for Bahati. I’ve heard some suggestions that Oyet is the bill’s true author, but that hasn’t been confirmed. He is, nevertheless, very closely identified with it. For example, we know that Oyet was in the visitors gallery when the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was introduced in Parliament last October, and that the Parliament’s Speaker specifically acknowledged him and commended his presence there.

Oyet is the self-styled “apostle” who is vice-president of the Born Again Federation, an umbrella group of some 10,000 Ugandan Pentecostal churches. He is also an adherent of “Seven Mountains” theology, a Dominionist theology that calls upon Christians to “establish the Kingdom of God on earth” by claiming possession to “the Seven Mountains of Culture namely: Business, Government, Religion, Family, Media, Education and Entertainment.” Oyet is also the head of the College of Prayer International’s Uganda branch. MP David Bahati, the credited author and sponsor of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, is one of eight MP’s serving on COPI’s “servant leadership team” in Parliament.

Finally, according to Sharlet, “Oyet insisted that there are American church leaders who are supporting the bill privately but lying to the American media about it.” This repeats almost word-for-word what Bahati told Current TV’s Mariana van Zeller: 

The many friends that we have, especially evangelicals in America, when we speak to them privately they do support us. They encourage us, but they are in a society that is very hostile. And we appreciate that and we say do what you think is right for your conscience. …But we have support in America. There are people who support what we are engaged in.

At that time, I asked aloud who some of those Americans might be. Today, we may very well have one answer: Lou Engle.

On Sacrifices, Intentional and Otherwise

Tiwonge Chimbalanga (foreground) and Steven Monjeza.

Once we learned that Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga were pardoned by Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika following their sentencing for fourteen years at hard labor for breaking that country’s anti-sodomy laws, I think we all understood that this would mark the beginning of a new chapter in their lives. In our naïveté, I think many of us assumed that this new chapter would somehow be a more peaceful one. But that was not to be. They’ve split now.  Steven announced that he’s taking a wife — a womanly wife. And now it appears that Steven’s betrothed may be the village prostitute. The Malawi press, naturally, are having a field day with all of this.

Meanwhile, Tiwonge appears to be taking this all in stride:

But reacting to the news, Aunt Tiwo said he was not informed by Monjeza about the split.

“I have just learnt the new from newspaper. I am sad that he has communicated to the press without talking to me,” said  Chimbalanga from Lilongwe.

“I respect his decision to marry a woman. He has a right to make that decision but I am also free to marry,” he said.

“I will be married for sure,” said Aunt Tiwo.

The entire world seemed to have placed a lot of hopes in this couple — that they would stay together, settle down, perhaps leave Malawi to seek asylum elsewhere, and just generally live happily ever after. Just like in all of our most beloved movies and fairy tales. But if one were to turn to fictional romance for inspiration, Romeo and Juliet might be a more instructive example: two lovers whose relationship is condemned by all of society, doomed to spend a few rare and furtive moments together before taking their lives. Steven and Tiwonge haven’t ended their lives fortunately, but they have apparently killed off their relationship.

Romeo and Juliet have become fictional heroes for star-crossed lovers everywhere. Steven and Tiwonge probably aren’t destined to be regarded as heroes by a lot of people, and that is unfortunate. National cemeteries are filled with the dead of war, and we decorate the headstones with flags and flowers in memory of their sacrifices. But those wars, too, have produced what we might call the walking wounded: those who struggle with physical wounds and emotional scars. Some of them, most visibly, we see homeless on the streets. “Why can’t they just shower, shave and get a job?” we ask ourselves, completely failing to understand the world from their point of view.

And so many of us make the same mistake with Steven and Tiwonge. “Why don’t they just leave and seek asylum elsewhere?” some ask. That’s much easier said than done. The U.S and Great Britain both have a terrible record of turning away LGBT asylum seekers. Too often, judges and magistrates rule that if they would only stay hidden and behave themselves, they would have no fear of imprisonment or the gallows. Asylum is not an easy option, particularly with the rising anti-immigrant nationalism that has been raising its head in both countries.

Besides, let’s say Steven and Tiwonge are awarded asylum — then what? They’re separated from friends and family, and the only culture they have ever known. They are poorly educated and unable to speak English beyond a few simple phrases. While it’s easy to suspect that Tiwonge may thrive in such a challenging situation — she seems to be the one who has overcome the most hurdles in all of this with her self-assurance intact — it’s no guarantee that either of them would be able to make it, let alone make it together.

In trying to please two very different worlds — the deeply homophobic world that is Malawi society, and the world of the gay community which sees each struggle through the lens of human rights advocacy and heroic struggle — Steven and Tiwonge has satisfied neither very well. It turns out that they just weren’t cut out to be heroes. They were just two crazy lovebirds caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. A lot like a lot of other walking wounded among us.

In fact, heroes rarely triumph personally. For every Rosa Parks, there were countless others lynched, jailed, or otherwise broken. For every war hero, there are homeless veterans. And yet, didn’t they also sacrifice something very dear to them and their families for our freedom?

I suspect that Tiwonge may somehow make us proud, but it looks like Steven will probably disappoint us. He has a drinking problem (can anyone blame him?), he says he was never gay, he’s now marrying a woman, she appears to be a prostitute — did he or someone else pay her to marry him? I don’t know, but one thing I can predict is that whatever twists and turns his life takes from now on, each development will be gleefully detailed in the national press where even the most respectable outlets have failed to hide their contempt and derision. 

All of this is a reminder that it’s not always great heroic characters who are called upon to make sacrifices for a besieged community. Sometimes it’s just ordinary people who have neither the constitution nor the wherewithal to be heroes in the classical sense. And yet, they sacrifice anyway, in ways that they may not completely understand or intend. And in that vein, Steven’s and Tiwonge’s sacrifices continue.

What Are Your Plans for June 19th?

If you happen to be in Southern California, might I suggest you come out to Irvine for a conference we are holding to counter Exodus International’s annual conference which will be held the following week. The conference, titled “It’s not a chOiCe – Challenging The Lies of The Ex-Gay Movement,” will be held Saturday, June 19, at Irvine United Congregational Church (IUCC).

Here are some of the speakers and topics you will hear discussed at the conference:

Science Is On Our Side: The Evidence behind Sexual and Gender Identity: Cristina Cuevas, is a senior medical student at University of California, San Francisco. While in medical school she has served as the LGBT representative for the Dean’s admissions advisory cabinet, planned and carried out the LGBT Health Issues course, and coordinated the school’s annual Student AIDS Forum. She plans to enter family practice and is committed to underserved patient populations.

Sexuality isn’t a Choice: Dr. Lawrence E. Hedges, will survey a series of perspectives that illustrate how human sexuality is not a choice but a given of personal experience. We can choose to suppress our sexual interests and practices but at the cost of limiting our identities, our spontaneity, and our relational possibilities

A Ugandan Case Study: The International Reach of the Ex-Gay Movement: Jim Burroway was the first to sound the alarm on the intensifying anti-LGBT climate in Uganda that has led to the bill before the Ugandan Parliament that has sparked international outrage.

The Pivotal Issue of Choice and the International Ex-Gay Movement: Michael Bussee. After co-founding in 1979 Exodus International, he left the group and became an outspoken critic of the organization. Today Michael is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, a father, an evangelical Christian, and a proud gay man.

Tactics of Exodus International, the Ex-Gay Movement in the USA and Uganda: Wayne Besen, founder of Truth Wins Out, an organization which defends LGBT community against anti-gay misinformation; countering, the “ex-gay” industry and educating America about the lives of LGBT people.

A Personal Testimony: Joshua’s Story: Joshua Romero, was raised in a Christian home by a loving family who taught him the value of his faith. A graduate of Point Loma Nazarene University, the loss of one of his friends to suicide inspired him to found Solace, a peer support ministry for Christians in the coming out process.

Crisis of Faith: When a Spouse Comes Out as Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, or Transgender: Dr. Amity Pierce Buxton, author of of The Other Side of the Closet: The Coming-Out Crisis for Straight Spouses and Families, founded the Straight Spouse Network to support straight spouses whose partners came out as LGBT.

Keynote Speaker: Only One Choice Matters: “Come, Follow me”—But Which Jesus? Dr. Daniel Helminiak. Recent awareness of sexuality has revealed its God-given richness. Religious forces insist the only option is traditionally understood heterosexual marriage—rejecting all the evidence. Reverend Dr. Daniel Helminiak is an author, lecturer, Catholic priest and theologian, and professor in the department of humanistic and transpersonal psychology at the University of West Georgia, near Atlanta.

The conference will take place on Saturday, June 19, from 9:00 to 5:00 at the Irvine United Congregational Church, 4915 Alton Pkwy, Irvine, CA 92604. You can find more information at this web site. And of course, there’s a facebook page here.

The usefulness of Georgia Log Cabin Republicans

Two Republican gubernatorial candidates in Georgia are playing the ‘Who Hates Gays More’ game. Each is declaring that they are the more conservative because the other momentarily on some issue at some time may have taken anything other than a Kill ‘Em attitude.

Yes, Georgia Republicans are a pretty nasty group of people. But one of the more amusing parts of this battle is also an illustration of how Log Cabin, the gay Republican group, can be useful.

I’m sure that by now some of you have already thought up an angry denunciation of the group, and a few have already typed it. This is not a particularly rare attitude in our community. In fact, last night an acquintance told me, “I hate Log Cabin Republicans! I hate them!” If I respected his opinion, I might have argued, but I don’t give much attention to people who start sentences with “I hate.”

But for those who have a healthy skepticism about Log Cabin, take this story into consideration:

In 2002, Karen Handel was running for Fulton County Commission. Log Cabin approached her and she expressed support for some gay issues.

But that’s all fine and good in Fulton County. Now that Handel is running for a statewide office, she is claiming that she never ever supported domestic partnerships. No sirree, she’s a true-blue homophobe and how dare her opponent suggest otherwise.

But here’s where Log Cabin proves it’s usefulness.

But e-mails sent from Handel’s account in 2002 to the head of the Georgia Log Cabin Republicans appear to tell a different story.

“I do support domestic partner benefits, and confirm my position here,” Handel wrote to Marc Yeager on July 29, 2002.

Yeager provided copies of his e-mails with Handel to The Associated Press and several other media outlets.

Handel said the e-mail was actually written by Matt Montgomery, the campaign manager in the Fulton County race, and that it misstated her position.

“I never had any kind of idea or feeling that I was communicating with someone other than Karen,” Yeager told The AP.

Handel, he said, also told him in conversations that she supported domestic partner benefits. He’s convinced her position on the issue has changed with her political aspirations. Fulton County is home to a large and politically active gay community. Voters that are critical to winning a race there can be a liability in a statewide contest.

Ooops.

There are other organizations with other partisan alliances who would have looked at the situation and said, “oh, but she’s actually more supportive in private so we’ll cover for her.” We see that all the time with certain segments of Gay, Inc.

But I appreciate that Marc Yeager and Log Cabin Georgia did not. They approached her in a Republican setting, got her on record, tied it down in email, and exposed her hypocrisy when she tried to backtrack. And that is something that really only a gay Republican group could have done.

And I like it when our community says, “hey, we’re not going to be used.” And the obsession with who is more bigoted than the other can only drive independents and moderates – assuming such a thing exists in Georgia – away from whoever wins the primary.

No change to blood ban

The Health and Human Services Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability has voted 9-6 to keep a lifelong ban on any man who has had even one sexual encounter with anther man in the past thirty-three years. Cuz their skurrred of the gay.

There is no medical reason for the ban as it is. All of the blood agencies favor changing the ban. Most other industrial nations do not have a life time ban.

But none of that matters. Because the committee members were not voting based on science, experience or logic.

The stupidest statistic ever

Bob Stith, the Southern Baptists’ National Strategist for Gender Issues, is all giddy about getting a handful of ex-gays to come and bless the SBC’s campaign against the lives, liberty, freedom, and rights of gay men and women and transgenders. I’ll give Bob credit for trying to make the church more “loving”, but Stith on his good day is more hostile than the least tolerant United Church of Christ pastor on their worst day.

Anyway, I digress.

I was amused by a paragraph in Stith’s latest announcement:

A LifeWay Research study reports that while 100 percent of Southern Baptist pastors believe homosexual conduct is sin, 49 percent of Americans do not.

One hundred percent! Wow! That must mean it’s right.

Except… duh. They only have 100% agreement because they kick out anyone who doesn’t agree.

LaBarbera Award: Bryan Fischer

Speaking of paranoia, the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer also seems to have an overly-active imagination:

Some of England’s leading newspapers – The Sun, the Telegraph, the Daily Mail – all had feature stories yesterday about the latest Taliban terror tactic: burying dirty needles with their bombs in an effort to infect troops with HIV. They are planting hypodermic syringes below the surface with the points facing upward in hopes that bomb squad experts will prick themselves and become contaminated with hepatitis and HIV.

If the bomb goes off, then the needles become deadly flying shrapnel.

Said a member of Parliament, “Are there no depths to which these people will stoop? This is the definition of a dirty war.”

If we connect the dots here, the inescapable conclusion is that gay sex is a form of domestic terrorism.

…Now if gays are allowed into the military, they will be inevitably be put in battlefield situations where donated blood from soldiers may be necessary to save the lives of wounded comrades. An HIV-infected American soldier whose blood is used in those circumstances may very well condemn his fellow soldier to death rather than save his life.

If open homosexuals are allowed into the United States military, the Taliban won’t need to plant dirty needles to infect our soldiers with HIV. Our own soldiers will take care of that for them.

All members of the military, gay or straight, are tested for HIV before they enter. Once in the army, everyone, again gay or straight, is tested every two years. Only those who are HIV-negative are sent into war zones. Other services have similar policies. A simple Google search can uncover this information in just 0.32 seconds. Fischer’s vision of hoards of AIDS-infected soldiers posing as a terrorist threat is purely a figment of his imagination. And it’s that creative spark that we look for whenever we award someone the LaBarbera Award.

Why Does This Las Vegas Church Still Support Uganda’s “Kill-The-Gays” Pastor?

Top: Canyon Ridge Christian Church in Las Vegas. Bottom: Canyon Ridge's "strategic partner" showing hard-core porn at a press conference.

Uganda pastor Martin Ssempa has become the public face of the “Kill-The-Gays” movement in Uganda, having eagerly embraced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill since its inception. Ssempa has been the instigator behind several forced outing campaigns, and he has hurled accusations of homosexuality toward rival pastors in an attempt to improve his own standing. Since the draconian bill’s introduction in Parliament last fall, Ssempa responded to international criticism by blatantly lying about the bill’s contents on several occasions. Those same distortions have been picked up by several leading American backers of the bill as well. More recently, Ssempa has resorted to showing hard-core graphic pornography in churches and press conferences in order to stir up hatred and revulsion toward gay people.

Ssempa had previously enjoyed backing from several American conservative Christian leaders and organizations, but one by one, they have mostly dropped him, either in embarrassment over his latest antics or in revulsion over his relentless support for proposals to kill gay people under certain circumstances. Most notably, Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren, who had previously been identified as having had ties to Ssempa, “vigorously condemned” the Anti-Homosexuality Bill in December and disclosed that he had cut ties with Ssempa in 2007 over his “beliefs and actions.”

Another American backer, the Evergreen, Colorado-based abstinence advocacy group WAIT Training, announced that “[r]ecent developments in Uganda and around the world associated with Ssempa have caused us to sever all former associations with him.” WAIT Training is so adamant about it that this notice appears on the front page of WAIT’s web site (Note: A video automatically plays when the page is loaded). Philadelphia Bible University, which had previously granted Ssempa an honorary doctorate degree in 2006, denounced Ssempa’s activities and “categorically condemn[ed] any position that calls for violence against human beings created in the image and likeness of God.”

Not so with Las Vegas-based Canyon Ridge Christian Church. They continue to list Ssempa as a Global Outreach Strategic Partner. Last February, Grove City College professor and Evangelical Christian Warren Throckmorton contacted the church to ask about their association with Ssempa. Executive Pastor Mitch Harrison responded:

With the oversight of our elders and missions team, we constantly evaluate our ministry partners and their activities. We will only support those who engage in and promote activities consistent with the redemptive and grace-filled purposes of Jesus Christ in the world.

Canyon Ridge Christian Church does not wish to enter into the debate over the legislation in Uganda. We do encourage those involved to seek God’s leadership in humility and grace and to follow Jesus command to love one another as they wrestle with this difficult issue. Our prayers are for the good of the people Uganda.

That was in February, and Canyon Ridge hasn’t bothered to life a finger “for the good of the people of Uganda” since then.  Meanwhile, Ssempa led a march in Jinja calling for swift passage of the proposed death penalty for HIV-positive gay people and “repeat offenders”. He has also  appeared on ABC’s Nightline, in which he was shown displaying gay porn in his church. He also called homosexuality a form of “sexual terrorism.” More recently, Ssempa was featured on Current TV’s Vanguard episode, “Missionaries of Hate,” again displaying porn at churches, news conferences, and virtually everywhere else he can think of.

And still, Canyon Ridge dithers. In response to the Vanguard documentary, Canyon Ridge sent the following message to Warren Throckmorton:

The mission partners of Canyon Ridge Christian Church are more than just names on a bulletin board or a web site, they are our dearly loved friends and family. Because of this, we take seriously our commitment to them. When accusations or ill reports come to us about one of our partners and their ministry activities, we’re committed to do what the Bible instructs us to do; we go to our partners (when possible, going to see them face to face) and work through the issues with them personally. We don’t make public statements about our partners until we have worked through issues with them personally and brought those issues to resolution. We have been and are currently in conversation with Martin Ssempa and others regarding the controversy in Uganda and his activities in addressing it.

One has to wonder how long Canyon Ridge can dither while Uganda burns. More importantly, one wonders what Canyon Ridge stands to gain by being publicly associated with a man who wants to either kill gay people or imprison them for the rest of their lives. Or who wants to imprison the friends and families of gay people who refuse to turn them over to police. These issues aren’t something new that Canyon Ridge has only now discovered. The Anti-Homosexuality Bill was tabled before Parliament last October, but Ssempa’s public outing campaigns were going on in the Spring of 2009. And those weren’t the first for him either. He also participated in public vigilante and outing campaigns in several successive years prior to 2009.

Given Ssempa’s egregious and dangerous activities, it is critical to know exactly what kind of support Canyon Ridge provides to further his cause. How much money does Canyon Ridge supply to Ssempa? What other resources have they provided and continue to provide? In what ways exactly are Canyon Ridge facilitating Ssempa’s campaign to literally legislate gay people out of existence?

And for how much longer will they continue to provide that support?

Iceland makes nine – passes marriage law

From Reuters:

The Althingi parliament voted 49 to zero to change the wording of marriage legislation to include matrimony between “man and man, woman and woman,” in addition to unions between men and women.

Unanimous. Very cool.

Iceland’s protestant church has yet to decide whether to allow same-sex marriages in church, although the law says “ministers will always be free to perform (gay) marriage ceremonies, but never obliged to.”

Our heartfelt congratulations.

“Public Advocate” becoming publicly paranoid

Eugene Delgaudio may be the least effective anti-gay activist ever. Although his Public Advocate of the United States organization spends over a million bucks each year “fighting overtime against the Radical Homosexual lobby”, you’ve probably never heard of him.

Delgaudio is currently representing the Sterling District on Board of Supervisors in Loudoun County, Virginia. Oh, and his name popped up briefly in 2008 when he insinuated that gay people must be responsible for torching Sarah Palin’s church, but otherwise his profile is pretty low. His organization apparently has done some street theater (holding a man-donkey marriage, for example) but even that is so poorly organized that it doesn’t get press.

Oh, but Eugene is a dedicated warrior against those radical homosexuals. And like some others, his public proclamations tend towards the lurid and hint that he may not be fully sane. In fact, he may be downright bat-poop crazy.

In April, Delgaudio sent to his reader an appeal for funds that included this rather imaginative narrative:

One stormy night I drove to a mailshop hidden deep in a nearly deserted stand of warehouses. I’d heard something was up and wanted to see for myself.

As I rounded the final turn my eyes nearly popped. Tractor-trailers pulled up to loading docks, cars and vans everywhere and long-haired, earring-pierced men scurrying around running forklifts, inserters and huge printing presses.

Trembling with worry I went inside. It was worse than I ever imagined.

Row after row of boxes bulging with pro-homosexual petitions lined the walls, stacked to the ceiling.

My mind reeled as I realized hundreds, maybe thousands, more boxes were already loaded on the tractor-trailers. And still more petitions were flying off the press.

Suddenly a dark-haired man screeched, “Delgaudio what are you doing here?” Dozens of men began moving toward me. I’d been recognized.

As I retreated to my car, the man chortled, “This time Delgaudio we can’t lose.”

Driving away, my eyes filled with tears as I realized he might be right. This time the Radical Homosexuals could win.

Poor Eugene. “Long-haired, earring-pierced men” hasn’t been a description of the gay community since 1984. (Just for fun, read that story again and count the sexual innuendos.)

And now he has a brand new appeal out with an even scarier threat.

And as the Radical Homosexuals gain more and more ground in Congress, my hands are tied…

Life here in Washington has been a virtual Hell for me…

I put off sending you this email for a while because I didn’t want to worry you.

You see, I’ve gotten death threats and I never take them lightly. But when they go beyond threatening and actually try to kill me, it’s a whole different story.

There’s more my friend…

In the past, strangers follow my family around town…

Idling cars sit across the street at all hours of the night…

…the threatening phone calls, the death threats and the outrageous lies… oh, it’s endless… but thank the Lord for He truly blessed me with a family so strong, so brave… and yes, so supportive!

I’ve taken precautions to protect my family. Some things I’ve told you about, but some things I must keep confidential or they’d be in more peril.

Will you pray for my family and me? That the Lord would keep us safe? I covet your prayers!

Oh, it’s endless, all right. It’s endless bullsh!t.

Either Eugene Delgaudio is an astonishingly inept but determined liar or his lifelong dedication to a campaign of hatred has finally warped his mind to the point where he no longer is capable of distinguishing fact from fiction (or, in his case, more likely fantasy). Frankly, I think that either one could be true.

Learn to be a Wackadoodle

It looks like Peter LaBarbera is seeking to put more seats in his Wackadoodle Express and he’s looking for fresh young bodies to fill them. Yes, the Peter has started a “school” and is now out recruiting children.

We’re delighted to announce the debut of our ongoing “Americans For Truth Academy,” designed to train young people (as well as older pro-family advocates) how to answer “gay” activist misinformation and fight the homosexual-bisexual-transsexual agenda.

And from the folks he’s lined up as “teachers”, it’s clearly a Wackadoodle School:

• Robert Knight, Coral Ridge Ministries
• Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality
• Ryan Sorba, Young Conservatives of California
• Prof. Robert Gagnon, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
• Prof. Rena Lindevaldsen, Liberty University Law School
• Matt Barber, Liberty Counsel
• Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute
• Greg Quinlan, Parents and Friends of Gays and Ex-Gays

I could not have hand-picked a more extreme group than this one. Wackadoodles, one and all. But don’t get your hopes up, this is a double triple super secret Wackadoodle School.

Prospective attendees will need to be approved with references; this is not open to pro-homosexual activists but only to those who share AFTAH’s belief that homosexuality is immoral and that the GLBT movement is destructive to America and a direct threat to our religious freedom.

And what will they learn?

I know it’s all secret-secret, but I’ve taken the liberty of imagining a syllabus.

Robert Knight may open off by sharing that Matthew Shepard is burning in Hell and then may go on to quote a little of Paul Cameron’s work before defending racist and homophobic violence.

Matt Barber will teach them that homosexuality is one man violently cramming his penis into another man’s lower intestine and calling it love. And Laurie Higgins will tell the kiddies that it is their Christian duty to support the culture of disapproval and condemnation towards their gay classmates.

Robert Gagnon will provide the scholarly religious perspective by insisting that because the gospels are actually a retelling of an earlier writing, therefore the Roman Centurion who asked Jesus to heal his “pais” was actually a Jewish administrator asking about his son… but any Scripture that might possibly condemn homosexuality is to be taken literally and applied as condemnation of today’s gay and lesbian community. (Students may not wish to sit in the front, Gagnon is inclined to angry ranting.)

Next Greg Quinlan will give a personal touch by telling how he once was a homosexual but now he is a very heterosexual man who out of Christian conviction is living celibately since his wife divorced him. And Ryan Sorba will support him by declaring that reparative therapy is a proven success, regardless of what pro-sodomy activists say. Quinlan may also spend some time arguing that ex-gay is an orientation and that Disneyland is the devil’s playground. (Students are advised not to ask questions to either of these presenters as they might incite confrontation and claim martyrdom.)

Finally Rena Lindevaldsen will give you secret tips on how kidnap the children of militant gay activists and flee the country to South America – all without a job or speaking Spanish – so as to make sure those children have a stable normal life.

And before breaking at the end of the weekend to return to fight the good fight, Peter LaBarbera will announce the much anticipated 2009 Grinch Award winners, followed by an exciting slide show of sodomites in action. This will have much nudity and will emphasize kink and S/M so it should be very stirring and uplifting. LaBarbera will be on hand to model the leatherman outfits he uses to infiltrate sex parties and to discuss in detail the exact mechanics of specific sexual acts for a select few; be sure to apply for this very special presentation.

Anti-Gay OK State Rep Faces Transgender Challenger

Oklahoma state representative Sally Kern, who has called gay people more dangerous to the country than terrorists, will face a transgender opponent, attorney Brittany Novotny (pictured), in the general election for the Oklahoma City seat this fall. Novotny, the state’s first known transgender candidate, filed papers to run Tuesday.

Both Novotny and Kern say that neither will make Novotny’s gender identity a campaign issue. We’ll just see how long Kern stays classy.

Some observations on the Primary results

I’ve not commented much about Democratic candidates in this primary election. For the most part, the major candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for various positions have been supportive of our community, so there were few races in which any particular outcome stood out in importance.

But this has been an interesting season for Republican politics, especially in my home state of California. And yesterday’s election held some moments of victory and some disappointments. Here are a few of my observations about the results.

CA Governor: As expected Democrat Jerry Brown and Republican Meg Whitman will face each other in November. Whitman and her opponent Steve Poizner are both fairly moderate on social issues but as Poizner ran his campaign emphasizing that he was a “real conservative”, Meg is probably the better outcome.

Although Whitman has been pilloried in the gay press as “anti-gay”, her positions on gay issues would have her receiving awards for support just a few years ago. Although she voted for Proposition 8, she supports civil unions and her objections to marriage equality seem perfunctory rather than devout. She advocated allowing the 18,000 couples who married in the 2008 marriage window to remain recognized as married.

US Senate from CA: It was disappointing that Tom Campbell did not do well. With 25% of the vote, he fell well below Carly Fiorina’s 55%. This is an undisputed victory for the anti-gay activist group National Organization for Marriage, who had run television ads opposing Campbell.

The slight consolation is that Chuch Devore did even worse than Campbell. Devore was the homophobe’s dream candidate. And Fiorina is probably somewhat moderate on our issues, having established a domestic partnership registry why leading Hewlett Packard.

CA Attorney General: Steve Cooley, a friend of the community who supports marriage equality, swept to victory.

CA Lt. Governor: Democrats selected another community friend, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, for their Lt. Governor nominee. Republicans selected Abel Maldenado, the only Republican to vote in the legislature for Harvey Milk Day.

NV Governor: Remember Jim Gibbons? He was the Nevada Governor who vetoed that state’s all-but-the-name domestic partner registry. Well, not only did the legislature overturn his veto last year, but he lost his party’s nomination for reelection to Brian Sandoval, a pro-choice Hispanic Republican who supported the DP bill.

IA Governor: In Iowa, all the Republican candidates are opposed to marriage equality and support “a vote of the people”. But there were degrees. While two of the candidates made wacky claims about what they would do, particularly Bob Vander Plaats who thought he could just issue a declaration and reverse the courts, former Governor Terry Branstad did not give the issue much emphasis in his campaign. Branstad won handily.

ME Governor: NOM is crowing that their choice Paul LePage, a Tea Party favorite, was selected as the Republican nominee for Governor. He will face Maine Senate President Elizabeth “Libby” Mitchell. This is a particularly important race in November as Maine’s legislature will likely try again for marriage equality and LePage has promised to veto any marriage bills.

There are undoubtedly many other races of importance and as they come to my attention I may add them.

Rep. Skelton: Just Talking About DADT is a Danger to Children

One Senator Congressman in Missouri thinks the entire debate on repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ought to come with a parental advisory sticker:

Rep. Ike Skelton, a conservative Missouri Democrat, said he thinks the debate in Congress over the proposed repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law might force families to explain homosexuality to their children.

“What do mommies and daddies say to their 7-year-old child?” Skelton asked reporters during a media breakfast.

Skelton said that even though no one in his district has raised the topic with him, he says he still doesn’t think the mere discussion of DADT is family-friendly enough. “My biggest concern are the families,” he said.

Skelton is the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. The full House has already passed the Defense Authorization Bill which includes a clause paving the way for repealing DADT.

Malawi Gay Man Risks Re-Arrest for Perjury

Sometimes a guy just can’t get a break. We reported this morning that Steven Monjeza, one of two Malawians whose arrest, conviction, and subsequent pardon for allegedly breaking that country’s sodomy laws, has succumbed to the unimaginably intense pressure from the country’s deeply homophobic society by distancing himself from Tiwonge Chimbalanga and vowing to marry a twenty-four year old woman.

And in a further bid to try to shield himself Malawi’s malevolently homophobic society and avoid re-arrest, he propagated a common myth about homosexuality being a foreign plot, saying that this plot in his case goes all the way back to his arrest:

Monjeza, 26, confessed to a daily published on Tuesday that he was being forced “by other people” to go along with the gay story.

“Although, I claimed that I still love Tiwonge, I did not mean it,” he was quoted in the Nation newspaper as saying: “I have never had sex with him.”

According to the daily, Monjeza claimed that he was tricked to travel to the capital, Lilongwe, to profess his continued love to Tiwonge by unknown people who found him at home drunk and treated him to “a drinking orgy” along the

It’s that last statement, that he never loved nor had sex with Tiwonge — a statement that he made to try to avoid being re-arrested for homosexuality — that has, believe it or not, backfired, with at least one judiciary spokesman now calling for his arrest for perjury:

However, judiciary spokesman James Chigona told PANA Tuesday lying in court constitutes perjury.

“I don’t want to comment on whether Mr. Monjeza perjured himself or not because as a court spokesman, if I say so, I would be passing judgment on him,” he said.

“But if there are witnesses that can testify that he lied under oath in court, it can constitute an offence of perjury.”

Solicitor General Anthony Kamanga agreed with Chigona but was cautious not to refer to the Monjeza case.

…However, a justice ministry source said the ministry was liaising with the police to see how to react to Monjeza’s confession.

There’s just no appeasing some people.