The American Family Association and the right wing media are after the head of openly gay Connecticut comptroller Kevin Lembo who in a November 30th letter to AFA president Tim Wildmon, questioned the AFA’s “so-called attempts to protect family values.” Those include holding to a biblical stance on marriage and several boycotts of companies like Target that champion civil rights

In his letter to Wildmon, Lembo states:

The AFA’s statements and mission not only appear to discriminate against the LGBTQ communities … but it remains unclear what actual charitable services the AFA provides that qualifies it to participate in the CSEC. I am, therefore, initiating an investigation to determine whether AFA is in compliance with the requirements of the CSEC.

Lembo is planning to take action to try to remove the American Family Association from the Connecticut State Employees’ Campaign for Charitable Giving (CSEC), even though the Mississippi-based group qualifies as a “charity” under Connecticut’s rules and its status through the IRS as a 501c

The AFA is indeed a officially categorized as a hate group by the Southern Law Poverty Center.

Writes Bryan Fischer of the AFA:

So the constitution of Connecticut itself has identified Mr. Lembo as a man who is apparently determined to infringe on the “exercise and enjoyment of religious profession” of state employees by discriminating against them and their freedom to direct their voluntary charitable donations to a religious organization that stands for religious liberty and the natural family. 

While accusing AFA of discrimination, Mr. Lembo is practicing it, exhibiting it, and displaying it. He is the one guilty of discrimination, and is a part of the reprehensible attempt on the part of secular fundamentalists to purge all traces of Christianity from the public square. 

Besides citing the utterly discredited SPLC (whose “hate map” led shooter Floyd Corkins straight to the offices of the Family Research Council), the main offense he cites in his letter is our boycott of Target. Target has made it company policy to allow men who may be sexual predators or video voyeurs to wander unchallenged into female dressing rooms, where they may film or molest our wives, our daughters, and our granddaughters. In Lembo’s utterly twisted view of the world, the bigots are those who want to protect the sexual integrity of females. 

Mr. Lembo is an open and proud homosexual, and his case illustrates the risk to religious liberty when individuals who engage in a sexually non-normative lifestyle assume political power. 

The AFA is calling on Mr. Lembo to retract the accusatory letter he has published and to issue an apology to AFA for his religious prejudice and bigotry. He trumpets the fact that he has received awards for openness and transparency in government. It’s time for him to show us that such awards were deserved. Perhaps a remedial course in Connecticut history might prompt him to use the political power of his office to protect religious liberty rather than squash it. 

Right now Mr. Lembo is in moral limbo, and is using his office to repress liberty rather than protect it. It’s time for him to come out of the darkness of bigotry and oppression and into the light of religious liberty. Perhaps he’ll begin that journey today

The AFA is pulling out all the stops to intimidate Kevin Lembo by initiating a phone and email campaign against him and using extreme right wing media news sites including Town Hall, OneNewsVow and also Fox News to push it.

Fox News’ Todd Stames writes:

The other day I received word that Connecticut’s openly gay comptroller is targeting American Family Association, one of the nation’s most prominent and respected Christian ministries.

And to be perfectly blunt, these types of attacks by far-left bureaucrats are why Donald Trump won the presidency.

“This issue … really brings into focus why a lot of people supported Donald Trump as opposed to Hillary Clinton,” Hamilton told OneNewsNow. ”People feared the federal government – more specifically the IRS or the Department of Justice – being used as means of cultural and societal intimidation.”

But actually the REAL issue here that needs to be promoted is the fact that hate groups such as the American Family Association, Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council set themselves up behind a fake “religious charities”, receive 501c tax exempt status, and then get away reaping charitable windfalls while preaching intolerance and hate not only in the United States but around the globe.

Unfortunately the  Connecticut’s State Employees’ Campaign for Charitable Giving is not the only charity driven government worker fund that these hate groups scam and get money from.  The Federal Government’s own Combined Federal Campaign giving program of the federal government of the United States also gives federal worker donated money to both the American Family Association and the Family Research Council because they are listed as official charities in their program.

In 2011, CFC pledges totaled $272.7 million with 24% of the federal workforce participating and an average employee pledge of $284.27.

So in other words the Federal Government which has a strict inclusion and non-discrimination policy gives money donated by its workers to so called “charity” groups who then use that money to preach intolerance and hate.

If the AFA is going to have the nerve to play persecuted martyrs while they defrauding hard working Americans then we must once and for all exposed these hate groups’ charity scams and have their 501c status revoked for once and for all.

We must join Kevin Lembo in this fight.

First we can contact the Internal Revenue Service en masse and report the American Family Association, Family Research Council,and  Focus on the Family for Tax Exempt Abuses.

Secondly we must contact OPM’s Combined Federal Campaign and DEMAND that these groups be removed from their charity rolls and receive no more funding from the pockets of federal workers.

Email: cfc@opm.gov

CFC Compliance Specialist

Mary Capule
Mary.Capule@opm.gov

And thirdly show Kevin some support.  He is being hounded and harassed these groups and right wing loons.  Email Kevin at kevin.lembo@ct.gov or leave a message on his Facebook page.  Let him know you stand with him.

The time to fight back is now!