Ping!
Posted on 01/16/2004 12:13:42 PM PST by HarleyD
A billboard company rejected an advertisement submitted by a minister who wants to respond to the recent Massachusetts ruling permitting "gay marriage" by declaring he is a happily married ex-homosexual.
Stephen Bennett, head of a Christian family advocacy group, says his New York director tried to rent a billboard in the state capital, Albany, from the Lamar Advertising Co. of Baton Rouge, La.
The billboard was to help kick off a national campaign in response to the November ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which said homosexual couples are legally entitled to wed under the state constitution and should be allowed to apply for marriage licenses.
The proposed billboard features a black and white photo of Bennett, his wife Irene and their two children.
It reads: "Wonderful Husband. Loving Father. Former Homosexual. Jesus Christ Changes Lives."
Bennett recounted to WND a phone conversation his colleague, Madeline Derwin, had with a Lamar representative in Albany. Derwin said the representative immediately stopped the conversation and put her on hold when she told him the content of the message.
The Albany representative said he would call back but Derwin says she never heard from him. Yesterday, she called him and was told Lamar had decided not to take the billboard because of the subject matter, according to Bennett.
The vice president and general manager of Lamar's Albany office, Matt Duddy, is away this week and had not replied to a message from WND seeking a response.
Bennett said he lived a homosexual lifestyle for 11 years and left it in 1992 after becoming a Christian.
"It never ceases to amaze me how biased and unfair the media really is," he said. "Sharing my story has given thousands of people hope – homosexual men and women who are unhappy with their same-sex attractions."
A recording artist and national speaker, Bennett's Huntington, Conn.-based group, Stephen Bennett Ministries, says it offers help to people who want to "come out" of the homosexual lifestyle.
Bennett also is special issues editor on homosexuality for the American Family Association.
He has produced pro-family billboards for organizations in Massachusetts and around the country.
"I am only one of thousands of men and women who've left our unwanted homosexuality – and have become the real men and women we were created to be," said Bennett. "The reason stories like mine are continually censored is because if homosexual men and women can really change, the 'gay' theory of homosexuality being innate and unchangeable completely crumbles. Their faulty foundation falls apart."
Bennett said other men and woman who say they have left the homosexual lifestyle will be used for the national campaign.
"These billboard companies have no problem taking advertising for such offensive material as liquor ads and controversial plays such as The Vagina Monologues," he said. "Yet a Christian billboard they refuse? This is blatant discrimination and bias at its best."
He said SBM's attorneys will be "looking over their options."
Ping!
I'm sure Bennett has found being an ex-gay poster boy to be very lucrative.
I am not surprised to hear you say that...I consider the source. There is no "money" in ministry, unless you are a charlatan like a Benny Hinn or the Pope (nice big house, hunh?)......just go visit Steve and Irene in their house and see their cars before speaking out next time.
Ignorance is bliss, and you are having a bliss-ard.
Like that leather taste?
His, (and His Brother)
Bob Z.
And my insults were not without merit, nor false. Your false accusations were.
2 Timothy 3:1-3
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good....
If he were a charlatan, I would know and I would certainly not associate with him in any way.
If you were my brother (and I do not know either way), you would be Steve's. And if you were Steve's, you would not prejudge and falsely accuse him of taking people's money through ministry. You also would know that he sold a VERY lucrative sign business to go into this ministry, and is now financially uncomfortable, but serving the LORD Jesus Christ who saved him. You would further have the guts to say these things directly to him from his web site (sbministries.org) and then apologize for being incorrect in judging him.
His Bob Z.
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