For those who despite all evidence to the contrary still believe that the bullying amendment that is pending in the Illinois Senate is centrally about stopping bullying, please read what one of Illinois’ chief homosexual activists organizations, Equality Illinois, recently sent out to its devotees:

SAFE SCHOOLS – AMENDMENT SUBMITTED FOR ANTI-BULLYING LEGISLATION

Thanks to the work of Representative Kelly Cassidy and broad Prevent School Violence Coalition, which includes groups like Equality Illinois, Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, ACLU of Illinois, among others, bill passed the House and is now going to State Senate.

Equality Illinois is a homosexual activist organization. The Illinois Safe Schools Alliance is a homosexual activist organization that was once part of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). The ACLU is an organization as committed to normalizing homosexuality and gender confusion as GLSEN, Equality Illinois, and the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance.  And State Representative Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago) is openly homosexual.

Equality Illinois also made clear that HB 5290 is unnecessary: “House Bill 5290 modifies current law by integrating the specific recommendations of the Illinois School Bullying Prevention Task Force.” HB 5290 restates the recommendations created by the very liberal Bullying Prevention Task Force. Those recommendations are easily available on the Illinois State Board of Education website for any school district that feels it needs further guidance.

Cassidy stated that this additional law is needed because 3 school districts (out of over 900) have no policy and 20 do not have “adequate” bullying policy. What she failed to make clear during floor debates is that the 3 school districts that don’t have bullying policy are already in violation of existing law, so HB 5290 is unnecessary.

Furthermore, HB 5290, which mandates nothing, would do nothing about the 20 school districts that have — in Cassidy’s view — inadequate policy. If these 20 districts have bullying policy, they are in compliance with existing law.

To illustrate that “anti-bullying” programs that address homosexuality or gender confusion (aka “gender identity” or “gender expression”) are centrally about promoting “progressive” notions about homosexuality, just replace “sexual orientation” (a Leftist rhetorical creation) with another condition constituted by subjective feelings and volitional sexual acts.

Everyone knows that teenage girls who are promiscuous are often called ugly names or worse. No decent person wants promiscuous girls bullied, so why don’t anti-bullying laws and school policies include promiscuity in their lists of conditions for which students may not be bullied?  Why don’t teachers show films in which promiscuity is portrayed positively?  Why don’t schools invite speakers who affirm a sexually promiscuous identity to come talk to students about how bad it felt to be bullied in high school for their promiscuity?  Why don’t they have “youth programming” in which promiscuity is affirmed? Why don’t teachers have students read and perform plays in which promiscuity is celebrated and disapproval of it is portrayed as ignorant, bigoted, hateful, provincialism — all in the service of ending bullying?

Or replace “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” with polyamory?  What if some students are bullied because either they or their “parents” identify as polyamorists? Will schools have anti-bullying “youth programming” in which polyamorous unions are  portrayed as morally equivalent to families headed by two people?  Mary Jo Merrick-Lockett, a teacher in a Minneapolis high school that has recently been at the forefront of a national bullying campaign to malign and sue the district into ideological submission to the great and powerful pro-homosexual lobby had this to say:

If you can’t talk about [homosexuality] in any context, which is how teachers interpret district policies, kids internalize that to mean that being gay must be so shameful and wrong. And that has created a climate of fear and repression and harassment.

Will teachers assert that silence on the issue of polyamory creates a climate of harassment for polyamorists? Do teachers believe that internalizing the belief that polyamory is wrong is damaging to students?

What if a student is bullied because her parents are siblings in a committed, loving incestuous relationship? Will public school administrators treat adult consensual incest exactly as they are treating homosexuality and gender confusion — all in the service of ending bullying?

We all know the answer to these questions. Schools would never have students read plays, novels, and magazine articles; or watch films; or perform plays; or attend “youth programming” sessions; or listen to invited speakers that affirm promiscuity, adult consensual incest, or polyamory — not even to end bullying. The reason that lawmakers wouldn’t seek such remedies and administrators would not permit them is that they would not want to affirm something as positive that they believe is immoral — not even to end bullying.  And this is the point: public schools are both implicitly and explicitly taking sides in the public debate about the nature and morality of homosexuality.

Some will take offense at my comparison of homosexuality to polyamory or adult consensual incest because — they argue — those conditions are immoral and homosexuality is not. But that is precisely the unsettled debate. The moral beliefs of homosexuals and their ideological allies who oppressively control public schools are just that: beliefs, assumptions, moral propositions — not facts.

All the various organizations committed to using public schools to normalize homosexuality are trying to make the case that opposition to their anti-bullying laws, policies, and programs constitutes support for bullying, and our lawmakers are falling for it. Our lawmakers are quaking in their boots because they know homosexuals will call them supporters of bullying if they don’t toe the pro-homosexual ideological line. Allowing their fear to control their actions is destructive and embarrassing. 

The truth is it is entirely possible to oppose bullying without mentioning every possible condition for which students may be bullied, without “youth programming,” and without duplicative non-mandatory laws that will before long be made mandatory.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to contact your senator and urge him/her to oppose this unnecessary bullying bill.

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Last week, I wrote about an article by Sabrina Rubin Erdely that appears in the Feb. 6, 2012 issue of Rolling Stone magazine. More digging into her story reveals additional problems with her account of teen suicides in the Anoka-Hennepin School District outside of Minneapolis.

Erdely wrote about a cluster of teen suicides that she attributes to two causes:  Evangelicals and a school district policy that requires faculty to remain neutral on the controversial topic of “sexual orientation.” She makes her case primarily through the use of logical fallacies.

Illinoisans should pay close attention to what’s happening in the Anoka-Hennepin School District in Minnesota because the irrational arguments and manipulative tactics used by homosexual activists and their allies, like Erdely, are being used in every state to corrupt public education.

Erdely identifies nine teens who committed suicide over a two-year period. Five of the teens whose names Erdely mentions, however, were neither homosexual nor were they the victims of homosexual epithets. This seems rather like writing an article about deaths caused by smoking and doubling the number of deaths by including deaths wholly unrelated to smoking.

If her article had been about teen suicide in general, then the inclusion of all nine names would be justifiable, but then she should have discussed all the teen suicide risk factors. Since her article was titled “One Town’s War on Gay Teens,” it’s clear that the subject was not teen suicide in general. Readers should be asking why in an article about a purported “war on gay teens” being waged by Evangelicals, Erdely even mentions teens whose suicides were completely unrelated to homosexuality.

It should be equally clear that conservative community members are not at war with “gay teens.” They’re at war with the efforts of homosexual activists and their allies to promote their ontological, moral, and political beliefs in public schools while censoring all dissenting voices.

Erdely’s article depends on accepting her unproven assumption that moral opposition to volitional homosexual acts constitutes hatred of persons. This is a feckless but politically expedient argument that few liberals apply consistently. They never argue that their moral opposition to certain types of behavior constitutes hatred of those who engage in it.

What I’ve learned subsequently is that one of the teens Erdely mentions,TJ Hayes, was enrolled in a “progressive” charter school that was not covered by any of the school policies on which Erdely blames the suicides.

Another of the students Erdely names was Kevin Buchman who was not enrolled in any Anoka-Hennepin high school. He was, in fact, a student at the University of Minnesota.

Kevin, a bright, good-looking, popular athlete, had graduated from an Anoka-Hennepin high school  8 1/2 months before his suicide.  He committed suicide during the second semester of his freshman year at the University of  Minnesota. His family wrote this about Kevin’s suicide:

A situation happened his first year of college, that caused Kevin to question his character. He began a spiral downward into the dark cave of suicidal depression.   He treated with a doctor [sic], was on medication, and seemed to be doing better.  He kept his despair hidden and ended his life.

Depression is a treatable illness.  It is not invited or wished for.  It is a disease that ravages the mind as cancer ravages the body.  It is difficult to recognize, diagnose, and to treat.  Our son died from suicidal depression.

In order to understand the big picture implications of what’s taking place in Anoka-Hennepin, taxpayers need to consolidate the opinions expressed by liberal teachers and opponents of  school policy that require faculty neutrality on topics related to homosexuality. Although the rhetoric of liberal educators sounds superficially reasonable, the implications of their policy demands are destructive to the legitimacy of public education.

1. Anoka High School teacher, Mary Jo Merrick-Lockett, asserts that “If you can’t talk about [homosexuality] in any context, which is how teachers interpret district policies, kids internalize that to mean that being gay must be so shameful and wrong. And that has created a climate of fear and repression and harassment.”
2. Teachers’ union president, Julie Blaha, stated that teachers should be able to express their opinions on homosexuality.
3. The Anoka-Hennepin school board is poised to pass a proposed “Respectful Learning Environment Curriculum Policy,” that states the following:

Curricular discussions of such issues shall be appropriate to the maturity and developmental level of students; be of significance to course content; and be presented in an impartial, balanced and objective manner, allowing respectful exchange of varying points of view. Lessons shall be designed to help students think critically and develop decision-making skills and techniques for examining and understanding differing opinions.

In the course of discussions of such issues, district staff shall affirm the dignity and selfworth [sic] of all students, regardless of their race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex/gender, marital status, disability, status with regard to public assistance, sexual orientation, age, family care leave status or veteran status. (emphasis added)

Some questions and concerns to consider:

• What is Merrick-Lockett’s evidence for her claim that silence creates fear, repression, and harassment?

• Will the freedom to express their views on homosexuality be extended to all teachers, including conservative teachers? If Merrick-Lockett believes that silence creates a climate of fear, repression, and harassment, what would liberal teachers, administrators, and school board members think about the expression of the belief that volitional homosexual behavior is not moral, or that marriage is the union between one man and one woman, or that children have an inherent right to be raised by a mother and a father?

• What precisely does the school board mean when they assert that “district staff shall affirm the dignity and self-worth of students regardless of sexual orientation?”  It is decidedly not the job of teachers to affirm students’ sexual attractions or their volitional sexual acts or their romantic relationships. Teachers, as government employees, should not affirm subjective, non-factual, and controversial ontological, moral, or political beliefs. Teachers should teach their subject matter. They should interact civilly with students. That’s it.

• If a teacher were to express conservative views, would they be found in violation of school board policy that appears to mandate affirmation of liberal assumptions about homosexuality?

• Since the new policy would require that “lessons be designed that help students think critically and develop decision-making skills and techniques for examining and understanding differing opinions,” will those teachers who present pro-homosexual resources (e.g., plays, novels, magazine articles) to students be required to present resources that espouse opposing views?

• If conservatives are not permitted to express their opinions and if teachers are not required to present resources from both sides of this contentious debate, is sound pedagogy compromised? Liberals are stacking the deck: First, they say that in order to prevent bullying and suicide, public schools must talk about homosexuality, and in order to prevent bullying and suicide, public schools must talk about homosexuality in exclusively positive terms. But that corrupts the entire educational enterprise.

• If silence creates a climate of fear and harassment, then how will conservative kids feel if their ontological, moral, and political beliefs are censored, while others are permitted?

• Who decides if curricular discussions are “appropriate to the maturity and developmental level of students?” Does this statement refer to emotional maturity, intellectual maturity, or moral maturity?

• Who decides if a curricular discussion is of “significance to course content?” Is that decision made at the sole discretion of each individual teacher? English teachers in particular are notorious for finding virtually any topic they want to discuss “significant to course content.”

• Merrick-Lockett suggests that homosexual acts are not shameful or wrong, but those are unproven, non-factual, a-historical, arguable moral beliefs that no public school teacher — in his or her official role — has a right to express to students. Many believe that homosexual acts are, indeed, shameful and wrong, and efface human dignity. If Merrick-Lockett or any other teacher wants to tell students that homosexual acts are not shameful or wrong, they should go teach in a private school. Public school teachers, whose salaries are paid by the public, have no right to teach controversial moral beliefs as objective truths.

Any school policies that treat homosexuality and heterosexuality as equivalent are not neutral policies. They are Leftist policies built on prior acceptance of Leftist assumptions about the nature and morality of homosexuality. It is only those on the Left who believe that homosexuality is ontologically and morally equivalent to heterosexuality. It is those on the Left who believe that homosexuality is the morally neutral flip side of the sexuality coin.

Conservatives believe that homosexuality represents a disordering of the sexual impulse;  that homosexual acts efface human dignity; and that heterosexual acts are the only moral form of sexual expression.

The only school policy that is truly neutral is the policy that either prohibits resources that address homosexuality, or the policy that mandates equal time be spent studying resources from both sides of the debate.