Posted on 11/21/2003 9:50:23 AM PST by scripter
Judge rules sex-education curriculum violates First Amendment rights (Maryland)
Hawaii Parents Protest School's Plan to Show Pro-Homosexual Video to Kids
An excerpt from "Sex-ed opponents part of movement to reclaim schools"
Parents who stopped a new sex-education curriculum in Montgomery County, Maryland are at the nexus of a national trend in parental activism in school matters. "Montgomery County has become a symbol for parental activism," said Robert Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America. Warren Throckmorton, a psychology professor at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, said parents "are beginning to take matters into their own hands and are looking for ways to collaborate with other like-minded parents to protect their kids..."
"Psychiatry Turns A Hard Left
The American Psychiatric Association, in an attempt to expedite its descent into irrelevance, this week at its annual meeting chose to endorse same-sex marriage.
Before one applauds the moral fortitude and progressive instinct of this august body, we may want to ask not whether there should or should not be same-sex marriage, but what psychiatry could possibly contribute to this discussion. The answer is nothing.
You can't get away with pat answers, such as psychiatrists see the psychiatric ramifications of discrimination or being unable to marry. There are psychiatric ramifications of bankruptcy, and war, but no one felt compelled to write a policy statement on it (and thank God.)
And no, there isn't a difference between bankruptcy and gay marriage-- not to psychiatry. That's the exact point. These are social problems about which psychiatry is definitionally ignorant. The APA did not endorse polygamy. What's the difference? If homosexuality is not a psychiatric disorder, than there is no more reason to be more for or against it than there is for any other kind of marriage. The APA is no better suited to answering these questions than, say, the NFL.
Perhaps the APA should try to diagnose itself. What other explanation, beyond collective malignant narcissism, could there be for thinking that psychiatry has anything meaningful to say on this topic, or that it should say anything at all? What if the NFL came out against antidepressants in children? This is a perfectly valid analogy, because neither the NFL nor psychiatry have special knowledge that would allow them to be able to make such statements. What do psychiatrists know about same-sex marriage that the quarterback for the Eagles doesn’t? Don’t laugh—I’m serious. What’s the answer?
Has it occurred to the APA that not every psychiatrist agrees with gay marriage? Or that it does not—and has no right to—speak for psychiatry, or for psychiatrists? Does it think it is above its constituents, or that it knows something they do not? It is only allowed to legitimately express a policy above the objections of its members is if the policy was based on science. Perhaps the APA cares to release this intriguing scientific data? While it is at it, perhaps it can also release the data supporting the use of half of the medications currently favored by APA Guidelines, because my own investigations find very little in the way of evidence. But this seems pretty much business as usual for the APA. Rather than work on its own serious failings, it involves itself in social policy. Outstanding.
“Modern” (read: pharmacological) psychiatry is obsessed with reinventing itself as a biological and scientific discipline. Well, if it wants to be a science, it better start acting like one..."
Bump and I must ping the lists tonight!
for reading later....
Psychopolitics, Joe Six-Pack, and the Crocodile - (powerful assessment of encroaching Communism
"In the past five years, without much fanfare, a syphilis epidemic has emerged among gay men in South Florida and around the country.
Nationwide, rates of drug-resistant gonorrhea have risen rapidly in gay men.
And a rare form of chlamydia has spread among gay men in Europe, moved to Canada and New England, and may have made its way to South Florida.
Syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia are all curable, but they can be painful and, if not treated promptly, can cause long-term damage. And having a sexually transmitted disease makes it much easier to contract or transmit HIV.
The rise of these diseases follows the return of high-risk sex in some parts of the gay community -- and an increase in new HIV cases among gay men..."
"Now that the gay lobby has successfully persuaded the Parliament of Canada to legalize same-sex marriage, the question arises: What will it do next?"
... Last week, eight days after the bill went through the Commons, Canadians learned the answer. While the lobby may pursue some of the above, it would also push forward against the last standing barrier to sexual "freedom." It would tackle the laws against sex with children.
Not directly, of course. Public opinion has not "advanced" sufficiently to accept pedophilia. But it will fight a current government move to tighten the child pornography section in the Criminal Code. The gays will insist that possession of material that represents sex with children remain legal in Canada on "educational" or "artistic" grounds, provided the representation is the product of a writer's or artist's imagination and that no actual children were involved in its production.
This exemption was made three years ago by a British Columbia court trying a self-confessed possessor of photographs and stories of children engaged in sexual activity. The court convicted him for possessing the photographs and acquitted him for the purely "imaginary" material.
This meant that drawings and stories of children engaged in sex could be freely bought and sold in Canada. Public outrage at the ruling became so severe that the government introduced an amendment to the Criminal Code to remove this exemption. The amendment has passed the Commons and is now before a Senate committee.
Last Wednesday, the Globe and Mail, chief voice of the gay lobby in the Canadian media, in a lengthy lead editorial launched a formal attack on the amendment. While acknowledging that "politicians are right to seek to protect the victims of that sick abusive trade," (i.e., child pornography), "they are wrong to lose their sense of proportion in fighting it..."
The Senate will pass the amendment, as the Globe knows full well. But the question arises: Why did this editorial appear now? After all, the amendment has been before Parliament for three years. Coming, as the editorial did, right on the heels of the gay-marriage bill, some kind of strategy must be involved. Clearly, it signals the next move in the culture war, the opening attack on the last sexual taboo. *
The real battleground will not, of course, take place in Parliament at all. Whether the amendment survives in Canadian law, or is deemed unconstitutional under Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, will be decided in the courts. The Globe's editorial is not aimed at senators, but at judges. It serves notice upon them: Here is where we're going next.
"Educating the public" to this new reality will naturally take time. But the arts lead the culture. If purely imaginary drawings and stories of sex between children and adults can be made acceptable today, creeping first into literature and the visual arts, then into music, then into the movies, eventually the physical acts themselves will become acceptable as well. That's the way things work.**
So it's onward until the last bastion falls. The fact that our whole society may be collapsing along with it has not been seriously considered. History alone testifies to that possibility, but so what? Who reads history?"
* See:
"Pedophilia Chic" Reconsidered (The taboo against sex with children continues to erode)
The Problem with Equivalence ("Pedophilia Chic" defended)
** See:
Recommended Reading for Teenagers
The World According to PFLAG: Why PFLAG and Children Don't Mix
Mega Bump.
Ping
When I was in high school, the students fell into many different groups: preps, jocks, cheerleaders, punks, deadheads, druggies, geeks, and all the rest. Just about everyone received an unofficial but virtually unchangeable assignment to a particular group. When I work in high schools today, I discover little difference. The groups still exist (with just a few changes in terminology), and the teachers and administrators still counsel against the labels. As they wisely explain, labels reinforce stereotypes and prejudices; they prevent us from accepting individuals and getting to know the real person.
There is one difference, however. While still warning children against stereotypes and labels, high-school administrations increasingly encourage one group of students to label themselves: those who experience same-sex attractions. With the assistance (and sometimes pressure) of such groups as the Gay-Straight Alliance and the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, high schools across the country now routinely have student organizations dedicated to promoting the tolerance and acceptance of homosexuality. Indeed, New York City has an entire school—Harvey Milk High School—devoted to “gay, lesbian, transgendered and questioning youth.”
Is it worth pointing out, even at this late date, that the teachers and administrators were right about the dangers of labeling—and wrong when they allowed and encouraged homosexual students to be labeled? As with most errors, this one proceeds from a certain truth and often from good intentions. The truth is that adolescents with same-sex attractions have a higher suicide rate and are more likely to abuse alcohol and drugs. Attributing these problems to persecution and harassment, the new groups pledge to create a safe atmosphere so that students will not be tempted to self-destructive behavior.
But in practice this agenda means more than just an end to the name-calling. It means the approval of homosexuality and, in a new form of name-calling, an insistence that adolescents who experience same-sex attractions “come out” as homosexual.
This is, to begin with, a failure of common sense. Such categorizations feed into the adolescent penchant for labels. High-school students want to belong to a group. They want an identity. Getting to know other people, figuring them out, sorting out who you are in light of who they are—that can be difficult work. Labels make it much easier. Many adolescents latch on to an identity for a time and then think better of it later. For this reason parents and teachers traditionally guard against pigeonholing students in certain categories.
The new approach, however, does just the opposite. It encourages labeling. Rather than struggle through the difficulties of adolescence, a high-school freshman or sophomore can now, with official support, profess to be gay—and he instantly has an identity and a group. Now he belongs. He knows who he is. Gone is the possibility that adolescents might be confused, perhaps even wrong. Adults typically display a wise reserve about the self-discoveries of high-school students: they know adolescents are still figuring things out, and they recognize their responsibility to help sort through the confusion. So why is all this natural wisdom somehow abandoned these days—in the most confused and confusing area of adolescent sexuality?
Of course, the phrases are tempting because of their convenience and efficiency. They are common, close at hand, and make quick work of a difficult issue. But they also identify an individual person with his homosexual inclinations. They presume that a person is his inclinations or attractions; he is a “gay” or is a “homosexual.” At some point adults have to admit that a fifteen-year-old who claims to be “a questioning transgendered bisexual” is really just confused.
Meanwhile, the schools’ endorsement of all this quickly undermines parents’ authority in an extraordinarily sensitive area. While the parents try to teach one thing at home, the school presents the opposite view, now not only in the classroom but also socially (which in high school might have a greater effect). And those parents who have a better way to handle their child’s difficulties will find their efforts thwarted. At home they strive to love their children, help them in their struggles, and teach a coherent truth about human sexuality. Meanwhile at school, children receive the propaganda and encouragement to argue precisely against what their parents say.
Much of this social engineering rests on the view that homosexuality is a fixed, inborn orientation. The school groups hold this as a dogma not open for discussion. In one of the presidential debates last year, when asked if he thought homosexuality was inherited or chosen, President Bush wisely and modestly answered that he did not know. With that he showed himself to be fairly well aligned with the scientific community, which itself cannot produce a uniform answer to the question. The supposed “gay gene” has never been proven or discovered. The most we can say is that certain people may have genetic predispositions towards homosexuality—which is a far cry from saying they inherit it.
The high-school organizations, however, have no qualms about pronouncing the matter settled. Insisting that homosexuality is inborn, they immediately conclude that an adolescent with homosexual inclinations must necessarily be homosexual, or gay, or lesbian, or transgendered—whichever label fits.
And once the label is assigned, it is awfully hard to remove. It lasts past high school and leaves the adolescent at the mercy of our culture’s extremes. What man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? Increasingly, our high schools distribute stones and serpents to hungry children. Adolescents legitimately confused or anxious about their sexuality receive the advice to assume the homosexual label, truncating their identities perhaps for their entire lives.
Given the obvious errors of this new approach, the question still remains, especially for parents: How should one respond to adolescents with same-sex attractions? Love must be the leading edge of the response. The school organizations attract adolescents precisely because they pledge unconditional acceptance and affirmation of the person, no matter what “orientation” he has. Never mind that receiving this acceptance and affirmation in effect requires signing up for the gay agenda, adolescents still perceive it as acceptance and affirmation. Parents need to understand how effective this is. The first point to make known, then, is not what is wrong but what is right: The child is lovable, and is loved. That love, more than anything else, instills in adolescents the trust and confidence they need to struggle with whatever painful and saddening realities they face.
Difficulties arise when the child insists on being accepted and loved not as a person but as a “gay,” “homosexual,” or “other”—when he wants to be loved according to the label. And our culture willingly indulges these labels for the same reason we used them in high school: we find it easier to deal with labels than with actual persons. Clearly this situation demands tremendous patience and perseverance; it requires parents to insist continually that, no, their child is not just the sum of his sexual attractions, that they can love their child while rejecting some of his actions.
Adolescents need to hear precisely this: People’s sexual inclinations do not determine their identity. Nor does every so-called “homosexual” feel attractions of the same character or to the same degree. Some have strong and lasting homosexual desires; for others, such desires are slight and passing. Lumping everyone together as having the same orientation or identity is a grotesque reduction of a complicated reality, and it massively damages the very people it claims to help.
Resisting the labeling temptation demands that we reject the culture’s vocabulary and adopt more precise terms. In popular usage, the words “gay” and “lesbian” imply a fixed orientation and the living out of a lifestyle. Even the term “homosexual person,”which is used in some Vatican documents, suggests that homosexual inclinations somehow determine, which is to say confine, a person’s identity.
Granted, the more accurate phrases do not trip easily off the tongue. But what is lost in efficiency is gained in precision. Terms such as “same-sex attractions” and “homosexual inclinations” express what a person experiences without identifying the person with those attractions. They both acknowledge the attractions and preserve the freedom and dignity of the person. With that essential distinction made, parents can better oppose the attractions without rejecting the child. And as the child matures, he will not find his identity confined to his sexuality.
Further, opposition to homosexual attractions and actions makes sense only when it is rooted in the full truth of human sexuality. Gay school groups gain approval and support partly because heterosexual unchastity (contraception, masturbation, premarital sex, adultery, and all the rest) has compromised so many. Our culture’s deliberate separation of sex from procreation has destroyed our ability to articulate a coherent explanation of sexual ethics. Parents and educators have damaged the tools that would allow them to explain why homosexual activity is wrong.
Understanding the full truth of human sexuality produces an appreciation for purity. Of course, all young people need to strive for this virtue. But purity takes on a greater significance for those with same-sex attractions. Nothing will confirm a supposed “gay” identity more quickly and solidly than homosexual actions. After a homosexual encounter, the adolescent must either admit the error of his actions and repent—or more boldly identify himself with his actions and look for a way to justify them.
As sexual license increases in our culture, we will encounter more adolescents confused about their sexuality and perhaps experiencing same-sex attractions. The easy option is to dissolve the tension by approving homosexuality and even encouraging it. But the most charitable thing we can do for such youth is to love them as God’s own images, to teach them the full truth about human sexuality, and to enable them to live it. Anything less is giving our children stones when they ask for bread.
Paul Scalia is a priest of the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, and chaplain for the Arlington chapter of Courage.
For years the National Education Association has taken teacher dues money and pursued left-of-center social advocacy objectives. Now another acronym in the American educational establishment — the National Parent Teacher Association (PTA) — has joined the NEA in choosing sides in the cultural debate over homosexuality in the schools.
As detailed by George Archibald in the Washington Times (but ignored by the rest of the national media), last year the PTA invited the group Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) to exhibit at the PTA convention and to make a presentation. This year, the Parent and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) wanted to share its perspective on homosexuality and school safety but was denied exhibit space at the PTA’s June convention in Columbus, Ohio. Specifically, the PTA defended its decision by saying that PFLAG was being invited to present information concerning school safety, while PFOX wanted to talk about homosexuality. This reasoning is disingenuous since PFOX was also going to present information about school issues.
One thing is sure: PFLAG and PFOX differ in their approaches to the issues. In the Washington Times article Ron Schlittler, PFLAG’s assistant executive director, lauded the PTA for excluding PFOX and not surprisingly added, “Our beliefs are superior.” Apparently, the PTA agrees.
What exactly are these “superior” beliefs? A sampling of positions PFLAG has taken this year may cause mainstream folks to question the PTA’s wisdom. For starters, in mid-June PFLAG distributed an alert calling for families with “gay children” from the ages of nine through 15 to be a part of a documentary produced by a company called World of Wonder. Gay children? I am not making this up. I verified the e-mail and found that it was sent by assistant executive director Schlittler. So here are two beliefs: PFLAG believes that children can be gay at age nine, and that they should go on camera to talk about it. Are these beliefs superior? You decide.
PFLAG’s support for this film project demonstrates that ideas have consequences. PFLAG’s policies are driven by the belief that homosexuality derives exclusively from nature, with no room for theories that put any emphasis on environment. Why else would you believe it was ethical to encourage children to view themselves as gay at such a young age? Is this the message we want in the nation’s elementary schools?
Another consequence of PFLAG’s beliefs is that people have no rights to pursue change in sexual identity if they desire. According to the Washington Times article, PFLAG’s Schlittler belittled those who believe in such self-determination by calling it “snake oil.”
Another PFLAG belief reveals an irony of the group’s involvement in the PTA conference. PFLAG does not support anti-bullying legislation unless the terms “sexual orientation” and “transgendered” are in the bill. The PTA conference was held in Ohio, where at the time legislation was under consideration that would require all school districts to implement anti-bullying policies. However, House Bill 276 would provide protection for all students — not just those bullied for reasons relating to their sexual identification. PFLAG is on record as opposing such legislation.
So let’s recap: PFLAG believes children can self identify their gayness by at least age nine; children should go on camera to discuss it; homosexuality is fixed and hardwired; and anti-bullying laws are inadequate without reference to sexual orientation.
Now where does PFOX come down on these matters? Did the PTA choose well? Are the views of PFOX inferior to those of PFLAG?
For one thing, PFOX also planned to exhibit material regarding school safety and homosexuality. The perspective of PFOX is that all students — including those who identify as gay — deserve a safe learning environment. Furthermore, students at an appropriate developmental level deserve to hear all perspectives regarding homosexuality, including the view that sexual orientation is not a fixed trait. Nine-year-olds should not be burdened with such matters.
We have here the starkest contrast of perspectives on an educational matter as I have ever seen. Faced with these different perspectives, the PTA could have invited both groups to the conference and let the parents attending decide what approach best fits their schools.
Dr. Throckmorton is an associate professor of psychology at Grove City College in Pennsylvania.
Bump-Ping This Important Thread.
Family Advocate Angry Over Legislature's Pro-Homosexual Move (Homosexuality in Public Schools)
Man Fired By American Red Cross For Not Celebrating Homosexuality
Upset at kinder gay family guide
Australian Survey Defines "Homophobia" as Belief that Homosexuality is Immoral
Three major companies fund 'GAY MAN-BOY' group in Virginia
Father faces trial over school's 'pro-gay' book
David Parker Jury Trial to start Sept. 21
David Parker Press Conference After Aug. 2 Pre-Trial Hearing
Demands would impact children (anti- David Parker letter)
Country Club Must Make Gays Even Offer
Once again, the people's opinion means nothing... California Gays Get Benefits Boost
"My Name is Michael Vocino and I Like Dick"-Life in political philosophy at U of Rhode Island
Now in the Boston area. . .[promotion of homosexual activity on public billboard]
Pastor's remarks on gays end AIDS groups' support
Ratzinger - "Very Soon It Will Not Be Possible to State That Homosexuality is an Objective Disorder"
BTTT. People need to know the truth about the "gay" agenda.
Hope all is well!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.