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News Release
For Immediate Release: January 15, 2009
Contact: Diane Gramley 1.814.271.9078 or 1.814.437.5355

Allegheny County Trying to Force Homosexual/Bisexual/Transgender Lifestyle on Citizens

(Pittsburgh) – Tonight a public hearing is to be held which will give citizens an opportunity to address the proposed Ordinance 4201-08 which will create an Allegheny County Human Relations Commission and add ‘actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity’ to the county wide human rights ordinance. As citizens have become aware of the implications of the passage of this ordinance, they have become active in opposing it, according to the American Family Association of Pennsylvania (AFA of PA), a statewide traditional values group.

“As we’ve educated people on what passage of this ordinance can mean, many have shaken their head in disbelief as to what their county council is considering,” remarked Diane Gramley, president of the AFA of PA.

Some of the ramifications include:

· Forbidding the Boy Scouts from using county parks and other facilities because of their constitutional right to ban open homosexual leaders and members. We just have to look at the Cradle of Liberty Scout Council and Philadelphia’s work in evicting them from their headquarters.

· The gender identity component of the ordinance means allowing men who think they are women in the women’s restroom and workplace shower facilities; as we’ve seen men in women’s fitting rooms in Philadelphia and men in the women’s locker room at the city pool in Cleveland, Ohio.

· This ordinance would directly infringe upon religious liberties. In New Jersey the Ocean Grove Methodist Camp is facing discrimination charges from the state because they prohibited a lesbian couple from using their pavilion for their civil union ceremony.

“This ordinance is an attempt to normalize a very dangerous lifestyle, even the Centers for Disease Control recognizes this in their HIV/AIDS statistics where it shows that over 50% of all HIV/AIDS cases are men who have sex with men. This is not a civil rights issue homosexual, bisexual and transgender identities are not unchangeable characteristics. Homosexuals have not been restricted to the back of the bus; there are no ‘gay only’ water fountains. We are calling on the Allegheny County Council to do the right thing and vote ‘no’ on this ordinance,” concluded Gramley.

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