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Debate with Townhall.com Book Service

re: The Homosexual Agenda

On August 7, 2003, I received email from Townhall Book Service regarding a new book they were recommending. Although I enjoy and respect Townhall Book Services and have purchased from them several times, this book was just downright offensive to me. I wrote an email of protest to customerservice@THBookservice.com and to my surprise got a reply.

Mr. Jeff Rubin responded with a defense of the book. I believe the book is indefensible and replied. That began a back-and-forth correspondence in which two conservatives debated the gay/conservative issue. I think it is worthy enough to reprint here.

The following email is unchanged. I left all my misuse and mistyping of words as is. I did not change Mr. Rubin's email in any way. I hope you enjoy it.

This ad started our correspondence:



In the wake of the Supreme Court's "right to sodomy" ruling... REVEALED: How "gay rights" activists plan to destroy marriage and the family -- and rob you of your religious liberty

"Clear, irrefutable, convincing, and frightening"
The Homosexual Agenda
by Alan Sears and Craig Osten

For more than 30 years, homosexual activists have aggressively pursued their vision of an America in which their behavior is affirmed and their critics are silenced...



-----Original Message----- From: JerryBrown [ ]
Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2003 3:13 PM
To: customerservice@THBookservice.com
Cc: info@frontpagemagazine.com
Subject: The Homosexual Agenda

Re: Townhall.com Book Service selection, The Homosexual Agenda

I'm appalled that Town Hall Book Service would stoop to handling Alan Sears and Craig Osten's book, The Homosexual Agenda. Your blurb said, "REVEALED: How 'gay rights' activists plan to destroy marriage and the family -- and rob you of your religious liberty." That is both outrageous and lying. I know many gay people, and none of them - activist or otherwise - want to destroy the family, marriage, or religious liberty. To say such a thing is the depth of irresponsible rhetoric. The ad for the book said, "Clear, irrefutable, convincing, and frightening." That's not true simply because it's impossible to offer "irrefutable" evidence of something that doesn't exist.

All the gay people I know - which happen to be scores if not hundreds - are responsible citizens who want nothing more than to have employment and a peaceful life. They attend church. They pray. They vote. They hold jobs. They love their families and they want families of their own. You are painting them as if they were vicious low-life people who hate God, their parents and their country. They're not. How could you be a participant in presenting them like that? It is deplorable.

Can't you imagine the harm you're doing? Already too many gays have entered the liberal/left/socialist/atheist camp. Why? Because they are pushed there by people like Alan Sears and Craig Osten. There are plenty of gays who gladly support conservativism, pro-God and pro-family issues. But you... you won't have them. It's not them; it's you who are responsible. You expel them to the enemies' camps and then you blame them for being there. Such lying, irresponsible, unseemly hypocrisy! There's no need for that. There's no need for a respectable organization like Town Hall to support or be an accomplice to books like The Homosexual Agenda and people like Alan Sears and Craig Osten.

Jerry Brown
eagles@quixnet.net




-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Rubin [ ]
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 10:59 AM
To: 'eagles@quixnet.net'
Cc: Stuart Richens
Subject: Your email to TownHall Book Service re: "The Homosexual Agenda"

Mr. Brown:
Very sorry that you feel as you do. Still, the fact that "gays" of your personal acquaintance do not sympathize with the agenda covered in Sears and Osten's book doesn't invalidate the authors' very well-documented -- and on many points self-evident -- claims. Do you deny that a very well-organized, well-funded and increasingly powerful "gay" lobby has been trying -- with no little success -- to, for instance, pressure the Boy Scouts to hire "gay" scoutmasters in violation of its own creed and over the objections of concerned parents? To forbid individuals who believe that homosexual behavior is sinful from refusing to rent rooms to "gay" couples? To propagandize in schools (beginning as early as kindergarten) in favor of a morally neutral (even celebratory) approach to sodomy? To legalize "gay marriage," which would seriously undermine true (heterosexual) marriage and have devastating consequences for the welfare of children and the health of families?

But I sense from your email that your disagreement goes deeper; that you're not so much denying the the gay agenda as agreeing with it. How else to read your phrase, "they love their families and want families of their own," except as an endorsement of "gay marriage" and "gay adoption"? Correct me if I'm wrong on that; but if I'm right, then, forgive my bluntness, you've come to the wrong movement. "Gays" have indeed been natural allies of the Left because they share a fundamental hostility to the traditional social and moral order, and to the "laws of nature and Nature's God" (to quote the Declaration of Independence) which undergird that order. I and most other conservatives would welcome their support on any legitimate conservative issue to which they would be inclined to lend it; but if the price of that support is surrender to the gay agenda, it's not a price worth paying.

Sincerely,
Jeffrey Rubin, Editor
Eagle Book Clubs




-----Original Message-----
From: JerryBrown
To: 'Jeff Rubin'
Sent: 8/8/03 4:40 PM
Subject: RE: Your email to TownHall Book Service re: "The Homosexual Agenda"

Dear Mr. Rubin,
I'm surprised and charmed that you responded to my email. Thank you for taking time out of your schedule for this matter. You asked me several questions in your letter which I hope were not rhetorical, because I plan to answer them. I believe that the stand some conservative people have taking regarding homosexuals is wrong, godless, and not consistent with conservative guidelines. They hurt other people and they hurt the conservative agenda.

You asked questions and made points. Allow me to respond. Your words will be quoted in bold print and mine in regular font.

You said,
Do you deny that a very well-organized, well-funded and increasingly powerful "gay" lobby has been trying -- with no little success -- to, for instance, pressure the Boy Scouts to hire "gay" scoutmasters in violation of its own creed and over the objections of concerned parents?
No, I don't deny that. I do question whether this is a conservative/liberal issue. May I use an allegory here? Please replace "gay" in that sentence with the word "black." Do you think the Boy Scouts should do to black people and black children what they have done to gay people and gay children? If you answer "Yes," then I agree with you concerning them doing it to gays. If you answer "No," then I agree with you concerning them not doing it to gays. But if your answer is, "That's not the same thing. Gays are different from blacks," then I say you are a deluded and dishonest conservative.

I must introduce a new topic here because it is demanded by this conversation. Much of the gay/conservative/liberal issue can be resolved by answering the question, "Is being gay a chosen lifestyle or is it genetic?" If it is not chosen, then that puts gays in the same category as blacks. Some conservatives (but not all!) such as Alan Sears and Craig Osten, and some religious people (but not all!) claim being gay is chosen and not genetic.

Ask gay people: are they gay because they chose to be gay, or did they one day discover they were gay? Ask sociologists and other people who are specifically studying this matter. They all say they being gay is a born-with condition. They all know that because either it happened to them, or else they studied it carefully.

Then why do some religious and some conservative heterosexual people say it is chosen? There is only one reason to say that... because it conflicts with their doctrines and beliefs. If these people were to admit that being gay is a natural condition, then they must change their doctrines of politics and religion. God forbid they should have to change! No, much better for them to deny gays basic human rights than to admit they are wrong.

Tell me: When did you choose to be heterosexual? Tell me the day and hour you decided to be heterosexual. If you did not choose to be heterosexual, then why do you bedevil other people by saying they did chose their sexuality?

You said,
...to forbid individuals who believe that homosexual behavior is sinful from refusing to rent rooms to "gay" couples?
Let's go back to the analogy. Do you believe individuals who believe that being black is a curse of God should be allowed to decline renting housing to black people? If you say, "Yes," then I agree they may also do it to gays. If you say, "No," then I agree they should not do it to gays.

Besides that, I think this is NOT a conservative/liberal issue. It is a basic human rights issue. Conservatives and liberals should be on the same side regarding this matter.

You said,
To propagandize in schools (beginning as early as kindergarten) in favor of a morally neutral (even celebratory) approach to sodomy?
That is obviously a liberal/leftist/communist effort to break down American society. No doubt liberal gays would support it, but conservative gays would not.

Why would you attack conservative gay people because of the antics of liberal gay people? Would you do that to all Americans because some a leftist? All blacks? All Hispanics?

You said,
To legalize "gay marriage," which would seriously undermine true (heterosexual) marriage and have devastating consequences for the welfare of children and the health of families?
Here is the crux. That is nothing more than propaganda; it is absurd, and clearly false.
How would gay marriage undermine heterosexual marriage? It can't.
How would it have devastating consequences for the welfare of children? It can't.
How would it have devastating consequences for the health of families? It can't.

These are silly accusations and no more than fear-mongering. It is the same thing people said during the civil rights movement when they accused the blacks of trying to taint pure white blood by impregnating white women. Such tactics should be beneath people like you.

There is only one way gay marriage could undermine heterosexual marriage, and that is if people saw gay marriage was so far superior to heterosexual marriage they would all flock to it. But of course that could never happen because most people are not gay.

That statement is nothing more than baseless, homophobic, fear-mongering screaming rhetoric, hoping to gain a point because facts are not on your side.

You said,
How else to read your phrase, "they love their families and want families of their own," except as an endorsement of "gay marriage"
Oops, you guessed wrong. When I said "they love their families," I was refuting the ridiculous claim that gays were out to destroy the family. Gays have fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and so on. They love their families, just as white people do, and blacks, and everyone else. To claim they have an agenda to destroy families in American is downright silly.

And yes, they do want their own spouse. They want to come home from work to their own spouse, have supper, watch the television, talk to each other, go to bed, get up the next morning and go to work. They cannot do that with a person of the opposite sex, because they're gay. They just want a normal life, and people like you are denying it to them. And why? Why are you denying these people a normal life? Because if you don't, then your opinions about being gay are wrong, and God forbid that you should be wrong. Better to deny someone else a life than to adjust your prejudices.

You said,
but if I'm right, then, forgive my bluntness, you've come to the wrong movement.
Sorry, Sir, but you're wrong about me coming to the wrong movement. You just gave a clear, simple example of a conservative trying to push a gay into the liberal camp, and then blaming him for being liberal. The very fact you said that shows you don't really have a good understanding about what it is to be conservative. Do you think being conservative means you have to adopt every idiotic thing someone in the conservative movement says if he writes a book? Most of your objections listed above are not even conservative/liberal; they were simple matters of human rights that both groups should support.

I'm conservative because I believe in capitalism, free enterprise, self-discipline and self-responsibility. I believe in limited government. I believe we should have reasonable taxes - which today means "lower." I think people should be taught to take responsibility for their own welfare than looking to the government as a parent.

You, on the other hand, apparently think I'm liberal because I don't believe the way to strengthen marriage is by forbidding some people to get married. This is not a conservative/liberal issue. It is a human rights issue, and you should be on board with it.

You said,
"Gays" have indeed been natural allies of the Left because they share a fundamental hostility to the traditional social and moral order.
You're so silly. Gays don't have a fundamental hostility to the traditional social and moral order. They embrace it. The only reason gays are so prevalent in the liberal movement is because people like you put them there. You kick them out of your group, slander them, deny them basic living needs (like housing, employment, education, church), and then you wonder why they are all over there. This is not a fundamental hostility; it is preservation of life.

You said,
and to the "laws of nature and Nature's God" (to quote the Declaration of Independence)
Am I not right in thinking the Declaration of Independence did not identify these "laws of nature and of Nature's God." If it does not, then what you just did was take a phrase, pour in your own venom as its definition, and then claimed authority from the Declaration of Independence. That's the type of thing I would expect of a communist, and that is the type of thing I get from you.

Am I also right in thinking the Declaration of Independence is not the law of the land?

You said, "Nature's God." You're invoking religion. That's OK; I'm for it. You're putting words in God's mouth... I guess you know that. The only way we know about God's will is through the Bible. Do you remember Galileo? The Roman Church made him recant. The Bible clearly states in over 100 passages that the sun revolves around the earth. The church forced Galileo to recant because he said the earth moves around the sun.

It turned out that one of the most precious doctrines of the Roman church, one they held for 1500 years, was wrong because they based it on a wrong interpretation of the Bible. In the same way, people are using their interpretation of the Bible to harm gays in the same way they used their interpretation to justify slavery in the South. It is now apparent and shown that being gay is not a choice but an act of God. You, however, would subvert the Bible and Nature's God just so you can have your own way and not be wrong in your doctrine.

You finally said,
I and most other conservatives would welcome their support on any legitimate conservative issue to which they would be inclined to lend it; but if the price of that support is surrender to the gay agenda, it's not a price worth paying.
But we have already seen that you don't really know what is a "legitimate conservative issue." If the price of gay support in conservative issues is not worth the price to you of providing basic and equal human rights to gays, then I pity you and your own conservative agenda. As for me, I'm a conservative and a Christian, and I oppose people like you to your face. Praise God for that.

Best wishes,
Jerry Brown
Burbank, CA
eagles@quixnet.net




-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Rubin []
Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 7:30 AM
To: 'JerryBrown '
Subject: RE: Your email to TownHall Book Service re: "The Homosexual Agenda"

Mr. Brown:

You raise far too many issues -- everything from the etiology of homosexuality to the meaning of marriage to the teachings of Christianity -- for me even to begin responding to them. I simply do not have time to engage in the kind of back-and-forth, line-for-line debate that you are attempting to launch here. I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree on these topics. It's quite plain that you don't so much deny that "gay" activists are in fact pursuing the goals outlined in Sears and Ostens' book -- the legitimation of "gay marriage," forcing the Boy Scouts to allow "gay" scoutmasters, and so on -- as deny that there's "anything wrong with that," to coin a phrase.

Fine. But I'm afraid it's a little silly for you to profess yourself shocked -- shocked! -- that a conservative book service would promote a book disagreeing with the gay agenda. You may believe that most people describing themselves as conservatives SHOULDN'T oppose that agenda, but the plain fact is that they DO. Indeed, maybe some day they WON'T -- after all, the definition of "conservative" is not fixed from above, and in the usage of the liberal media is already used to denote, for instance, hard-line Communists in present-day Russia and China. If and when that day comes, I'll be among those who are proud NOT to call themselves conservatives.

Sincerely,
Jeff Rubin




-----Original Message-----
From: JerryBrown
To: 'Jeff Rubin'
Sent: 8/9/03 10:50 AM
Subject: RE: Your email to TownHall Book Service re: "The Homosexual Agenda"

Dear Mr. Rubin,

I understand the impossibility of us to engage in a line-for-line debate. We are both far to busy for that. The only reason I began it was because your email was so wrong in every instance that I couldn't let the unfounded propaganda pass without calling you on it.

You said that most people who are called "conservatives" do oppose homosexuals. My point is that this is not a conservative issue; it is a prejudice issue. And you ended it by saying if conservatives do embrace human rights, you will be proud not to call yourself a conservative. I'm sorry for you; you're one sick little puppy.

I just pray that the same lunacy which afflicts the socialist/communist party doesn't find a home in the conservative party, although I recognize it has already done that in some conservatives. I am shocked and disheartened that the very people who are qualified to bring us rational justice and equality themselves take pleasure in denying it to gays. And I do protest that Townhall Book Service supports that very activity.

Best wishes, as always.
Jerry




-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Rubin []
Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 10:03 AM
To: 'JerryBrown '
Subject: RE: Your email to TownHall Book Service re: "The Homosexual Agenda"

For the record, Mr. Brown -- and then let's call it quits -- I never said that I "oppose homosexuals," or that "if conservatives ever do embrace human rights" I will be proud not to call myself one, or that I "take pleasure" in denying "equality and justice" to homosexuals. That is your spin on what I said, which was something quite different. In any event, it doesn't strengthen your argument to call me "sick." Did I call you "queer"?




-----Original Message-----
RE: Your email to TownHall Book Service re: "The Homosexual Agenda"From: JerryBrown [eagles@quixnet.net]
Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 10:16 AM
To: 'Jeff Rubin'
Subject: RE: Your email to TownHall Book Service re: "The Homosexual Agenda"

You’re quite right on the direct quotations.
I took the topic and your response to it, which comes down to the same thing.
Again, I wish you the best.

Jerry




NOTE: This following correspondenance between Mr. Rubin and me occured after the above was posted on my web site.

You may notice that sometimes the time of day recorded on my reply to Jeff precedes the time on his email. That is because there is a 3-hour difference between our time-zones.




-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Rubin
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 5:03 AM
To: 'JerryBrown '
Subject: RE:

Mr. Brown:
I have no objection to your publishing our correspondence. But I consider the act of disseminating my work address and personal email address, derived from private correspondence with me, to be an obvious attempt at intimidation. You know as well as I that this is an extremely inflammatory issue -- you, after all, became very heated in your rhetoric and quickly resorted to calling me "sick." Any violence or threats of violence against me, my colleagues, my family, or anyone else that results from this irresponsible act will be on your head, though you doubtless don't give a damn and are hoping for precisely that kind of reaction.

Jeff Rubin




-----Original Message-----
From: JerryBrown
To: 'Jeff Rubin'
Sent: 8/12/03 9:39 AM
Subject: RE:

Dear Mr. Rubin.
I removed the offending material. I have no intention of intimidating you.

I want to point out that in this your email you said I "quickly" called you "sick". I want to remind you that the word "sick" appeared near the end of our correspondence and not at the beginning. It could not have been "quick." Furthermore, you could tell by the context that my use of the word "sick" does not mean depraved, as come    [i.e. "some"]    of your colleagues would call gays. It is pointing out how seriously flawed and twisted your logic is in relation to being gay and conservative. It has nothing to do with your moral character.

Best wishes,
Jerry




-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Rubin
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 8:34 AM
To: 'JerryBrown '
Subject: RE:

Thank you. In the future, it would be more courteous to ask permission before publishing personal correspondence on the Web. I certainly would. But maybe I'm an old-fashioned kind of conservative, and you're of the progressive variety, if that isn't a contradiction in terms.




-----Original Message-----
From: JerryBrown
To: 'Jeff Rubin'
Sent: 8/12/03 6:15 AM Subject: RE:

Hi J,
I don’t think so (about asking your permission first before printing the email). Let’s stand up and take responsibility for what we believe and say. Isn’t that what conservativism is all about? Taking responsibility for one’s own actions?

I don’t know what you mean by “progressive.” As far as I know, political “progressive” and “Progressive Party” are pseudonyms for communism and the Communist Party. I am neither communist nor liberal. I also recognize that attacking gay people is not a conservative issue; it is prejudice trying to excuse itself by masquerading as conservative.

On the other hand, I do strenuously oppose radical liberal activity of many gay people, just as I oppose the radical liberal activity of many blacks, Hispanics, Irish, English, etc.

I consider gay bashing a shame in the conservative arena. Conservatives should be the first to support gays, even before liberals do. Theirs is like the attitude of prohibiting black people to attend a white church – it’s an attitude that’s got to change for the good of the party.

Best wishes, as always.
Jerry Brown