Posted on 08/03/2004 5:48:23 PM PDT by scripter
Former homosexuals who had renounced same-sex relations were called "offensive" by delegates to this month's annual convention of the 2.7-million-member National Education Association (NEA).
"I'm really offended that you're even here," a delegate wearing the rainbow emblem of the NEA Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Caucus told a supporter of the new NEA Ex-Gay Educators Caucus.
The Ex-Gay Educators Caucus distributed literature explaining that scientific research shows that homosexuality is not "a fixed, inborn trait."
Other opponents of the Ex-Gay Educators Caucus, whose exhibit was permitted for the first time at this year's union gathering at the D.C. Convention Center, also challenged the NEA's claim of being democratic and diverse.
One delegate who visited the exhibit told caucus members that there was "a special place in hell for us," said caucus founder Jeralee Smith from California, an elementary special-education teacher and former lesbian.
She said another NEA delegate remarked, "You might as well set up a Ku Klux Klan booth right next to you."
Noe Gutierrez Jr. of California, a former homosexual activist who is now a member of the Ex-Gay Educators Caucus, said the intolerance was a shocking repudiation of anti-prejudice views voiced by advocacy groups and the NEA.
"Prejudice is assuming you know someone before you take the time to know them," said Mr. Gutierrez, who was featured as a spokesman in a 1998 Public Broadcasting Service TV special on presenting homosexual issues in the schools.
"People made the association between us and gay-bashers," he said. "I mean, they definitely lumped us in with a whole lot of bad and came to our booth with that attitude, not open in any way to learning. Isn't that funny? So at an educators caucus, there is no learning taking place. No one who came to yell at us or who could be angry with us came with an open mind or were ready to learn anything."
Opposition to the message of the Ex-Gay Educators Caucus is led by Kevin Jennings, a former private school teacher in Massachusetts and founder of the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network. Mr. Jennings is a partner with the NEA in promoting acceptance of homosexuality through curriculum materials in the nation's schools as early as kindergarten and elementary grades. He was given the NEA's human rights "creative leadership" award at this year's convention.
"Ex-gay messages have no place in our nation's public schools," Mr. Jennings said in a publication of the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network. "A line has been drawn. There is no 'other side' when you're talking about lesbian, gay and bisexual students."
Warren Throckmorton, past president of the American Mental Health Counselors Association, disagreed.
"Kids want to understand themselves. It's very early in life to make a definition about one's sexual identity. Educators should give kids options to wait awhile, to consider a straight identity if they would rather that," he said.
"If you've got teachers in schools telling kids that their same-sex attractions mean they are gay, they could foreclose on the option of waiting awhile to discover their sexual identity and their option to discover their heterosexual potential. The earlier that you decide on a sexual label, the more likely you are to experiment with sex."
But homosexual advocates within the NEA and outside groups sent out word that this was an important battle for them.
"The two issues that have been at the forefront for us this year have been the 'ex-gay caucus' and the marriage amendment," Tom Nicholas and Cathy Figel, chairmen of the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Caucus, said in a message to the convention. "On the ex-gay issue, we are currently working with [NEA] President Reg Weaver to get to the delegates accurate information regarding reparative therapy."
The efforts of the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Caucus prompted the NEA to distribute to all 9,000 convention delegates copies of a 12-page 1999 brochure produced by the union, "Just the Facts About Sexual Orientation and Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators and School Personnel."
The brochure's central premise is that homosexuality is an inborn and immutable trait.
The Ex-Gay Educators Caucus, with Mr. Throckmorton's help, objected to NEA leaders that science does not support that view and persuaded Mr. Weaver to allow them to provide NEA delegates their six-page response titled "Respect and the Facts: How to Have Both in the Sexual Orientation Debate."
The NEA printed the response, which stated: "There is no consensus in current research to show that sexual orientation is a fixed, inborn trait. We believe sexual attractions are the product of nature and nurture and that sexual identity is a flexible experience for many people."
Miss Smith and Mr. Gutierrez say their own changes in sexual orientation are proof that homosexuality is not embedded in a person at birth.
Miss Smith said she became involved in homosexuality as the result of being sexually exploited when she was 15 by a female dean at the private school she attended. She says she might not have pursued homosexuality had it not been for that early experience.
"Young people who may not want to embrace the gay identity are not being given any hope," she said. "The stories of people who have not taken that choice are not being revealed, and there's a repression of information on the other side of the [pro-homosexual] viewpoint. And so we have to speak up."
Mr. Gutierrez says he "came out" as a homosexual at age 16, but by 24, "I felt empty, I felt dissatisfied, disillusioned."
Mr. Gutierrez, the son of a Pentecostal minister, says, "My whole identity had been swallowed up in my gay identity."
He says he objects to the way children are taught in schools that homosexuality is all right, but are denied other options for dealing with same-sex attraction as adolescents. The message given in many schools is: "If you're experiencing feelings of same-sex attraction, the only way you're going to be happy is to adopt them into a gay identity," he says.
The Ex-Gay Educators Caucus has a different message.
"At the very core of our stance is that gays can change, and we want to be there for the student who is unhappy about adopting a gay identity and who very much wants to explore venues toward change, toward being heterosexually identified," Mr. Gutierrez says.
I think that's the post of the day, or the thread, or, well, it's a great point...
| What We Can Do To Help Defeat the "Gay" Agenda |
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| Homosexual Agenda: Categorical Index of Links (Version 1.1) |
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| Myth and Reality about Homosexuality--Sexual Orientation Section, Guide to Family Issues" |
http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20040726-102641-8699r
Mr. Jennings (of GLSEN) has covered his eyes and ears in an attempt to block the truth that thousands have left the homosexual lifestyle.
Kevin Jennings, the founder of GLSEN, is a homosexual activist whose mission is to fill the eyes and ears of the precious children in our public schools with homosexual propaganda. Make no mistake, Jennings knows exactly what he's doing.
I encourage anyone who wants to know more about Kevin Jennings and GLSEN to read through the information and articles linked below.
GLSEN needs to be booted out of the public schools.
An excerpt from 'Queering the Schools' with response from Kevin Jennings, Executive Director of GLSEN and the editors response to Kevin Jennings.
( http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1026551/posts?page=125#125 )
( http://www.FreeRepublic.com/focus/news/668271/posts?page=131#131 )
( http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GuestColumns/Fey20030928.shtml )
GLSEN and Its Influence on Children
( http://www.narth.com/docs/glsen.html )
GLSEN Encourages Teens In Anal SEX "Don't give up."
( http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a9be92c26df.htm )
The Queering of Elementary Education
( http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1026551/posts?page=285#285 )
An excerpt from "Targeting Children - Part two: How the homosexual movement uses public schools as instruments of change"
( http://www.afa.net/homosexual_agenda/childrenb.asp )
"GLSEN activist and New York kindergarten teacher Jaki Williams said starting in kindergarten is a must, since children at that age are still developing their ideas about the world around them. Even at that age, she said, “the saturation process needs to begin.”
Williams, in fact, is a model teacher when it comes to this “saturation” process. She regularly initiates conversations with her children by reading to them such controversial books as Heather Has Two Mommies, Daddy’s Roommate, and One Dad, Two Dads, Browns Dads, Blue Dads. She also hosts a viewing of the video Both of My Moms’ Names Are Judy: Children of Lesbians and Gays Speak Out, produced by a San Francisco pro-homosexual advocacy group.
According to one writer for The Lambda Report, who infiltrated a 1997 GLSEN workshop, one former teacher admitted that changing the mind of a child required more than a one-time effort. She said she had to expose her children to a constant stream of homosexual words and images, because "It’s really a conditioning process."
Example Offered of Real Homosexual Agenda in America's Schools
( http://www.FreeRepublic.com/focus/news/675813/posts )
"The school board says it’s about harassment, it’s about tolerance. Well, what does GLSEN say?" she asks. "The executive director, Kevin Jennings, says that it is about promoting homosexuality. That’s what he said is his mission. Let me read you his quote. He said, ‘Promoting homosexuality -- we can make it happen. That is our mission from this day forward.’ "
Folger describes the prospects as "frightening." "We had people that went into the GLSEN meetings. And make no mistake, this is not about tolerance in meeting with teachers -- it's about getting to the children," she says. "In fact, it was in that GLSEN meeting, locally held, that they said, 'We need this agreement to get to the children.' "
See also the following replies in scripter's Homosexual Agenda: Categorical Index of Links (Version 1.1):
( http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1026551/posts )
Replies: 80, 141, 142, 152, 155, 167, 168, 173, 174, 175, 179, 189, 202, 204, 206, 208, 216, 223, 226, 230, 238, 246, 256, 270, 271, and 285.
Meant to address #24 to you, too - sorry!
- Homosexual Agenda PING -
Those attempting to actually HELP homosexuals end their destructive and unhealthy lifestyles are labelled as "bigots", "haters", and "homophobes".
The homosexual enablers, the ones actually hurting them, are heralded as heros and allies.
Bad = Good, Good = Bad. Where have I read that before...?
Lovely to see that the NEA, those that are responsible for educating the future of this country, are partnered up with such bastions of morality and ethical clarity.
(If you want on or off this ping list, please FReepmail me.)
*Use post twice daily, or as recommended by doctor or freeper.*
Un-freaking-believable
Indeed! From the article:
Opposition to the message of the Ex-Gay Educators Caucus is led by Kevin Jennings, a former private school teacher in Massachusetts and founder of the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network. Mr. Jennings is a partner with the NEA in promoting acceptance of homosexuality through curriculum materials in the nation's schools as early as kindergarten and elementary grades. He was given the NEA's human rights "creative leadership" award at this year's convention.
"Ex-gay messages have no place in our nation's public schools," Mr. Jennings said in a publication of the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network. "A line has been drawn. There is no 'other side' when you're talking about lesbian, gay and bisexual students."
Now consider this excerpt from "CFI Panel Exposes GLSEN’s Cross-Dressing Agenda - Medical Doctor Says Young Male AIDS Cases Linked to Abuse
"... FROM ABUSE VICTIM TO ‘GAY’ STUDENT
LaBarbera also relayed an account by GLSEN Executive Director Kevin Jennings in which he counseled one of his former students, a sophomore boy named Brewster who had been victimized by a homosexual pedophile. According to his account in his book One Teacher in Ten: Gay and Lesbian Educators Tell Their Stories, Jennings, then an openly homosexual teacher at the private Concord Academy in Massachusetts, met with the troubled Brewster, who nervously revealed “a story about his involvement with an older man he had met in Boston.” Jennings wrote that after the talk, Brewster “left my office with a smile on his face that I would see every time I saw him on campus.”
Jennings said proudly that he had helped the boy realize “that it’s OK to be gay.” Several years later, he saw Brewster at a homosexual restaurant in Boston. “He was now twenty-two, taking time off from college, and living with his boyfriend,” Jennings wrote.
LaBarbera said the story illustrates the problem of open homosexual activists working in schools and using their authority and trust as role models to promote false, unhealthy sexual identities to impressionable students. He said that in reality, young Brewster was not “gay,” as Jennings had claimed, but the confused victim of a homosexual predator..."
So they want to doom thousands of kids to the "gay" life.
Ding, ding, ding!!! Absolutely correct answer!
From Chapter Four:
"The radicals in control of the gay establishment want children in their world of moral decay, lack of self-restraint, and moral relativism. Why? How better to truly belong to the majority (when you're really on the fringe) than by taking possession of the next generation? By targeting children, you can start indoctrinating the next generation with the false construct that gay people deserve special treatment and special laws." (Pg.88)
"I believe this grab for children by the sexually confused adults of the Gay Elite repesents the most serious problem facing our culture today." (Pg.94)
"Between GLSEN, the Happy Penis, Phil, and now Kami, I'd say the Gay Elite have your children as a captive audience. Whether you like it or not, they have appointed themselves your children's moral tutor." (pg.119)
Compare what Tammy Bruce has written with the following articles:
Targeting Children - How the gay movement intends to capture the next generation
Targeting Children - Part three: Activists encouraging experimentation
Targeting Children - Part four: Access to children: homosexuality and molestation
- Homosexual Agenda PING -
Those attempting to actually HELP homosexuals end their destructive and unhealthy lifestyles are labelled as "bigots", "haters", and "homophobes".
The homosexual enablers, the ones actually hurting them, are heralded as heros and allies.
Bad = Good, Good = Bad. Where have I read that before...?
Lovely to see that the NEA, those that are responsible for educating the future of this country, are partnered up with such bastions of morality and ethical clarity.
(If you want on or off this ping list, please FReepmail me.)
*Use post twice daily, or as recommended by doctor or freeper.*
Based on my read of this article, it would also be fair to say that a key talking point of the gay agenda is that the ex-gay movement is just a political power ploy. This statement could be used to identify an agitator. Anyone else would at least be willing to listen.
Shalom.
Why would educators have any interest in that boring stuff when they can talk about sex?
Shalom.
it seems the Gay Agenda is violently opposed to the ex-gay message
Indeed they are - examples posted here and here.
Additional documentation posted here.
Do you suppose at the NEA convention they discuss such boring things as reading, writing, and math?
Why would educators have any interest in that boring stuff when they can talk about sex?
An excerpt from "Focus Changed at Fistgate This Year; Less Raw Sex"
"Shafer began her session by saying, "There are always going to be people - parents, administrators, students, colleagues, and maybe even your friends - who think that you shouldn't include GLBT issues in the classroom, that they don't belong in a younger grade classroom. But I think that they do, and I am assuming that you are here because you also think so." She then asked participants to write down reasons why they think GLBT issues should be shared in the K-5 classroom...
One teacher intern at the Devotion School in Brookline gave this rationale: "It's important to help children become agents of change."
Shafer recalled that several years ago, while she was still "in the closet," GLSEN executive director Kevin Jennings paid a visit to her school and: "It was at that point that I was able to begin coming out."
She expressed concern that teachers in the younger-grades in the Commonwealth are being pressured to abandon values-related and social skill-building activities in their classrooms in favor of academic activities, such as learning to write an expository essay. "That's the message I'm getting, and I think a lot of teachers are getting that, and that's kind of scary to me, and I don't think it's an easy time to be a progressive teacher in Massachusetts right now..."
Hi madg!
I just ate an afternoon snack and your posted reply is about to make me wretch it up! This is beyond disgusting....
Shalom.
Shalom to you as well,
It is strange, but there are some educators who think that by discussing sex they are "reaching out" to students. Actually, they are showing students that they can be as immature as teen-agers. Kids in school need basics from their teachers, not sex-therapy. And besides, this is a way to find out whom among the student body is ready for sex with a teacher. All very much part of the NEA, but not good for education.
Parent Alleges Harassment for Exposing 'Fistgate'
Fistgate to be Held Again on March 15
Teaching Kindergarten Kids About 'Human Differences' and Homosexuality Isn't 'Easy' in Newton
"You might as well set up a Ku Klux Klan booth right next to you."
DRAMA QUEENS.
Look at the words used in this thing. If EX homosexuals can not speak to the truth about this issue, then who can? I think what it really is is that liberals are so threatened by anyone who can speak from experience and show a change in their lives ie ex-homosexuals, ex-liberals, ex-teachers(John Gatto), etc. They hate that their are REAL examples out there of people who have turned from their questionable values.
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