this from the NEA website...tolerance can and should be taught without assailing religion LOL...
Teaching Tolerance or Attacking Religion?
How far can schools go in teaching tolerance for gays and lesbians? Two federal courts tackle this thorny question.
Its the latest battleground in the culture wars. In the wake of several high-profile cases holding school districts liable for failing to protect gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) students from peer harassment, many schools have adopted training programs intended to reduce harassment and promote acceptance of GLBT students.
Some parents find these programs objectionable because they conflict with their deeply held religious belief that homosexuality is sinful, and they dont want the schools to undermine their parental authority by teaching a contrary lesson.
Federal courts in Maryland and Kentucky recently struggled to resolve this conflict, with differing results.
In a dispute that is still ongoing, the Montgomery County (Maryland) Board of Education last year adopted a health education curriculum designed to teach tolerance of gays and lesbians. Among other things, course materials described as a “myth” the belief that “homosexuality is a sin” and characterized certain Christian religions as “intolerant and Biblically misguided” because they are “opposed to homosexuality.”
In a lawsuit filed in May 2005 by two groups of parents and citizens, a federal district court issued an injunction prohibiting the Maryland school district from implementing the curriculum. The court found that the course materials violate the Constitution by attacking the views of certain religions, while promoting the views of other religions that are more friendly towards the homosexual lifestyle.
The school district has agreed to revise the controversial curriculum. That process is still underway.
In the Kentucky case decided in February, a federal district court ruled that parents dont have the right to have their children opt out of mandatory “student diversity training” designed to stop the harassment of GLBT students.
The program adopted by the Board of Education of Boyd County, Kentucky, consists of a one-hour video, followed by comments from an instructor and questions from students. Students who refuse to attend receive an unexcused absence.
The school district agreed to implement the mandatory training for both staff and students as part of the settlement of a 2003 lawsuit filed by GLBT students charging that the district had turned a blind eye to peer harassment and had illegally denied official recognition to a Gay Straight Alliance student club.
The parents had claimed that the training violated their right to practice their religion because the diversity training “promoted values contrary to their religious beliefs” and “attempted to change [their childrens] religious and ideological views regarding homosexuality.”
The court disagreed. Merely exposing students to “views [that are] contrary to their religious beliefs” does not infringe on their religious freedom, the court said. Plus, there was no evidence that any student “was compelled to disavow his or her religious beliefs” or to “endorse homosexuality.”
The court also ruled that the program did not violate the plaintiffs “parental rights” to direct the upbringing and religious training of their children. Parents, the court held, have no “fundamental right to dictate curriculum,” even where they may have “genuine moral disagreements with the schools choice of subject matter.”
Of special note, the court rejected the parents’ reliance on the Maryland decision to challenge the Boyd County program. The Boyd County program, the court said, “is a far cry” from the curriculum struck down in Maryland, which denigrated several religions and attempted to “elevate certain religious views over others.”
The lesson from these two cases is simple: One way school districts can fulfill their legal obligation to provide a safe learning environment for GLBT students is to mandate anti-harassment training. And these lessons of tolerance can and should be taught without assailing religion.
As the judge in the Maryland case cautioned: School officials can “achieve the goals of advocating tolerance and providing health-related information” without teaching “such controversial topics as whether homosexuality is a sin, whether AIDS is Gods judgment on homosexuals, and whether churches that condemn homosexuality are on theologically solid ground.”
I think it’s time for all Conservative parents to pull their children out of the public schools. Seriously. Do whatever you can, but get them out of there. Either homeschool them, or put them in private or parochial schools. But get them out now. We could make it a goal. No more Conservative children in the public schools. I’d even be willing to start or contribute to a fund for that purpose. No child left behind? Make that: No child left in public school. THAT should be the goal.
This judge is obviously pro-pervert. This is what happens when you cede the state substantial control over kids, instead of the family.
Parents should band together to keep their kids out until the state comes to its senses.
If it were my kid, they would be in a private school immediately. Otherwise home schooling, otherwise a coop home schooling plan.
why, the children I know, laughed at the idea of being gay.
>> that a school can expose children to contrary ideas without violating their parents’ rights
This is really, really poor judgment.
Homosexuals need to keep in mind, however, that the good news of the gospel is not about how God despises same-sex sexual relationships. In fact, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 indicates that certain members of that church had been slaves to such relationships but had been cleansed in Jesus' name. So these former homosexuals had evidently repented and accepted God's grace to straighten their lives out.
John 3:16
Revelation 3:20
Also, consider how judges are now reflecting the evil of the Pharisees of Jesus' time. More specifically, consider how Mark 7:1-13, particularly verses 10-12, shows that Jesus reprimanded the Pharisees for essentially driving a wedge between parents and their children as our judges are now doing, basically nullifying the 5TH COMMANDMENT, to honor your parents.
Finally, regarding Christian taxpayers who are unwillingly helping to pay for public schools to expose their children to homosexuality, Jefferson addressed this situation in general when he wrote his Bill for Religious Freedom as evidenced by the following excerpt.
"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." --Thomas Jefferson: Bill for Religious Freedom, 1779. Papers 2:545 http://www.religioustolerance.org/virg_bil.htmAs a side note, I also won't overlook the fact that Christian taxpayers have been unwillingly helping to pay for public schools teach scientifically unverified macroevolution ideas for the past several decades, such ideas actually being a politically correct attack on Christianity.
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/barf
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I wonder how many judges belong to NAMBLA
I don’t get this filth. Homosexuals are only 2% of the population and they act like everyone in America is gay. Sick.
"Contrary" ideas? How about bestiality or pedophilic sex? Without legislating arbitrarily from the bench, how does a judge draw the line between "contrary ideas" and pornography?
You got that right. Mitt's advocacy of the homosexual agenda in Massachusetts ultimately has contributed to introduction of homosexual propaganda in the public schools in that state...even before he left the governor's mansion. ![]() |
This is another reason to home school. The system doesn’t work. It is time to dismantle it.
Judge Sandra L. Lynch - Appointed 1995 by President Clinton
As WND reported in 2006, U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf dismissed the civil rights lawsuit by David and Tonia Parker of Lexington, concluding there is an obligation for public schools to teach young children to accept and endorse homosexuality.
U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf - Appointed 1985 by President Reagan
They should also be required to talk about the higher incidence of disease and the stink.