Posted on 10/20/2005 9:48:30 AM PDT by Crackingham
Lexington, Mass. — David and Tonia Parker are asking their neighbors in this liberal town for one consideration: Tolerance. The Parkers believe homosexuality is immoral. So they were appalled when their son brought a picture book home from kindergarten that showed families with same-sex parents. To ensure his "spiritual safety," they demanded the right to pull him out of class whenever homosexuality was discussed. To deny them that right, they say, would be intolerant of their faith.
School administrators offer a different take on tolerance. They say it's their job to expose children to the world's diversity. Supt. Paul B. Ash refuses to whisk the Parkers' son away if a classmate with same-sex parents brings a family photo for show-and-tell, or a lesbian couple volunteers at the Halloween party.
Similar debates have roiled communities across the nation as conservative parents challenge classes, books and after-school activities that they say promote a one-sided view of homosexuality as normal. They have notched victories in several states. But the dispute here has gone further than most.
David Parker has been banned from school property. Ash has been flooded with hate mail from across the country. There have been protests and counter-protests; the local newspaper received so many letters, many condemning the Parkers as bigots that the editor stopped printing them. Ash talks of the school's obligation "to be more than tolerant" to children and parents of all backgrounds. Parker asks: Where's the tolerance for him?
"Real respect, real tolerance, is not pushing your beliefs on other people," Parker said. "What people do in their bedroom, that's their business. What they tell my children in school about these subjects — that's my business."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
They were pretty good at playing games.
A major underlying issue here is that certain people have begun to identify themselves by the "behaviors" with which they engage in. By every argument made by secular/progressive types on behalf of legitimizing homosexual acts as a 'class' of human beings, the very same arguments can and will be applied to the legitimization of incest, beastial "relationships," necrophilia, and yes.....homosexual cannibalism.
Our nation was founded on the idea that because all human beings are not equal, the only way we could receive equal treatment would be if our Rule of Law and our Constitutional rights were 'blind' to our differences.
The idea that differences equate to "class" is not only an alien to our shores, but it is dangerously destructive to the founding framework of America.
Look to India and Pakistan. There you'll see how miserable life is when everyone is consigned to a 'class" and/or caste.
NO ONE should ever be given 'rights' based upon the type of sexual practices they engage in.
That's absolute lunacy.
NO ONE should ever be given 'rights' based upon the type of sexual practices they engage in.
That's absolute lunacy.
Good point.
Sorry, I just don't agree.
It is each person's individual responsibility to rear and/or educate his/her own children. Sending the lil ones off to the goobermint to indoctrinate is a poor choice in the first place.
Secondarily, if I have to work so hard to ride herd on the goobermint indoctrination, just to keep it at a minimal level, I'd rather devote that energy to the exclusive benefit of my own progeny.
My sister is a Montessori teacher, and she sees it like you do: it is the collective responsibility of society to supervise the education system. I believe that collective resposibilities of society are limited to National defense and critical infrastructure.
"NO ONE should ever be given 'rights' based upon the type of sexual practices they engage in.
"
I don't believe I have ever taken the position that they should. In fact, I'm sure of it.
Here is the key to this issue.
The fascists among the gay "activist" groups have morphed a generalized request for tolerance into a demand for acceptance.
School administrations, not wanting to appear "intolerant" have gone along with it. The activists and the schools are wrong on the principled base of how our constitutional rights intersect with this issue.
The basic difference between "tolerance" and "acceptance" is the key.
Tolerance is not a demand that you change your mind, that you change your opinion, that you change your beliefs or your values - or that you be taught that you must.
Tolerance simply sets a public standard on the limits of your behavior (not your thought), with regard to respect for other people who have different opinions, different beliefs or different values.
Tolerance does not demand that you "accept" others and it provides no moral mandate for government to try to command that acceptance, whether through education of any other means.
Tolerance, to the extent it has a place in education, is best covered not but a curriculum that attempts to indoctrinate, to command acceptance of those with whom we may hold what we believe are legitimate differences.
Tolerance, to the extent it has a place in education, is best dealth with by the behavior of teachers and school administrators demonstrating respect and tolerance through their actions and through the actions they demonstrate that they expect their students to show each other.
That demonstration does not demand "acceptance", only respectful tolerance even to those to whom we disagree. It does not illicit any demand focused on any particular attribute derived from anyone's values. It is values-nuetral, demonstrating by behavioral example, not preaching-as-teaching, neither acceptance nor rejection; demonstrating that acceptance or rejection is based on our own personal value-set and demonstrating only the public limits to which we have a right to impose or propose rejection.
How is this done in the example at the core of the article?
It is done not by preaching that it is "O.K." for Heather to have two mommies. It is done by teachers and administrators not discriminating against Heather and not allowing students to behave in rude, disrepectful and mean ways towards Heather - period, end of teaching tolerance. Tolerance, not acceptance.
Unfortunately, the effort to command acceptance of almost all forms of "non-Christian" personal attributes has led to many forms of outright intolerance in the classroom, at all ages, to any form of "Christian" attributes of students.
Much of the materials that school administrators use in this area comes directly from, or has been prepared with input from the gay activist organizations. And, as I said here above, that input is not seeking tolerance among diversity, it seeks to use government, via the schools, to command acceptance. It does not border on thought control and indoctrination, it is thought control and indoctrination.
The truth of this is evident in what the gay activists would say if the school curriculum was "teaching" students that fundamentalist Christians should not be "discriminated against" because everyone needs to be saved by Jesus. It posits an attribute (spiriual salvation from Jesus) that can only be "accepted" at the personal level as a belief the government would be demanding everyone accept.
That would be a command for acceptance of a basic belief/value/attribute of a "Christian", not a request for tolerance of diversity.
However, we cannot expect anything but hypocrisy from the left.
"Lunacy" wasn't too big of a word? :)
There are few issues that would likely come up in the context of a public school that would deal with differences between particular churches or ecclesial communities, or religions in general.
You are painting a false picture, which denies the existence of natural law.
Furthermore, asking to have one's children excluded from amoral indoctrination is hardly "special treatment."
I agree that parents have to be the ones to teach children about things before they learn it from "the outside." Unlike the Parkers, we homeschool, and this issue still came up much earlier than anticipated. If homsexuality is part of the world, it should be put in its proper place. Just because things exist and we acknowledge their existence, does not mean we have to tolerate it; it means we have to understand why it is.
MM..I don't believe I have ever taken the position that they should. In fact, I'm sure of it
In that case, you should be supporting David Parker. And you should be fighting against the same-sex agenda.
when are religious people going to get? the people who run the government schools HATE you...
"A major underlying issue here is that certain people have begun to identify themselves by the "behaviors" with which they engage in. By every argument made by secular/progressive types on behalf of legitimizing homosexual acts as a 'class' of human beings, the very same arguments can and will be applied to the legitimization of incest, beastial "relationships," necrophilia, and yes.....homosexual cannibalism.
"
Frankly, I'm opposed to all "class" distinctions among people. Such distinctions should neither be used to protect OR to harm any citizen. Acts are the only way we can judge others. In this country, we make distinctions between legal and illegal acts. When a person acts in an illegal fashion, we have recourse against them. If they act legally, they are free do do so.
The problem here arises because some feel that sexual activities between persons of the same gender are wrong. Yet...in this country, they are not illegal. So the "class" distinction is applied in negative ways towards those people, even though they are obeying the law.
There are laws against sex with children, necrophilia (not in all states), bestiality (again, not in all states), and some other activities. People who break those laws are criminals.
The lesbian couple are not criminals.
If we wish to criminalize homosexual acts, or criminalize two women (or men) sharing a household, then we should do that. If we do not, then we should leave them alone.
People of the same gender cannot become parents without third-party intervention. No amount of children's books will change this fact of nature.
The only way that a gay couple can become parents is by
1) claiming a child that one of them had with a straight partner
2) claiming a child that one of them had with a sperm donor
3) claiming preferential status to get first in line to adopt one of those "perfect, white" trophy babies that have become so very rare since abortion became legal.
Let me say, as a grandmother of 4 I thank you both for caring. I'm sure that is why the childrens parents work so well with you. I know your job can be difficult, but again, Thanks for you efforts.
Let's put aside all of the politically correct nonsense that's confusing issues and focus on the very real consequences to our nation, to all taxpayers, and to the health and welfare of all Americans due to our current very tolerant positions with regards to
sex. Read the following article and pay particular attention to the statistics---of the diseased, the dead, and the costs.
Americans Worshipping New God Called Tolerance
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1499086/posts
How endearing your comments about some on FR -it is quite a paradox -you tolerate homosexuality yet not opposition to homosexuality? Reminds me of the liberal position...
They've lost a lot of their oversight power because so many teachers and school administrators, and their relatives, are running for and winning seats.
One year, the Willingboro NJ school board was made up entirely of teachers or teacher-relatives, with the exception of the lawyer who was orchestrating the whole thing.
If you are not familiar with the incompetence of the Mass. AG, please go to Howie Carr's columns for a refresher course.
This guy couldn't even convict Bernie Law, speaking of homos.
Yeah, but...it takes a village!
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