Homosexual activists poised to terrorize this week's "Truth Academy" in Chicago -- conference on the homosexual agenda in America

So many things about AFTAH's forthcoming anti-gay "academy" are offensive on their face that it's easy to lose sight of the broader, strategic reasons for organizing public protests against organizations like AFTAH.

Many rightly have a visceral reaction against organizations that try to turn back the clock to a time in American history when it was openly acceptable to scapegoat minorities who had already endured plenty of hate and discrimination, thank you very much.

Organizations like AFTAH that target young people for indoctrination with bigotry - their anti-gay "academy" says that it's for people as young as 14-years-old - recall historical pictures of adult white supremacists bringing their children to rallies against African Americans, Jews and "communists."

Important as these reasons are for protesting AFTAH, our own LGBT civil rights struggle shows that there are civil rights opportunities to be gained by not taking an "ignore them and they'll go away approach" towards groups like AFTAH.

[I]n the late 1970s when the pro-gay movement which brought us Harvey Milk defeated the anti-gay movement represented by Anita Bryant, they did it by successfully labeling Bryant as a narrow-minded bigot very reminiscent of the bigots which the African American Civil Rights Movement organized against. All the "pro-family" and "Save Our Children" saccharine in the world could not protect her from a pro-gay movement which peeled away the patriotic and "Christian" façade to reveal a nasty bigot underneath.

For the most part, our present-day mainstream LGBT leaders repeatedly fail to take on the present-day Anita Bryants. Instead, while AFTAH and the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) spew out vitriol suggesting that we are a bunch of disease-ridden child molesters, pro-gay leaders typically pull their punches and prefer to shy away from labeling creeps in AFTAH and NOM as the anti-gay bigots that they are. The result, in contrast to our 1978 victory over California's anti-gay Briggs Amendment, is our defeat in many eminently winnable anti-gay referenda fights over the past few years, including in places like Maine where we held a 2-to-1 fundraising advantage.

Rather than paint the Catholic and Mormon Church leaderships as bigots opposed to equal rights and painting them into a corner the way that Harvey Milk, et al, did against Anita Bryant, most LGBT leaders give anti-gay leaders like the Pope a pass; instead, they try to compete on the same terrain by setting up "faith-based" divisions at organizations like the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and out-doing the bigots in demonstrating our "godliness" and "pro-family values" (whether we're Christian or not, or whether we consider ourselves part of families or not).

So as important as it is to oppose AFTAH's nasty attempt to indoctrinate the next generation with anti-LGBT hate, our protest on Thursday night is about much more than that, too. It is also about breaking from the failed strategy which gave us the California Prop 8 and Maine Question 1 defeats. It's about rejecting a "kids-glove" treatment towards anti-gay leaders who, like AFTAH's Peter LaBarbera, relentlessly push anti-equality legislation and constitutional amendments when given half a chance.

Please join us in protest against "Americans For Truth About Homosexuality," 7:30 PM sharp, Thursday, August 5 in front of the "Christian Liberty Academy," 502 W. Euclid Avenue, Arlington Heights, IL. For those traveling from Chicago, please meet us at 6 PM sharp in front of the Ogilvie Transportation Center Metra station, 500 W. Madison Street, Chicago - just look for the Pride flag! (cell phone contact 773.209.1187)

Help organize for the protest by joining the Facebook event for it and inviting your friends! -- http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=143863622296206
The protest is co-sponsored by the Gay Liberation Network, DuPage NOW, Woodstock/McHenry County PFLAG, La Voz de los de Abajo, Join the Impact-Chicago and the International Socialist Organization.