Florida Agenda

ST. PETERSBURG – A well known evangelist whose ministry has been labeled a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is threatening to sue the non-profit civil rights organization for defamation because of the designation.

Bill Keller, the self-described “world’s leading Internet evangelist” and founder of LivePrayer.com, said last week that he plans to file the $100 million defamation lawsuit against the SPLC, the Montgomery, Alabama-based organization noted for its legal victories against white supremacist groups, as well as its legal representation for victims of hate groups, its monitoring of alleged hate groups, militias and extremist organizations, and its educational programs that promote tolerance.

According to Keller, “Groups like the [SLPC] give license to individuals who oppose a Biblical worldview to take whatever actions they deem fit, even acts of violence, to silence those they disagree with.

Sadly, this intimidation has worked, because there are very few like myself who are willing to go into the mainstream media and promote Biblical truth that a large percentage of society now rejects.”

After the suicide last year of gay teen Jamie Hubley, Keller blamed “the homosexual community and media who promote this lifestyle to society,” specifically citing Anderson Cooper, Ellen DeGeneres, and Rachel Maddow, adding that the hosts “validate legally and ethically this choice of sexual behavior and relationships to our children as normal, even desirable behavior!”

NEW YORK, NY – You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, Inc., a foundation dedicated to restoring morality and values in the nation’s youth, has announced they will sue MSNBC, Rachel Maddow and others who defamed its founder, Bradlee Dean. The foundation is suing for $50-million, though they say “money is not the issue,” claiming Maddow made false accusations over remarks about homosexuals and Sharia Law which he says were misrepresented by Maddow.

Bradlee Dean, a renowned hard metal rocker who came to Christ after suffering a hard life as a young boy, has dedicated his life to this mission, a mission that has been under attack by liberal media since its inception.

In a press release, Dean’s attorney wrote:

“In the course of his ministry, Dean once made a statement on radio criticizing his fellow Christians for not taking a stronger stand about the gay rights lobby promoting homosexuality in the schools. He made a strong reference to Muslims taking the issue more seriously in the context of Shariah law, but did not condone their practices. It was Bradlee’s intent to focus attention on the issue, not to advocate harm to anyone.

Despite the very clear disclaimer by Bradlee Dean on his ministries website and elsewhere regarding the false accusation that he was calling for the execution of homosexuals, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and others seized on and accused Dean on her show of supporting the killing of homosexuals, as is the practice in some radical Islamic countries. This seriously has harmed Dean and the ministry, who pride themselves on respect and love for all people.”

The other part of the press release explains that Dean is taking this action because he is a Michele Bachmann ally and Maddow and the left wing are out to bring her down.

NEW JERSEY – Seven gay and lesbian New Jersey couples, along with many of their children, are going to court to try to force the state to recognize gay marriage.

The families say in their legal complaint that the state’s civil union law designed to give gay couples the same legal protections as married couples has not fulfilled that promise.

One man says he was denied being able to make urgent medical decisions for his partner. Another saw his partner and children’s health insurance canceled by a skeptical auditor. One woman had to jump through legal hoops to adopt the baby of her civil union.

Along with the gay advocacy groups Garden State Equality and Lambda Legal, the couples planned to announce details of the lawsuit on Wednesday. The advocacy groups provided a copy to The Associated Press on the condition that no details be published before Wednesday morning.

The lawsuit, to be filed in state court, comes less than a week after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a law allowing gay marriage in that neighboring state. But it’s the latest step in a nine-year legal battle in New Jersey.

States afford gay couples a hodgepodge of rights. New Jersey is one of seven states that offer the same legal protections of marriage, but call it either civil unions or domestic partnerships.

New Jersey’s civil union law is cast as the villain in the suit.

“The separate and inherently unequal statutory scheme singles out lesbians and gay men for inferior treatment on the basis of their sexual orientation and sex and also has a profoundly stigmatizing effect on them, their children and other lesbian and gay New Jerseyans,” the claim says.

The legal filing tells the stories of seven couples — two of whom previously sued for the right to marry — and the problems they say they’ve faced since the state began offering civil unions in 2007.

Their lawyer, Lambda Legal’s Hayley Gorenberg, said most people in places like medical offices don’t want to discriminate against them, but don’t understand the rights conferred through civil unions.

“People are not badly inclined toward them,” she said in an interview Tuesday. “They are just flummoxed” by the civil union requirements.

SOUTH ORANGE, NJ – Jesse Cruz, a gay junior attending Seton Hall University, is suing the Catholic school because they relocated him to a different dorm after his roommate complained. Cruz contends that they moved him because he’s gay. The university claims they’ve done nothing wrong.

Jesse Cruz, a public relations major at Seton Hall in New Jersey, wants the school to pay up for allegedly forcing him out of his dorm room because his roommate had a problem with his sexual orientation. Cruz claims his roommate requested a room change, as all students are permitted, and on “Room Change Day” a switch was made; but rather than relocating the roommate, it was Cruz who was moved.

Judge Expected to Make Decision Later This Summer

BY DMITRY RASHNITSOV

The lawsuit against California’s Proposition 8, which amended the state constitution in 2008 to re-ban same-sex marriage, finished up in United States District Court in San Francisco last week after more than nine months in the courts.

The lawyer for the group suing the state argued that Prop 8 violates the U.S. Constitution’s equal-protection clause by creating separate classes of people with different laws for each.

“The fundamental constitutional right to marry has been taken away from the plaintiffs and tens of thousands of similarly situated Californians,” said Attorney Ted Olson. “Their state has rewritten its constitution in order to place them into a special disfavored category where their most intimate personal relationships are not

valid, not recognized and second-rate. Their state has stigmatized them as unworthy of marriage, different and less respected. … There is not a compelling governmental interest to put the plaintiffs in a class like this and take away what the Supreme Court has called a fundamental right, a right of liberty, privacy, association, intimacy and autonomy.”

Olson went on to argue that the law was incredibly discriminatory.

“The evidence is overwhelming that it imposes great social harm on individuals who are our equals,” Olson said. They are members of our society. They pay their taxes. They want to form a household. They want to raise their children in happiness and in the same way that their neighbors do.”

Pro-Prop 8 lawyer Charles Cooper, in his closing argument, said that “the central purpose of marriage in virtually all societies and at all times has been to channel potentially procreative sexual relationships into enduring stable unions to increase the likelihood that any offspring will be raised by the man and woman who brought them into the world.”

“The right to marry is bound up with and proceeds from the fundamental nature and its fundamental purpose relating to procreation and the existence and survival of the human race,” he said. “So it is itself, by definition, the right of a man to marry a woman, and vice versa.

That is — that is the right.”

Cooper also argued that sexual orientation is not fixed, referring to “its amorphous, effectively indefinable, at least consistently, nature, and the simple fact that it is not immutable (or) an accident of birth.”

“Sexual orientation does change,” he said. “It does change over time. And it apparently changes especially in women.”

No cameras were allowed in the courtroom during the trial because the anti-gay lawyers feared that witnesses would not be able to speak their mind freely if they knew that the proceedings would be shown on television.

Experts expect the judge to issue his ruling sometime by the end of this summer. Whichever side loses will most likely appeal the decision to the next highest court, and at some point this case may end up in the Supreme Court.

When Cooper wrapped up his closing argument, Olson spoke again.

“Mr. Cooper talks about procreation as the fundamental basis for marriage,” Olson said. “Well, don’t you have to prove that Proposition 8 does something to protect procreation? (The U.S. Supreme Court has said that) ‘under the lowest standard of review, you have to prove that you have a legitimate interest and that the object’ — Proposition 8 in this case — ‘advances that legitimate interest.’”

“So how does preventing same-sex couples from getting married advance the interest or protect the interest of procreation?” he asked. “They are not a threat to us. What one single bit of evidence (is there) that they are a threat to the channeling (of procreation into marriage) function? If you accept that California has the right to do that in the first place. And I do not. This is an individual constitutional right. And every Supreme Court decision says that it’s a right of persons. Not the right of California to channel those of us who live in California into certain activities or in a certain way.”

Olson concluded: “(Overturning) Proposition 8 isn’t changing the institution of marriage. It is correcting a restriction based upon sex and sexual orientation.”