“My nominees will understand that there are clear limits to the scope of judicial power, and clear limits to the scope of federal power.”

As opposed to liberal judges, conservative justices are primarily concerned with the original intended meaning of the law, and typically fail to find relatively modern “rights” to abortion or homosexual “marriage” in the Constitution.

McCain specifically chided Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama for supporting liberal activist judges rather than Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

“Apparently, nobody quite fits the bill except for an elite group of activist judges, lawyers and law professors who think they know wisdom when they see it – and they see it only in each other,” said McCain.

The Obama campaign expressed fear that McCain’s judicial appointments will challenge hallowed liberal values, including access to abortion.

“The Straight Talk Express took another sharp right turn today as John McCain promised his conservative base four more years of out-of-touch judges that would threaten a woman’s right to choose, gut the campaign finance reform that bears his own name, and trample the rights and interests of the American people,” said Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor.

The Obama campaign’s main Democratic rival echoed Vietor’s displeasure with McCain’s promise.

Hillary Clinton campaign Policy Director Neera Tanden criticized McCain for supporting “extreme conservative judges like Justice [Clarence] Thomas.”

“In an effort to pander to conservative voters, Sen. McCain has signaled his intention to appoint right-wing judges who are committed to rolling back women’s rights and civil rights, elevating the interests of big business over the rights of workers and consumers, affirming executive branch power grabs, and undermining our common core freedoms,” Tanden added.

McCain gave concrete examples of the sort of judges he would support.

“I will look for people in the cast of John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and my friend the late William Rehnquist, They would serve as the model for my own nominees if that responsibility falls to me.”

While the full implications of McCain’s nominations are uncertain, the presidential hopeful has connected conservative judicial restraint with the pro-life cause in the past.

“The ruling ensures that an unacceptable and unjustifiable practice will not be carried out on our innocent children.  It also clearly speaks to the importance of nominating and confirming strict constructionist judges who interpret the law as it is written, and do not usurp the authority of Congress and state legislatures,” said McCain of the April 2007 Supreme Court decision to uphold the ban on partial-birth abortion.

“I’ve found feelings could change,” David added.

Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) observed that “David’s” desire for anonymity reflects the wide-scale persecution individuals like him face from those supportive of homosexuality.

“Many ex-gays are afraid to come out of the closet because of the harassment they will receive – their names, phone numbers and personal information posted on gay websites, attacked at ex-gay exhibit booths, press releases issued against them, etc,” stated PFOX.

“The tactics of gay activists are to go after anyone who comes out publicly as ex-gay, force them back into the closet, and then claim that ex-gays don’t exist because there aren’t any out in public.”

The ABC report was sparked by the American Psychological Association’s decision to cancel an important forum scheduled for Monday on the relationship between religion and homosexuality. The forum was to have included discussion of reparative therapy used to help individuals overcome unwanted homosexual tendencies.

Gay activists feared that the panel would challenge the APA’s official 2000 opposition to reparative therapy, itself rooted in the organization’s 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from the list of mental disorders.

The ABC report also featured footage of lesbian protestors who banged pots and pans, chanted, and danced in front of conservative author Ryan Sorba, forcing him to cut short his April 29 “The Born Gay Hoax” lecture at Smith College.

Observers observed that the Sorba incident is characteristic of the “gay rights” movement’s intolerance towards any discussion of the possibility that individuals may freely abandon the homosexual lifestyle if they so choose.

“This is exactly how the homosexual movement views free speech and civil rights in their march to force their social and sexual agenda on others and intimidate and terrorize anyone who would criticize or disagree.  Truth and freedom become subjected to the whims of thought police and rioters,” commented the conservative Massachusetts organization MassResistance.

PFOX argues that individuals seeking to abandon their homosexual lifestyle should be afforded the freedom from discrimination that gay activists demand for themselves.

“Homosexual activists are talking about personal choice, freedom, and so forth, but they deny personal choice and freedom for those who wish to seek change,” Peter Sprigg of PFOX told ABC News.

Everett spent six years working in the abortion industry in the early 80s, before experiencing a profound conversion. In 1995 she founded the Heidi Group – a group of inner-city crisis pregnancy centers named after one of Everett’s own children that she aborted in 1973.

“We are an injured nation, for many of us are unwilling to admit or deal with our pain,” Everett told her audience.

Everett has testified in the past that while she was working in the abortion industry she was on track to make over a million dollars a year. “You can imagine what my motivation was,” she said. “I sold abortions.”

In order to sell as many abortions as possible the telephone “counselors” at Everett’s clinics were trained to lead distraught women callers to think that there is only one solution to their unwanted pregnancy, and then to assure women that their child is only a “blob of tissue” and that the procedure itself will be basically painless.

“I cannot tell you one thing that happens in an abortion clinic that is not a lie.”

“When we opened” Everett told Lifewatch, “we did 45 abortions in the first month. The last month (we were opened) we did 545.” Everett was paid $25 per abortion.

To address the plight of women considering abortion, Everett’s Heidi Group centers offer parenting classes, Bible studies, counseling, and prenatal medical care.

The mission of Lifewatch, also called the Taskforce of United Methodists on Abortion and Sexuality, is to “work to create in church and society esteem for human life at its most vulnerable, specifically for the unborn child and for the Woman who contemplates abortion.”

Lifewatch is committed to removing language supportive of abortion in the Book of Discipline, a guiding document for the Methodist community.  The Book of Discipline defends “the legal option of abortion under proper medical procedures” in order to protect the “well-being of the mother.”

Learn more about Lifewatch:
http://lifewatch.org/

Learn more about Carol Everett:
 http://www.priestsforlife.org/testimony/everett.htm

“We are also here for families and friends who want to understand, accept and support their loved one(s) who may be gay…especially through the light of their Catholic/Christian faith,” the site adds.

In a letter to Bishop Pepe, Fonseca wrote, “I feel I have a Catholic moral obligation to express my shock and horror at the fact that GAC’s bulletin promoted a homosexual ministry which appears to support and encourage homosexual relationships and the acceptance of homosexuality as good, natural and normal.”

Fonseca goes on to criticize the Imago Dei site for its incomplete and therefore misleading presentation of Catholic teaching on homosexuality. 

The site, notes Fonseca, emphasizes only the Church’s teaching on the dignity of persons with homosexual tendencies and the evil of hateful discrimination against them.  The organization, however, assiduosly avoids expressing the Church’s clear teaching that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and gravely sinful.  In the section of their website entitled “Statements from Church Teaching” Imago Dei includes quotations from numerous Church documents. All of the quotations, without exception, relate only to how homosexuals as persons are to be accepted and loved, and none express Church teaching on the morality of homosexual acts.

The mission of the site “is not to detail every word of church teaching,” Charles O’Neill, director of Imago Dei, told LifeSiteNews.com.  The site is primarily an “advertising and evangelization tool” focused on “trying to get people in” the ministry, so that Imago Dei can share the message of God’s love, O’Neill added.

“Sex is not the topic or focus of discussion or prayer.”

The Catholic Church, however, has officially warned against giving an incomplete presentation of teaching regarding homosexuality under the pretext of pastoral care. Such an incomplete presentation, observes the Church, can be just as misleading and damaging as a forthrightly incorrect one.
 
“No authentic pastoral programme will include organizations in which homosexual persons associate with each other without clearly stating that homosexual activity is immoral,” stated The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith’s (CDF) 1980 statement concerning the pastoral care of homosexual individuals. “A truly pastoral approach will appreciate the need for homosexual persons to avoid the near occasions of sin.”

“We wish to make it clear that departure from the Church’s teaching, or silence about it, in an effort to provide pastoral care is neither caring nor pastoral.  Only what is true can ultimately be pastoral.  The neglect of the Church’s position prevents homosexual men and women from receiving the care they need and deserve,” the document added.

In contrast to the selective quotations of the Imago Dei website, the Holy See-endorsed Courage ministry presents, the three main passages from the Catechism of the Catholic Church dealing with homosexuality on its website.

O’Neill also admitted to LifeSiteNews.com that Imago Dei does not encourage members to overcome homosexual tendencies.  He cited the 1993 English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states in paragraph 2358 that men “do not choose their homosexual condition.” 

“How does one overcome something that is not chosen as the Church states?” O’Neill asked.

The current English edition, however, based upon the official 1997 Latin edition of the Catechism, removes mention of the homosexual condition not being chosen and describes homosexuality as an “inclination, which is objectively disordered.”  The earlier 1993 English translation was based upon the unofficial French edition, not the official Latin edition, which led to some confusion on the matter.

However, both translations affirm that the “psychological genesis [of homosexuality] remains largely unexplained.” (for a detailed look at the translations, see http://www.catholic.net/RCC/Periodicals/Homiletic/Feb98/questions.html)

In contrast to O’Neill’s claims, recent studies have indicated that homosexuality is not a genetically irreversible condition.

“Like most psychiatrists, I thought that homosexual behavior could be resisted, but sexual orientation could not be changed.  I now believe that’s untrue – some people can and do change,” Dr. Robert Spitzer told the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in 2001 after an extensive study.

Spitzer’s testimony is especially pertinent since in 1973 he was a key figure in convincing the APA to remove homosexuality from the diagnostic manual’s list of metal disorders.

While Imago Dei claims to “support gay Catholic men and women,” Church teaching discourages labels that reduce individuals to their sexual orientation.

“Today, the Church provides a badly needed context for the care of the human person when she refuses to consider the person as a ‘heterosexual’ or a ‘homosexual’ and insists that every person has a fundamental identity: the creature of God, and by grace, his child and heir to eternal life,” stated the 1980 CDF document.

“To say someone is ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ or a ‘homosexual’ is to define a whole person by just one aspect.  It can lock up a person’s identity and block further emotional growth. That’s just the sort of labeling which gives rise to prejudice and discrimination,” explained a Courage commentary on the CDF document.

O’Neill noted that Imago Dei currently receives official support from the diocese, since it is a “ministry of the cathedral” whose spiritual director is whichever priest the Bishop assigns as rector of the cathedral. 

“How can this gay lobby group call itself a ‘Catholic’ ministry when it refuses to give the full teaching of the church, to condemn homosexual acts and fails to orient those with same-sex attraction to where Holy Mother Church wants to lead them?  That is, to uniting their sufferings to the cross of Christ and either seeking recovery from their condition by the healing power of Christ and/or the grace to live a chaste Christian life, never giving in to the homosexual temptations?” asked Fonseca.

Fonseca’s letter exhorts the bishop to disband Imago Dei and to instead lend support to Courage, a ministry faithful to the whole of Church teaching that supports individuals with same-sex attractions in their efforts to overcome same-sex attractions and live lives of prayerful chastity.

Contact Bishop Pepe about Imago Dei activities in Las Vegas:

336 Cathedral Way
Las Vegas, NV 89109
Phone: (702) 735-3500
Fax:       (702) 735-8941
E-mail: bagan@dioceseoflasvegas.org

Learn about the Courage Ministry:
http://www.couragerc.net/

Read the Vatican’s statement about the pastoral care of homosexual individuals:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19861001_homosexual-persons_en.html

Read the United States Bishops’ statement on pastoral care of individuals with homosexual inclinations:
http://www.usccb.org/dpp/Ministry.pdf

Read about Dr. Spitzer’s changed view of homosexual orientation:
http://www.narth.com/docs/spitzer2.html

Read about the various factors involved in forming a persons sexual orientation:
http://www.narth.com/docs/bornway.html