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03/09/2006
PMI Decries Escalating Extremist Rhetoric by Homosexual Lobby Against Oberweis and ‘Protect Marriage Illinois’ Supporters
GLEN ELLYN, Ill., Mar. 9 -- Protect Marriage Illinois (PMI, www.protectmarriageillinois.org) Director Peter LaBarbera today decried escalating extremist rhetoric among homosexual activists seeking to demonize Jim Oberweis and others who support the Marriage Protection Referendum defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Yesterday in Chicago, homosexual activists with the Gay Liberation Network (GLN) protested against GOP gubernatorial hopeful Oberweis and compared him to Hitler because he supports the PMI referendum and repealing the new homosexual and transgender language added to Illinois’ Human Rights Act. This week, the trial of a Chicago homosexual man who sent Illinois Family Institute an e-mail threatening to “burn every one of your [f------g] churches down” was postponed until June. At yesterday’s protest against Oberweis, GLN leader Bob Schwartz repeated his threat made last year by saying how much he would like to physically harm LaBarbera, who was engaged in a counter-protest for PMI. Both PMI and Illinois Family Institute have denounced all hatred and violence directed against homosexuals, as well as false and inflammatory messages such as Fred Phelps’ “God Hates Fags” pickets nationwide. Even though GLN focused its ire on Oberweis (who has given $7,000 toward pro-defense-of-marriage efforts in Illinois), several other top-level GOP candidates have joined him in either endorsing or supporting Protect Marriage Illinois, including: St. Sen. Bill Brady (who recently gave $200 to PMI); Lt. Gov. candidates Joe Birkett, St. Sen. Steve Rauschenberger and Sandy Wegman; St. Sen. Peter Roskam (running for retiring Rep. Henry Hyde’s seat); and David McSweeney and Kathy Salvi (each running for the chance to contest Rep. Melissa Bean). Like Oberweis, all of the above candidates support repealing the new “sexual orientation” law, which was passed on the final day of a lame-duck session of the General Assembly last year. “Homosexual activist groups like GLN and Rick Garcia’s Equality Illinois call Jim Oberweis a ‘bigot’ merely for supporting the Protect Marriage Illinois,” LaBarbera said. “What is hateful about giving Illinois voters a chance to cast a vote for marriage as one- man, one-woman this November? “Across the country, statewide pro-marriage ballot initiatives have passed by an average of over 70 percent, so who are the real extremists here?” he said. LaBarbera decried the “pattern of ugly attacks against people of faith merely for disagreeing with the homosexual movement.”
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