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| LaBarbera doesn't like to be asked about his tactics. |
In 2008, before I was "well-known" enough for Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth to block me on twitter and avoid my email questions, he and I had an interesting email debate.
If you ask me, this debate is probably the singular reason why LaBarbera bends over backwards to avoid me. The email debate, at the time served as a blueprint of a basic belief I have when it comes to anti-gay spokespeople, groups, and propaganda. For too long, lgbts have been put on the defensive about our lives and our families. In spite of the fact that the courts, science, and the arena of public opinion are on our side, we constantly take the bait when anti-gay groups and spokespeople begin questioning our lives, as if we constantly need to refute them or justify our existence.
And all of this happens in front of a backdrop of distortions, lies, junk science, and cherry-picked science disguised as Christian beliefs. This decades-old backdrop has been, for the most part, unquestioned by the mainstream media and even our media. I say it's time for lgbts to stop being on the defensive because we have proven ourselves continuously. It's time for anti-gay groups and their spokespeople to explain themselves, explain their claims, and most of all explain their most un-Christian tactics to deny our equality.
That was the subject of the debate between LaBarbera and I. And as you can see, LaBarbera wasn't used to being questioned
Beginning of 2008 post :
On his webpage, our friend Peter publishes his "response" to an email allegedly sent to him from a person from Michigan regarding his recent publishing of x-rated pictures from a San Francisco street fair.
Peter does not publish the person's letter but says the following:
The following is adapted from my response to a letter from a Michigan pro-homosexual activist who wrote AFTAH, making the usual obnoxious charges: that I am a “pornographer” (for exposing San Francisco’s government-tolerated public street depravities) — and, of course, that I am a secret homosexual (”You are gay and part of you knows it and HATES it”). It’s all par for the course when you cover the loving and tolerant GLBT community.
By not showing the alleged "obnoxious" letter but publishing his response, Peter tries to make himself look intelligent and noble.
Don't be fooled.
You see, Peter and I had an email exchange last week and based on that exchange, Peter does not come across as an intelligent or noble person. Nor does he come across as a particularly moral person.
Judge for yourself as I reveal a snippet of our email conversation. In it, I was able to question Peter point blank about his tactics as well as the tactics of other members of the anti-gay industry:
From: Peter L.
To: CharleKenghis@aol.com
Sent: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 10:42 am
Spare me. Talk about consumed? You are beholden to your "gay" ideology, so much so that you are actually comparing ex-gays to that? Skin color is immutable. MANY people have left homosexuality behind. Just because YOU don't believe that -- or you explain it away thru your various arguments doesn't make it not so.
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 11:29 AM
To: PeterLaBarbera@comcast.net
well you can always ask wade richards or michael johnston. to me though sexual orienation is fluid. science may never find the reasons behind sexual orientation. but it leans to it not being able to be chosen.
but you miss the point, peter.
Your beliefs about homosexuality is on what you call a solid foundation (i.e. the Bible). Every time you and those on your side distort legitimate studies, every time you all use bad studies (i.e. Paul Cameron, John R. Diggs), every time you go to one of those subcultural events and attack lgbts there without saying a word about the heterosexuals who attend the events, you weaken that foundation.
The house you seem to think you are building on a rock will start to have a foundation of sand. And that house will crumble.
Look around you. It's crumbling now.