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From the Desk of Pastor Rick Scarborough

PARENTS EVICTED FROM HIGH SCHOOL GAY DAY

In an earlier Patriot Pastor Alert, we told you of a high school in Massachusetts that has an annual event called “To BGLAD: Transgender, Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Awareness Day.” This is a coercive, tax-funded celebration of perversion – in the name of promoting tolerance.

When two intrepid parents tried to film this year’s “festivities,” the principal at Newton North High School warned them that if they didn’t leave immediately, they would be arrested for trespassing, and had police escort them out of the school.

Trespassing! This is a school the parents are forced to fund with their tax dollars – a school that their children are forced to attend. Often, students are subjected to these indoctrination sessions without the knowledge or consent of parents.

“It’s against my religion. It’s morally wrong and forced in a child’s face,” said Kim Cariani, the mother of two Newton North students, who attempted to videotape the assembly. Brian Camenker – a pro-family activist whose son is also a student at the school – noted that BGLAD Day includes assemblies and workshops with themes like “Out at the Old Ball Game,” and “Color Me Queer.”

This insanity isn’t confined to the Bay State, home of Barney Frank and same-sex marriage. In the name of diversity, homosexual indoctrination is going on in public schools across the country. The so-called gay rights movement is determined to brainwash our children to accept perversion as normal – and to shun, as dangerous bigots, those who find it in any way objectionable.

As we salute the courage of Cariani and Camenker, let us redouble our efforts to expose the campaign to sell sodomy to America’s school children.

UNDER ASHCROFT, PORNOGRAPHY PROSECUTIONS LAG

Outgoing Attorney General John Ashcroft is under assault. But this time, the criticism comes not from the left, but from anti-pornography crusaders.

Patrick A. Trueman was chief of the Justice Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Trueman says that when it comes to prosecuting pornographers, the current occupant of the White House “has a worse record in his first term than Clinton had.”

Trueman notes that in the past four years, CEOS has secured only 37 convictions. In part, the problem may lie with Ashcroft’s choice to head the office – Andrew Oosterbaan, who was a deputy at CEOS under Janet Reno.

John Ashcroft is a good Christian and a courageous public servant who understands the corrosive effects of smut. In 2002, the attorney general told a gathering in South Carolina: “This multi-billion dollar industry with links to organized crime has strewn its victims from coast to coast. Never before has so much obscene material been available to minors.”

Regrettably, the people Ashcroft chose for CEOS don’t share his commitment – for which he must accept responsibility. But there’s blame to go around here. Conservative Christians assumed that with one of our own as attorney general, there would be a full-scale assault on the pornography plague.

The moral of this story: When it comes to politics, never assume that your friends will do the right thing, absent ongoing pressure. We won’t make this mistake with the next A.G.

FAITHLESS AMERICANS GROW

According to the American Religious Identification Survey 2001, released by the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, between 1990 and 2001, the number of Americans not identifying with any religion nearly doubled – increasing from 14.3 million (8% of the population) to 29.4 million (14.1%).

Few of these are atheists, who constitute only 0.4% of the American people. Rather, they’re individuals for whom concepts like sin and salvation seem hopelessly outdated. Religion is simply irrelevant to the lives they have fashioned for themselves. Many will discover their error when it’s too late – to their eternal regret.

The growth of disbelief is deeply disturbing. The same survey tells us that the percentage of Christians in America declined from 86% to 77% during the past decade.

In an increasingly secular culture – where our Christian president feels compelled to wish his fellow Americans a “Happy Holiday” – its all too easy for more and more of our people to quietly and comfortably drift away from faith. Even 9/11 apparently had little impact on this trend.

Christians took comfort in the values vote in the past election (the 22% who said they based their votes on traditional values). The growing percentage of our people for whom religion is irrelevant is the flip-side of this coin – and a storm warning.

As I’ve said before, America is urgently in need of revival – for which we must continue to work and pray.

STUDY FINDS NETWORKS MOCK FAITHFUL

Undoubtedly, the culture plays a major role in growing indifference toward religion. In our parents’ generation, movies and television provided overwhelmingly positive depictions of faith. Today, it’s exactly the opposite.

A new study by the Parents Television Council (PTC) and the National Religious Broadcasters highlights this disturbing trend.

According to the survey of 2,385 hours of prime-time broadcasting, over a 12-month period (on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, UPN and WB), there were 2,344 individual treatments of faith – depictions of clergy, laity, religious institutions etc.

Among other findings, members of clergy (pastors, priests, rabbis, etc) were depicted negatively 36.2% of the time, and positively on only 14.6% of occasions. Devout laity came off slightly better – 33.3% negative to 20.4% positive.

The worst offender was NBC, with 9.5 negative depictions of faith for every positive treatment. NBC spokesman Allison Gollust – who said she hadn’t seen the study – nevertheless maintained: “Our programming reflects the diversity of our audience, which averages more than 10 million viewers per night. It is never our intention to appear – nor do we accept the notion that we are – ‘anti-religious.’”

In fact, network television reflects the “diversity” of the entertainment industry – which is overwhelmingly liberal, feminist, pro-homosexual and anti-Christian. As the computer programmers say – garbage in, garbage out.

If Christians are willing to take this lying down, shame on us. A good place to begin the counter-offensive might be with a boycott of NBC.

To see the complete survey, visit the Parents Television Council website – http://www.parentstv.org.

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