Parents of first-grade girl angered
by children's book about gay princes
Man. I heard about this on the radio this morning in a short blurb.
I would be totally flabbergasted myself. This is insane
The world is INSANE !
Posted on 03/18/2004 5:17:04 AM PST by wallcrawlr
WILMINGTON, N.C. -- The parents of a first-grader are fuming over the book their daughter brought home from the school library: a children's story about a prince whose true love turns out to be another prince.
Michael Hartsell said he and his wife, Tonya, couldn't believe it when Prince Bertie, the leading character in ``King & King,'' waves off a bevy of eligible princes before falling for Prince Lee.
The book ends with the princes marrying and sharing a kiss.
``I was flabbergasted,'' Hartsell said. ``My child is not old enough to understand something like that, especially when it is not in our beliefs.''
The 32-page book by Linda De Haan and Stern Nijland was published in March 2002 by Tricycle Press, the children's division of Ten Speed Press of Berkeley, Calif. A follow-up, ``King & King & Family,'' was recently published.
The publisher's Web site lists the books as intended for readers age 6 and up.
Barbara Hawley, librarian and media coordinator at Freeman Elementary School, said the book has been on the library's shelves since early last year.
``What might be inappropriate for one family, in another family is a totally acceptable thing,'' said Elizabeth Miars, Freeman's principal.
Hawley said she couldn't comment on the book because she hadn't seen it. She declined to say whether she knowingly selected a book on gay marriage.
The Hartsells said they are keeping the book until they get assurances it won't be circulated. But Hawley said all county schools have a committee that reviews books after their appropriateness is questioned, and the Hartsells must make a written complaint and return the book for review.
The Hartsells said they intend to file such a complaint and are considering transferring their daughter.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
A couple of homosexuality/educational asides (Who me? Asides? :)
We live in a relatively quiet development of about two hundred middle-class homes. There are no fences between our half-acre (give or take) yards. Lawns are well manicured and landscaped, etc.
For the first time in the thirty years that we have lived here, a homosexual couple moved into the neighborhood about four months ago – two very masculine looking women (I had always thought that one tended to be feminine in a lesbian couple), with two small boys, ages approximately six and eight years old. They live three houses away from our home.
The little amount of contact I have had with them has left me with an unsettled impression. Quite often when I am walking my dog by their house, one of the women is standing out on the porch smoking and pacing (apparently the other one does not allow smoking in the house), and she always looks angry. Twice when I was running by the house on my nightly run very late a night (generally after midnight) I heard loud screaming coming from within. A few times I have seen the little boys standing at the school bus stop, and each time I stopped to talk with them briefly. I am not a stranger to them – introduced myself shortly after their moving in, and they know that I am the ‘neighborhood piano teacher’ who deals with many children on a daily basis, so it is not as though I pose a stranger threat. Each time I attempted to talk with them I came away with a profound sadness. They do not smile. They do not look you in the eye when you speak to them, or they to you. They seem terribly burdened.
Of course, this kind of behavior could be manifested by children who are a part of a normal nuclear family with heterosexual parents, but I can’t help but feel as though these poor boys have two strikes against them from the word go. And yes, I am an intolerant conservative bigot who, each time I pass by that house, cringes at the thought of what most likely goes on between those two women (call me old fashioned ...)
As regards what passes for public education today, I have less and less use for it. In doing occasional substituting in county schools under Pennsylvania’s emergency substitute certification program over the past six months, I have seen and heard much more than I would want to about the generally uninspiring, uncaring, indoctrinary behavior of public school teachers (with some notable exceptions, of course), and the lack of learning that occurs within the walls of the average classroom (but that’s a subject for an entire thread of its own).
A full ninety-five percent of the teachers I have come to know are staunch union people who place the education of their students very low on their list of personal priorities. Almost as many of them are avowed socialists, and (not coincidentally) have little or no real knowledge of American history, or the Constitution. Their students are not inspired to learn, and they come away from their classes with a sense that there is no reason for what they are being forced to do. I am not a popular lunchtime conversationalist. There are generally two or three of us at any particular school (sometimes, but thankfully rarely, only I) whose conversation includes any allusions to knowledge about what America was Constitutionally meant to be, as opposed to expressions of support for the socialist experiment (without necessarily referring to it as such). And the most common source of facts and information among these teachers are USA Today (the Bible) and Dan Rather (the prophet). Our teachers view the world, and indoctrinate their students, through biased left-wing sound-bite education.
Our son is in his second year of teaching high school physics. He is only one of two physics teachers in his school (the other one being a fifty-ish teacher who has been in the classroom for almost thirty years). When Dan began teaching last year, because he was the junior of the two physics teachers, he was given the non-college-bound physics classes. The result was that the majority of his students were not really interested in the subject matter, and a good many of them were simply putting in time in the classroom.
Dan creates and writes his own lessons, and believes in visual, hands-on physics teaching, using many interactive experiments and lab work which take place both on and off school grounds, and which emphasize real-word applications.
Just before Christmas, the principal informed Dan that, for the second half of the year (and for the very first time that he could recall), there was a long waiting list of students wanting to take his two physics classes. The children – even the non-college-bound ones – love his hands-on teaching method.
Yet the fifty-ish-year-old, thirty year teaching veteran, who I would think would consider himself something of a mentor to a much younger teacher, took Dan aside a few weeks ago and told him that he ‘had better turn down his flame a little’ (i.e., stop being so enthusiastic about his classes and his teaching) or he would burn out.
That man’s attitude is a big part of what is wrong with many teachers today: they are not devoted to the quality of their students’ education, and they literally resent the small number among their members who are. The devoted teachers make them look bad, by comparison.
If I were the mother of young children today, I would do everything within my power to see to it that they were not subjected to the public education system, with its inferior education, its left-leaning teachers, and its socialist indoctrination curriculum. Home schooling is, of course, the best solution, but quality private schooling runs a close second.
As for higher education, I would do all that I could to steer my children toward the only two (as far as I am aware) colleges which do not accept any form of federal ‘aid’ (not even federal student loans or grants for those who attend), and are therefore the only two colleges (as far as I am aware) that do not have to abide by federal dictates, as far as curriculum content, admissions quotas, and the like: Grove City College (PA) and Hillsdale College (MI). Two of my piano students are currently attending Grove City, and more than a dozen former students are graduates. To a person, those who have graduated all have wonderful careers and are deeply loyal to their alma mater. (Our son received his degree there as well).
And it’s no coincidence that, when the various yearly ratings of colleges and universities are published, these two schools invariably rank within the top two percent of those in their respective categories. Both attract the brightest and best students from high schools all over the country and the world. Both base their educational philosophy on a reverence for, and in-depth teaching of, the history and current state of western civilization. And both enjoy incomparable financial alumni and private business support and loyalty (thus the ability to thrive without government assistance or dictates).
IMO, the farther one can manage to distance himself from government schools or government interference in private schools, the better chance one has at receiving a quality education.
Wake up! End of rant. If it weren’t for FreeRepublic, I believe I might have exploded in pent-up frustration a long time ago. Thanks for the opportunity to diffuse the pressure, yet again. :)
~ joanie
Parents of first-grade girl angered
by children's book about gay princes
Man. I heard about this on the radio this morning in a short blurb.
I would be totally flabbergasted myself. This is insane
The world is INSANE !
This is particularly important, because we all know it's as old as the hills, but gays ferociously, even viciously, attack anyone who brings it up. As usual, their nastiness is like a mine detector: when they go off, you know you're near a trigger.
Good snag. Make them beg for their book back. Better yet, hang onto it just to see who shows up to demand it back.
Time to round up the dogs and light the torches in Wilmington. Time to find out who perpetrated this, and who helped them, and who all their little pals were that put this together.
Yeah, when I was living in an apartment, 14 years ago, I had two lesbians living below me. The butch was as you describe, a blonde with cold blue eyes -- tough. Drove a white Montero. The other woman was brunette, amiable and roly-poly, an ex-nun. At night the tough one would say ugly things to the roly-poly one in a low monotone, and the roly-poly brunette would wail disconsolately. FWIW, there was also a heterosexual couple next door that did that one night, the man berating the woman and she crying quietly like she had lost her last friend in the world -- why people do this to one another is utterly beyond me. If you don't like someone, why don't you just break up? But no, the infliction of pain has to be involved. But withal, it seemed that the blonde lesbian did it more than anyone, and she was pitiless -- even when I came home and found their apartment pullulating with young women who described themselves as the "vanguard friends" (first time I heard that expression) of the roly-poly brunette, who'd just been taken away to have the pills pumped out of her, the blonde was there, and she was absolutely unflappable, and when I spoke to her, to ask about her roommate, she replied in a cool, level voice that showed not a trace of concern. Her eyes reminded me of things I'd heard said about Larry Byrd, that he had gunslinger's eyes. This woman was that cold, except this wasn't a basketball court, and the alleged light of her life was rolling away to a hospital somewhere.
But don't let me prejudge butch lesbians.
If a child voices a question about the possibility of being an alcoholic to a teacher or other school officials, the parent most likely never will hear about it. These children often are referred to an outside "bar" run by active bartenders.
I strenuously object to your position. "Educating" children that the sex one partners with is totally optional, coupled with the "fact" that refusing to agree to this stipulation is hate speech or homophobia, will confuse many children who do not deserve to be confused about their sexuality.
Amen. If we won't fight to keep homosexual perverts from recruiting our children in public schools, when will we fight?
I am so glad to hear that you got your daughter out of there. Did you put her in a private school?
This story reminds me so much of my younger cousins. This was in the early 80s. I was a bit older at the time and they were very small - probably in 2nd and 3rd grade. I remember visiting their house for a week (I was 14). They were never strong, healthy girls to begin with because their mother was a bit of a ditz with their diets. (She was a single mom who worked full time). But they did all right, I suppose.
But the sweet little 2nd grader would cry at dinnertime. She would cry that she couldn't eat the meat on her plate because her teacher told her it was bad and that she was bad for eating animals.
I was so sorry for her. She was so pale and thin and really could have used the iron in the red meat. My Mom and I did our best to convince her otherwise. Her mother couldn't be bothered.
Sigh.
Amazon says this is the follow-up book...just released this month.
Well, more to the point, if that happens, then you default your right (i.e. the majority's) to make the rules and definitions, and the gay NGO's become the default rulemakers.
So, who's to say what the age of consent is, now that we've established that hets are all a bunch of bigoted ninnies bereft of any real moral authority who owe society the courtesy of shutting up about sexual identity and morality?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
