By Hilary White
 
  AMSTERDAM, January 9, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Vatican envoy to the Netherlands has been called to a meeting to defend the Catholic teaching on sexuality and marriage by the Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister. At the request of homosexualist activist groups, Maxime Verhagen, a Christian Democrat, has demanded that the Papal Nuncio to the Netherlands, Monsignor François Bacqué, respond to accusations that the Church opposes “gay rights.”
 
  Verhagen said, “The Netherlands is unpleasantly surprised by the opposition of Pope Benedict XVI to a UN declaration on human rights and homosexuality.”
 
  Verhagen noted that although there were points of agreement with the Vatican statements, the “judgments of the Pope on homosexuality” are cause for concern “because they are unnecessarily offensive, as can be seen, and do not contribute” to a worthy debate.
 
  The announcement is part of a declared campaign by homosexualist activist groups who are furious that the Church continues to resist the movement to legitimise homosexual partnerships. A leading homosexualist group in the Netherlands, the Dutch Foundation of Friends of the Gay Krant (SVGK), is calling for an international campaign against the Pope.
 
  The editorial staff of Gay Krant have claimed that “never before in such a short time were there so many angry phone calls, emails and letters.”
 
“On this first working day of the year we really were overwhelmed with responses,” reports SVGK editor Henk Krol, a leader in the international movement for homosexual “civil marriage.”
 
  Krol wrote, “The results of a survey under readers the last few days have been clear. 90% believe that the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Verhagen should protest against the pope.”
 
  In December, the Vatican was attacked in the international press for refusing to endorse the UN motion claiming to “decriminalise homosexuality.” The motion, which is not legally binding, was introduced by Verhagen and by his colleagues from France, and has been signed by only 66 of the UN’s 192 member states. Thus far, although the United States, Russia, China, Guatemala, El Salvador and some African countries have also refused to endorse the resolution, only the representative of the Vatican has been publicly called on the carpet by Verhagen. 
 
  The Vatican’s representative at the UN, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, said in December that although there was agreement that persons with homosexual inclinations should not be subject to arrest or other forms of unjust discrimination, the motion would lend support to the movement to create homosexual “marriage” or other legal recognition for homosexual unions.
 
  The Vatican also opposed the use in the document of expressions such as “gender identity” and “sexual orientation,” saying they are not defined in international law but are only cultural concepts promulgated in the media and the homosexualist political movement.
 
“The Holy See appreciates the attempts made to condemn all forms of violence against homosexual persons as well as urge states to take necessary measures to put an end to all criminal penalties against them,” he said.
 
  The press and homosexualist groups reacted with outrage again later in December when Pope Benedict XVI, in his address to the Papal Curia, indicated that the effort to encourage homosexuals to leave their sinful lifestyle is as important as the movement to save the environment.
 
  Archbishop Migliore told the French news agency I.Media that the proposal is “sad and outrageous” and was a form of “modern savagery that will dismantle our society from the inside out.”
 
“If adopted, they would create new and implacable discriminations,” Migliore said. “For example, states which do not recognise same-sex unions as ‘matrimony’ will be pilloried and made an object of pressure.”
 
  Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

The Pope Had the Guts to Say We Need to Save Ourselves from Self-Destructive Sexual Lifestyles
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/dec/08122301.html

NEW YORK, April 1, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) -- A transgender man said he was raped Saturday night in the "unisex" bathroom at a landmark homosexual bar in Greenwich Village.

The transgender man, who dresses like and claims to be a woman, was believed to be "heavily impaired" by alcohol and/or drugs, according to the New York Post.  The suspect is a regular at the Stonewall Inn.  

Security video shows the suspect following the transgender man into the single-occupancy bathroom, and the two coming out eight minutes later.  The transgender man called 911 and was taken to the hospital for treatment.

Transgender activists have been fighting a culture war to eliminate natural male/female gender designations from society.  Facebook now has 58 possible gender identifications, while The Living Rede lists at least 63 gender combinations.  

As if in lockstep, the Obama Administration is pressuring cities and businesses to establish unisex restrooms and make intimate facilities wide open to all genders.  Mayors of major cities such as New York and Seattle have obeyed Caesar, making all public facilities transgender open by executive fiat.

The Obama Administration even went so far as to redefine Title IX school funding to economically force even elementary schools to let biological boys use the girls’ toilets, showers, locker rooms.  

All this in the name of the transgender person’s “safety” and “well-being.”  (And, of course, the men’s acceptance as women, and vice versa.)

And yet, creating “unisex” bathrooms and transgender-open showers and locker rooms welcoming the opposite sex has not resulted in greater safety for anyone.  Canada’s transgender-affirming laws can increase incidents of women being attacked by men in restrooms.  Concerned Women for America’s Donna Miller, in researching Canada’s transgender laws, found they actually endanger women, not protect them.  And in the United States, women have been killed in bathroom attacks.

It is ironic, then, that when liberals are fighting for transgender men not only to be affirmed as "women" in every sense (including legally, and biologically), including fighting for those men to have the "right" to use women's toilets and showers for their safety, that a “woman” is raped in what is supposed to be a safer facility.

Here we have the Stonewall Inn, the recognized and honored pinnacle of the gay/liberal agenda, the holy grail of homosexuality, transvestitism, and transgenderism, following the liberal line with unisex bathrooms, and a "woman" is attacked.

The moral of the story is that changing the signs of your bathroom from "men’s" and "women’s" to "unisex" does not protect anybody.

"The bottom line here is that men should never be allowed to enter women's restrooms," Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, told LifeSiteNews. "The LGBT Lobby is now trying to tug at our heartstrings regarding men supposedly being victimized just because they want to go to the bathroom.”

"But the real victims of the radical pro-transgender agenda are women and girls, who deserve to feel safe and comfortable in the private spaces of female restrooms and locker rooms,” the moral leader said.

"Once again we face the prospect of our entire society being turned upside down to appease the unnatural demands of less than one percent of the population,” LaBarbera concluded.  “Let us hope that reason and common sense prevail, and our lawmakers do not capitulate to activists who would put our wives and daughters and grandmothers at risk to achieve a distorted vision of 'equality' based on gender confusion."

The Stonewall Inn is considered the birthplace of the modern gay movement.  Run by the New York Mafia without a liquor license, a major riot began there on June 28, 1969, after plainclothes New York police officers raided the bar on morals charges.

Homosexual men, many dressed as women, come to the bar that night after hearing of the raid and began pelting police with bottles, slashing police car tires, and attempting to overturn cars.  The homosexuals were joined by the Black Panthers, and anti-Vietnam war protesters.  They broke windows and attempted to set the Inn and police ablaze.

Sporadic violence continued for days.  As a result, the "Gay Liberation Front" was formed.  On the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots, June 28, 1970, the first ever "Gay Pride" public parade was organized.

In his second inaugural address, President Barack Obama honored the Stonewall riots, saying its aims are an integral part of American “freedom."

“It’s a very disturbing incident taking place in a site that’s very important historically, where something good happened,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said.  "To see a violent incident like this is very troubling.”

Two New York politicians are working to designate the Stonewall Inn as the first national park honoring LGBTQ history.

RALEIGH, April 1, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – In a situation reminiscent of last year's religious freedom fight in Indiana, and the more recent one last week in Georgia, powerful politicians and CEOs across America are teaming up with the LGBT lobby to pressure North Carolina to overturn its new law protecting privacy in restrooms and similar facilities.

Inside the state, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory has refused to back down on his signature of the measure, despite pressure from Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper, who is running a campaign against McCrory.

The Republican governor signed the law last week after a statewide outcry against a Charlotte ordinance requiring all businesses and public buildings to allow citizens identifying as transgender to use their preferred bathrooms, locker rooms, and similar facilities.

The bill overrode the Charlotte ordinance, but included exemptions that allow public entities to make their own internal hiring policies, and allows transgendered individuals who have legally changed their gender on their birth certificates to use restrooms and other facilities of the opposite sex.

Calling the law "a national embarrassment," Cooper has said he will not defend it, and on Tuesday he declared that "this new law provides for broad-based discrimination" and that "the LGBT community is targeted." He also said the law conflicts with the employment policies of the Attorney General's office, and thus "in order to protect our non-discrimination policy and employees, along with those of our client, the State Treasurer's Office, part of our argument will be that HB2 is unconstitutional."

State Senator Phil Berger said in a statement that Cooper's "zeal for pandering for the extreme left’s money and agenda in his race for governor is making it impossible for him to fulfill his duties as attorney general – and he should resign immediately."

Cooper argues the governor's office and others named in the lawsuit can hire outside attorneys to represent them.

Cooper's rhetoric mirrors that of CEOs and politicians nationwide who have partnered with LGBT advocacy groups to declare North Carolina persona non-grata thanks to the law.

Several LGBT advocacy groups have filed suit, saying the law is unconstitutional and meant to legalize discrimination. Scores of businesses have opposed the law, as well, with more than 120 "major" CEOs, including mega-billionaires like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Kellogg’s John Bryant, signing a letter opposing the law that was delivered to the governor by the Human Rights Campaign. The companies include Google, Microsoft, Barnes & Noble, Levi & Straus, Twitter, Starbucks, and Wells Fargo.

“In our meeting with Governor McCrory, we made crystal clear that HB 2 is discriminatory, shameful, and needs to be repealed immediately,” said Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin in a statement earlier this week. “The question Governor McCrory faces is a simple one: will he seize this opportunity to show true leadership, or will he allow North Carolina to remain on the wrong side of history? This law is doing extraordinary damage to the state’s economic prospects, its reputation, and most importantly, it’s LGBT community.”

In the letter, the CEOs said they "are disappointed in your decision to sign this discriminatory legislation into law. The business community, by and large, has consistently communicated to lawmakers at every level that such laws are bad for our employees and bad for business. This is not a direction in which states move when they are seeking to provide successful, thriving hubs for business and economic development."

"We believe that HB 2 will make it far more challenging for businesses across the state to recruit and retain the nation’s best and brightest workers and attract the most talented students from across the nation. It will also diminish the state’s draw as a destination for tourism, new businesses, and economic activity."

Corporations have regularly come down on the side of LGBT advocacy groups in recent years. Last year, Apple CEO Tim Cook led the charge against an Indiana religious freedom law that was eventually neutered by Governor Mike Pence.

The openly gay Cook, whose organization does business in nations such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, had threatened Indiana with the loss of business from his company.

Earlier this week, several mayors and the governor of New York eliminated non-essential travel on the public dollar to the state. San Francisco and New York City -- as well as Seattle, whose mayor eliminated all publicly funded travel to North Carolina -- have been joined by Chicago and Boston, and Washington State, Connecticut, and Vermont became the newest states to ban publicly-funded travel.

“It is my hope for our nation that we do not allow issues of discrimination to divide us,” said Seattle Mayorr Ed Murray, who is openly homosexual, in a statement. “Our union is only made stronger when all Americans are treated equitably.”

For his part, McCrory has refused to back down. He accused New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo of hypocrisy, telling Fox News that Cuomo should not continue to encourage travel to Cuba -- a nation that commits major human rights abuses as a matter of course.

In a statement earlier this week, McCrory spokesperson Josh Ellis said that "there’s no doubt there is a well-coordinated, national campaign to smear our state’s reputation after we passed a common-sense law to ensure no government can take away our basic expectations of privacy in bathrooms, locker rooms and showers."

In an unrelated press release, McCrory praised his state's 3.1 percent unemployment rate, calculated by the Labor Department. According to the release, since McCrory took office in 2013, North Carolina "has added more than 260,000 private sector jobs and is currently ranked 6th in the nation in job creation."

ROME, April 1, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) -- Life and family leaders from across the world will meet in Vatican City next month for the third annual Rome Life Forum to strategize on how best to defend and promote Christian teaching on sexuality, marriage, family, and life. 

“In this critical hour for the Church, it has never been more necessary for leaders to come together to defend and promote Catholic teaching on the family,” said event organizer Maria Madise, International Director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, to LifeSiteNews.

Madise said the event is open to anyone in a leadership position who is ready to role up their sleeves and get to work. 

“The Forum is intended for all who have, or aspire to, a leadership position in the life and family movement – whether it be internationally, nationally or in your local parish or community,” she said. 

Prominent speakers at the event include Cardinal Raymond Burke and Bishop Athanasius Schneider. Also speaking will be leaders from international pro-life organizations including Fr. Shenan Boquet of Human Life International, John Smeaton of the U.K. Society for the Protection of the Unborn, and LifeSiteNews’ very own John-Henry Westen. 

The event will be held May 6-7 at the Hotel Columbus, followed afterwards by the May 8 Rome March for Life. Organizers are asking participants to register by April 8. 

In 2014, the year of the inaugural Rome Life Forum, 52 pro-life leaders from 16 nations signed a declaration calling on Catholic bishops to deny Holy Communion to pro-abortion politicians in a spirit of love and mercy. 

Last year the forum focused on addressing the implications of the Synods on the Family as well as the papacy of Francis as they relate to the life and family issues. 

John Henry Westen, a founder of the Forum, has called the event an important opportunity to advance the culture of life.

“The Rome Life Forum was an initiative we believed would benefit the awesome leaders we know in many countries around the world. A meeting where they could get to know one another, trust one another and collaborate to advance a culture of life,” he said. 

For more information or to register, contact: 

Maria Madise
mariamadise[at]voiceofthefamily.info 
+44 20 7820 3148

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