Focus On The Family: We Won’t Let Mooing Dogs Lie

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO - Focus on the Family today will unveil a media campaign aimed at countering advertisements that feature a puppy named Norman who says “moo.”
Norman is part of the Born Different ad campaign, which has appeared in Colorado Springs since early June. The ads say Norman can’t help but “moo” because he was born different. Organizers say the story line is a metaphor for gay people, who they argue were born with their sexual orientation.
Focus on the Family said the Born Different campaign misleads readers and viewers about the scientific basis for homosexuality. The Colorado Springsbased global Christian ministry said Monday
it will meet with reporters this morning to introduce its own advertisements featuring Sherman, a dog who barks.
“Sherman is the centerpiece of a multimedia ‘No Moo Lies’ campaign to be launched Wednesday, July 19, which clearly explains the truth about what characteristics dogs — and humans — are really born with,” the ministry said in a news release.
Focus on the Family believes homosexuality is “preventable and treatable,” according to the Web site of Love Won Out, one of the ministry’s programs. Love Won Out puts on conferences based on the idea that “individuals don’t have to be gay.”
Focus on the Family’s response to the Born Different campaign appeared to reflect the light tone of the Norman advertisements. The ministry’s news release included the headline “Focus to make major announcement: Dogs don’t moo,” and a subheadline: “Ministry to offer irrefutable proof that ‘woofing’ is the language of canines.”
Officials for the Born Different campaign couldn’t be reached for comment late Monday. They have said the campaign is not intended to offer scientific proof about whether people are born gay, but rather to spark conversations on the subject.
The Born Different campaign targets only Colorado Springs, because of the city’s reputation as unfriendly to gays, organizers said. It’s funded with a $900,000 grant from the Denverbased Gill Foundation.
Also Monday, a Virginia-based group advocating parental rights for gays began a six-day, 65-mile march from Denver to the headquarters of Focus on the Family.
The group, called Soulforce, said in a news release that nine families began the relay march to confront Focus founder James Dobson.
Soulforce Executive Director Jeff Lutes said Dobson’s statements have brought rejection and ridicule on gay and lesbian parents, and the group wants him to stop.
“That misinformation has real tragic results. It makes living for families like ours much more difficult. We are rejected sometimes by loved ones, we are shunned by churches and we are discriminated against in every state in this country,” Lutes said at a rally at the state Capitol before the march got under way.
Focus on the Family spokesman Glenn Stanton said other research shows that children need a mother and a father, regardless of the parents’ sexual orientation.
“We haven’t said anything about sexual orientation,” he said.
from The Gazette