Posted on 05/18/2005 11:18:03 AM PDT by scripter
Students are approaching the final days of this educational year but increasingly parents are heading back to school. While many students will soon be thinking of summer jobs, administrators, teachers and parents will not be getting a break. Controversies involving schools and social issues will be keeping the adults busy for the foreseeable future.
Weekly it seems a new situation comes into the public consciousness where schools are the centers of controversy over what to teach regarding sexuality and sexual orientation. Here is a sampling of the most recent situations:
What are we to make of these eruptions of controversy?
The educational establishment, as represented by the National Education Association, would have us believe these parents are closed minded or maybe even uncaring. When asked about the Southern Baptist resolution, Melinda Anderson, a spokeswoman for the NEA, huffed: "It really baffles me how a caring parent could find fault with public schools for trying to teach children to be respectful of others."
What baffles me is how groups like the NEA and PTA can miss the significance of these parental uprisings. In states blue and red, mainstream parents are becoming organized in unprecedented ways to express frustration over how homosexuality is being taught to children from kindergarten to high school. The mantra recited by the educational establishment comes off sounding like a feeble attempt at a Jedi mind trick -- 'what we teach about homosexuality is none of your concern; you want safe schools don't you?' Waving the club of tolerance, the educational establishment smugly proceeds to denigrate one set of beliefs regarding homosexuality in order to promote another.
Parents such as those who brought suit in Montgomery County are offended by the continual specter of unsafe schools raised by the educational establishment. Are schools unsafe because of traditional beliefs concerning homosexuality? Where is the research to that effect? The school system has produced no evidence.
Mainstream parents appear to be fed up with being told that their values and beliefs are intolerant, homophobic and even worse, responsible for the bullying of children. Read again the NEA statement concerning the Southern Baptist resolution. Ms. Anderson suggests that all the public schools are trying to do is teach respect; parents would like a little of that respect.
If the educational establishment does not make some moves to insure moral neutrality in instruction, I predict we will see lawsuits such as Montgomery County's case replicated throughout the land.
In short, more parents will be coming back to school.
Bump and I'll be a-pinging again later in the day.
Thanks for the alerts!
Remove any teaching of Sex in the schools!! It was neve taught before and the world got along just fine. Parents can get pamphlets from their doctors for support in advising their children against sexually transmitted diseases. There is no NEED to have it taught in the schools, it all BS!!
To paraphrase a line from the 1976 motion picture 'Network':
"Parents are mad as H*ll, and they're not going to take it anymore!"
-Regards, T.
The Southern Baptists need to thoroughly check out the so-called "Character Education" curriculum. They aren't going to like what passes for "good" character these days.
I understand what this article is getting at, but there is no much thing as moral neutrality, unless you want to call moral relativism, moral neutrality. I guess the author is trying to frame the argument in a way that will sound reasonable, which could appeal to more people. But what really is moral neutrality? Either something is moral or it is not. That is what morality is about.
I really hope the Southern Baptists encourage parents to yank their children and put them in a private school... In California, a homeschool is considered a private school.
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