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02/24/2011
Arcadia fire: Equality advocates Focus on 'Protect Marriage' mayor's keynoter
The mayor of Arcadia, CA, one Peter Amundson....
...has invited Focus on the Family's vice president of Ministry Outreach/Pastoral Ministries, H.B. London Jr., to keynote an upcoming community breakfast. This leaves an understandably bad taste in some of the more inclusivity-minded community members:
"Coming from a Japanese background, I am not one who is comfortable "rocking the boat."
I am usually the individual trying to make sure everyone has a nice seat on the boat.
But when someone says my transgender son
is sick and needs reparative therapy, when I am told he should not be allowed to transition
to live his life fully and in alignment with his feelings, I find the courage to speak out.
This is why I decided to do the video you have seen or are about to see. "
Focus and Acceptance of ALL Families [YT: marshaaizumi]
So far city officials' sympathies have Focused on the Religious Right, and not on this organization's long history of non-discrimination for LGBT people. If you'd like to send your own informative message, pertinent email addys can be found in video description at the above Youtube link.
***
*Oh, and by the way: Gary Schneeberger is being disingenuous just plain deceptive in his addressing of the Arcadia situation:
Focus on the Family spokesman Gary Schneeberger on Wednesday denied claims that his group tries to cure homosexuality.
"We believe that homosexuality is not God's design for human sexuality in the same way that premarital sex or marital infidelity is not God's design," Schneeberger said. "We don't believe it's a choice, which is often attributed to us. We believe it's likely developmental in nature and caused by a complex interaction of environmental, cognitive and biological factors, which is the American Psychological Association's position on what causes homosexuality."
Residents Speak Out Against Mayor's Breakfast Speaker [Patch]
Just this week we showed you how Focus on the Family's "Day of Dialogue" website prominently pushes one-sided dictums detailing God's supposed one and only design for sexuality (with homosexuality still described as "broken"); instructs students to invite a speaker "who has experienced homosexuality and walked out of it to share their story"; tells those same students them that "Exodus International is a good resource for finding possible speakers in your area"; and publishes an "Am I Gay?" section, with the long-winded answer culminating in an emphatic "no." On this Focus site, gay students are still monolithically placed under a "those who struggle" label. On *ALL* Focus on the Family sites, "changing"/"healing"/"whatever"-ing LGBT people is an overarching them.
So no, they're not packaging up little prescription drug bottles with the gay-curing pill MoBeGone® (side effects: drowsiness, less prideful Junes, lack of compassion for high school students that suddenly break out in song, and sudden impulses to gag-gag at Gaga). But Focus on the Family *A-B-S-O-L-U-T-E-L-Y* believes that gay people would benefit from some kind of "fix." And they need to start owning what they dish.
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