Column help wanted (on the NEA pro-gay resolution)

The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teacher’s union, recently voted to encourage schools to work hard to protect homosexual students from harassment and other things that lead to a bad learning environment. It sounds like a great thing, but I have problems with it.

As part of the proposal, the NEA will work to provide factual materials about homosexuality to schools for student consumption. Now, I highly doubt one of the facts that will be presented is that members of the same gender are not able to procreate. It is pretty clear that the way nature is today, this is not possible. But, the NEA would not say so. The facts it would choose to include would be “non-judgmental” in nature, according to the press release on the NEA website. Due to the liberal political activism of the NEA, there is no doubt in my mind they would try to use the public schools to say that being gay is perfectly acceptable. I am looking at their history when I say this. The NEA spent lots of member money to support Al Gore in 2000. They have consistently came out as opposing the right of all students, both rich and poor, to attend the school of their choice. I find this very interesting, since liberals always say they want to help the poor. In any case, half the NEA resolutions each year are political in nature and have nothing to do with actually improving classroom performance of students. There is nothing in their history that would indicate they could do anything but propagandize students about how normal homosexuality is. It would be good to point out to students that homosexuals are people deserving of fair treatment no matter what one thinks about their lifestyle. It would be good to encourage students to show consideration for others instead of hatred and cruelty. But, the NEA would go further than this, which is unacceptable since it teaches a moral view about homosexuality.

It should be noted that while I do disagree with the homosexual lifestyle and am not afraid to say so, I am not opposing the goal of stopping harassment. It is nothing short of disgusting that people could be cruel, bullying and making fun of others. Everyone should have the ability to come to school each day and not be bullied, taunted or demeaned by others. School should be a place where everyone gets an equal chance at learning in a good environment. I know from my own experience that being made fun of is not fun and I would never do anything to try to encourage this on anyone. I remember from elementary school days how little fun it was to get picked on and bullied.

However, it is precisely the specific proposal to stop harassment of gays that bothers me. Not because I support gays being harassed, but because it singles out a group for special protection. The Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal...they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” Men refers to mankind, all of humanity. Everyone, male and female, straight and gay, has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness given by God at birth. It is precisely this spirit that causes me to be bothered by the NEA proposal. Everyone is worthy of EQUAL protection under the law. Some people are not worthy of more protection than others. The NEA would like to single out homosexuals for special protection of the schools, which sends the message that others do not deserve as much. It should be noted that the NEA has not sent out lots of educational materials to help stop harassment of say, the Christians, the shy students, and others. I notice that the NEA has not adopted a resolution saying the teacher who took a student’s Bible and threw it in the trash last year violated that student’s rights and caused her distress. I believe as a conservative that EVERYONE deserves a good learning environment. I refuse to single out groups of people who are more deserving than others. The liberals say they hate discrimination, but the measures they support like affirmative action and proposals like the NEA has adopted only perpetuate a class system where different societal groups get special recognition or support over others. It also stops all groups from coming together in a common unity. Frankly, all teachers should be offended that the NEA does not believe all students are worthy of the same protection. They should be angered that the NEA singles out certain types of people for special emphasis in protection. Furthermore, teachers should be offended the NEA does not trust them to provide a good learning environment to everyone, including homosexuals. Students should be offended that the NEA does not think all students equally deserve the same safe learning environment.

While I have issues with the resolution itself, I hope the NEA will at least help provide gay and lesbian students with less discrimination. I also hope everyone else who is picked on will have bullies actually get in trouble instead of getting off. Students, do what you can to show respect for everyone, not just certain groups. Nobody deserves to be made fun of or attacked, no matter who they are. School should be a safe place for all that attend.

I went to a meeting once, where I felt strongly that I wanted very much for as many people there, to consider what I had to say.

But most just shook their heads; and one "Bible-thumper" utterly refused to consider any but the most narrow view of the German people, that they were evil, having conspired to commit "the Holocaust."

Well, it seemed that nobody was listening, and that perhaps I'd been too practical with the evidence; I'd not made it easier, the sorrow-full road to the Germans' moral decay, whereby they turned away from helping one another.

One lady, however, after each contest of my points when I was hammered a bit by various others, would stand up and level the crowd. They were amazed. I was impressed.

She stood up for liberty and admonished them for their hope-less-ness which affected their view and prevented their further understanding.

She knew what it is like to lose liberty. She knew what it is like to want it, to fight for it, but especially to know what it is like to have fought for it, to have died for it, to be lost in that fight for ever, to have no record of your sacrifice ... and to have been judged with your countrymen, to be simple, in a manner of speaking.

Means, written off --- without a gain, the incorrect conclusion is "never ventured."

Hitler & Co. killed off his political opposition, beginning in the late 1920's.

Easy to say that the German people were anti-Semitic, because who of them survived to prove that "all or nothing thinking" to not be the case?

Not all heterosexuals who have the homosexual syndrome, are alike; they are not a group. All people with diabetes are not alike. All people with depression are not alike.

Among them, there are some fruitcakes. Same for lawyers, doctors, dentists, presidents, and members of the "liberal media."

The socialists' agitprop is that those who have homosexual syndrome, are under assault as a group; but they are not, as a group.

Walk up and down a street around noon, downtown, and you see heterosexuals, that is how we are born.

Among the passersby, who has homosexual syndrome? Who has chronic fatigue syndrome?

I've never seen even one identified and jeered, taunted, abused or in any way mistreated.

Americans do not like injustice. What can be made to appear the target of unjust attacks, will garner sympathy and often some defense; "something must be done about it."

But what really is under attack?

Well, in the political pandemonium and the glare of the klieg lights, it's ... it's ...

What the socialists would have people believe is gut-wrenchingly wrong, is actually theatre.

It's theatre.

Lot of people are moved by theatre.

John Walker Lindh is on trial for doing something bad against the United States of America. A skilled lawyer could make him to be a defendant in a parallel trial that is political theatre, in order to stage, repeat stage, a defense complete with a script that will be widely read, "published" free of charge by the media.

It is times like these, when you turn on the house lights and the agitprops around the stage are revealed to be just that: props supporting a fantasy.

If you disturb people from that, yes indeed, you may ruffle many feathers.

But again, when the water is rising, you are running out of room to breathe.

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