afa debates activists over homosexual promo video

Transcription

august 1999
american family association
Inside this issue
AFA debates activists over
homosexual promo video
■ Most PBS stations refusing equal time
The issue of whether society should tolerate, accept or even celebrate homosexuality has
become one of the most volatile cultural issues
of the 1990s. But nothing seems to generate
more passion – on both sides of the ideological
divide – than the question of whether schools,
even as early as kindergarten, should be teaching
children that “gay is O.K.”
That subject’s flashpoint seems to be developing around two videos that represent two
mutually exclusive worldviews. It’s Elementary:
Talking About Gay Issues in School, advocates
that children be taught to accept homosexuality.
A counter video, produced by AFA and titled
Suffer the Children: Answering the Homosexual Agenda in Public Schools, takes a critical
look at the message of It’s Elementary and the
manner in which children are manipulated into
arriving at politically correct conclusions about
the issue.
AFA has covered the subject of It’s Elementary in detail since it first surfaced in 1996. But
it wasn’t until that video’s producers, lesbian
Debra Chasnoff and homosexual advocate Helen
Cohen, had successfully pushed to have It’s Elementary aired on some PBS stations that AFA
decided to produce a rebuttal piece.
In April AFA vice president Tim Wildmon
sent a letter to every PBS station in the country,
expressing the ministry’s concerns about It’s
Elementary’s message. In the letter Wildmon
asked station managers, “If you do choose to
air It’s Elementary, would you consider giving
equal time to the other side of this issue with a
program under essentially the same terms?” In
See AFA on page 3
Stern TV show hits ratings base■ Shock-jock dropped by third of stations
Although he calls himself the “King of All
Media” and promised to bury his late-night Saturday TV competition, Howard Stern has failed
to achieve anything more than peasant status and
has watched his competition do the digging.
The Howard Stern Radio Show, as his syndicated television show is called, has failed to
extract itself from third place since it debuted in
August, 1998, behind Saturday Night Live (NBC)
and Mad-TV (Fox).
According to New York Now, the latest Nielsen
numbers show Stern’s TV show crashing to a new
ratings low. The shock jock’s June 12 program
fell 25% from the previous week, to a worst-ever
0.9 rating (as a percentage of the nation’s more
than 99 million homes).
Moreover, according to the AFA’s Stern Project, which monitors both Stern’s daily radio
broadcast and the TV show, a third of the sta-
tions that originally began airing the television
series have now dropped it. At last count, only
55 outlets were airing the raunchy series, down
from 79 when the show launched.
Stern’s radio show has also been having trouble attracting and keeping advertisers. Several
big advertisers have abandoned the show due to
its vile content, including Snapple, Bumble Bee
Tuna, Geico Insurance, Joseph A. Banks Clothier,
Amazon.com and RCN Internet.
Nationally known advertisers who stubbornly continue to advertise on Stern’s radio
show include:
➤ ABC/The Walt Disney Co., Chrm. Michael
Eisner, 500 S. Buena Vista Street, Burbank,
CA 91521, Phone: 818-560-1000
➤ Toyota Motor Sales USA (See address on
page 15.)
AFA Departments
❚ Christians &
Society Today
❚ Columns
Don Wildmon
Tim Wildmon
❚ AFA Foundation
Disney Boycott
❚ Gay Day ’99
12
2
23
19
3
Entertainment
❚ Film ratings get ‘F’
16
Family
❚ How can families
thrive?
18
Homosexual
Rights Agenda
❚ Does homosexual
orientation exist?
20
Media
❚ High priests
of journalism
4
News of Interest
❚ Congress debates
media violence
7
❚ APA and pedophilia
study
8
❚ Gambling commission
findings
11
Television
❚ Network reviews
❚ Cable channel
profile – VH-1
14
15
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for all generations
That’s what Christians do
In 1973 The Supreme Court said it was ok to kill unborn babies.
Since then, we have killed more than the entire population of Canada.
And it continues. A woman’s choice? Half of those who have died in
their mothers’ wombs have been women. They didn’t have a choice. It is
called abortion.
Me? I go to church, the minister preaches, I go home. That’s what Christians do
now.
First it was in dingy, dirty theaters. Then, convenience stores. Then, grocery stores.
Then on television. Now it is in the homes of millions via the Internet. It is called pornography.
now.
They called it no-fault. Why should we blame anyone when something so tragic happens. Haven’t they already suffered enough? Half of the marriages in America end this
way. The children suffered. The family broke down. It is called divorce.
now.
At one time it was a perversion. We kept it secret. We secured help and hope for those
who practiced it. Now it is praised. We have parades celebrating it, and elected officials give
it their blessing. Now it is endowed with special privileges and protected by special laws.
Even some Christian leaders and denominations praise it. It is called homosexuality.
now.
It used to be an embarrassment. A shame. Now a third of all births are to mothers
who aren’t married. Two-thirds of all African-American children are born into a home
without a father. The state usually pays the tab. That is why we pay our taxes, so that
government can take the place of parents. After all, government bureaucrats know much
better how to raise children than parents do. It is called illegitimacy.
now.
At one time it was wrong. But then the state decided to legalize it, promote it and tax
it. It has ripped apart families and destroyed lives. But just look at all the money the state
has raised. No longer do we have to teach our children to study and work hard. Now we
teach them they can get something for nothing. We spend millions encouraging people
to join the fun and excitement. Just look at the big sums that people are winning. They
will never have to work again! It is called gambling.
now.
Not long ago, Christians were the good guys. But now any positive image of Christians
in movies or on TV is gone. We are now depicted as the bad guys – greedy, narrowminded hypocrites. The teacher can’t have a Bible on her desk, but can have Playboy. We
don’t have Christmas and Easter holidays – just winter and spring break. We can’t pray
in school, but can use foul language. It’s called being tolerant.
AFA
• Volume 23,
8
AFAI Law
Me?Journal
I go to church,
theNo.minister
preaches,
go Center:
home.662-680-3886
That’s what Christians do
AFA Journal is a publication of the American
Family Association. Published monthly except
November/December. AFA is a Christian organization promoting the Biblical ethic of decency in
American society with primary emphasis on TV
and other media.
P.O. Drawer 2440, Tupelo, MS 38803
Main phone: 662-844-5036
FAX: 662-842-7798
WAFR Radio: 662-844-8888
Internet homepage: http://www.afa.net
American Family Online: 662-840-6464
Founding Editor: Don Wildmon
Editor: Randall Murphree
Associate Editor: Rusty Benson
Copy Editor: Jessica Huckaby
News Editor: Ed Vitagliano
Please, no unsolicited manuscripts.
Are you and
your investment
advisor tracking?
by Neal Clement
EFP Financial Advisor
I talked with a lady
recently who said she
was ready to let me help
her invest her retirement
account.
She came to me after
reading about EFP’s Values Investing
Strategy and asking her former broker
to help her make morally sound investments. She explained to him that she
wanted to minimize her investments
in companies that promoted or supported abortion and the acceptance of
homosexuality.
The broker gave her a confused
look and said, “What do you mean?”
Again she explained, but he didn’t get
it. In popular business vernacular, they
just weren’t “tracking.”
Investors and investment advisors
generally want the same thing: to
establish a long-term, trusting and
profitable relationship. A key component in that relationship is a shared
personal and investment philosophy.
Here are three questions I recommend that my prospective clients ask:
1. Can I trust my investment counselor to make recommendations consistent with my convictions?
2. Does my investment counselor
have a record of moral and financial
returns?
3. Do we share the same basic
Christian beliefs and values?
EFP’s investment advisors have a
history of long-term client relationships, grounded in honesty and integrity. In attracting like-minded clients
we hope to impact companies to see
that moral products and policies make
good business sense.
If we share those views, call us at 1888-841-0254 write me at nclement@
efpinc.com. For more about EFP, visit
our Internet site at www.efpinc.com.
Securities offered through FSC Securities Corporation, a registered broker/dealer. Member NASD
and SIPC. $25,000 minimum investment required.
AFA Journal • August, 1999
ADVERTISEMENT
By donald e. wildmon • AFA President
AFA…from page 1
order to facilitate Wildmon’s concept of
equal time, AFA offered to provide a free
preview and broadcast quality copy of Suffer the Children to every station.
Nearly 90 PBS stations decided to air
It’s Elementary, representing less than a
third of the total number in the U.S. Nevertheless, only a handful even responded to
Wildmon’s letter, and virtually every one of
those refused AFA’s offer.
Most PBS station officials flatly dismissed the notion that equal time was
necessary, arguing that It’s Elementary
was not biased in favor of the homosexual
viewpoint. For example, William T. Reed,
President and CEO of KCPT in Kansas City,
Missouri, said the video “does not promote”
homosexuality nor does it present a “point
of view” about the issue. Instead, Reed
insisted, It’s Elementary is “an attempt
to show how tolerance for other people is
being taught in some schools.”
Wildmon said there was some hypocrisy
in PBS stations describing It’s Elementary as a film promoting tolerance. “The
video may call for tolerance and respect
for all when it comes to homosexuals,
but not when it comes to Christians,” said
Wildmon. He noted that It’s Elementary
shows supposedly Christian people making
statements like “God hates fags” and “The
Bible I read says homosexuals should be
put to death.”
Joanne Whitehead, Program Schedule
Manager for CPTV in Hartford, Connecticut, also argued that the video “does not
endorse or promote one belief or lifestyle
over another.”
Wildmon disagreed. “That demonstrates to us that they’ve already made up
their minds on this issue, in favor of the
homosexual movement,” he said. “A video
that shows kids calling adults prejudiced,
narrow-minded, and homophobic because
the adults believe homosexuality is wrong
is most certainly promoting one belief over
another.”
In fact, only three PBS stations agreed
to air Suffer the Children in an effort to
balance the presentation on this subject:
KIXE in Redding, California; KEET in
Eureka, California; and KCTS in Seattle,
Washington.
Two others – WBGU in Bowling Green,
AFA Journal • august, 1999
Ohio, and WCET in Cincinnati – held an
on-air panel discussion to which an AFA
representative was invited. KCTS also extended the invitation in addition to airing
Suffer the Children.
AFA accepted those invitations and sent
a representative, who debated the issue with
members of the homosexual community
and advocates of the homosexual rights
movement. Helen Cohen participated in
the discussion on WBGU.
One of the most frequently mentioned
excuses for not airing Suffer the Children
was the claim that the AFA video, because
it used some clips from It’s Elementary to
make its case, had violated copyright law.
But in another letter sent to all PBS
stations, AFA Chief Counsel Stephen M.
Crampton assured program directors: “The
American Family Association Center for
Law & Policy has reviewed [both videos].
We have also carefully researched the law
governing the fair use of a copyrighted
work such as It’s Elementary, and conclude that Suffer the Children in no way
violates the copyright protection of It’s
Elementary.”
Moreover, Crampton said in his letter,
AFA attorneys stood “ready to defend the
production of Suffer the Children in a
court of law against any spurious claim of
copyright infringement.”
PBS stations ignored the letter. “We
wonder whether there is someone behind
what appears to be a campaign to frighten
off PBS stations with implied legal action,”
said Wildmon. “Someone does not want the
other side of this issue broadcast, and I’m
Gay Day at Walt Disney World ’99
For the ninth consecutive year Disney
World in Orlando, Florida, has been the
site of “Gay & Lesbian Day at the Magical Kingdom,” a gathering of thousands
of homosexuals who openly flaunt their
sexual orientation in front of unsuspecting parents and shocked children.
Even though Gay Day has been held
at Disney World on the first Saturday
of June every year since 1991, most
people who are not connected
with the homosexual community are unaware of the event.
Disney has steadfastly refused to make
the public aware
of Gay Day, presumably because
the theme park
does not want
to drive away its
non-homosexual patrons on one
of the busiest vacation weekends
of the year.
Unfor tun a t e l y, t h a t
results in an
unpleasant
surprise for
many families that go to Disney World
on the same weekend as the Gay Day
festivities. One woman who experienced
this first hand wrote a letter of complaint
to a Florida newspaper.
Debbie Campbell recounted how
homosexuals attending Gay Day
were displaying their sexuality physically and verbally all
through the park, often in a
loud and boisterous manner. Saying the experience
shocked her and her
husband and ruined
her daughter’s birthday, she said, “It was
perfectly clear to
me [that many homosexuals in attendance] wanted to put
on a show for people
to notice them, even
children.”
Campbell said, “I
also am upset that
Disney did not warn
parents before they
entered the park.”
Photo courtesy of Coral Ridge Ministries
Media
By Richard Lowry
The high priests of journalism
■ Truth, morality and the media
Most journalists are professionals, worried more than anything else with beating
the competition. But willingly or not, they
are also part of a media establishment that
has attitudes and values that seep into its
coverage the way cigarette smoke at a bar
gets into everything you wear; it doesn’t
matter whether you smoke or not, you
stink.
This establishment at least implicitly
reinforces the radical side in America’s culture wars. What do I mean by the “radical
side?” I am referring to those intellectuals
on the Left who are attempting to remold
American society and the way we view
ourselves as human beings in keeping with
an extreme feminist and multicultural
world view. To illustrate what is at stake,
let us go a little far afield and examine the
hot new discipline of evolutionary biology.
Evolutionary biologists look to our human
and animal ancestors for clues as to what
survival strategies and innate dispositions
shape who we are now. In their way, they are
engaged in the battle over human nature
and its meaning.
Not so long ago, scientists used to disappear into the jungle to study tribes of
natives, apes, and monkeys. You will see
them in old documentaries on the Nature
Channel wearing rumpled khakis, anxiously peering through binoculars at their
unwary subjects. What many of them concluded was that violence and warfare were
unknown among primitive humans, which
supposedly proves that human nature is
malleable and ultimately pacific. Only our
corrupt, patriarchal, and repressive civilization accounts for violence and the other
depredations of modern society.
As it turns out, this is bunk. Margaret
Mead, the famous anthropologist who did
so much to popularize such a view, turns
out either to have deliberately falsified her
evidence or to have been fooled by her
Richard Lowry is Editor-in-Chief of National
Review. Reprinted by permission from Imprimis,
the monthly journal of Hillsdale College.
supposedly guileless subjects. Actually, any
reasonable person might expect, primitive
societies were much more violent than
civilized ones. And apes and monkeys, as
we now know, beat up on one another as
brutally as competing hordes of British
soccer fans.
So much for the pacific theory. But as
Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson
observe in their biological study, Demonic
Males, there is one exception. Among the
chimpanzees known as the “Bonobos” there
is no observable violent behavior. There are
several other characteristics that also set
this little group apart: They live in a matriarchal society in which the females lord
it over the passive and easily manipulated
males; free love reigns since the Bonobos
are not loyal to their mates and will have
sex at the slightest instigation; the females
are bisexual; and all the chimps, male and
female, are vegetarians.
Review this list carefully, and you are
bound to conclude that it is a perfect description of the ideal liberal society. In fact,
it is probably a pretty good description of
life at, say, Brown University.
Demeaning Facts
There is a strange moral inversion in
the land. Smoking in the White House is
strictly forbidden. It is an unacceptable
social, indeed, even moral offense. But
other activities – including those that
puzzle journalists like Barbara Walters
– are shrugged off as a healthy president’s
way of blowing off steam or as unfortunate
personal excesses that are none of the
public’s business.
Another example: Politicians create
intrusive new regulations in the name of
protecting our kids’ health while allowing
schools to distribute condoms. National
Review’s Washington Editor Kate O’Beirne
has quipped, “To get liberals upset about
teenage sex, you would have to convince
them that it is connected to teenage smoking afterward.”
What is notable about the liberal agenda
is that it is not…“normal.” It comes from
an academic, cultural, political, and media
elite hostile to the mores and common
sense of average Americans. My particular
concern, of course, is how this agenda affects the media.
Reporters used to be ill-dressed, annoying types who thought of themselves
as practicing a craft in a rough-and-ready,
sometimes drunken, but always conscientious fashion. Today, reporters are illdressed, annoying types who think of
themselves as the high priests of the journalism profession and who practice their
secular religion in a relentlessly self-important and self-righteous fashion.
One recent study refers to reporters as
“superyuppies.” As a class, most journalists
share the attitudes and values of the guests
at the average Manhattan dinner party. Of
course, they vote Democratic. According
to one 1992 survey, 90% of Washington
journalists voted for Bill Clinton.
And the problems go much deeper. A
lot of journalists – thanks to their educaAFA Journal • August, 1999
tion in fancy journalism programs and
journalism schools – have absorbed such
trendy postmodern notions as, “There is
no objective truth.
U. S. News & World Report columnist
John Leo recalls being hissed and booed at
one journalism conference when he mentioned the need for objectivity. His experience is not uncommon. Hostility toward
truth is extremely convenient for reporters
because it frees them from the deadening
and demeaning task of transmitting facts.
Actually, facts themselves are demeaned as
merely subjective interpretations of reality
– unless, of course, we are talking about the
alleged “facts” of global warming, breast
implants, or gun control.
Demonizing moral authority figures
It is no wonder that many journalists
distrust and dislike individuals who stand
up for truth and who strive to uphold ethical and legal standards that are based on
moral absolutes. Bill Clinton has had his
share of negative press. Quite a few Washington reporters have grown tired of being
played for fools or are out to “kill the king.”
But Clinton was outpaced in unfavorable
news coverage by his nemesis, Independent
Counsel Kenneth Starr.
When he agreed to take the job five
years ago, Starr probably expected some
White House stonewalling and some flak
from congressional Democrats. But surely
he never dreamed of the rabid hostility he
would encounter from the media, which
has managed to portray him as both a religious zealot and a sexual obsessive.
Starr has never lied under oath and has
never fooled around with young interns.
Yet he is regularly ridiculed for such offenses as singing hymns…. His character is
painted as black as the Hole of Calcutta. He
is ruthless, unethical, strange, unhealthy, all
for conducting an investigation aimed at
discovering the truth.
Starr is also pilloried for allegedly violating Clinton’s privacy. This is an interesting
and murky area. The media itself once had
a high regard for privacy. Certain things
were just off limits. In a famous incident
after her husband lost the 1960 presidential
election, Pat Nixon confronted a couple of
reporters who had shown up on the steps of
her California home for day-after reaction.
She was furious and launched into a long,
unhinged tirade, doubtless fueled by the
stress and disappointment of her husband’s
narrow loss. The reporters retreated and
didn’t write a word about it. They considered it out of bounds, Pat Nixon was
venting her personal grief, and there was no
reason to broadcast it to the world.
Today, is there any doubt that Pat Nixon’s outburst would have led every evening
news show? Nothing is off limits, from
Baywatch star Pamela Lee Anderson’s
breast implants to the grief of high school
students in Littleton, Colorado, (some
of whom called TV stations before 911).
Which brings us back to Ken Starr.
Violating the president’s privacy certainly bothers the press, but not all that
much. Sexual harassment law with which it
sympathizes made possible the Paula Jones
suit that precipitated the investigation. And
the press violates people’s privacy every
day. No, the problem is that the subtext
behind Starr’s investigation is that Clinton
has done something wrong in his private
life (as if anything done in the Oval Office
can be private anyway) and that the public
can make a judgment about his wrongdoing, and act accordingly, i.e., impeach and
convict him.
It is judgment that really bothers the
media. And here we arrive at a deeper, more
disturbing trend.
Unfortunately, this attitude is no longer confined just to the media or to other
elites. One of the more important books
published in the last year is One Nation,
After All by sociologist Alan Wolfe. In this
penetrating analysis of the middle class,
Wolfe demonstrates that most Americans
lead responsible, morally upright lives, but
that they are extremely reluctant to make
moral judgments about other people. They
are also reluctant to rely upon their private
beliefs as the basis for their opinions about
public life.
Value-free tolerance is fast becoming
America’s civil religion. The media plays
to and reinforces this tendency in its depiction of religious leaders ranging from
Pat Robertson to Pope John Paul II. Their
beliefs may or may not be portrayed in a
positive way, but their efforts to apply their
beliefs to such social issues as premarital
and extramarital sex, homosexuality, abortion, and euthanasia are considered bizarre
and dangerous.
Another media tendency plays into this
trend: It loves to expose hypocrites. This
means targeting public figures who uphold
moral standards.
Conveniently, all of the people exposed
in the most recent round of the Clinton
scandal-related “outings” happen to be
such social conservatives as Dan Burton,
Helen Chenoweth, and Henry Hyde.
Avoiding Judgments
Moreover, there is a general trend toward sentimentality and compassion in
the media. Feelings are constantly elevated
over reason, compassion and good intentions over sterner virtues like duty and
honor. Clinton’s empathy is the subject of
lengthy magazine articles. Sportscasters
cut their coverage of athletic events short
in order to spend more air time on the
personal trials and tribulations of the contenders. Television news networks reserve
large chunks of air time for “soft” features
that go beyond the general level of human
interest.…
Then, there is the matter of race and
gender. The media pushes a kind of politically correct caste system of racial and
gender identity.
Metropolitan newspapers are the worst
institutions in the country when it comes
to imposing quotas; many not only set
goals for hiring but also follow the Los Angeles Times’ example of setting quotas for
sources, and they never pass up a chance to
run features on the so-called “gender gap”
and “hate crimes.”
The gender gap, of course, isn’t a oneway street. Republicans attract fewer female
voters, and Democrats attract fewer male
voters. But the votes of men are considered
less valuable. Look at the major news stories
about Clinton’s impeachment. Almost all
of them pointed out time and time again
that the House managers were white males,
which perforce made their arguments suspect. Meanwhile, Clinton’s attorney Cheryl
Mills and secretary Betty Currie were assumed to be the repositories of a kind of
unerring virtue based solely on their race
and gender. Again, we are dealing here with
a postmodern notion that there is no objective truth apart from identity politics.
All of this makes for a dismaying picture. Remedying the problems of the
modern media requires a long-term overhaul, not just of the press but of the wider
culture. A couple of places to start: getting
more conservatives in journalism; exercising eternal vigilance against media bias;
strengthening institutions that work to
Sources cited for News of Interest
indicate souce of basic information
only.
CULTURE
More states requiring post-prison
treatment for sex offenders
A growing number of states are telling
convicted sex offenders “Not so fast” when
they finish their prison terms and want
to head out the door. During this decade
alone, at least a dozen states have amended
their laws to require those convicted of
violent sexual crimes to enter psychiatric
treatment centers after serving their sentences.
Across the nation an estimated 1,000
violent sex offenders have either been
committed to psychiatric care or face it,
according to USA Today. More states are
expected to follow suit by passing new laws
or amending old ones.
The thinking behind such moves is
that sex offenders either cannot be cured
of their predilections or require substantial
therapy to overcome them. Either way, a
prison term does not sufficiently protect
society from sexual predators.
Gene Schmidt helped Kansas enact their
law in 1994, after his 19-year-old daughter
was murdered by a sex offender who had
already been through the system. “I don’t
know if there will ever be a cure for this
kind of thing,” Schmidt said. “I do know
that treatment for sex offenders in prison
is very inadequate, if not nonexistent.”
Child molester Kevin Haenchen may
represent every parent’s nightmare. He
was scheduled to finish a prison term in
Missouri in April, but confessed that he
would probably repeat his crimes after
being released.
“I am terrified of being released [from
prison]. Because I fear without counseling, I will molest more children. Since I
don’t want to return to prison, I would be
forced to kill them,” he said. His case is being reviewed under Missouri’s involuntary
commitment law for sex offenders.
USA Today, 4/12/99
EDUCATION
Parents win case against
probing school questionnaire
A federal judge sided with parents in
a Texas case involving the clash between
parental rights and the power of the public
school system. The case, Lisa T. et al. v. San
Antonio Independent School District, dealt
with questionnaires handed out to students
which inquired into their home life, as well
as psychological examinations of students
without parental consent.
In the case, the plaintiff said she had
taken numerous steps since 1995 to complain to the San Antonio Independent
School District (SAISD) because of its
ceaseless non-academic education, including sex education and death and suicide
education, and lessons about UFO’s and
the Bermuda Triangle. SAISD had also
given the plaintiff ’s daughter psychological
examinations against the parent’s wishes.
But according to Education Reporter,
SAISD ignored the plaintiff, and instead
retaliated by repeatedly requiring the girl to
answer personal questions about her home
life and “what her mother was up to.”
Then more than 600 students at one
San Antonio high school were given intrusive surveys which included questions
about their families. Students were told
that responses to the questionnaire would
be kept confidential, “even from parents.”
Questions included: “What do you consider
to be the best thing about your home and
the worst?” “If you could change one thing
about your family, what would it be and
why?” “What’s the thing you need most that
you are not getting from your family?”
U.S. District Judge Fred Biery upheld
the rights of parents, ordering among other
things that SAISD must obtain parental
consent for all guidance counseling, psychological exams, and surveys.
Parents were represented by the Texas
Justice Foundation, a non-profit, publicinterest litigation foundation.
Education Reporter, 6/99
ENTERTAINMENT
Talk show loses court case
Whether one sees it as a boon to those
with pro-family concerns over television
content or as a significant loss of First
Amendment freedoms depends on one’s
perspective, but one thing is for sure: the
jury verdict against the Jenny Jones talk
show astonished culture watchers.
A Michigan jury slammed the show
with a $25 million negligence tab for allegedly allowing the humiliation of a guest,
who later committed murder as the result
of his embarrassment.
Jenny Jones guest Jonathan Schmitz
came on a March 1995 show after being
told by producers that he had a secret
admirer – thinking that his admirer was a
woman. Instead, Schmitz found out that acquaintance Scott Amedure, a homosexual,
was the one with a crush. Apparently humiliated by the whole scene, Schmitz shot
Amedure three days later.
Talk shows like Jenny Jones, Jerry
Springer and Ricki Lake often play off such
surprises, which are sprung on stunned
guests to produce strong audience reaction
and thus higher ratings.
The lawsuit against Jenny Jones and its
corporate parent Warner Brothers asked for
$71 million in damages, according to USA
Today. It was filed by Amedure’s family,
charging the show with negligence for not
fully informing Schmitz about the nature of
the program and what he could expect.
Geoffrey Fieger, the attorney for Amedure’s family, said the verdict should send a
clear message to other talk shows that “that
type of human exploitation needs to be corralled. This is a renegade business.”
USA Today, 5/10/99
Video game producers
ignore calls for less gore
While Congress was deliberating laws
which might lower levels of violence in the
entertainment media, video game producers were proving themselves deaf to any
demands for toned-down violence.
At the annual Electronic Entertainment
Expo in May, where manufacturers show
off the latest and hottest video games and
video systems, company representatives
were quick to defend the more than $6
billion a year industry.
“Everyone feels bad about what happened. I don’t believe [violent or gory
video games] had anything to do with what
happened,” said Todd Hollenshead, chief
executive of id Software. That company
news of interest
produces the violent game Doom, which
was mentioned as allegedly being one of the
favorite games of the Littleton killers.
One critic of the video game industry
is Sen. Herbert Kohl (D-WI), who had
worked with video game makers to place
ratings on their games. Kohl now says companies are ignoring the spirit of the ratings
system. He pointed out that the video game
makers are producing toys – meant for kids
– that are offshoots of games that are rated
for adults.
Manufacturers point to the wide selection of games produced each year – many
of which are not violent. Nevertheless, this
year’s offerings will include ultra-violent
games like Quake III and Gore.
Time, 5/24/99; Reuters, 5/14/99
FAMILY
Feds drop marriage statistics
For the first time this century the U.S.
government will not be collecting and
keeping detailed statistics on marriage and
divorce when it gathers information for
the once a decade Census. Government
spokesmen blame government cutbacks
for the change, but sociologists and other
researchers, public policy makers and profamily forces alike have criticized the decision as short-sighted.
Most Americans receive a short form
Census questionnaire, which has always
asked for marital status...Only about 16
million Americans will get a longer form,
which will ask questions about marriage
and divorce. From those statistics the government hopes to extrapolate information
about marriage throughout the nation.
Budget cuts in 1996 led the National
Center for Health Statistics to begin the
cutbacks, and the government decided to
no longer ask states for important information on family and marriage – such as
when people married and divorced, how
often they had been married, or how many
children they had.
This final blow, however, brought
the critics out of the woodwork. “These
statistics are absolutely vital to us,” said
University of Chicago family researcher
and sociologist Linda Waite. She said the
information was essential for researchers who try to “understand what kind of
families we are living in.”
Some saw the change in policy as a
Congress debates media violence
In the wake of school shootings in Littleton, Colorado, the president and
members of Congress from both sides of the aisle have been attempting to rein
in the entertainment industry’s hyper-violent product in an effort to protect the
nation’s children.
The entertainment industry has often responded to such charges in the past
by blaming guns and family breakdown for crimes like Littleton. One Hollywood
head blamed politics.
Dick Wolf, creator of NBC’s Law & Order, said the brouhaha in Washington
over entertainment is being driven by political considerations as the year 2000
elections approach. “[O]nce again, politicians who have done nothing to stop
the proliferation of guns on the street are using the entertainment industry as a
convenient scapegoat for the social ills affecting this country.”
That Hollywood revulsion to accepting at least some responsibility for cultural
violence was evident when President Clinton hosted a three-hour brain-storming
session on youth violence at the White House. Not a single movie studio head
honcho accepted the president’s invitation to the youth violence confab.
President Clinton said, “It is true that there has been a breakdown in the family,
schools and communities. It is also true that there has been a coarsening of the
culture in many ways, and those who influence it must be sensitive to it.”
Despite the outcry from some members of Congress, political fixes aimed at
the entertainment industry have had mixed success in the wake of the Littleton
killings. The House rejected two amendments to the Juvenile Crime Bill, both
of which were intended to control violent material. One amendment, proposed
by Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL), would have prohibited selling or sending to anyone
under age 17 material – such as books, movies, video games or pictures – which
is “obscenely violent or sexual” in nature.
Representatives Zach Wamp (R-TN) and Bart Stupak (D-MI) sponsored a
separate amendment, also rejected by the House, which would have waived antitrust
laws to allow the entertainment industry to develop a common, industry-wide
ratings system for its products. A Senate proposal, authored by Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-SC), would have created a “safe harbor” of violence-free television when
children would most likely be watching – 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. It was also defeated.
But the steps that seem likely to pass muster on the Hill may get the ball rolling. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have been given a green light
and $2 million to study the effects of violent entertainment on children. Both
the House and Senate passed an amendment requiring the Justice department
and Federal Trade Commission to join in an investigation of studio marketing
practices, to see if entertainment companies target teenagers with violent and
sexually-explicit material.
Reuters, 5/14/99; USA Today, 6/18/99; Advertising Age, 5/10/99, 5/17/99;
Daily Variety, 5/11/99, 5/12/99, 5/13/99, 5/14/99; Time, 5/24/99
watershed moment. Family therapist Diane
Sollee of the Coalition for Marriage, Family
and Couples Education told USA Today the
government cutbacks represented a significant point in history when our culture
is “not even asking for this information
anymore.”
Such nonchalance about society’s most
important social institution will have a
potentially devastating impact on those in
society who would like to try to stop the
divorce epidemic, said social scientist David
Blankenhorn.
The author of Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem,
Blankenhorn asked, “How can you make
good family policy based on ignorance
news of interest
about marriage?”
USA Today, 6/1/99
HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA
President slips homosexual
nominee past Senate objections
President Bill Clinton once again showed
himself the master of political maneuvering, appointing a controversial homosexual
nominee to an overseas post while the Senate was in recess over the Memorial Day
holiday.
Philanthropist and homosexual activist
James Hormel was appointed by Clinton
using a “recess appointment” to the post
of U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg. The
first openly homosexual ambassador in
U.S. history, Hormel will serve until the
president’s term expires in 2001.
When sworn in during a ceremony on
June 29, Hormel placed his hand on a Bible
held by his homosexual “partner,” accompanied by the cheers of homosexual supporters amidst a crowd of 300. According
to The Washington Times, nine television
cameras recorded the event, even though
the State Department normally bars reporters from such swearing-in ceremonies.
Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright
boasted to the crowd, “Today, we do send
a message that neither race nor creed nor
gender nor sexual orientation is relevant
to the selection of an ambassador of the
United States.”
Ordinarily the Senate must ratify a presidential nominee before he or she can begin
serving in an official capacity. But some
Senate Republicans objected to Hormel’s
record as a homosexual activist, and refused
to allow a vote on the nomination.
Pro-family Republicans were outraged
that Clinton had circumvented the process on the Hormel nomination, although
recess appointments are not unusual for
presidents. Clinton has made only 57 in
his six-and-a-half years in office, compared
to President George Bush’s 78 during his
four years. President Ronald Reagan made
239 recess appointments during his two
terms.
But it was the controversy surrounding
Hormel’s record that made some Republicans furious over Clinton’s use of the recess
appointment. Hormel’s record, according
to Family Research Council:
➤ Hormel opposes the traditional
Psychologists disavow decision
to publish pedophilia study
Outrage from House Republican members and the general public has led the
American Psychological Association (APA) to disassociate itself from a study it had
printed in its own prestigious journal, Psychological Bulletin. The report allegedly suggested that sex between adults and children was not always harmful to the child.
The study was entitled “A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties
of Child Sexual Abuse.” The article said that it was possible for an intergenerational
liaison to be a “willing [sexual] encounter,” and that sex between and an adult and
child should “be labeled simply ‘adult-child sex,’ a value-neutral term,” rather than
child “abuse.”
Initially the APA defended its decision to publish the piece. APA spokeswoman
Rhea Farberman told The Washington Times, “There’s nothing in this article that
suggests pedophilia is not harmful. The article tried to determine whether there are
varying degrees of harm, if the child’s age, resiliency and family environment were
factors.”
Even though the APA denied endorsing the sentiments expressed in the report,
public outrage was immediate and relentless. Conservative radio talk show host Dr.
Laura Schlessinger blasted the APA for publishing the report, saying such studies
are often used to change public policy. Schlessinger said she worried that the “study
will now be used to normalize pedophilia, to change the legal system and further
destroy the family.”
Schlessinger asked, “If [the report is] science, then why aren’t they endorsing it?
And if it isn’t science, why did they publish it?”
House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-TX) co-sponsored a resolution which
condemned the study. “The lack of judgment shown by the American Psychological
Association in publishing [the study] absolutely confounds me. I will not equivocate
on this issue. Sexual activity between an adult and a child is criminal all the time
and in all cases,” he said.
In a letter to DeLay’s office, however, APA Executive Vice President/CEO Raymond
D. Fowler underscored the organization’s policy concerning pedophilia, stating that
“any form of sexual relations between adults and children” should “remain criminal
and punishable to the full extent of the law.” Fowler also assured DeLay that the APA
believes “that children cannot consent to sexual activity with adults.”
The letter also outlined the Association’s planned steps to insure that its journal
would not publish research without evaluating “its potential for misinforming the
public policy process.”
Human Events, 5/28/99; The Washington Times, 5/13/99
definition of marriage as being between
one man and one woman, and advocates
elimination of that legal distinction. Hormel has stated that his homosexual lover,
activist Timothy Wu, would accompany
him to Luxembourg when he fills his post
as ambassador.
➤ He is a radical activist for the homosexual movement. Hormel was a founder
of the Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual advocacy group that frequently
tags pro-family groups, including AFA, as
“political religious extremists” and “hate
groups.” He also provided major funding
for the production of the documentary It’s
Elementary, an instructional video showing teachers how they can teach children
that “gay is O.K.”
➤ Hormel insulted many Catholics at
a “gay” pride parade when he approved of
a group of homosexual male drag queens
who were dressed as nuns and mocked God
during the festivities.
➤ He funded the James C. Hormel Gay
news of interest
and Lesbian Center in the San Francisco
Main Library, which stocks homosexual
materials that include publications from
the North American Man-Boy Love Association, a pedophile group. Hormel has
been criticized for refusing to condemn
such material.
USA Today, 6/9/99;
New York Blade News, 6/11/99
Public school curriculum
blames Christians for ‘hate’
In a publication that riled Christian
leaders, the U.S. Justice Department has
produced a document to be used in public
schools that links religious beliefs about
homosexuality to racism, prejudice and
hatred.
Called Healing the Hate: A National Hate
Crime Prevention Curriculum for Middle
Schools, the publication was paid for using
federal tax dollars, as part of President Bill
Clinton’s campaign against hate crime.
The curriculum, intended for all students
(K-12), follows the homosexual handbook
to the letter, defining one’s sexual orientation as “a core and unchangeable aspect”
of a person’s identity, like race or ethnic
background.
But it is the linking religious beliefs
about homosexuality to prejudice and hatred that has stirred up many in the Christian community. For example, a vocabulary
handout defines institutional prejudice as
“prejudice that is widely accepted throughout a society including schools, workplaces,
government, and religious organizations.”
(Emphasis added.)
In the document’s introduction, a segment is taken from President Clinton’s
inaugural address in 1997, in which the
president mentions racial hatred and
prejudice that is “cloaked in the pretense
of religious or political conviction.” Immediately following that excerpt, Healing
the Hate mentions hate crimes based on
sexual orientation as well as race, ethnicity,
religion and gender.
The link between prejudice and religious
belief is also subtly drawn out in another
student handout which tells the story of a
man named Floyd Cochran, who had spent
time as a white supremacist and neo-Nazi.
Told from a first-person perspective, the
testimonial explicitly mentions Cochran’s
background in Baptist and Pentecostal
churches, and then “bleeds over” into a
discussion of Bible studies that taught racist
doctrine within the Aryan Nations, a white
supremacist group. There is never any hint
in the story that orthodox Christianity and
the religious views taught by the Aryan Nations are incompatible.
In a press release, Rev. Lou Sheldon,
Chairman of Traditional Values Coalition,
said, “Since the Clinton-Gore administration has come to power, they have worked
hard to ensure that their anti-Christian
definition of ‘tolerance’ is introduced into
our nation’s classroom. This agenda has
subverted the right of many Christian
parents whose religious beliefs [about]
right and wrong are in conflict with the
administration’s.”
Survey says homosexuals
buy from friendly companies
When AFA and other pro-family groups
called for a boycott of The Walt Disney
Company because of its pro-homosexual
policies, “gay” activists cried foul, arguing
that sexual orientation should not be a
factor in patronizing certain companies.
Now a new study shows that homosexuals
make sexual orientation a prime factor
when deciding which companies they will
support.
Surveys conducted by Greenfield Online, Inc., reveal that 87% of homosexuals
have refused to do business with a company
and changed brands if they perceived that
the company was not “pro-gay.” On the
other hand, 77% of respondents said they
had shifted their patronage to a company
soley because that company had taken a
more positive approach to homosexual
issues.
Also contradicting the claims of activists:
87% of homosexuals agreed with the contention that their community represented
“a powerful economic force.” Activists have
argued in the past that homosexuals are
an economically deprived segment of the
population because of discrimination.
According to a press release from Greenfield, survey respondents saw themselves as
a political force with which to be reckoned.
Thirty-eight percent described themselves
as “politically conscientious,” which Greenfield Online said was a higher percentage
than in the general population. Some 70%
said they stay in touch with what is hap-
pening politically.
PORNOGRAPHY
Internet sex industry grows
With all the worries about the availability of pornography and other sexually-oriented websites on the Internet, the
problem appears to be growing worse, with
no end in sight.
Internet sites containing “adult content”
last year reaped a $970 million whirlwind,
increasing 30% over the previous year,
according to Forrester Research. In the
next five years the 1998 total is expected
to triple.
One members-only website, owned
by smut entrepreneur Seth Warshavsky,
claims 115,000 subscribers who pay $24.95
a month to receive online porn.
Market analyst Datamonitor said that
in 1998, adult material made up 69% of all
paid-for online content.
With increased profits has come an
inevitable increase in the number of such
sites. That worries parents, whose children
may be susceptible to stumbling across
porn sites while surfing the Internet. A
recent poll showed that 44% of teenagers
had been exposed to websites that were Xrated or sexually explicit.
Reuters, 5/27/99; Time, 5/10/99, 4/19/99;
Investors Business Daily, 5/24/99
PRO-LIFE
Nurses shrink from abortion
In the space of one decade, a majority of
the hospital-based registered nurses in this
country have changed their minds about
whether or not they would work in a place
where abortions were performed.
Nearly two-thirds of the two thousand
nurses polled by RN magazine said that
partial-birth abortions should be illegal.
The survey also revealed a stunning reversal
of opinion: 60% said they would not work
in an OB/GYN unit where any type of abortion was performed; 10 years ago 52% of
registered nurses said they would.
“We saw perhaps the most striking
change among nurses who actually care
for mother and baby,” said RN editor
Marianne Dekker Mattera. “Only 37% of
the respondents who work in obstetrics or
the nursery say they would work on a unit
where the abortion is performed, a decline
of 18 percentage points from 1988.”
news of interest
Some pro-abortion groups tried to
put the best possible spin on the survey
results. Kathy Simmonds of the Abortion
Access Project of Massachusetts blamed
the close ties many nursing schools have
with the Catholic church. Plus, Simmonds
said, many of these nurses weren’t working
before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized
abortion in Roe v. Wade, and so have no
knowledge of women “suffering and dying
because of their desperate efforts to end an
unwanted pregnancy.”
But April Holley of the National Right
to Life Committee said the change in the
abortion views held by nurses merely
reflects the same trend within the general
public. Poll after poll shows American sentiment steadily moving toward the pro-life
position.
World, 4/24/99; Pro-Life Infonet, 3/14/99
Court grants first victory for
partial-birth abortion ban
Opponents of partial-birth abortion
finally got a federal judge to see the light
in a Wisconsin case that challenged that
state’s ban on the procedure.
Partial-birth abortion refers to the
gruesome act of killing a baby whose entire
body has exited the mother’s abdomen except for the head. The baby’s head is then
forcibly collapsed, killing the child, before
the body is fully removed.
Like 28 other states, the Wisconsin legislature had passed a law that made partialbirth abortions illegal, allowing for doctors
convicted of performing the barbaric
practice to be sentenced to life in prison.
In 19 of those states, court challenges have
successfully blocked the implementation of
the law, either in part or in full.
Planned Parenthood filed suit to block
Wisconsin’s law as well, arguing that the law
was too vague, restricted women’s constitutional right to abortion, and failed to take
into account the health of the woman.
But U.S. District Judge John Shabaz
disagreed with all of Planned Parenthood’s
arguments. “The partial-birth abortion is
never medically necessary to preserve the
health of the woman,” he said, adding, “The
legislature did not adopt the act for the
purpose of placing an obstacle in the path
of women seeking an abortion.”
World, 6/12/99
10
Cloning may yield fatal defects
Scientists involved in the brave new
world of cloning are puzzled by the rapid
and unexpected demise of animals created
by the process, as well as the possible genetic defects that seem to go hand-in-hand
with cloning.
Some animals that have been cloned
are apparently short-circuiting, dying
from things like anemia. French scientists,
for example, struggled to keep a young
calf alive after it developed severe anemia,
only to see it die at seven weeks. According to U.S. News & World Report, cloned
cows are at least 10 times more likely to be
unhealthy than those conceived naturally,
and scientists aren’t sure why.
Even Dolly, the famous sheep who was
cloned by Scottish scientists three years ago,
is showing signs indicating premature aging. According to research published in the
journal Nature, it may mean that the age
of the adult source of the cell may transfer
to the offspring in ways that differ from
natural conception. Scientists fear that
Dolly could be more susceptible to reduced
fertility and even cancer.
Dolly was the first large animal to be
created by cloning a cell taken from an
adult, and the world was stunned by the
news when scientists announced their
success in 1997. Once the province only
of science fiction, the possibility that even
higher forms of life, including humans,
could be cloned immediately shoved the
issue into the already volatile stew of other
“who-plays-God” issues, like abortion,
euthanasia and stem-cell research.
U.S. News & World Report, 5/24/99;
USA Today, 5/27/99
RELIGION / ANTICHRISTIAN
Unique approach to prayer prospers in cities
City-dwellers rushing down sidewalks
have had to be as nimble as a broken-field
runner in order to dodge everything from
hot dog vendors to panhandlers to homeless drunks. Now, however, many of those
peppy-paced pedestrians are coming to a
halt in order to receive prayer.
In a growing number of cities Christians are establishing non-threatening
“prayer stations” – often nothing more than
a card table marked by a banner and staffed
by a person willing to pray with anyone
in need. In New York City last New Year’s
Eve, for example, Youth With A Mission
(YWAM) volunteers prayed with 1,800
people and led 200 to Christ.
According to Religion Today, the success
of the YWAM venture in the Big Apple has
led to other groups trying similar approaches in other cities and on college campuses.
Responding to requests from 200 churches
throughout the world, YWAM has mailed
out manuals which describe the methods
for establishing prayer stations which have
been most successful for them.
New York City YWAM director Nick
Savoca said many people are touched to
discover that total strangers care about their
needs. “When people’s needs are met, they
open up their hearts,” he said. “Most people
deeply respect prayer. They want prayer.”
Religion Today website, 5/28/99
First grader sues over New
Jersey ban on Bible stories
Lawyers are appealing a federal court
decision on behalf of a first grade student
in Medford, New Jersey, after the boy was
denied the right to read his choice of stories
in front of the class – simply because that
story was from the Bible.
According to The Christian Science
Monitor, as a bonus for doing so well in his
reading Zachary Hood was told he could
pick his favorite story and read it to his
classmates. But little Zachary’s teacher said
his choice was a constitutional no-no: the
Bible story of conflict between two brothers, Jacob and Esau.
The case pits two well-established principles in legal combat: the current constitutional view of the separation of church
and state versus the free-speech and freeexercise clauses of the First Amendment.
The Hoods have already lost one round
in federal court, when a federal district
judge ruled that the teacher could rightfully
decide what is appropriate in her classroom. But the case is now before a federal
appeals court in Philadelphia.
Eric Treene, an attorney with the Becket
Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the Hoods before the appellate
court, told The Monitor, “The school is
hiding behind the mistaken assumption
that Zachary sharing his favorite story with
the class would be the equivalent of prayer.
The government requires the school to be
gambling update
Panel advocates some gambling restricA federal commission assembled to
study the societal impact of legalized
gambling has produced mixed conclusions which probably will please neither
side in the growing debate surrounding
the topic.
The report issued by the National Gambling Impact Study Commission said that
millions of Americans are developing gambling habits that they cannot control, devastating their marriages, families, careers
and finances. The panel also concluded that
legalized gambling may entail a social cost
as well – in the form of bankruptcies and
increased crime.
The commission’s conclusions were
somewhat ambivalent, however. Opponents of legalized gambling, who would
prefer that it was shut down altogether,
were sure to be disappointed that the report
claimed that some economically depressed
communities in the U.S. were actually
helped by having casinos nearby.
Consisting of presidential and congressional appointees, the two-year gambling
commission’s conclusions amounted to
a recommendation for an “easy does it”
approach, including merely slowing down
the growth of state lotteries; a minimum
gambling age of 21; a prohibition against
betting on college sports; and a ban on
“convenience gambling,” such as slot machines in truck stops and bars.
However, even these recommendations
for applying the brakes to gambling are a
long way away from being adopted by state
legislatures. The gambling industry is a
billions-a-year money maker, producing
a political gorilla that can throw its weight
around when election time nears.
Meanwhile, the states themselves may
find it hard to quit their own addictions to
the largess of lotteries, which earned $43
billion in revenues in 1996. That figure
represents a nearly 11-fold increase since
Do you have a gambling problem?
According to Nancy Petry of the University of Connecticut Health Center, if you
answered yes to any of these questions, you could have a gambling problem. If
you answered yes to five or more questions, you meet the official definition of a
pathological gambler.
y n
❑ ❑ Some warning signs: Are you preoccupied with gambling?
❑ ❑ Do you need increasing amounts of money to gamble?
❑ ❑ Have you ever tried, unsuccessfully, to cut down on or stop gambling?
❑ ❑ Are you restless or irritable when trying to cut down on gambling?
❑ ❑ Do you gamble to escape your problems or a bad mood?
❑ ❑ Do you gamble in order to win back money you have lost?
❑ ❑ Do you hide signs of gambling or lie about it?
❑ ❑ Have you ever written bad checks to pay for gambling?
❑ ❑ Have you ever jeopardized or lost an important relationship because
of gambling?
❑ ❑ Do you borrow from the bank, credit cards, friends or relatives
in order to gamble?
Source: USA Today, 4/5/99
1982.
Not all the suggestions would be easily
enforceable, even if converted into state or
federal law. A case in point is the subject of
Internet gambling, which the panel recommended be declared illegal.
The Internet can be used to gamble on
virtually anything, from sites which allow
the visitor to play traditional betting games
like blackjack or poker to sites that allow
sports fans to bet on how a single batter
might do in a particular inning of a baseball
game. Last year online gambling earned a
robust $650 million, but that figure is expected to jump to $2.3 billion within the
next four years.
“These online sites are the crack cocaine
of gambling,” said Sen. Jon Kyle (R-AZ).
“They are highly addictive and destructive,
especially for youth.”
Kyle has pushed to outlaw online gambling sites, sponsoring a bill last year that
passed the Senate 90-10. Congress adjourned, however, before the House could
vote on the bill. But even with a federal
law, virtually all such gambling websites
are operated outside the country.
Also working against efforts to halt
the spread of gambling: the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled recently that the 65-year-old
federal ban on broadcast advertising for
gambling businesses was unconstitutional.
Casinos are expected to jump on the airwaves. In the past casinos were allowed to
advertise “Vegas-style excitement” but not
“Vegas-style games.”
U.S. News & World Report, 6/14/99;
USA Today, 6/18/99, 6/15/99; 4/26/99
11
A supplement for local bulletins & newsletters from the American Family Association
Teen-to-teen insight on issues
Teen Chat is an appealing new book in
which Teen Advisors (peer counselors) address issues raised by teens themselves. Teen
Advisors is a peer support
ministry designed to help
teenagers live for Christ.
“I duplicated a chat
line and had different kids
giving advice to other kids
writing in,” explains Teen
Chat author Mike Yorkey.
Yorkey is former editor
of Focus on the Family
magazine.
The advisors in Teen
Chat speak from their own experience,
many of whom had previously abused alcohol, drugs or sex. Teen Chat is published
by Servant, and is available (HB, $10.99) at
Christian bookstores.
‘Bibles Not Bullets’ for schools
“In response to recent violence and
tragic killings in our public schools we have
launched a nationwide campaign to legally
place Bibles in America’s public schools,”
says Tim Todd of Revival Fires International, based in Branson, Missouri.
Revival Fires has already distributed
more than 200,000 copies of The Truth
For Youth (TFY), a specially designed New
Testament for teens. The book includes
10 chapters of comics dealing with the
issues of school violence, evolution, sex,
pornography, homosexuality, abortion,
rock music, drugs, drunkenness and peer
pressure.
To contact Revival Fires/Tim Todd Min-
august, 1999
Wal-Mart, Kmart pull
objectionable album
Continuing their habit of responding to
parental concerns about vulgar, violent and
otherwise objectionable music, both WalMart and Kmart stores pulled from their
shelves an album which allegedly contained
a satanic image and questionable lyrics.
Parents in Cleveland, Ohio, complained
to store managers about the self-titled
album by the group Godsmack. The CD’s
cover contains a pentagram, which has
strong links to witchcraft and Satanism.
Parents were also concerned about the
album’s profanity and lyrics that allegedly
were so dark that they might encourage
teens to commit suicide.
Both chains regularly refuse to stock
music with labels indicating objectionable
content. Godsmack’s album, however, was
not labeled by its distributor, Universal Music, until after the Cleveland controversy.
In such cases where a label is not present, both chains have removed albums once
they discovered objectionable elements.
Last year, for example, the album The Fat
of the Land, from the group Prodigy, was
yanked from the shelves after it already had
been out for about a year (AFA Journal,
2/98).
Sully Erna, lyricist for the group, said
the album does not encourage violence
of any kind, and “there are no satanic or
suicidal themes of any kind.”
But both Wal-Mart and Kmart disagreed. “After reviewing [Godsmack], we
felt that it was something we probably
shouldn’t have carried in the first place,”
said Kmart spokesman Dennis Wigent.
Send notes
of thanks
to: Chrm.
S. Robson
Walton, WalMart Stores,
Inc., 702 S.W.
8th Street,
Bentonville,
AR 72716
Chrm. Floyd Hall, Kmart Stores, 3100
West Big Beaver Road, Troy, MI 48084
Rocky Mountain News (Denver), 6/9/99;
Source: USA Today, 6/10/99
American Family Association • P.O. Drawer 2440 • Tupelo, MS 38803 • 662-844-5036
Citizens urged to observe
Christian Heritage Week
Thanksgiving week, November 21-27,
marks the eighth annual America’s Christian Heritage Week (ACHW). According
to founder and promoter Bruce Barilla,
the event’s purpose is “to keep our families
secure, communities safe, and America free
by building upon our God-given rights.”
More than 70% of the states have issued
proclamations recognizing ACHW, most of
them choosing the Thanksgiving dates but
some opting for other times.
“This is a significant event,” says AFA
President Don Wildmon. “AFA is grateful
to Bruce Barilla for keeping this idea before
the public and for his faithful response to
God’s call. I urge AFA groups to begin now
preparing for a local observance.”
Where there is no state proclamation,
many cities and counties recognize the
event with press conferences, rallies, special local church services, or patriotic
assemblies.
For information about how to participate, contact Bruce Barilla at: America’s
Christian Heritage Week, P. O. Box 752,
Troutdale, OR 97060-6432; Phone 503669-7522; Website www.achw.org.
An unparalleled opportunity for American churches to minister to seniors in the
next decade was highlighted at a Strategic
Summit on Senior Ministry in April. “We
had excellent input from a diverse perspective of ministries as we discussed how we
can together address the ministry needs
to seniors in our country,” said Roland
Johnson, president of Christian Association
of Prime-Timers (CAP). The event was cosponsored by CAP and Sonlife Ministries.
One major concern addressed was how
to head off the tendency of churches to
go the entertainment and self-focus route
in their approach to seniors rather than
a strong, deliberate Great Commission
approach.
“Seniors want a solid challenge that will
enable them to invest their time and talents
in matters that will count for eternity,” said
Billy A. Melvin, chairman of CAP. “This
desire affords local churches a wonderful
opportunity to enlist thousands of trained
and dedicated seniors in Christian work.
We dare not miss the opportunity.”
CAP is a growing association that meets
the needs of retirees and other seniors
within a Christian context, in stark contrast to the liberal American Association
of Retired Persons (AARP). CAP annual
membership dues are $12.95 (spouse included), and benefits compare favorably
with those of AARP.
For more information: CAP, P. O. Box
777, St. Charles, IL 60174; call toll free 1800-443-0227.
Opportunity for ministry to se-
PrimeTimer Newsletter, Spring/99
Video teaches teens media discernment
Hollywood’s Captive Audience is a
compelling 22-minute video designed to
help teens learn to handle today’s media
with maturity and discernment. It is written and directed by John Andrew Murray,
dean of students at Atlanta’s Whitefield
Academy, a Christian preparatory school.
“Inappropriate behavior depicted frequently in the media desensitizes young
people,” says Murray. He decries the proliferation of vulgarity, insensitivity and
violence in our culture, and says such behavior is often modeled, even commended,
on TV.
Murray and other Whitefield educators
were determined to teach their students
how to be discerning participants in today’s
entertainment media; Hollywood’s Captive Audience is the result. The video would
be appropriate for secular audiences as well
as Christian groups.
For credit card orders, you may call
404-531-3969 ext. 220. To order by mail,
send your mailing address with: 1) your
credit card number and expiration; or
2) a cashier’s check or money order for
$19.99 (includes shipping and handling)
to Whitefield Productions, 4449 Northside
Reports from AFA affiliates
New AFA State Directors
AFA of Minnesota (St. Paul) – Brannon
Howse spends countless hours writing issue briefs about important legislation that
impacts America’s families. Brannon has
authored two best-selling books, Cradle
to College: An Educational Abduction and
Reclaiming a Nation At Risk, and hosts his
own national radio show. In addition his
weekly education commentary is heard on
200 stations. http://www.familypolicy.com/
(651-739-4112)
AFA of Pennsylvania (York) – Roy Jones
is a grassroots community leader. He served
on the national staff of the Bush-Quayle
Campaign and has been a consultant in U.S.
Congressional and international political
races. In the 1980s Jones served as chief
lobbyist for The Moral Majority. Roy is an
insightful writer and speaker who has been
featured in many publications and on TV
and radio shows. www.RoyJonesReports.
com/afa (717-292-0115)
AFA of Texas (San Antonio) – Loralei
Gilliam joined AFA in the middle of a
raucous state legislative session, beginning
her tenure by testifying in opposition to a
proposed Hate Crimes Bill. She also worked
for the passage of a parental notification
law. Before coming to AFA, she spent
more than three years with the Family
Research Council and as a media relations
specialist for Gary Bauer. While at FRC
Loralei launched a number of nationwide
pro-family campaigns. Her commentaries
have been published in many newspapers
around the country. www.afatexas.org
(210-492-5866)
AFA of Virginia (Forest) – Joe Glover
communicates with thousands of activists
on important pro-family issues. He equips
citizens to defend traditional family values
and promotes decency in corporate and
public policy. Glover has been a guest on
various radio and television shows and has
worked as a paid consultant to political
campaigns, once serving as the National
Field Director for Alan Keyes’ presidential
bid in 1996. www.familypolicynetwork.
television
action inUse this information to write
or call advertisers cited in this
issue’s television reviews.
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.
Chrm. Charles A. Heimbold, Jr.
345 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10154
Phone: 212-546-9685
Toll Free: 1-800-468-4000
Website: www.bms.com
Products: Clairol, Ban antiperspirant, Excedrin, Keri lotion,
Pravachol medication
Ford Motor Co.
Chrm. Alex Trotman
P. O. Box 1899
Dearborn, MI 48121
Phone: 313-322-3000
Toll Free: 1-800-392-3673
Website: www.ford.com
Products: Ford, Lincoln, Mercury
autos, Hertz car rentals
General Motors Corp.
Chrm. John F. Smith
3044 W. Grand Blvd.
Detroit, MI 48202
Phone: 313-556-5000
Fax: 313-556-5108
Website: www.gm.com
Products: Chevrolet, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Saturn autos,
DirecTV direct satellite broadcasting
Grand Metropolitan, Inc.
Chrm. George Bull
200 S. 6th St.
Minneapolis, MN 55402
Phone: 612-330-4966
Fax: 612-330-5200
Products: Burger King, Green
Giant Products, Old El Paso
Mexican foods, Pillsbury foods,
Progresso soup, Totino’s pizza
Hyundai Motor America
Chrm. Mark Juhn
10550 Talbert Ave.
Fountain Valley, CA 92728
Phone: 714-965-3000
Toll Free: 1-800-633-5151
Product: Hyundai autos
14
Sex still simmers in summer reruns: Ford, Pepsi among top adverMost of the reviews below are repeats, but
the networks seem incapable of airing anything
without objectionable content. Even in episodes
rated G, it is common to find casual, illicit sex.
year’s Christmas party he had sex with the cleaning woman on Nikki’s desk. Carter, series homosexual, is delighted to discover a male “couple” in
their 70s living in his apartment building.
Advertiser: General Motors
■ Cosby S
TVG
CBS, 6/7 – Hilton runs into Fred, a friend
from his youth. Fred, widowed for five years,
wonders about a girlfriend who got away some 50
years ago. Hilton helps him locate her. Even after
their 50-year absence, she quickly invites Fred
to spend the night with her, their conversation
clearly implying that they intend to have sex.
■ That 70s Show P15 S SATVPG-DLS
Fox, 6/14 – Eric discovers his parents in the
middle of having sex, and the trauma it causes
him is the focus of the rest of the episode. In one
scene, Eric sneaks beer (to serve his friends in the
basement) as his parents host a party upstairs.
Advertiser: PepsiCo
Advertisers: Grand Met, Ford
■ Drew Carey P9 S
TV14-L
ABC, 6/2 – Drew, in his 40s, has a sexual
relationship with a woman who is 62. She grows
angry at him when he doesn’t tell his parents that
she is his girlfriend. Drew’s transvestite brother
appears in the family Christmas scenes. In addition to frequent sexual innuendo, the episode
includes at least 25 ugly put-downs.
Advertisers: J&J, PepsiCo
■ ER H P9 S
TV14
NBC, 6/10 – In the opening scene, Dr. Carter
gets ready for work while his sexmate lounges
in his bed. Dr. Greene treats a teenage male
prostitute. Cops tell Greene that, when the boy
is discharged, they will have to arrest him. Dr.
Greene, however, has a better plan; he puts the
teenage hooker in a cab and gives him money
to escape.
Advertisers: J&J, Ford
■ The Simpsons P2 SA
TVPG-L
Fox, 6/6 – Series star Homer Simpson is
drinking and driving as he celebrates the hometown baseball team’s win in the championship
game. In his drunken spree, he crashes his car
into the school building. When he awakens the
next day, he can’t recall what he’d done the night
before.
■ 3rd Rock from the Sun P3 S TV14
NBC, 6/15 – The story line revolves around
the fact that Dr. Allbright, aging college prof,
once posed nude for a porn magazine which is
on campus to recruit coed models for upcoming
issues. One series star strolls about the set nude,
with some object always hiding his genitals.
Advertiser: Ford
■ Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza
P6 S TVPG-L
ABC, 6/2 – Pete has a new girlfriend (Nicole),
and he won’t tell friends Berg and Sharon her
identity. When Berg finally sees Nicole, he is
aghast to recall that he once got drunk and had
casual sex with her – and she has his name tattooed on her derriere. One scene depicts Pete and
Nicole taking each others’clothes off.
Advertisers: Ford, PepsiCo
■ Will & Grace AC H P11
TVPG
NBC, 5/27 – This episode contains sexual
humor about homosexuality, transvestites, adultery, fornication, prostitution, lust and more. It
also takes a few swipes at Christianity. When
Grace criticizes a neighbor for cheating on her
husband, Will sarcastically calls her “church lady,”
and jokes about breaking the commandment
against coveting.
Advertisers: Ford, Grand Met
Advertisers: Grand Met, PepsiCo
■ Spin City H P11 S SA
TVPG-D
ABC, 6/22 – Mike, series star, entices fellow
staffers in the mayor’s office to attend the Christmas party with this line: “As always, booze will be
free and flowing.” He reminds Stuart that at last
■ X-Files P6 S
TVPG-LV
Fox, 6/20 – A demonic man impregnates
several women in his attempt to have a normal
child. Each child, however, is part demon and part
human. The demon/father then kills each baby.
An ironic twist occurs in the person of one of
the man’s human wives who married him specifiAFA Journal • August, 1999
television
Cable channel profile
VH-1 sends morally mixed sigVH-1 is a cable channel for adult rock and
rollers. According to Advertising Age, the 14year old music channel targets fans 18-49. That
dictates that VH-1 features music and musicians
as early as the1950s and as recent as this year’s
stars.
“Music first” is VH-1’s motto. The channel
fulfills its watchword by presenting the songs,
the artists and the history of rock and roll in
a variety of formats including music videos,
game shows, live concerts, biographies, movies
and specials.
VH-1’s programming contains far less objectionable content and edgy attitude than Viacom’s
other music channel, MTV, target demographic:
12-24. (See AFA Journal 2/99.) However, in serving their daily dose of rock and roll, frequent
reference to immoral behavior – particularly
substance abuse and illicit sex – is unavoidable.
On these issues VH-1 sends mixed signals.
Often drug and alcohol abuse are portrayed as
life-wrecking. At other times, however, stories of
excess, including illicit sex, are given a knowing
wink or chuckle. VH-1 also offers its share of
sexual innuendo, off-color jokes, and bump and
grind dancing.
Language is occasionally objectionable, generally coming in the form of interviews with rock
stars themselves. However, on a relative scale,
the number of vulgarities is far less than many
typical network sitcoms.
VH-1’s highest rated original series is Behind
the Music (BTM), an hour-long video biography
of a rock star, legend or band.
Many BTM installments follow a familiar,
repetitive storyline: unknown artist achieves stardom, only to succumb to drugs and/or alcohol
abuse and the trappings of fame. Other recurring
elements include sexual immorality, divorce,
misuse of money, exhaustion, mental illness,
death, personal and/or professional tragedy, etc.
The artist hits bottom, but later rises from the
ashes to reestablish his or her career.
Recent groups and stars who have been
profiled on BTM include shock rockers Alice
Cooper and Ozzy Osbourne; rappers Vanilla Ice,
MC Hammer and TLC; bisexual ’80s pop star
Boy George; hedonistic heavy metal bands Kiss
and Metallica; former teen idols Andy Gibb, Leif
Garrett and David Cassidy; and divas Cher, Bette
Midler and Donna Summer.
A redeeming installment of BTM is the story
of country/pop star Shania Twain. Early in her
career the Canadian native gave up a budding
singing career to provide for her siblings after
the tragic death of her parents. She is frequently
shown paying tribute to her parents and family.
Though drugs and alcohol are not part of her
story, Twain’s songs, stage act and image include
significant sexual content.
Other original VH-1 productions which
profile artists are Legends and Where Are They
Now?
On Pop-Up Videos, factoid bubbles about
the artist and song appear during a music video.
Almost every sequence of factoids contains a
sexual innuendo or joke. For example, during
a video by former Partridge Family star David
Cassidy, viewers are told that at the height of
his popularity, he “made it” with a different girl
whenever he could find 20 minutes.
VH-1 also runs heavy metal and hard rock
videos on their late night Rock Show.
In recent months, VH-1 has aired The History of Rock and Roll series, a documentary
mixing clips of performances with interviews of
musicians. During the Guitar Gods installment,
guitarist Paul Stanley of Kiss referred to the guitar
as an “extension of what you’ve got between your
legs.” Rocker Eddie VanHalen described his early
band experiences as sexually rewarding: “I got all
the [bleeped out] I wanted.” The episode included
several other incidents of highly objectionable
language and references.
Rock and Roll Jeopardy is a game show which
mimics the TV classic, except that all questions
are related to rock music. Another music trivia
show is entitled Street Games.
On Storytellers songwriters perform before a
live audience and reveal the inspiration for their
compositions. Language and content on Storytellers is occasionally objectionable. A recent
featured artist, Tom Waits, sang a song entitled
Chocolate Jesus.
Artists perform live on Hard Rock Live, and
special VH-1 produced concerts.
Special event programming on VH-1 has
included The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and the VH1/Vogue Fashion
Awards. The channel also offers full length music
oriented movies such as That Thing You Do,
Blues Brothers 2000 and others.
Major advertisers: Toyota,
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (Clairol), Hyundai
Johnson & Johnson
Chrm. Ralph S. Larsen
One Johnson & Johnson Plaza
New Brunswick, NJ 08933
Phone: 732-524-0400
Fax: 732-214-0332
Website: www.jnj.com
Products: Imodium A-D,
Johnson’s baby products, Reach
toothbrush, Shower to Shower
body powder, Sine-Aid, Tylenol
PepsiCo, Inc.
Chrm. Roger Enrico
700 Anderson Hill Road
Purchase, NY 10577
Phone: 914-253-2000
Fax: 914-253-2070
Website: www.pepsico.com
Products: Doritos, Lay’s and
Ruffles chips, Mountain Dew,
Rold Gold pretzels, Tropicana
Toyota Motor Sales, USA
Pres. Yoshio Ishizaka
19001 S. Western Ave.
Torrance, CA 90509
Phone: 310-618-4000
Fax: 310-618-7820
Toll Free: 1-800-331-4331
Products: Lexus automobiles,
Toyota motor vehicles
AFA TV Codes
AC Anti-Christian
H Promotes homosexual agenda
Profanity; the number followP ing the “P” is the number of
times profanity is used in the
program.
Politically correct in dealing
PC with an issue identified in the
review
Objectionable sexual content
S (may include partial nudity)
Substance abuse (drugs or
SA alcohol)
Violence (graphic or gratuV itous)
Positive theme with no
+ objectionable elements (A
good story told with profane
language earns no commendation.)
TV network ratings are indiTV cated in black.
15
Entertainment
By Jim Delmont
Film ratings merit ‘F’
President Clinton has a good point
when he urged Hollywood to rethink its
Motion Picture Association of America
ratings and to get tougher with movies that
feature violence. I say this because I made
the same point in a recent column.
When the American motion picture industry changed from a production code to
a rating system back in 1965, no one at the
time foresaw the rapid drop in standards
that would result. Association spokesman
Jack Valenti explained at the time that
the new code would not change movies
much but would allow Hollywood to do
a realistic version of a Tennessee Williams
play, for instance – labeled R, for mature
audiences.
The objective was not to change movies
drastically, but to allow some room at the
edges for more mature work.
Unfortunately, movies went downhill
fast. Within three to five years, violence,
sex and profanity were common – and for
more than 20 years now, the majority of
films made each year have been R-rated.
Worse, movies that would have drawn R
ratings 20 years ago are now being rated
PG-13. Movies that would have been Xrated are now rated R – my main gripe
with the system.
In general, puritanical America attacks
sex with more enthusiasm than violence.
When a rare mainstream film is rated X
(NC-17 now), it is usually for sex or nudity,
rarely for violence.
As I pointed out recently here, many
violent films of the past several decades
deserve an X or NC-17 rating. That would
have drastically restricted their circulation
both in theaters and later in video.
There also is too much profanity in
movies. It actually detracts from the scripts,
demeaning both story and characters.
Hollywood itself can clean up its movies
while still making hard hitting films.… Any
intelligent person can tell the difference
between gratuitous sex, violence and proJim Delmont is a movie critic for the Omaha
World Herald. Reprinted with permission of
Omaha World Herald.
16
fanity and what is necessary for a realistic
movie that deals honestly with the dark side
of human nature. It is mostly a matter of
common sense and common decency.
I would argue vigorously against censorship of what might be called “the fine arts”
– books, live theater, art gallery showings,
art films at festivals or on cable venues.…
Also, the audiences for plays, art galleries
and art films are generally sophisticated
and well-educated – not likely to go out
and destroy society because of something
seen in a play or at a gallery.
Mass-audience entertainment is something else. Movies, TV shows, the Internet
and pop music are seen and heard by tens
of millions, including huge audiences of
impressionable children and teenagers.
Minimal standards of decency make sense
for these larger venues – and that is one of
the reasons we have the rating system for
movies. Putting all the responsibility on
parents may have made sense 40 years ago,
but today a third of America’s children are
in one-parent homes – and with welfare
reform booming, that parent probably is
at work when the children are watching
Jerry Springer or something worse after
school.
All these ventures do practice censorship, including MTV, cable TV, network TV
and movies (to avoid the NC-17 rating or
to make the PG-13 rating if that will help at
the box office). Newspapers and magazines
practice censorship, including MTV, cable
TV, network TV and movies (to avoid the
NC-17 rating or to make the PG-13 rating
if that will help at the box office). Newspapers and magazines practice self-censorship
(the best kind). A tougher rating system
– perhaps one not managed by Valenti,
who is very cozy with Hollywood – would
help. Valenti said recently that Natural Born
Killers was based on the infamous murder
spree by Nebraskan Charles Starkweather.
But in fact, Killers was a gross distortion
of the Starkweather events, glamorizing
and glorifying two killers. It should have
been rated X. Better yet, it shouldn’t have
been made – but that would have required
family
By William Raspberry
How can families thrive?
■ A two-fold, common sense solution to social ills
I can summarize in two sentences my
prescription for combating the social problems that occupy so much of our time and
attention these days: Restore the family.
Renew the community.
So much of what has gone wrong in
America – homelessness, hopelessness,
school failure, teen pregnancy – can be
traced to the disintegration of the family
structure and the loss of that affiliation we
call community.
Everybody knows it, but too many of us
have been reluctant to talk straight about it.
We know that children need intact families
that include fathers, but we fear to say it
lest we appear to be blaming hard-pressed
single mothers for the very problems they
are struggling to overcome.
We know that families thrive best in
cohesive functioning communities. Just
listen to us as we get all dewy-eyed talking
about how communities used to be. But we
hesitate to make restoration of community
a central part of our social policy – partly
because we think it’s not possible and
partly for fear that someone will accuse us
of blaming the residents of dysfunctional
communities for their own problems.
But my purpose is not to assign blame
but to encourage analysis that can lead the
way to solutions.
American families are in trouble, and
the social problems that concern us tend
to be worst where families are in the worst
shape. And yet we are not likely to undertake policies that might restore family integrity so long as we persist in talking about
the explosion of female-headed households
as a mere change in lifestyle.
Nathan and Julia Hare put it this way in
their book, The Endangered Black Family:
“There is nothing wrong with being a black
female single-parent, and one rightfully
makes the most of any situation in which
she finds herself. But there is something
William Raspberry, a Pulitzer Prize winning
columnist, is syndicated by Washington Post.
18
wrong with why a black woman is so much
more likely to experience the single-parent
situation.
“Also, there is something wrong with
glorifying this problem instead of rising
up to change it. People will speak here of
‘options,’ but forced or unintended options
must be called by some other name.”
That’s from a pair of radical black social
scientists. Now hear this from white ethologist Phon Hudkins:
“The family is the only social institution
that is present in every single village, tribe
or nation we know through history. It has
a genetic base and is the rearing device for
our species.”
Or the conservative Richard John Neuhaus, editor of the Religion & Society Report:
“Millions of children do not know, and will
never know, what it means to have a father.
More poignantly, they do not know anyone
who has a father, or is a father…It takes
little imagination to begin to understand
the intergenerational consequences of this
situation. It is reasonable to ask whether, in
all of human history, we have an instance
of a large population in which the institution of the family simply disappeared. It is
reasonable and ominous, for the answer is
almost certainly no. There is no historical
precedent supporting the hope that the
family, once it has disappeared, can be
reconstituted.”
It strikes me as it strikes these writers
– as it struck Daniel Patrick Moynihan a
quarter century ago – that children unlucky
enough to be born into fatherless households may not be doomed, but they tend
to be at serious disadvantage.
A lot of our talk about family these days
is driven by economic considerations. The
biggest single category of poor Americans is
the children of single mothers. Black families headed by husband and wife have, on
average, three times the income of households headed by single white women.
But I think it goes beyond the matter
of having a second income to enhance the
family budget or a second person to help
with rearing the children. Our big danger
is not that some families will be headed by
single women. We’ve always had families
headed by single women – whether divorced, widowed or never married. What
is new is the loss of the sense that marriage
is important. And when marriage stops
being important, young men stop being
as valuable as they might be, and then they
become positively dangerous.
Neither our communities nor our women will be as well off as they need to be until
we learn how to solve the problems of our
men. Some people who don’t understand
what I’m talking about will think I am
exalting men over women in some forlorn
attempt to return to the old days when
women knew their place and kept it.
What I am trying to say is something
quite different. Let me tell you what my
secret agenda truly is. It is simply to return
children to the center of things. While we
are working out the roles for men and
women in our society, and while individual
men and women are working out their
own private and intimate relationships,
we need to keep clear that this whole marriage/bonding enterprise is not primarily
about the gratification of men and women
but about maximizing the life chances of
children.
Thus when I talk about my prescription
– restoring families and renewing commuAFA Journal • August, 1999
nities – it is the children I have in mind.
Time was, when we spoke of children
in trouble, we meant primarily inner-city
black and brown children: the drop-outs,
the dope dealers, the gang bangers, the
social menaces. Now the phrase “children
in trouble” evokes not the ghettos and barrios but places like Paducah and Pearl and
Jonesboro and Springfield.
You will note a few things about the
violence those place names evoke. They
all involve white people, which is to say
they remind us that it is not minorities but
Americans who are in trouble.
They all involve children, though their
victims are boys and girls, men and women
– a reminder that when our children are
in trouble, we’re all in trouble. And the
shooters are all boys, which should remind
us of what we already know: our children
are in trouble, but our boys are in the most
trouble of all.
And I think they are in trouble because
they are losing their sense of a valued place
in our society. As with the problems Moynihan pointed out 30 years ago, the symptoms
of placelessness first manifest themselves in
the most vulnerable populations, but they
soon spread through all populations.
It makes sense to me, therefore, to
do what we can to reclaim our boys and
men and return them to their socially
useful roles – as husbands, as fathers, as
protectors of families and defenders of
communities.
When I was a boy growing up in rural
Mississippi, I considered myself a pretty
smart fellow. Then came the time when I
decided I must be brilliant. That was the
day I thought I had caught God Himself
in a mistake. You see, we had been fooling
around with some wild bees, and we made
the discovery that when a bee stings you,
it dies.
And I thought: What sort of defense
mechanism is that? This surely has to be
some sort of design error, to give an animal
a defense system that he can employ only
at the cost of his life. When I went to tell
my father about my discovery, that wise
and patient man explained to me that a
bee doesn’t sting you to protect itself; a bee
stings you to protect the hive.
For bees, the hive is the thing, and the
baby bees are the focus of the hive. That is
the way bees perpetuate themselves.
That’s the way it used to be in our
neighborhoods, where children used to be
The Charitable Gift Annuity
Responsible and wise giving is the challenge facing men and women
of faith who wish to be trustworthy stewards of the financial resources
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can practice good stewardship, contributing to the long term security
of AFA while assuring for themselves a guaranteed, fixed income for the
rest of their lives. It is a wise way to give!
A charitable gift annuity to AFA works like this: you (the annuitant)
transfer an asset (securities, cash, land, mutual fund shares, etc.) to AFA.
In return, AFA makes payments to you for life, or to you and another annuitant for both lives.
Here is an example of how a charitable gift annuity might work:
Bill is 78, his wife Sarah is 75. They both desire to be good stewards
recognizing God as owner of all their wealth.
Bill and Sarah decide that at their death, they want AFA to receive
around $25,000. A gift annuity allows them to make their gift today
without giving up the use of their money and provide income for both
Bill and Sarah until the last survivor goes to be with the Lord. Here’s an
illustration of how a $25,000 two-life gift annuity funded with a check
would work:
• Tax deductions: $8975 in the year the gift annuity is established
• Annual payout: $1850 (7.4%)
• Tax free amount: $1039.72 for life expectancy
• Effective payout rate: 10%
• Monthly payout: $159.17
• At death of last surviving annuitant, balance transfers to AFA avoiding
probate, adminstrative expenses and estate taxation.
For more information or a personal illustration, complete and return
Name_____________________________________________________________________
__
2nd name if Two-Life Gift ____________________________________________________
Address ____________________________________________________________________
City/State/Zip ______________________________________________________________
Telephone ( _____ ) ________ ________
Date(s) of Birth ___/___/___ 2nd person ___/___/___
➤ I am interested in funding an annuity in the amount of:
❑ $5,000 ❑$10,000 ❑ $30,000 ❑$50,000 ❑$ __________
➤ I plan to fund my annuity with ❑ personal check ❑ Transfer of stocks and bonds
➤ I wish to receive my income payments ❑ annually ❑ semi-annually ❑ quarterly
❑ monthly (Requires $25,000 minimum for monthly income option)
➤ For Deferred Annuities Only: Please defer my payment until I reach age ______ .
(Income can be deferred to any age beyond 50.)
Mail to: AFA Foundation • P. O. Box 3933 • Tupelo, MS 38803
19
Homosexuality
By Jerry Bergman, Ph. D
Homosexual orientation: does it really ex■ A psychologist challenges popular thinking
In my decade of working at various
psychology clinics, I have queried all of
my “homosexual” clients as to if they were
erotically attracted to the opposite sex. All
of them said that they were. I have always
found it intriguing that virtually all of
those “gays” that I have known did not fit
the common definition of homosexual – a
person sexually attracted only to his own
sex – but all were to some degree bisexual.
Many were once married and most had
sexual encounters with the opposite sex.
Furthermore, Masters and Johnson’s
scientific studies of both persons labeled
homosexual and lesbian have found that
both groups consistently listed heterosexual
encounters as highly erotic, actually at the
top of a list of their erotic fantasies. In one
study, both male and female homosexuals
listed a “heterosexual encounter” as their
third most common sexual fantasy! *(McCutcheon, 1989). This finding also supports
the conclusion that most persons labeled
gay are, at best, in varying degrees bisexual
– especially in view of the fact that many
also have heterosexual relations, and many
were once married and had families.
The generalization that exclusively homosexual persons who have no attraction
for, and are sexually repulsed by the opposite sex is thus erroneous. Only homosexual
behavior exists. Studies of adolescents find
that many young persons – 22% according to one study – involve themselves in
homosexual behavior, especially in early
adolescence (Chilman, 1983). Further, a
large number of prison inmates and married males become involved in the so-called
tea room trade which involves homosexual
behavior (Humphreys, 1975). And none of
these persons would define themselves as
gay (Lockwood, 1980).
Freud concluded that homosexuality
was a stage that most boys grow out of,
and that adults who involved themselves
in homosexual behavior simply have never
matured beyond this developmental stage.
20
This position once was the dominant view
in the West. Greenberg (1988) concluded
from his historical study that the “homosexual” category is a late-nineteenth-century invention. Prior to that time, people
did not refer to “homosexuals” as a class
of persons.
homosexual exists. They simply reject,
ignore or distort the enormous amount of
empirical evidence against their position.
Further, from a Biblical standpoint, it
is not only homosexual behavior that is
objectionable, but also much of the sexual
behavior common among homosexuals.
The generalization that exclusively homosexual persons who have no attraction for, and are sexually
repulsed by the opposite sex is thus erroneous. Only
homosexual behavior exists.
The percent of the population that is
exclusively homosexual has traditionally
been placed at 10%, partly as a result of
the now rejected Kinsey 1940s studies.
Numerous new empirical studies reveal
the number varies from .9% in Norway to
2.8% in the USA, indicating that cultural
factors are likely very influential. Furthermore, according to a Minnesota adolescent
health survey, only .6% of the boys and .2%
of the girls surveyed identified themselves
as “most of 100% homosexual,” .7% males
and .8% females as bisexual, and 10.1% of
the males and 11.3% of the females were
“unsure.” This indicates that many individuals do not have a firm sexual orientation even as an adolescent, and reveals the
importance of social and sexual experiences
in development (Muir, 1993).
Although many factors are involved,
it is my experience that a person is not
a prisoner of his or her sexuality and to
some degree chooses a homosexual lifestyle
(Bergman, 1981). A clear need exists to understand why people adopt this lifestyle in
spite of the difficulties of doing so in most
societies. The unfortunate factor in this
debate is that it is very difficult to reason
about this topic with those who advocate
the idea that a “sexual orientation” called
From a medical standpoint, male homosexual behavior is fraught with health
dangers including infections, bleeding and
disease transmission problems. Bell et al.
found that 43% of white male homosexuals reported having sex with more than 500
partners, and a whopping 28% with over
1,000 partners.
Consequently, studies reveal that homosexual behaviors produce a venereal disease
rate as much as 22 times higher than the
national average. The major anatomical
problems with sodomy are generally not
a problem in heterosexual relationships.
Thus, the evidence from medical research
supports the creationists’ design interpretation.
The Biological Influences
The claim is often made that those who
involve themselves in homosexual behavior
cannot help the way that they are, and are
biologically attracted to the same sex, not
the opposite sex. No gene causing homosexuality has yet ever been found, nor has
any clear evidence of a biological basis been
located (Satinover, 1997; Birke, 1981).
LeVay concluded that the cytogenetic,
endocrinological, or neuroanatomical
See Homosexual on page 22
ALABAMA
Enterprise
Carrollton (WALN)
Ozark (WAQG)
Selma (WAQU)
Sheffield (WAKD)
Troy
90.5
89.3
91.7
91.1
89.9
91.1
ARIZONA
Fredonia
Holbrook
Mesa
Winslow
89.1
90.3
89.1
91.3
ARKANSAS
Arkadelphia
Bentonville
Blytheville
Clarksville
Crossett
El Dorado
Fayetteville
Forrest City
Fort Smith (KAOW)
Jonesboro (KAOG)
Piggott
Pocahontas
Prescott
Sheridan (KANX)
Warren
91.9
88.1
91.5
89.9
91.7
91.9
90.1
91.5
88.9
90.5
88.1
91.1
88.9
91.1
91.3
CALIFORNIA
*Quincy (KNLF)
COLORADO
Trinidad
95.9
91.7
FLORIDA
*Florida City (WMFL) 88.5
*Key Largo (WMKL) 91.7
GEORGIA
Americus
Cordele
Cuthbert
Dublin
*Griffin (WMVV)
Waycross (WASW) ILLINOIS
DeKalb (WWGN)
Effingham
Flora
Kankakee
Mt.Vernon (WAPO)
Ottawa (WWGN)
Pana
Salem
INDIANA
*Greensburg (WAUZ)
Michigan City
Plymouth
Vincennes
Terre Haute (WAPC)
90.3
90.3
89.3
91.9
90.7
91.9
93.3
91.3
88.5
88.1
90.5
88.9
88.5
91.3
89.1
88.5
91.3
89.9
91.9
AmeriFamRadio
KANSAS
Arkansas City
Beloit
Enterprise
89.7
91.3
88.7
Great Bend
89.7
Hays
89.7
Independence (KARF)91.9
Marysville
91.7
Norton
91.5
Ottawa (KRBW)
90.5
Salina (KAKA)
88.5
Topeka (KBUZ)
90.3
Wichita (KCFN)
91.1
KENTUCKY
Ashland
91.1
Campbellsville (WAPD)
91.7
*Central City (WMTA)
1380AM
Mt. Sterling (WAXG) 88.1
LOUISIANA
Alexandria (KAPM) 91.7
Jonesboro
89.7
Jonesville
91.9
Lafayette (KSJY)
90.9
Many (KAVK)
89.7
Monroe
94.9
*Russell Springs (WIDS) 570AM
Ruston (KAPI)
88.3
St. Joseph
89.9
MINNESOTA
Montevideo
Windom
Worthington
89.7
90.9
88.1
MISSISSIPPI
Ackerman
Brookhaven
Cleveland (WDFX)
Columbia
Duck Hill (WAUM)
Forest (WQST)
Gulfport (WAOY)
Hattiesburg (WAII)
Laurel (WATP)
McComb (WAQL)
96.9
90.5
98.3
90.9
91.9
92.5
91.7
89.3
90.7
90.5
IOWA
Creston
90.9
Fairfield
88.7
Ottumwa
88.1
Sioux City (KAYA)
91.3
*Affiliate Station – may not carry all AFR programming.
All stations listed are FM unless otherwise indicated.
Natchez
Oxford
Starkville
Tupelo (WAFR)
Vicksburg
West Point
91.1
101.3
88.9
88.3
93.3
96.9
MISSOURI
*Birch Tree (KBMV) 1310AM
Brookfield
91.5
Cabool
89.9
Kennett (KAUF)
89.9
Memphis
91.5
*Mountain Grove (KELE) 1360AM
Park Hills
91.1
*Piedmont (KPWB)
1140AM
Springfield (KAKU) 90.1
NEBRASKA
Chadron
Hastings
Hubbard (KAYA)
Valentine
89.3
91.7
91.3
89.3
NEW HAMPSHIRE
*Manchester (WLMW)
90.7
Ahoskie
Beaufort
Mt. Airy
New Bern (WAAE)
Sanford
91.9
91.5
90.3
91.9
88.7
NORTH DAKOTA
Devils Lake
Harvey
Jamestown
Watford City
89.9
91.1
90.7
89.1
Williston
91.7
OHIO
Martin’s Ferry
Steubenville
Shelby (WAUI)
91.1
88.9
88.3
OKLAHOMA
Ada
Ardmore
Atoka
Durant
Elk City
88.7
91.9
91.7
89.3
91.9
Aberdeen
Spearfish
90.1
90.1
TENNESSEE
*Alcoa (WBCR) 1470AM
Bristol
90.5
*Columbia (WMRB)
910AM
Dyersburg
89.7
Hohenwald (WAUO) 90.7
Jackson (WAMP)
88.1
Lawrenceberg
Milan
Savannah
Shelbyville
Spencer
Tullahoma (WAUT)
Waynesboro
89.9
99.1
88.1
91.3
90.1
88.5
89.9
TEXAS
Abilene (KAQD)
Alpine
Amarillo (KAVW)
Big Spring
Bonham
Borger (KAVO)
91.3
90.9
90.7
91.5
91.1
91.5
Breckenridge
Brownfield
Crockett
Dalhart
Del Rio
Dumas
Hereford
Huntsville (KAXF)
Kermit
Lamesa
Levelland
Lockhart
Midland
Morton
Pampa (KAXH)
Pecos
Plainview
Stephenville
Van Horn
Victoria
90.7
90.7
91.9
91.7
89.9
91.7
90.7
88.3
91.5
91.3
91.9
88.5
89.5
91.1
90.9
91.3
90.7
90.5
89.9
88.5
UTAH
St. George
88.7
VIRGINIA
Bristol
Culpeper (WARN)
Elkins (WBHZ)
90.5
91.5
91.9
WASHINGTON
Sunnyside (KAYB)
88.1
WEST VIRGINIA
Elkins (WBHZ)
91.9
WYOMING
Gillette (KAXG)
89.7
Alberta, CANADA
Three Hills (PBC)
89.9
from sea to shining
NEW MEXICO
*Carlsbad (KAMQ)
1240AM
Clayton
91.3
Clovis (KAQF)
91.1
*Farmington (KPCL) 95.7
Hobbs
91.5
Las Vegas
90.3
Raton
90.1
NEW YORK
Batavia
NORTH CAROLINA
89.5
Idabel
91.9
Norman
89.3
*Okmulgee (KOKL)
1240AM
Poteau (KARG)
91.7
Stillwater
89.7
Weatherford
90.5
OREGON
Baker City
Grants Pass (KAPK)
90.7
91.1
PENNSYLVANIA
Franklin (WAWN)
89.5
*Youngsville (WTMV) 88.5
SOUTH DAKOTA
Homosexual…from page 20
research has “largely failed to establish any
consistent differences between homosexual
and heterosexual individuals” (1991, p.
1034).
Of the multi scores of studies that have
searched for biological factors, the only
ones done so far that indicate a biological
cause have implicated abnormal hypothalamus development and hormonal imbalance (Bailey and Pillard, 1991).
Unfortunately, the mass media often
reports tentative studies as if they have
proved beyond a doubt that homosexuality
is biologically determined (Maddox, 1993).
And all of these studies suffer from major
methodological problems (Horgan, 1995).
If LeVay’s research is valid, it indicates that
homosexuality is caused by a biological
pathology. LeVay found that the INAH 2
and 3 was much smaller in homosexuals
compared to normal heterosexual males,
indicating homosexually is caused by
disease, hormone imbalance, or another
abnormality.
Disease and Homosexuality
Many venereal and other diseases are
far more a problem with homosexual than
heterosexual behavior. For non-promiscuous couples who take proper cleanliness
measures, the transmission of disease
There’s a major
league difference in
AT&T and LifeLine
long distance servicWhen AT&T talks about LEAGUE, they are not talking baseball. At the
communications giant, LEAGUE means
Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgendered United Employees –
a group that has the enthusiastic
support of the company. LEAGUE
calls AT&T “THE company without
closets!”
LifeLine is in a different league.
LifeLine is the Christian long distance
company that was formed to fund God’s work. In fact, when you join the
LifeLine team, 10% of your long distance bill can be given back to American
Family Association.
It’s easy to sign up. Simply make a free phone call to 1-800-684-3991 and
tell the operator you want 10% of your long distance billing to go to AFA.
The switch over is free and there is no loss of service.
Then the next time AT&T calls to pitch their service, tell them you’ve
caught a new vision – LifeLine.
1-800-684-3991
1-800-684-3991
22
among heterosexuals is extremely rare,
and then usually almost always due to
poor hygiene.
As a group homosexuals are far more apt
to have many diseases such as rare bowel
diseases which are lumped together under
the designation “gay bowel syndrome.” Estimates of their total infectious disease rate
is about 10 times higher than that of the
general population – not only venereal diseases, but also hepatitis B and others. Other
common diseases include urethritis, viral
herpes, pediculosis infestation and others
(Rueda, 1982:52-53). One study indicated
that one half of homosexuals eventually
contract the colon disease parasitic amebiasis; and rectal gonorrhea, infectious
hepatitis A, and amoebic colon infections
are far higher among this population.
In a summary of the biological research,
Byne concluded “what evidence exists thus
far of innate biological traits underlying
homosexuality is flawed” (1994, p. 50).
Even if a biological factor exists, it is a secondary question as to whether homosexual
behavior is desirable or even acceptable.
Change is admittedly difficult, but the
level of success in treating other sexual disorders such as pedophilia is also extremely
low. The latter individuals also claim that
they have strong attractions for young children, and have minimal or no attraction to
adults of the opposite sex.
In the cases where homosexual behavior
is precipitated by developmental abnormalities, the focus should be on understanding the abnormality and developing
ways of treating or preventing it.
The homosexual movement vigorously opposes this response, producing
the almost unparalleled situation in which,
assuming the biological factors are confirmed, a clear pathology or abnormality is
defended as desirable, and efforts to correct
this resisted or even condemned.
Summary
The extant empirical research supports
the hypothesis that homosexuality is due
either to social or physiological pathology. This supports the conclusion that the
creator designed a sexual response which
fulfills the goal to reproduce, multiply and
bond, and that other sexual responses are
not designed, but are the result of patho*Reference notes to this article are available.
Call 662-844-5036, X215.
twildmon@afa.net
The eternal battle: Who shall be
BY TIM WILDMON • American Family Association Vice President
Fall will soon be here. Which means what? Come on, what happens in the fall? I’m talking the thing that defines the season? The
clock is running out on you (a hint). Okay, I can’t believe I have
to tell you. The correct answer of course is: FOOTBALL.
For me, especially college football. The ol’ pigskin will be flying
through the crisp cool air and Americans will fill campus stadiums
all over the country to cheer on their favorite team.
One of the reasons I enjoy football – and other sports – is that
there is always a final outcome. For all the talk and fanfare, one
thing is certain. Three hours after the two
teams take the field you are going to find out
who wins and who loses. When the clock
says 0:00, one team walks off the field feeling
great and the other walks off depressed. One
set of fans is going to be cheering and the
other school’s fans are going to have a sick
feeling for awhile – at least until they start
getting ready for the next game.
In contrast, the battle in which the American Family Association is engaged – the
culture war – never ends. We win a skirmish
and two more break out. There are times you
want to give up and quit.
Recently Pat Buchanan said:
Ultimately, our culture war is
about one question: Is God dead, or
is God king? For centuries this issue
has been critical. If God is dead, as
Nietzsche wrote, everything is permissible, and eventually, one will logically
reach the conclusion of Paris’ student
radicals of 1968: The only thing that
is forbidden is to forbid. But if God
is king, men have a duty to try, as best
they can, to conform their lives to His
will and shape society in accordance with His law.
Defection and indifference are not options open to us.
We are commanded to fight… For the culture war is
at its heart a religious war about whether God or man
will be exalted, whose moral beliefs shall be enshrined
in law, and what children shall be taught to value and
abhor. With those stakes, to walk away is to abandon
your post in time of war… Perhaps T. S. Eliot was right
when he said there are no lost causes, because there
are no won causes. The struggle is eternal.
I think that sentiment motivates most of us who are concerned
about what kind of country we are leaving our children and
grandchildren. We care. It matters.
We hear a lot of talk about our environment and how we need
to take care of nature for future generations. No doubt about
that. But we hear far less about the consequences of polluting our
moral environment.
Recently AFA launched a major effort to help clean up one part
of our moral environment – the Internet – with American Family Online (AFO), our new full-service AFA-sponsored Internet
service provider.
With the development of the Internet a
whole new world of information became
available to anyone who had access to a
computer and modem. It is literally changing
the way we communicate, both personally
and in business.
But as with most advances in technology,
there is a very dark side to the Internet. (Did
you know that there are over 10 million pornography sites on the Internet? And another
1000 go on-line everyday.) We receive stories
every day of people, sometimes children,
running into hard core pornography on the
world wide web. The number of men and
boys hooked on this stuff is tragic.
But now families all over the nation can
be protected from the objectionable content
on the Internet.
With AFO, objectionable and harmful
material is filtered out before it gets to your
home. And our porn blocking software can’t
be overridden with a password.
Local dial-up numbers are available in
over 1,100 communities across America. If
you’re already online, you can get a list of cities at www.afo.net. Or you can call AFO at 1-888-817-9314. When
it comes to the Internet, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
But when it comes to third down and 10 yards to go, it’s better
to pass than run the ball. But that’s another story.
__________________________________________________
Tim and Mark Wildmon will host an 11-day tour of the Holy Land
and Greece, including one full day cruise to the islands of Porus, Aegina
and Hydra. The tour departs New York City on March 15, 2000. For
a free brochure about the tour : Holy Land Tour, c/o Tim Wildmon,
American Family Association, P. O. Drawer 2440, Tupelo, MS 38803 or
601-844-5036 X228 or twildmon@afa.net
23
the gospel in action
Community meets Manson fans
with message of Christ’s love
■ Concert goers get pizza instead of protests
When shock-rocker Marilyn Manson
was scheduled to play Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
on April 28, the climate was ripe for a
confrontation, since only a few days earlier
the band’s music had been linked to the
Columbine High School shootings.
According to Mark Forstrom, Youth
Pastor at New Covenant Bible Church, a
local movement had begun to oppose the
concert with pickets and protests. Local
law enforcement and media seemed to be
poised for an ugly scene. “The outlook was
grim,” Forstrom wrote in an “official praise
report” after the concert.
Then something amazing happened.
Through E-mail exchanges “…another local movement suddenly sprang to life – that
the only way to truly change our moral
climate [is] to soften hard hearts. (The
hearts of Manson fans have been hardened
by their perception that Christians are
mean-spirited, hateful, and judgmental.)
Thus, the idea was birthed to unravel that
stereotype by encouraging Christians to
show the pure love of Christ to these fans
in tangible ways.”
As the concert day arrived, tension filled
the community, Forstrom said. “Some
[Manson] fans had actually expressed being
fearful of going downtown because of what
the “Christian freaks” might do to hurt or
harass them.…”
But what happened surprised nearly
everyone. “Scores of Christians from
churches all over Linn County and as far
away as Des Moines (two hours away)
converged on the sidewalks outside the Five
Seasons Center, to do two positive things:
pray, and to show unmistakable love,” Forstrom reported.
People prayed in huddles on the sidewalk. Others conducted prayer walks
around the arena. Churches around the city
held special prayer meetings. Youth groups
met for special times of prayer. People all
over the U. S. were praying. As many as 20
pastors and Christian leaders went into the
24
concert arena to pray.…”
Meanwhile outside the concert hall,
Christians gave away over 100 pizzas, 1200
drinks and candy to fans standing in line.
A local pastor told a newspaper reporter,
“We want the kids here to know not all
Christians are judgmental or hate-mongers. Our desire is…to reach out to them
with the love of Christ and to let them know
we care about them.”
Forstrom said that a local youth group
even collected money to pay for parking
fees of the Manson fans. “We’re Christian
and we’d like to show you God’s love by
paying for your parking tonight,” they
would tell concert goers.
The testimony was powerful, Forstrom
said. “Many [Manson fans] showed a ‘this
does not compute’ look as they scratched
their heads in bewilderment,” he wrote. At
least three people came to faith in Christ.
Inside the concert arena, Forstrom
writes that God was at work as well. “After
only an hour, Manson abruptly ended the
concert early. During his Nazi/antichrist
stage set, he suddenly flew into a rage:
he threw his microphone to the ground,
knocked the drum set off its platform, and
stormed off the stage, never to return!…
The crowd shouted, ‘Manson, Manson,
Manson,’ but he never returned….
“…News reports say he went into an
absolute rage when he saw a large smiley
face on a stage prop that had been placed by
one of his own crew members, presumably
as a joke on the last concert of the tour.
Some fans then became so angry with
him [for] cutting short the concert that a
riot erupted.… In the end the police had
to use riot control tactics to bring order
and 23 of them were arrested over this
incident….”
Forstrom said he received over 400
encouraging E-mails after the concert.
Comments included:
“I have never been prouder to be in the
body of Christ than I was this last week.
Praise God!”
“Jesus affected people by His love, and
so should we. I surely have been convicted
about my attitude towards non-Christians.”
“…if we, as the church will clearly communicate the love of Christ wherever we
American Family Association
P.O. Drawer 2440
Tupelo, Mississippi 38803
Internet websites
www.afa.net
www.afr.net
www.afo.net
Non-Profit Org.
U.S. Postage
Paid
Permit No. 36
Gordonsville, VA
change service requested
VERY IMPORTANT: If your mailing address has changed because of the 911
program, please send AFA your correct address. The U.S. Postal Service will
not send us your address correction nor forwardAFA
your
Journal after one year.
Journal • August, 1999

afa debates activists over homosexual promo video

Transcription

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