Posted on 12/18/2006 4:31:51 PM PST by wagglebee
(AgapePress) - A former chairman of the National Education Association's Ex-Gay Educators Caucus says the NEA is engaging in a "big misinformation campaign" with the goal of changing public opinion on homosexuality, starting with the youngest generation.
The NEA has unveiled a new web page [Caution: This page contains pro-homosexual material] on "gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students," stating that the educators' union is "committed" to fighting harassment, bullying, and discrimination aimed at those students. The page cites statistics from a study published by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, or GLSEN, and even provides a link to an interview with that group's founder, homosexual activist Kevin Jennings.
Conservative critics of Jennings have blasted him for promoting what they see as radical pro-homosexual policies and ideas. Culture and media critic Bob Knight of the Media Research Center calls the GLSEN founder a "very controversial" figure, one "who has covered up an incident of molestation [of a 15-year-old boy by a homosexual man], who presided over a session in Massachusetts in which kids as young as 14 were exposed to graphic descriptions of homosexual sex acts," and who has said he wants children, even kindergartners, to be acquainted with homosexuality.
The NEA's web page on GLBT students provides a link to an NEA Today article and interview with Jennings called "Safe Schools for Everyone." In it, the homosexual activist advocates teachers helping to combat the problem of harassment faced by GLBT students -- by working "to create a classroom culture of respect and acceptance from day one."
California teacher Jeralee Smith, who founded the NEA's Conservative Educator Caucus and formerly chaired the union's Ex-Gay Educators Caucus, says the new web page on GLBT students is all part of the union's ongoing agenda to legitimize homosexuality. However, she says she hopes this latest move by the national organization will finally open the eyes of some of its members.
"Maybe, finally," Smith comments, "some of the conservative and Christian teachers and other faiths who take issue with children being urged to adopt a gay identity" will recognize the NEA's pro-homosexual agenda for what it is. "Maybe, finally, some of these people will really believe that this is what their dues money is going for," she says.
Is the NEA Helping to Spread GLSEN Misinformation?
In July, at the NEA's annual convention, the educators union voted overwhelmingly to endorse legal same-sex civil unions and same-sex "marriages." And now, with its new web page on GLBT students, Smith feels the NEA is using misinformation in an effort to change public attitudes toward homosexuality, and she suspects the union's embrace of GLSEN's "safe schools" rhetoric is little more than a smokescreen for its support for and collaboration with the activist organization's agenda.
According to GLSEN's 2005 National School Climate Survey, homosexual students were five times more likely than the general population of students to report having skipped school in the last month because of safety concerns and were twice as likely as the general population of students to report having no plans to pursue any post-secondary education. The survey also found homosexual students who reported experiencing harassment had an average grade point average a half point lower than that of homosexual students who were not harassed.
Jennings, as quoted in NEA Today, says the "safe schools" initiative is "not about how you feel about gay people, it’s about making sure all of our students achieve.” However, Smith believes the NEA's and GLSEN's special emphasis on GLBT youth is telling. She says the NEA has no business encouraging students to adopt a homosexual identity, and the organization needs to recognize that all students are equally deserving of a safe learning environment.
"Children -- by children, I mean anyone younger than 18 -- need to all be protected from any kind of harassment at school," the California teacher insists. "I teach physically handicapped children," she notes; "my kids look different from everyone else in very obvious ways, and kids like mine are much more likely to get bullied and harassed at school."
Also telling, Smith suggests, is which data the National Education Association chooses to report about GLBT students, and what it chooses to omit. She notes, for instance, that the NEA's new web page does not provide statistics about the many young people who have had same-sex sexual encounters in the past but have since abandoned such behavior.
She says the NEA has no business encouraging students to adopt a homosexual identity, and the organization needs to recognize that all students are equally deserving of a safe learning environment.
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Sorry, but down on the Leftist/Marxist Animal Farm, gays get to sleep in the farmer's house, and politically unfavored groups such as Christians get to sleep in the barn.
All schools should be private. Take the kids out of the public schools.
Just an added not, it is a fact the the highest numbers per school, of homosexuals are not students, they are the teachers.
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I am interested in learning more about this. Do you have any links?
This is exactly the difficulty. Everyone acknowledges the problems with the government school system in the abstract - but their schools are "different". And even if their schools have problems they can't deny, they have absurd excuses like your sister (as if a public school HS diploma gives anyone an advantage in getting into "good colleges" - good test scores, yes, but a public school diploma is just a piece of paper these days).
If people spent as much time finding ways to get their children out of the government's factories of ignorance and bad character as they do rationalizing their addiction to "Aid to Dependent Parents" the government school problem would soon be solved because they would be depopulated to the point of collapse. The system will never, ever allow itself to be reformed, and the politicians the system owns won't allow anything to threaten the system's perogatives and cash flow.
Someone commented above about how she was glad that the NEA couldn't force her into the union. This is indeed a good thing, but the NEA's influence is pervasive everywhere through its influence in ed schools, the textbook industry, etc. Every public school system is corrupted by the NEA's (and the AFT's and...and...there are lots of corrupt government ed special interest groups) influence - including in right to work states.
It's all good and well to stop bullying, but this is the wrong way to do it.
So, I guess phys ed is out,too? Next you throw out sports like football unless they build private showers for all on the team? Is taking a shower with members of your own sex so dehumanizing? Should we ban this? Should we require the military to build private showers in basic training and all barracks? What about those on a combat patrol for five plus days with no shower,no shave, no tooth brush, smelling real ripe, and; they just want to shower and shave and feel clean again. Do we legislate private showers for them, too?
I agree. I remember being bullied in school. Schools should try to stop bullying, not just for one special group, but for all students.
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