I have been hunted for close to 10 years by the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and their allied attorneys because of my work with people who simply requested my help. My co-director and I are now personally obligated for millions of dollars we need to raise to cover the fees and costs involved in a multi-year legal battle.
In order to cover some of the costs, I mortgaged my family home in Jersey City, where my family has lived for nearly 50 years. This is something that a person over 80 years old should not be forced to do. I have been married to my wife Jane for 54 years, have four children, and six grandchildren.
I have always supported the right of individuals with unwanted homosexual ideation to receive help to overcome such issues if they freely choose to do so. I've been guided by a foundational premise which implements the principles upon which Judeo-Christian religious values are based. Because part of these laws involve sexual purity, we were sued by left wing radical secular ideologues whose goal is to spread fashionable toxic theories ("woke" culture) about history, religion, race, sexual orientation, and gender identity and thereby create nothing less than a secular state religion that brooks no dissent. Today's aggressive secularism now seeks to drive religious belief into the outer margins of society, thus confronting our culture with a new secular woke religion based on race, sex, and gender.
Having been sued by the secular left wing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for this work, I encountered adverse decisions from both the trial court and the intermediate appellate court and most recently received a denial to even hear our appeal from the lower courts' adverse decisions from the state supreme court.
The trial judge also crushed my individual liberties. He ordered me to pay a multi-million-dollar penalty. He barred me from participating in any not-for-profit organization operating in New Jersey. He further denied me First Amendment rights such as freedom of speech, religion, and association.
Having filed a motion with the State Supreme Court to review the lower courts' adverse decisions, after a six month wait, they summarily denied the petition to even hear the appeal. The importance of the case was evidenced by the Amici briefs that were also filed on my behalf by the Family Research Council, New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, and a coalition of concerned and licensed therapists.
What is most frustrating is how the court system utterly failed to fairly consider the issues raised by the appeals. The lower courts repeatedly ruled on issues that were never argued, and ignored issues that were. In order to reach a politically correct result, these courts also disregarded undisputed evidence as well as the text of the trial court's injunction. The courts trampled on our First Amendment rights, including our constitutionally protected freedoms of speech, religion, and association. They also ignored our federal law immunity under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), an act that precluded the imposition of liability on website hosts of a crowd-funding site for fund-raising by third parties.
I have been fighting against so called “politically incorrect” (but “Biblically correct”) positions for decades, and hope this fight won't destroy me.
Your support is critical.
Over the past few years, to say that I've been emotionally and financially overwhelmed by this litigation would be an understatement.
Without receiving support from the broader community and in particular people like you, I fear I may be unable to pay the legal fees and court imposed penalties to which I am presently liable.
Many thanks,
Arthur Goldberg