Topic: WorldNetDaily
It appears that the right-wing grift of hating LGBT people is not as lucrative as it one was. In a sign of desperation on at least one party, Peter LaBarbera, the founder of the anti-LGBT organization Americans For Truth About Homosexuality -- which has promoted numerous falsehoods about LGBT people -- is now working as a reporter at WorldNetDaily (which of course, hate LGBT people at least as much as LaBarbera does). It says certain things about WND that it would hire a known liar as a reporter -- namely that WND's brand of "journalism" is decidedly untrustworthy -- but it also shows that AFTAH is no longer paying the bills for LaBarbera. Of course, WND's finances are pretty shaky too right now, so it's unclear if LaBarbera is even making much money doing this.
He proclaimed himself to be "a Washington political animal in a 1996 Washington Post article -- which means he's not a journalist, despite his claiming such credentials in his WND bio by noting he was once a reporter for the Washington Times (never mind that working for Moonies isn't exactly a credibility-enhancer). Indeed, all the other biographical details listed are of activism, not journalism, which says activism will come first here too.
Given LaBarbera's obsession with hating LGBT people, it's no surprise that a significant number of the articles he has written at WND have been about bashing them. His very first "news" article, on Dec. 28, was filled with transphobic attacks, particularly against Biden administration official Rachel Levine:
President Biden’s top transgender-activist appointee says body-altering “gender-affirming care” for people attempting to live as the opposite sex is “not in scientific or medical dispute,” and is urging doctors to work with Big Tech companies to effectively help eradicate such “disinformation.”
In a newly surfaced video, Dr. Rachel Levine, formerly Dr. Richard Levine, describes the “onslaught” of conservative “anti-LGBTQI+” state legislative efforts, which mainly oppose the transgender youth agenda, as “dangerous to the public health.” He says there is “substantial misinformation” surrounding the issue and looks to tech giants to partner with health professionals “to create a healthier, cleaner, information environment."
Levine’s remarks touched off a cascade of criticism in social media: “Not in dispute. This is a lie,” tweeted one Belfast critic, who linked to a post about a leading Swedish hospital that banned “puberty blockers” and cross-sex hormones for minors in 2021.
[...]
Levine, appointed by Biden as assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services, is hailed by LGBT activists as the first openly “transgender” presidential appointee to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Born male and having attended an all-boys school, Levine married a woman, psychiatrist Martha Peaslee, and fathered a boy and a girl before “transitioning” to his current “trans woman” identity. His radical “trans-formation” left his children without the normal, male-identified dad they grew up with, and he divorced Peaslee after 25 year of marriage in 2013.
The combination of the portly Levine’s aggressive trans advocacy and his decidedly masculine facial features, along with his long, flowing blond hair, has made him a prime target for conservatives and allied feminists.
In 2021, the Harvard-educated pediatrician was sworn in as an admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, in what the Washington Post celebrated as the "first-ever female" four-star admiral – even though Levine is a biological man. It was from this platform that he made his remarks about "gender-affirming care" for young people.
His second article, published the next day, uncritically touted the homophobia of Libs of TikTok creator Chaya Raichik:
Chaya Raichik, the conservative woman behind the hugely popular "Libs of TikTok" Twitter account that exposes "groomers" of innocent children using activist-teachers' own video recordings, has entered a new stage in her fight for American culture by revealing her face and identity to the world.
Eight months after being "doxxed" by a Washington Post hit-piece that revealed her name and exposed her private address, Raichik sat down for an hour-long interview with Tucker Carlson on his eponymous show on the Fox Nation streaming site. In the exchange, which aired Tuesday, Raichik explained the powerful, dark forces that are leading many children (and their parents) down the road of transgenderism, which she said was part of a larger LGBT "cult."
LaBarbera then attacked the Washington Post article that exposed Raichik as the account's creator:
The two discussed how the April hit-piece by Washington Post writer Taylor Lorentz "doxxing" Raichik (a link in the piece exposed her private address before it was taken down) actually propelled Libs of TikTok to greater popularity and influence.
The blatantly biased Post article, which relies heavily on the left-wing press watchdog Media Matters, attempts to cast Libs of TikTok ominously as "an agenda-setter in right-wing online discourse" largely responsible for "the recent push in legislation and rhetoric directly targeting the LGBTQ+ community."
LaBarbera identified no falsehoods in the Post article, nor did he explain how an article that he could find no falsehoods in could possibly be "blatantly biased."
LaBarbera spent a Jan. 3 "news" article raging that LGBTQ+ issues received funding under an omnibus spending bill:
Thanks to Republican support for a newly passed $1.7 trillion omnibus federal spending bill, American taxpayers are funding left-leaning LGBT organizations across the country, including those that promote deviant sex to youth, teach biased "gay history" to kids, and lobby for letting biological boys use girls' restrooms and locker rooms in schools.
The Washington Stand reported that the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill — backed by 18 GOP senators and signed into law December 30 by President Biden — contains $11 million in LGBT funding, included the following homosexual- and transgender-related earmarks (specific spending requests) by Democrat lawmakers:
LaBarbera went on to attack the LGBT Center in New York City because it received funding and for a Keith Haring art piece it possesses:
The Center touts its programs serving youth, but like many gay/trans organizations and events—such as sexually-charged LGBT "Pride" parades across the world, which are attended by many young children—it subjects them to the excesses and immorality of a lifestyle centered on aberrant sexual "liberation."
The LGBT Center's partially pornographic "art" collection, displayed throughout the building, is a case in point. Among the works widely touted by New York City's art enthusiasts is a mural painted by homosexual artist Keith Haring on the walls of what once second-floor bathroom (it is now a meeting room). Haring's wall art consists of dozens of cartoonish, squiggly line drawings mainly of male phalluses, in various acts of faceless "sodomy" and stimulation.
The mural, which Haring called "One Upon a Time," depicts "the pre-1981 days of freewheeling [gay] sex," prior to the AIDS crisis, according to a sympathetic review by Alexander McQuilkin on the "untapped cities" website. Ironically, within months of completing the orgiastic bathroom drawing, Haring, just 31 years old, himself died of AIDS, a casualty of the "freewheeling sex" he had evidently practiced and celebrated.
LaBarbera also ranted about funding going to a new LGBT museum: "In reality, the museum's operation is sure to be deeply political (a leftist interpretation of "social justice") as the gay and transgender movements are based on a negation of Judeo-Christian morality."
A Jan. 11 article by LaBarbera deliberately misinterpreted a description of a medical school course to maliciously claim that the school believes infants are "queer":
Did you know a newborn baby could be "queer" right out of the womb? How about "asexual" or "transgender"?
A new College Fix report uncovers a reccurring Harvard Medical School course that offers "clinical exposure and education" focusing on "serving gender and sexual minority people across the lifespan, from infants to older adults."
The course is offered at Massachusetts General Hospital, which offers “gender-affirming surgical procedures” for ages 18 and up, according to the report. Translation: MGH performs transgender operations such as removing the healthy breasts of women who seek such mutilating "surgeries" as part of their quest to live as "men," i.e., to match their perceived "gender identity."
The anti-LGBT hate masquerading as "news" continued in other LaBarbera articles:
- He wrote in a Jan. 16 article that "The United States is the most permissive country in the world in allowing children to pursue extreme transgender "transitions" such as puberty blockers and "surgeries" removing young women's healthy breasts," based on a report by right-wing group Do No Harm, whose ideology he didn't disclose.
- He rated in a Jan. 25 article that "Another leftist indoctrination video has surfaced showing a trans-identified day-care instructor using a gender-neutral doll to teach four-and five-year-old children to accept the identity 'non-binary' as an alternative to 'boy' or 'girl.'"
- He spent a Feb. 2 article touting how Donald Trump would "mobilize the full power of the presidency and federal government against gender-transition 'mutilations' of children and 'left-wing gender insanity' in schools, should he win the White House again."
- He similarly gushed in a Feb. 7 article how "Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt received two standing ovations Monday from the state's lawmakers as he called on them to send him a bill banning mutilating 'gender transition surgeries' and transgender hormone 'therapies' performed on minor children in the state."
In a Feb. 9 article, LaBarbera huffed that "Every single Democrat in the Virginia House of Delegates voted against a 'common sense' bill that would require schools to notify parents if their child is 'self-identifying as a gender different from the student's biological sex,'" but he waited until the 16th paragraph of his article to actually quote anyone speaking in opposition -- then smearing her because she is a transgender legislator:
Leading the charge against HB 2432 was biological male, self-styled "trans woman" and LGBT activist Virginia Delegate Danica Roem, D, Prince William County. Speaking on the House floor, Roem angrily called it a "reckless" bill that would drive "transgender" kids with unsupportive parents into homelessness. He said the bill "deals with forcibly outing trans kids" and scolded the body's Republicans: "You have no idea the harm you're causing."
That's the only paragraph in LaBarbera's 25-paragraph article that actually quotes opposition -- the rest promote the bill.
The classic definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Given that WND's current financial crisis is caused in large part to its longtime embrace of fake news and conspiracy theories, it's unclear why WND thinks its situation will improve by the hiring of which a highly biase and hate-filled activist pretending to be a "reporter" like LaBarbera.
