Three HIV instructors in Massachusetts are at the center of a growing
controversy after reportedly conducting sexually explicit workshops for
teenagers and holding sessions to train teachers in the art of injecting
positive homosexual themes into public school materials — down to the
elementary school level.

Two state employees in the HIV division of the Department of
Education and an HIV consultant with the Department of Public Health led
a March 25 “Teach Out” held at Tufts University. The event was sponsored
by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, or GLSEN.

Teachers who attended the conference received state development
credits for their participation. The Massachusetts Department of
Education provides funding to GLSEN through its “Safe Schools Program.”

Scott Whiteman, with the Massachusetts-based Parents Rights
Coalition, attended several of these workshops and secretly recorded
them. GLSEN has since threatened him with legal action for doing so,
claiming that all participants at the “Teach Out” had to agree to a
policy of confidentiality.

According to Brian Camenker, president of the Parents Rights
Coalition, the idea of any
confidentiality requirement is a fabrication.

“There was nothing told either verbally or in print in any of the
literature surrounding the event about not tape recording it. There was
absolutely nothing about this — and believe me, we’ve been through
absolutely everything,” Camenker stated.

To document the event, Whitehead and Camenker wrote a detailed and
explicit article,

“Kids Get Graphic Instruction In Homosexual Sex,”
in The Massachusetts News.

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network claims the conference was only for “registered” participants. Camenker says it was a public event, open to anyone who wanted to attend. Whiteman registered under his own name and paid his fee.

Whiteman says he was shocked to learn what state employees were teaching children. Two of the instructors, Margot Abels and Julie Netherland, are listed as HIV counselors, while Michael Gaucher is listed as an HIV consultant. These instructors travel to schools throughout Massachusetts conducting HIV workshops for teens.

According to Whiteman, in one “Teach Out” workshop entitled, “What They Didn’t Tell You About Queer Sex & Sexuality in Health Class: A Workshop For Youth Only, Ages 14-21,” the three instructors encouraged teens to openly discuss various homosexual sex acts in the most explicit manner.

Abels and Gaucher, according to Whiteman, both discussed the practice of “fisting” — putting one’s hand inside the anus or vagina of a sexual partner. Gaucher taught the children how to make a fist. He also discussed the pros and cons of ingesting male body fluid during oral sex.

Abels told the teens that “fisting” often gets a bad rap. She said that it was “an experience of letting somebody into your body that you want to be that close and intimate with.”

According to Whiteman, the entire session ran 55 minutes before there was any mention of condoms or “safer sex.” When condoms were discussed, the teachers pointed out that teens could make an “informed decision” not to use condoms.

Outside in the hallways, various organizations had set up tables to distribute male and female condoms and other sexual paraphernalia. The Sidney Borum Community Health Center, for example, was handing out “Pocket Sex” kits, which included two condoms, two antiseptic moist towelettes and six bandages. According to the teen who was handing out the sex kits, the bandages were for “when the sex got really rough.”

In the workshop for teachers, Margot Abels reportedly told the audience that “sex is central to every single one of us, and particularly queer youth.” Abels works on the Gay/Straight Alliance HIV Education Project — an effort of the Massachusetts Department of Education. “GSAs” are being established in public schools throughout Massachusetts and the nation.

Whiteman says the conference also included workshops entitled:

• Ask the Transsexuals

• Early Childhood Educators: How to Decide Whether to Come Out or Not

• Lesbian Avengers: How to Promote Queer-Friendly Activism in Your Schools and in Your Lives

• Diesel Dykes and Lipstick Lesbians: Defining and Exploring Butch/Femme Identity

• The Religious Wrong: Dealing Effectively with Opposition in Your Community

• Starting a Gay/Straight Alliance in Your School

Parents Rights Coalition fights back
According to PRC’s Camenker, “In the Boston press and elsewhere, GLSEN officials don’t deny these things happened. They stand behind the conference. They’re trying to say these kids were just asking questions and being told honest answers. This is a complete lie. The tapes prove that beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Camenker added, “If the rest of the country wants to know where the homosexual movement is going, all they have to do is look at Massachusetts. Homosexuals claim that Massachusetts is their model for the rest of the country. They’re very proud of the fact that they’ve been able to make so much progress and use this thing about ‘safety’ [for homosexual teens] as their entree into schools. It’s all bogus.”

On April 25, Whiteman attended a Massachusetts State Board of Education meeting and presented evidence of the instruction at the “Teach Out.” According to Camenker, the board wasn’t interested. Instead, it passed a statewide law forcing schools to accept a Gay/Straight Alliance if the state wants a school to have one.

On April 18, the Parents Rights Coalition sent a letter of concern to the Middlesex District Attorney’s office, asking for an investigation of the “Teach Out.”

In the PRC letter, Whiteman noted that the instructors at the “Teach Out” may have violated several state laws that criminalize the enticing of a person into prostitution or sexual intercourse; inducing a person under 18 to engage in sexual intercourse; and distributing materials harmful to minors. The PRC has not heard back from the district attorney, and Camenker tells WorldNetDaily that no one wants to talk about the “Teach Out” or to take any action against what was taught.

Education officials respond
WorldNetDaily’s repeated calls to the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network for comment were not returned. Michael Gaucher referred WorldNetDaily to a public health department PR spokesman who in turn referred WND to a person who is on vacation. Julie Netherland said she is forbidden by department policy from speaking directly to the press and referred WND to Darrell Pressley, the director of media relations in the Massachusetts Department of Education.

According to Pressley, the department is investigating what was said or not said at the “Teach Out” by Netherland, Gaucher and Abels. The Department of Education did not fund or sponsor the event, he said, and the HIV teachers volunteered their time for the “Teach Out.”

Pressley agreed that it would be a violation of policy for HIV teachers to tell children about fisting, ingesting body fluids and anal intercourse. He also noted, however, that the Department of Education does have programs that discuss “safety” in schools for homosexuals and health issues for gays and lesbians.

WorldNetDaily also interviewed Alan Safran, deputy commissioner of education with the Massachusetts Department of Education. According to Safran, the department had no involvement in the “Teach Out,” other than two employees presenting workshops.

“We didn’t sponsor the conference. We didn’t host the conference. We didn’t design the conference. We didn’t recruit, advertise, organize, register people for the conference,” said Safran.

He could not confirm what the presenters said in the workshops until he reviews the tape made by Whiteman.

When asked if these presenters would be in violation of department policy for teaching about fisting or anal intercourse in a public school, Safran responded: “It wouldn’t have happened in a public school setting. It’s not what our people do in a public school setting. Sure, if this had been done by our people in a public school, it would have been outside of their parameters of what the job is.”

Safran noted that “our people don’t intend to have these workshops in the future.” He said he wants to determine — by listening to the tape — what level of involvement his employees had in the conference.

“Let’s see what our people did and said and the context — if they were asking the questions or if they were responding to questions.”

According to PRC’s Camenker, the homosexual activist agenda is being promoted in the public schools through the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth and the Safe Schools Program — two programs originated under former Republican Governor William Weld’s administration. Weld’s successor, current Republican Gov. Paul Celluci, has increased funding for the gay and lesbian youth commission.

Frank York is a contributing reporter to WorldNetDaily.

A Boulder, Colorado law has just taken effect forbidding businesses,
schools and other organizations from discriminating against “gender
variants,” also known as “transgenders” — even requiring that public
facilities provide separate bathrooms if necessary for these
individuals.

A similar law just passed in Ann Arbor, Michigan, while Atlanta added
“gender identity” to its charter in January. And last summer, Louisville
and Lexington, Kentucky, both passed laws protecting transgenders from
“discrimination.”

With little media coverage, the transgender movement is gaining
momentum throughout the U.S. According to the National Gay and Lesbian
Task Force, three counties, 20 cities and the state of Minnesota now
prohibit discrimination based on a person’s gender identity.

Transgenders believe they are part of an international movement to
free individuals from “gender oppression” — which they define as
society’s practice of dividing the human race into male and female. The
term “transgender” encompasses a wide range of sexual behaviors,
including cross-dressers, drag queens, transsexuals (those seeking sex
change operations), and even “she-males,” hybrids who choose to go only
halfway through a sex change operation. They remain partially female and
partially male in their anatomy.

Many transgenders identify internally with the opposite sex, and try
to adjust their outward appearance to match what they believe is their
real gender. Thus, a male who believes he is a woman dresses like a
woman; a woman who believes she is really a man, dresses like a man.

Hollywood aids the transgender movement

Early in February, actress Hilary Swank was named as an Oscar
nominee for “best actress” for her performance in “Boys Don’t Cry.” As a
result of her nomination, the growing transgender movement gained
worldwide publicity for its cause.

“Boys Don’t Cry” tells the true story of a seriously disturbed
Nebraska woman who pretended to be a man. The woman, who called herself
Brandon Teena, believed she was a man trapped in a woman’s body. Teena
posed as a young man, dated girls and went cruising and drinking with a
rough crowd in a small town near Lincoln.

Brandon Teena’s charade began to unravel when she was arrested on a
check forgery charge and police released her real name, Teena Brandon,
to the local newspaper.

Her drinking buddies were enraged to find out who she was. In a
violent act, they stripped her naked to reveal the truth. Then they took
her to a secluded location and raped her. The local police did not file
charges against her rapists — both convicted felons. Later, in revenge
for Brandon’s having turned them in to the police, her rapists murder
her.

“20/20 Downtown” devoted a segment on February 10 to another Brandon
Teena film called “The Brandon Teena Story,” recently released on video.

The tragic murder of Teena Brandon, because of the natural sympathy
it evokes for the victim, is being used by transgender groups to promote
their political and social goals.

What is a transgender?

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV (DSM-IV) of the American
Psychiatric Association lists transvestism or transgenderism as a mental
disorder or a gender identity disorder. While the APA still considers
transgenderism to be a sexual dysfunction, this could change if
transgender activist groups are successful.

One of these transgender groups is the High Risk Project Society
based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The group has published “Gender,
Transgender and Transphobia,” by Sandra Laframboise, to explain the
movement and its goals.

According to the High Risk Project Society, “Transgender people seek
the freedom to express themselves and to present themselves in a manner
that is consistent with their own identity, rather than with the gender
identity imposed on them from birth.”

This includes transsexuals, who “internally experience a
contradiction between their identity and their anatomic sex, and usually
shape themselves physically to recreate a more healthy and harmonious
balance between their bodies and their internal world.”

The term transgender also includes “intersexuals,” or those more
commonly known as hermaphrodites.

“Intersexuals exist on the biological continuum between the poles of
male and female. …” says Laframboise. “Intersexuals struggle against
our rigid two-sex system, for the right to physical ambiguity and the
acknowledgment that there are more than two sexes.”

Cross-dressers are also transgendered persons. These are typically
heterosexual males who enjoy dressing up like women. Drag kings or
queens are also cross-dressers, but usually identify themselves as gays
or lesbians.

Transgenderists are those who do not “identify with the gender
identity assigned to them at birth. … Transgenderists generally
perceive their experience of conflict between their sex and their gender
to be the result, not of ‘being in the wrong body’ (as may be the case
for transsexuals), but rather of society’s expectations that they assume
a gender identity that is, for them, inappropriate.”

Transgender bill of rights

The primary goal is to have all forms of trangendered behavior
normalized, accepted and protected. In addition, criticism of
transgenderism is to be stigmatized as a mental illness or criminalized
in hate crimes laws.

In 1993, an International Conference on Transgender Law and
Employment Policy passed an “International Bill of Gender Rights.” This
bill of rights laid out a lengthy list of goals and “rights” demanded by
transgenders.

The first of these is the individual’s right to define his own gender
identity.

“The individual’s sense of self is not determined by chromosomal sex,
genitalia, assigned birth sex, or initial gender role. … It is
fundamental that individuals have the right to define, and to redefine
as their lives unfold, their own gender identity, without regard to
chromosomal sex, genitalia, assigned birth sex, or initial gender role,”
said the document.

The “bill of rights” also demands that transgenders be free from
psychiatric diagnosis or treatment based on their chosen gender
identities, and it calls for the right of transgenders to marry and to
adopt children.

Nancy Nangeroni, a transgender activist and founder of the
International Foundation for Gender Education, says that Western culture
is “sick” because it “pathologizes” anyone who wishes to go through a
sex change or live as a member of the opposite sex. Society, notes
Nangeroni, forces individuals into two molds: male or female.

“This is the pathology of a sick society,” she says. “The sickness
rests not in the individuals who sense discord between themselves and
the mold, but rather the system that produces the molds. … Let us end
the unconscious manipulation that traps us in a system of fear and
prejudice.”

Nangeroni’s views are echoed by Martine Rothblatt, a transgender who
authored “The Apartheid of Sex: A Manifesto on the Freedom of Gender.”

According to Rothblatt, Western culture’s insistence on categorizing
people from the moment of birth as either male or female is as evil as
racial apartheid. Rothblatt believes traditional concepts of male and
female gender roles are socially constructed and come from ancient,
oppressive patriarchal cultures. In reality, says Rothblatt, there are
multiple sexes and expressions of sexuality. Maleness and femaleness are
on opposite ends of a continuum, with gradations of sexual orientations
in between.

While Nangeroni characterizes societal disapproval of transgenderism
as pathological, the High Risk Project Society says individual
disapproval of transgendered behavior is “transphobia,” akin to
“homophobia,” the term sometimes employed to stigmatize those who oppose
the “gay rights” movement.

Transphobia, says Laframboise is “the fear, hatred, disgust and
discrimination of transgendered people because of their non-conforming
gender status.”

Gaining protected class status

Minnesota is the only state thus far to legislate protected class
status for transgenders, which has already caused a stir among parents
of public school children. The law, passed in 1993 as part of the
state’s Human Rights Act, says employers cannot fire an employee for
presenting an “identity not traditionally associated with [their]
biological maleness or femaleness.”

Early in 1999, Sandy Crosby became outraged when she learned that the
school district had hired a transgendered music teacher to teach in her
daughters’ middle school. She said she did not want her daughters to
consider a man who dressed in pantyhose to be a role model. Nor did she
want her daughters to have to share a restroom with a man who thinks
he’s a woman, she said.

Crosby and other mothers teamed up with some conservative groups in
an attempt to have the term “transgender” removed from the Human Rights
Act. They have not succeeded. However, in February 1999 the
transgendered teacher resigned, claiming he/she was being harassed.

Parents in Antelope, California also went ballistic in 1998 when
teacher David Warfield informed his students that he would be returning
in the fall as a woman named Dana Rivers. Parents were informed by their
children that Warfield had described to the students his upcoming sex
change operation and his molestation as a child.

The Pacific Justice Institute, a Christian legal group in Sacramento,
filed suit against Warfield for violating the rights of both the
children and their parents. PJI claimed Warfield had engaged in
unprofessional conduct by having sexually explicit discussions with his
students — without parental knowledge or consent. After coming back to
school as Dana Rivers, Warfield eventually was put on administrative
leave and, to avoid a trial, agreed to leave the high school with a
$150,000 severance package.

Allied with ‘gay rights’ movement

According to the Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual lobbying group
in Washington, D.C., a transgender is a “broad term that encompasses
cross-dressers, intersexed people, transsexuals, and people who live
substantial portions of their lives as other than their birth gender.”

Shannon Minter, a transgendered lawyer and member of the
Female-to-Male International group, works with the National Center for
Lesbian Rights in San Francisco. According to Minter, HRC first began
meeting with transgender rights groups in 1995, and in 1996 invited
GenderPac, a transgender group, to join the Hate Crimes Coalition, which
was lobbying for federal hate crimes laws.

In April 1997, HRC invited Minter to a luncheon to discuss
discrimination against transgendered and transsexual youth.
Representatives from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, National
Organization for Women, and Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians
and Gays attended.

According to Minter, “Although much remains to be done before trans
people are fully accepted and included in the gay rights movement, trans
activists have done an extraordinary job of propelling transgendered
issues into the forefront of lesbian and gay policy discussions and
political debate.”

In September 1998, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays
voted overwhelmingly to amend its bylaws to include transgendered people
in its mission statement. PFLAG now has a Transgender Special Outreach
Network, which includes coordinators in more than 170 chapters. It has
also published and distributed more than 12,000 copies of the booklet,
“Our Trans Children.”

According to PFLAG’s materials, “There is no known cure or course of
treatment which reverses the transgendered person’s manifestation of the
characteristics and behaviors of another gender.”

The goal of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays is to
promote tolerance and understanding of the transgender, not attempt to
“cure” him of his or her condition.

‘Worst day of my life’

Jerry Leach is a former transgender. With his wife, Charlene, he
operates a pastoral counseling ministry in Lexington, Kentucky, and has
worked with more than 1,200 men and women who have suffered from a
gender identity disorder.

Leach says he began fantasizing about being a girl when he was three
or four years old. He played with girls’ toys, wore girls’ clothing –
with his mother’s approval — and became aware early on that his mother
had wanted a girl instead of a boy.

“I can remember my first day of school, with my mom sitting with me
on the edge of my bed, letting me know I couldn’t wear a dress to
school. That was a vivid memory for me and the worst day of my life,”
recalls Leach.

He cross-dressed at home — both his parents knew about it. He left
for the Navy when he was 17, hoping the service could straighten him
out. But after visiting a Navy psychiatrist, the doctor told him he
couldn’t find help in the Navy, and Leach had been discharged within a
couple of weeks.

He met and married Charlene when he was barely out of his teens,
confessing his cross-dressing problem to his bride-to-be and telling her
he was healed.

“During our first year of marriage,” said Leach, “she came home and
found me fully cross-dressed. I had hoped she would love me enough to
accept it in the privacy of our home. But of course, she was very
strongly opposed to it.”

Leach entered public ministry and spent the next 20 years working as
a pastor, assistant pastor or youth leader in a variety of churches. He
would control his urges to cross-dress for long periods of time, but
then would fall. His wife kept his secret for two decades, until she
could bear it no longer. They eventually separated for nearly a year,
while he sought serious help.

The turning point for Leach came when he and Charlene met a couple at
church who were willing to spend time counseling them. Eventually, he
and Charlene became associated with Exodus International, a ministry to
ex-homosexuals. They operated CrossOver Ministries in Lexington for a
decade, and are now counselors to transgenders and the sexually
addicted.

Molestation, rejection, fantasy

Childhood molestation appears to be a major factor causing a person
to believe he should be the opposite sex.

“Eighty percent of the people we have worked with over the last 10
years have been molested,” said Leach. “I was. I grew up feeling like I
hated men and didn’t want anything to do with them.”

Another cause of transgender desires, says Leach, “is a sense of
being rejected or being unwanted as a boy.” Leach experienced this as a
child when his mother repeatedly expressed the wish that he had been a
girl. As a result, he grew up with a feeling of self-hatred for being a
male.

“Every time a person cross-dresses, he feels like he’s escaping the
reality of being a man,” notes Leach. “It’s an illusory world, it’s a
form of addiction, escaping reality into a fantasy world.”

Leach says that after repeatedly fantasizing about being a woman, the
man disassociates from himself and decides he just wants to stay in the
fantasy world of being a woman.

Sex-change operations only mask the person’s sexual identity
disorder, he said.

“The majority of men I’ve dealt with who have had sex-change
operations realize they’ve done the wrong thing, but they don’t know how
to change it,” says Leach. He is currently working with a transgender
male who has lived as a woman, but who now wants to live as a man. Once
the change is made, it is a difficult and painful ordeal to switch back
to the male gender. Many just give up.

Leach quotes Dr. Rene Richards, one of the nation’s first
male-to-female transgenders. Richards gave an interview in the March,
1999 issue of Tennis magazine, offering this advice to those considering
a sex-change operation: “I wish there could have been an alternative way
back in 1975. If there was a drug that I could have taken that would
have reduced the pressure, I would have been better off staying the way
I was, as a totally intact person. I know deep down that I am a
second-class woman. I get a lot of inquiries from would-be transsexuals,
but I don’t want anyone to hold me out as an example to follow. Today,
there are better choices, including medication, for dealing with the
compulsion to cross-dress.”

“In five years, if not sooner, transgenderism will be legislated
into being as an alternative lifestyle,” says Leach. “And if you dare
say anything against it, you’ll be cited for committing a hate crime.”

Leach does take consolation, however, in the increasing number of
calls he’s been getting from transgenders who want help in overcoming
their gender identity problems, and will
soon launch a website, RealityResources.com, to help provide more help
for those struggling with gender identity disorders and other sexual
addictions.

Frank York is a contributing
reporter for WorldNetDaily.

A West Virginia physician isn’t sure he can ever obtain justice in
his state.

After federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents invaded his
office, terrorized his family and patients, arrested him on phony
charges — charges so bogus a judge threw them out in disgust — and
after having spent more than $300,000 to defend himself, Dr. Danny
Westmoreland still can’t obtain justice.

On the morning of June 23, 1995, Westmoreland’s Mason, West Virginia
home and office were invaded by a contingent of 17 Drug Enforcement
Administration agents and local sheriffs. With DEA agent Mike Mounts
leading the attack, his team assaulted the reception area with guns
drawn and forced more than a dozen patients to put their hands against
the wall.

Westmoreland first learned of the attack when his daughter came
screaming into the house to tell him his office was being robbed. When
he and his wife ran outside to find the police already on the scene,
they were relieved — but their relief quickly turned to horror as they
realized that it was the police who were attacking the medical
clinic.

While Westmoreland and his wife were still outside, DEA agents inside
his home had cornered his housekeeper and his nine-year-old son and held
guns to their heads. His son was weeping and shaking uncontrollably from
fear. Other agents searched the house for medical records.

As Westmoreland tells it, he yelled at one of the leaders, whom he
later learned was Randy Rine, a local DEA agent.

“What are you doing?” he yelled.

“You know exactly what we’re doing,” said Rine.

“But I don’t know who you are,” said Westmoreland. No agent would
tell him why his clinic was being raided by the S.W.A.T. team. He
demanded to be shown a search warrant, but was refused.

Then, for eight hours he sat in his kitchen as the DEA ransacked his
home. They took his computers, medical files and even a couple of
two-dollar bills that his dying father had given to his son and
daughter.

After several hours, said Westmoreland, one of the DEA agents gave
him some advice.

“Listen,” the agent said, according to Westmoreland, “you need to
understand something. My sister was once accused of something she didn’t
do. You need to get out and tell your side of the story before the news
makes up their own side.” Westmoreland didn’t know what to say because
he still didn’t know why his home office was being ransacked. The agent
recommended he seek legal counsel from local attorney Mike Carey.

After meeting with Carey the following week, Westmoreland learned
that he was being charged with money laundering, Medicaid fraud, and
prescribing unnecessary pain medications.

Trumped-up charges

It took two agonizing years before Westmoreland finally learned the
truth about what had happened to him. The attack on his home had been a
setup, he found out, orchestrated by two former disgruntled employees
who had conspired with a local DEA agent to teach Westmoreland a lesson.

As he faced the bogus charges against him, government lawyers offered
him a deal: If Westmoreland would confess to minor offenses, they would
fine him one dollar and walk away from the case. Westmoreland, however,
was outraged at the injustice done to him and to his wife and children
as well as his patients during the raid. He insisted on going to trial
to prove his innocence.

It was two years before Westmoreland’s case came to trial. The
government’s case against Westmoreland was so weak and filled with so
many lies that Judge Joseph R. Goodwin would not even allow the jury to
render a verdict. After reviewing the evidence, Goodwin dismissed all
charges against Westmoreland.

The transcripts of the court proceedings held on Sept. 24, 1997, and
Oct. 20, 1997, reveal that DEA agents were willing to lie under oath to
protect themselves from being held liable for their actions.

The judge was outraged at the DEA for its invasion of Westmoreland’s
office and how they terrorized his patients.

“I am appalled,” said Goodwin, “I am shocked. And it is something
this Court will not tolerate. I intend to review this evidence very
carefully. It is one of the most outrageous things I’ve ever heard of.
… And if I have to call for an investigation from Washington … I
will do that because that will not happen in this district ever again.
There is not justification for it.”

The judge issued this opinion on Oct. 20, 1997. All counts against
Westmoreland were dropped for insufficient evidence. In rendering his
verdict, the judge told the jury, “In our system of justice, it’s a rare
occasion when a Court is required to enter a judgment of acquittal
without allowing the jury to make its own decision. … I believe that
no reasonable jury person could conclude that this defendant was guilty
of each and every element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt, then
[because of these facts] I take the case from you and grant the
defendant acquittal on each count.”

Westmoreland was relieved to be acquitted, but it had cost him more
than $300,000 to defend himself against the false charges.

Targeted for harassment

A local law enforcement agent told Westmoreland he had been targeted
for harassment by his former office secretary Sheila Russell Murphy, his
former partner Dr. Ronald Chattin and DEA agent Randy Rine. Court
documents provide evidence of collusion between Murphy, Chattin and
Rine.

Murphy’s 1997 testimony under oath revealed that she and her good
friend Dr. Chattin had decided to work together with the government
against Westmoreland. They were attempting to find evidence to prove the
physician was guilty of Medicaid fraud or of illegally dispensing drugs.

Murphy’s motivation appeared to be her anger that Westmoreland had
denied her an extra, unearned week of paid vacation. Chattin was angry
that Westmoreland had fired him for failing to generate an adequate
income for the business. According to court records, Chattin encouraged
Murphy to contact DEA agent Rine about Westmoreland.

Murphy then offered her services to Rine as an undercover informant
for the DEA in Westmoreland’s office. She claimed the physician was
overbilling Medicaid patients and was prescribing illegal drugs. Neither
of the claims were true. She also helped Rine in an attempted sting
operation by introducing a female DEA agent to Westmoreland as one of
her relatives who needed drugs. The sting failed when Westmoreland
refused to prescribe the drugs.

However, Murphy herself was eventually prosecuted for forging
Westmoreland’s signature on prescription drug order sheets. She
confessed to obtaining drugs for her husband who was in prison in
Wisconsin.

DEA agent apologizes

Just a few months after Goodwin dropped all charges against
Westmoreland, DEA agent Mike Mounts came to the physician’s home for a
brief visit. He apologized for what had happened during the raid and
said he knew something was wrong with the operation from the beginning.
He said when he arrived at the staging area, he and his agents were told
to “do it hard” when they attacked the home office. He also told
Westmoreland that his tactical team had watched videos of the assault on
the David Koresh compound at Waco for guidance on how to take the
office.

According to Westmoreland, Mounts’ supervisors had him removed from
the area quickly in 1995 to avoid having him testify in court. Mounts
indicated he would have told the truth about what happened. He also said
he had protested the DEA operation to higher authorities, but was made
the scapegoat for the incident. Court documents indicate he was fired
from the DEA in 1996.

Mounts told Westmoreland his supervisors had nailed him on a phony
“morals charge” — specifically he had been accused of violating DEA
policy when he shipped some of his finance’s furniture with his own when
he was moving to a new location.

WND attempted to contact Mounts for his perspective on this case, but
our repeated phone calls were not returned. Mounts is currently working
as a private investigator in Charleston, West Virginia.

Justice delayed is justice denied

Although the law and the facts are on his side, Westmoreland is
frustrated by his own lawyers’ apparent unwillingness to take on the
DEA. He is currently suing Dr. Ronald Chattin for causing financial
damage to his business, but expects to receive only a vague apology.

“He’s offered to pay some legal fees and give me a formal apology,”
said Westmoreland, “but he won’t admit he’s done anything. The apology
would be for anything that may have given a disheartening picture of
myself or the clinic.”

Westmoreland is also currently suing West Virginia’s Medicaid Fraud
Unit and several DEA agents on behalf of his children for the violation
of their civil rights. But he is concerned that the statute of
limitations may have run out.

After firing his first two lawyers for refusing to properly represent
his interests, his next two lawyers helped him through his brief trial,
but dropped out when he decided to sue one of their local lawyer
friends.

Today, his fifth lawyer, Jack Kessler, is still dragging his feet in
filing a civil rights lawsuit against DEA agents and a former employee
who was involved in a conspiracy to destroy his business and reputation,
said Westmoreland.

Westmoreland is convinced that because of the cozy relationships
between law firms in West Virginia — and because of their desire to
obtain federal appointments — few local lawyers are willing to sue the
federal government. While Kessler is willing to sue individual DEA
agents, he refuses to sue the DEA for its attack on Westmoreland’s home
office. As a result, Westmoreland has been denied justice for five
years.

As it stands, Westmoreland has lost more than $300,000 in legal fees,
he has had his reputation damaged in the community even though he was
proven innocent of all charges — and so far, his DEA victimizers have
simply walked away.

Frank York is a free-lance
journalist living in Nashville, Tennessee.

A successful Mesa, Arizona eye surgeon with no patient complaints has
been put out of business by a federal health care agency, and many of
his medical colleagues believe he is just the latest victim in an
ongoing federal power play designed to implement Hillary Clinton’s
health care plan.

In late September, Dr. Robert Gervais, founder of the Gervais Eye
Clinic in Mesa, received a surprise visit by Dr. Donna Dymond, a federal
agent from the Health Care Financing Administration. After her
inspection, the HCFA and the Arizona Department of Health Services sent
Gervais 23 pages of “deficiencies” they had found regarding his
practice. He was further instructed to correct these deficiencies within
six days or lose his Medicare certification.

Today, because he could not remediate all of the Health Care
Financing Administration’s “deficiencies” in time, Gervais is out of
business. He closed his doors on Dec. 26. Case closed.

Except — Gervais believes, but cannot prove, that he was targeted by
the Health Care Financing Administration after he attended a focus group
meeting sponsored by the Maricopa County Medical Society and HCFA to
promote a new federal pricing project for physicians in Arizona. During
the Aug. 4 meeting, physicians were asked to express their opinions
about the HCFA pilot project to a psychologist and HCFA representatives.
Several health care officials viewed the proceedings from behind a
two-way mirror.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Gervais was asked by an HCFA
official if there was anything else the agency could do for him.
Gervais, who describes himself as a libertarian, told WND that his
response was “less than politically clever.” In fact, he said, he told
the official, “You can quit your job and do something productive for a
change.”

Gervais says there’s no way of knowing if his politically incorrect
comment prompted the surprise visit on Sept. 20, but he thinks the
timing is more than coincidental.

Having operated a successful eye clinic in Mesa since 1988, Gervais’
facility has been inspected on several occasions by Arizona Health
Department officials who oversee facilities receiving Medicare funds. In
the past, whenever deficiencies were found, Gervais quickly fixed them.
In fact, a May 7, 1998 letter sent to Gervais by the Arizona Department
of Health Services stated: “Therefore, it is determined that the
facility is now in substantial compliance with State regulations.”

This time was different, however.

When Dymond arrived from the HCFA office in San Francisco to inspect
the surgery clinic, Gervais says he warned his staff that this was a
“hit job,” and cautioned them to cooperate fully with the inspector.

Gervais was concerned when he learned he had only six working days to
correct 23 pages of deficiencies. Although he had been told to submit
his report to HCFA through the Arizona health department by Oct. 12,
previously scheduled out-of-town meetings prevented him from meeting the
short deadline.

The physician wrote to the department of health, explained his
dilemma and promised to provide a full report as soon as he could –
delivering his preliminary report on Nov. 5.

However, on Dec. 6, Gervais was notified that his clinic would be
“delisted” by Medicare as of Dec. 26. In a letter signed by Wayne Moon,
HCFA director of Hospital and Community Care Operations, Gervais was
told, “… the seriousness of your deficiencies limit your facility’s
capacity to furnish an adequate level of quality care or services” and
that Gervais’ plan of corrections “was reviewed and found unacceptable.”

Moon also informed Gervais that he had the right to appeal the
decision within 60 days after receiving the letter of termination. Moon
noted, “Once terminated from the Medicare program, you may take steps to
reestablish your facility’s eligibility to participate.”

Gervais considers the 23 pages of deficiencies to be fairly minor
problems that could have been fixed — but not in six days.

What kinds of deficiencies? The physician was cited for using
incorrect wording on a discharge form. He used the names of the
individuals who accompanied the patient rather than the words, “a
responsible adult,” as required by the Health Care Financing
Administration. He was also cited for failure to consistently show if a
patient had been given a snack after an operation.

HCFA also cited him for failing to have a timer near a sink where he
and his assistants scrubbed down before an operation. In addition, the
agency cited him for using an anti-microbial foam instead of an
HCFA-approved disinfectant scrub. According to Gervais, the foam he uses
is used in eye clinics throughout Arizona and Texas.

In one citation, HCFA says that Gervais performed “laser cataract
surgery” without a nurse anesthetist present. In his response, Gervais
says he is unaware of any FDA-approved procedure called “laser cataract
surgery” and is further unaware of any medical center requiring the
services of a nurse anesthetist for the kind of laser operation he
performs. Gervais does not perform invasive surgeries on his patients.

WND contacted Dr. Donna Dymond for her comments. After initially
agreeing to an interview, Dymond later referred WND to Janice Caldwell,
a regional administrator at HCFA in San Francisco. Caldwell refused to
be taped for the interview, but was willing to speak in general terms
about Gervais’ case.

According to Caldwell, Gervais was subjected to a routine inspection
by the Arizona Health Department, but failed the inspection.

“He did not submit an acceptable plan of correction and did not meet
the initial deadline,” said Caldwell. “He finally did get it in 20 days
after the deadline, and it was not acceptable even then.”

When asked about Gervais’ having been cited for using an unapproved
foam scrub, Caldwell said that, according to HCFA’s standards, this foam
does not meet operating room standards. She refused to discuss his
citation for having sterile packs stored at 80 degrees.

“I don’t want to get into a contest over degrees,” said Caldwell.

She said the results of the inspection must be viewed in the “sum
total of non-compliance,” not in single citations. Gervais was
decertified from Medicare because of deficiencies that would directly
affect patients and for “potential hazards” to patients.

Caldwell says Gervais has the right to appeal HCFA’s decision,
although a legal appeal would be handled by another department at the
same agency. Caldwell says there is no way of telling how long the
appeal process might take.

Is the goal to shut down clinics?

Gervais, a member of the Association of American Physicians and
Surgeons, believes the federal government is attempting to shut down
surgery centers all over the U.S. The goal, says Gervais, is to drive
independent physicians back into hospitals where they can be more
effectively controlled.

Jane Orient, M.D., president of the Association of American
Physicians and Surgeons, believes that what has happened to Gervais is
part of a larger effort by some in Congress to implement Hillary
Clinton’s health care plan in a piece-meal fashion. The recent media
blitz detailing hospital hazards and mistakes is aimed at generating
support for a new federal agency that would monitor all health care in
the U.S., all medical records and all doctor’s offices, she said.

On Dec. 6, 1999, Sen. Ted Kennedy, D.-Mass., announced his plan to
introduce legislation to establish a federal agency that will collect
data on medical mistakes and develop recommendations to avoid them.

According to Orient, this is just another “pretext for federal
control of medicine.” She noted that Health and Human Services Secretary
Donna Shalala recently announced regulations that will affect how
medical records are handled. However, Shalala’s efforts to protect the
privacy of medical records is misleading, said Orient. When the federal
government gains access to everyone’s medical records, this will assure
that “any agency, or quasi-private entity the federal government
approves of, has carte blanche to get everybody’s medical records.”
This, says Orient, was part of Hillary Clinton’s health care plan.

Another part of the effort to federalize health care is being
implemented through aggressive inspections of health care facilities to
find errors. Federal health officials have recently increased the number
of inspections supposedly meant to root out Medicare fraud.

The effort to expose fraud has had negative consequences on the
medical profession. According to American Medical Association President
Nancy Dickey, M.D., the government’s fraud initiative “sets up an
adversarial tension in every patient-physician encounter.”

Dr. Roland Summers, president of the Medical Association of Georgia
notes that the fraud effort “is making us look like criminals, when more
than 99 percent of us have no intention of doing anything but taking
care of patients for their medical needs.”

Dr. Raymond Garrett, a kidney specialist in Colorado, lost his
practice on July 1 due to an HCFA inspection. Garrett was charged with
over-billing Medicare for $25,000 over a two-year period. Garrett was
nearly bankrupted in defending himself against HCFA. After an appeal,
HCFA reversed its decision on July 15, but by then Garrett was ruined
and out of business.

Interviewed by the Denver Rocky Mountain News on Aug. 22, Garrett
observed, “They’ve already ruined my practice. The question is, how many
other practices are they going to ruin, and how many Medicare patients
won’t get care?”

Although apparently assured of victory, a pro-homosexual
nondiscrimination ordinance proposed by an openly lesbian Ohio official
failed at the ballot box, thanks to a last-minute campaign on the part
of churches and landlords.

By late fall, Dayton, Ohio City Commissioner Mary Wiseman, an open
lesbian, had garnered the support of four out of five city commissioners
for the proposed ordinance. Only Mayor Michael Turner had consistently
opposed it.

The expansive proposal would have amended the city’s
anti-discrimination law, which forbids discrimination in housing,
employment and accommodations based on race, color and religion, to
include “sexual orientation” — a term broad enough to include
transvestites — as well as the “poor,” and persons of “Appalachian
descent.”

The ordinance contained no exemptions for day care centers,
Christian-owned businesses, churches, religious organizations or
schools.

However, as news began to circulate throughout Dayton, city
commissioners’ offices were flooded with calls of opposition. When the
vote came on Dec. 21, Wiseman was the only commissioner left who
supported her ordinance. In a 4-1 vote, the city officials removed the
controversial ordinance from the agenda.

“The bottom line is that whereas at the close of the week I had four
votes in favor of amending the non-discrimination ordinance to include
sexual orientation, this week I do not have those votes,” said Wiseman.

Area pastors and religious organizations rallied in opposition to the
ordinance. Phil Burress, head of Citizens for Community Values in
Cincinnati, came into town to lobby city commissioners on the legal
ramifications of passing an ordinance to protect sexual orientation.

According to City Commissioner Dean Lovelace, he was swayed by
Christians’ expressions of concern over Wiseman’s proposal.

“Their concern was just the lack of acknowledging [that] a law in
this town would legalize immoral behavior,” he said. “Somehow, for us to
pass a law that would sanction that is too much — and they would fight
it.”

Under the proposed law, no businessman would have been able legally
to enforce a dress code, since it could be considered discrimination
against a person’s sexual orientation. Turner cited as an example a
transvestite man coming to work wearing a dress, the prohibition of
which would have been illegal under the proposed ordinance.

Turner also expressed concern over the lack of any exemptions for
religious groups.

According to an article by Eric Resnick in the Gay People’s
Chronicle, Aug. 13, Wiseman told the publication her anti-discrimination
ordinance would be broad enough to include transgendered individuals
(transvestites, “drag queens” and those undergoing sex changes). She
also revealed that her effort to protect the “poor” was actually
calculated to protect people with AIDS who receive income from public
assistance sources. Gay People’s Chronicle noted that Wiseman’s emphasis
on protecting the poor “is aimed at protecting people with AIDS who
receive income from public assistance and often have fewer housing
opportunities once landlords learn of their income source.”

Wiseman castigated Mayor Turner in the interview. “He has never
spoken out in favor of civil rights for gays and lesbians,” she said.
“His core support is from the extreme right wing religious community.”

During the final hearing on the ordinance, members of the real estate
community joined in, expressing opposition to Wiseman’s inclusion of the
“poor” in the proposal. If passed, landlords logically would have been
prohibited from asking about the income levels of prospective renters.

Several landlords told the commission they would sell their property
or leave them empty before they would obey such an ordinance, according
to Melody Morris, a volunteer with the Christian Family Network who
attended the hearing.

Morris noted that several members of the audience of “Appalachian
descent” spoke against the ordinance and accused Wiseman of using them
to promote a gay agenda.

She said this issue has rallied conservative Christians in Dayton.

“I have not seen a single issue that brought the Christian community
together like this one,” said Morris. “People were from all different
denominations. It brought a unification I haven’t seen on a single issue
in a long time.”

Indeed, calls ran 16 to 1 against passage of the Wiseman ordinance,
according to Morris, who says the legislative showdown demonstrates how
important it is for Christians to maintain good communications on
important issues.

“If Wiseman does come back, Christians will be back as well,” said
Morris.

Don McMurray, executive director of the Greater Dayton Association of
Baptists, said that Southern Baptists preach that homosexuality is a
sin. “I would be opposed to any change in the law that would create any
special classification for homosexuality,” said McMurray.

Sharen Shaw Johnson, a lesbian editorial writer for the Dayton Daily
News, lamented the defeat of Wiseman’s ordinance in a Dec. 23 editorial.

“We live amid a larger culture so overwhelmingly heterosexual that
often, its anti-gay bias is unconscious but wounds nonetheless,” she
wrote. “Packing the heft of centuries of discrimination, it can batter
through the most buttressed defenses until we take the hate into
ourselves. We call this internalized homophobia; battling it remains one
of our greatest challenges as gay men and lesbians. That is what most
bothered me about the City Hall carnival show this week: The damage I
know it inflicted almost casually on our hard-earned sense of ourselves
as productive, contributing, worthwhile members of the Dayton
community.”

After her defeat on Dec. 21, Wiseman proposed two resolutions. One
would have required the city to pass a similar resolution in the future;
the second would have changed the city code to include the word
“perceived” in the city’s sexual orientation ordinance. If this had
passed, not only those actually homosexual, but even “perceived” to be
so, would have been protected against “discrimination.” Both resolutions
were defeated, but Wiseman has vowed to resubmit her proposal.

Next Monday’s hearing in the Linda Tripp “interception” case will be
a pivotal event in what is widely regarded as a politically motivated
prosecution of the person who blew the whistle on Bill Clinton and
Monica Lewinsky.

Tripp’s defense lawyers and Maryland prosecutors will be in court to
argue over the famous audiotape made by Tripp of her conversation with
Monica Lewinsky. If the judge rules that the tape cannot be used by the
prosecution — immunity promised explicitly by former Special Prosecutor
Kenneth Starr’s office — the Maryland case against Tripp could very
well collapse.

Tripp is being prosecuted under Maryland’s wiretapping law for
unlawfully taping a conversation between herself and Monica Lewinsky
Dec. 22, 1997, in order to provide evidence that the president of the
United States had tried not only to cover up the now-notorious affair,
but also had urged Lewinsky to perjure herself. Although Tripp admits
she was aware that it was illegal to tape a conversation between her and
another person without the other party’s knowledge or consent, she also
was operating under an immunity agreement from Starr’s office.

Prosecutor Stephen Montanarelli recently subpoenaed five members of
former Special Prosecutor Ken Starr’s staff — Stephen Binhak, Stephen
Bates, Jackie Bennett, Bruce Udolf and Steve Irons — to testify at the
Dec. 13 hearing. All five lawyers are expected to testify in court that
the audiotape was under a grant of immunity from Starr.

Although Philip Coughter, Tripp’s chief spokesman, is cautiously
optimistic about the outcome of the hearing, he is disturbed by what he
sees as a White House spin campaign against Tripp.

“We firmly believe that Linda Tripp’s prosecution in Maryland is a
transparent, politically motivated effort that has been orchestrated by
the Clinton administration,” says Coughter.

Coughter, a former air force officer who worked with Tripp when he
was a spokesman in the Pentagon’s Office of Public Affairs, has known
Tripp for five years and characterizes her as a “decent, honorable,
optimistic and upbeat person.”

There is a wealth of circumstantial evidence pointing to a White
House campaign against Tripp, says Coughter. For instance, he notes that
49 of Maryland’s House of Delegate members — all Democrats — wrote a
letter to Attorney General Marna McClendon on Jan. 30, 1998, asking her
to prosecute Tripp.

Moreover, he says, Maryland has taken the highly unusual step of
offering the services of the deputy attorney general, the chief of the
Maryland criminal investigation unit, and as many lawyers as might be
needed, to help Montanarelli prosecute Tripp.

“I find it more than strange that the state of Maryland would bring
to bear such resources seldom employed against mass murderers, to hound
Mrs. Tripp. This legal piling on is virtually unprecedented, and in my
opinion, speaks to the political motivation of this prosecution,” says
Coughter.

‘We would be in big trouble’

In a Nov. 19 court hearing, Tripp attorney Joseph Murtha argued for
dismissal of the charges against Tripp because of her grant of federal
immunity. In papers filed on Tripp’s behalf, Murtha argued that the
lawsuit is based on information gleaned from Tripp’s immunized federal
testimony — and thus cannot lawfully be used against her.

In that hearing, Judge Diane Leasure ruled that legal arguments over
the use of the tape recording with Monica Lewinsky can be argued in
Monday’s court battle. The use of the Lewinsky tape is a make-or-break
issue for the prosecution.

“We would be in big trouble,” said Assistant Attorney General Carolyn
H. Henneman, if Leasure rules that Tripp had full immunity from Ken
Starr’s office over use of the tape.

Prosecutor Montanarelli agrees that “it would be extremely difficult
to continue” if he gets an unfavorable ruling from the judge.

Is government double-crossing Tripp?

Tripp’s defense strategy is simple. Kenneth Starr’s office sent Tripp
a letter on Jan 16, 1998 offering her a grant of immunity for the tapes
she had made of Monica Lewinsky’s conversations. Tripp’s lawyers
maintain Starr’s official offer of immunity protected Tripp from being
prosecuted for wiretapping. Whatever materials she provided to Starr
were also to be shielded from any lawsuits.

So how can Tripp be prosecuted?

Montanarelli claims Starr’s offer of immunity is invalid because it
was not signed off by a judge until mid-February.

“The state will prove at trial that Tripp made this recording after
she knew it was illegal to do so under Maryland law,” says Montanarelli,
“but before she received any immunity.”

Starr’s key lawyers are expected to cast doubt on Montanarelli’s
charges during Monday’s hearing. Indeed, Starr lawyer Jackie Bennett was
the one who sent Tripp the letter indicating she had federal immunity.
In the letter, Bennett assured Tripp she would have immunity “in any
criminal case” and that “this agreement expressly covers … certain
tape recordings.”

During the Nov. 19 hearing before Judge Leasure, Tripp’s lawyers
argued that even if Starr’s attorneys had made promises to Tripp they
couldn’t keep, the fact that she thought she was legally protected is
all that matters.

“The state cannot take advantage of a witness’ cooperation and then
turn around and prosecute them,” said Murtha.

Since Tripp was compelled by an independent counsel subpoena to turn
over the tapes to Ken Starr’s office in exchange for immunity, “we are
cautiously optimistic that the judge will see the validity of the
arguments of Tripp’s attorneys and that the charges will be dismissed
before it goes to trial,” says Coughter. “But if a trial is necessary,
Mrs. Tripp looks forward to the opportunity to tell the truth under
oath.” So far, Tripp’s legal and other costs in the Maryland case
have exceeded $500,000.

Tripp sues Pentagon and White House

Evidence of political retribution against Tripp is not new. On Sept.
27, Tripp attorney Stephen Kohn filed an invasion of privacy lawsuit
against the Pentagon and White House, alleging both had violated Tripp’s
privacy rights by releasing confidential information from her personnel
files to New Yorker reporter Jane Meyer, a violation of the federal
Privacy Act of 1974. Kenneth Bacon, Assistant Secretary of Defense and
Clifford Bernath, formerly a Bacon underling at the Pentagon are named
in the lawsuit.

The Washington, D.C.-based legal watchdog organization Judicial
Watch deposed Bacon and Bernath. Under
oath, Bacon admitted he had orchestrated the release of information in
Tripp’s confidential file, later making a public apology. “In
retrospect, I’m sorry the incident occurred,” he said. “I’m sorry I
didn’t check with our lawyers, or check with Linda Tripp’s lawyers about
this.”

Chicago’s rebuff of the Southern Baptist Convention’s plans to meet
in the Windy City next summer, on the grounds that the large Christian
group might foment “hate crimes” against minorities, is sounding alarm
bells among Christians who fear that merely speaking openly about their
core religious beliefs will soon be considered a crime.

The Southern Baptist Convention — with a membership of 15.8 million
and representing more than 40,000 churches nationwide — has been
planning for two years next summer’s evangelistic outreach in Chicago.
Along with performing good deeds — including housing rehabilitation and
medical clinics — the initiative also would encompass church-starting,
door-to-door evangelism and block parties.

But when the Council of Religious Leaders of Metropolitan Chicago
sent a letter to Paige Patterson, head of the Southern Baptist
Convention in Nashville, urging the Baptists to reconsider their plans,
the Baptists were shocked and dismayed.

It seems Chicago’s council leaders — representing 40 mainline
denominations, Jewish synagogues, and African-American denominations –
believe the outreach might spark violence and hate crimes against
minority religious groups in the city. “We are particularly disturbed
that the two groups who appear to be among your primary targets, Muslims
and Jews, have during the past six months been victims of faith-based
terrorist violence in Chicago,” said the letter urging the Baptists to
stay home.

“While we are confident that your volunteers would come with entirely
peaceful intentions, a campaign of the nature and scope you envision
could contribute to a climate conducive to hate crimes,” said the
letter.

Rabbi Ira Youdovin, executive director of the Chicago Board of
Rabbis, and chief author of the letter, cites the fact that that six
Orthodox Jews were shot and wounded in July outside of their synagogue
on Chicago’s North Side, as well as last May’s vandalism against a
Mosque in Villa Park, as examples of “hate crimes” that might be
replicated by the presence of the Christian outreach there.

The council also includes Cardinal Francis George of the Catholic
Archdiocese of Chicago, the Rev. Paul Rutgers, a Presbyterian minister
and Bishop C. Joseph Sprague of the United Methodist Church’s Northern
Illinois Conference.

The Southern Baptist campaign “smacks of a kind of non-Jesus-like
arrogance,” said Sprague, according to an Associated Press report. “I
am always fearful when we in the Christian community move beyond the
rightful claim that Jesus is decisive for us, to the presupposition that
non-Christians … are outside God’s plan for salvation.”

Sprague, who oversees 425 United Methodist Churches in the Northern
Illinois Conference, told WorldNetDaily that the Council was concerned
that the presence of Southern Baptist missionaries in Chicago next year
could upset the unity that has carefully developed between Protestants,
Catholics and Jews in Chicago during the past few years.

“We did not in any sense want to suggest that we did not want them to
come to this area. They are welcome to come,” said Sprague, “if they’re
coming to join with us in acts of mercy and justice on behalf of this
community in general, and specifically on behalf of the marginalized and
dispossessed.” But Sprague makes it clear that traditional Christian
evangelism is not acceptable or welcome. “We are not interested in their
coming to proselytize or to suggest, however well intentioned, that
Jews, Hindus, or others are second class.”

The problem, according to Sprague, is that proselytizing with the
kind of attitude that one group is saved, while another is in need of
saving, can provide “fodder” for deranged or demonized persons to attack
religious minorities. To suggest that other religious groups are
second-class citizens can be dangerous, because it feeds into the
ideology of hate groups, he said.

When it comes to Christian views on homosexuality, the prohibition
against proselytizing is even stronger. Christians who treat homosexuals
as second-class citizens are setting them up for persecution in a
“fear-ridden society,” said Sprague.

“This sets them [homosexuals] up for the deranged and demonic to go
after them. We have example after example of gay and lesbian Christians
being treated less than lovingly by virtue of that kind of mentality.”

Does Sprague consider preaching against homosexuality, even within a
church, a hate crime?

“It not always does, but it certainly can. It creates a climate in
which hate can fester,” answered Sprague. “It’s like, if I plow my yard,
it doesn’t necessarily make it a garden, but it means it has become
prepared to become a garden.”

Sprague is far from alone in his view that Christians should not
criticize the homosexual lifestyle. According to the Women’s Division of
the United Methodist Church, “An example of giving societal permission
to engage in violence against gay and lesbian people is the recent media
campaign with the misleading slogans of ‘Truth in Love’ and ‘Hope, not
Hate.’ Such slick campaigns, though couched in seemingly kind and
Christian words, promote bigotry,” the Women’s Division wrote in a 1998
report.

“Christian groups like the ones sponsoring this campaign have
consistently waged campaigns of fear and misinformation. …” The
Women’s Division was referring to Focus on the Family, the Family
Research Council and other conservative religious organizations that are
attempting to help homosexuals who want to leave the lifestyle.

Commenting on the women’s division policy, Faye Short, a conservative
Methodist, asks, “Are we fast approaching the point within our society
when Christians can no longer make public statements that convey
principles of biblical morality? Will we be disallowed from upholding
the biblical model of marriage and family,” she said in Good News
Magazine. “And, shall we, as women of the church, allow ourselves to be
co-opted into unwittingly supporting public opinion and homosexual
advocacy opposing Christian organizations that dare to proclaim the
biblical standard?”

Baptists: Ready or not, here we come

Nevertheless, the Southern Baptist Convention still plans to bring
100,000 missionaries into Chicago next summer to conduct evangelism
campaigns. The Chicago effort is part of the Baptists’ “Strategic Cities
Initiative,” which will also target Phoenix, Los Angeles and Boston.

“We are not targeting groups,” said James M. Queen, executive
director of the Chicago Metro Baptist Association. “We want to show
love, show our faith. Everybody needs to hear the gospel.”

But grave concerns remain. In response to the Council’s letter, Dr.
Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission
of the Southern Baptist Convention, said, “To say that Southern Baptists
should refrain from an evangelistic campaign because it might, as the
council said, ‘contribute to a climate conducive to hate crimes,’ is not
a very far step away from then claiming that the act of witnessing
itself to those whom you believe need to be saved is a ‘hate crime.’”

“I think it is instructive that those who criticize Southern
Baptists’ efforts to evangelize cities or groups always preface their
criticism by acknowledging Southern Baptists’ right to express our
beliefs, Land continued. “It seems they affirm our right to express our
beliefs as long as we agree not to do so.”

R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary in Louisville, Ky., agrees: “To link New Testament evangelism
with hate crimes is cowardice posing as compassion. This is political
posturing, not a serious argument. It saddens me to see so many
supposedly Christian leaders who are determined to avoid evangelization
at all costs.”

Anti-Christian bigotry on the rise?

Is it true, as conservative religious groups and commentators have
been contending for years, that there is a rising tide of anti-Christian
bigotry in our culture?

Southern Baptist Convention spokesman William Merrell observes, “I
believe there is a growing climate of hostility that is directed against
Christians … who find themselves as the targets of a great hostility
in this culture.”

In late September, presidential candidate Gary Bauer cited the
shootings at Wedgewood Baptist Church in Forth Worth, Texas, the
targeting of Christians at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. and
the shootings of praying students in Paducah, Ky., as examples of a
“disturbing pattern.” In fact, there has been almost no media coverage
pointing out that these were anti-Christian acts of violence against
sincere believers.

Bauer’s views were echoed by House Majority Leader Dick Armey in a
Sept. 29 speech. “We are witnessing a rising level of bigotry against
people of faith, especially Christians,” said Armey.

The Congressman pointed to the comments by Barry Lynn, of Americans
United for the Separation of Church and State, on CNN’s May 21 Crossfire
show. Lynn criticized the acclaim given to Cassie Bernall, a young girl
who was shot at Columbine when she said she believed in God. According
to Lynn, “I think that what we’ve done here is to take this one victim,
turned it into an example of martyrdom, and then used it to become the
springboard for even more exploitation of this tragedy by people with a
religious, political agenda.”

Armey observed that, after the memorial service for slain Columbine
students, the Denver Post editorialized May 1 against what it called the
“disenfranchising” nature of the memorial service. The editorialist
noted, “While the service deftly satisfied the needs of fundamentalist
Christians, it estranged too many others who came in search of healing.”
The Post urged that future services be more “inclusive, not
divisive.”

Then Armey takes aim at the Justice Department’s own “Healing the
Hate” middle school curriculum, which suggests to school counselors that
children may be dangerous if they grow up in a “very religious” home.

“This, without one shred of evidence showing any linkage between
Christians and any of these terrible acts of violence that our nation
has faced,” said Armey. The Justice Department says one of its goals in
publishing this curriculum is to “reshape attitudes and beliefs” of
middle school students.

The “Healing the Hate” curriculum begins with this quote from
President Clinton: “Prejudice and contempt, cloaked in the pretense of
religious or political conviction, are not different … they fuel the
fanaticism of terror.”

Can’t read Bible on radio in Canada

“Conservatives are in a pickle,” writes Jonathan Alter in
Newsweek. “They like to say that ideas have consequences. Well,
the consequences of condemnation can turn out to be death. … But just
as the white racists created a climate for lynching blacks, just as hate
radio created a climate for militias, so the constant degrading of
homosexuals is exacting a toll in blood. … Discerning clergymen and
moralists can hate the sin and love the sinner; but by the time the
homophobic message reaches the angry guys sitting in the bar, that
distinction has been lost.”

Focus on the Family founder Dr. James Dobson contends that if such
anti-Christian trends continue in the U.S., Christians will face the
same kind of restrictions on their free speech and faith as believers
currently do in Canada.

“In Canada,” says Dobson, “certain portions of Scripture can no
longer be read on radio or television. If broadcasters chose to
elaborate on Romans 1, for example, or other Scriptures that address the
subject of homosexuality, they would be charged with unethical practices
because officials would interpret the comments as hateful. Focus
couldn’t even cite certain medical information related to AIDS on a
recent broadcast because, again, it might have offended the homosexual
community. That’s where I believe gay and lesbian activists in this
country are taking us.”

Worldwide persecution of Christians

While the Southern Baptists sponsor 5,000 “home missionaries,” they
also support more than 4,000 foreign missionaries in 126 countries. So
the problems confronting Christians overseas are also on their minds.

In September, a Roman Catholic priest was killed in India for his
“illegal” attempts to convert Hindus to Christianity. But that’s just
the beginning.

In the Sudan, Islamic forces have force-starved an estimated 1.5
million “infidels” in recent years.

Muslim gangs in Java have ransacked hundreds of churches. In China,
police continue to arrest members of underground Protestant churches.

Open Doors, a religious freedom group founded by Brother Andrew,
reported on several instances of persecution last month. In
Turkmenistan, a pastor spent 12 days in prison before being freed
and fined one month’s wage for holding unsanctioned meetings. In
Indonesia, 30 Christians were massacred by soldiers on the island of
Ambon. In Chechnya, Russian Orthodox priests are being kidnapped and in
Turkey, 40 Christians have recently been arrested for worshipping in an
“illegal” church.

However attitudes toward Christianity have changed in America in
recent decades, a parallel shift seems to have occurred worldwide.

What about the future of Christianity in America? Will evangelism be
chilled, or even silenced — or perhaps just neutered — due to an
ever-more-intolerant culture? Will it end up as an underground movement
as it is in many corners of the world?

Phil Roberts, of the Baptists’ North American Mission Board, sees it
this way: “As a result of this effort” to evangelize in Chicago next
summer, “Canada and the United States will either have been closer to
being truly and fully evangelized — or we will see our culture becoming
increasing pagan.”

See David Kupelian’s commentary, The Christian haters.

Frank York is a reporter for
WorldNetDaily.

Editor’s note: This is the second in a two-part series on the
homosexual rights movement’s current political agenda. In
Part 1,

WorldNetDaily examined homosexual activists’ intense push for “hate
crimes” legislation — and the groundswell of opposition to it. Part 2 deals
the various “anti-hate” and tolerance programs currently being used in the
nation’s public schools to foster tolerance and affirmation of the
homosexual lifestyle.

While gearing up for their next legislative battle in the wake of the
Senate’s defeat of the “Hate Crimes Prevention Act,” homosexual rights
organizations are actively engaged in their other major battlefront — the
nation’s public school classrooms.

“Those who commit hate crimes develop their anti-gay attitudes at a
young age, and can feel encouraged toward violence if they see prejudice
tolerated all around them,” said the
Lambda Legal Defense and Education
Fund, a homosexual legal organization, in its
Spring/Summer 1999 newsletter. Lambda recommends the widespread use of
anti-bigotry and anti-violence programs in schools to change any
“prejudicial” attitudes toward homosexuals.

To advance their agenda of influencing the nation’s public school
population, homosexual activist groups have found a major benefactor in
President Clinton. The president convened the White House Conference on Hate
Crimes at George Washington University in November 1997, during which he
announced a major push for law enforcement and prevention initiatives to
deal with “hate crimes.” Attending the conference were 350 leaders from law
enforcement agencies, members of Congress, Secretary of Education Richard
Riley, and Attorney General Janet Reno. Since then, a proliferation of
educational materials, websites, and other tools have sprung into being, all
aimed at influencing the attitudes and beliefs of America’s school children.

‘Hate crimes’ initiatives in operation

Attorney General Janet Reno has instituted a
Kid’s Page, designed to help children deal with issues of
prejudice. Although the children’s part of the site gives examples involving
race, religion, and culture, the “Parents’ and Teachers’ Page” adds “sexual
orientation” to the list of criteria defining prejudice.

Under Reno, the Department of Justice has established a “Hate Crimes
Initiative” program designed to create a partnership between law enforcement
officers and educators. The
Hate Crimes Initiative website offers resources for
law enforcement as well as materials for teaching tolerance and diversity in
elementary and secondary schools. Offering links to various groups that have
developed “anti-hate” and tolerance-teaching materials, the site also links
to the Center on Hate and Extremism; Parents, Families and Friends of
Lesbians and Gays; The New York City Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project;
the Southern Poverty Law Center: Teaching Tolerance; and the Anti-Defamation
League, among others.

The Anti-Defamation League’s materials for
teachers, for example, describe how educators should respond to
“hate-motivated” behaviors in school. The Anti-Defamation League tells
teachers to be alert to “hate incidents” — expressions of hostility against
a person or property because of the victim’s “race, religion, disability,
gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation…. This may include such behavior as
non-threatening name-calling, using racial slurs, or disseminating racist
leaflets.”

The document further advises teachers to work with school officials to set
up policies and reporting procedures, and teachers are urged to have their
students report “hate incidents” or crimes to school officials.

Another educational tool produced by the Anti-Defamation League is “Hate
Crimes: ADL Blueprint for Action,” prepared, according to the group, “in
conjunction with President Bill Clinton’s November 1997 White House
Conference on Hate Crimes.” In addition to a catalog of more than 200 titles
and resources for educators, titled, “ADL Resources for Classroom and
Community,” the organization also offers, “The Religious Right: The Assault
on Tolerance & Pluralism in America.”

The Department of Education has set up a Safe and Drug-free Schools website that offers a free
downloadable booklet, “Preventing Youth Hate Crime: A Manual for Schools and
Communities.” It describes various anti-violence programs in use in public
schools and provides the reader with guidelines for setting up a
“School-Based Hate Prevention Program.”

The National Education Association is another
organization promoting anti-bigotry curricula. During its July, 1999
national convention, the giant teachers’ union passed a resolution on
“Racism, Sexism, and Sexual Orientation,” stating the group “believes in the
equality of all individuals. Discrimination and stereotyping based on such
factors as race, gender, immigration status, physical disabilities,
ethnicity, occupation, and sexual orientation must be eliminated.”

Dissenter ‘shouldn’t be allowed anywhere’

Wayne Besen, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign,
a Washington, D.C.-based homosexual lobbying group,
believes “anti-hate” and tolerance programs are essential for public school
children. While there’s room for free speech in school, he says, it is
unacceptable for gay teens to be humiliated or terrorized in schools. He
adds that when he was in high school, one gay teen “had to leave the school”
because he was so terrorized.

WorldNetDaily asked Besen how he would react if he heard that Dr. Joseph
Nicolosi, a therapist who helps homosexuals leave the homosexual lifestyle,
had been invited to a public school to discuss his therapy.

“The first thing I would say is that Dr. Nicolosi shouldn’t be allowed
anywhere,” replied Besen.

According to Besen, Nicolosi doesn’t keep statistics showing his success
rate. “He bilks his patients. He creates life-long patients.” Besen adds
that Nicolosi has a “higher defection rate [among his patients] than the
Cuban baseball team.”

Besen also charged that Nicolosi cannot show more than a handful of
individuals who have gone through his therapy and stayed straight for more
than ten years. “We have all kinds of ex-ex-gays who have been through this.
I can’t think of a single ex-gay who isn’t on the payroll of the religious
right or running a ministry out there. They make up to $70,000 a year to say
they’ve changed. I could walk out of this building right now and get people
for that kind of money who would say they used to be from Pluto and now they
‘re from Mars. That’s not impressive. You can get anyone to say anything for
that kind of money. That’s the kind of money they’re making. They’re on the
dole.”

Asked to respond to Besen’s accusations, Nicolosi said: “My claim of
success is a third, a third, and a third: One third don’t change; a third
show significant improvement; and a third are cured.” Nicolosi also took
exception to Besen’s comment about how few ex-gays are really cured.

“There are many men and women around the country who are leading very
quiet lives who have come out of homosexuality. … These individuals have
told me they don’t want their children to know, or they don’t want their
community to know. This is one of the problems we face in this dialog,
because we’re not hearing from the former homosexuals.”

However, Nicolosi’s organization, the National Association for
Research and Therapy of Homosexuality will soon be
publishing a major study of 800 ex-homosexuals who have successfully
overcome their homosexuality.

Recruiting homosexuals or teaching tolerance?

The Traditional Values Coalition,
a pro-family organization based in Washington, D.C., notes that the Clinton
administration has announced a $300 million “Safer Learning Environments”
program to deal with violence and prejudice. At the center of this effort is
a program called “Healing the Hate,” which urges educators to develop a
“hate crime” prevention policy for their schools.

Shortly after President Clinton’s “hate crimes” summit, says Coalition
spokesman Andrea Sheldon Lafferty, her organization began tracking the
extent of federally-funded anti-bigotry curricula being used in public
schools.

Traditional Values Coalition found the “Healing the Hate” curriculum had
a disturbing anti-Christian bias, Lafferty says. The curriculum tells the
story of a white supremacist, and links racism with Baptists and
Pentecostals. A vocabulary section within the curriculum charges there are
institutionalized prejudices within religious organizations.

“What prejudices are they talking about? That Christians believe that
homosexuality is a sin and abortion is murder?” asks Laffery.

“In another curriculum,
young children are told to role play being
lesbians,” she added.

While Lafferty agrees that children should not be allowed to pick on each
other because of their differences, her organization maintains the real
purpose behind these anti-bigotry materials is the targeting of children to
accept the homosexual lifestyle.

She also points to the dangers inherent in teachers being required to
report “hate incidents” in public schools.

“If your child stands up in class and says that homosexuality is a sin
or that abortion is murder, this is considered a hate incident. They
[homosexuals] want local law enforcement officials to come-goose stepping
into your home or your child’s classroom if your child has engaged in a hate
incident.”

With the widespread use of anti-bigotry materials in public schools, says
Laffery, “what has happened is that homosexuals and liberals have figured
out a way to get the federal government to fund their political agenda.”

Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series on the homosexual rights movement’s current political agenda. In Part 1, WorldNetDaily looks at homosexual activists’ intense push for “hate crimes” legislation — and at the groundswell of opposition to it.

A growing political rebellion against “hate crimes” legislation contends such bills are not so much intended to discourage criminal acts as they are to suppress and criminalize people’s thoughts, beliefs and speech regarding homosexuality.

Proponents of the “Hate Crimes Prevention Act” were stunned and dismayed last Wednesday by the defeat of the legislation in the U.S. Senate. Had it been approved, the bill would have extended current federal “hate crimes” legislation to include sexual orientation. Homosexual activists are condemning the Senate’s Republican leadership and pledging an even stronger push for passage when Congress reconvenes.

“The GOP Senate leadership’s antipathy towards gay and lesbian Americans apparently runs so deep that they were able to callously turn their back on hate crime victims and their families, even as statistics show that hate crimes are on the rise,” said Elizabeth Birch, executive director of the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington, D.C.-based homosexual advocacy organization.

“These unconscionable efforts to derail hate crime legislation will be remembered as a shameful chapter in this nation’s history,” she said.

The HRC had worked hard on the legislation, including a Nov. 8 press conference featuring the parents of Matthew Shepard — the young homosexual man killed in Wyoming — as well as law enforcement officers from Wyoming who supported the Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

An HRC spokesman, Wayne Besen, told WorldNetDaily a “hate crimes” law protecting homosexuals is needed because of the increase in the incidences of crimes committed against homosexuals and other minority groups. Defining a “hate crime” as one that targets a certain group, says Besen, such a crime is “aimed to send a message to an entire group of people … it is a domestic act of terrorism … not a random crime.”

Forty-two states currently have “hate crime” laws, but only 22 include sexual orientation. Besen says a federal law would be a much-needed tool for law enforcement officers at the state and local level.

Besen insists “hate crimes” legislation only targets people’s illegal actions, not their underlying beliefs. “People can say what they want, they can think what they want. But if they act on it, they are creating an act of domestic terrorism to a group … then it becomes a hate crime.”

Not so, Robert Knight, head of the Cultural Studies department at the Family Research Council. “Hate crime” legislation does indeed target thoughts and speech, he says, and if passed would provide special protected status for homosexuals. He notes that there are already laws on the books against violent actions against persons — including homosexuals — but that “hate crimes” legislation provides penalty enhancements against the perpetrator’s thoughts and beliefs.

“The only thing that hate crime laws target are thoughts,” says Knight. “It’s really an attack on free speech.”

Currently, “hate crimes” are reported annually by the FBI in its crime statistics report. According to Knight, of the more than 8,000 “hate crimes” listed, about half are cases of intimidation — not physical attack or property damage. He notes that in 1997, FBI statistics indicated that “hate crimes” comprised one-tenth of one percent of all violent and property crimes, less than one case per law enforcement agency.

He predicts, however, that the category of intimidation is going to become more and more elastic. In fact, says Knight, the category of intimidation “will eventually lead to charges of incitement to hate crimes. A pastor speaking out on homosexuality in a town where there might be an assault on a homosexual, may one day be charged with inciting that assault.” The pastor might also be charged with intimidation by creating a hostile atmosphere toward homosexuals.

Wired Strategies, a homosexual political website operated by John Aravosis, maintains a section on “hate speech” by religious right organizations. Aravosis maintains that anti-homosexual speech is the root of violence and even murder against homosexuals.

He notes, “If words do not inspire actions, then why did the top religious right organizations spend $500,000 on an ad campaign to inspire gays to ‘convert’? They know words have consequences, and their words are nothing less than the subjugation and dehumanization of gay and lesbian Americans. While most of the far right don’t preach violence, it is no wonder that decades of their disdain eventually led to murder.”

Aravosis is referring to the Truth in Love television ad campaign sponsored by the ex-homosexual ministry Exodus International and a coalition of other ministries focused on the homosexual lifestyle. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) contacted various TV stations and convinced station managers not to run the ads.

According to Besen, GLAAD simply presented the facts to the station managers and convinced them that this was a health-care issue, not a free speech issue. GLAAD proved to the managers that messages on homosexual change “cause anxiety, depression, and self-destructive behaviors, including suicide,” said Besen, who added the stations don’t run ads for cigarettes or asbestos, so why would they run ads that make people commit suicide?

In testimony before the Senate on hate crimes legislation last May, Knight discussed the Truth in Love campaign:

“Last year’s Truth in Love advertising campaign, in which former homosexuals gave the good news that all people are loved by God and have the hope of salvation and that homosexual behavior can be changed, was blamed for Matthew Shepard’s murder, despite zero evidence that the perpetrators had ever seen the ads or been influenced by them in any way. … If an undiluted message of love is considered grounds for charges of complicity in murder, then we have moved far down the road toward silencing anyone who holds to traditional morality. In Canada, it is already a federal offense to criticize homosexuality over the airwaves. The hate crimes bill paves the way in America for similar throttling of opinion.”

Still, Besen says a federal “hate crime” law will not threaten anyone’s freedom of speech or thought. He notes that of the 22 states having sexual orientation included in their “hate crime” laws, “To the best of my knowledge there’s not been a limitation on speech or thought. It’s a false argument.”

Stephen M. Crampton, chief counsel for the American Family Association’s Center for Law & Policy, is concerned about the far-reaching implications of “hate crime” laws. “First of all,” says Crampton, “the focus in criminal law has always been actions — the taking of an innocent human life. Premeditation is considered as an evidentiary matter — it distinguishes, for example, between murder and manslaughter.” He notes that “hate crime” laws go a step further. “Hate crime laws actually delve one step deeper into a suspect’s mind: They criminalize what a person thinks about a homosexual in the commission of a crime. While hatred for anyone may be abhorrent, it is not illegal.”

Silencing dissent
An FRC study, titled “The other side of ‘tolerance:’ Victims of homosexual activism,” documents dozens of cases of individuals or organizations being harassed or intimidated due to their opposition to the homosexual rights movement. Examples:

• Madison, Wisconsin firefighter Ron Greer nearly lost his job for giving his colleagues a tract entitled, “The truth about homosexuality.” He was suspended and ordered to attend diversity training for violating the city’s anti-discrimination code.

• Betty Sabatino, a personal trust administrator at the Texas Commerce Bank in San Antonio was fired for questioning her company’s policy on homosexuality.

• Debra Kelly, a former hospice worker in Philadelphia was fired for expressing her Christian beliefs about homosexuality. Her supervisor, a supporter of ACT-UP, a militant homosexual group, said Kelly was intolerant and was unsuited for her position.

• Jerry Schultz, a Long Beach, California city councilman spoke out against “domestic partnerships” and was labeled a “gay basher” in the newspapers. According to Schultz, “Most of my colleagues who spoke after me lambasted me for my hateful and hurtful words. While not denying that my words were accurate, they felt that I didn’t have the right to speak them.”

• When Washington state activists attempted to gather signatures to overturn a homosexual rights ordinance, they were harassed by homosexual “Bigot Busters,” who would surround the signature gatherers and yell “bigot” or “Nazi.”

Targeting children
The Lambda Legal Defense and Educational Fund urges homosexual activists not only to lobby for passage of “hate crimes” legislation, but also encourages them to work to change anti-homosexual attitudes within the public schools.

“Those who commit hate crimes develop their anti-gay attitudes at a young age, and can feel encouraged toward violence if they see prejudice tolerated all around them,” says Lambda. “To build a society that includes fewer of these sick individuals, we need good anti-violence and anti-bigotry programs in all public schools, along with curricula that include accurate information about sexual orientation, the history of the gay rights movement, and lesbian and gay role models.”

Lambda also observes, that “any proposal for passing or amending a hate crimes law to include sexual orientation should go hand-in-hand with a broader prevention package. We must not let the federal or state governments off the hook with a largely symbolic, after-the-fact remedy. Let’s also make them adopt strong and sweeping prevention initiatives that can eventually end hate crimes by striking at their roots.”

In Part 2, WorldNetDaily examines the various anti-violence and tolerance programs currently being used in the nation’s public schools to foster tolerance and affirmation of the homosexual lifestyle.