Posted on 02/08/2002 3:05:41 PM PST by anniegetyourgun
WASHINGTON (AP) - The nation's largest teachers union will ask school districts to protect homosexual students and staff by adopting policies that punish harassment and discrimination.
Under a plan adopted Friday by the National Education Association's board of directors, schools also will be encouraged to develop factual materials for classroom discussions on homosexuality. All staff and students will be encouraged to speak up when they see or experience discrimination based on sexual orientation.
"I think it's a pretty clear signal that the organization recognizes there are some pretty serious needs for gay and lesbian children in school - and employees," said Penny Kotterman, president of the Arizona Education Association. She chairs the NEA's Task Force on Sexual Orientation, which was created last fall to develop the plan.
Kotterman, a middle school special education teacher in the Kyrene School District in suburban Phoenix, said the plan will help schools with difficult issues of student sexuality.
"Staff do need help," she said. "They need professional development, they need good, factual data that helps them deal with these issues."
The union said it could provide "accurate, objective and up-to-date information" on the needs and problems of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students and staff.
A statement by the NEA said the information schools provide should be age-appropriate, nonjudgmental and relevant to subject matter being studied.
Studies indicate that homosexual students have higher dropout and suicide rates and sometimes are treated with hostility by fellow students. NEA President Bob Chase has said gay and lesbian teachers in some states face losing their jobs because of their sexual orientation.
"It is clear that, in too many places, students and education employees who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered face a hostile environment," Chase said Friday in the statement.
A study last year by the University of North Carolina estimated that 5 percent to 6 percent of students 17 or younger, or more than 2 million students, are gay, lesbian or bisexual.
The NEA represents 2.6 million teachers and other school employees.
And we get nothing but intolerance for having such beliefs. Gays are not willing to let bygones be bygones.
Most straight people were content to let things alone as far as gay people were concerned. After all, someone's sex life and preference is their private business...until the militants decided to make this everybody's business. What's worse, using the NEA and other political groups to achieve that end is the last straw.
Kids need to be kids, they don't need to get all worked up over a function of life that they are not mature enough to handle, and this goes for all forms of sex. [/rant off]
PS Thanks for the compliments, Spook!
Bump!
Didn't see your ping (I don't know how to send/get pings), but I saw your note to me with link -- thanks.
Was just reading a page at Focus On Family's site that was explaining how these pseudo-diversity programs can be violative of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act when participation is made mandatory by authority (boss, school system), and people who don't accept the morality of homosexuality are required to participate in disrespect of their own moral beliefs. FoF's page asserted that so to do is justiciable, and gave the example of a professor who was fired after refusing to wear a pink-triangle badge in a "sensitivity training" seminar, and who successfully sued for a satisfactory settlement-out-of-court that got him his job back and an apology from the university.
Respect goes both ways, and that's where you'll nail these ideologues -- respect is the farthest thing from their minds, when they come to indoctrinate you.
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