Posted on 03/09/2008 10:15:21 AM PDT by wagglebee
DEERFIELD, IL, March 7, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Deerfield High School, in Deerfield, Illinois, is offering the books "Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes" (Part One & Two) - laced with graphic sexual content, including gay sex, pervasive expletives, religious denigration and mockery - in English classes this spring.
The books contain graphic descriptions of sodomy heretofore only heard of in hardcore homosexual pornography. With numerous uses of the 'f' word and vulgar sexual references to Mother Teresa, the Mother of Jesus, and God.
"After almost 15 years of school advocacy and reviewing many objectionable books and curricula, I have never seen anything this vulgar and harmful to students," says Lora Sue Hauser, Executive Director of North Shore Student Advocacy. "Parents, taxpayers and concerned citizens must force themselves to read these excerpts, as horrific as they are, so you know what kids are being exposed to. The school justifies this egregious choice because of its themes of hope. Evidently, all great literature with themes of hope have already been exhausted so teachers need to start offering pornography. We say - enough."
North Shore Student Advocacy (NSSA), an organization to help parents and students when they run into problems in public schools, was made aware of these books last fall when a parent complained. The books were part of required reading until NSSA filed a formal complaint with the school, asking the books to be reviewed by committee.
The committee decided to remove the books from required reading, but continued to offer them in the classroom as an optional title. "Optional Title," according to the principal, means that the student may select the books to study with peers and be guided by the adult, male teacher. A parental permission slip will be required, but without full disclosure of the sexually explicit content. This conclusion is unacceptable to the complaining parent and to NSSA. They are asking that this pornographic book be removed from curriculum completely.
The State's Attorney's office of Lake County, Illinois, deemed the books "obscene" according to Illinois obscenity laws, violating the "distributing harmful materials to minors" statute. However, state and federal obscenity laws exempt schools and libraries under "affirmative defense," giving the school and teachers involved near immunity.
To Express Concerns:
Deerfield High School
Principal
Sue Hebson
224-632-3011
shebson@dist113.org
1959 N. Waukegan Rd - Deerfield, IL 60015
you make us all look bad
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I am right. I have proposed a good idea and it will win!
Please read my tag.
It not all clear to me that the government power to mandate education is constitutional.
But as I understand it all the parents gave permission for their kids to study this.
It is also a special problem if we ban plays from public schools about McCarthy and how AIDs wasn’t taken seriously enough. Those are real topics that for seniors, with parental permission are legitimate for study.
>>You aren’t seriously defending giving porn to underage kids, are you?
Because if not, you are dangerously close to appearing to do so.<<
Well, I’ve actually read the play. I’m married to a theater major and I read a lot of wretched plays but in exchange she reads a lot of physics books.
And I am saying this is a legitimate mega-award winning play about McCarthyism and AIDS and Mormonsim and several other serious topics that when studied by seniors with parental permission is not something that merits censorship.
Would you read it if it didn't have the sexually sensational and anti-Christian material in it? If you answer yes, at least you're on the way to discernment. If you answer no, examine yourself, your spirit, your relationship with The Lord God Who has spoken through scripture to condemn this degeneracy.
It is not nearly so 'hip' to allow degeneracy into your mind as some have apparently convinced you it is. Remember, Jesus taught the eyegate is the way into the soul. Guard it as if your eternal destiny depends upon it. I wouldn't read this garbage play because of the useless sensationalizing crap that doesn't belong in my soul which is in the play ... and don't be so naive as to say you can read this, allow the imagery into your soul and remain aloof from the influence. God says you cannot, and it is with Him Whom you must deal, not those touting the 'hip lit'. It serves the degeneracy agenda and you'd better understand whom is behind that agenda.
The books contain graphic descriptions of sodomy heretofore only heard of in hardcore homosexual pornography. With numerous uses of the 'f' word and vulgar sexual references to Mother Teresa, the Mother of Jesus, and God.
That merits censorship. It's trash. There's no redeeming value in it. It should not be in a school where anyone under 18 can get their hands on it.
It would not be much different that baking a cake using the finest, unpreserved organic ingredients and adding rotten eggs. Would you eat a cake like that? The rest of the ingredients are great, the best. So what if the eggs are rotten? You can just ignore that part.
It corrupts the whole thing and porn corrupts the mind and moral character, even if the rest of the book has merit. If the book deals with issues that are so important, it can do it without being perverse. Adding porn just gives the writer a cheap thrill knowing that kids are reading this and that he's undermining the moral character of individuals.
Well, your post proves one thing ... we are not the same poster! LOL
>>I wonder, could the story be told without the homosexual and anti-Christian crap in it? Yup, and therein is the crux of this specious ‘prize winning play’.<<
I could have done with a lot less gay references but since one of the main points is that McCarthy’s right hand man was gay and died of AIDS while persecuting his own kind (meaning gays and Jews) then they gay angle was a key part of it.
They could have left out all the Mormon references much more easily.
>>Well, your post proves one thing ... we are not the same poster! LOL<<
Somebody actually thought that?
And just how much detail does that justify getting into?
>>I could have done with a lot less gay references but since one of the main points is that McCarthy’s right hand man was gay and died of AIDS while persecuting his own kind (meaning gays and Jews) then they gay angle was a key part of it.
Justify? I don’t think the whole play was justified - I suffered through it and then watched the Al Pacino version after it won more awards than roots and still found it not worthwhile. In return my wife cried when I tried to teach her calculus so I was really the loser on that marital exchange...
But strictly from a literature sense, it makes the point that this guy was deep in gay culture and yet working with McCarthy - and its immersive in gay culture the same way Lord of the Rings is immersive in Hobbit culture. So the plays point is probably made more effectively..
I just watched “Keeping up with the Steins” about the competition for extravagant Bar Mitzvahs and a boy who breaks out of that pattern and gets back to the core of his family, culture and religion. It used a similar technique of a thousand small Jewish touches. Now I liked “Keep Up” and I didn’t like Angels but I see both as teachable and neither as censorable.
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GondramB, if your children were attending a private school, matters such as “Angels in America” would be privately decided between parents, principals, teachers, and board of directors.
The same would be true if metmom and MHGinTN had children attending private schools. Their private schools’ teachers, principals, parents, and boards of directors would work out and acceptable reading list agreeable to all.
The problem here is NOT one of censorship!
The problem is one of freedom of conscience, deeply held religious worldviews, and the complete inability of **any** government school of treating all competing community philosophies fairly. The government school must make a decision and one side WILL lose!
The losing side will have its most cherished religious traditions trashed, while the winner will have his religious, cultural, and political worldview established by the government and taxpayer money. ( violation of the establishment of religion clause of the First Amendment.)
The losing side will not be able to have access to the AP course and still maintain its religious, philosophic, and cultural integrety. These parents and students will be penalized financially by the government since they can not take advantage of a taxpayer paid for college course.
The winner gets reduced tuition in college and perhaps the opportunity to graduate sooner and begin a career sooner.
The losing side's children will be forced into the company of the children who are in the course and who will then discuss this book with among all the children. ( violation of free exercise of religion and free assembly )
The winning side will bask in the warm glow of the government imprimatur. Even if it is subliminal the winners know that armed police, courts, and foster care workers are on their side. ( Real bullets in those guns on the hip!)
The winner will win the hearts and minds of the next generation of voters and gets to control far more than who chooses a book or two. The losers get to politically suck it up!
Is it any wonder these curriculum wars are so fierce?
Solution: Complete privatization of universal K-12 education.
Government schools are a freedom of conscience and First Amendment abomination!
By the way the taxpayer **always** loses. He gets to pay for these **continual** and never ending government school cat fights!
Um, because they are amoral soulless scum who have turned their backs on God and everything moral or holy? And anyone else's real beliefs and faith make them realize that they have become empty soulless husks, so they have a driving need to destroy those beliefs and faith?
Next question, please...
Christopher Hitchens’ image jumped into my mind when I read your post.
Something doesn’t add up.
The reviews of this book on Amazon and it having enjoyed a run on Broadway both fail to indicate this as porn. The idea’s of how the Gay community viewed how the rest of the world looked at them during the Regan era may be disturbing to some. But then again we could say the same of some works of Shakespere.
That line in error which you refer was attached to the bold in the above. Re: Wikipedia (via Google) has since (perhaps after this newstory/letter) been edited as the sentence started with the part I highlighted in bold. I did a "find" for just Deerfield High School in the body and none of the sentence now appears. I had made a link to it on my comment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_in_America. The teacher, Jeff Berger White and the rest of the faculty followed all normal protocal and even recieved the parents permission.
How many errors are in the sentence above?, your write.
Wikipedia having been edited, that in itself could be another story; was there, however, at the time this most recent story was written. Who made the decision for whatever reason to make the most recent edit, removal of, in Wikipedia, is now my question.
Thanks
Found where it was edited out. The time frame I suspected was accurate.
Revision as of 20:24, 7 March 2008 (edit) (undo)76.16.79.73 (Talk) (this is absolutely true. Google it, plus.,...I went to DHS.)Newer edit → Line 52: Line 52:
The play merited inclusion as the very last item in [[Harold Bloom]]'s controversial list of what he considered to be the most important works of literature, ''[[The Western Canon]]'' ([[1994]]). The play merited inclusion as the very last item in [[Harold Bloom]]'s controversial list of what he considered to be the most important works of literature, ''[[The Western Canon]]'' ([[1994]]).
+ + ==Controversy==
+ Deerfield High School in Deerfield Illinois is currently under scrutiny from '''Americans For Truth about Homosexuality''' for allowing a senior AP English course at the school to read the play in class. The teacher, Jeff Berger White and the rest of the faculty followed all normal protocal and even received the parents permission. The matter is still being looked at. + ==External links== ==External links==
Someone felt the need to EDIT, for whatever agenda.
I make it a point to source, what I would consider a controversial sentence; and you are the only one to be acute in pointing it out.
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