On the Exodus blog, Exodus spokesman Randy Thomas earlier this week defended “Pastor” David Manning, after YouTube removed Manning’s video for inciting antigay violence, encouraging blind hatred of LGBT customers of YouTube, and violating YouTube’s terms of service.

In addition to promoting hate-based violence against LGBT people, Manning encouraged a government shutdown of all non-fundamentalist media (including, presumably, YouTube).

Thomas falsely claims that U.S. constitutional protection of free speech applies to private properties such as YouTube.

Manning, Thomas, and ex-gay activist McKrae Game also falsely blame the federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act for the removal, ignoring YouTube’s terms of service. That federal law only applies to sentencing following conviction for felony acts of violence.

Game added ominously, “The statement that Hate Crimes legislation was passed supposedly to protect not just homosexuals but people of faith is extremely questionable.” That, too, is a lie: The legislation was an add-on to existing law that already offers full protection to persons of faith who are subjected to felony violence. The add-on legislation reiterated that no part of the law may be used to inhibit speech.

Lies, incitement to violence, and censorship: Exodus becomes ever-more anti-Christian, indecent, apostate, and selfish in the methods with which it “equips” its Exodus Church Network to violate LGBT Americans’ lives and undermine public morality.

Meanwhile, for better or worse, it’s a free country — and YouTube can host or remove whatever it pleases.

In response to the American Library Association’s commemoration of Banned Books Week, Focus on the Family is encouraging antigay and antiabortion activists to overwhelm public libraries with stacks of donated conservative books.

Focus complains that the ALA’s campaign in defense of free speech and access to ideas “showcases books to which parents have objected — and which libraries have generally not pulled from shelves.”

“Every year, the ALA and other liberal groups use this trumped-up event to intimidate and basically silence concerned parents,” said Candi Cushman, education analyst for Focus on the Family Action.

Cushman defends “silenced” parents’ efforts to ban such “liberal” books as:

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Beloved by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
9. 1984 by George Orwell

But those efforts have stalled, so Focus tries to buy time:

Cushman said it’s time for families to turn the tables and challenge the ALA to honor its own principles.

“You can do this most effectively by simply going to your local public library, or a school library,” she said, “and donating books that communicate your family’s perspective on those issues.”

While Focus continues its low-key campaign to ban American literature, meantime our nation’s libraries can look forward to receiving hordes of freshly bound, barely read copies of classic works by the greats: Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck, Randall Terry, and John Paulk.

“True Tolerance,” a campaign of Focus on the Family that enjoys promotional support from Exodus International, may be having an impact upon public schools:

As many as 107 Tennessee public school districts recently began blocking student access to gay health, science, family, and education resources. Instead, students who seek accurate information are being confined to ex-gay resources that have been rejected as inaccurate and harmful by professional medical and mental-health organizations.

Banned resources include:

• Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG)
• The Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN)
• Human Rights Campaign (HRC)
• Marriage Equality USA
• Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry
• The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)
• Dignity USA (an organization for LGBT Catholics)

“True Tolerance” is an antigay response to the Day of Silence, GLSEN’s national campaign to discourage violence in public schools. The antigay project espouses tolerance of outspoken on-campus activism by antigay Christians — and intolerance of those who oppose antigay violence or who disagree with discredited ex-gay propaganda. Without offering evidence, “True Tolerance” accuses antiviolence advocates of waging a “monopoly” and a “pro-gay agenda.”

The campaign does not claim responsibility for Internet restrictions in Tennessee specifically, but the web site encourages antigay activists to pressure schools to silence the allegedly “unbalanced” messages of the antiviolence crowd and to silence “vulnerable children” (teen-agers) who seek to be honest about their sexuality.

If pressure tactics don’t work, then True Tolerance lobs legal threats against antiviolence efforts. First, the campaign warns against schools’ fears of “legal liability for not making their school ’safe.’” True Tolerance dismisses the simple fact that antigay violence is making schools unsafe, and that parents of bullied youths are suing. Instead, True Tolerance offers to arm antigay activists with unspecified “legally accurate facts” in opposition to mandatory “diversity” policies. It would seem that, in the view of Exodus and Focus, “true tolerance” in schools cannot and should not be diverse enough to include bullied youths, their friends, or their parents.

Official efforts to “protect” mature students from the facts about gay health, science, family issues, and education are having a negative impact on Tennessee schools.

Karyn Storts-Brinks, a librarian at Fulton High School in Knoxville, points out:

Students who need to do research for assignments on current events can only get one viewpoint, keeping them from being able to cover both sides of the issue. That’s not fair and can hinder their schoolwork.

Box Turtle Bulletin reports:

The ACLU is giving the districts until April 29 to come up with a plan to provide access to LGBT sites or any other category that blocks non-sexual websites advocating the fair treatment of LGBT people by the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year.