Posted on 11/28/2004 12:21:56 AM PST by JohnHuang2
Sunday, November 28, 2004
If administrators of Kentucky's Boyd County school district can't find a way to force all students to attend sexual orientation and gender identity "tolerance training," the American Civil Liberties Union is threatening to take them to court – again.
Ten months ago, the district settled a lawsuit with the ACLU over the right of a student group, the Gay-Straight Alliance, to meet on campus. The year-long litigation strained relations in the conservative northeast portion of the state. In addition to allowing the group to meet on campus after school, district officials agreed that all students, staff and teachers would be required to receive "tolerance training."
The agreement stipulated all would attend "mandatory anti-harassment workshops," including the viewing of an hour-long "training" video covering sexual orientation and gender identity issues for middle and high school students.
But ten months on, one-third of Boyd County students have failed to see the video, and that has the ACLU threatening court action.
"It sounds like the training can't possibly be done," James Esseks, litigation director for the ACLU's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project, tells the Louisville Courier-Journal.
District figures show 105 of 730 middle school students opted out of the training video and 145 of 971 high school students did likewise. On the day scheduled for training, 324 students didn't show up for school.
The current legal snag arises from the fact the original consent decree had no provision for parents exempting their children.
"The schools have great latitude in what they want to teach, including what's in training programs, and the training is now part of the school curriculum," Esseks says. "Parents don't get to say I don't want you to teach evolution or this, that or whatever else. If parents don't like it they can homeschool, they can go to a private school, they can go to a religious school."
"Where are the parental rights in this whole thing?" asks Rev. Tim York, president of the Boyd County Ministerial Alliance and head of Defenders Voice, a community group formed to contest the decree.
According to the group's website, Defenders Voice "incorporated due to the need for protection of both the physical and mental health of our students and citizens." Its members place blame for their current distress squarely on the ACLU:
"We have seen an onslaught of aggressive homosexual activism sweep across our country. In many cases, these activists are supported by the ACLU in their attempts. ... Defenders Voice believes that an organization like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) should not be allowed to tell parents what their children must learn."
The Alliance Defense Fund, a religious-liberties public-interest legal group, has signed on to help Defenders Voice, pledging to sue the school district unless it adopts an opt-out policy for parents this week. Alliance was formed in 1993 with the guidance of several well-known Christian conservatives, including the late Dr. Bill Bright, the late Larry Burkett, Dr. James Dobson, Dr. D. James Kennedy, and the late Marlin Maddoux.
Joe Platt, a Cincinnati attorney representing Alliance, says mandatory training on tolerance for homosexuals violates the right of conscience of parents and students who believe such behavior immoral.
But school district attorney, Winter Huff, insists to the Courier-Journal the decree does not violate parental rights: "Students certainly have the right to believe in what they want to believe, but they don't have the right to act out in inappropriate ways. The point is you don't treat people disrespectfully, you don't pick on people, you don't bully them, you don't make them afraid to come to school."
Meanwhile, only one of the seven plaintiffs in the 2003 lawsuit still remain in school. Six have graduated, and the teacher-adviser for the Gay-Straight Alliance club asked to transfer to another campus.
The ACLU's Esseks is now questioning whether the mandatory video meets the decree's required hour of anti-harassment training. Like one-third of the students in Boyd County schools, he has yet to view it.
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Why shouldn't it? If a bunch of girls wanted to start a "Susie Homemakers' Club" where they would plan to snag a man and raise a family, would you want the club banned? Why two different standards, one for pro-heterosexual and one for pro-homosexual clubs?
The school district should let the lawsuit run. One of two things will happen:
1) The school district goes bankrupt and enrages the community and maybe the rest of the country,
2) They beat the ACLU and put an end to this nonsense.
Several reasons:
The roles of mother, wife, and homemaker are natural aspirations for girls now, throughout history, and will continue to be so. The roles of wife, mother and homemaker are not only consistent with natural law, but are actually the foundation of the natural family, and therefore, human society.
"The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world."
To compare the honorable roles of wife and mother to a life of same sex sodomy shows that you have no clue about moral absolutes.
Additionally, the role of wife and mother is not primarily about sexual gratification. More imporant than sexual congress in such roles are loyalty, duty, responsibilty, fidelity, love and care for others, practical skills, and so on.
The single, sole point which distinguishes a "homosexual" from anyone else is the methods and orifices used to obtain sexual gratification. That's it, there is no more to be said. Someone needs a club for that? In high school?
Soliciting minors to perform sex acts is illegal. (contributing to the delinquency of minor.)
These GSA is only about performing recreational sex.
So if you encourage young children to get married when they grow up, you are committing a crime? I mean, after all, you're telling them they should go have sex eventually, and you're trying to tell them which gender to have sex with. Isn't that what you complain about these gay rights groups doing?
These GSA is only about performing recreational sex.
That's your view of them. If so, why is the organization entitled "Gay-Straight Alliance?" I mean, if the point is for everyone to be gay, why would the group want any straight members?
Maybe the group exists to promote a gay rights political agenda and provide emotional support for kids who think they might be homosexual. Neither of those objectives are illegal.
This is the kind of political-legalist activism that will get some poor,pathetic,derranged,homosexual kid killed by inciting some others to react. This is insanity over the brink into the abyss. Is this what the ACLU stands for? Hell, I guess it is. What they lack in eptitude, they more than make up for in lack of common sense.
Then why do you need to work so hard to convince girls to become stay-at-home moms? Why are you afraid they will choose professional careers over raising large families, or choose lesbianism?
The roles of wife, mother and homemaker are not only consistent with natural law, but are actually the foundation of the natural family, and therefore, human society.
So you want special consideration for things consistent with natural law? I know this is a tired argument, but people used to say slavery was justified by common law. And abolitionist literature was banned in many states. Sometimes, search warrants were written up for books. I don't see any reason to give your viewpoint any special advantages over other viewpoints. If it really is consistent with natural law, why isn't it strong enough to stand on its own?
To compare the honorable roles of wife and mother to a life of same sex sodomy
a) many honorable wives/mothers practice opposite-sex sodomy inside their marriages (oral and anal intercourse isn't exactly unknown to most women)
b) why is the role of mother inconsistent with a life of same-sex sodomy? If a heterosexual sodomite single mother can raise a family, why can't a homosexual sodomite in a long-term relationship?
I don't have to believe gay people are equally good parents, I just have to believe that they are within their rights to raise children, and thus the same protections (recognized by SCOTUS) would apply to them as to heterosexual families.
The single, sole point which distinguishes a "homosexual" from anyone else is the methods and orifices used to obtain sexual gratification.
Wrong. There are faithful, married, heterosexual men who take it up the backside (don't ask how unless you want to find out) and women of all sexual orientations can and do enjoy at least three orifices (there is also the urethra, but I'm guessing not many people meddle with that, although some do).
The difference is only in the gender of the people they are romantically interested in.
That's it, there is no more to be said. Someone needs a club for that? In high school?
What distinguishes blacks from whites? Their skin color? Do they need a club for that? Of course not. But does the first amendment guarantee them that right. Yeah. Whether homoseuxality is a choice or people are born with it (or a little of both) either way they have a right to form their own club.
If I were a parent in this school district, I would be taking a particular interest in Mr. Esseks and his kneecaps.
The openly homosexual leader of the ACLU and his friends consider themselves crusaiders. If they are not set back on their heels and told they have pushed America too far there will be an extreme reaction. Piece by piece they are dismantleing decency and coarsening the culture,..flag burnings, sexual promiscuity, abortion,homosexual agenda, removal of any mention of God in public discourse or buildings,...and on and on. The pressures they are creating is like a spring on mainline Americans and it is being pressed down harder and harder. And when it give,.. Watch out. The more it is compressed, the more violent the response will be. Quiet conservative Americans have set aside much of political correctness to order their daily lives. But the ACLU and the radical homosexual agenda keeps poking a stick at this tiger, and he knows how to get out of his cage now. I believe they are trying to provoke a reaction in order to continue change. It is the old theory of Hagel...Thesis + Antithesis =yields Synthesis. Change. Out of conflict it seems, with few exceptions, our culture moves ever leftward. We must keep up the fight or they will prevail. Mr. Bush needs to pack the courts with 4 more Scalias and much of it will be accomplished.
It's time to demand of our elected leaders that all public funding of the ACLU be stopped.
I do not want my children to be exposed to any deviant behavior at a young age. Indoctrination into a lifestyle starts with getting familiar with it and openly discussing it. That is what the ACLU wants--parents discussing deviant behavior with their children.
Children do not have the maturity to handle an issue that is so emotionally laden. By exposing it to them at a young age, they learn that the possibility of that behavior exists and people participate in it. It makes it become a "normal" thing and another possible lifestyle. Confusion reigns--especially in young boys about their sexuality and the knowledge of homosexuality will make it become an option for them.
The lifestyle is learned in most cases, and the first thing is to expose young kids to the concept and the idea--so it removes some of the natural aversion to the lifestyle.
There is no counter point to this video. It is presented as truth with no allowance to question or disagreement.
There is no "free speech" allowance to permit other secular organizations to present evidence with contradicts the homosexual point of view.
This would be no different than forcing the KKK into school and forbidding contrary views.
Exactly. In the ACLU's universe, to question the "normal" nature or morality of homosexuality is a "hate crime." Which why you won't hear an opposing point of view at this so-called "tolerance" session. The Left cannot survive in the arena of ideas.
Susie is advocating a normal, life-affirming way of life. The homosexual club is promoting a deadly, perverted, anti-family way of life. I would also say that schools should not promote lifestyles which exclude an entire sex, which the intolerant homosexual lifestyle does. It is a vile, exclusive, hateful lifestyle.
Homosexuality teaching in school curriculum also undermines the religious teaching of the children's parents. That alone should cause parents to sue schools for interfering with their rights to teach religious absolutes to their children.
You are absolutely correct!
So you want the schools to give preferential treatment to your view of life (which isn't shared by all people).
Conservatives aren't the only ones good at talking about values. Schools can just as easily shut down anti-gay viewpoints by making moral arguments (on the grounds that gay-bashing is not "life-affirming"). If you think schools can ban pro-gay clubs, you have to accept that other schools will ban anti-gay clubs (unless what you really want is your set of values imposed on the entire nation--good luck trying to do that!)
I would also say that schools should not promote lifestyles which exclude an entire sex
Okay, we'll start by making it illegal to discuss priesthood or joining a nunnery. Who says the gay lifestyle excludes any sex? There are gay men and gay women. There are bisexuals who are more inclusive than homo- or heterosexuals. There are "fag hags" (straight women who hang out with gay men). Most gay men probably interact with more women than the average straight man does or wants to.
Homosexuality teaching in school curriculum also undermines the religious teaching of the children's parents. That alone should cause parents to sue schools for interfering with their rights to teach religious absolutes to their children.
Some parents want to teach their kids the world is flat, others want to teach that homsexuality is a sin, and still others yet want to teach that blacks are subhuman. Sorry, but the fact that public schools teach stuff (which someone, somewhere, objects to) is not a violation. If it was, schools couldn't teach anything.
It if very clear the Gay/Straight clubs are specifically designed to encourage undage homosexual sex. If mothers or fathers want to condiditon their children to practice homosexual sex, as a 1-3% population group, they are free to do their recreational sex lessons OFF school grounds and hours.
That's it the ACLU is now officially Public Enemy #1!
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