Posted by
Playful Walrus on Thursday, March 03, 2011 1:16:48 PM
I’m not sure why
I found this on the "UK Progressive" website, seeing as how it is about something in Southern California, but I thought it was a fine example of a “progressive” shark attack. Carl Matthes lives in Los Angeles and is a former president and a current Board member of Uptown Gay and Lesbian Alliance. He was editor of the GLAAD newsletter and a former GLAAD National Board member. So it comes as no surprise that he had problems with the fact that some Christians believe the Biblical teachings on men, women, sex, and marriage.
On March 4, 2011, The Rev. H.B. London Jr. will be the featured speaker for the “Mayor’s Breakfast” in the Southern California City of Arcadia, an upscale community of about 60,000 straddling the 210 Freeway, just east and slightly north of downtown Los Angeles. While the breakfast is a City taxpayer-funded event, Mayor Peter Admundson obviously feels that it’s “his,” when he pontificates, “The theme for my Mayor’s Breakfast is ‘Celebrate Family.’”
Yes, this is often how things work. Elected representatives get to set the agendas.
"I am appalled that a few activists have tried to hijack my Mayor's Breakfast by wanting to censor my choice of speaker. Is that what tolerance is all about?"
Mayor, "tolerance" is only for the Left, as you have no doubt found out.
A good question, Mr. Mayor. But a question that Reverend London, Vice-president of Ministry for Focus on the Family, an ultra-right wing evangelical Christian group based in Colorado, but founded in Arcadia 34 years ago by Dr. James Dobson, would really have to stretch to answer.
"Ultra-right wing" means they teach… that parents are responsible for their own children, sex is for marriage, marriage unites the sexes, and slaughtering babies who pose no threat to anyone is wrong. Radical!
In fact, Focus on the Family is not known for tolerance.
It's not known for the
Left's redefinition of tolerance.
Along with the Mormon Church, Focus on the Family was one of the main supporters of Proposition 8, the ballot measure which changed California’s constitution and took away the right of same-sex couples to marry.
It amended the state's constitution. It was already headed for the ballot already when the state's Supreme Court invented a "right" to a state-issued license. Since California treats same-sex couples who register as domestic partnerships as though they are married, Prop 8 caused such couples no harm.
Their message? We support families, just not those kinds of familes.
They encourage raising children in a marriage inclusive of both sexes, not a union that sends the message that men don't matter or women don't matter.
Is that what tolerance is all about?
Tolerance is allowing other people their lives, even though you disagree how they are being lived.
The good Mayor’s last invited speaker was radio shock-psychologist Dr. Laura Schlessinger.
This is where the writer loses all credibility. Dr. Laura doesn't claim to be a psychologist of any sort. Her website clearly explains her Doctorate degree. This information is easy to find.
You may remember Dr. Laura.
Wildly successful radio show host and perennial best-selling author? A woman who has made my life, marriage, and parenting better? Of course.
She resigned her radio show after achieving the world’s record for the number of times anyone has ever said, in quick succession, the “N” word on air.
Clearly you've never watched Comedy Central. Dr. Laura moved her show, which she owns, to a satellite radio and podcasting basis.
Sounds like the Mayor could use a refresher course on tolerance – and hate speech.
Sounds like the writer hasn't listened to the entire call, nor considered any of Dr. Laura’s subsequent discussion of the matter. Is it tolerant to bear false witness?
Arcadia general contractor Gary Searer, who is married and has two children, asked Admundson at a recent council meeting to reconsider his decision. “I am extremely disappointed that a member of such a misguided and discriminatory group would be invited to speak at the Mayor’s Community Breakfast. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered family members – including children – are threatened and made to feel unsafe in their schools, workplaces and places of worship by the hateful messages of Focus on the Family.”
Exactly which messages are those? Notice we don't see any cited. By the lack of explanation, am I to assume that Searer has intentionally and selfishly condemned two children to a motherless home?
Arcadia residents Robert and Marsha Aizumi asked Admundson to reconsider saying their son faced “intolerable harassment and bullying” as a high school student in the city because of his sexual orientation.
That has nothing to do with Focus, which is against bullying.
Are you saying, as Dr. Dobson intimates, that you have taught your children that it is better for single mothers to put their children up for adoption by two-parent families rather than raising them on their own?
Dobson encourages a single woman who is pregnant to consider adoption so that the child will be raised by a mother and father within marriage. This is hardly a shocking or unwarranted opinion. It's not like he says a woman who was just widowed should give up her 10-year-old.
For, as Dr. Dobson says, “[Homosexuality] has to do with an identity crisis that occurs too early to remember,…where a boy is born with an attachment to his mother and she is everything to him for about 18 months, and between 18 months and five years, he needs to detach from her and to reattach to his father.”
What's wrong with a boy being attached to his father?
And don’t stop there, Mayor Admundson, do you want your children to believe that embryonic stem-cell research is morally equal to Nazi medical experiments on prisoners, as does Dr. Dobson?
They both involve experimenting on innocent human beings. The difference is that one
always involves killing the human beings. Guess which one?
And finally, do you and your children believe, “…that God would be just in creating worldwide calamity to pay us back for rampant lesbian sex?”
Citation, please? Actually, God would be just in creating worldwide calamity for many, many things, but a Deist or Atheist will never agree anyway, so this is a red herring.
A schoolyard bully is someone who intimidates, is overbearing and tyrannical.
You mean like homofascists who try to get people fired or students sent for "training" based on their votes or modest political contributions or opinions which are in the majority?
May Mayor Peter Admundson stay strong.
There are real problems faced by homosexual people, including increased risks of mental illness, substance abuse, sexually transmitted infections, and domestic violence. Perhaps the writer's energy should be directed towards addressing those, instead of attacking other people for their beliefs?
Previously:
Where's the Civility For Dr. Laura?