BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, June 18, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Massachusetts pro-family organization MassResistance had its website shut down after a homosexual activist sent threatening e-mails to its webhost, including personal information such as the owner’s home address. And the internet’s most widely read conservative website bowed to pressure, as well.
The Kentucky-based web host company HostExcellence shut down the website last Monday after Adam Flanders, a 25-year-old LGBT activist, complained that the site hosted a letter he wrote exposing a homosexual organization in 2007.
In January 2007, Flanders distributed a letter to local media exposing the activities of the Rockland, Maine-based homosexual organization known as OUT! … As I Want to Be. He wrote that its adult members were often intoxicated, propositioned or fondled minors, and turned a blind eye to pedophilia in its ranks.
Flanders was convicted of the sexual abuse of a minor in 2008 and is registered as a sex offender in the state of Maine. His victim was 14 or 15 years old at the time.
Sometime after that, he had a change of heart and demanded all media outlets remove his letter. Living up to its name, MassResistance refused. That’s when Flanders targeted the hosting company.
“Flanders listed the company owner’s full name, his home address, and his business address” in an endeavor that was “clearly meant to frighten him,” MassResistance wrote in a statement e-mailed to LifeSiteNews.com Flanders gave the owner 24 hours to take down the MassResistance site and “threatened that he would begin various immediate legal actions against the owner personally, saying he was ‘personally culpable’ and would be seeking ‘personal damages’ from him.”
HostExcellence deleted the website on Monday.
“I think they just did not want to go up against the homosexual movement,” Camenker, told American Family Radio host Bryan Fischer. “It’s an absurd, ridiculous thing that would never hold up in court.”
The pro-family organization put its website back online with a new hosting company, led by a committed Christian who has refused Flanders’ requests to again silence the group. Meanwhile, Richard Mast of Liberty Counsel has offered his services to protect MassResistance’s rights, seeking an explanation from Host Excellence.
The move came shortly after Flanders convinced a Maine judge to issue a restraining order against MassResistance President Brian Camenker, although Camenker had never contacted him.
One of the web’s most visited conservative websites publicized the group’s plight, only to remove the stories.
WND.com (formerly WorldNetDaily) posted two articles last Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively. Both had been taken down by Thursday.
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“We finally were able to speak to someone at WorldNetDaily who admitted that Flanders had contacted them and had made various claims and legal threats,” according to a press release from MassResistance. “So WorldNetDaily took them down…until further notice.” The articles can be seen here and here.
The censorship of MassResistance parallels a broader strategy on the Left often involving SWATing, in which radical activists call phony reports in to local police stations in an effort to have the blogger’s home raided by the SWAT team.
Pastor Scott Lively faced a lawsuit accusing him of “crimes against humanity” for emphasizing therapy for Ugandan homosexuals. The lawsuit was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a George Soros-funded Marxist group that regularly defends terrorists and their American enablers.
Last January, a left-wing activist called police posing as Patrick Frey, the proprietor of Patterico’s Pontifications, a right-leaning legal blog. “I just shot her, my wife,” he said. Police responded in the middle of the night and handcuffed Frey until they discovered his wife was safe and very much alive.
Sheriff’s deputies pulled up to the home of Erick Erickson of RedState.com in May, saying they had gotten a report of an accidental shooting in his home. Erickson, who had received threats in the days before the false report, warned his local police to be on the lookout for such a call.
Sarah Palin has said “those responsible for this SWAT-ing must be held accountable by the law.” U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss, R-GA, has asked Eric Holder’s Justice Department to investigate the wave of false reports.
“If they can do this to us, they can do this to anyone,” Camenker said.
However, he said MassResistance will moderate its strong pro-family, pro-marriage message. And others are willing to help them.
“Soon after our site went down our office got a phone call from a web hosting country in a foreign country across the ocean. They said they’d be happy to host us if it’s become too dangerous in America,” he said.
“We’re thinking seriously about it. But has it really come to that?”