The ICRI Sham. More deception from Lopez, Faust, Klein/Edelman et al.

Self-publishing, circular-referencing, creating associations with misleading names with themselves in multiple capacities- it seems no step is a step too far for these people to try to lend credibility to their anti-gay jihad.

The most shameless of their scams is the outrageously named International Children’s Rights Institute which they have the gall to describe as “a non-partisan, secular, educational and research center comprised of scholars and activists from varied nations and political ideologies.”- Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

The outfit was fabricated and is headed by Robert Oscar Lopez himself, the man the HRC calls an exporter of hate. He’s also known as the ex-gay who self-publishes steamy gay fiction. The executive board is composed of Lopez as president, Dawn Stefanowicz as treasurer and Brittany Newmark Klein as At-Large director. In case you haven’t been following the story, as exposed by Jeremy Hooper last year, Brittany Klein and Rivka Edelman are actually the same crazy woman masquerading under various names.

Oddly enough, once you get to the page for the Academic Council and the other for the Testimonial Council, her name has changed back to Rivka Edelman.

Katy Faust is also listed as both part of the Academic Council and Testimonial Council. For some reason the same individual’s bios vary from page to page. On one Faust is referred to as a blogger, mother and marriage advocate, on the other she’s “fighting child trafficking.” I’d love to know how exactly she’s fighting child trafficking, and if this is done in the suburbs of Seattle or if she collaborates with Interpol.

The whole operation is a sham. Its members are the same people who were part of the amicus brief operation in Obergfell v. Hodges in line with the NOM strategy made public in 2012.

From the Constitutional Law Review (Highlighted names are people who submitted briefs and are also part of ICRI):

51. Dawn Stefanowicz and Denise Shick– Amici are two adult children of same-sex couples who argue that same-sex parenting harms children because children are forced to witness the sexual or gender confusion of their parents and highlight their respective negative experiences of having a highly abusive homosexual father and highly abusive transgender father.

52. Heather Barwick and Katy Faust – Amici are two adult children of same-sex couples who argue that redefining marriage will violate children’s rights to know their biological parents and undermine the foundational building blocks for child development.

57. Robert Oscar Lopez and B.N. Klein (aka Rivka Edelman) – Amici are two professors who were raised by lesbian mothers and argue that same-sex marriage bans protect the children of gays (“COGs”) and women by preventing their estrangement them from their fathers and children, respectively.

Lopez was also involved in filing yet another amicus brief with Janna Darnelle Anderson in a Utah case that preceded the supreme court case.

Search as you may for anything the ICRI actually does for children and you’ll find nothing. What we do see is cross-referencing between it and Lopez’ other site which is called English Manif. The circular referencing is endless. Lopez promotes Faust, Faust promotes Darnelle Anderson and Edelman, and they comment together on Faust’s own Askthebigot website. The book they co-authored, Jephthah’s Daughters, is the one and only product available for sale in the ICRI book store.

It’s on the basis of this multi-layered sham that the lot of them are out there promoting themselves as experts on issues relating to gay marriage and gay parenting. And it’s on the basis of these questionable practices that Katy Faust is being given airtime in Australia. Someone at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Q&A program obviously didn’t do their homework.