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06/20/2011

NOM's latest NY video: A handy cast breakdown

by Jeremy Hooper

Let's start from the left:

The half-cutoff guy on the far left side (geographically, not politically) is Brooklyn's own Rabbi Yehuda Levin. You remember Yehuda, right? He's the uber-fringe Orthodox politico who is on record calling gays "moral terrorists," blaming LGBT people for things like the Haitian earthquake and 9/11, likening the Hanukkah story to social conservatives' "defeat of liberal Jews & gays," and using some of the most extremist anti-Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal rhetoric imaginable. And Levin's even more well known for the election of 2010, when he wrote a speech that had then-gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino declaring that he didn't want children "brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option," and then defected from the Paladino campaign after the candidate apologized for the obvious offenses of the speech. Even more recently, Levin contributed this to the discourse:

"I sympathize with the person who has homosexual urges

like I sympathize with the person who has desires

for underage children"



Apparently these are the kind of comments that earn one a prominent spot at NY "traditional marriage" pressers

So then there's the guy right next to Levin, Rev. Duane Motley. Motley, Senior Lobbyist for the New Yorker’s Family Research Foundation/ New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, recently gave a sermon wherein he painted this whole civil rights conversation as a war, churches as recruiting stations, and the Bible itself as a weapon meant to clobber certain kinds of humans:

" Let's talk about this. If you're going to get in this war, what do you have to do? There's two things you have to..have in any war. Number one you have to have some soldiers. So in this culture war I'm talking about, the soldiers we need have to be Christians. Christians are the soldiers we're looking for. Number two, in a war you have to have weapons. But the weapons are a different kind than we are familiar with. These are not hardware, these are not guns and tanks and bombs planes and that sort of thing. The weapons in this war are words. They're ideas and actions in the public policy arena, where you seldom find Christians involved. We avoid public policy. Which we shouldn't.



This war boils down to being a spiritual war. One between God and Satan. Between good and evil. Albany's always trying to legalize something that's wrong. The Bible says it's evil, Albany wants to legalize it, because if you can legalize it, then they feel comfortable doing it, participating in it, and usually if you can legalize a sin, you can find a way to license it and tax it to get more revenue. And that's the game they play in Albany.



And then the third thing is that it's a war between Biblical or Christian worldview and the secular or Satan's worldview. That's the war and we are the soldiers and we are in the middle of it. So God is looking for some volunteer soldiers for his army. Do you have any idea where he can find them? Where should his recruiting stations be? Downtown city hall? No, every church should be a recruiting station for God's army.



Well, let me give you some ideas of what you need to do to be a successful soldier. If you're going to get in this army, and I hope you will, there's three things you need to know to be a successful solider. You need to know who the enemy is. The enemy in this case is Satan, and we find this in the evil in media, public education, television, internet, government, so forth -- all of those areas there is a lot of evil, and that's where we're fighting.



And you also have to know not only the enemy, but also what equipment and weapons you have. Well the equipment that we have is this right here [holds up Bible], it's the word of God. The word of God is a two-edged sword -- it cuts going in, it cuts coming out. This is our weapon in this war.



And then the third thing a soldier must know is what the mission is. The mission in this case is to defeat Satan's army. "

*Audio Source: Rev. Duane Motley - "Today's Culture", Ephesians 6:10-17 - CD-2010-06-06 [Pittsford Community Church]

Charming, huh? Don't you just love having your family reduced to a Beelzebubian battalion?

Moving to our right: Next to Motley is Bishop Joseph Mattera. Here are just some of the "Yea, seriously?!?" quips that Mattera (who organized the recent NYC rally at City Hall) has brought forth:

Let's stop there for a sec and move on to a second photo:

The guy on the far right (this time politically and geographically) is Rev. Jason McGuire, who heads the NYCF/NYFRF (the big state lobby group with Family Research Council connections). Here are some of McGuire's bits o'charm:

"When a child grows up under an abusive father,

it is very difficult for the child to grow up to understand

a loving heavenly father. My fear is that what

happens culturally, with the issue of same-sex marriage, is...

a generation from now we look back

and it will be that much more difficult for a

generation of young people that have grown up

to look back and recognize the relationship between

Christ and the church."



SOURCE:

2011.03.27 Rev. Jason McGuire, CEO

[Big Flats Wesleyan Church of Elmira, NY]



"Your ultimate enemy is a spiritual enemy -- Satan.

That's where this lie is coming from"



SOURCE:

2011.03.27 Rev. Jason McGuire, CEO

[Big Flats Wesleyan Church of Elmira, NY]



"When we're talking about a Senator Duane

or an Assemblyman O'Donnell who's sponsoring same-sex marriage,

we're not only talking about a legislator

that is taking a position against God's word,

but a legislator who, if they die without Jesus Christ,

dies without a home in Heaven and an eternity in Hell"



[SOURCE: FLN News, 4/16/09]

Under McGuire's leadership, NYCF/NYFRF also distributed church bulletin inserts that called homosexuality "perverted & twisted" and said that it will lead to the "destruction of your immortal soul." Translation: It's not really about marriage for them. At least not only.

Or what about NOM president Brian Brown (seated, on left)? Brian's a little more measured than most. But his words still admit that his fight is all about "Scriptural marriage," likening himself and his war wounds to those suffered by Jesus Christ:

"What did they do to Christ? We're going to suffer a little bit"



[SOURCE: KCEO Radio]

Oh, and then of course there's Maggie Gallagher herself. NOM chair Maggie has told gays that they "can always control their behavior" -- "behavior" she admits she considers "unfortunate." She once suggested of President Bush, via her nationally syndicated column, that "ex-gay" therapy deserves more research dollars. She's admitted that she considers homosexuality to be "at a minimum, a sexual dysfunction much as impotence or infertility," and "like infertility...a sexual disability preventing certain individuals from participating in the normal reproductive patterns of the human species." And while speaking to her base on Catholic radio, she said that both gays and their straight supporters are "committing several different kinds of very serious sins." To name but a small scattering of her decades of slights.

Okay, so that relatively brief dossier (yes we could go on, if challenged) out of the way, we will now let you watch the National Organization For Marriage's latest video. A video from which the above two inspirational screen caps were pulled. Yet oddly, a video in which none of the aforementioned have the fortitude to be as revelatory as we know them to be:

Not even one Satan reference from this oh-so-Satan-quoting crew? Why that's like a Hershey heir failing to mention sugar's role in fueling the family career!



But now for the only screen cap that really matters:

Call your Senator. Tell him or her to vote YES on the good bill, NO on the bad condemnations! It's worth it!

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