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Homosexual Group Honors Cleveland St. Ignatius High School
Gay Peoples Chronicle ^ | Anthony Glassman

Posted on 01/04/2006 10:02:18 AM PST by Diago

Cleveland--Celebrating a decade of improving protections for LGBT students and girding for the struggles ahead, the Cleveland chapter of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network gathered on June 30 for their annual banquet.

The five Pathfinder Awards were given to an array of individuals and organizations who furthered the safe schools ideology in the past year.

The Activist Organization award was given to St. Ignatius’ United Men of Just Acts, a group of students and staff dedicated to stamping out prejudice and hatred, while the Educator Activist honor was given to Katie Zabransky, a former counselor at St. Ignatius who has since moved.

People of All Colors Together-Cleveland were given the Community Organization award for their educational programs, while Cleveland State University’s Jonathan Halsall was given the Student Activist award.

The Gay People’s Chronicle’s Eric Resnick was honored with the Community Activist award for going to the school board in his native Canton and telling them that they should add LGBT students to anti-bullying regulations. To his surprise, the school board did.

“The greatest joy for me as chair of GLSEN Cleveland is to see how people react to the awards,” David Kushing, “everything from shock, disbelief, tears, gratitude, unworthiness to a new one this year when Eric Resnick argued he did nothing to deserve it.”

“That one was fun!” Kushing exclaimed. “Our Pathfinder winners are people just going around doing what they believe in. Truly they are heroes who make change in small bits within their communities.”

According to Kushing, there is a deeper purpose behind the plaudits than simple acknowledgement of past accomplishments.

“Personally, I think our awards serve a greater purpose by sowing the seeds of the future,” he noted. “By the laudation of these recipients, we encourage them to continue their work and many of our past winners are still strong, vital activists, and that’s the best legacy anyone could ask for.”


TOPICS: Current Events; General Discusssion
KEYWORDS: catholicschools; frpaulscalia; homosexualagenda; paulscalia; scalia; stignatiushighschool
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Students recognized at GLSEN awards dinner

by Eric Resnick

Cleveland--“I think it would shock people to find out how little support there is out there in schools for gay kids,” said outgoing Cleveland Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network chair Aaron Patterson to a record 90 people attending the group’s annual award dinner June 24.

“We hit walls with administrators,” Patterson continued, “and we have to challenge parents to learn and accept who their child really is.”

GLSEN assists 20 gay-straight alliances in northeast Ohio schools. One of them at Cleveland’s James Ford Rhodes High School, called HALO, Helping Alternative Lifestyles of Others, was recognized as the activist organization of the year by the group.

HALO has battled school administrators for the right to display posters and meet on school grounds.

“Every battle that we win makes us more powerful than we already were,” said HALO spokesperson Jared Fox, a junior, as he accepted the award.

James Ford Rhodes media specialist Myra Stone was awarded the Educator Activist award for her role as the group’s advisor.

Student Activist awards went to Hallie Plagens, a senior at Bay Village High School, and St. Ignatius High School junior Michael Manoccio.

Plagens developed a week of activities and programs at the school encouraging tolerance and diversity.

Manoccio formed a group called United Men of Just Acts, which has as a mission the reduction of homophobia. Manoccio was also one of two Ignatius students that observed the Day of Silence.

The Robbie Kirkland Memorial Scholarship was presented by Kirkland’s mother Leslie Sadasivan. The $1,000 scholarship memorializes the 14-year-old St. Ignatius student who committed suicide in 1997 rather than endure harassment from fellow students for being gay.

Sadasivan presented the scholarship to Alyssa Jaggers, graduating from Strongsville High School.

The Robbie Kirkland Memorial Creative Writing Contest winner was Jacqueline Passano, a senior at Avon Lake High School.

1 posted on 01/04/2006 10:02:18 AM PST by Diago
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To: Diago
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A Label that Sticks


Paul Scalia


Copyright (c) 2005 First Things 154 (June/July 2005): 12-14.

 

When I was in high school, the students fell into many different groups: preps, jocks, cheerleaders, punks, deadheads, druggies, geeks, and all the rest. Just about everyone received an unofficial but virtually unchangeable assignment to a particular group. When I work in high schools today, I discover little difference. The groups still exist (with just a few changes in terminology), and the teachers and administrators still counsel against the labels. As they wisely explain, labels reinforce stereotypes and prejudices; they prevent us from accepting individuals and getting to know the real person.

There is one difference, however. While still warning children against stereotypes and labels, high-school administrations increasingly encourage one group of students to label themselves: those who experience same-sex attractions. With the assistance (and sometimes pressure) of such groups as the Gay-Straight Alliance and the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, high schools across the country now routinely have student organizations dedicated to promoting the tolerance and acceptance of homosexuality. Indeed, New York City has an entire school—Harvey Milk High School—devoted to “gay, lesbian, transgendered and questioning youth.”

Is it worth pointing out, even at this late date, that the teachers and administrators were right about the dangers of labeling—and wrong when they allowed and encouraged homosexual students to be labeled? As with most errors, this one proceeds from a certain truth and often from good intentions. The truth is that adolescents with same-sex attractions have a higher suicide rate and are more likely to abuse alcohol and drugs. Attributing these problems to persecution and harassment, the new groups pledge to create a safe atmosphere so that students will not be tempted to self-destructive behavior.

But in practice this agenda means more than just an end to the name-calling. It means the approval of homosexuality and, in a new form of name-calling, an insistence that adolescents who experience same-sex attractions “come out” as homosexual.

This is, to begin with, a failure of common sense. Such categorizations feed into the adolescent penchant for labels. High-school students want to belong to a group. They want an identity. Getting to know other people, figuring them out, sorting out who you are in light of who they are—that can be difficult work. Labels make it much easier. Many adolescents latch on to an identity for a time and then think better of it later. For this reason parents and teachers traditionally guard against pigeonholing students in certain categories.

The new approach, however, does just the opposite. It encourages labeling. Rather than struggle through the difficulties of adolescence, a high-school freshman or sophomore can now, with official support, profess to be gay—and he instantly has an identity and a group. Now he belongs. He knows who he is. Gone is the possibility that adolescents might be confused, perhaps even wrong. Adults typically display a wise reserve about the self-discoveries of high-school students: they know adolescents are still figuring things out, and they recognize their responsibility to help sort through the confusion. So why is all this natural wisdom somehow abandoned these days—in the most confused and confusing area of adolescent sexuality?

Of course, the phrases are tempting because of their convenience and efficiency. They are common, close at hand, and make quick work of a difficult issue. But they also identify an individual person with his homosexual inclinations. They presume that a person is his inclinations or attractions; he is a “gay” or is a “homosexual.” At some point adults have to admit that a fifteen-year-old who claims to be “a questioning transgendered bisexual” is really just confused.

Meanwhile, the schools’ endorsement of all this quickly undermines parents’ authority in an extraordinarily sensitive area. While the parents try to teach one thing at home, the school presents the opposite view, now not only in the classroom but also socially (which in high school might have a greater effect). And those parents who have a better way to handle their child’s difficulties will find their efforts thwarted. At home they strive to love their children, help them in their struggles, and teach a coherent truth about human sexuality. Meanwhile at school, children receive the propaganda and encouragement to argue precisely against what their parents say.

Much of this social engineering rests on the view that homosexuality is a fixed, inborn orientation. The school groups hold this as a dogma not open for discussion. In one of the presidential debates last year, when asked if he thought homosexuality was inherited or chosen, President Bush wisely and modestly answered that he did not know. With that he showed himself to be fairly well aligned with the scientific community, which itself cannot produce a uniform answer to the question. The supposed “gay gene” has never been proven or discovered. The most we can say is that certain people may have genetic predispositions towards homosexuality—which is a far cry from saying they inherit it.

The high-school organizations, however, have no qualms about pronouncing the matter settled. Insisting that homosexuality is inborn, they immediately conclude that an adolescent with homosexual inclinations must necessarily be homosexual, or gay, or lesbian, or transgendered—whichever label fits.

And once the label is assigned, it is awfully hard to remove. It lasts past high school and leaves the adolescent at the mercy of our culture’s extremes. What man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? Increasingly, our high schools distribute stones and serpents to hungry children. Adolescents legitimately confused or anxious about their sexuality receive the advice to assume the homosexual label, truncating their identities perhaps for their entire lives.

Given the obvious errors of this new approach, the question still remains, especially for parents: How should one respond to adolescents with same-sex attractions? Love must be the leading edge of the response. The school organizations attract adolescents precisely because they pledge unconditional acceptance and affirmation of the person, no matter what “orientation” he has. Never mind that receiving this acceptance and affirmation in effect requires signing up for the gay agenda, adolescents still perceive it as acceptance and affirmation. Parents need to understand how effective this is. The first point to make known, then, is not what is wrong but what is right: The child is lovable, and is loved. That love, more than anything else, instills in adolescents the trust and confidence they need to struggle with whatever painful and saddening realities they face.

Difficulties arise when the child insists on being accepted and loved not as a person but as a “gay,” “homosexual,” or “other”—when he wants to be loved according to the label. And our culture willingly indulges these labels for the same reason we used them in high school: we find it easier to deal with labels than with actual persons. Clearly this situation demands tremendous patience and perseverance; it requires parents to insist continually that, no, their child is not just the sum of his sexual attractions, that they can love their child while rejecting some of his actions.

Adolescents need to hear precisely this: People’s sexual inclinations do not determine their identity. Nor does every so-called “homosexual” feel attractions of the same character or to the same degree. Some have strong and lasting homosexual desires; for others, such desires are slight and passing. Lumping everyone together as having the same orientation or identity is a grotesque reduction of a complicated reality, and it massively damages the very people it claims to help.

Resisting the labeling temptation demands that we reject the culture’s vocabulary and adopt more precise terms. In popular usage, the words “gay” and “lesbian” imply a fixed orientation and the living out of a lifestyle. Even the term “homosexual person,”which is used in some Vatican documents, suggests that homosexual inclinations somehow determine, which is to say confine, a person’s identity.

Granted, the more accurate phrases do not trip easily off the tongue. But what is lost in efficiency is gained in precision. Terms such as “same-sex attractions” and “homosexual inclinations” express what a person experiences without identifying the person with those attractions. They both acknowledge the attractions and preserve the freedom and dignity of the person. With that essential distinction made, parents can better oppose the attractions without rejecting the child. And as the child matures, he will not find his identity confined to his sexuality.

Further, opposition to homosexual attractions and actions makes sense only when it is rooted in the full truth of human sexuality. Gay school groups gain approval and support partly because heterosexual unchastity (contraception, masturbation, premarital sex, adultery, and all the rest) has compromised so many. Our culture’s deliberate separation of sex from procreation has destroyed our ability to articulate a coherent explanation of sexual ethics. Parents and educators have damaged the tools that would allow them to explain why homosexual activity is wrong.

Understanding the full truth of human sexuality produces an appreciation for purity. Of course, all young people need to strive for this virtue. But purity takes on a greater significance for those with same-sex attractions. Nothing will confirm a supposed “gay” identity more quickly and solidly than homosexual actions. After a homosexual encounter, the adolescent must either admit the error of his actions and repent—or more boldly identify himself with his actions and look for a way to justify them.

As sexual license increases in our culture, we will encounter more adolescents confused about their sexuality and perhaps experiencing same-sex attractions. The easy option is to dissolve the tension by approving homosexuality and even encouraging it. But the most charitable thing we can do for such youth is to love them as God’s own images, to teach them the full truth about human sexuality, and to enable them to live it. Anything less is giving our children stones when they ask for bread.

Paul Scalia is a priest of the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, and chaplain for the Arlington chapter of Courage.





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2 posted on 01/04/2006 10:02:51 AM PST by Diago (http://www.margaretsanger.blogspot.com)
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To: Diago









CONTACT US
BY MAIL:

1911 W. 30th Street
Cleveland, Oh 44113

BY PHONE:
Main Number (216) 651-0222
Main Fax (216) 651-6313

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BY EMAIL: contactus@ignatius.edu


3 posted on 01/04/2006 10:04:13 AM PST by Diago (http://www.margaretsanger.blogspot.com)
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To: Diago

I used to think that the "T" in LGBT stood for "Trisexual".

I don't have a clue what a trisexual does for fun, and I don't really want to know...

*chuckle*

But I guess the "T" really stands for "transvestite"...

Anyone ever suggest to the LGBT groups that their acronym stands for "Love George Bush Too"?


4 posted on 01/04/2006 10:15:05 AM PST by coconutt2000 (NO MORE PEACE FOR OIL!!! DOWN WITH TYRANTS, TERRORISTS, AND TIMIDCRATS!!!! (3-T's For World Peace))
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To: coconutt2000

Ahhh... A Catholic school, taught by priests (at least it used to be) being honored for its "gay-ness".


5 posted on 01/04/2006 10:23:33 AM PST by Pessimist
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To: Diago; EdReform; backhoe; Yehuda; Clint N. Suhks; saradippity; stage left; Yakboy; ...

Homosexual Agenda Ping.

This is a must read, and the other article posted on the thread. Public schools are petri dishes for secular humanist radical "gay" agenda feminist leftist experimentation. The subjects of the experiment?

The next generation.

Get. Your. Kids. Out. Of. Public. Schools. And for those who think "your" schools are immune - you're wrong. There are thousands of GLSEN sponsored clubs in US public schools. Your kids' school, if not infected already, has a big red "X" on it, it's targeted. (I'm not even going to discuss infected textbooks and leftist teachers.)

Freepmail me and DirtyHarryY2K if you want on/off this pinglist.


6 posted on 01/04/2006 10:36:08 AM PST by little jeremiah
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To: little jeremiah
One has to ponder, how many lawsuits will be filed in the future? Against how many schools? When these kids finally get past grammar school and high school, and realize they were propagandized into the homosexual lifestyle, encouraged to be, or even convinced that they were homosexual? When they get older and realize it has cost them dearly, and they were not homosexuals, just confused as many teens are?? All this degenerate propaganda in schools is a lawyers dream come true!!
7 posted on 01/04/2006 10:51:21 AM PST by gidget7 (Get GLSEN out of our schools!!!!!!)
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To: Diago
“We hit walls with administrators,” Patterson continued, “and we have to challenge parents to learn and accept who their child really is.”

That, is a scary admission.

8 posted on 01/04/2006 10:51:22 AM PST by jla
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Comment #9 Removed by Moderator

To: Diago
The Robbie Kirkland Memorial Scholarship was presented by Kirkland’s mother Leslie Sadasivan. The $1,000 scholarship memorializes the 14-year-old St. Ignatius student who committed suicide in 1997 rather than endure harassment from fellow students for being gay.

Or maybe he was just told time and time again that he was gay and there was no way out yet he wanted a normal life with children and a wife and couldn't handle the hopelessness of it all? The sodomites killed another one as surely as if they ahd infected him with AIDS or stabbed him in the back. (Which now that I look at it could be redundant)

10 posted on 01/04/2006 11:57:53 AM PST by John O (God Save America (Please))
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To: Diago
Time for the pope to come down hard on this school. Any Catholic organization being honored by anti-Catholics is doing something grossly wrong
11 posted on 01/04/2006 11:58:55 AM PST by John O (God Save America (Please))
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To: Diago

I am an alumnus. Ignatius is a great school. You should avoid reading too much in the actions of a small group of students.


12 posted on 01/04/2006 12:09:42 PM PST by Thorin ("I won't be reconstructed, and I do not give a damn.")
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To: Thorin
I am an alumnus. Ignatius is a great school. You should avoid reading too much in the actions of a small group of students.

"Great" is a moral relative term. A Catholic school should be true to Catholic teaching -as such, a homosexual organization that promotes the homosexual agenda is not "great" from a Catholic perspective...

As an alumnus maybe you should contact the school?

I have a question you might answer -is the school male only e.g. the name of the homosexual club that fights homophobia is "United Men of Just Acts"?

13 posted on 01/04/2006 12:37:48 PM PST by DBeers (†)
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To: DBeers
>>>>>>I have a question you might answer -is the school male only e.g. the name of the homosexual club that fights homophobia is "United Men of Just Acts"?

Yes, it's an all boys school.

14 posted on 01/04/2006 12:59:44 PM PST by Thorin ("I won't be reconstructed, and I do not give a damn.")
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To: Thorin; little jeremiah; DBeers; John O
I am an alumnus. Ignatius is a great school. You should avoid reading too much in the actions of a small group of students.

Well, I did not go there, but I work with several Ignatius guys and this is how this was brought to my attention - - the honored group,United Men of Just Acts or UMOJA, is featured prominently in your alumni magazine according to the guys at work.

UMOJA, one of them pointed out, is the first day of KWANZA, a phony holiday invented by black nationalist Maulana Karenga.

Last year, your alma mater also put on a propaganda play about Matthew Shepard. Two conservative guys I trust tell me that in five years Ignatius will be indistinguishable from John Carroll.

Did you read the above article by Justice Scalia's son?

15 posted on 01/04/2006 1:57:09 PM PST by Diago (http://www.margaretsanger.blogspot.com)
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To: Diago

The alumni don't know what is going on in their old schools.


16 posted on 01/04/2006 2:11:49 PM PST by RobbyS ( CHIRHO)
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To: Diago
Last year, your alma mater also put on a propaganda play about Matthew Shepard.

Remember Jesse Dirkhising a teen who was brutally tortured raped and murdered by a 'monogamous gay couple'. Never let them forget

(Every mention of MS must have an accompanying mention of Jesse Dirkhising. It's like the various photo rules)

17 posted on 01/04/2006 2:12:53 PM PST by John O (God Save America (Please))
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To: Thorin
I am an alumnus. Ignatius is a great school. You should avoid reading too much in the actions of a small group of students.

If they are a Catholic school, and they have an officially recognized sodomite club, then they need to be severely slapped down by the bishop (or Pope if the bishop is too sodomite to do it). It doesn't matter if the rest of the school is great. If they recognize sodomy as being OK they are no longer Catholic let alone Christian. St Ignatius would be wracked with tears in his grave.

18 posted on 01/04/2006 2:15:48 PM PST by John O (God Save America (Please))
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To: RobbyS
The alumni don't know what is going on in their old schools.

It's nostalgia. I know many good conservative Catholics who give ten of thousands of dollars to Georgetwon, John Carroll, and Notre Dame. And they never cease being shocked(!) when the alma mater puts on another gay film festival or Vagin- Fest or someother such nonsense. And yet in every other aspect of their lives, these same fellas are the smarter investors in town who research thoroughly every dime they invest.

19 posted on 01/04/2006 2:20:33 PM PST by Diago (http://www.margaretsanger.blogspot.com)
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To: Thorin

From the Ignatius website:

http://www.ignatius.edu/genlinfo/schoolnews/2004-2005/fallplay.shtm

Home > Fall Play Information

The Laramie Project

Production Dates: October 22-24, 2004 - 7:30pm
Audition Date: Tuesday, August 31, 3:00pm
Director: Richard Fujimoto

On October 6th, 1998, Matthew Shepard, a twenty-one year old college student, was savagely beaten and left tied to a fence outside Laramie, Wyoming. A victim of hate crime because he was gay, Matthew died six days later. What would cause two young men to commit such a crime?

The Laramie Project attempts to find answers to this question. Using the actual words of the people of Laramie wo were interviewed, this stunning piece of theater is an examination of the essence of the evil and the incredible power of forgiveness. Never before have the Harlequins been given the opportunity to present theater as a catalyst for discussion at such a timely moment in history. Each actor will play several of the actual people of Laramie, sometimes called upon to deliver a monologue in direct opposition to the one he or she delivered a few moments before. As an acting opportunity, this is prime.

Audition: Because of the nature of the acting, two totally contrasting monologues, each one minute in length, will be required. The test is to create two totally different believable people.


20 posted on 01/04/2006 2:23:44 PM PST by Diago (http://www.margaretsanger.blogspot.com)
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