I was just sent a link to the blog of Neuqua Valley High School math teacher and not-so-friendly atheist Hemant Mehta who seems to spend a fair amount of time monitoring my writing. He is particularly exercised by my suggestion that parents request teachers for their children who do not abuse their government-subsidized positions to promote their personal “progressive” views on controversial moral or political issues.

“Progressive” teachers who view themselves as “agents of change” promote their views on a number of topics, particularly on American history, Critical Race Theory/Critical Pedagogy (although they may not use those terms in class), homosexuality, and gender confusion. They promote their views through their own classroom comments; the films, novels, plays, essays, and newspaper and magazine articles they choose; the speakers they invite; and through their refusal to introduce resources that explore competing views, that is to say, their de facto censorship.

In my article “Challenge Teachers, Not Texts,” I offer some ways for parents to try to ascertain who the “agents of change” may be in their schools, which I learned from working for ten years at Deerfield High School and from putting four children through the same school.

I want to make clear that not all teachers who hold Leftist moral and political views exploit their classrooms to advance them. I have known some exceptional teachers who hold far Left views but have no interest in exploiting their autonomy and public resources to promulgate them. Their interest is in teaching their subject matter, not proselytizing.

But it is equally true that the teachers who most often exploit their autonomy and public resources to try to change the moral and political beliefs of other people’s children are “progressives.”

Do Public Schools Challenge Students to Think Critically About Homosexuality?

What is most laughable about Mehta’s critique of my suggestions is that while mocking my reference to “cool teachers,” he tries to make the case that “cool teachers” are those “who challenge students’ thinking from all sides and make them see things in different ways.”

I would completely agree that the best teachers are those “who challenge students’ thinking from all sides,” which is exactly what does not take place in public schools on the topics of homosexuality, gender confusion, or Critical Race Theory. Can you imagine a public school teacher even using the terms “homosexuality” or “gender confusion”? Teachers who choose to address those topics will use only the rhetorical inventions of the Left: for example, gay, gender identity, or transgenderism.

While working at Deerfield High School, I kept a list of the resources presented to students that affirmed, espoused, or embodied liberal views of homosexuality. Starting freshman year and continuing through senior year, students were exposed to lectures, classroom comments from teachers, magazine articles, plays, novels, films, skits, theater department performances, gay-straight alliance presentations, and activities that affirmed liberal views of homosexuality, while not once in four years being asked to read even a single essay by a conservative scholar like Princeton Law Professor Robert George. Is that what Mehta sees as challenging “students’ thinking from all sides”?

Unfortunately, this ideological monopoly is not unique to Deerfield High School. This is a nearly universal pedagogical and ethical problem in public schools.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, Education, and Critical Thinking

The Huffington Post has picked up Mehta’s silly and dishonest critique and included in their post the Southern Poverty Law Centers’ canard that IFI is a hate group. What many don’t know is that the ethically impoverished Southern Poverty Law Center has an “educational” project disingenuously called “Teaching Tolerance.”

The “educators” at Teaching Tolerance, like so many agents of change, foster a peculiar kind of education that encourages students to “think from all sides” and “see things in different ways” as long as those ways conform to “progressive” dogma.

Here’s one of their recent projects for elementary schools: 

Queerness Meets Early Childhood Ed

Are you a gay or lesbian teacher who has addressed queerness with your young students? An LGBT parent with P-2 children? We want to hear your stories. Send a description of 200 words or less, along with your contact information, to editor@teachingtolerance.org.

Here’s another lesson for kindergarten through fifth grade:

Do Something! Transforming Critiques of Gender Stereotypes into Activism

One of the most empowering ways to overcome the damage done by internalized gender stereotypes is to counteract them actively—on a daily basis….Children benefit from participating in such activism because it helps them understand the socially constructed nature of gender. Activism also encourages constructive change so that they are not damaged by stereotypes.

In this lesson, students will discuss the meaning and nature of activism. They will brainstorm daily strategies they can use against gender stereotypes. They will also come up with ideas for bigger social action projects in their schools and communities.

“Progressive” agents of change believe in teaching preschoolers about “queerness” and teaching elementary school students to be activists in the service of a radical sexual ideology.

Mehta, Symbols, Logic, and Truth

For someone who prides himself on his logic, Mehta, the atheist, uses little of it in his critique of my recommendations. Distracted by his own glib pseudo-cleverness, he ignores the substance of the issues I address. For example, in order to help parents know which teachers may be “agents of change,” I listed some of the symbols of the homosexuality-affirming movement, which activist teachers affix to their “spaces” to announce their moral and political beliefs, one of which is the lambda symbol (λ).

Mehta then mocked me for “going after physics and chemistry classes,” conveniently eliding the fact that the lambda is a well-known symbol of the movement to normalize homosexuality. While reveling in his ridicule, he forgets to mention that two homosexual advocacy organizations include “lambda” in their names: Lambda Legal and the Lambda Literary Awards.

Who Brings Their Views into the Classroom: “Progressives” or Conservatives?

Mehta was completely undone by my suggestion that parents find out who sponsors of Leftist clubs at their children’s schools, calling my suggestion “crazy.” He ranted:

Why? What would it matter? Teachers are legally allowed to be sponsors of those groups. If the GSA needed a faculty sponsor, I’d step up. If an atheist group ever formed at my school, I’d sponsor that, too. And if a Christian group couldn’t find a sponsor, I’d bite my tongue and help them out because they also have a right to meet after school and discuss their beliefs.

Just because teachers are sponsors of religious or political groups doesn’t mean they endorse the groups nor does it mean they espouse those views in the classroom.

But IFI won’t say that…. they just try and scare Christian parents into thinking that liberal teachers ought to be avoided at all costs….They have to make up problems to solve because no real ones exist. Anything they accuse liberal teachers of doing, they know Christian teachers have done the exact same things in a much more egregious way.

First, I never suggested it was illegal for teachers to sponsor extracurricular clubs.

Second, does Mehta actually believe that conservative Christian teachers have been using the classroom to promote their beliefs in a “much more egregious way” than have progressive agents of change, particularly on the topic of homosexuality? Can he provide evidence of conservative teachers assigning any resources that espouse conservative views on issues related to homosexuality?

Can he provide evidence that liberal teachers who assign resources that espouse liberal views of homosexuality also assign resources that espouse dissenting views?

Third, Mehta and I agree on one thing: Sponsorship of clubs is not the same as endorsement. But the reality in public schools is that the sponsors of gay-straight alliances are usually homosexuals or their ideological allies, and the sponsors of Leftist political activist groups like AWARE are usually Leftist political activists. Similarly, the sponsors of Christian groups are usually Christians. The difference is that conservative sponsors of conservative groups tend not to use the classroom as their personal platform for proselytizing.

Hemant Mehta’s Deceit

Mehta goes on to say, “They (IFI) want to rail against liberal teachers — even ones like me, who keep our religious beliefs out of the classroom.”  I rarely criticize liberal teachers who keep their keep their religious, irreligious, moral, and political beliefs out of the classroom. Generally, I wouldn’t rail against such teachers. I would applaud them.

It is true, however, that I have criticized Mehta, but he omitted the issues for which I criticized him. I criticized him first for suggesting on his very public blog that homosexuals come and kiss in front of my home. Most school districts have policy regarding how their teachers interact with the public, which I believe Mehta violated when he publicly called for homosexuals to kiss in front of my home. It was both irresponsible and unprofessional of him to make such a suggestion even in jest.

I also suggested that his very public blog reveals something of his character and his beliefs about which parents of impressionable teens may be concerned.

On his very public blog, he ardently promotes atheism, commonly uses obscene language, and has provided platforms for the advocacy of polyamory. I suggested that parents who believe that teachers are role models for their children and who recognize that adolescents can be mightily influenced by teachers may not want him as a role model for their children. Teaching is unlike other professions. Teachers, whether they want to be or not, are role models. Mehta has every right to express anything he likes on his blog, and parents have every right to decide they don’t want their children under his tutelage—even for math.

Does Student Safety Require Faculty Affirmation?

Mehta, implies that my concern with teachers posting symbols that indicate affirmation of homosexuality means that I want students to feel “isolated, abnormal, and lost,” which is an ugly lie.

In order to treat students kindly and let them know that they are welcome and even loved does not require teachers, however, to affirm all of the feelings, beliefs, values, or life choices of every student. Does Mehta believe that unless teachers announce their affirmation of polyamory, polyamorous students will feel “isolated, abnormal, and lost”?

The vast majority of teachers believe that students should be free of verbal harassment and physical abuse. It is entirely possible to enforce policy designed to curb bullying without addressing personal beliefs about homosexuality or gender confusion.  The problem is that “progressive” agents of change believe schools can’t make students who identify as homosexual or “transgender” safe unless they—the teachers—affirm “progressive” views on the nature and morality of homosexuality.

No government employee, however, has the right in their professional role to affirm controversial, unproven, subjective beliefs about homosexuality or gender confusion.

Those teachers who express their Leftist moral or political views on homosexuality or gender confusion; or their views on same-sex marriage; or on same-sex adoption; or who assert that homosexuality is analogous to race; or who suggest that opposition to same-sex marriage is analogous to opposition to interracial marriage; or who choose to teach The Laramie Project are neither ensuring student safety nor “challenging students’ thinking from all sides.” Those teachers don’t care about diversity, critical thinking, or “honoring all voices.” Those teachers who expose students to resources from only one side of an issue are not educating. They are propagandizing.  

Parents Must Oppose the Efforts of “Agents of Change”  

Parents need to take a stand against public school employees using the classroom to advance their views on controversial moral and political issues. If school administrations won’t establish policy that requires teachers who assign resources on these kinds of issues to spend equal time on dissenting resources and if school administrations won’t establish policy that prohibits teachers from expressing their personal moral and political views in the classroom, then parents should request that their children be placed in the classrooms of teachers who demonstrate such integrity on their own.

Two notes:

The back-to-school article that Mehta is criticizing will be re-posted next week. It was not supposed to have been posted until it was reformatted with IFI’s new logo.

For more on Mehta, click here, here, here, here.

For background on the dubious Southern Poverty Law Center, click here and here.

For the past couple of months, I have been working with a dedicated, courageous, and tireless community group from the Minneapolis suburbs: the Parents Action League (PAL). They live in the Anoka-Hennepin school district, which has been facing a relentless campaign by homosexual activists and their “progressive” allies to use their public schools to normalize homosexuality.

These activists pretend their ultimate goal is to end bullying, but only the naïve or ignorant believe that whopper.  The truth is that they are exploiting legitimate anti-bullying sentiment in order to implement their politicized anti-bullying programs, all in the service of achieving their ultimate goal: the eradication of conservative moral beliefs about homosexuality.

If they can’t achieve that doctrinaire goal, they will reluctantly settle for bullying conservatives into silence.  They will accept an America in which it is politically, legally, or socially impossible for conservatives to express the moral beliefs homosexual activists can’t eradicate, leaving homosexuals and their allies free to gambol about the public square with all  their  First Amendment rights intact–rights they seek to diminish for conservatives.

The current skirmish is turning into a battle royale, now that Rolling Stone Magazine has poked its huge proboscis into the fray with an outrageous piece of agitprop.  This exercise in faux-journalism shamelessly exploits a tragic series of teen suicides to malign the conservative community group by asserting with arrogant absolutist certainty that Evangelicals caused the suicide cluster.  The subtitle of the article includes these words: “evangelicals have created an extreme anti-gay climate.”

And what evidence does writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely provide for her imputation of guilt to Evangelicals?  She points to the Anoka-Hennepin School Board-created policy that requires teachers to remain neutral in their curricula regarding the topic of “sexual orientation.”  The Sexual Orientation Curriculum Policy (SOCP) states that “Anoka-Hennepin staff, in the course of their professional duties, shall remain neutral on matters regarding sexual orientation including but not limited to student-led discussions.”

The SOCP, which is informally called the “neutrality policy,” has been challenged by homosexual activists and the teachers’ union, whose president, Julie Blaha, was surprisingly candid in publicly stating to the press and the school board that teachers should have the right to express their opinions on controversial issues in class.  That’s a remarkable and troubling public admission.

Of the many remarkable rhetorical abuses Erdely commits in her article, perhaps the most remarkable is that Erdely doesn’t even attempt to prove a direct connection between Evangelicalism, Evangelicals, or the neutrality policy and  bullying.

I wonder how many conservative teachers oppose the SOCP?  Conservative teachers know that even if the policy were eliminated, they would be hauled before administrative kangaroo courts if they dared speak their opinions on homosexuality.  They know that without such policy, homosexual teachers and their progressive colleagues are the only teachers who really enjoy the freedom to express their opinions, which transforms education into indoctrination. I’m guessing that conservative teachers appreciate policy that levels the pedagogical playing field; keeps emotionally charged, contentious subjects out of curricula; and helps keep their self-righteous and mouthy “progressive” colleagues in check.

Erdely revealed that, thanks to a district teacher (not named in her article) who contacted the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the malignant, money-grubbing, press-hungry SPLC is on the scene as well, suing the district.

Here are some thoughts and questions regarding the Rolling Stone hit piece:

1. In an article about a purported Evangelical “war on gay teens,” Rolling Stone writer Erdely mentions nine suicides, while only one of the teens identified as homosexual and three others were called anti-“gay” epithets.  It should be pointed out that, contrary to Erdely’s claim, being called an anti-“gay” epithet does not necessarily mean that a teen is being perceived as “gay.”  As Erdely surely knows, epithets are hurled around with little concern for their content or accuracy.  If a term has acquired negative connotations, bullies often pay no attention to its actual meaning.  If they think a term is negative, they use it indiscriminately.  How many kids have been called “retards” when they were neither mentally challenged nor perceived to be.
2. That means that only four of the nine suicides, which took place over two years at six different schools, had any connection to homosexuality, with three of those teens being called anti-“gay” epithets.
3. Not once did Erdely suggest that the bullies were Evangelicals or motivated by Evangelical beliefs about homosexuality, which are simply orthodox Christian beliefs widely held by the finest contemporary Protestant and Catholic theologians as well as virtually all theologians in the history of Christendom until the late 20th Century.
4. Not once did Erdely provide evidence that the neutrality policy, which students didn’t even know about, caused the bullying of the one homosexual student or the three who were called anti-“gay” epithets.
5. Erdely says that the mother of one of the students who committed suicide “acknowledges that her daughter….likely had many issues that combined to push her over the edge, but feels strongly that bullying was one of those factors.”  This mother’s “feeling” that bullying was one of multiple contributing factors to her daughter’s suicide led Erdely to conclude with utter certitude that the school’s curricular neutrality policy and Evangelicals were the ultimate cause.  Erdely never explained precisely how the neutrality policy or Evangelicals were the ultimate cause.  Did she talk to the bullies?  Were they Evangelicals?
6. Did Erdely look into the beliefs and backgrounds of any of the purported bullies?  Did she ask if they are Evangelicals?  Did she inquire into the motives for their bullying?  Do they come from dysfunctional families or single parent homes?  Have they experienced violence in their homes?  Do they have academic problems or psychological disorders?  Do they watch a lot of violent television or play violent video games?
7. Did she talk to any teens who have deeply held Evangelical beliefs to find out what their thoughts are about homosexuality and bullying?
8. If Erdely is really concerned about preventing suicides, why did she spend virtually no time exploring all the factors that experts identify as contributing to suicidal ideation, like mental illness, family dysfunction and divorce, family financial problems, and substance abuse?
9. Erdely cites 10th-grader Sam Pinilla who says he was pushed to the ground and called “faggot” while a teacher stood nearby and did nothing.  Erdely also describes a 10th-grade girl who said she was called a “‘lesbo’” and “‘sinner” within “earshot of teachers” and that when she reported the incident to an associate principal, he told her to “lay low.”  Did Erdely verify those incidents?  Did she track down the teacher who supposedly heard and did nothing?  And again how does Erdely connect curricular neutrality policy to the teachers’ purported failure to properly enforce anti-bullying policy?
10. Did Erdely talk to any conservative teachers to ask if they thought the neutrality policy or Evangelicalism caused bullying?  If so, how?  If not, what do they think causes bullying?  Did she ask them if they have ignored bullying?
11. Did she ask liberal teachers who oppose the neutrality policy precisely how the neutrality policy causes hatred or bullying? Did she ask if they could provide evidence that either Evangelicals or the neutrality policy caused the  bullying?
12. Erdely employs a deceitful modus operandi throughout her screed.  She tries to make the extraordinarily strained case that the curriculum neutrality policy causes bullying without providing a single piece of evidence.  She simply describes bullying incidents and then mentions the neutrality policy or conservatives who support it. Apparently in Erdely’s irrational world, geographic proximity within her article proves that the SOCP policy causes bullying.  The entire article constitutes an extended example of use of the false cause fallacy.
13. Erdely contacted the parent group (PAL) and asked them eight questions. PAL sent back a 1,540-word response. Of those 1,540 words, Erdely used 54.  Perhaps their responses didn’t fit her narrative.
14. In a clear attempt to marginalize the efforts of PAL, Erdely reports that she was told the PAL group is relatively few in number. Is Erdely suggesting that the size of a group indicates the goodness or rightness of its mission? Might there be understandable reasons for the reluctance of many conservatives to publicly oppose homosexual activism? Would Erdely admit that homosexual activists and their allies accuse anyone who disagrees with their moral assumptions of hatred?  Would she acknowledge that fear of the wrath of the “tolerant” might lead many who support the actions of PAL to stay out of the public square, thus making the numbers of supporters appear smaller than they really are?
15. Erdely included a distasteful caricaturization of the appearance of one of the women who leads PAL.  Erdely describes her as Michele Bachmann’s “dowdier doppelganger… A bespectacled grandmother with lemony-blond hair she curls severely toward her face.”  Why does Erdely include no unflattering physical descriptions of, for example, teachers’ union president, Julie Blaha?  What hypocrisy from a representative of the “no name-calling” crowd.
16. In its response to Erdely’s questions, PAL included a link to a recent op-ed that appeared in the homosexual magazine The Advocate, in which David McFarland argued that articles just like Ederly’s can contribute to teen suicide.  Here’s an excerpt from that relevant  editorial that Erdely didn’t even mention, probably because it didn’t fit her narrative either:

[W]e have a responsibility to change our tactics….

Communicating about this crisis is complicated because the reasons a person attempts suicide are also complicated. Even talking about specific suicides online and in the media can encourage more deaths.

…

[T]here are ways of talking about suicide that could increase the likelihood of other at-risk people attempting to take their own lives.  This is because suicide is closely tied to psychological well-being.

When we draw direct lines from sexual orientation or bullying to suicide, it can influence someone who is at-risk to assume that taking your own life is what you’re supposed to do next if you are LGBT or bullied. This may not seem rational, but attempting to take your own life is an irrational act.

As a caring community, we can help avoid making suicide appear like a logical choice by putting distance between statements or stories describing instances of bullying and instances of suicide.

Another factor that increases risk is suicide contagion – the link between media reports and a person’s decision to attempt suicide. In other words, the more a story of a particular victim is out there, the more likely one or more people who are at-risk will also attempt suicide.

I hope readers will take the time to read Erdely’s article, in which she relies on the use of logical fallacies, including appeals to emotion, false cause, and ad hominem attacks, to manipulate her readers. I will grant this possibility: Perhaps she is unfamiliar with logic.

Clearly, Erdely is not concerned with ending teen suicide.  Her mission, pursued with messianic fervor, is to humiliate conservatives into submission by any unethical means necessary.  Christians in Minnesota and other school districts around the country must not cower in fear.

Teachers are employees of the government.  In that role, they have no right to affirm controversial moral beliefs, even if they believe that doing so will reduce the incidence of bullying.  There are ways to curb bullying without affirming controversial, non-factual moral (or political assumptions). Schools must ensure that teachers not exploit their government-subsidized employment to engage in moral or political philosophizing.

To prevent the kind of ideological propagandizing in which homosexual activists and their allies seek to engage in the classroom, policy must explicitly prohibit teachers from expressing their personal views on controversial issues.  In addition, policy must be written that requires teachers who use resources that embody or espouse one set of views on controversial topics to spend equal time studying resources written by scholars who espouse competing views. This is particularly important in English, theater, and social studies classes.

I hope that Anoka-Hennepin taxpayers, with or without children enrolled in schools, will join with the Parents Action League by appearing at their upcoming school board meetings, contacting school board members, and writing letters to their local press.  This is not a battle for the fainthearted, thin-skinned, or spineless.  But it is a battle worth fighting.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 8, 2012

A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that writer Sabrina Rudely Erdely had identified the names of only seven suicide victims, when she had identified the names of nine.  Of the nine, one identified as homosexual, and four had been called anti-“gay” epithets. The suicides of five of the students had no connection to homosexuality or anti-“gay” epithets. IFI regrets the error.

Sometimes the most effective way to deal with a bully is to simply pop him in the chops. While it may not shut him up entirely, it usually gives him pause before he resumes flapping his toxic jaws. It also has the effect of showing the other kids in the schoolyard that they have nothing to fear. Though the bully struts about projecting the tough-guy image, he’s typically the most insecure pansy on the block.

Such is the case with the bullies over at the fringe-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Having been recently “popped in the chops,” if you will, for a series of hyperbolic and disingenuous “anti-gay hate group” slurs against a dozen-or-so of America’s most well-respected Christian and conservative organizations – the SPLC now finds itself publicly struggling, outside of an extremist left-wing echo chamber, to salvage a modicum of mainstream credibility.

In response to the SPLC’s unprovoked attacks, a unified coalition of more than 150 top conservative and Christian leaders across the country has launched a shock-and-awe “Start Debating, Stop Hating” media blitz to educate America about the SPLC’s ad hominem, politically driven smear campaign.

The mainstream pro-family conglomerate already includes presumptive Speaker of the House John Boehner, former presidential contender Mike Huckabee, four current U.S. senators, three governors, 20 current or newly-elected members of the House of Representatives and many more.

As the controversy wears on and the facts become public, the moribund SPLC has understandably become increasingly defensive, strongly suggesting that it has come to regret this gross political overreach. Catch the tiger by the tail, you get the teeth.

Still, lazily labeling its ideological adversaries “hate groups” has yet to satisfy the anti-Christian law center. It’s taken the slander even further down petty path, launching a succession of amateurish personal attacks against a number of individual Christian advocates (to include yours truly). This is a clear sign that the sexual relativist left recognizes that it’s losing the debate on the merits.

Indeed, the SPLC’s poorly constructed analysis bears deconstructing, but first I’ll make a prediction. The center has yet to pin its official “SPLC designated hate group” badge of honor on either me or Liberty Counsel, the civil rights group with which I’m affiliated.

Somehow we were able only to earn the equally deceptive lower ranking of “anti-gay.” I suspect this is because I’ve been a primary public critic of the center’s feeble “hate group” crusade. Even the far-left understands that premature retaliation would betray dishonest political motives.

Still – and you heard it here first – within the next year or two (maybe less) the SPLC will move to even the score by tagging Liberty Counsel an “official hate group.” At that point – and beyond the question: “If the SPLC calls you a ‘hate group’ in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” – any remaining media outlet that may wish to treat the center as an objective arbiter of “hate” will do so at grave risk to its own credibility.

Nonetheless, the SPLC has begun to grease the skids. Quotes cherry picked, taken out of context and misapplied are a powerful tool of the propagandist. Such are the Maoist techniques of the SPLC. Among other things, here’s what the group has said about me:

“Barber suggested against all the evidence that there were only a ‘miniscule number’ of anti-gay hate crimes …”

Let me be clear: I didn’t “suggest” there were a “miniscule number of anti-gay hate crimes” in 2007. I proved it. I merely cited the FBI’s own statistics which demonstrate the fact beyond any serious debate. Let’s look at “all the evidence” to which the SPLC refers. Here’s what I actually wrote in theWashington Times:

“Consider that according to the latest FBI statistics, out of 1.4 million violent crimes in 2007; there were a mere 247 cases of aggravated assault (including five deaths) reportedly motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity. There is zero evidence to suggest that, where appropriate, perpetrators were not prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law in every instance.”

A bit different than the SPLC portrayal, no? Let’s do the math:

Approximately 247 aggravated “hate crime” assaults, taken within the context of 1.4 million violent crimes means that exactly .00017643 percent of violent crimes in 2007 were “anti-gay hate crimes.” A miniscule number? You be the judge.

Continued the SPLC:

“Barber had argued that given ‘medical evidence about the dangers of homosexuality,’ it should be considered ‘criminally reckless for educators to teach children that homosexual conduct is a normal, safe and perfectly acceptable alternative.'”

Note that the SPLC neither identifies nor addresses the “medical evidence about the dangers of homosexuality.” It’s no wonder. Again, the evidence proves the case beyond any serious debate.

For instance, a recent study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that, as a direct result of the demonstrably high-risk and biologically incongruous act of male-male anal sodomy, one-in-five “gay” and “bisexual” men in American cities have been infected with HIV/AIDS.

If five people got into a car and were told that one of them wasn’t going to survive the drive, how quickly do you suppose they’d scatter? Yet we systematically promote celebration of homosexual conduct in our public schools.

Criminally reckless? You be the judge.

Or consider that current U.S. health regulations prohibit men who have sex with men (MSM – aka “gays”) from donating blood. Further studies conducted by the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration categorically confirm that if MSM were permitted to give blood, the general population would be placed at risk.

According to the FDA: “[‘Gay’ men] have an HIV prevalence 60 times higher than the general population, 800 times higher than first-time blood donors and 8,000 times higher than repeat blood donors.”

The FDA further warns: “[‘Gay’ men] also have an increased risk of having other infections that can be transmitted to others by blood transfusion. For example, infection with the Hepatitis B virus is about 5-6 times more common, and Hepatitis C virus infections are about 2 times more common in [‘gay’ men] than in the general population.”

A 2007 CDC study further rocked the homosexual activist community, finding that, although “gay” men comprise only 1-to-2 percent of the population, they account for an epidemic 64 percent of all syphilis cases.

Again I ask: Is it “criminally reckless” to indoctrinate children into this potentially deadly lifestyle?

Again I say: You be the judge.

So, according to its own “hate group” standard, the SPLC is left one of three possible choices: Either it remains consistent, tagging the CDC, the FDA and the FBI with its pejorative “hate group” moniker; it offers a public retraction and apology for its attacks against me and other Christians; or it remains silent while its credibility continues to swirl down the toilet bowl of irrelevancy.

Still, the SPLC has done a significant disservice to its homosexual propagandist and sexual relativist allies. My friend Gary Glenn with the American Family Association of Michigan (a “hate group” target of the SPLC) sums it up nicely:

“The SPLC’s demonization of groups that tell the truth about the public health implications of homosexual behavior may be the biggest boon we’ve seen in years to efforts to publicize those health consequences. We welcome this opportunity. The SPLC has provided a public service by focusing attention and discussion on the severe public health consequences of homosexual behavior.”

Indeed, the SPLC and its allies are flailing violently as they swim upstream against a torrent of settled science, thousands of years of history and the unwavering moral precepts of every major world religion.

It’s little wonder they’ve resorted to childish name calling.