Symposium

0 Comments | Insight on the News, June 28, 1999 | by Janet Folger, | Joan M. Garry

Q: Should stations air advertisements for converting gays?

Yes: Stations that bow to the gay lobby am. guilty of censorship and intolerance.

By Janet Folger

We've heard it for years -- the messages from the homosexual lobby: Tolerance. Open-mindedness. Diversity of views. These are the words they say and the words they live by -- unless you happen to disagree with them. Then it's open season for name-calling, hostility and, now, censorship.

On Mother's Day the Center for Reclaiming America and 17 other pro-family groups released a television commercial to air in the Washington area. Simply titled "Mom," it featured Frances Johnston and her son, Michael, a former homosexual. Most of the Washington network affiliates refused to air it. Ultimately, it aired on only one station. The homosexual lobby described it as "hateful."

Here's the script in its entirety. These are real people telling their real story. Determine for yourself if there is any hate in this message:

Frances Johnston: "This is my son, Michael, at 3. I love my son very much. I always have -- even when he told me he was using drugs and involved in homosexuality. Just because you love your children, it doesn't mean you approve of everything they do. Sometimes they make bad choices. My son Michael found out the troth: He could walk away from homosexuality. But he found out too late. He has AIDS. If you love your children, love them enough to let them know the truth -- that there is hope for change ... hope for the future."

Michael Johnston: "A decade ago I walked away from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ." Voice-over: "Michael and thousands of ex-gays are living proof that change is possible. They found freedom from homosexuality through the unconditional love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ. He loves you, too, and He can set you free. It's not about hate -- it's about hope."

When we tried to buy time on the television stations in Washington, we were told that our mother-and-son ad was just "too controversial" in nature. It's a sad day for our nation when an ad proclaiming the traditional Christian viewpoint on homosexuality is deemed controversial while at the same time there are 25 openly homosexual regular characters on prime-time television. In tact, just a few days prior to refusing our ads, the Fox network affiliate ran its Party of Five episode featuring an apparently "noncontroversial" lesbian kiss. Is this not a double standard? Not only is there a void of programming that presents our majority view, but now we can't even buy time to express that viewpoint.

Or is the commercial hateful because it links homosexuality to AIDS? Is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hateful because it links homosexuality to AIDS? According to the CDC, since 1981, 65 percent of the AIDS cases reported among males in the United States have resulted from homosexual behavior.

We at the Center for Reclaiming America have experienced what the homosexual activists' kind of tolerance looks like. Last year, during the Truth-in-Love newspaper campaign, we were attacked for running full-page ads around the country that offered hope to homosexuals with such "intolerant" statements as: "We believe every human being is precious to God and is entitled to respect." Does that sound hateful to you? Yet we received hundreds of vulgar, obscene and threatening phone calls and letters as a result.

But for those who would stay on the telephone long enough for us to explain our position and what the Bible has to say about homosexuality, our callers were quite surprised to find our aim is one of love and hope, not hate and intolerance. In fact we, along with the 17 other pro-family groups, received hundreds of calls and letters of thanks. People told us they thought they were the only ones struggling with homosexuality. Many were unaware that there was even such a thing as a "former homosexual" -- let alone thousands of them.

So what's the problem? Why all the intolerance by the homosexual activists? Well, the very existence of such a thing as a "former" homosexual is a threat to a group that has built a foundation on the premise: You are "born that way" and "cannot change." Even the off-quoted sex experts William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson observe in Human Sexuality that the "genetic theory of homosexuality has been generally discarded today." The fact of the matter is that we know that homosexuals can change because tens of thousands already have. To say otherwise would be to call all of them liars -- which is a pretty bold statement to make. For example, former homosexuals John and Anne Paulk, who appeared on the cover of Newsweek as a result of the campaign last year, are married to each other and are expecting their second child any day. That's a long way to go for a publicity stunt.

But the homosexual lobby and now the television networks are trying to shove all of those people in the closet and slam the door. There's one problem with that: These ex-homosexuals exist and the First Amendment applies to them, too, or at least it should.