A Redmond, Washington, organization of day care professionals has begun to advocate the normalization of the homosexual lifestyle to pre-school children in day care. The Childcare Exchange has two articles on its website exploring the possible methods to teach very small children to accept and practice homosexual behavior and cross-dressing.
One article, "Healthy Sexuality Development in Young Children," recommends allowing boys and girls to wear opposite sex clothing in "dramatic play centers," and "stories will be read that include a variety of family configurations." The authors recommend teaching day care children about masturbation saying, "Children who masturbate will be guided to understand that this is personal behavior and is appropriate for private time but not group time...."
In another article, "Developing Sexual Identity Through Play, Acceptance, Curiosity, and Tolerance," author Lynn Baynum describes a defining moment in her son's development when she told him that "today we use the word 'gay' to describe two adults of the same sex living together as a family."
George A. Rekers, Ph.D., research director for child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, writes in his article on childhood Gender Identity Disorder, that children are vulnerable to confusion in the development of their sexual identity. He writes of a certain "trend for certain vocal elements in education and the media in American culture to sharply question the legitimacy of many, if not all, sex role distinctions in the socialization of children."
'Parents' No Longer Recognized By Schools - Daycare Centers Are Closely Monitored
An excerpt from "Targeting Children - Part two: How the homosexual movement uses public schools as instruments of change"
"GLSEN activist and New York kindergarten teacher Jaki Williams said starting in kindergarten is a must, since children at that age are still developing their ideas about the world around them. Even at that age, she said, “the saturation process needs to begin.”
Williams, in fact, is a model teacher when it comes to this “saturation” process. She regularly initiates conversations with her children by reading to them such controversial books as Heather Has Two Mommies, Daddy’s Roommate, and One Dad, Two Dads, Browns Dads, Blue Dads. She also hosts a viewing of the video Both of My Moms’ Names Are Judy: Children of Lesbians and Gays Speak Out, produced by a San Francisco pro-homosexual advocacy group.
According to one writer for The Lambda Report, who infiltrated a 1997 GLSEN workshop, one former teacher admitted that changing the mind of a child required more than a one-time effort. She said she had to expose her children to a constant stream of homosexual words and images, because "It’s really a conditioning process."
Teaching Kindergarten Kids About 'Human Differences' and Homosexuality Isn't 'Easy' in Newton
It's Elementary: Gay and Lesbian Issues in the Classroom
Education Exchange, November/December 1998
"Often, portions of the video are shown in classrooms with children as young as kindergarten, a practice that Concerned Women for America has labeled "an aggressive new national campaign." A columnist with the New York Post characterized It's Elementary as "78-minutes of relentless propaganda to advance the acceptance of homosexuality, as distinct from tolerance."
"... Although the focus has changed somewhat. the object is still to normalize homosexuality in the schools, beginning in preschool and kindergarten.
According to one educator who has attended previous GLSEN Boston conferences, "In past years the emphasis was on children and sex. This year's conference appeared to be geared more toward teachers and a 'stealth' agenda that took the focus off sex in favor of more subtle methods, using 'gay allies' to continue the homosexual agenda in schools..."
Including "GLBT issues" in Kindergarten
Most of the workshops took place in nearby Olin Hall. Among them was: "Inclusion of GLBT Issues in the K-5 Classroom" presented by Newton 5th grade teacher Jan Shafer.
Shafer began her session by saying, "There are always going to be people - parents, administrators, students, colleagues, and maybe even your friends - who think that you shouldn't include GLBT issues in the classroom, that they don't belong in a younger grade classroom. But I think that they do, and I am assuming that you are here because you also think so." She then asked participants to write down reasons why they think GLBT issues should be shared in the K-5 classroom. Among those given:
To validate children's personal stories
To destroy "gender binary" (male-female) stereotypes
To help children learn to become comfortable in the classroom by seeing their families respected
To help kids who "ultimately will be gay when they're older" feel "validated and comfortable at a young age."
One teacher intern at the Devotion School in Brookline gave this rationale: "It's important to help children become agents of change."
Shafer recalled that several years ago, while she was still "in the closet," GLSEN executive director Kevin Jennings paid a visit to her school and: "It was at that point that I was able to begin coming out."
She expressed concern that teachers in the younger-grades in the Commonwealth are being pressured to abandon values-related and social skill-building activities in their classrooms in favor of academic activities, such as learning to write an expository essay. "That's the message I'm getting, and I think a lot of teachers are getting that, and that's kind of scary to me, and I don't think it's an easy time to be a progressive teacher in Massachusetts right now."
One method that Shafer uses to inculcate homosexual acceptance in her 5th grade classroom is by hanging a calendar that depicts gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered families. At the end of the year, she cuts the calendar up and intermixes the photos of the deviant couples with pictures of other people in a display titled "Share the World, Everyone Matters." Passing out an "Images Checklist for Anti-Bias Environments," Shafer also encouraged teachers to take stock of the images, books and pictures on their classroom walls to insure they reflect diversity.
Another method, Shafer said, is to "come out" through lessons by "sharing your life." For example, in teaching a writing lesson where students learn to organize their thoughts according to "Who, what, when, where, how and why" principles, Shafer uses an outline for a summer vacation story where the "Who" is "My partner, Lisa." In teaching grades 4th, 5th and 6th graders how to write a persuasive essay, topics such as "Our laws treat homosexuals unfairly" can be assigned.
Shafer displayed an example in math of a "distance calculation" word problem where "Sarita and her two moms" are walking to raise money for hunger relief, and "Sarita walked eight more miles than her mom Carla."
She advised prospective teachers to "come out" during job interviews by telling principals, "This is who I am, and I'm open about it, and I want to know if that's going to be a problem here, because it wouldn't really work for me to work here if that's going to be a problem."
Shafer displayed examples of white sheets she hangs in her faculty lounge that have questions at the top such as, "How can I behave so our school is safe and welcoming for gay and lesbian people?" and "What can I do if I hear homophobic language?" In the space below, colleagues can write in their own answers.
In answer to the question, "How can teachers include lesbian and gay issues in the classroom?" Shafer offered the following suggestions:
Introduce vocabulary.
Look for the 'teachable moment.'
Use current events.
Change the sexual orientation of some of the characters in books or written assignments.
Among the handouts Shafer distributed to participants was a six-page list of "Books for Pre-K and Elementary Students" that recommended such titles for preschoolers as A Family Counting Book that "celebrates alternative families as it teaches kids to count from one to twenty," and One Dad Two Dads, Brown Dad Blue Dads by Alyson Publications. It is one of the leading producers of homosexual books, including Gay Sex: A Manual for Men Who Love Men that contains detailed instructions for homosexual men on how to avoid discovery and arrest when having sex with boys.
Other publishers on the list included Harcourt and Houghton Mifflin, as well as Tackling Gay Issues in Schools, a 230-page educators' resource binder published by GLSEN Connecticut and Planned Parenthood of Connecticut.
Shafer concluded her session by showing a 10-minute video, Both of My Moms' Names are Judy, which presents elementary school children talking about their families and their experiences with homophobia..."