Judges reject lawsuit and nix restraining order by gay sex offender against pro-family group
December 6, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A federal judge has recommend the dismissal of a one million dollar lawsuit filed by homosexual activist and convicted sex offender Adam Flanders against the Massachussetts pro-family organization MassResistance and its president, Brian Camenker.
The lawsuit was filed in response to MassResistance’s publication of a public letter written by Flanders in 2007 and sent to at least two organizations, which was also published by a local newspaper, on whose website the letter still appears. The letter claimed to expose sexual improprieties and abuses attributed to adult leaders of a homosexual youth group in his town, and spoke of Flanders’ own sexual interactions with minors after he had reached the age of 18.
Flanders was later convicted of sexual abuse of a minor in a different case, for which he is on the Maine sex offender registry. He was also convicted of assaulting one of the boys with whom he had had a sexual relationship at the youth club exposed in his letter, as well as the boy’s father, in 2008. Flanders attacked both victims with a knife, although the severity of their wounds is not clear. He was convicted of two counts of aggravated assualt, two counts of criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon, violation of a protective order from harassment, tampering with a witness, and other charges.
MassResistance’s attorneys employed by the Thomas More Society, have successfully moved Flanders’ lawsuit to federal court, where U.S. Magistrate Judge Margaret J. Kravchuk notes that Flanders has failed to substantiate his accusations against MassResistance and Camenker.
“I recommend that all counts of the complaint be dismissed with prejudice,” writes Kravchuk in her ruling, adding that, while “Flanders has had ample opportunity to fully state his claims” he “has failed to state a claim, and dismissal with prejudice is warranted.”
If recommendation of dismissal of the claim with prejudice is accepted, it will leave the matter permanently settled. According to Camenker, Flanders has appealed the decision.
In a related case, a Belfast, Maine judge has vacated a restraining order issued against Camenker in response to an earlier complaint by Flanders, citing Flanders’ failure to appear for the hearing. The same judge had imposed the order months earlier, which had been issued in response to Flanders’ claim of “harassment” by MassResistance, despite the fact that Camenker has never personally seen Flanders or visited his area of Maine.
The rulings are the latest in a string of defeats for Flanders, who has sought to intimidate several media and activist organizations into silence about his 2007 letter and his conflict with MassResistance. In addition to legal threats against MassResistance, he has also threatenedLifeSiteNews.com and Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), both of which have refused to remove their postings about Flanders’ letters and campaign against MassResistance.
Flanders also reportedly intimidated the Vimeo video service and at least two other organizations into removing material about them from their sites with similar tactics. However, Vimeo reversed its decision soon afterward and reposted an interview with Brian Camenker on Road Kill Radio that it had removed, and has since been firm in its resistance to Flanders’ intimidating tactics.
Camenker told LifeSiteNews that the accusations in the suit were “absurd, and they were without merit.”
“There’s no basis at all to any of this. I don’t think that normal people would even bother filing these things. But these homosexual activists are intent on driving their enemies into the ground through whatever means possible, so to them they don’t care about expense, they don’t care about anything,” said Camenker.
Camenker noted that his refusal to be intimidated by homosexual activists has been key to the success of MassResistance in fighting the gay agenda. He had a similar experience in 2000 when he was threatened with lawsuits by the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) for publishing audio recordings of a “Fistgate,” a public school event sponsored by GLSEN in which children were taught perverse sexual practices, including the bizarre act of “anal fisting.” Against the advice of attorneys, Camenker refused to budge, and a suit by GLAD was eventually dropped.
“I’ve learned its really necessary in the pro-family movement not to back down, and eventually you’ll come out on top,” he told LifeSiteNews.com. “If you’re right and you’re willing to stand up you will prevail, and people of faith have to do that. If we had backed down from these guys I don’t know what would have happened.”
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